Monday, February 18, 2013

Aftermath of Revolution. By Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo.

Aftermath of Revolution. By Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo. New York Times, February 14, 2013.

(See Morsi and Egypt here.)

Albertus and Menaldo:

Less perniciously, fits and starts may prolong the transition period and present opportunities for “spoilers” to derail progress. The infighting in Libya is an example. Lastly, the adoption of nominally democratic institutions may fail to benefit the majority of citizens and even foster one-party rule, an outcome South Africa faces today.

The more promising cases from the Arab Spring, such as Tunisia and Egypt, fall into this last category. In both countries, a mix of formerly powerful elites and ascendant new elites are scrambling to game the political structure to protect their interests, meanwhile tabling policies that could otherwise benefit the majority of citizens.

In Egypt, the military has won immunity from prosecution and autonomy over its budget, while Morsi has at times reverted to Mubarak-era emergency rule to quell popular unrest. In Tunisia, the security apparatus under former dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali remains entrenched in the government, while Ennahda has selectively repressed protests as it turns a blind eye to crimes perpetrated by hard-line Islamists against Tunisia’s secular middle class.

To avoid reversion to autocracy or stalled, impartial democracy, a country in Tunisia’s or Egypt’s circumstances must steer between the Scylla of outsized influence by erstwhile autocratic incumbents and the Charybdis of unconstrained new actors who seek to lock in newfound power.

As with all revolutions, to remain on a trajectory toward democracy requires continued popular pressure on all those with the capacity to hijack democratic aspirations. This suggests that street protests in these countries are far from over. In the long term, this instability may pay off in the form of democracy.