Democratisation or the Restoration of Dictatorship as the Outcome of the Arab Rebellion

Abstract

The non-violent mass protests that were largely welcomed as the “Arab Spring”, the “Arab awakening” or “Arabellion”, and which in some countries led to the fall of military dictatorships that had been in power for years, while in others providing impetus to reforms, prompted some observers to talk initially of a fifth wave of democratisation in the Arab region following those in eastern Europe and Latin America. However, at the same time, there was concern that now, Islamist groups could seize power and bring about a rapid end to the emerging liberal and democratic movements. Sceptics even expressed the view that the consequences would be no more than a replacement of old autocrats with new ones, and that the traditional military and elite structures would hardly change.

The 22 Arab countries are socially, economically and politically far more heterogeneous than was the case in communist eastern Europe. The Arab League is far looser in its form of cooperation and without a clearly dominant state, unlike the communist alliance system. Thus, the results of the upsurge and abrupt changes of May 2012, which have by no means come to an end, are likely to be extremely different in the individual countries, even though they have significant shared linguistic-cultural and religious historical aspects originating from Arab and Ottoman and European rule. It is noteworthy that in the present day, pan-Arabism, like regional-tribal separatism, plays almost no role.

The political systems of the eight monarchies have to date proven to be far more stable than those of the 14 republics. The renaissance of political Islamic movements and parties is highly ambivalent. As well as clearly anti-liberal and anti-democratic forces, there appear to be strongly moderate parties that are willing to make compromises with the socially still dominant military elites. Currently, it is still unclear whether the electoral democratisation in some countries could lead to a permanent competitive multi-party system and liberal diversity in terms of opinions and the media, or whether it is merely an interim stage before new, Islamic autocracies take power. However, it cannot be ruled out that the moderate Islamist parties will during the course of the coming decades mutate into conservative-democratic parties. However, Islam as the original dominant religion faces greater difficulties than Christianity in redefining its place in the global process of modernisation and secularisation. Islamic movements that have to a certain extent taken on important social state functions were for a long time granted greater political weight than secular, non-religious, liberal and left-wing parties.

Since this lecture was given on 14 May 2012, the political situation in several Arab countries has changed dramatically several times. Even so, the basic assessment of the Arab awakening is still applicable, even though the restoration of military rule in Egypt on 3 July 2013 and the toppling of President Mohammed Mursi, who was freely elected on 16 and 17 June 2012, who had attempted to reshape society at a fundamental level in line with the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood, could not be foreseen.