Walker Kmetz

Eight countries in the Middle East and North Africa have monarchs as their heads of state – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Morocco. There are several factors that allow for monarchies to continue in the region, and others that actively challenge their existence.

Monarchies in the region have some challenges they have been facing. One issue is an increasing number of young people. Most of these states tend to have patronage filling important leadership position, whether those be family of the monarch or family of other influential figures in the country. When most good paying jobs have already been filled by people who only have somewhat of a clue for what they’re doing, that actively hurts the younger population trying to get into the workforce. This also makes it more likely that young people will be upset, and more likely to mobilize against the monarchy.

One way monarchs can push back against this concern is by “addressing” the issues of protesters in their country. For instance, a monarch may form a commission to address the issues of the people, but in actuality, the commission will only cover some parts – if anything at all – and mainly serve to stall time for the issues at hand to fade from public consciousness. This can also work for the monarch by allowing them to say the issues have been looked at and addressed, even if nothing or very little ends up coming of them.

Another concern that has impacted monarchies is the ways in which the general population has learned about the issues around them. With the rise of new journalism, with some being pan-Arab, anyone from any country in the region can see what is going on in other countries. For example, protests in countries like Egypt and Tunisia can actively energize people in other countries. However, this is also a double edged sword, as it can put down a desire to protest because monarchs can look at rougher examples such as Yemen and ask their subjects whether that is what they want to happen in their country.

Claims of legitimacy are also a key factor in these monarchs keeping their power. For example, they can make plays to religion, such as the King of Bahrain. When protests covered the country during the Arab Spring, the Sunni king characterized the protests as being illegitimate religious protests rather than protests against the issues at hand. This form of legitimacy created through religion can be far more impactful than a general claim due to the day-to-day role that religion plays in many people’s lives.

The 2014 documentary “A Siege of Salt and Sand” looks at Tunisia during protests that led to the removal of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the ways that climate issues impacted the country during that time. During class when we had group discussions about the availability of food and water in certain countries, my group had Tunisia, so I was particularly interested to see more in-depth details of the issues we looked at during that shorter discussion.

During our smaller discussion, we found there was a divide between the coast and inland of the country in regards to water access and quality – although both parts still faced significant issues. The country has the lowest satisfaction with water quality in the world by a wide margin – today, only 19% are satisfied with water quality. Meanwhile, in the north and center of the country there is a 21% satisfaction, and 9% in the south.

The dissatisfaction in Tunisia is clear from the documentary in both halves of the country. For example, coastal communities are feeling the impact of climate change in rising sea levels and increasing amounts of salt water. which makes agriculture difficult. Meanwhile, the south is also facing agricultural difficulties, but in the opposite extreme of the deserts becoming so dry that many plants and animals can not even survive in that area like they used to. An issue in this regard is a lack of water wells in the rural south – as it is what leads to many communities being without the water they need. About 34 minutes in, one man says “From my point of view, the absence of wells provided by the government, and the absence of rain is ruining the live stock and oil cultivation.” This is also causing people to move to the urban north – which is then putting a strain on northern water supplies as well. Since the country is so arid and has little government supported water access, it is clear as to why these factors play such a strong role in the water satisfaction being so low.

The Middle East and North Africa have a unique reliance on oil compared to the rest of the world. Out of the 15 states most reliant on oil for their economy, 10 of them are in the region. Given this reliance, many states in the region are often described as rentier states, meaning they generate a large percentage of their revenue from external rents. While some countries can be considered rentier through other means, such as Egypt allowing passage through the Suez Canal, most states are rentier through the selling of oil.

In the oil based countries, there are several political and social factors that are damaged, such as an increase in authoritarianism. While these states do have a lot of these factors impacted by their oil, it is reasonable to consider whether the factors arise because of the size of the rents in the region, or because of other issues that involve them.

In his 2001 article, “Does Oil Hinder Democracy,” Michael Ross outlines a model to understand the way that different factors play a role in determining the levels of democracy within a state. The main ones that Ross observed were regime type (how democratic or authoritarian a country is) and oil and minerals (independent variables that look at the export value of these respective products).

He ultimately found that reliance on oil and minerals both had strong antidemocratic effects – with it marginally higher for minerals. When more results were tabulated and accounted for countries specifically in the Middle East or North Africa, the impact of those regional variables compared to other regions was very significant for authoritarian governments, and these regions still see oil and minerals being very significant.

When it comes to measuring the actual impact of renting oil, Ross measured Taxes, which he outlines simply as “the percentage of government revenue collected through taxes on goods, services, income, profits, and capital gains.” After accounting for this, he found a trend of higher taxes – both on individuals and corporations – leading to more democratic governments. He also found that taxes being included can be implied as a reason for the antidemocratic tendencies of oil based countries.

I find it interesting that while many of these trends were found to be true of countries in MENA, it was not exclusive to them. Countries in the Americas, East Asia, and the rest of Africa have these same trends – such as oil reliance leading to less democratic states and that mineral wealth can also lead to weaker democracies. However, the manner and degree to which they impact the Middle East is far stronger.

I am also interested in the manner that the countries who make their national wealth from renting are more likely to be anti-democratic, and that most of the most-oil-reliant states are in this region. I feel as though it is a cycle that feeds into itself – the system that allows for vast wealth for the state is fueled by an authoritarian style of government where citizens are not represented through taxation because of the system that brings the state its wealth.

In her 2006 piece “Searching Where the Light Shines: Studying Democratization in the Middle East,” Lisa Anderson looked at the ways that political scientists have tried to understand the Middle East in regards to the development (and lack thereof) of democracy in the region. Her biggest concerns are in relation to the manner the region’s politics is studied, which she describes as “American hopes and dreams” for the region. She says that the ways in which the region’s politics actually work was largely unexplained by western theory, and by consequence, left both the policy community and scholars without the answers of how the region works that they needed.

An aspect of her article that immediately caught my eye was at the beginning of the section “Answering the Question,” where she points out the fact that barely any of the region’s history was, or is, important to political scientists at the time she was writing. The idea that these states should be treated as newly formed areas despite their thousands of years of history is absurd to me, but it makes sense that that is the way they were perceived by academics. Naturally, American political scientists would put an emphasis on more modern states rather than their historical counterparts, but there is also vital history that came before the pre-European colonial era that is important for understanding the region. For example, if the region has had significant influence from several empires and regimes, it does not make sense to immediately think that just because the west was there for a lesser amount of time that the west’s answer of democracy will naturally be what comes about.

I also find her look at what other people had to say about democratization in the region interesting – especially nearly 20 years removed from when it was published. Her quote from Bellin that the number of democracies barely changed between 1972 and 2004 is interesting to see, given the fact that that number still has not significantly increased. However, the quote I find most significant looking back on is from Cook in 2005, where they say that the work of non-state activists within the region is leading to a more optimistic situation for U.S. and western policy interest. He even mentioned the wish of Egyptians to end a state of emergency in the country – five years before the Arab Spring began in the region.

I feel like this recognition that change could (and eventually would) be on the way is important, but I feel like it is also fitting that a quote from Robert Blecher was included that argued that the region became less democratic after the Cold War. Because, while the region certainly had important developments during the Arab Spring, many countries such as Egypt still have their less than average democratic tendencies, even if there may have been a change of leadership or perhaps even regime.