Deconstructing the “Arab Spring”: A Constrcutivist Analysis

UNIVERSITY OF BABES BOLYAI FACULTY OF EUROPEAN STUDIES CLUJ-‐NAPOCA, ROMANIA 2014

Deconstructing the “Arab Spring”: A Constrcutivist Analysis

Abdeslam Badre, PhD

ABSTRACT

This paper endeavours to offer an alternative reading to the sweeping revolutions in the Arab region from within social constructivist theory, by sketching out the historical context as well as the political environments that have fuelled the masses outrageous uprisings. Accounted for also is a discussion of how the struggle of some neighbouring countries over power and strategic attempts to lay sway over the region is trying to shape the future of the internal socio-‐political profile as well as the international geopolitical relations of the MENA region. This paper holds the belief that the consequences of the Arab Spring cannot be accurately predicted; yet, regional involvement will be fully active in determining the future course of the Middle East. The centres of power that are active in this political process are located in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran. Each centre of power has a different political agenda, possesses different means of influence and is motivated by its religious orientations as well as its internationals allies’ agenda. The rationale motivating the selection of social constructivist theory lurks in the intrinsic premise of the latter, which does not seek to provide predictive outcomes of the events, but offers analytical tools for understanding the roots and forces manoeuvring the socio-‐political change.

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1. Introduction

It might be correct to claim that the masses in the Middle East and North Africa

(MENA) either have a very short memory, or they are not willing to learn from non-‐‑

Arab experiences. At this point I am referring to the Iranian Islamic Revolution of the

1970’s, on the one hand; and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in the 1980’s, on the

other hand. Any re-‐‑evaluation of the Iranian Revolution, for example, indicates that it

has failed to fulfil its basic promise of a better life to the Iranian people. Likewise, few

years ago, no one could predict that the historically and politically complex regions of

Middle East and North Africa (MENA) would have witnessed such fast and fluctuating

political and social transformations. Today, and after few years of the uprising, the

optimism those revolutions promised has not yet been delivered, and it is now becoming

obsolete, as images of innocent being massacred in Syria still broadcast in international

media. The fears that the Arab region would sink into chaos are growing; and the hope

that the Arab world would follow the paths taken by Eastern Europe twenty years ago is

fading away. Indeed, the picture in the MENA region is more confusing than ever, and it

is really difficult to predict what might happen next.

On this platform, this paper does not aim at comparing the Arab Spring

Revolutions neither to the Iranian Revolution nor to the Orange one in Ukraine. Rather,

it endeavours to offer an alternative reading to the sweeping events from within the

social constructivist theory, by sketching out the historical context as well as the political

environments that have fuelled the masses outrageous reactions in the region.

Accounted for also is a discussion of how the struggle of some neighbouring countries

over power and strategic control over the region is trying to shape the future of the

internal socio-‐‑political profile as well as the international geopolitical relations of the

MENA region. This paper holds the belief that the consequences of the Arab Spring

cannot be accurately predicted; yet, regional involvement will be fully active in

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determining the future course of the Middle East. The centres of power that are active in

this political process are located in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran. Each centre of

power has a different political agenda, possesses different means of influence and is

motivated by its religious orientations as well as its internationals allies’ agenda. The

most notable of all is the Qatar-‐‑Turkey axis.

The rationale motivating the selection of the social constructivist perspective lurks

in the intrinsic premise of the latter, which does not seek to provide predictive outcomes

of the events, but it offers plausible analytical tools for understanding the forces that

manoeuvre this socio-‐‑political change. Furthermore, thanks to its ontological emphasis

on the premise that “structures not only constrain social constructivism can explain

events in the international system; they also constitute the identity of actors” (Fierke in

Dunne, 2010:181), social constructivism is believed to serve well the analytical objective

of this paper. Before embarking on the analysis, I will, on the one hand, provide a brief

description of the theory along which is developmental context; on the other hand, since

the paper is set to analyze the recent revolutions in the MENA region, subsection

prescribing the political and historical predicaments that catalyzed the uprisings.

2. Theoretical Framework: Constructivism

Constructivist theory is a relatively recent arrival in the field of International

Theory (IR). Although the roots of the theory are attributed to the work of Richard

Ashley and Friedrich Kratochwil, its popularity reached the international scene only in

the mid 1990s through the work of Alexander Wendt who introduced it as a serious

challenge to the dominant realist and liberal paradigms. His article, "ʺAnarchy is What

States Make of It: the Social Construction of Power Politics,"ʺ (1992) laid the theoretical

groundwork for challenging what he considered to be a flaw shared by both neo-‐‑realists

and neoliberal institutionalists, namely, a commitment to a form of materialism. Among

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the underlying features of constructivism, which differentiate if from other paradigms, is

its approach to “anarchy” and the idea of “imagined community”.

The constructivist approach to anarchy asserts that the concept of anarchy, from

international relation perspective, is dependent upon the meaning attached to this

concept, which implies that the latter means different things to different agents. Central

to the constructivist approach to anarchy is the inter-‐‑subjective meanings we attach to

social contexts. International relations, accordingly, are socially constructed by virtue of

social values, norms and assumptions. In other words, things only ‘exist’ because we

believe them to and that “if states as well as non-‐‑state actors interact with the ‘belief’ that they

are in an anarchic environment, we would be bound to witness a particular set of behavior”.

(Wendt: 1992). Furthermore, constructivists argue that anarchy can be perceived as an

“imagined community” where a “continuum of anarchies is possible. In this sense,

constructivists dispute the realist notion that self-‐‑help and power politics are essential

features of anarchy but rather that they are institutions effecting the process rather than

structure of international relations.

By distinguishing between the process and structure of international politics,

constructivists can be viewed as being more optimistic in their outlook, mainly because

for them “interests” and “identities” change over the course of history allowing

cooperation between states where previously there had been conflict, an example of this

would the case of the Germany during the communist regime and the Germany of the

EU. Another example would be the entity of nuclear weapon. For instance, the nuclear

weapon in the United Kingdom and the nuclear weapon in North Korea may be

materially identical but they possess radically different meanings for the United States.

The belief that reality is socially constructed leads constructivists to place a greater role

on norm development, identity, and ideational power than the other major theoretical

paradigms. Indeed, norms, identity, and ideas are key factors in constructivist theory.

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However, while constructivists consider their theory to be an alternative

theoretical paradigm that has undermined both neo-‐‑liberalism and neo-‐‑realism, their

opponents do not even consider to be a theory, but simply a commonly shared set of

initial conditions that must be present in a theory. In other words, a theory is a set of

statements or principles that is devised to explain a group of facts and can be used to

make predictions about natural phenomena. So in order for constructivism to be a theory,

it must possess a set of principles that is devised to explain a group of facts and can be

used to make predictions about behavior in the international relations arena.

Constructivism, accordingly, does not make predictions, and this is echoed in Wendt’s

description of constructivism being it a tool for analysis, rather than a tool for

predictions. Furthermore, constructivism is considered to be point of view about how

one might go about changing the IR system. It outlines what issues constructivists would

deal with in order to change things, but it does not explain the how dimension of

implanting the change. Thus, due to its inability to offer any real guidance on what to

study – except to put the focus on interests and identities of actors because those are

socially formed and when changed, can make the system change, opponents of

constructivism undermine the status of this theory.

All in all, thanks to Wendt’s academic contributions and ongoing defense of this

theory, constructivism has become one of the major schools of thought within

international relations, opening the way for a generation of international relations

scholars to pursue work in a wide range of issues from a constructivist perspective.

While is important to understand the various contextual meanings and implications as

well as shortcomings of the constructivist paradigm, this present paper does not aim at

defending or undermining any of the international theories. Rather, this essay endeavors,

as outlined in the introduction, to provide an analytical reading of the recent upheaval of

the Arab Spring from within constructivism. Before delving in this theoretical analysis, it

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is necessary to understand the historical as well as momentum context in which those

revolutions broke out.

3. Historical and Developmental Contexts of the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring was first erupted in Tunisia, a small country that was more

educated than the Arab norm, and with strong links to Europe. Then, in the span of less

than half a decade, dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya fell in a Shakespearean

tragedy. In Yemen, after months of bloody unrest, Yemenis turned a new page after their

long-‐‑time autocratic leader signed a Gulf-‐‑brokered agreement under which he ceded

power. In a proactive measure, Monarchs in Morocco, Jordan, and Oman found no

alternatives other than enforcing significant political reforms upon their governments in

order to shelter their dynasties from the wind of change. Still, the revolutions are

smouldering in Syria and Egypt as the Arab and international communities boost efforts

to end a bloody crackdown on dissent that has lasted more than expected. The question

that begs itself to be answered now is whether these revolutions will follow the

pathways of the Iranian revolution or the East European ones?

The answer to this question is what worries not only the Arabs, but also the

European and the US decision makers, given the fact that both powers are concerned

with the political ideologies that will characterize the future of MENA, which will

untimely influence the nature of the future strategic relationship of East-‐‑West Blocks.

Take Iran for example, the Iranian economy today suffers greatly from stagnation,

unemployment, poverty, and widespread corruption. Although there are elections in

Iran, many voices agree that Iran is not a democratic country. Add to that the fact that it

suffers from the absence of political and personal freedoms. The revolt against the

Iranian regime has reached its peak couple of years ago, and it came not only from

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outside, but actually it originated from within the country, because It is the very

supporters of the present theocratic regime that represent today’s main opposition.

Likewise, the speed and scope of the socio-‐‑political transformation, taking place

in the Arab world are challenging policy makers, civil society and scholars alike. It

opens the potential for an outcome considered unthinkable just a few years ago by most

policy makers, political scientists, and the citizens of the region. With that number of

unsolved questions floated on the surface, like: Why did the rest of the world fail to

anticipate these revolutions? Are revolutionary changes inherently unpredictable? Why

did these events occur now? Were these regimes as brittle a decade ago as they seem

today? Will the Arab Spring be the catalyst for a new, democratic Middle East? The

striking features of these uprisings are numerous; among them are the lack of an existing

opposition or charismatic revolutionary leaders, and the rise of Islamic political parties.

Many people argue that the Islamists’ political victory has not come through

violence, and that those groups do not reject elections and power transfer in principle.

Those who follow the political sphere in the Middle East and North Africa should, in

fact, have expected the rise of Islamists to power as a predictable result of the uprising,

because long years of oppression Islamists subdue, and which ironically enough has

paved their way to winning the electoral race in post-‐‑revolution Tunisia, Egypt, and

Libya, and maybe beyond, because as Jean-‐‑Pierre Filiu said:

“The various dictatorships that have portrayed themselves as

the shield in the face of Islamists have largely participated in

raising the popularity of these Islamist parties as a sole

alternative to their governments.” (Cited in Juliane Von: 2012).

Other people consider the victory of Islamist groups in elections as an end to the

promised democracy that the “spring” was meant to bring, and for which these revolts

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were motivated. These voices perpetuate an unjustified tirade on how the Middle

Eastern and North African Regions are now being overrun with religious radicals bent

on locally oppressing individual liberties, the rights of minorities, women, and

regionally intending to destroy Israel and driving the region toward clash of

civilization. To Validate or reject the reliability of such claims would be premature, if

not a waste of time, because, on the one hand, a clear picture on the situation in the

region is still not fully fledged, with the exception of the Egyptian case which has raised

an international divide. On the other hand, it is not clear if these claims express deeply

rooted human concerns, or merely political agendas and propagandist campaigns. But at

least at this stage, it is easy to refute these hypotheses on the ground that the winning

Islamists have benefited from the sympathy voters, with most of their prominent leaders

having spent years in exile and/or jail. Additionally, by taking part in the elections’ race

and accepting the political game, implies that they accept the basic spirit of democracy

and power transfer. For instance, in Tunisia, Islamists emerged as the strongest political

force after elections in October, whereas in Egypt, they achieved 65 % of votes in the first

phase of polling.

The real question now is whether or not these Islamist movements, which are

novice in governmental management at a macro-‐‑level, will stick to the political game. In

other word, would they cling to power or smoothly transfer it if beaten in future

elections. Another challenging task awaiting is whether or not the Islamist governments

will moderate their ideologies and focus on the immediate demands of the people who

voted them into office; or they would rather invest in railing about the West instead of

creating jobs for the people, improving human rights, and establishing the cornerstones

of democratic societies. It is important for these religiously oriented governments to

understand that the real reasons that motivated the revolutions was because of social

injustice not religious beliefs. For instance, Tunisian street vendor, who first initiated the

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Revolution in Tunisia, did set fire on himself as an out-‐‑crying due to the socio-‐‑political

plight of his community and his country by large.

In other words, the Arab Spring was first ignited by economic needs of the poor,

and not by the need to apply the teaching of Islam. The Islamists have won the elections

in Tunisia and Morocco because people in these counties are waiting and hoping for a

better life; they are not interested in “Sharia”, or in wearing the “hijab,” but rather in

improving their living standards. They have relied on the promises that Islam is the

solution and thus voted Islamist government. So if Islamic political partiers in power

now fail to understand that fighting poverty, unemployment, and inequalities in wealth

distribution; then, the same people who voted for them will once again protest in main

street and occupy public properties as they did a while ago, for now they know better

the short cuts to getting their voices heard. At another level, the Arab upheavals have

not only reshuffled the socio-‐‑political structures locally; they even provoked various

power struggles in the whole region and beyond.

Regionally Many counties believe that the major winner from the Arab Spring are

Turkey, Qatar, and Israel -‐‑ given the limited scope of this paper Israel will not be part of

the present discussion. The soft paper strategy and implementation of Turkey toward its

neighboring countries, along with its successful political, economic and cultural

expansions in the region has considerably boosted its role as an active partner in the

region. Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was the first foreign leader to call for

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to resign and he eventually turned on Muammar

Qaddafi in Libya and Bashar al-‐‑Asad in Syria in favour of pro-‐‑democracy protestors.

Secondly, most of the moderate Islamist parties that are now likely to dominate the Arab

world, such as Tunisia’s Ennadha and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, claim that the

combination of Islam, democracy and economic success implemented by Turkey’s ruling

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party, the AKP, is their goal. The Turkish critique of religious thoughts, Azm, argues

that:

“If Islamists, including those of Tunisia and Egypt, manage to

implement even half of what their counterparts in Turkey have

managed to achieve, then there will definitely be a movement towards

a more balanced democracy. But if they “cling to power in case they

lose in future elections, this will mean a return to tyranny.” (Cited in

Samir Yousif: January 2012)

The nature of this multi-‐‑lateral geo-‐‑politcal alliances annoys few counties that see in

Turkey’s move an oportunistic attempt to re-‐‑control the Muslim Middle East countries

with Istanbul being the center of this new alliance.

With its security guaranteed by hosting the US military and with its oil and gas-‐‑

based economy booming, Qatar is an other envied country. Before even the outset of the

Arab uprising, the country has been using both its wealth and media influence, through

its Al-‐‑Jazeera channel, to punch above its weight. Al-‐‑Jazeera, for instance, played a

vertébral role in covering the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, and helped it spread across

the region. The Qatari government, on the other hand, reacted quicker than most

countries to the Arab Spring, and led Arab League efforts against Qaddafi and Asad.

The Qatari mobilization is interpreted as attempt to use the Arab Spring to spread an

Islamist agenda, particularly in Libya and Tunisia where it financed Islamist political

parties. The region is changing and Qatar has been among the quickest to realise that it is

well placed to shape a future that will enhance its own interests. This hypothesis sounds

more plausible when observing the fiercely latent competition between Turkey and

Qatar in Syria where the main opposition to the regime is represented by the Sunni

Muslims. Although recent developments in Tunisia and Egypt showed that Qatar is

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providing significant financial support to the Islamists, both Turkey and Qatar are

attempting to have a stronger influence within this opposition.

Today, some countries are setting up transitional governments and devising

constitutional frameworks for their first democratic elections, as is the case with Yemen

and Tunisia; others are in the midst of violent protests and fierce repression, which is the

case of Egypt and Syria. Part of this predicament is justified by the fact that these

revolutions have been spontaneous popular reactions to the long years of the socio-‐‑

economic miseries and political repressions. This popular character adds legitimacy to

the ideals and aspirations of these uprisings; but it may also prove a weakness on the

path to actual democracy. Due to decades of severe oppression, the opposition forces in

almost every transforming country in the region lack recognized leadership, partisan

organization, and coherent political ideology; and it seems that the only remaining

organized political force is Islamist group. There is no doubt that political Islam will be a

force in the new Middle East and North African Regions. It is time for these parties to

stop hiding in mosques and to start competing openly in the marketplace and an open

debate about the role of religion in society.

4. A Social Constructivist Reading of the Uprisings

In my opinion, there are four main players that facilitated the Arab revolutions

and contributed in their efficacy in such a short time: 1) a new generation of educated

Arab youth, 2) the active role of local and international civil society, 3) the overspread of

western values of freedom and democracy, and 4) the effective use and cheap cost of

access to alternative media. From a social constructivism stance, the Arab revolutions,

starting from Tunisia, could be seen as a proliferation of democratic norms whose main

agents and force of change were the youth in the Middle East, and their sophisticated

manipulation of media technologies and social networks interactions. It can be argued

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that the Arab Spring would not have happened without social interaction, as these

exchanges both on the domestic and international level mutually constituted conflict.

Indeed, social media played a vertebral role in unified action of the revolting Arab Youth.

The ability of these dissatisfied youth to coordinate their action in such a way to provide

an energized and concentrated force against the regimes was remarkable. For instance,

Facebook and Twitter were used to organize protests, broadcast locations of upcoming

demonstrations, provide rules of conduct to ensure civil action, and gained support for

their cause across the globe.

Accordingly, social interactions among the youth who were already adept at

political socialization and influencing the people’s consciousness became a cornerstone

in mobilizing the masses. The more the people interacted, the more ready they felt to

reconstruct their social identities. This human consciousness was one of the most

powerful tools for the structural change, where the relationship between material forces

and ideas consequently led to the people questioning the origins of what they had

accepted as a fact of their lives, resulting in the idea to establish an alternative pathway

for the Middle East. As Toby Dodge wrote: “The demands for full citizenship, for the

recognition of individual political rights, were a powerful unifying theme across the Arab

revolutions” (Dodge, 2012).

The engagement of the Arab youth’s awakened human consciousness in a virtual

political socialization made them romanticize about both the kind of State they wanted

to live in and the new citizenship roles they wanted to be assigned, which resulted in a

wave of knowledge and Western ideals that spread over to many other regions in the

Middle East. Ideas of human rights, freedom, social equity and dignity flooded the

region and weakened the structure that had been established in the area for decades.

This in itself was a knockout to Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations”

theory (Huntington, 1993), because non of the Arab revolutions raised one single motto

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against Western values of democracy and freedom; instead, they embraced them and

fought for them, which is what granted the Arab rebels the sympathy of the West. As

more and more young people, with different ideological and educational backgrounds

but inspired by the same political ideas and economic opportunities, started to join the

revolts, the wave of anger spread over the whole region against their sclerotic masters.

What follows was a sequence of regime collapses, proving that despite the fact that

structure clearly sets parameters in a political system, these parameters are not bound to

last forever. Indeed, it might be because many Arab leaders felt reassured in their

supposedly safe identity, structure, and reversible parameters; or it might be because

they failed to decode the increased influx of signals, ideas, and Western norms besides

the growing role of information technologies.

Additionally, the role of civil society was decisive all the way through. Jürgen

Habermas informs us, in this regard, that when people decide either to retain or to

recreate their lifestyles in the public sphere, which the state has structured and occupied,

they “turn to grassroots mobilization through new social movements” (Habermas 1989). In fact,

NGOs in the Arab region were not only discontent about the political structures, but also

dissatisfied by the lethargic macro and micro economic plights. The ability to mobilize

through informal networking with the masses and civil society organizations connected

agents throughout the Middle East and challenged state authorities and structures,

influencing the changing politics in authoritarian regimes. Although the MENA region

countries differ from each other in different ways, their political identities definitely

share the same features. That is what paved the way for the people with shared ideas

and norms to stand up for their human and economic rights.

Most likely, the common expectations and romantic imagined community, that

had started to linger the mind of the Arab individual, married to other equally important

actors, and the synchronized timing led to a strikingly top-‐‑down power shift in the

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region. Throughout the Middle East, political identities are witnessing radical

metamorphoses, as a new generation, well educated, connected and inspired by new

norms and values, has created new realities, showing that Structures are not a taken-‐‑for-‐‑

granted entities, but rather flexible constructions that interact with the norms and

identities of agents and agencies. Thus, both the arrival of globalization as a catalyst of

economic competition, carrier of new norms and tools of resistance, along with civil

society as an arena of engagement and social exchange reemphasized that social

constructivism could be still one of the most useful analytical tool for understanding the

magnitude of the Arab Spring. If the international system were solely based on the belief

that changes in the system depend on the egoist states and their utilitarian policies, the

act of desperation by the self-‐‑burned Tunisian, Mohamed Bouazizi, in the winter of 2010

would probably either have never happened or not have become a catalyst for the series

of uprisings in the Middle East, collectively called the Arab Spring.

5. Conclusion

So far, the Arab uprising has been opening more doors of doubts, confusion, and

also hopes; than anything else. The route toward the cherished future does not seem to

be any shorter. While the uncertainties surrounding the whole middle Eastern

predicament does not only concern the people of the Middle East but also all the people

in the Mediterranean basin and beyond, the future of Arab countries lays between the

hand and the will of its people. The international community, represented in both

governments and civil societies, can only support the will of those peoples when the

latter decides to fight for their rights in civilized fashions. Its true that the uprising gave

rise to Islamist powers; but this rise should scare neither the local nor the international

community, because the people who voted them into office know better than anytime

how to throw them out of office if made-‐‑promises will not be deliver: this has already

been proven and done with the case of Egyptian Brotherhood party whose legitimacy

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has been revoked from them after they proved to be inefficient. Also, let it be known that

many instances of the Arab uprising have documented shameless pages in the history of

human rights in the Arab world. The way few opportunistic governments are taking

advantage of the events to strengthen their positions in the region will soon be

debunked; and sooner or later those governments of neighbouring countries will find no

better way for restoring their bi-‐‑lateral relations other than the route of constructive

dialogue and mutually beneficial partnerships, because it is the easiest and the less costly

way for a poorer region of the world such as the Middle East and North Africa.

Theoretically, it is true, as I have been arguing all along this paper, that social

constructivism could be a relevant tool to analyze contemporary socio-‐‑political or

economic events. Still, it is equally important to keep remembering some of the theory’s

shortcomings. That is, because of its adaptability as well as ontological and

epistemological positions, the knowledge constructivist theory creates might be relevant

only to a specific group about whom this knowledge was created. Yet, the unfolded

events of the Arab Spring revealed that one social group alone can deeply impact other

groups and should therefore not be underestimated. Even though the Arab Spring was a

historic moment in the politics of the Middle East, short-‐‑ and long-‐‑term changes and

impacts in the structure remain unpredictable. It might have been the Western powers

that shaped and controlled “most aspects of power and policy across the Arab world, whether

due to imperial self-‐‑interest, or pro-‐‑Israeli biases” (Khouri, 2011).

References

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