Abstract
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has been witnessing political turmoil, instability, and violence since popular protest broke out in early 2011 in many Arab countries. While scholars debate on the causes, consequences, and future courses, the upheavals provide an opportunity to reassess the prevailing system of governance in the Arab world. Diverse and dynamic nature of Arab states precludes generalizations. Artificial creation of states, tribal nature of society, existence of sectarian and ethnic fault lines, and interspersion of religion and politics resulted in transnational actors playing a pivotal role in this region.
Various communities live across boundaries and the quest for nation-state continues; for instance, the Kurds who live in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran are fighting for homeland since conclusion of the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. Role of communities becomes significant when the region is faced with upheavals and instability. Against this backdrop, Imad Salamey makes an attempt to explain the broader changes that the region’s governance system is facing and propounds that the Arab world is witnessing the rise of “communitocracy.”
Scholars have been trying to explain the absence of democracy in the region through various theories. Economic discourses identify rentierism and growing middle classes as reasons for failure of economic liberalization, whereas cultural discourses identify dominance of Islam, prominence of primordial relations, gender subjugation, and persistence of suspicion toward western modernization as factors challenging modernization. Similarly post-colonial discourse blames colonialism for fragmentation of nation-state in MENA (p. 15).
Salamey begins his work by establishing the exceptionalism associated with MENA before discussing Arab spring as the fourth wave of democratization in the region. He opines that Samuel Huntington’s third wave and Arab Spring as fourth wave of democracy did not transform MENA owing to its exceptionalisms.
Before explaining the core idea of communitarianism, Salamey tests Arab spring on Huntington’s preconditions for a country’s transition to democracy: (a) legitimacy crisis, (b) global economic prosperity, (c) shifts in religious doctrines, (d) changing foreign policy, and (e) snowballing. Salamey finds that post-Arab Spring developments such as Islamists coming to power (in Egypt and Tunisia), consolidation of cultural identity, re-affirmation of communitarianism, resistance to western ideas, irreconcilability between global capitalism and local communitarianism, regional-sectarian politics and decline of nationalism defy the prospects of democratization in MENA. Hence, he argues that Arab Spring does not hold much ground as the fourth wave of democracy.
Stephen Grand (2011) had earlier mentioned that if latter half of the twentieth century was the hour of the big man in Arab politics, the first decade of the twenty-first century was the hour of the extremists, then second decade is hour of the citizen. Taking the argument forward, Salamey proposes that post-Arab Spring era is hour of the communities as communitocracy will gain strength in the Arab world. He argues that just as democracy is the rule of the people, “communitocracy” is rule of the communities and is the emerging political system in the region. Communitarian politics is not a new phenomenon in MENA as the region was subjected to divisions on sectarian and ethnic lines by the colonial powers during the inter-war period. Arab nationalism acted as an umbrella organization for such communities (p. 51).
Salamey explains communitarianism as a viable ideological alternative to the prevailing nationalist politics and explains its foundational tenets based on economic, cultural, and security aspects. He argues that rising transnational, faith-based communal economic organizations, informal non-state taxation systems such as Islamic charity and banking networks lead to robust communitarian economic structure (p. 62). Zakat (mandatory Islamic taxation/charity) and Khums (one-fifth of the spoils of war to be given in tax/charity) along with non-governmental organizations and charitable foundations help cross state communitarian economies thrive. Communities in MENA resort to self-preservation by establishing their own armed groups and have a communitarian culture as they interpret universal values to determine their meanings. For instance, liberation of rights from geographical sovereignty is interpreted as call for transnational solidarity (p. 73). Salamey claims that Arab Spring manifests the duality where failing autocracies are being replaced by rising decentralized communitocracies.
As communities rise they have power struggle at intra-community, inter-community, and irredentist levels. Power distribution among the communities within the state is determined by the critical importance of a community in domestic alliances and balance as is evident in case of Alawis in Syria, Sunnis in Bahrain, Shias in Iraq etc. Salamey recommends a scale to measure the extent of integration of states and mentions that communitocratic states like Iraq, Yemen, and Syria can be arranged on the scale of least integrative to most integrative in that order (p. 94). He delineates the features of communitocratic regime as (a) founded by interaction of political variables that transcend a state’s geopolitics; (b) power is determined by the strategic relevance of various communities within a polity; (c) communitarian ideologies are irredentist; (d) communitocratic politics expresses the communitarian struggle to attain relative power positions within a communitocracy; (e) communitocracy manifests the power distribution of the various communities in a state; and (f) the form communitocratic states take vary according to degrees of integration.
Salamey asserts that communitarianism has shown momentum in the region despite attempts to pigeonhole it. It is a natural outcome of globalization and is antithetical to nationalism. One of the challenges of communitarianism is its exclusionary nature which can go to the extent of brutal wars and mass displacement of people, though there is a prospect for integrative element in communitarianism as represented by political pluralism and integrative consociationalism (p. 109). The author recognizes consociationalism as a viable option for power sharing in communitocracy but mentions that suitability of the idea is yet to be tested (p. 82). He argues that a new paradigm has unraveled and communitarianism has emerged as an alternative to the traditional nation-state. When territorial segregation is ruled out as a sane option in a multi-communitarian society, communitocracy appears as the ultimate choice for governance. Political recognition of communitarian groups as independent actors represents the first building block of communitocracy. He prophesies that future prospects of MENA will become critically linked to their ability to accommodate communitarian pluralism within new communitocratic regimes (p. 111).
The book successfully brings political theory and theory of international relations together. It is an easy read and explains the arguments lucidly taking governance instances and incidents from the region. It has made an attempt to give a holistic view of communitarianism citing its drawbacks as well as positive aspects. It goes to great length to explain that the nation-state system has failed completely in MENA but remains unconvincing on many counts, especially the cases in monarchies. Despite artificial creation of states in the region the fight is for territory be it the historical Israeli–Palestine conflict or the latest phenomenon of the Islamic state and hence, the premise of fall of nation-state system in MENA seems flawed. Even outside MENA the debate is inclined towards longevity of nation-states rather than its death (Manet, 2006; Roberts, 2015). However it is a commendable work that tries to give a wider analysis unlike others focusing on specific countries or issues. The book is recommended for readers who want an overview of MENA in the current scenario and establish its relevance in the Westphalian world looking beyond exceptionalisms. It is useful for students of political science and international relations in general and is definitely a must read for students of Middle Eastern politics.