THE LIMITS OF STATE POWER IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

• Author: Sahliyeh, Emile

INTRODUCTION

WITH THE ONSET OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, many Middle Eastern countries continue to face several socioeconomic and political problems. Some of these problems pause a challenge to the institutional foundation of the states and the legitimacy of the regimes, while others question the effectiveness of the state concerning the provision of the goods and services to the people and the presence of adequate rules and institutions for the growth of a healthy economy. Still others cast a shadow of doubt upon the ability of the state to adapt to the demands of an ever-growing globalizing world economy.

We seek in this article to examine some of these challenges, describe their domestic and external sources, and explore how they limit the political power of the Middle Eastern states. In particular, we employ four variables to explore the challenges that these Middle Eastern states have faced in the past and are likely to continue to face in the new century. The four variables include Democracy versus Authoritarianism, Ethnicity and Nationalism, Demographic Surge, and Economic Dependency and Economic Mismanagement. Though our list could have included additional variables, the limitations of space compelled us to focus on what we consider the most serious non-military and non-security challenges to the political power of the Middle Eastern states. Space limitations have also forced us to give a brief analysis of these challenges and problems.

Our conception of the Middle East is broad and it includes Arab and non-Arab countries. According to this conception, the Middle East consists of 27 countries including the 22 members of the Arab League and Afghanistan, Cyprus, Turkey, Iran, and Israel. While we use the terms "state" and "government" interchangeably throughout this study, we do not assume that the two are the same. The state is a broad construct, which incorporates the government and comprises territory, people, governmental structure, armed forces, and resources. By contrast, the government is a much narrower concept that refers to the process of governing and the manner and the method of the exercise of power as well as the structure and distribution of political offices. We conceive of the state's political power to rest on governmental legitimacy, its ability to maintain public order and stability, sound economy, abiding by the rule of law, and providing for basic needs for the population.

BACKGROUND FOR THE EXPANSION OF MIDDLE EAST STATES POWER

The expanding powers of the states in the Middle East, their roles, and the challenges that face them are consistent with the patterns of state development at the global level. [1] We observe that throughout the 20th century, the size and the scope of state activities worldwide have expanded greatly, particularly in the economic, social, and military spheres. The expansion of the states' activities, however, yielded mixed outcomes. While state activism has brought about tangible advancement in the level of education, health conditions, and a drop in social inequality in many societies, governmental intervention has also produced a myriad of failures and problems. The mixed outcomes are seen in the collapse of the states' controlled economy in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, the financial crisis of the welfare state in Western Europe, Japan, and the United states, the role of the state in the economic growth of East Asia, and the breakdown of several states in Africa and Asia.

Like many countries in the world, and especially in the Third World, the size of the Middle Eastern states has increased significantly in the areas of military forces, military spending, internal security apparatus, bureaucracy, and control over the economy. Countries such as Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Israel maintain among the largest armies in the world, allocating a considerable portion of their budgets to the military and stockpiling vast quantities of modern military equipment. A similar trend is exhibited in the economic sphere, where the Middle Eastern states have a sizable public sector and employ great numbers of civil servants, workers, and managers. The states also control many of the existing resources including energy supply, large investment budgets, the banking system, minerals, the roads, railways, ports, and play a pivotal role in providing social services. [2]

A configuration of forces and motives explains the predominant economic, political, societal, and military role of the state. Though the majority of the Middle East states gained their independence in the three decades following World War II, the series of dramatic events that took place in the inter-world war periods furnished the background for these states. The first was the Russian Revolution of 1917, which entrusted the state with the task of central planning and placed it in control of economic activities. The second was the expansion of the welfare state in the West resulting from the devastating economic and social consequences of the Great Depression of the 1930s, which caused the state to introduce policies to restore economic productivity and to provide for social welfare. [3] The third development was the breakup of European empires and the collapse of colonialism after World War III. The three developments ushered in a new phase of a more activist role for the State and generated greater confiden ce in its capacity to resolve social and economic troubles.

In addition, public expectations helped in the expansion of the role of the state. Though many people in the Middle East may not consider their governments legitimate, they entrusted their governments to define national priorities, use public resources to attain these priorities, manage the economy, and create strong armed forces. The Islamic conception of the obligations of the state towards the community, especially its duty to promote the collective interests of the Ummah, provided a moral rationale for the expanding role of the state. [4]

The politics of state building and development are also behind the expansion of the economic and military functions of the Middle Eastern State. Most of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa came out of the colonial period with a strong belief in the state's management of the economy. The task of state building prompted the new leaders of the Middle East to embrace central planning and state managed development strategies. Those leaders, moderate and radical alike, wanted to modernize their society, bring about economic prosperity, educate the citizenry, diversify the economy, and build national military power. They believed that the attainment of these goals required the state's intervention and its mobilization of available resources.

Irrespective of their political orientation, the Middle Eastern governments did not believe that the market forces could revive their backward economy. [5] To the moderate leaders, the private sector alone was seen as incapable of bringing about large-scale economic growth because of its financial weakness and its concern with immediate profit making rather than development. Their belief was reinforced by the general acceptance of state activism and its impressive gains as reflected in the New Deal, the Marshall Plan, the emergence of the welfare state, and the European economic recovery. The radical leaders distrusted the private sector altogether because of its close ties to the West. While the Great Depression signified to them the failure of the market economy, State control of the economy, following the Soviet model, provided them with a model for success.

Regardless of their ideological stands, the rulers of the various states were concerned about economic inequalities and rising poverty in their societies. They took upon themselves the task of eradicating this poverty and bringing about social justice through industrialization, urbanization, education, agricultural productivity, redistribution of wealth, and building a credible military force. By the 1970s and the 1980s, the Middle Eastern states had also become involved in virtually every aspect of the economy: owning large industrial enterprises, administering prices, and increasingly regulating labor, foreign exchange, and financial markets. The dramatic rise in the price of oil in the international market during the 1970s and early 1980s enabled the Middle East governments to expand further the size of their states. Oil producing countries used the revenue during the oil boom decade to expand their public sectors and spending. To a lesser extent, the poorer Middle Eastern states that were dependent upon the financial assistance from oil producing countries, workers' remittances, and foreign aid from the Superpowers, expanded the state bureaucracy, governmental expenditure and the public sector.

Yet, the vast economic and military resources of the Middle Eastern states have not been translated into political power, governmental legitimacy, popular acceptance, economic growth, efficiency in rendering public goods, and maintenance of public order. Rather, the political, economic, and social institutions of many of the Middle Eastern countries are weak and vulnerable. [6] Their economic hegemony has also led to red tape, bureaucratic corruption and patronage. The state military dominance has also resulted in the squandering of financial resources on military adventures. The challenges to the political power of many Middle Eastern states nowadays emanate from domestic and global sources as well as economic and social changes. In the following pages, we will explore these challenges under the headings of Democracy versus Authoritarianism, Ethnicity and Nationalism, Demographic Surge, and Economic Dependency and Economic Mismanagement.

THE DEMOCRACY CHALLENGE

The feebleness and, in many cases, the absence of democratic institutions constitutes one of the primary...