Mediterranean Programme - [04/11/2008]

Changes in power structure in the Arab world?

On 7-8 April, over 20 researchers took part in a seminar at the CIDOB Foundation on power and political regimes in today's Arab world. The seminar was the result of a research study that has been in progress since early 2007, and which is supervised by Ferran Izquierdo, Lecturer in International Relations at the UAB and funded by the CIDOB Foundation. The project examines the elites, power structures, opposition movements and the government responses to these movements in different Arab countries, and as a consequence helps us to understand the internal dynamics of these countries.

The seminar featured the presentation of each and every one of the studies that have been carried out, on countries such as Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and the Lebanon. Through the analyses the participants extracted a number of conclusions; for example, that Arab countries are neither different nor exceptional, and that the processes of political change (or its absence) in these countries is governed by a universal logic: the desire of one elite to accumulate and maintain power, in the face of possible competing elites.

During the course of this day and a half of analysis and discussion, some very different cases of political evolution were discussed. For example, Algeria is an example of a state that is very much living off private means, in accordance with specific guidelines. In Mauritania, meanwhile, a process of democratic transition has been in progress since August 2005. In Syria, however, the structure of power and state authoritarianism remain unchanged.

The participants also discussed the various prior stages through which a process of transition to democracy has to pass: the tentative processes of openness and pluralism, states of competitive or semi-competitive authoritarianism, etc. Even so, the studies presented at the seminar did not contain many reasons for optimism. In places where processes of political openness have taken place, and where the people enjoy a certain degree of pluralism ─ such as the case of Morocco ─ it does not seem as if the country can aspire to a complete democratising process over the short or medium-term. Meanwhile, in the heart of the Arab world, the process of succession that could take place in the Egyptian presidency in a not-too-distant future does not suggest that any substantial changes will take place there, either.

The research studies were carried out by Spanish researchers or by students studying in Spain. The group contained some leading figures in Spanish academia such as Maria Angustias Parejo, from the University of Granada, Ignacio Álvarez-Ossorio, from the University of Alicante and Aurelia Mañé, from the University of Barcelona. The group also included members of the new generation of researchers such as Amaia Goenaga, from the Autonomous University of Madrid and Athina Kemou, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

To ensure an academic debate of the highest level, the CIDOB Foundation also invited to the seminar leading experts such as Fred Halliday, from IBEI, Gema Martín Muñoz, the Director General of Casa Árabe, Bernabé López, Director of TEIM and Jean-François Legrain, from GREMMO of Lyón, all of whom were invited to comment on the case studies presented at the CIDOB Foundation. As a result of this day and a half of intense debate, a compilation of the collective contributions will be published in the near future.