Edition 33 Volume 3 - September 01, 2024

Reform: economic vs. political

Syria: from authoritarianism to benevolence -   Murhaf Jouejati

Bashar Assad and his cohorts are of the view that economic reforms must precede political reform.

Turkey: the Kemalist roots -   Duygu Bazoglu Sezer

Without the Kemalist reforms, Turkish democracy could not have attained the level it reached with EU-driven reforms.

Palestine: political will is absent - an interview with  Abdel Rahman Tamimi

Economic reform cannot be undertaken unless there is political stability and a strategic vision.

An overview: politics first -   Alvaro Vasconcelos

The sequence of economic reform leading to democratization has not worked in the Mediterranean region.


Syria: from authoritarianism to benevolence
 Murhaf Jouejati

Conventional wisdom holds that economic and political reforms are directly linked. With regard to sequencing, the debate within the development community has been dominated by two schools of thought: The first argues that economic reforms ought to precede political liberalization on the grounds that authoritarian regimes are better equipped to carry out economic reform. The second insists that only by altering the political logic that sustains authoritarian regimes--moving from a base built on the discretionary distribution of patronage to one grounded in the legitimacy that comes with procedural legality and political accountability--will political elites ever be persuaded to undertake economic reform.

In the Syrian context, that debate is heavily skewed in favor of those pushing for economic reform first--the political will to redistribute power, or at least to share it, being absent. The recommendations that the tenth Baath Party Congress advanced this summer reaffirmed the Syrian political elite's determination to maintain the political status quo. Some examples: The idea of a constitutional amendment to level the political playing field was ruled out; the Baath Party is to remain the vanguard party, in accordance with Article 8 of the constitution. Among the political parties that will soon be licensed, only those that appear to be the least threatening to Baathi dominance will be allowed to organize. Emergency laws, in effect since 1963, will not be lifted; they will be relaxed. What the term relaxation means, according to the "can do" list put out by the authorities, is that Syrian citizens will now be allowed to, among other things, erect falafel stands and open hair salons without the prior approval of the dreaded secret police, the mukhabarat. In these circumstances, it is safe to assume that those in Syria who stress the need to prioritize political liberalization must be very lonely people.


Bashar Assad and his reformist cohorts, on the other hand, are of the view that economic reforms must precede political reform. Assad's reasoning is that Syrian citizens are more in need of jobs and higher incomes than they are of new political arrangements. In this, the young Syrian leader may be right: when over a fifth of Syria's labor force is unemployed and per capita income is as low as $1,000, only a handful of citizens would give Lockean liberalism the priority. The problem is that Syria's political elite has not yet engaged in the kinds of painful economic reforms that are requisite to restoring the Syrian economy to even its pre-Baath levels. Privatization of the bloated and highly inefficient public sector remains a taboo subject, and talk of a shift to a market economy was deliberately diluted during the Baath Congress to "social market economy"--a catch phrase intended to appease the powerful labor unions and the bureaucracy, the regime's power base.

This is not to say that Syria has not experienced change during the past five years. Assad introduced private banking, drafted more business-friendly investment laws to create jobs, reinvigorated the private sector, and overhauled an important segment of the public sector, giving its managers greater say in day-to-day operations. Moreover, in order to reduce market distortions, Assad eliminated some subsidies and reduced others.

Nor were his reforms limited to the economy. Assad allowed the establishment of private universities. He promoted the demilitarization of society by reducing the length of military conscription and by lifting mandatory high school military uniforms. In administration, Assad replaced hundreds of Baath apparatchiki with younger, more educated and reform-minded elements. Moreover, senior appointments were made according to merit, not to Baath affiliation. Syria's ambassadors to Washington and to London and its deputy premier for economic affairs are cases in point. Finally, Assad freed hundreds of political prisoners and, in an effort to promote national reconciliation, allowed the return of a number of exiled pre-1963 politicians, including a former Syrian president. In short, five years into his rule, Bashar Assad made positive changes.

These measures, welcome as they are, do not amount to much, however. As the noted expert on democratization Marina Ottaway warns, it is important not to confuse positive change with democratization. The transition from an authoritarian to a democratic system, Ottaway notes, requires a political paradigm shift--an abandoning by those controlling the government of old assumptions about the fundamental organization of the polity, the relation between the government and the citizens, and thus the source, distribution, and exercise of political power. As long as changes are benevolent acts of the ruler rather than the recognition of inalienable rights of the citizens, no paradigm change has taken place. In this context, the reforms that Assad made in the past five years appear to be more benevolence than paradigmatic shifts.

In the final analysis, some measure of economic reform seems necessary, even though it does not point a clear-cut path to rapid success. After all, democratization is not an event but a process, and democratization may start with seemingly insignificant changes.- Published 1/9/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

Murhaf Jouejati is a professor of Middle East studies at the Washington-based National Defense University's NESA Center for Strategic Studies.


Turkey: the Kemalist roots
 Duygu Bazoglu Sezer

Turkey stepped into the new millennium with a grand domestic project and international commitment: to carry out a sweeping reform of its political and economic system in order to qualify for membership in the European Union.

Turkey's formal ties with the EU (then the EEC, European Economic Community) began in 1964 when it became an associate member. It inched closer to membership in 1999 when the EU finally granted it candidate status. In principle, full membership seemed now to be within reach. One formidable challenge remained, however: Brussels' injunction that Turkey, like all other candidates, fulfill the so-called Copenhagen Criteria. Briefly, these amount to a liberal democratic political and economic system.

The Turkish system has been drastically overhauled since 2024 under the close scrutiny of the EU, with the result that Turkey has come closer to becoming a true liberal democracy. In recognition, the EU agreed in fall 2024 to open accession negotiations with Ankara on October 3, 2024.

I argue that these achievements have become not merely feasible, but conceivable, only because Turkish state and society underwent structural transformation much earlier. Through a process broadly described as "Turkish modernization" or "westernization," launched in its most radical form in the 1920s by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his colleagues, Turkey laid the political, legal and cultural substratum of change. This substratum and the pillars on which it stood provided the necessary foundation upon which further pro-reform structures could be built, deepening and broadening the original project of modernization. In a way, the most recent stage amounts to the renewal of Kemalism.

The paramount objective, the supreme goal, which inspired and guided the founders of modern Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s was the dream to mold a new state and society on the basis of values and premises collectively defined as "contemporary civilization." In real life, "contemporary civilization" was understood exclusively as western civilization. The principles and policies adopted in this period are broadly referred to as "Kemalism".

The Kemalist project seemed over-ambitious and supremely unrealistic--then and even now. For it implied an uncompromising clash of worldviews and value systems between the existing reality in Turkey--traditional and eastern, with Islam enjoying almost unquestioned power over the life of the state and society, especially of women--and the New Order and New Man that the Kemalist dream promised: modernized and westernized, implying among other things recognition of the power of man's free will and reason, the importance of empiricism as the path to truth, and by implication the dethroning of Islam as the organizing force in the life of the state and society. Clearly, the intellectual roots of Kemalism go back to the French Enlightenment and Revolution. Positivism, rationality, and secularism, as well as nationalism and popular sovereignty, became the organizing notions around which the tasks of state and nation-building were structured in the 1920s and 1930s.
Energized by these notions, Turkish reformers prioritized three interrelated areas as the target and the locomotive of societal transformation: religion, the law, and education.

Secularism, or laicite, defined the role of religion in Turkish state and society in the formula expressed as the "separation of state and religion". Moreover, in 1924 the Caliphate was abolished, formally ending Turkey's historical position within the Muslim world as its spiritual leader, and sending a message to the whole world that Islam's place in Turkey would no longer be the same.

The legal system was thoroughly secularized. The Sharia, Islamic law, ceased serving as the basis of justice. Instead, the Italian legal code and the Swiss civil code were adopted. The new civil code revolutionized gender and family relations, granting women full equality with men in family as well as public life. Polygamy was forbidden. Civil marriage replaced religious marriage. A new dress code forbade women to wear the veil in public space.

A unified nationwide system of public education terminated the two-pronged system of the late Ottoman era, where secular and madrasa education operated side by side. Madrasas and centers of religious-sectarian teaching were outlawed. The Arabic alphabet was dropped in favor of the Latin. Over 400 books from among the western classics were translated into Turkish for required reading in public schools.

Reforms were enacted as part of the "revolution from above". In many instances, they were enforced arbitrarily under one-party rule. Clearly, there were mistakes and deficiencies in numerous areas. Yet millions of young Turkish citizens came out of the system having successfully internalized the notions of the French Enlightenment and Revolution. Since transition to a multi-party system in 1946 compromises have occurred, especially in the cardinal principle of secularism, provoking the military to intervene in politics as the guardian of the Kemalist principles.

More than half a century later, the Kemalist reforms still have their domestic and western detractors. I am convinced, however, that without those reforms Turkish democracy could not have attained the level that it has reached with the EU-driven reforms. Besides, the Kemalist reforms were thoroughly home-grown, not a response to external demands.- Published 1/9/2005 (C) bitterlemons-international.org

Duygu Bazoglu Sezer is professor of international relations at Bilkent University, Ankara, and is founder and director of the International Dialogue and Cooperation Studies Center (IDCS). She has written extensively on Turkish foreign policy, Russian foreign policy, and European security and arms control.


Palestine: political will is absent
an interview with Abdel Rahman Tamimi

BI:Is it possible to have economic reform without political reform?

Tamimi: I think political reform is a necessary step and a foundation for economic reform. But the reverse is not possible.

BI:Why is that? In Jordan they seem to be adhering to the opposite position.

Tamimi: In Jordan there are established and well-defined political institutions. In Palestine, the role of the political institutions is not well defined. What, for example, is the role of the prime minister; what's the role of the Legislative Council? It's still a work in progress.

BI:So what reforms are needed in Palestine?

Tamimi: First of all we need the political will for reform, and I don't think this exists. There are currently different definitions of reform by political leaders and institutions. Some believe that political reform is simply about reorganizing the security forces to protect the system as it exists. Some political figures believe reform is just process. Others believe it simply means to replace one person for another. The civil society sector believes it is a process with a vision. In all, there is no social or political consensus about what political reform we need.

BI:What do you think reform is?

Tamimi: My definition is that it is a process of restructuring the mistakes made during the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. The PA needs restructuring. For example, there are many unnecessary public institutions. These need to be removed and their work should be handed to specific departments in specific ministries. There are ministries that are unnecessary. I don't see why we have both a labor ministry and a social affairs ministry. In our specific condition, I can suggest three or four ministries that could be merged into one. This will reduce running costs and also concentrate the work of the ministries.

Water, environment and agriculture can be one ministry. This will facilitate the creation of a joint vision and joint policies. If you read, for example, the water authority's policy and strategy document and the same for the ministry of agriculture, you get the impression they are talking about two different countries.

BI:The problem seems that you are talking about downsizing and at the moment there aren't many jobs around. Is it possible to do this kind of thing at this kind of time?

Tamimi: That is the problem, but that's what needs to be reformed. In my opinion, in the past, when the PA was established, it was established with different criteria in mind. There are social and economic relations created by different circles in the PA. It's very difficult to reform this just by changing personnel. What is needed is structural reform.

BI:You recently resigned from the reform committee. Why?

Tamimi: I have a different vision. When we joined the reform committee as representatives of civil society, I joined with a vision that we have to agree on what reform is. The PA needs the participation of the civil society and the private sector. We are not just decoration. What the PA is focused on is fund raising. I am of a different mind.

BI:So there is no serious reform in the PA?

Tamimi: There is no political will.

BI:How will this political will come about?

Tamimi: The coming elections may help to create the political will. There are different circles, powerful circles in the PA, lobbying against reform because they don't want to lose the benefits they have now.

BI:In an ideal world, how would you start by reforming the PA, if you had the political will?

Tamimi: We have to set up a structure and find persons suitable for that structure. What is happening now is they get a person and create a structure around that person. It should be the other way around. We need to create a suitable structure for our needs and then determine who the qualified people are, who can do the job.

Then we need separation of authority. It is not clear now what the authority of the prime minister is, or of the ministers. Theoretically this separation exists but not in practice. You see in the newspapers all the time that the president is appointing directors general in ministries. But what is the role of the minister in question for such appointments? What is the role of the prime minister? It's not clear.

BI:You are saying that in the Palestinian case, political reform is crucial to economic reform?

Tamimi: Yes, economic reform is a process created by political, social and economic institutions. It is the output of all these things. Having capital and resources is not enough. Economic development needs regulation; it needs a legal system and political protection for investments. The absence of these is partly why there is no investment in Palestine. Investors are afraid to come. Economic reform cannot be undertaken unless there is political stability and a strategic vision in the PA. - Published 1/9/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

Abdel Rahman Tamimi is the director of the Palestinian Hydrology Group for Water and Environment Resources Development.


An overview: politics first
 Alvaro Vasconcelos

As the debate on political reform in the Arab world gains increasing momentum, the European Union has been forced to rethink the basic elements of its policy toward the region. Since the 1980s, the EU's approach has been based on a conviction that the fundamental problems of the region were economic and social. Those problems were fuelling radical Islamic movements, perceived as the greatest threat to local regimes and, in the longer run, as a challenge to EU member states as well. It was on this basis that many in the EU developed a policy of economics first, assuming that economic and social development would bring security, isolate the Islamists, and in the long term promote democracy, the ultimate goal of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership as stated in the 1995 Barcelona Declaration.

Ten years after the launching of the partnership, the EuroMeSCo Report concludes that this sequence of economic reform leading to democratization has not worked in the Mediterranean region. Some of the countries that witnessed stronger economic growth were the same ones where political reform was weaker, and vice versa. Meanwhile, political Islam, in its many variants across the region, became an unavoidable issue. Therefore, the EU is now faced with the need to engage its partners in the South in a process that will give priority to the political issues, while at the same time developing an effective policy of economic inclusion. In other words, the Union must now develop a comprehensive policy toward the region based on the democratic principles of the Barcelona Declaration.

A renewed partnership requires a rethinking of existing economic and financial instruments. It also requires a change of attitude toward political Islam, which in the past was used as an excuse to avoid dealing with democratic reform and was partially responsible for a policy of support for the status quo in the name of stability. The "trap of the status quo" was one of the problems the US administration identified after the September 11 terrorist attacks, even if it has not always translated its conclusion into the best policy options.

There is a key point that must be remembered if EU policies and those of its partners are to succeed at all: September 11 did not change the attitude of Arab democrats. Local pro-reform and/or pro-democracy activists were not born after September 11, nor are they a product of American policies; what September 11 did change--albeit timidly--was American and European views on democracy in the Arab world. The external debate regarding support for political change in the region must be based on the recognition that there is an intense debate on democracy and reform within most Arab countries, that there is a plurality of local political groups pressing for change, and that governments, be they reformist or not, are far from being the only political force to be contended with.

However, European governments remain unclear about preferred local partners and ultimate goals. So it is still arguable, even with increasing conviction, that current regimes are preferable to a democratization that might lead to Islamist political victories. And for the same reasons the argument is made that external actors should support reformists from within the regime that seek to consolidate a form of liberal authoritarianism rather than back democrats that pursue outright democratization.

Establishing relations with opposition forces, including moderate Islamic groups, is a recognized necessity. In many countries the Islamists are the only opposition force with clear popular support, which is essential to any process of transition to democracy. However, Europeans have not yet fully recognized this fact. Indeed, many secular Arab groups are similarly ambiguous, as they view Islamist groups with mistrust. To clarify this question, it is necessary for external actors to commit clearly to democratization rather than liberal authoritarianism. This is an essential step, not least because the latter form of government is inherently unstable and, moreover, not a proven bulwark against the totalitarian elements within radical Islamism.

Forging links with pro-democracy groups is not incompatible with maintaining relations with governments and supporting official political and economic reform. Indeed, the challenge is to combine support for reform processes "from above" with backing for political movements pressing for democratic change "from below", such that liberalizing authoritarianism becomes not an end in itself but a stepping stone toward full democratization.

The challenge also lies in recognizing that each country is unique and that a "one size fits all" approach makes no sense in a region as vast and diverse as one stretching from Rabat to Riyadh. However, this does not preclude the European Union making democratization an explicit aim of the ten year-old Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. The European experience shows that the combination of an economic inclusion policy with the setting of a common goal and clear criteria to attain it generates a powerful incentive for reform and democratic transition.

The case of Turkey is particularly relevant here, as the Islamist Development and Justice Party has played a leading role in that country's transition, as well as in the Turkish commitment to fulfil the necessary economic and political criteria for EU accession. Morocco, where a significant process of political reform is already underway, could follow a similar path; an Islamic party is also participating in that country's transitional reform process. However, the Moroccan case also shows that without a political strategy that deals with the country's economic and social problems, namely unemployment, public support for democratic forces could wane rapidly. Financial support and the opening of EU markets, as in the case of Turkey, are thus absolutely essential.

Turkey and to a certain extent Morocco provide an encouraging contrast to Iraq and the failure of "democratic interventionism". So it is of the essence that the European Union recognizes the role of Arab pro-democracy actors of all stripes. The EU must select its official and non-governmental partners on the basis of an explicit commitment to a process of democratic change that vindicates the already proven case-sensitive policy of economic and political inclusion based on the goal of pre-defined democratic and human rights.- Published 1/9/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

Alvaro Vasconcelos is director of IEEI, the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Lisbon.





 
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