Emel Akcali Neoliberal Governmentality and The Future of The State in The Middle East and North Africa

Neoliberal Governmentality
and the Future of the State in the

Middle East and North Africa
Neoliberal Governmentality
and the Future of the State in the
Middle East and North Africa
Edited by Emel Akçalı

NEOLIBERAL GOVERNMENTALITY AND THE FUTURE OF THE STATE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND
NORTH AFRICA
Copyright © Emel Akçalı 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-54692-0
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Neoliberal governmentality and the future of the state in the Middle East
and North Africa / edited by Emel Akçali.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-56751-5
1. Middle East—Politics and government—21st century. 2. Africa,
North—Politics and government—21st century. 3. Democracy—Middle
East. 4. Democracy—Africa, North. 5. Islam and state—Middle East.
6. Islam and state—Africa, North. I. Akçali, Emel, editor of compilation.
JQ1758.A58N46 2015
320.956—dc23
2015018641
A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xi
1 Introduction: Neoliberal Governmentality and the Future

of the State in the Middle East and North Africa 1
Emel Akçalı
2 Squaring the Circle? Transitology and the Arab Revolts 15
Benoît Challand
3 The Failure of the State (Re)Building Process in Iraq 31
Rahman Dağ
4 Welfare Genocide: Rentierism, Neoliberalism, and the
Corporatization of the Public Sector in Jordan 45
Rami Farouk Daher
5 Islamism and Neoliberalism in the Aftermath of the 2011
Arab Uprisings: The Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt
and Nahda in Tunisia 61
Katerina Dalacoura
6 Jihadism in the Aftermath of Arab Revolutions:
An Outcome of the “Failed State”? 85
Farhad Khosrokhavar
7 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: The Israeli Nuclear Taboo and the
Limits of Global Governmentality 105
Ali Diskaya
vi ● Contents
8 Neoliberal Policies and the Egyptian Trade Union Movement:

Politics of Containment and the Limits of Resistance 123
Nadine Abdalla
9 The Kurdish Question, Urban Protests, and the Neoliberal
Transformation of the Turkish State and Society 143
Zafer Fehmi Yörük
10 The Impossible Revolution: Why Did the Arab Spring Fail
to Materialize in Lebanon and Israel/Palestine? 167
Daniel Monterescu and Yasmin Ali
11 In Lieu of Conclusion: From Bare Life to Dignity 189
Mark LeVine
Bibliography 197
Notes on Contributors 219
Index 225
List of Illustrations
1.1 The Middle East and North Africa in revolt by

Murat Palta. 4
9.1 Gezi protestors under attack in Taksim, Istanbul,
June 2013. 153
9.2 Gezi protests continued for months despite
immense police violence. 154
9.3 Women have played a leading role in the Kurdish
liberation movement. 157
10.1 “We are the poor and they are the kings (building on
Sheikh Imam’s popular song) . . . Down with the
sectarian regime” (“toppling the sectarian regime” flyer). 171
10.2 Demonstrators filling the streets of Beirut. 172
10.3 “I won’t change my country, I want to change the regime.” 174
10.4 The nationalist figure of Handala on a placard
outside the Jaffa camp. The sign reads in Arabic:
“I await a house!! And so is he.” 183
10.5 “A cage needed from Egypt for 120 people
(the number of Israel’s MPs): Details with the People.” 184
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Murat Palta, the young and talented graphic artist from
Turkey, for allowing us to use his artwork in the Introduction of this volume,
the anonymous reviewer for an excellent critique, and Hüseyin Özdemir and
Hussein Baydoun for their striking photos used in Chapters 9 and 10.
List of Abbreviations
AKP Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party)

ANAP Anavatan Partisi (Motherland Party)
AQI Al-Qaeda in Iraq
AS Ahrar al-Sham
ASEZA Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority
BDP Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi (Peace and Democracy Party)
CHP Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican People’s Party)
CPA Coalition Provisional Authority
CPR Congrés pour la République
CTUWS The Center for Trade Unions and Workers’ Services
DDKO Devrimci Doğu Kültür Ocakları (Revolutionary Eastern
Cultural Hearths)
DEHAP Demokratik Halk Partisi (Democratic People’s Party)
DEP Demokrasi Partisi (Democracy Party)
DTP Demokratik Toplum Partisi (Democratic Society Party)
ECC Economic Consultative Council
EDLC The Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress
EFITU The Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions
EJADA Euro-Jordanian Action for the Development of Enterprises
EIU Economist Intelligence Unit
ETUF The Egyptian Trade Union Federation
EU European Union
FENASOL The National Federation of the Syndicates of Lebanese
Workers and Employees
xii ● List of Abbreviations
FJP Freedom and Justice Party

GCC Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf
GNP Gross National Product
HADEP Halkın Demokrasi Partisi (People’s Democracy Party)
HDP Halkların Demokratik Partisi (Peoples’ Democractic Party)
HEP Halkın Emek Partisi (People’s Labour Party)
IAEC Israel Atomic Energy Commission
ICAN International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
IDM Israeli Disarmament Movement
IGC Iraqi Governing Council
IIG Iraqi Interim Government
ILC Iraqi Leadership Council
IMF International Monetary Fund
INA Iraqi National Accord
INC Iraqi National Congress
IPC Iraqi Petroleum Company
IS Islamic State
ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Sham
JN Jabhat al-Nusra
KDP Kurdistan Democracy Party
KRG Kurdistan Regional Government (in Northern Iraq)
MALMAB Office of Security for the Israeli Defense Establishment
MB Muslim Brotherhood
MENA Middle East and North Africa
MHP Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Action Party)
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NCA National Constituent Assembly
NDP National Democratic Party
NWS Nuclear Weapon State
PKK Partiye Kerkeran Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers Party)
PUK Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
List of Abbreviations ● xiii
PYD Partiya Yekidiye Demokrat (Democratic Union Party)

RP Refah Partisi (Welfare Party)
SCAF Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
SCIRI Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
SHP Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı Parti (Social Democratic Populist
Party)
TAL Transitional Administrative Law
TNA Transitional National Assembly
TİP Türkiye İşçi Partisi (Workers Party of Turkey)
TKP Türkiye Komünist Partisi (Communist Party of Turkey)
TKP-ML Türkiye Komünist Partisi—Marksist Leninist (Communist
Party of Turkey—Marxist Leninist
TKSP Türkiye Kürdistanı Sosyalist Partisi (Socialist Party of Turk-
ish Kurdistan)
TÜSİAD Türkiye Sanayici ve İşadamları Derneği (Association of
Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen)
UGTT Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail
WAJ Water Authority of Jordan
WB World Bank
WEF World Economic Forum
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
YJA Yekîneyên Jinên Azad (Women Freedom Brigades)
YPG Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (People’s Protection Units)
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Neoliberal
Governmentality and the Future
of the State in the Middle East
and North Africa
Emel Akçalı
F
rom the inception of the “Arab Spring” in Tunisia in December 2010,
the popular revolts soon spread across the Middle East and North
Africa (MENA) to other Arab countries including also non-Arab coun-
tries such as Israel, Iran, and Turkey. The uprisings have not been limited to
the region, however. Southern European cities (notably in Spain and Greece)
saw hundreds of thousands of protesters responding to the democratic
agenda of the Arab revolts as well as to local grievances such as austerity mea-
sures, national financial crises, neoconservative agendas, urban gentrification,
human rights violations, and the European sovereign debt crisis (Monterescu
and Shaindlinger 2013, p. 6). Protests considered to be inspired by the Arab
uprisings also took place in the United States, Chile, and Brazil with varying
degrees of success (ibid.).
Political scientists and historians have long argued that economic crises
and the subsequent societal and political mobilization are the most signif-
icant variables behind the social revolutions (Skocpol 1979; Moore 1966;
Mahoney 2003; Haggard and Kaufmann 1995; Boix and Stokes 2003; Linz
and Stepan 1996). According to this perspective, the economic conditions
create conditions for certain ideational variables to find voice, which are then
capitalized on by political movements that aim to topple existing govern-
mental structures. This has been the case, as it’s been generally argued, with
historical social revolutions such as the French, Iranian, and Russian ones.
What made these revolutions historical is the fact that they have not only
2 ● Emel Akçalı
created a radically different political structure by dismantling the ancien

régime, but also introduced a different mode of economic organization in
the given social setting. Given this widespread observation in the “regime
transition” literature in political science, we encounter a puzzle with respect
to the Arab revolutions. While the economic conditions were among the first
reasons in causing the Arab revolts and that there has been a toppling of the
existing governmental structure in certain cases, what does not appear to be
challenged adequately in the region today is the already existing economic
paradigm, the complex and contested nature of capitalism, and the current
stage of neoliberal market economy.
The penetration of neoliberal policies into the MENA region, especially in
countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia dates back to the Arab
defeat of 1967, the oil crisis of 1973, the subsequent economic crisis in which
the developmentalist states of the period found themselves, and the resulting
retreat from economic nationalism (Tağma et al. 2013). Economic difficulties
eroded from this point on the developmentalist state’s “ability to buy social
peace” in the MENA (Alexander 2013). As a remedy, the United States and the
UK promoted neoliberal policies through the aid conditionality or debt-relief
programs of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, aimed at
extensive privatization and significant deregulation resulting in income gaps,
declining wages, increased unemployment, job insecurity, removal of subsi-
dies, and an increase in domestic debt (Beinin 2009, p. 20; Farah 2009 p. 42;
Wurzel 2009, p. 97) while local elites socially engineered the neoliberal agenda
in a highly conscious manner (Hanieh 2013, p.71). Ironically, previously
viewed as “economic tigers” of the rising neoliberal era, Tunisia and Egypt were
the first to be effected by the revolutionary wave, mainly owing to high unem-
ployment, growing inequality, and faltering education systems (Behr 2011).
While the roots of the Arab revolts are certainly not to be found in a single
factor such as poverty, unemployment, precarity, and food prices, the roots
are therefore not unreservedly multicausal, either (Hanieh 2013, p. 173). In
other words, the socioeconomic and political conditions that led to the Arab
revolts have not occurred because the Arab societies, countries, or regions are
merely “‘lagging behind’ and need to ‘catch up’ in order to reach a ‘Western’
level of development, but, on the contrary, uneven development results out
of neoliberal capitalist globalization itself ” (Bogaert 2013 p. 19). We can as
such draw parallels between the claims of the Arab revolts and those of the
protest movements like the indignados in Spain and the occupy-movements
elsewhere in the world, since it is not so much poverty that drew these pro-
testers into the streets of Cairo, Tunis, New York, and Madrid, and most
recently Istanbul and Brazil, but increasing and continuously growing social
inequality (Bogaert 2011, p. 2). These protests have not emerged out of the
Introduction: Neoliberal Governmentality ● 3
blue, either, but they are the culmination of years of socioeconomic unrest,
various societal actors’ long years of political struggle with the authoritarian
regimes, and cooperation with the global antiglobalization movements.
We also need to keep in mind that the Arab revolts that inspired the others
occurred at a particular time when democracies of Europe have been facing
challenges due to the global economic crisis and rising populist nationalism. At
a time when there is an increasing disillusionment with the liberal institutions
of not only the emergent, but also the advanced, capitalist democracies, citizens
all over the world are becoming increasingly interested in innovative ways of
involvement in the political and the socioeconomic decisions that affect their
lives. Despite this fact, however, what is being marketed to the Arab world, not
only by the advanced capitalist “Western” governments, but also by countries
such as Turkey and Qatar, has still been the project of a mainstream neoliberal
economic agenda (Tağma et al. 2013). Furthermore, although the Arab revolu-
tions and various other public protests that took place in the region have clearly
disrupted the functioning of business as usual at least for a segment of the neo-
liberal elite, the underlying power structures of neoliberalism across the globe
have remained substantially intact (Akçalı, Yanık, and Hung 2015, p.10).
Meanwhile, the EU appears to continue to teach others the meaning of
liberal democracy: while refusing to learn from alternative forms of political
organizations in different contexts (Pace 2011). Portraying the EU as a natu-
rally democratic actor also means that the intense internal debate about EU
policies at home is ignored and the transplantation of such policies abroad
is represented as a normal, positive development (Norval and Abdulrahman
2010, p. 10). This is not just an intellectual puzzle, but a political puzzle
whose answers would shed light on the ways in which state and societal
transformations in the aftermath of the Arab revolts have been facing serious
challenges in the MENA region. Have the Arab revolutions proved to be
mere myths? What explains Egypt’s return to Mubarak era politics? Do a
successfully functioning representative democracy, a fairly liberal constitu-
tion, and a flourishing civil society such as in the case of Tunisia indicate, for
instance, that the Tunisian sociopolitical actors have been able to genuinely
transform the social structures and social relations within which they have
been embedded? Why do revolutions fail? What is a successful revolution?
How do revolutions succeed? (Figure 1.1.)
Elsewhere, we suggested that the EU’s democracy promotion in the MENA
region, the so-called “transition” period, and the state and societal transfor-
mation in the postrevolutionary Arab world can be understood through
Foucault’s neoliberal governmentality framework because a governmental
approach focuses on the relationship between subjectivity and forms of gov-
ernment (Tağma et al. 2013). As such, it can shed light on the ways in which
4 ● Emel Akçalı
Figure 1.1 The Middle East and North Africa in revolt by Murat Palta.
Source: By Murat Palta
individual subjectivities are being formed in the MENA societies. Foucault

introduced the notion of governmentality in his lecture on “securité, terri-
toire, population” at Collège de France in 1978, and it is generally identified
as the “conduct of conduct” (conduire des conduits) (Foucault, 2008, 2009)
and a liberal form of power that governs from a distance by utilizing the
principle of freedom as a way of molding the individual and society (Joseph
2009, p. 426, 2012, p. 24; Kurki 2011, p. 352). Hence, rather than the
creation of “docile bodies” by the regulatory techniques of disciplinary power
or by using threat of punishment sometimes, governmentality focuses on
producing “free and active subjects” (Joseph 2012, p. 25). As such, govern-
mental power comes to be understood as a type of a “laissez-faire governance,
based on the liberal principles of political economy, finds its expression in
civil society and is legitimated through the liberal concern that one must not
‘govern too much’” (Foucault 2008a, p. 319, cited in Joseph 2012, p. 25).
Foucault had argued earlier that the rise of industrial capitalism was made
possible via a new form of power that either through ideational distortion
or physical violence positively shapes and produces its objects through dis-
courses of truth (Cheah 2010, p. 184). He hence saw power productive,
able to increase the capacities and aptitudes of individual bodies through
investment and valorization, and capable of enhancing the quality of the

population as an efficient economic resource (ibid., p. 186). The same power
is also able to produce basic human needs (ibid.). The government therefore
simply “operates by educating desires and configuring habits, aspirations and
beliefs” (Li 2007, p. 5).
When it comes to neoliberal governmentality, however, it is simply the
transformation from government to governance, defined as “a broader con-
figuration of state and key elements in civil society” (Harvey 2005, p. 77). The
neoliberal rationality establishes itself on a critique of the developmentalist
state and entails the restructuring of politics along the lines of “a market form
which serves as the organizational principle for the state and society” (Lemke
2010, p. 200). The market becomes the general measure of all social activi-
ties and values (Povinelli 2011, p. 20) and is no longer a self-perpetuating
machine but a normative achievement that is the result of aggressive social
policies (Brown 2006). The market competition within a neoliberal govern-
mentality framework becomes the key reference point of molding the kind of
freedom that is envisaged (Kurki 2011, p. 353). Citizens and/or consumers
are considered to be free to take responsibility for their own life choices but
they are also “expected to follow competitive rules of conduct with the logic
of enterprise applied to individual acts” (Joseph 2012, p. 27).
Neoliberal governmentality contrasts the welfare state from a cultural
point of view as well. A cultural reform is conceived as central to implant-
ing the norms and values of the market and the forms of conduct to be
derived from it in all spheres, including the institutions and instruments
of government themselves (Dean 2010, p. 190). The call for neoliberalism
is thus also cultural because “what is at issue are the values and rules of
conduct that have been developed in the course of the evolution of spon-
taneous social orders” (ibid.). Neoliberal theorists have already argued, for
example, that no theory of international relations that is devoid of moral
sentiments can account for crucial dynamics of political economy (Sandal
and Fox 2013, p. 92). Religion, as a mental framework, according to such
logic has a determinative effect on what is acceptable and what is not in
human interactions, and such norms may constitute the basis of commerce
and politics. “Put more simply, neoliberals recognize that morality influ-
ences behavior” (ibid.). Stemming from this logic, the ethos of neoliberal-
ism can at once be conservative and radical: “it is conservative in its revival
and restoration of the values (or ‘virtues’) and rules of conduct associated
with these orders, particularly those of the market. And it is radical because,
by the process of reduplication and folding back, it multiplies and ramifies
these values and rules into ever-new spheres, including its own instruments
and agencies” (Dean 2010, p. 190).
6 ● Emel Akçalı
In neoliberal discourse, subjectivities are shaped by an economic rationality

of entrepreneurship and competition, in and through which individuals
govern themselves. According to the governmental framework, therefore,
the emphasis on the production of certain subjects who are expected to
self-govern, goes to the heart of the state and societal transformation chal-
lenges in the MENA region. If we consider the neoliberal globalization as
essentially a political project that has more to do with power than econom-
ics and that consolidates the interests of local and global class forces rather
than those of the subaltern groups (Bogaert 2013, p. 19), our suggestion
of employing a Foucauldian neoliberal governmentality framework can then
indeed be useful in order to be able to spot the hidden rationalities of the
current state and societal transformation processes in the MENA. Moreover,
since it has been suggested that the critical potential of a governmentality
approach can be more fully realized by dealing in a more substantive fash-
ion with recent developments in capitalism and the latter’s relationship with
political subjectivity (Weidner, 2009), we believe that our focus in this edited
volume on past and current capitalist rationalities can be illuminating on the
ways in which states and societies (trans-)form in the MENA.
It has been argued, however, that the neoliberal governmentality tech-
niques, at least the way that Foucault has formulated, fail when there is no
liberal capitalist social base on which policymakers might draw in order to
encourage the self-regulation of populations (Selby 2007; Joseph 2010a).
Joseph advocates that “ontological questions should address the differences
in forms of governmentality operating both in different places and at vari-
ous levels. For example, why are the techniques of governmentality effective
in some places but not in others?” (Joseph 2009). In Egypt, for instance,
the exportation of neoliberal governmentality resulted in the formation of a
class of crony capitalists, who went from being the beneficiaries of the state’s
neoliberal policies to its patrons and policymakers (Tağma et al. 2013). The
top-down way in which neoliberal policies are implemented by authoritar-
ian practices does not therefore always result in the decentralization of state
power to individuals. Death argues, however, that liberal rationalities of rule
have always made a distinction between subjects for whom freedom and indi-
viduality is appropriate, and those who need guardianship and civilizing, and
those who need pacification or extermination (2013). The advanced capitalist
governments have furthermore always applied both liberal and illiberal tech-
niques to govern their populations, whereas, as Ismail demonstrates in her
work on Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters, in countries outside of the
Western realm where individual liberty is assumed to be lacking, the so-called
traditional practices have always incorporated modern techniques of self that
are integral to bio-power practices of government (2006, p. xxviii). “They
may be harnessed to seemingly traditional concerns, but ultimately, they are

cultivated through modern techniques” (ibid., p. xxix).
Also, rather than defining neoliberalism as a coherent unit, Foucault
introduced the concept of neoliberal governmentality for tracing the tech-
nologies of government (Weidner 2010, p. 18; Koch 2013) that aim to
subject the agency and mold cultural, political, and socioeconomic under-
standings (Akçalı and Korkut 2015, p. 78). Neoliberal governmentality
hence can be considered as a political technology that emerges as an inter-
action of power relations and is constantly able to mutate into different
forms (Foucault 2008a, pp. 101–265, 267–89). Spivak evokes, however,
that Foucault’s account of power facilitates the muting of the subaltern
by ignoring the functioning of ideology and this forecloses the need for
counterhegemonic ideological production (1988, p. 288). What is being
implied here is that via neoliberal governmentality techniques, we may reach
out to the national subject of the global South, the rural woman in UN
plans of action, the postcolonial/Third World subject as native informant,
the indigenous elite, etc., but we may easily miss the complex social rela-
tions such as patriarchy, polytheism, and divisions of class, caste, and tribe
that constitute subaltern space and block access to it (Cheah 2010, p. 181).
Hence, by arguing that Foucault’s analytics of power contribute little to
an understanding of the constitution of subjects in peripheral space such
as people like subsistence farmers, unorganized peasant labor, the tribals,
and the communities of zero workers on the street or in the countryside,
Spivak suggests that the power operates in a different manner outside of
advanced capitalism and does not function productively in the peripher-
ies of the capitalist world-system (ibid., p. 182). The third significant cri-
tique of the governmentality approach concerns the notion of resistance. It
is often wondered whether, within the Foucauldian image of governmental-
ity, power may lead to anything more than existential despair because in
the case of Power being encompassing, productive, and pervasive, can the
Subject genuinely develop any form of resistance? It is obvious that within
Foucault’s framework of power, subjects are free insofar as it is possible for
them to be free. Foucault’s conceptualization also implies that when power
is productive rather than repressive, this then appears “to make meaningless
both the notions of ‘repression’ and ‘liberation’: if power does not repress,
one cannot liberate oneself from it” (Prozorov 2007, p. 26). According to
Bernauer, however, resistance for liberation exists in the Foucauldian frame-
work insofar as it is against the governmentality that determines who one is
(1994, p. 258). Freedom can hence be activated only in practice of resistance
to and the transgression of the identity constituted by any governmental
framework (Prozorov 2007, p. 35). Such understanding reminds us of Ayşe
8 ● Emel Akçalı
Zarakol’s suggestion that posits that the “true manifestation of agency of

sovereignty of positive freedom can only be attained by facing one’s own
ontological security and by realizing that self-construction is an inevitable
part of existence” (2011, p. 254).
In Foucault’s understanding, governing technologies regardless of the
geographic location are in fact evidently resisted, reversed, and countered
by subjects as a way of “counter-conduct” and such resistance is closely
connected with the strategies and techniques of governmentality (Foucault
2009). Subjects do not cease to be governed when they resist but are
embedded into the interaction between the art of governing and the practices
of resistance (Odysseos 2011, p. 440). Foucault indeed concurs that coun-
terconducts, or resistance, are essential for governmentality studies because
the analysis of governmental power starts precisely from points of trans-
gression (1982, p. 210–12). The Foucauldian conception of power is self-
limiting therefore, conscious of the counterproductive effects of imposition,
and is in pursuit of the “involvement,” “co-ownership,” and “willingness” of
those it seeks to govern (Malmvig 2014, p. 295). In other words, Foucault
puts a special emphasis on the local ownership of the processes of decision
making within the governmentality framework that implies prioritizing the
“indigenous decision makers, specialists, or indeed civil society organiza-
tions in ‘governance.’” (Kurki 2011, p. 353). A liberal mode of power may
still hence regulate the conduct of MENA states and societies through civil
society actors, but as such it also limits itself “through ideas of partnership,
ownership, and reform willingness” (Malmvig 2014, p. 295).
This possible outcome of governmentality leads us to reconsider the pos-
sibility of hybridization. While Edward Said (1979) made a sharp distinction
between the colonizer and the colonized and Frantz Fanon described the colo-
nialist system as a Manichean world, Homi K. Bhabha (1994) introduced,
for instance, the “third space of enunciation” that incorporates hybridity as
a transformative site where one may elude the politics of polarity. Bhabha
claimed, in other words, that new hybrid identities emerge from the inter-
action of the colonizer and colonized and this phenomenon challenges the
validity and authenticity of any essentialist view of cultural identity (Yousfi
2013b, p. 4). If we carry this analysis to the field of neoliberal governmental-
ity being exported to the MENA region, we can also identify several types
of emerging hybrid subjectivities and governmentality techniques due to the
interaction of the neoliberal rationality with the local. The civil society that is
a core concept of governmental technology (Foucault 2008a, p. 296) through
which homo economicus is fostered often employs techniques and discourses
that can more easily penetrate into the local societies. With its engagement
with the Arab revolts, the EU governmentality has targeted civil society actors
and NGOs, and, through tenders and grants, it has selected and empowered
particular civil society actors who adhere to liberal values, rather than, say,
egalitarian, Islamic, or welfarist organizations (Pace 2009, p. 46), and made
them policy partners. However, in order to overcome the local resistance
against EU governmentality techniques, the specifically chosen civil society
has promoted only certain human rights notions that are more acceptable by
the society such as freedom of speech and excluded those that strike negative
chords with the local population’s psyche, such as the gay rights, or masked
certain policies by finding more acceptable local terms for an effective pen-
etration (Gorlo 2014).
The civil society, in the large part of the MENA has thus far acted as
a symbolic ground upon which legitimate state power could be based (see
Navarro-Yashin 2002). However, starting from the late 1970s, the civil society
gained momentum with the economic liberalization of the developmentalist
state structure in the MENA albeit subject to continuous political and legal
oppression and harassment especially regarding the human rights issues. Fur-
thermore, since the mid-1990s, the human rights organizations in certain
MENA countries proliferated to form a social movement (Kubba 2008). The
sermons of Islamic preachers like Sheikh Kishk, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Sheikh
Fadlallah, and the popular Egyptian televangelist Amr Khalid had already
been disseminated on a massive scale through audio and videocassettes (Bayat
2003). While the mass protests against the United States and Israel have
been ignored by the authorities in the Arab states however, unofficial street
actions raising various other claims have faced intimidation and assault, with
activists being harassed or detained (ibid.). Faced with such oppression, activ-
ists have developed innovative means of articulating dissent such as boycott
campaigns, cyber-activism, and protest art and activism was exercised inside
the confines of civil institutions such as college campuses, schools, mosques,
professional associations, and NGOs (ibid.). It must be acknowledged, how-
ever, that these “new” protests owed a great deal to the already existing politi-
cal dissidents in the MENA. The Tunisian revolt that began in the town of
Sidi-Bouzid in December 2010, for instance, entrusted its success to the civil
rights associations’ and trade unions’ long years of political struggle waged
against state authoritarianism (Yousfi, 2013a). Such forms of past struggle
were somehow ignored by the international media who preferred to focus
on the persistence of Arab authoritarian structures or on the development
of Islamist movements, instead, creating a myopia regarding various social
dynamics such as resistance against neoliberalism that have emerged over the
past two decades in the MENA region (ibid.).
This phenomenon indicates discernibly that not all subjectivities have
emerged as entrepreneurial, competitive, and/or individualistic in the MENA
10 ● Emel Akçalı
streets from their encounter with neoliberal rationalities, and, as such, a vast
majority of ordinary citizens is possibly overlooked by the exporters of neolib-
eral governmentality to the region. The models exported, from the advanced
capitalist space to elsewhere, after all have the potential to limit political
imagination and have the tendency to foster “a particular form of politics in
global political life” (Tağma 2011, p. 623). Such negligence may also explain
why the EU has failed to capture the public mood on the southern shores of
the Mediterranean in the first place—the popular discontent that eventually
led to the Arab revolts (Fioramonti 2012, p. 24). As we know by now, the
uprisings across the Arab world and elsewhere in the MENA consisted of a
broad range of class-coalitions and contradictory demands being advanced
by various interest groups. A closer look into the MENA street reveals, for
instance, that the understanding of political freedom and socioeconomic
improvement is plural and that these concepts might be constituted in ways
that differ from the liberal individualistic understanding. The areas subject to
such contestation include, but may not be limited to, the role of the state in
the economy, the role of religion within the state, and the preferred frame-
work for rights, freedoms, and citizenship and simultaneous yet contradic-
tory manifestations of a renewed sense of state militarism, ethno-nationalism,
populism, sectarian violence, and radical activism.
By turning the spotlight toward various case studies, what we aim for
in this edited volume hence is to shed light on the societal power relations
that lead into governmental technologies, the terrains of local voices, and
new forms of subjectivities, hybrid identities, transformed structures, and resis-
tances that arise against or as a result of such governmentality techniques and
challenge or enhance the neoliberal understanding in the MENA region. By
scrutinizing whether resistance and a genuine revolutionary transformation
have been futile or not, we hope therefore to offer an outlook on the future of
the state and society in the Middle Eastern and North African space. Further-
more, the volume aims to problematize the ways in which global discourses of
democracy, modernity, emancipation, liberty, secularism, individual rights,
and liberalism translate on the ground in the MENA societies. In Malmvig’s
words, the resistance of plural subjectivities against the neoliberal rationality
may not necessarily be visible, spectacular, and direct as in the street pro-
tests, riots, and demonstrations carried out in the squares of Cairo, Istanbul,
or Madrid, but they may take a multiplicity of localized forms, sometimes
mundane, trivial, and nonemancipatory (2014). Since there has not been a
collective work done thus far regarding the ways in which neoliberal govern-
mentalities have developed and functioned in various countries in the Middle
East and North Africa, the edited volume, with its diverse case studies, hopes
to bring a contribution to the field, in this sense, as well.
To this end, the edited volume kicks off with Benoit Challand’s paper,
which criticizes transition theories by discussing two facets of the Arab upris-
ings that have generated scholarly debates. Can one identify a clear role
of Arab middle classes in favoring or not a democratizing trend? Can one
witness the emergence of a more egalitarian political economy in the Arab
worlds without including violence in its redefinition? By drawing examples in
a comparative manner from Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, and Palestine, Challand
tries to show the limits of transitology for a variety of reasons and argues that
one needs to connect the study of “Arab transitions” to the double question
of political representation apprehended through the example of social classes,
representing various segments of the population, and that of violence, and its
political economy.
The volume follows with Rahman Dağ’s chapter, which scrutinizes the state-
building process in Iraq since the 2003 US invasion and contends that neolib-
eral governmentality does not seem to fit into the post-2003 Iraqi scene because
of the incongruity between the intended ideas that were to be imposed upon
Iraq and the reality of the local population. Due to this impasse, he argues that
similar to the European state development, what should be experienced and
internalized in the postconflict MENA countries like Iraq today is a social wel-
fare state providing the local population with basic requirements and promot-
ing an economic and social well-being on the basis of citizenship, in order to
defeat the dominance of strict sectarian, tribal, and ethnic subjectivities.
Rami Daher problematizes the official discourses and practices of devel-
opment in Jordan through three phases of geopolitical and socioeconomic
transformations. Phase one commences with the period right after World
War II at the end of colonization and it is known by a, relatively, high level
of welfare through “state” subsidizing fragile sectors of development. During
phase two and with the enforcement of structural adjustment programs from
the World Bank and the IMF toward the late 1980s, Jordan witnesses a sub-
stantial decrease in the country’s welfare mechanism. The phase three, after
the financial crises of 2008–9, is characterized by a postneoliberal excessive
corporatization of the “state’s” public sector and a period of deregulation.
The author assesses that this excessive corporatization is leading to almost
an end of welfare and is being camouflaged and pacified by the preoccu-
pation of the masses with attempts for economic reform and “democracy
politics” such as parliamentary and municipal elections. Promotion of salva-
tion through “democracy politics” manifested in popularity of election poles
(e.g., municipal, parliamentary) acts therefore as a pacification mechanism
of any potential organized resistance.
Katerina Dalacoura critically investigates the relationship between
Islamism and neoliberalism in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings in
the Middle East focusing on two cases, the Freedom and Justice Party (the
Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm) in Egypt and the Nahda movement in
Tunisia—both of which had (at least partial) access to political power and
an opportunity, to some extent, to apply their ideas and policies in response
to concrete circumstances. The argument is situated within a broader dis-
cussion of Islamist ideological approaches, which are varied and constantly
evolving, toward the economy, capitalism, and social justice. The chapter
argues that the Muslim Brotherhood/FJP and Nahda were comfortable with
neoliberal structures and did not aim to challenge or transform them in any
fundamental sense; insofar as they catered to the demands for social justice,
they did so to avoid losing popular support, rather than because of a funda-
mentally antineoliberal orientation. More broadly, it suggests that at least
some strands within the wider phenomenon we call “Islamism” cannot be
regarded as antisystemic forces.
Farhad Khosrokhavar argues that a new type of Jihadism has thrived
with the Arab revolutions due to the “failed state” status of many coun-
tries, particularly Syria, Yemen, and Libya. Rather than pointing to the
fact that Jihadism is a gratuitous logic of violent action, this phenomenon
demonstrates that Jihadism is very much rooted in the modern history of
many Muslim countries, in particular the Arab societies where geopolitics,
internal political stalemate due to authoritarianism, and the economic poli-
cies of the autocratic governments led to the radicalization of significant
parts of the population. More specifically, Khosrokhavar’s paper endeavors
to display that, with the notable exception of Tunisia, the Arab revolts con-
tributed to the spread of Jihad, not only in the Arab world, but also in part
of the Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular Mali and the neighboring coun-
tries. The deepening crisis of many Arab countries between 2012 and 2014
gave furthermore a major boost to Jihadism. Such development naturally
demonstrates that global discourses of democracy, modernity, emancipation,
liberty and secularism may translate contrarily on the ground. Given that the
symptoms of radicalism range from poverty to civil war to ethnic diversity to
power sharing, the idea that a single remedy can cure all the problems of the
failed states in order to stop Jihadism in the Middle East and North Africa
does not sound very promising, either.
Ali Diskaya turns the spotlight to the case of Israel and suggests that the
ways in which the Israeli state manages to resist global norms through its
own “secret” nuclear engagement indicates another example for the lim-
its of neoliberal governmentality even though Israel is not classified as a
non-Western country, in general. By applying a framework that analyzes the
workings of a range of (contra)governmentalities around the globe and how
these interact with the mainstream ones, Ali Diskaya’s chapter endeavors
to demonstrate two observable phenomena: the ways in which the global

anti–nuclear weapons network tries to conduct the conduct of the Israeli
state from a distance and the ways in which the Israeli state resists these
attempts through its own secret nuclear governmentality that produces local
“nuclear” subjectivities that are not receptive to molding from outside.
Laying special emphasis on the Egyptian trade union movement, Nadine
Abdalla contends that although it played an important role in the revolution
of January 25, 2011, the Egyptian trade union has been unable to achieve
its own organizational or socioeconomic interests in the post–Mubarak era.
Although the trade union affairs were a major arena of the political strug-
gles that characterized the postrevolutionary period, the newly formed ones
lacked the organizational strength necessary to change the balance of power
in a way that serves their own interests. Therefore, the previous rules of
labor representation and/or the old pattern of state-labor relations remained
unchallenged in Egypt, also because a new legal framework guaranteeing
union’s freedom was never promulgated. The labor movement has conse-
quently remained imprisoned in the old set of constraining socioeconomic
structures in Egypt.
Zafer Fehmi Yörük endeavors to explain the transformation of the Turkish
state and society by examining the constitutional and institutional changes
that accompany the ongoing deconstruction and reconstruction of the Turk-
ish State, regarding its relationship with its Kurdish population. Along with
the ideological modifications and institutional changes at the level of the
State, the author observes that transformation takes place mostly at the popu-
lar/social level in Turkey. He hence suggests that both the Turkish state and
Turkish society, are in a process of synchronic transformation, in parallel to
the ongoing Kurdish “peace process.” When read against the background of
this transformation, the Gezi urban protests that seemed to erupt against the
neoliberal policies of the ruling Justice and Development party’s government
in June 2013 can also become more comprehensible.
Daniel Monterescu and Yasmin Ali compare and contrast the “failed
revolts” in Israel and Lebanon following the Arab revolutions and investigate
the ways in which these movements were co-opted. They argue that on the
margins of the Arab uprisings, which were dominated by Muslim-majority
societies facing an authoritarian regime, the Lebanese and the Israeli cases
stand out in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the winter and summer of 2011,
Lebanon and Israel saw the respective emergence of an unprecedented col-
lective effervescence, which attests to the tremendous power and fragility of
democracy in postcolonial settings under neoliberal conditions. These move-
ments instantiate one of the Arab uprisings’ fascinating paradoxes: namely,
the cross-regional emergence of a renewed national discourse of citizenship
rights (“social justice” and “antisectarianism”), which manifested itself in the

most deeply divided societies.
Finally, Mark LeVine reflects on the key questions that the contributors
of this volume have raised and problematizes further whether there are spe-
cific dynamics and processes associated with neoliberalism that characterize
it as a fundamentally new phenomenon. Does neoliberalism manifest itself
more or less in one manner globally, for instance, or are there identifiable
variations in the dynamics of its functioning, arising from the specificities
of culture, country, and/or region in which it is being considered? Indeed, is
neoliberalism ultimately another name for globalization or is it a particular
form of global integration and interaction? Finally, in what ways, if any, is the
Middle East and North Africa unique in their experience of neoliberalism
and in their positioning(s) vis-à-vis the larger international system? LeVine
concludes the volume by suggesting that if the world wants to end the strife
across so much of Africa and Asia, stanch the flow of refugees and migrants
into Europe or the United States, and drain the swamp of the extremism that
feeds ISIL and al-Qaeda, those who most benefit from the neoliberal global-
ized system must stop the flow of weapons to their clients and allies that has
driven the present conflicts, support real democratic reforms uniformly and
in every country of the region, and transform the economic blueprint guiding
the globalization of the region from one that increases inequality, exploita-
tion, and authoritarian rule toward one that encourages locally guided and
sustainable development models.
CHAPTER 2
Squaring the Circle? Transitology

and the Arab Revolts
Benoît Challand
Rethinking the Relation between Transitology

and Neoliberal Governmentality
Adam Hanieh (2013, pp. 1–10) suggests that the “State vs. Society” frame is
not sufficient to understand the profound economic transformations that have
traversed the Arab Middle East, connecting the whole region to truly interna-
tional capitalist forces, coming both from Europe and the United States, on
the one hand, and from Gulf capitalist penetration, on the other. He also asks
scholars not to limit their analyses of the Arab uprising1 to, say, a formalist frame
adopted often in democratization studies, namely an analysis that concentrates
on formal aspects of democracy (the holding of elections, e.g.). For Hanieh,
the former type of argument (state vs. society) reduces this two-pronged battle
between states, which have been hollowed out in the past three decades by
neoliberalism, and civil societies, which often assume, willingly or not, liberal
functions of reformist or automatically democratizing counterforces. The sec-
ond argumentative vein (procedural democratization) can be criticized for its
failure to capture qualitative changes that are necessary for “true democracies”2
to emerge. In other words, these interpretative frames, dominant in the field
of political science, only reproduce neoliberal assumptions rather than criticize
them and fail to “step out” of the dominant paradigm, so to say.
I would argue that the same criticism can be made of many of the stud-
ies applying the academic frame of transitology. Can transitologist reading
grids appreciate the profound qualitative break left by the 2011 uprisings?
Can transition theories favoring reformist or gradualist approaches apprehend
the revolutionary process? Can transition theories, born of the study of the
16 ● Benoît Challand
breakdown of autocracies in Latin America and Europe in the 1980s, be

applied, without carrying its load of Eurocentrism, to another region of the
world? Can models generated at a time where neoliberalism had not deployed
all of its problematic impacts be applied to another historical period, that of
postneoliberal structural changes? This chapter is an attempt to shed critical
light on two loci of political sciences, namely the role the classes, in particular
middle classes, played in favoring democratic transformation, and the politi-
cal economy of violence. It offers a criticism of some of the transition studies
and indicates which direction future transition studies should aim toward. If
we don’t apply such critical thinking on these two issues, it can be argued that
using the existing transitology frames might turn simply into a(nother) vain
attempt in political science of squaring the circle.
In the context of the Arab Middle East, a region that has been profoundly
affected by numerous wars and by intense commercial relations with Europe
and the United States based on the principles of neoliberalism, it is essential
to revisit certain assumptions on which a substantial strand of the political
science literature is based. Neoliberal rationalities have had numerous impacts,
most importantly in the erosion of the basic services that Arab states have
granted to their populations. Salwa Ismail even speaks of the end of “care-
taker states” to a totally privatized state where security and basic protection
functions by state institutions have disappeared; as a result people reorganize
communal life in a way that offers mutual protection in the absence of state
or governmental services (Ismail 2006, pp. 96–128).
As suggested in this volume’s introduction, forms of resistance against
neoliberal policies will take a multiplicity of localized forms, sometimes mun-
dane, trivial, and nonemancipatory (Malmvig 2014; Akçalı, this volume). The
present chapter will offer a reflection on the plurality of class constellations
that have emerged as a result of extensive neoliberal policies.3 This will be the
first “complication” of the application of transitology and democratization
literature. The second will concentrate on an instance, which I consider reveal-
ing of deeper structural social changes, of profound change requested by the
Arab population that arose in the 2011 revolts, namely around the need to
renegotiate the use and distribution of the legitimate means of violence.
What follows is a very general, comparative frame of analysis. Some of
the evidence and empirical material might be considered broad brushstrokes
for some. I am aware of the possible limitations in the present analysis, for
example, with a potential risk to analyze only superficially events that have
taken place in very different countries. This is the risk of any comparative
attempt, but I nonetheless hope that from certain domestic grievances, or
economic reorganizations, one can propose a renewed analytical framework
that allows capturing commonalities across the Arab Middle East. Even if the
Squaring the Circle? Transitology and the Arab Revolts ● 17
social configurations diverge widely between cases such as Bahrain, Libya,

Yemen, Egypt, or Tunisia, there has been a common effort to call for more
democratic participation from below.
How Has Transitology Been Applied to the Arab Uprising?

With general calls for more direct political and democratic participation,
the wave of Arab uprisings has injected a new life in the field of transition
studies. As always with discussion of “transition,” the risk is to assume a
more or less explicit model, combined with the risk of teleological thinking.
After a glorious period of transitions studies, ushered in in the 1980s by
the green book of O’Donnell and Schmitter, transitology turned into a
number-crunching enterprise in the late 1990s, reinforcing the view that
there exists a telos through which processes of economic and political liberal-
izations, favored by neoliberalism, could be geared. It was also often believed
that these processes could be engineered and steered through prescriptive
policies. Transitology, beyond the classical critique of Carothers (2002) of
a teleological fallacy underpinning many studies, became a cottage industry
versed in quantitative methods and prone to speak the language of policy
recommendations, making transitology a quasi co-constitutive piece of the
neoliberal governmentality. This came, I believe, at the expense of a deeper
historical knowledge of the contexts in which transitions could be seen as
appearing. Such type of studies would also overlook subtle qualitative aspects
of politics, which this chapter would like to address.
A couple of transitologist analyses have linked this reading grid with the
Arab uprisings. Among them, M. Ould Mohamedou and T. Sisk (2013) have
done an important job by laying the ground for a return of the transitology
in the context of the Arab uprisings. They warn us of the widespread ten-
dency to see transitions as “short-term political developments” or as “periods
between the fall of the dictator and a free (or merely) trouble-free election.”4
They invite us never to forget that democracy (the point toward which con-
tested autocratic regimes, such as those put under pressure in literally all
Arab countries since 2011, are gradually and possibly peacefully moving) is a
highly contingent and incremental outcome.5 It is therefore illusory to assess
in a yes-or-no answer whether Arab transitions are successful or not.
In this chapter, I would like to take their warnings a step further and argue
that the Arab uprisings need not be assessed solely against the backdrop of
institution changes (elections, writing of a new constitution, the emergence
of a party system, etc.). Instead we need to consider the revolts as a set of
historical events sharing, beyond the differences that such disparate coun-
tries as Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, or Egypt can offer, a common aspiration
toward a renewed and reactivated sense of citizenship from below that is from
spontaneous forms of civil society, conjugated with innervated trade union
movements and the emergence of new coalitions pushing for more partici-
patory politics. Elsewhere, I have offered a detailed reading why it was not
the civil society that we had expected to be active in the streets of Cairo,
Tunis, or Sanaa,6 but rather the strength of various socioeconomic groups
and from different geographic horizons coming together (what I termed
“intersectionality”) that managed to topple autocratic regimes. Counterrevo-
lutionary forces have managed to undercut these trends by preventing this
intersectionality in particular through a return to the use of violence to justify
autocratic forms of power (Challand 2013), such as those witnessed in Egypt
with the new president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. In short, the initial phases of the
uprisings meant the renegotiation of a social contract, away from neolib-
eral governmentality, with a convergence of class politics with new forms of
representation. During the more recent phase of the revolts, however, these
radical forms of experiments, which initiated a subtle yet unaccounted form
of political transition, have been overlooked.
As a result, any talks of “Arab transitions” must take this qualitative novelty
into consideration. Transitions are not only about these (short-term) institu-
tional changes. They are also about gradual and imperfect processes through
which class struggle, demand for more meaningful forms of citizenship and of
representations, as well as calls for more just uses of violence by state authori-
ties are renegotiated. In other words, even if the paradigm of transition is
dangerously charged with normative expectations and can be problematic
for its teleological tendencies, one needs to assess its veracity in terms of how
the demos, the sovereign power, has been able to make lasting demands for a
redistribution of power toward more democratic accountability.
In what follows, I will concentrate on two aspects of politics and transi-
tions. The first one deals with the issue of social classes: Have middle classes,
often considered to be “underlying drivers” of political change,7 played a cen-
tral role in the unfolding of the Arab transitions? The second dimension of
political representation has to do with the place and domestication of violence.
Why a focus on representation as a political mechanism and why vio-
lence? The first gesture of the Arab uprisings was to question the modern
logic of representation by saying that we, the people, and not the (elected)
representatives, are the sovereign power. Even if the Arab populations might
have been fragmented and made vulnerable by decaying economic conditions
and a rather violent war-ridden environment, they demonstrated, through
their physical presence, that they could create powerful unions and call for
a more just and socially equal future.8 It was a moment and a technique
through which the various parts of a disfigured social body (Hirschkind
2011; Salvatore 2011) expressed the capacity through physical proximity to

renegotiate the meaning of citizenship. This call of a new subjectivity was
intimately connected, I would like to argue, to a demand for a redefined
control of the means of violence by citizens at large.9
The chapter argues that it is a complex and thorny task to apply the para-
digm of transition to the Arab worlds for two reasons. First, the Arab Middle
East is a region with an enormous degree of external military and political
interference, related to the so-called peace architecture around Israel, Egypt,
Palestine, and Jordan and many security issues. As a result, military encroach-
ments limit the sovereign exercise of politics and increase the high political
profile resulting from nontax revenues, such as rents or military aid. The diffi-
culty is to disentangle the degree in which external factors hinder or shoulder
the internal process of social and political change, such as a healthy dose of
competition among different classes. This difficulty will be illustrated in the
following assessment of whether the middle class(es) in Arab countries have
played a key role or not in sustaining the demands of the Arab uprisings.
Second, the notion of security is too often reduced to the existence of external
interference. Security does play a distorting role in the making of military
states in the region (Bermeo 2010), but such essential discussion should not
overlook another crucial aspect of the making of democracies: the domestica-
tion by internal forces of the legitimate means of coercion. This will form the
basis of the second pillar of this chapter.
Representation and the Role of the Middle Classes

Students of revolutions and democratic transitions all face the thorny
question of what specific role classes play in the reshaping of political and
social systems at critical junctures. Often the middle class is seen as a neces-
sary stepping-stone on which new alliances are forged, and thus it becomes an
essential “ingredient” for political change. It is probably misleading to ask this
question and to posit a role for a given class within the clear realm of national
borders for various reasons. It is first of all difficult to identify a clear and
identical role for the middle class in complex events such as those of the Arab
uprisings. Furthermore, because the transnational ramifications of class mak-
ing are so significant in the Arab Middle East, one is forced instead to adopt a
larger, regional and international focus to understand how, and which, classes
are differently involved in these moments of upheavals. The specificities of
Arab political and economic systems force us thus to transcend any narrow
methodological nationalism. I will therefore divide this section into two sets
of arguments: the first questioning normative expectations around middle
classes, and the second pointing at external factors such as economic rents
and the existence of a transnational bourgeoisie whose span of action and

influence is not limited to domestic borders. Let us first discuss some norma-
tive views accompanying discourses on the middle class.
There are many interpretations of what role class plays in the making
and unfolding of revolutions. The danger is to selectively examine moments
when the middle class appears a key component in leading political change.
One could, however, select other episodes of such rebellions that shed a less
favorable light on middle classes. With regard to the Arab uprisings of 2011,
some of these analyses force parallels with European history and try to defend
the view that the middle class has been a motor of the Arab Spring. If by this
we mean to assess whether the middle class was a trigger and essential compo-
nent of the wave of protests, it is hard to argue against such view. Revolutions
have by and large been bourgeois events—and the original moment of the
Arab uprisings fits this pattern, with vast sections of the middle class (though
not only) in the early months of 2011 taking to the streets for their first
time—from Sanaa to Tunis, and from Cairo to Manama. Indeed, even in
the latter case, where revolution is usually described in simplistic terms of
a Shiite-Sunni divide, the initial protest in Bahrain included not just the
disgruntled local Shiite population, but also segments of the Sunni middle
class as well as organized labor.10 Without the support of (at least) portions
of liberal professions and middle class, no revolution is likely to occur—and
this has been the case in all Arab countries in 2011.
If, however, one asks whether the middle class has supported a continu-
ous effort toward more social justice and a structural change in the pattern
of economic and political redistribution, it is obvious that the middle class
has not at all been a motor for the Arab uprisings. Two series of episodes can
substantiate this claim. On the one hand, a look at the role of lower classes
in these revolts shows the complex and overlapping composition of political
activism. On the other, recent events—like those in Egypt during the sum-
mer of 2013—cast doubt on the automatically positive expectation (in terms
of transition and democratization) that is often attached to middle class. In
the first series, it is obvious that the marginalized and lower classes are the
ones willing to exert political pressure to keep the motor of the Arab uprisings
going, so to say.
Think of Tunisia, where youth and “marginalized Tunisians” were pivotal
in contributing to the second phase of protests, after Ben Ali had departed
the country when the second Qasbah protests in February and March 2011
forced acceptance of the fall elections and the drafting of a new constitution
(Gana 2013, p. 18). Think of Yemen, where akhdam (lower-caste servants),
disenfranchised groups in the north, and excluded portions of the south
pushed for realization of a similar national dialogue after the departure of
Ali Abdullah Saleh (Finn 2012; Carapico 2013, pp. 102–10). Similarly, it is
youth activists of differing social backgrounds who since March 2011 have
called for an end to political divisions in Palestine. At the end of 2011 in
Egypt, when it became clear that the police state was still pulling the strings
even after the fall of President Mubarak, the November street battles—such
as those of Muhammad Mahmoud Street—belonged to the lower segments
of Egyptian societies, not the twitterati that were so central in the Janu-
ary and February 2011 protests (Ryzova 2011). Alliances have surely been
formed, but not just between incumbent elites and the middle classes: shared
pressures between lower and middle classes also need to be included in our
comparative analyses of the Arab uprisings.11
The second series of episodes, casting a less positive light on the involve-
ment of the middle class, stems from the end of President Morsi’s power
tenure in summer 2013 and post–Rabia al-Adawiyya events.12 Around that
time, some argued that both the military and “Brother Morsi” tried to court
the middle classes to forge alliances (Ouaissa 2013). But this depiction takes
away from the middle class its agency and turns this vast social group into a
monolith and a simple passive weight that both sides have tried to push on its
side of the balance. Let us not forget that some sizable portions of the middle
class, in particular its “liberal” segments (precisely the segment supposed to
lead in the opening of autocratic systems in mainstream democratization theo-
ries), have taken an antiliberal stance in supporting the military crackdown of
August 2013. Supporting emergency measures and the massive curtailment of
civil rights (freedom of expression, discriminate detention of members of the
Brotherhood, and, as of March 2014, a string of massive death sentences), as
has been the case in Egypt in the last year, is not likely to hasten reform toward
more social justice, human dignity, and democratic transitions. The same
charge of noninclusion can be leveled against the Brotherhood’s neoliberal
middle class, which has pushed neither for more economic enfranchisement,
nor for more social justice while Morsi was in power.
Emerging from these short discussions is the view that middle class
involvement in these uprisings presents a mixed balance sheet, with positive
and negative contributions to a revolutionary transformation and democratic
transitions. Let us now turn to the second part of the argument on classes,
namely the existence of external factors and the need to avoid the traps of
only employing domestic analyses. Of interest here is the existence of varie-
gated forms of rents and the existence of a transnational bourgeoisie in the
process of making clearly identifiable social classes. All this contributes to
making quite a unique configuration in the Arab Middle East.
To understand this specificity and avoid essentialist narratives of Middle
Eastern exceptionalism, a historical understanding of class formation in the
region is necessary.13 Indeed, a look at the social history of the Arab Middle
East demonstrates that the making of the middle class has not been connected
with the development of industrial production or to tax enfranchisement, as
was the case in Europe. Instead, it has been mostly based on rent econo-
mies, the latest manifestation of which is the rent attached to foreign aid and
to a life geared toward individual consumption (Ouaissa 2013). He is thus
absolutely correct in maintaining that the Arab middle classes have not been
able to develop any meaningful instrument to push for structural changes
in the 2011 uprisings, and thus their engagement with these uprisings has
been motivated by a worldview that is based in this individualistic lifestyle
(Ouaissa 2013, p. 273), and the resilience of an organized clientele around
ruling classes.
However, one also needs to insist on a recent externalist explanation of
the rather superficial involvement of the middle class in the follow-up to
the revolts. The focus of many of the approaches taken in political science
and sociology on the subject tends to reinforce a bias toward methodological
nationalism—that is, the a priori selection of variables relating uniquely to
internal political or sociological processes. For example, if the bourgeoisie—
be it the “would be middle class” of Khosrokhavar (2012, pp. 60–91) or the
“middle class poor” of Asef Bayat (2013 p. 34)—is described as defective.
This is due to the nature of the political system (autocracy), or to internal
divisions created by political Islam. In other words, all these accounts privi-
lege internalist processes of political change. What these explanations fail to
recognize is that the process of class formation is connected as much to exter-
nal factors as to internal ones. Sandra Halperin (2005) noted long ago that
the systematic crushing of left-radical groups during the Cold War led to
massive outmigration of the middle class, skewing the balance between dif-
ferent classes and thwarting the emergence of vivid class consciousness (a key
ingredient to class participation in political processes).
It is here that an analysis of the middle class needs to engage with regional
and international influences. If rent is generally associated with oil, one needs
to look not only at the rent provided by international aid (Egypt, Palestine,
Jordan have received vast amounts, both from the United States and from
the EU), but also at the increasing flow of Gulf capital into countries such as
Egypt, Tunisia, and Palestine. Adam Hanieh has powerfully demonstrated that
the traditional divisions of state versus society—or a vision of class formation
limited to national borders—fails to capture the vivid and massive influence
that transnational nonstate actors (e.g., global capitalist classes) play in shaping
the future of Arab politics.14 We can see examples of this influence in Egypt
(with the plug being pulled on the Muslim Brotherhood this past summer by
some of that capitalist class fearing loss of control over their assets and joint
investments with the Egyptian military), but also the reconstruction of Libya,
and part of the fate of Tunisian and Palestinian politics.
Hanieh (2013, p. 139) uses a felicitous description for this intermingling
of class formation, in the high degree of Gulf capitalists’ investments in other
Arab countries as “the Gulf bourgeoisie” becoming “an internal bourgeoisie
in Egypt.” We have now a transnational bourgeoisie playing a political (con-
servative) role that is often unaccounted for. Be it in Palestine with President
Abbas and some of his network who made their fortune in the Gulf (Rabbani
2012; Hanieh 2013); be it in Libya with past interim Prime Minister Mah-
moud Jibril whose connections in Kuwait, Lebanon, and Qatar helped him
become a key figure of Libyan transition (Prashad 2012, pp. 138–40); or be
it anti-Brotherhood sentiments expressed by the checkbook diplomacy of the
Saudi family or from the United Arab Emirates, one can see that not only
state rents shape and undermine the prospect of more democratic change in
the region, but also a powerful capitalist class, international in its composition
and outlook, is failing the Arab uprisings’ genuinely popular aspiration for
political change and economic reform in order to preserve its own interests
and investments in other countries.
In that sense, questioning the role of an evanescent middle class is misleading.
What needs to be assessed is the flow of three different rents: oil rent in its dif-
ferent forms, nonoil rent that is transnational (and mostly intra-Arab) and that
has deep capitalist imbrications in the national economies of countries that are
part of the “Arab Spring,” and the bureaucratic degeneration linked to foreign
aid. This last aspect can be connected to a critique of institutionalized or NGO-
ized civil society, which might be seen as having a detrimental role in terms of
class formation. Indeed, NGOs all too often15 focus solely on their economic
and institutional survival, and reproduce a middle class disconnected, para-
doxically, from lower classes and popular aspirations they are supposed to help
and represent through social work (Challand 2013 pp. 185–88, 2011, p. 192).
In this book’s Introduction, Emel Akçalı notes a similar process favored by the
EU in the name of “civil society”: rather than favoring civil society indiscrimi-
nately, the EU has selected specific actors who already adhere to “liberal values”
or accept the premises of neoliberal market-friendly type of aid (Akçalı, this
book’s Introduction).
Instead, we should look for motors of the Arab uprisings in the less
institutionalized type of activism, and in the revolutionary capacity of
different groups and classes to come together. These processes have been
termed “de-sectorialization” (Bonnefoy and Poirier 2012), or intersection-
ality (Challand 2013). The latter term allows us to reflect on the relevance
of regional and external factors, such as rent and migration, and how
these intersect with internal factors to influence the dynamics of various
national uprisings. Finally, this term also reminds us that change will
only come from the combined efforts of both the lower and the middle
classes, separate from the state bourgeoisie and transnational capitalists’
interests in maintaining a truncated social contract. Such combined efforts
best culminate with new forms of representation that can only keep the
reclaimed legitimacy if they offer meaningful concrete actions that allow
for the expansion of citizenship rights16 and that give a sense of security
and participation to local people. Indeed, the ultimate test of citizenship
and political representation, as we will now see, lays in the question of
violence, its reappropriation, and its possibility to be projected onto the
public in a transparent manner.
Representation as the Reappropriation of Violence

Deep underneath the formal aspect of representation and the creation of
political institutions and coalitions lies an even more central question, an
issue that has always been at the heart of the modern form of politics, namely
the challenge to channel violence in a constructive and legitimate way (Elias
2000, pp. 187–94, 257ff; Poggi 1990). While the issue of violence has been
seen as a problem enshrined in Arab history—often in a false and essentialist
manner17—I would argue that in the various uprisings, Arab populations
have tried to question the political economy of violence. They offered inno-
vative ways in which the people have attempted to reassert full control of
the legitimate use of violence—generating a much deeper form of political
transition that is often overlooked. It is at this level that I would like to focus
our attention, and not dwell on the superficial manifestation of violence,
namely the downward spiral of violence the revolts have taken in the last year
or so. The revolutionary potential—or rather the truly democratic element
of transition (the demos taking power)—resides in the possibility of stripping
from the incumbent power the capacity to appear as the ultimate justification
for violence. This would be a return to the actual definition given by Max
Weber of the state, namely as the human community that holds the legitimate
means of violence.18 In countries where these equilibriums have been laid
bare by the immanent power of the people to resist as a whole, or through
the defection of certain armed groups (especially in Tunisia and Yemen), and
where representation was organized in a structured way, there has been the
possibility to renegotiate the source of legitimate violence and to give to the
human community the opportunity to become the actor in charge of vio-
lence. The symbolic foot of the people put in the door of the management
of violence, so to say, could not be enacted without the actual defection of
certain groups holding security prerogatives.
One can even sustain that a necessary condition for the revolutionary
transition in Arab countries characterized by a high degree of militarism
and militarization is a systemic defection from one armed or security group,
which, in turn, can be seen as a result of a process of questioning the legiti-
macy of their use of violence. Indeed, in Tunisia, the Army decided on
January 13, 2011, not to use violence against its people, leaving President
Ben Ali with a limited support of his political police, an effective tool to
repress on the long-term dissidence, but unable to quell mass protests as the
ones that erupted in mid-January 2011 (Jebnoun 2014). Similarly, in Yemen,
the defection of Ali Ahmar and its Presidential Units presented a thorn in the
side of President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s efforts to keep his power.19 In Libya, it
is doubtful that without NATO’s strikes, Gadhafi would have been toppled.
This analysis does not represent a justification for military intervention there
(or elsewhere), but observes that bombings happened and created new situ-
ations and dynamics on the ground. Libyan people used this opportunity to
reorganize power at a local level. It has become a much more daunting task
to do the same trick at the national level when regional struggles between
the three historic provinces of Libya fight one another over the allocation of
resource, such as the oil rent.
Does it mean that state-making is done through war-making as Charles
Tilly argued nearly forty years ago? And that war-making shapes the struc-
tures of state revenues?20 After all the underreported strikes in Libyan oil
fields and refineries, combined with the problem of turning previous militia
groups in the 2011 civil war into regular army or state officials is a classical
issue of historical sociology. For months, over the 2013 summer, oil refinery
workers went on strike to force a more equal redistribution of oil revenues in
the various parts of the countries. Similarly, former irregular armed men who
fought during the 2011 civil war asked to be included in the regular army.
If the Libyan elites and parliamentary groups manage to find a compromise
over the distribution of resources in spring 2015, they will pave the way
toward a more meaningful and participatory form of state throughout the
country. In other words, they have to enact a more just connection between
revenue-extraction and the exercise of violence.
There was another significant break during the first months of 2011.
People actively pursued a strategy of questioning, at times even visually,
how violence had been used against the people. In Egypt, people organized
a media campaign called al-kadhibun (“the liars” in Arabic) to confront the
lies of the regime (Salvatore 2011). One key example consisted in the pic-
tures of the death of Khaled Sa’id, a young Alexandrian who was beaten to
death by policemen in June 2010 for having posted on the Internet proofs
of the same policeman’s corruption. The shocking images of his disfigured
body were circulated widely on a Facebook page termed “We are all Khaled
Sa’id” and which received hundreds of thousands of “likes.” Khaled Sa’id later
turned into a symbol of youth taking revenge on Mubarak and his cronies:
For example, graffiti done in February 2011 depicted a frail and tiny Hosni
Mubarak held in the hands of a resurrected Khaled Sa’id who had return
amongst his co-citizens to restore justice for all the violence committed by
Mubarak’s regime on its own population.
This was a moment where the former guardians were again guarded by
the Egyptian people. Thus, rather than the aporia of quis custodes ispos custo-
diet? (who will guard the guardians?), the demos (here made explicit by the
image of Khaled Sa’id taken as a symbol of the ills and humiliations that
Egyptians experienced for years) expressed a clear and potentially revolution-
ary message: custodes ipsi custodiantur a populo, the guardians themselves are
now being guarded by the people. The reason this reversal, albeit short, was
possible, was not simply because of the sheer number of people flocking to
central places. It was also engendered by the convergence of different groups,
social backgrounds, sexes, and age groups, what I have termed above “inter-
sectionality.” It was precisely this degree of convergence and impossibility to
distinguish which groups were marching that was unsettling for the regime.
For there existed no ways to drive a wedge between different groups.
Conclusion
In a nutshell and looking back at the various trajectories, from Bahrain to
Egypt, the fate of the Arab revolts has resided in this possibility by the people
to question the ossified political economy of violence. Rather than accepting
the authoritarian practices of their regimes, large segments of the populations
have stood up and expressed a new sense of solidarity that cut across different
social groups, geographic origins, and traditionally diverging class interests.
In this revolutionary moment, they refused to see the demos’ sovereign power
confiscated by illegitimate rulers and tried reclaiming the power of represent-
ing themselves as the ultimate holders of the means of violence, like in the
example described above with the image of Khaled Sa’id returning to crush
a frail and guilty Mubarak. This was done because the “people” appeared
momentarily united, homogenous, and determined to reclaim the legitimate
use of coercion.
The task of maintaining this exceptional unity was made difficult by a
series of complex factors, some of which can be traced to neoliberalism. At
least two decades of neoliberal policies have exacerbated subclass divisions,
generating groups of “happy few” who greatly benefited from such poli-
cies, isolated from the middle class struggling to makes end meet (typically
civil servants) (Soliman 2011). A regional economy, with intense capitalist

exchanges around circuits of capital accumulation, not only in the field of
productions (industry, agriculture), but also on financial circuits (Hanieh
2013, ch. 6), has also eroded the states’ capacities to enact measures of social
protections. As a result, expectations of a leading role by the middle classes,
like some strands of literature nested in the field of transitology tend to do,
have become highly unrealistic.
Last, this chapter has tried to show an often overlooked ingredient of these
revolts against neoliberal governmentality: The people in revolt have tried to
regain the means of legitimate violence. This can be interpreted as a reaction
to a situation in which Arab states, be it in Egypt, Jordan, or Yemen, have lost
any form of sovereignty to respond to neoliberal downsizing and the request
for more spaces for privatized security actors (Khalili and Schwedler 2010,
p. 24). For this reason, the protests demanding a renewed control over the
ways in which violence should be used (in the service of the people, rather
than state or regime violence turned against its own population) were even
more remarkable. In a region highly exposed to capitalist developments, con-
stant exposures to episodes of violence and wars (in Palestine, Gaza, Sinai,
Yemen, etc.), and flows of migrants desperate to reach European shores, it
was even more remarkable for scholars of “transition” to see new ingredients
and factors that have to be taken into account in our study of pressure for
democratic change from below.
The counterrevolution took place by preventing the unity of a recon-
figured social body. This was done by techniques seen in similar forms
in Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain: By limiting the use of physical spaces,
the counterrevolutionary forces prevented the convergence of people on
symbolic spaces. For example, in Egypt, large concrete slabs and con-
crete walls were erected to prevent people from reaching Tahrir Square
and the neighboring Ministry of Interior in Mohammed Mahmoud Street
(scene of violent clashes from November 2011 onward) (Abaza 2013).
In Manama, the Bahraini capital, the Pearl Roundabout was taken down
by Caterpillars sent by the monarch to erase the memories of the reform
efforts (Challand 2011, p. 280). Not only did counterrevolutionary forces
attempt to break the unity of the reconfigured social body (a social body
that had been atomized by decades of neoliberal policies), but they also
attempted to deny the capacity to criticize the use of violence and regain
the sovereign power of the demos. Thus, the expression “the politics of
violence” should not only be understood in terms of political economy
(namely who owns the means of production, how the army controls eco-
nomic resources, or how violence is used to protect political power), but
should also serve as a reminder that violence is an inherently constitutive
part (once domesticated and used in a restrained manner) of any social

contract underpinning the working of polity.
I have argued that the Arab uprisings have met global success because they
posited a central link between the failure of formal representation and the
ongoing economic and social degradation. Formal political representation
remains important, especially in the Arab region characterized by a culture
of fear, a lack of pluralism, and the absence of a political party system. Yet,
the overinvestment or the overfocus of much of the transitology literature on
procedural solutions has proved to be not sufficient for a renewal of social
theory informed by Arab events. Representation has been rethought as a
more qualitative process in which the people tried to take control and shape
a different course for the use of violence and generate a deeper form of politi-
cal transition. Two ways to make an intelligent use of the revolts as a source
for theory-making is to assess the qualitative shift of political representation
since 2011 and its interlocking with violence. In the name of the revolution,
the citizens expressed the modern form of reflexive power of the people and
of its sovereign power. This was too threatening for the regimes. One can
argue that this attempt of reconnecting violence and representation is, at its
nucleus, a fundamental criticism of the dominant neoliberal governmentality
that has so profoundly affected the horizon of Arab politics in the past three
decades.
Notes
1. I prefer the phrase Arab uprisings to speak of the events of 2011 onward. Arab
Spring is problematic in many respects: The singular form erases significant
differences among the cases and the term “Spring” seems to refer for many to
European precedents.
2. Democracy understood in the simplest etymological sense, namely, the power to
the demos, the people.
3. On these impacts, see, among others, Mitchell (1999) and Hanieh (2013).
4. See Ould Mohamedou and Sisk (2013).
5. See Ould Mohamedou and Sisk (2013).
6. This was published early in Challand (2011).
7. To take the expression of Ould Mohamedou and Sisk (2013, p. 18): “The advent
of the middle class in developing countries has also arguably been an underlying
driver of many transitions in the contemporary period.”
8. I described this attitude as “presentism,” that is, the capacity of combining
physical presence with the urge to reappropriate the present time to act as new
political actors (Challand 2013).
9. This is close to the formulation of Negri and Hardt (2013, p. 28).
10. See Achar (2013, p. 162) or Lynch (2012, pp. 136–37).
11. For a general discussion on the role of lower classes in keeping revolutions alive,
see Chibber (2013, esp. chs. 3–4).
12. Rabia al-Adawiyya is the name of the square in Cairo where pro-Morsi supporters
built an encampment after the massive June 2013 protests organized, among
others, by the Tamarod (“rebel”) movement. The military violently overtook the
square mid-August 2013. A very polarized debate emerged in Egyptian society
as to whether the use of extreme violence (victims were in the hundreds) was
justified or not.
13. In large parts, I follow the argument of Ouaissa (2013).
14. I prefer using the plural of “global classes” to show the variety within. Hanieh
speaks of them in the singular form. See Hanieh (2013).
15. Yet, it does not mean that organized strands of civil society can represent more
lower and disenfranchised classes or groups, or carve out space of participation
in authoritarian settings. See Chomiak and Entelis (2013).
16. On citizenship as more than formal rights, see Jean Leca (1992).
17. For a famous Orientalist account imputing the high level of violence to a specific
“Arab mind,” see Rafael Patai, The Arab Mind, New York: Scribner, 1973.
18. My emphasis. This definition is usually truncated of “the human community”
and turned into a “structure” or an “organization” that holds the legitimate
means of violence.
19. See International Crises Group Yemen’s Military-Security Reform: Seeds of New
Conflict? International Crisis Group, Middle East Report N°139, April (2013,
pp. 1–25).
20. Tilly (1975), in particular his introduction.
CHAPTER 3
The Failure of the State

(Re)Building Process in Iraq
Rahman Dağ
Introduction
The academic debate on the state and administrative structures in the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA) has been reinitiated after a long silence on
authoritarianism. The Arab revolts of 2011 stimulated alternative thoughts
for the state and societal structure in this region, immediately after the
overthrow of the authoritarian dictators. Yet, many have realized that the
bottom-up revolutions have encountered much more challenging issues,
especially during the formation of new governments superseding previous
autocracies and while determining the values upon which the new social, eco-
nomic, and political structures will be based. Consequently, the Arab revolts,
and especially the reasons for their occurrence, have become the main sub-
jects of much of the current studies on the MENA states and societies.
In terms of ideas replacing the previous regimes and the political economic
systems of MENA countries, democracy and human rights have obtained the
largest support among the societies in the region including the Islamist seg-
ments that were once considered as the biggest obstacles to democratization.
Thus, the actors involved in the state rebuilding process in the aftermath of
the Arab revolutions have generally emphasized and promoted democratic val-
ues and norms. However, ideological inflexibility has created obstacles to the
democratization process willingly undertaken by the people. In other words, a
high level of clan affiliation, sentimental belonging to a sectarian identity, and a
firm belief in communitarian values are often in direct contrast with neoliberal
governmentality that places individuals at the center, and which is currently
being imported to or imposed on the MENA societies (Tağma, Kalaycıoğlu,
32 ● Rahman Dağ
and Akçalı 2013; Hanieh 2008; Bayat 2013; Mitchell 1999). Under these con-
ditions, the state rebuilding process based upon democratic values and liberal
individual human rights has naturally faced extreme challenges.
When compared to the postrevolutionary Arab states, the case of Iraq
where the sectarian identifications are very strong is an exception since its
state rebuilding process began after the US invasion in 2003 and it is widely
accepted by now that the idea of delivering or imposing democracy in Iraq
has mostly failed. There is still no effective and sustainable state structure
in the eyes of the Iraqi people and the Sunni protests against the central
government, the consistent violence, the Kurdish efforts for independence,
and finally the invasion of Mosul by ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham,
currently declared itself an Islamic State) indicate the level of such challenge.
The post-Saddam Iraq does not seem likely to free itself from the dominance
of distinctive and competing collective identities at the social, economic, and
governmental level. This leads us to the necessity of a discussion over the
contradictions between the principles of neoliberal governmentality and two
basic features of the current Iraqi society: ethnonationalism and sectarianism.
The main question regarding the future of the Iraqi state that should be asked
therefore is whether the neoliberal governmentality that is being imposed
or the indigenous features of Iraq, or both, lead to the failure of a decade-long
state-(re)building process. This chapter aims to tackle this puzzle.
To frame this paper, first the concept of “neoliberal governmentality” in
the context of political, economic, and sociocultural structures of a state
will be discussed. This discussion aims to make clear that any practice of
neoliberal governmentality requires certain essentials on which it can be
built and operate smoothly. As Akçalı summarizes in the Introduction of
this edited volume, at times, local and national features resist global neo-
liberal governmentalities. In the following section, the incongruity between
the intended ideas that were to be imposed upon Iraq and the reality of the
population (also of individuals) will hence be discussed in the light of the
aforementioned argument. It will be concluded that neither the neoliberal
governmentality model imposed by the United States in the post-2003 period
nor the local dynamics allegedly freed from Saddam’s dictatorship were able
to complete the process of state rebuilding in Iraq.
Conceptual Framework
The twentieth century has experienced the emergence of a considerable number
of ideologies, introduced to shape people’s preferences as well as countries’
internal and external policies. During the Cold War, the world was generally
divided into two ideological camps, and countries were affiliated either with
The Failure of the State (Re)Building Process in Iraq ● 33
capitalism or socialism/communism. The MENA states were no exceptions.

In the post–Cold War period, it was generally the Western states’ (the United
States and Western Europe) political and economic systems that were taken as
models by the MENA states or were imposed on them by the Western states
and international organizations, just like it happened in the past with modern
nationalism and the nation-state model. Liberal and neoliberal policies in poli-
tics, economics, and culture have hence overtly made their presence felt in the
past three or four decades (Campbell and Pedersen 2001; Gill 1998; Dean
2002) in most parts of the globe including the MENA region.
As a counterargument to realism that considers the state as the major and
singular actor in international politics, liberalism interprets the state as a flexible
actor and allows free space for the economy since corporations and economic
conditions are actually influential in determining national and international
policies of a given state (Mastanduno 1999). Neoliberalism transcends this
essential distinction by suggesting that not only state and economic actors but
also other crucial actors such as individuals and national and international civil
societies have an impact on every aspect of the international system. The essence
of neoliberalism can indeed be summarized employing Larner: “whereas under
Keynesian welfarism, the state provision of goods and services to a national
population was understood as a means of ensuring social well-being, neoliberal-
ism is associated with the preference for a minimalist state” (2000, p. 5). While
neoliberalism is primarily a political ideology (Harvey 2005), on the other
hand, neoliberal governmentality is concerned with how to best govern (Rose
1996). According to neoliberal governmentality, individuals are considered as
homo economicus, which emphasizes individual entrepreneurship and the core
requirement of this understanding is the “self ” (individual) economic interest
through which people are driven. It also suggests that an individual identity
is shaped by the exclusive power of an atomized self, acting by itself within
the economy, the political system, and society. Yet, the Foucauldian neoliberal
governmentality is not a concept that can be narrowed down to being a mere
political ideology. It is a framework within which individuals are self-regulated
and invested (Ferguson and Gupta 2002, p. 989) so that the political economy
is atomized into individuals. It is for this reason that governmentality starts
with the self and then extends to the state and even to global levels.
Within a neoliberal governmentality framework, individuals invest in them-
selves by raising their qualifications to catch up or at least to meet naturally
regulated political-economic conditions. Individuals’ capacity or visions (based
on social, cultural, and economic development) are of vital importance for
the implementation of neoliberal governmentality. This was prescribed as the
“conduct of conduct” by Foucault (2008a) which signals forms of governance
that encourage both institutions and individuals to conform to the norms of
34 ● Rahman Dağ
the market (Larner 2000, p. 12). The scope of government also ranges from
governing the self to governing the others via, for example, social policies and
“re-definition of form of law” (Lemke 2010, p. 191). While the state con-
ducts its responsibilities, various other factors (the market, the society, and
individuals) determine the state’s policies and also play a key role in the power
relationships that are not anymore exclusively within the realm of the state.
Such conduct may not always be feasible, however, when the market is under
total state control. In such cases, individuals’ or civil societies’ efficiency or the
amount of autonomy they have vis-à-vis the state may be limited. Addition-
ally, while a governmentalized individual pursues his/her ultimate target and
invests in him/herself, s/he rationally usually acts via calculating cost-benefits
regardless of ethical values and social interests (Hamann 2009, p. 37). Such
individualist understanding may not always seem fit to the traditional societies
when ethnic (e.g., Kurdish nationalism) and religious (e.g., both Sunni and
Shiite denominations) identities still have a determinative role in politics, eco-
nomics, and individual beliefs.
The civil society is another key factor for the successful implementation
of neoliberal governmentality as it acts as an efficient mediator among indi-
viduals and the state institutions (Rose 1996, p. 56). This structure can be
governmental or nongovernmental, national as well as international. Tağma,
Kalaycıoğlu and Akçalı (2013) suggest, for example, that the civil society
operating in the Middle East and North Africa today has served the European
Union (EU) as a successful instrument in exporting neoliberal governmen-
tality from the North to the South. In the post–Arab revolts period, during
the process of rebuilding the state and its apparatus furthermore, the EU’s
initiative to promote civil society activities were often backed by an individu-
ally self-centered and freedom-based political-economic structure. However,
since the MENA states and societies, as mentioned above, have maintained
comparatively collective-centered societies and firm ideologies, it is possible
to argue that various depictions of neoliberalism, including the Foucauldian
neoliberal governmentality, have remained too Eurocentric when applied to
the MENA region.
“There is . . . inside this ‘analytics governmentality’ approach, a rather
uncritical Eurocentric approach” as most of its theoretical and empirical
studies are based on the “development of political rationalities in Europe
and North America” (Cotoi 2011, p. 118). Also, although it has often been
suggested that “domination is rooted in state power, [hence] rolling back
the power of the state naturally leads to greater freedom, and ultimately to
‘democratization’” (Ferguson and Gupta 2002, p. 992), such theorization
seems philosophically inconclusive. This is because the imposition of
Western-centered neoliberal governmentality upon any country outside of
the Western liberal realm in the name of bringing democracy would in some
way or the other conflict with the local (national) dynamics, which have a sig-
nificant impact on regulating the state structure, ideas, and norms (especially
the publicly approvable ones).
The Iraqi case, for instance, fits perfectly within such contradiction ever
since the United States tried to justify its invasion through the beliefs that
Saddam Hussein possessed WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and the
Western powers should restore democracy in Iraq. During this process, only a
few questioned the possibility that the US political elite and the Iraqis might
have a different understanding of democracy. In the aftermath of the invasion,
the United States imposed a liberal understanding of democracy based on a
free market economy as the only known model as experienced and under-
stood in the homeland. What mattered the most for the Iraqis at the time,
however, was the devolution of the state power between ethnic and sectarian
communities. The new Iraqi government led by Shiite Haider Al-Abadi, for
example, has given the Shiites the prime ministry together with the foreign
and interior ministries while the presidency has been reserved for the Kurds
and the secondary ministries have been considered for the Sunnis and others.
The first president of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), L. Paul
Bremer’s statement in his memoirs while depicting Iraq’s circumstances at the
time is quite revealing. He stated that
before session ended, I told the group that I was going to issue an order on de-
Baathification soon. And I hope to set up an Interim Iraqi administration by
mid-June. But we’re not going to rush into elections because Iraq simply has
none of the mechanisms needed for elections—no census, no electoral laws,
no political parties, and all the related structure we take for granted. We’ve
also got to get this economy moving and that’s going to be a helluva challenge.
A stable Iraq will need a vigorous private sector . . . Let’s keep in mind the
relevant lessons of Germany and Japan. Democracies don’t work unless the
political structure rests on a solid civil society . . . political parties, a free press,
an independent judiciary, open accountability for public funds. These are soci-
ety’s shock absorbers. They protect the individual from the state’s raw power.
(Bremer 2006, p. 19)
The concepts used in Bremer’s statement such as “all the related structure
we take for granted,” “vigorous private sector,” “civil society,” and “protecting
individuals from the state’s raw power” indicate that, as a senior diplomat, his
personal perception of the best state administration and institutions should
be the same as those in the United States and thus should also be applicable in
Iraq. His perception is surprisingly similar to the concept of importing neo-
liberal governmentality (Tağma, Kalaycıoğlu, and Akçalı 2013). Neoliberal
36 ● Rahman Dağ
governmentality has organic connections with the idea of “changing historical

rationalities of power, rather than a rigid descriptive mechanism that estab-
lishes one rationality [either nationalist or sectarian] of governing once and
for all . . . that infuses political orders in predictable, regular and uniform
ways” (Hofmeyr 2011, p. 19). In other words, “the particular form of govern-
mentality we are interested in here is linked to the development of advanced
liberal (or late-modern) societies. In these societies, population is the main
object of government and governing takes place through the development of
liberal norms” (Joseph 2010a, p. 223). These remarkable quotations clearly
indicate the inconsistences within the applicability of neoliberal govern-
mentality and unpreparedness of the local conditions due to a lack of liberal
norms such as the case in Iraq. Before moving onto an analysis of the conflict
between externally imposed or modeled systems and local dynamics, we will
hence examine Iraq’s pre-2003 political, social, and economic structure in the
next section, in order to better analyze the failure of the US-imposed state-
rebuilding project in Iraq following the 2003 US invasion.
Nationalism and Sectarianism

Although modern Iraq modelled the European state institutions by the end
of World War I (Cleveland 2004, p. 208), a variety of ideologies have played
significant roles in the Iraqi nation-building process. At first glance, it was
nationalism that constructed the initial political, social, and economic realms
(Dawisha 2009, pp. 40–92). Nationalism, however, was superseded by social-
ism (Baathism) in the decolonization period and with a relatively Islamist dis-
course and liberal democracy after the 2003 US invasion. Due to the fact that
Iraq was multiethnic (Arabs and Kurds) and multireligious (Muslims, Chris-
tians, and small number of Jews), including different Islamic denominations
(Shiite and Sunni), the artificiality of Iraqi nationalism has been, however, the
subject of many academic discussions (Stansfield 2007, pp. 3–5). Through-
out the mandate period, nationalism was a major driving force against British
imperialism. This was a period in the Iraqi history in which the nationalist
sentiments reached a peak, and whose impact could be felt in both official
and unofficial spheres. King Faisal’s governmental policies and rhetoric at the
time were destined to create a national unity among the distinctive elements
of the Iraqi society by melting them into an Iraqi national character. Such
policies were followed by the authoritarian Iraqi regimes as well (Dawisha
2008, p. 220). Yet, this objective for Iraqi nationalism has never entirely been
achieved, as almost century-long Kurdish insurgencies indicate.
The monarchical regime was replaced by the socialist and nationalist
Baath ideology via a coup d’état led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim in
1958, and the new regime nationalized the British-owned Iraqi Petroleum
Company (IPC) in 1972 as a basic indication of the new nationalist proj-
ect of the Iraqi state. In addition to the nationalization of the economic
realm, the Baath party sought to take control of religious institutions, espe-
cially the Shiite ones, as well as to silence the Kurdish identity claims with
the hope of eliminating the tribal structure, since this was considered an
obstacle to the socialist nationalist transformation. In early years of its era,
the Baath party declared Communique No. 1 stating that “we are against
religious sectarianism (al-taifiyya), racism, and tribalism (al-qabaliyya)”
(Baram 1997, pp. 1–2). By considering tribalism and sectarianism as “the
remnants of colonialism,” the party aimed to consolidate the Iraqi nation
through a socialist transformation. Hence, in 1969, the regime banned reli-
gious institutions and imprisoned or deported many of their disciples. In
1977, widespread Shia demonstrations took place in Iraq when the Saddam
regime, suspecting a bomb, closed Karbala to pilgrimage at the height of a
religious ceremony. Violent clashes between the Iraqi police and the Shia
pilgrims spread from Karbala to the city of Najaf and lasted for several days
before army troops were called in to suppress the unrest. The Shiites in Iraq
continuously protested against the Iraqi state’s Shiite policy and as a result
of their insurgency, in the mid-1980s, the Iraqi regime arrested 10,000 and
deported 40,000 people from Iraq, accusing them of being Iranian, based
on their sectarian identity. All these cruelties resulted in a declining repre-
sentation of Shiites in the Iraqi state administration and so constituted a
hegemonic Sunni identity over state affairs.
Despite the dominant Sunni identity in the government, the basic aim of
the Baath regime was also to create a primarily secular Iraqi national identity1
to eliminate the sectarian differences. For the sake of that, the regime focused
on being an Iraqi citizen and the nationalization process. However, even
the Baath party itself later admitted that the tribal and sectarian structure
remained alive and active in people’s preferences for a very long time still.
In reaction to the secularist stance and also to the Sunni dominance among
the administrative sections in the Baath regime, a secret Shiite organization
(officially established and operating as a political party in the post-2003
period), al-Da’wa, consisting of religious leaders from the Shiite community
was formed in 1970 (Noorbaksh 2008, pp. 56–57). This party has been quite
effective in politicizing the Shiite identity against the Sunni-dominated Sad-
dam regime through religious identification and specific activities ranging
from secret assassination attempts to strikes in major industries.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish question erupted when a secular pan-Arab
policy was implemented. A dense conflict, lasted for eighteen months in
1969 between the Kurds and the Saddam regime, resulted in the victory
38 ● Rahman Dağ
of the regime. Following this victory, it was understood by the regime,

however, that military power was not an absolute victory so that some differ-
ent strategies needed to be used such as cultural, ideological, and administra-
tive concessions. In this regard, the Kurdish department at the University of
Sulaimani proclaimed the day of Newroz a national holiday, hence organiz-
ing several cultural festivals in Mosul; and several autonomous rights were
also given as indications of the regime’s new policy. These seemly peaceful
agreements did not endure for a long time, however, due to the war with
Iran over the Shatt al-Arab waterway in 1980–88. Immediately after the
peace agreement was reached with Iran, because of the perceived Kurdish
assistance to Iran during the war years, the Saddam regime launched a mas-
sive attack on the Kurds in 1988 (McNaugher 1990). Kurds’ claims for more
autonomy from Baghdad regarding national rights have hence led into a
protracted conflict between the Kurdish groups and the regime (Cleveland
2004, pp. 410–11). Although since the first Gulf War in 1991, Kurds have
partly enjoyed a de facto autonomy; thanks to the US invasion of Iraq in
2003, they obtained an official autonomy status in Iraq initially stemming
from the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) in March 8, 2004, and
then permanently ratified by the constitution of Iraq, which was put into
operation following a national referendum on October 15, 2005. Since then,
Kurds have enjoyed a federal administrative status as the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG), led by Barzani’s Kurdistan Democracy Party (KDP)
(Katzman 2010, p. 3).
These examples given above help to reinforce the argument that over the
century-long Iraqi history, ideological (nationalist), religious, and sectarian
identities have been conflicting with each other in Iraq. Alicia M. Micozzi
asserts that in Iraq “people often conceive of their own tribal, ethnic, sectar-
ian or national identities as something akin to heredity, as almost a biological.
This primordial understanding of collective identity has serious ramifications
for ethnic or minority group rights [also for sectarian] within nation-states,
as well as for the resolution of ethnic-based conflicts” (Micozzi and Bangura
2012, p. 155). Dawisha’s (2008) description of Iraqi politics from the begin-
ning until 2003 as ethnosectarian seems an accurate summary of what has
happened and why sectarian and nationalist sentiments still operate in the
Iraqi territory as well.
State-Rebuilding Process in Iraq since 2003

We have stated above that the Eurocentric concept of neoliberal governmen-
tality has been used as a governmental technique in Iraq since 2003, as an
ongoing process in which state, societal, and individual relations have been
regulated with the hope of creating an active civil society, and prioritizing
individual entrepreneurship. Through such governmentality framework, it
has been believed that individuals who constitute the Iraqi society would
become “immanently governable” (Weidner 2009, p. 402). It is now,
however, necessary to be skeptical of this argument in relation to states and
societies outside of the Western realm such as Iraq. At a theoretical level,
neoliberal governmentality can be considered as an inevitable result of a
certain historical development that has taken place in the West. Importing
neoliberal governmentality to the non-Western realm and to its particular
social, political, and economic settings may not always yield the same results.
This is because people’s reactions to such penetration depend on the specific
internal dynamics and/or the level of socioeconomic and liberal develop-
ment. In other words, “governmentality techniques may fail when there is no
liberal capitalist social base on which policy makers might draw in order to
encourage the self-regulation of populations” (Joseph 2010a).
In the Iraqi case, collective identities such as the Kurdish, Turkmen,
Arab, Sunni, Shiite, Christian, and Yezidis have been significant factors in
determining Iraq’s sociopolitical and economic structure. Relying on prevail-
ing conflicting communitarian identities for the administration of the new
Iraqi state caused social and political incohesion.2 In such a local setting,
which has a completely distinctive historical experience, transforming human
beings into “homo economicus” does not seem so plausible, due to politically
polarized identities and the continuing armed struggle among different com-
munities. The concept of “homo identicus/politicus” seems to have a more
solid ground in today’s Iraq, however. The discrepancy between the “homo
economicus” and the “homo identicus/politicus” may have hence constituted
the key reason why the state rebuilding process in Iraq has failed thus far and
that the current situation causes more confusion than solutions.
The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) in July 2003 based on proportional
representation was formed with 25 members: 13 Shiites, 5 Sunnis, 5 Kurds,
and one each from Turkmen and Christian minorities.3 As the identities of
these members indicate, ethnic and sectarian representation has prevailed
in the ever first indigenous decision-making institution of post-2003 Iraq.
This could be viewed as a progressive and democratic process to determine
Iraq’s future. However, the historical intra-identity struggles among differ-
ent communities of the Iraqi society and the domination of one over the
other (Arab nationalism over Kurdish nationalism and Sunni domination
over Shiites) were eliminated only via an administrative proportional-
ity, but not through a societal reconciliation. Furthermore, the inherited
sociopolitical structure that shapes the current market sphere lacked the
individualistic socioeconomic understanding and the potential for the
40 ● Rahman Dağ
development of civil society. Individuals still felt hence that they first and
foremost belong to a collective identity rather than an individualistic realm.
The civil society organizations have still been driven by this sense of com-
munitarian belonging as well. This phenomenon is another indication that
the Iraqi nationalism enforced for decades since the inception of the mod-
ern Iraq state until post-2003 era, when the Kurdish regional government
was formed, has not eliminated the sectarian understandings in the minds
of the Iraqis. Moreover, the Sunnis’ privileged position has not been dimin-
ished from the historical conscience (collective memory) of Sunni Arabs
in Iraq. For this reason the proportional representation has not provided
a sufficient egalitarian democratic structure in which individualistic and
liberal subjectivity could be enforced following the redistribution of the
state power between the civil society, economic entrepreneurships (market
design), and finally individuals.4
On May 16, 2003, when a de-Baathification order was announced by the
CPA, Saddam’s authoritarian regime was officially abandoned and the Iraqi
people were promised a new Iraq. On the same evening, a meeting of the
Iraqi Leadership Council (ILC) was held in the palace conference room, con-
sisting of representatives of different groups within the Iraqi society: Ahmad
Chalabi (head of the Iraqi National Congress, a Shiite), Ayad Allawi (leader
of the Iraqi National Accord, a secular Shiite), Massoud Barzani (head of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party), Jalal Talabani (head of the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan), Naseer Chaderchi (head of the secular National Democratic
Party), Ibrahim al-Jaafari (the principle representative of the Shiite Islamic
Dawa Party), and Dr. Adel Mahdi (representative of the Shiite Islamist party,
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI) (Bremer
2006, p. 46). The attendees’ description indicates that the new Iraq would
be formed over local identities and dynamics combined with a Western-style
democratic system constituting mostly liberal and neoliberal norms. Further-
more, just after the abandonment of the Baath party and its Sunni-dominated
official affiliations, the absence of a Sunni representative in the ILC has
become a notable reality, which later acted as a trigger for political and armed
intercommunal conflicts. This is because when certain communities are dis-
satisfied with the role and power they are provided with during the state
rebuilding process, it is strongly probable that one of them would certainly
resist the new formation. This is the situation in which the Sunni groups have
found themselves since 2003.
The founding institutions5 of the so-called new Iraq have consistently
experienced the problem of power sharing among the constitutive fragmen-
tations and the identities. The Iraqi Interim Government6 (IIG), which
replaced the CPA, can be taken as an example that reveals the reality of
Iraq’s sociopolitical fragmentation, ever since proportional representation

was introduced. The elements that came to make up the IIG were mem-
bers of the Iraqi civil society, ranging from the secular ones to revolution-
ary Islamists, all of whom claim to be democratic. However, each group
has been pursuing particular goals in order to compensate for the things
they had essentially been deprived of in the pre-2003 period. To enhance
this point, the profiles of the attendant political parties to the January
2005 general elections can be further analyzed. These were the United
Iraqi Alliance, the Kurdish Alliance, the Iraqi (national) List, the Iraqis,
the Turkmen Front, the National Independent Cadres and Elites, the
People’s Union, the Islamic Action Organization, the National Demo-
cratic Alliance, the National Rafidain List (Assyrian), and the Reconcili-
ation, Liberation Bloc, and others. The primary aim of each group was
to enhance the communitarian interests rather than forming a solid-state
administrative structure in which the best interests of each citizen could
be guaranteed, regardless of ethnic and religious identities. Nevertheless,
these groups primarily adopted positions consistent with their own com-
munitarian agendas and according to their rivals’ maneuvers. In addi-
tion, all ministries of both the interim and elected governments have been
distributed among the different segments of the Iraqi society, increasing
social fragmentation.7 Correspondingly, the new Iraqi state was based on
a sectarian and ethnic division of governmental institutions and this has
complicated further the imposition of neoliberal governmentality. Hav-
ing a fragmented central state structure has therefore contradicted the
regulation of neoliberal governmentality that can function better via an
administrative structure that shares its power with the civil society and
individual entrepreneurs.
During the first and second terms of the Maliki government, “the Sunni
Arabs were condemned to four years of marginalization . . . with their politi-
cal elite targeted for harresment and arrest” (Stansfield 2014, p. 23). As Stans-
field implies, the core reason for the marginalization of Sunni identity was to
bolster a sense of Shiite identity (ibid.). It is believed, however, that the recent
emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham8 (ISIS—currently known
as Islamic State) is largely due to the political and economic deprivation and
resentment of the Sunni community. The Sunni tribes and ex-Baathists’ feel-
ing of desperation in the face of Shiite dominance over the key levers of power
in post-2003 Baghdad led the Sunnis to cooperate with radical formations
such as ISIS. The Western military intervention, therefore, has sharpened the
collective sectarian and ethnic identities, and this ironically goes against the
principles and the techniques of a successful neoliberal governmentality very
much desired by the West.
42 ● Rahman Dağ
Conclusion
The people of the Middle East and North African countries have been able
to topple their authoritarian regimes through public protests and individual
initiatives that acted as a triggering point of subjectivity in political, economic,
and social spheres. However, a well-functioning neoliberal governmentality is
still not being observed in a majority of the postrevolutionary Middle Eastern
countries. Iraq is no exception although its state rebuilding adventure has
followed a much different path than the ones that occurred as a result of pop-
ular uprisings. In Iraq, the ideological collective identities severely outweigh
those individualistic ones who discursively argue for adherence to democracy,
human rights, individual independence, free will, and subjectivity in political
and economic matters. Due to this contradiction, it seems more plausible
to support a social state formation in Iraq, which would first provide Iraqis’
basic requirements and welfare. Promoting economic and social well-being
on the basis of citizenship, once internalized by the Iraqi people may indeed
enable them to demolish the dominance of strict sectarian, tribal, and ethnic
collective identities. In this way, it may also be much easier later to foster an
individual subjectivity and liberal mind-set.
Neoliberalism theoretically anticipates fortifying individual entrepreneur-
ship and skills with certain rights protected by the state. This framework of
rights focuses on private property rights, free market, and free trade within
an internally and externally secured environment that is the primary duty of
operating governments rather than having absolute control over the economy
(Harvey 2005, p. 2). Nonetheless, the mentality of neoliberal governance
by any government (neoliberal governmentality) relies on the devolvement
of state responsibilities to civil society and individuals. By doing so, the
civil society and individuals are able to take part in the process of shaping
the political-economic structure. In Iraq, the sociopolitical concerns still
remain, however, under the shadow of tribal, sectarian, and ethnonationalist
identities.
To conclude, Akçalı’s statement that “the top-down way in which neolib-
eral policies are implemented by authoritarian practices does not therefore
always result in the decentralization of state power to [civil society and]
individuals” in the Introduction of the book is also valid in the case of Iraq.
Whether implemented by the IGC or by the successive Iraqi governments the
imposed transplantation of neoliberal practices will hence be continuously
resisted by other constitutive group identities. This process might create a
vicious circle unless people of Iraq are left free to adapt to their own local and
national dynamics and come up with their own version of governmentality
respecting the current socioeconomical and political conditions.
Notes
1. The pan-Arab identity, created by Nasser’s Egypt and the Baath party
government in Syria was also promoted by the Iraqi Baath party. Yet, when the
Syrian–Egyptian initiative to form a unified Arab country failed, the pan-Arab
identity and promotion in Iraq declined as well.
2. Well-respected Shiite clerics such as Ayatollah Sistani and Muqtada al-Sadr, the
son of another respected Shiite religious figure, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, assas-
sinated by the Saddam regime in 1998, were already in the political and social
opposition in the last decade of the twentieth century. As still being the Shiite
community’s most influential religious figure in Iraq, Sistani’s stance on the new
Iraqi state is outlined by Noorbaksh as “he favors direct influence of the clergy
over the state, with the intention that this institution of power and enforcement
could protect religion and the Islamic identity of the community of the faithful”
(Noorbaksh 2008, p. 61).
3. The report, prepared by Mokhtar Lamani, former special representative of
the Arab League, on minorities in Iraq is enlightening on the sociopolitical
conditions of small minorities in the country (Lamani 2009).
4. The division of power among the constitutive identities in today’s Iraq,
although it might seem much more democratic compared to Saddam’s era,
means implementation of a sort of consocialization that is not the general gov-
ernmental practice in the Western states and societies, either.
5. For example, the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), the Iraqi Leadership Council
(ILC), and the Transitional National Assembly (TNA).
6. The prime minister of this interim government was Iyad Allawi and the vice
president was Ibrahim al-Jafari. This distribution of power and positions was
resented by the Kurds, since at least one position was expected to be given to
the Kurdish political figures, either to Barzani or to Talabani. Such resentment
reinforced the historical tensions between Baghdad and the Kurds.
7. When a Shiite, lining up in front of the Ministry of Interior to join the police
force, was asked why he was not applying to the Ministry of Defense, his
immediate answer was “it does not belong to us” (Al-Arabiya Satellite Television,
March 19, 2006, cited in Dawisha 2008, p. 222).
8. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24179084.
CHAPTER 4
Welfare Genocide: Rentierism,

Neoliberalism, and the
Corporatization of the Public Sector
in Jordan
Rami Farouk Daher
Introduction
Brenner et al. (2010, pp. 329–30) conceptualize neoliberalism “as one among
several tendencies of regulatory change that have been unleashed across the
global capitalist system since the 1970s: it prioritizes market-based, market-
oriented, or market-disciplinary responses to regulatory problems; it strives
to intensify commodification in all realms of social life; and it often mobilizes
speculative financial instruments to open up new arenas for capitalist profit
making.” I find this conceptualization very relevant and specially in its
mobilization of speculative financial instruments in opening up new arenas
for capitalist profit making. Previous research by the author (Daher 2008,
2013) elaborated on the details of neoliberal urban restructuring and new
forms of spatial ordering in Amman. This paper critically investigates official
discourses and practices of development through three phases of geopolitical
and socioeconomic transformations that have taken place in Jordan. Phase
one commences with the period right after World War II at the end of colo-
nization. This phase is known by a, relatively, high level of welfare through
“state” subsidizing fragile sectors of development including agriculture,
infrastructure (mainly electricity and water), and education. Yet, during this
phase Jordan demonstrated a special case of a nonoil rentier economy where
financial support to the government was derived from nonproductive sources
including oil rent, international aid, and remittances from mainly Jordanians
46 ● Rami Farouk Daher
working in the Arabian Gulf (Knowles 2005, p. 9). Part of the welfare mecha-
nism was obtained through public sector employment and subsidies on basic
goods that benefited the general population.
During phase two and with the enforcement of structural adjustment
programs from the World Bank and the IMF toward the late 1980s, Jordan
witnessed a substantial decrease in the country’s welfare mechanism and the
removal of state subsidies through the beginning of privatization of sectors
including water, electricity, and telecommunication. This phase witnessed as
well intensive neoliberal urban restructuring where the “state” and its trans-
national capitalist class (Sklair 2001) not only subsidized real estate develop-
ments for the elite of the country, but also entered as partner in many of these
neoliberal endeavors and land speculative deals. In Amman, neoliberal urban
restructuring and emerging forms of spatial ordering included high-end busi-
ness towers, upper-end residential “gated” communities, and even low-income
residential cities that worked to push the poorer segments of society to the
outskirts of the city in new zoned heterotopias. This phase is also characterized
by the establishment of special economic zones similar to the ones in Aqaba
and Petra where these regions of the country became subject to a new set of
regulations and deregulations aiming mainly at economic neoliberalization.
The third phase, after the financial crises of 2008–9, discussed in this paper
is characterized by a postneoliberal excessive corporatization of the “state’s”
public sector institutions (including mainly electricity, water, and social
housing) and a period of deregulation. In this chapter, I will argue that this
excessive corporatization is leading to almost an end of welfare and is being
camouflaged and pacified by the preoccupation of the masses with attempts
for economic reform (e.g., the “state” establishing councils and commissions
that adopt a liberal-charged discourse camouflaging the mobilization of specu-
lative financial instruments in opening up new arenas for capitalist profit mak-
ing) and “democracy politics” such as parliamentary and municipal elections.
While this opens the way for a major state and societal transformation, it is
noteworthy to identify the nature and potential of any form of contestation or
resistance taking place to counteract these processes of neoliberalization.
Jordan as a Rentier State: Oil Rent, Foreign Aid, Remittances,

and Social Security through Public Sector Employment
According to Bayloumy (2008, pp. 284–85), foreign sources of income consti-
tuted over 54 percent of the budget in 1980 in Jordan and thereabouts for most
of the 1970s, declining to about one-third in 1988. She also elaborated that in
the early 1980s, “40% of the labor force worked outside the country, and remit-
tances formed the largest component of the national income” with reported
Welfare Genocide ● 47
remittances at their highest during this period equaled to 124 percent of Jordan’s

trade exports providing around one-third of the GNP (gross national product)
(ibid.). During that period, the country enjoyed a high level of state subsidies to
fragile sectors of development including agriculture, social housing, water, elec-
tricity, and education. Part of the “state’s” welfare mechanism was public sector
employment and subsidies on basic goods that benefited the general population
(ibid., p. 287). In a public lecture by Razzaz, he emphasized that loyalty to the
official system was obtained by public sector employment while the state con-
trols the manipulation and distribution of main public resources and assets.1
Toward the middle of the twentieth century, concepts of development
and nation-building were mostly linked to large-scale national projects sup-
porting health care, education, and infrastructure provision including key
projects of water and irrigation (e.g., Eastern Ghor Canal Project, which
was considered one of the most important successful stories of Jordan in the
1970s). One other example is the state’s proud involvement in terms of level
of electricity supply to urban homes, which improved in dramatic proportion
from 39 percent in 1961, to 78 percent in 1979, and to 99.7 percent today
(Verdeil 2009, p. 6). Hart (2009) elaborated how many third world countries
enjoyed several of these “Big D” developments that emerged in the context
of decolonization and were considered as part of “development” as a post-
war international project. Yet, and according to Bayloumy (2008, p. 286),
and as is often witnessed in rentier or aid-dependent states, Jordan witnessed
a decline in agricultural activities from one-third of all employment in the
1960s to less than 10 percent of domestic labor in the 1980s while the service
sector increased without accompanying industrial development.
In the next section of the paper, I will discuss the gradual shift and trans-
formation from a rentier to a neoliberal state in Jordan. With decreasing rent
made available (either due to rising oil prices or decreased remittances) and with
structural adjustment programs enforced by the World Bank and the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund, it is very obvious that the state is shifting to a neoliberal
economy where the formal “state” rhetoric is more privatization and withdrawal
from social services and infrastructure provision. The irony is that the “state” is
subsidizing real estate development benefiting the transnational capitalist class
and multinational companies and agencies with which certain state agencies
and high-ranking officials are entering into different types of partnerships.
Jordan Neoliberalization Process of Privatization,

Urban Restructuring and Spatial Ordering
During phase two, as stated above, with the enforcement of structural adjust-
ment programs from the World Bank and the IMF toward the late 1980s,
Jordan witnessed a substantial decrease in the country’s welfare mechanism

and the removal of state subsidies through the beginning of privatization
of sectors including water, electricity, and telecommunication. Under
the rationales of economic liberalization and privatization of the state’s
enterprises and investments; the world is now part of a neoliberal moment
anchored by more conservative politics and excessive economic liberalization
and restructuring. Such a moment was manifested in excessive privatization,
the withdrawal of the state from welfare programs, the dominance of multi-
national corporation politics, and as far as the third world is concerned, the
restructuring of international aid to the third world in the form of structural
adjustments and policy instead of project-oriented aid. This was coupled by
the surfacing of several discursive tactics for such a neoliberal transformation
such as dominance of the World Trade Organization (WTO), international
gatherings such as the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Free Trade Agree-
ment with the United States, NAFTA, and several similar other economic
restructuring at the global level (Daher 2007, p. 270). The mid-1980s
witnessed a regional recession triggered by regional oil price decline, which
was translated, as far as Jordan is concerned, into a radical drop in foreign
aid money and labor remittances and an increase of foreign debt as the coun-
try continued borrowing to support continuous spending. According to
Bayloumy (2008, pp. 291–92), the Jordanian Dinar decreased by over a third
by 1989 and “with no foreseeable end to the crisis, Jordan turned to the Inter-
national Monetary Fund, which policy-makers considered the only source of
relief. Negotiations yielded a structural adjustment plan which included the
removal of subsidies, privatization of public sector investments, cuts in state
employment, and gradual elimination of customs duties.” The Structural
Adjustment Programs triggered regulatory restructuring supporting “policy
reform” and the selling of state assets to international investors. Privatization
of state institutions included the telecommunication, water, and electricity
sectors. With government subsidies and welfare services being scaled back,
the neoliberalization of public institutions and services led to more socioeco-
nomic inequalities. The role of the state in the delivery of public services (e.g.,
water, electricity, public transportation) was gradually being substituted by
new roles for NGOs and the private sector. State bureaucrats facilitated also
regulatory restructuring supporting free trade and establishment of prime
economic development zones (e.g., ASEZA: Aqaba Special Economic Zone
Authority) and Qualified Industrial Zones in different places of the kingdom.
According to Bank and Schlumberger (2004), this new formal state’s
shift is also made possible by the new “Economic Team” around the king. A
shift in Jordan’s policy priorities had been more than obvious since the first
days of King Abdallah’s reign: from regional politics to far-reaching reform
of Jordan’s economy, excessive privatization, and economic competitiveness

and activism. The emergence of the new guard: The King’s Economic
Team (the new politically relevant elite entitled the Economic Consultative
Council [ECC]) facilitated the structural adjustment program, Jordan’s
accession to the World Trade Organization, the Free Trade Agreement with
the United States, and paid lip service to privatization (e.g., telecommunica-
tion, power, water, tourism, and planning). Early in 1997, the government
decided to restructure the national electricity-generating company to provide
“investments” and increase performance of the sector’s delivery and opted
to privatize both the generation (by 60 percent) and distribution (by 100
percent) of electricity while transport and control remained in the hands of
governmental institutions. Furthermore, the government sold 55.4 percent
of its shares in Irbid’s Electrical Company. More privatization took place in
2002 when the state borrowed 140 million Jordanian Dinar (JD) from local
banks to generate early revenues linked to the privatization processes.2
Verdeil’s (2009, p. 2) most valuable work on the privatization of the elec-
tricity sector presents one very significant example of more needed empirical
research addressing specific examples of neoliberalization. Verdeil researched
recent transformations in the electricity sector at both national and local lev-
els where “new coming national and multi-national corporate investors” are
becoming dominant stakeholders in this privatization process. One can take
the privatization of the electricity sector as an example of the changing role
of the state vis-à-vis its role as a public service provider in general and urban
infrastructure provider in particular. The current privatization of the electricity
sector, where the state is no longer subsidizing the sector (ibid., p. 3), stands in
sheer contrast to previous state’s involvement in infrastructure provision. Verdeil
(ibid., p. 7) also stated that moving to privatization was strongly correlated with
the end of subsidies to electricity, leading to increased prices in 2004, and in
2008 and to hard-felt social effects of rising urban poverty and strong inflation.
Similar structural transformation took place in the water sector where
management in the form of billing, distribution, and customer service
were delegated to the private sector while contracts, control of tariff, and
assets remained with the state. According to Mahayni (2014), the Jorda-
nian government initiated network rehabilitation projects and implemented
public–private participation and commercialization of the water sector in
the capital Amman, starting in 1999. “Between 1999 and 2006, the Water
Authority of Jordan granted a concession to LEMA (a consortium of water
companies: Lyonnaise des Eaux—Montgomery Watson—Arabtech Jardaneh)
while the World Bank provided loans for the privatization of the water sec-
tor conditioned by increasing tariffs.” Mahayni (2014, pp. 5–6) elaborated
that urban water “reform” projects in the 1990s and 2002s came amid deep
financial crises that “reduced government investments in water delivery

services and infrastructures.” Mahayni (2014, p. 11) added that institutional
reforms in the water sector were accompanied by staff trainings to better
incorporate “private sector management logics” into the water sector.
Bayloumy (2008, pp. 293, 295–97), on a related issue, also elaborated that
the 1990s witnessed high levels of inflation in the country and that prices
of fuel, cigarettes, phone bills, and residential water increased by 50 percent
while heat and electricity bills increased by 150 percent.
Processes of neoliberalization were coupled with a changing nature of
development projects. Today, we witness less state-funded and orchestrated
“Big D” development projects (e.g., projects of infrastructure networks,
social housing, public service buildings including hospitals). The tendency
today is to concentrate on promoting ‘competitiveness’ and facilitating the
influx of direct foreign investments (e.g., Gulf investments in Jordan). The
responsibility of ‘development’ is shifting from development induced by
state institutions to development funded by donor agencies through NGOs
supporting what the author labels as “small d” developments (e.g., proj-
ects supporting a microeconomics approach to development, private sector
entrepreneurship and financial initiatives, capacity building, minorities poli-
tics, projects supporting the promotion of the service sector such as tourism,
projects supporting free-trade agreements and the establishments of qualified
industrial zones, developmental aid for women’s enterprises, and environ-
mental and democracy politics). Examples of such donor agencies–funded
projects include the European Union funded EJADA (Euro-Jordanian
Action for the Development of Enterprises), which was launched in 2001
and concentrated on creating a catalyst for private sector modernization and
development of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). Other examples
included the USAID-funded AMIR Program with its six major initiatives:
Micro Enterprise Initiative, Business Management Initiative, Financial Mar-
kets Development, Information and Communication Technology Initiative,
Private Sector Policy Initiative, and, finally, the Enhanced Competitiveness
Initiative. According to Bayloumy, “micro-financing of private initiatives was
a hot trend, promoted by international institutions as one way to alleviate
poverty” (2008, pp. 299–300).
This phase is also characterized by the establishment of special economic
zones similar to the ones in Aqaba and Petra or qualified industrial zones
(QIZs) present now in different cities of Jordan. These “zones” became
subject to a new set of regulations and deregulations aiming mainly at eco-
nomic neoliberalization. It is interesting to notice here the strong separation
between economic and political reform, in other words, official discourses
of development (which previously linked the two based on the rhetoric and
teachings of the Arab Revolt of 1916) are now concentrating less on issues of
regional (Arab) political concerns and are emphasizing more the competitive-
ness of the nation-state (Jordan) economic climate. In Jordan, discourses of
development were now based on providing the right competitive climate to
receive foreign direct investment and free trade (linked to the establishment
of more “development zones” and the encouragement of public–private part-
nerships). Again, this is working to shift the responsibility of development
from the state to multinational cooperation and to the private sector. Brenner
et al. speak of transnational rule-regimes by studying “the role of multilevel
governance arrangements in the construction, imposition, and reproduc-
tion of neoliberalized, market-disciplinary regulatory arrangements within
national and sub-national arenas” (2010, pp. 335–36). Supported by the
IMF and the World Bank, they add that such multilevel rule regimes serve to
“promote institutional lock-in mechanisms to separate the economic and the
political under conditions of democracy” (ibid.).
Current neoliberal transformations and urban restructuring are not
affecting the capital, Amman, only, but other Jordanian cities as well such
as Aqaba. In Aqaba, and after the peace process with Israel and the estab-
lishment of several qualified industrial zones (QIZ) in the country coupled
with declaring Aqaba as a “free economic zone,” the Aqaba Special Economic
Zone Authority (ASEZA) was created. ASEZA was granted the responsibility
of neoliberal socioeconomic transformations in the city and held a position of
urban projects, tourism, and infrastructure developer; thus gradually replac-
ing former regulating public bodies such as the Municipality of Aqaba, Aqaba
Regional Authority, and Aqaba Governorate, which were either dissolved or
regressed to a voyeur’s position (Daher 2011). As a consequence, Aqaba went
through intense socioeconomic and territorial transformations. ASEZA,
equipped with the tropes and slogans of modernity, efficiency, liberalism, and
lack of government bureaucracy, is superimposing “first-class tourism devel-
opments” as termed by one of ASEZA’s officials. It is very obvious that the
whole city is being taken over by multinational big money investments in the
form of five-star hotels and large-scale development projects (e.g., Tala Bay,
Saraya) (Daher 2007). The “hot” and most desired places on the shore such
as popular old beach coffeehouses, public beaches, fish restaurants on the
beach, or even significant low-rise hotels from the mid-twentieth century are
all being taken over by such “first-class tourism investments” (ibid.). Another
type of “hot” spot that is also subject to severe processes of displacement are
the existing slums in very strategic locations of the city overlooking the Bay
of Aqaba (e.g., Al Shallalah). Such developments are causing severe cases of
urban cleansing, spatial and social displacement, and exclusion of a certain
part of Aqaba’s history, heritage, and urban poor and residents (ibid.).
Linking Neoliberal Processes of Urban

Restructuring with the Larger Picture
Understanding and researching neoliberal processes of urban restructuring
and spatial ordering in Jordanian cities (mainly Amman) requires the research
to step back and comprehend the larger picture of political economy in the
region. It is interesting to understand the effect of the circulation of global
capital (Arab Gulf surplus oil revenues) and huge reserves of money in search
for high yielding and secure investments, excessive privatization, and circulat-
ing urban flagship projects in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, all over the Arab Gulf
States, and throughout the Arab region on the transforming of urban space,
property values, and speculation, and nature of public life in these cities. The
six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council enjoyed between 2003 and 2004
a surplus of about $50 billion, which rose to $400 billion between 2007
and 2008, and was estimated at $47.4 billion in 2009 and about $142.2
billion in 2010.3 It has been estimated that over the period of 2005 to 2020
the Arabian Gulf states are likely to have a US $3,000 billion or so spent on
investment within the Middle East and North Africa (Elsheshtawy 2008).
Middle Eastern cities are currently competing in order to attract interna-
tional investments, businesses, and tourism developments. Currently, devel-
opment projects in Dubai and in the United Arab Emirates such as the world’s
two largest man-made islands (Palm Jumeirah and Palm Jebel Ali), and major
skyscrapers and luxurious resorts on Sheikh Zayed Street are becoming the
precedents and models to follow in other cities of the region. This reality
stands in sheer contrast when compared to a previous time around the 1960s
when cities like Cairo or Beirut presented cutting edge urbanism for the rest
of the Arab world (Daher 2011, pp. 275–76). New emerging urban islands
of excessive consumption for the chosen elite together with the internation-
alization of commercial real estate companies and construction consultan-
cies capable of providing high-quality services signify this neoliberal urban
restructuring in places such as downtown Beirut (Summer 2005), Abdali in
Amman (Summer 2005; Daher 2008), Dreamland in Cairo (Adham 2005),
Financial District in Manama, the Development of Bou Regreg River in Rab-
bat,4 Pearl Island Reclamation Project in Doha and even in the heart of the
Holy City of Mecca through the Jabal Omar Project.5 Cities are obliged to
create the right milieu, competitive business climate, and first-class tourism
attractions in order to lure people to come live, invest, and entertain. Barthel
(2010, p. 5) labels these real estate ventures as the “Arab Mega-Projects,” in
reference to their scale, and he situates them at the core of contemporary
Arab town planning. Adham (2005) had noted that circulating images of
such neoliberal urban restructuring mimic developments in the West and
represent as such an “Oriental vision of the Occident.”
Even through research and publications on the Arab city are numerous, the
ones addressing recent neoliberal transformations and urban restructuring,
emerging within the past decade, are still very few. Yet, they are of a sig-
nificant value and include the works of Elsheshtawy (2008) on Abu Dhabi,
Summer’s comparative work (2005) on Amman and Beirut, Daher’s work
(2008) on Amman, Clerk and Hurault’s work (2010) on Damascus, Barthel
and Planel’s work (2010) on Tanger, Adham’s work (2005) on Cairo, and
Krijnen and Fawaz’s work (2010) on Beirut as well. Amman represents a
clear example of neoliberal urban restructuring and emerging forms of spa-
tial ordering and engineering such as high-end business towers that offer an
exclusive concept of refuge and of consumption (e.g., Jordan Gate, Abdali),
upper-end residential “gated” communities all over the city (e.g., Green Land,
Andalusia), and even low-income residential cities (e.g., Jizza, Marka, Sahab)
that work to push the poorer segments of society to the outskirts of the city
in new zoned heterotopias. These endeavors all reflect dominant political and
ideological practices of power regulated by neoliberal tropes and manifested
through spatially engineered realities. In reality, several of these emerging
neoliberal projects on the city are anticipated to lead to urban geographies
of inequality and exclusion and to spatial/social displacement (Daher 2013).
Postneoliberalization and Excessive

Corporatization of Public Sector Institutions
The third phase, following the financial crises of 2008–9 can be characterized
by a postneoliberal excessive corporatization of the “state” public sector
institutions (including mainly electricity, water, and social housing) and a
period of deregulation. During this period, Jordan witnessed more enforced
Structural Adjustments Programs enforced by the IMF. Furthermore, the
financial situation in Jordan got worsened due to the current situations in
Egypt and Syria leading to an accelerated wave of taxation on basic goods
(including oil and cloths) in addition to the decreasing of state subsidies to
fragile sectors including water, electricity, and essential commodities (e.g.,
bread). Consequently, Jordan witnessed a remarkable increase in external and
internal debt-interest payments. In a public lecture by Razzaz, he empha-
sized that what the “state” had labeled as “economic liberalization” in Jordan
turned into a “regularized steeling” of public sector institutions devoid of
transparency and control. He added that it was very obvious that the “state”
is withdrawing from protecting the poorer segments of society.6 In a more
recent article in Al Ghad newspaper, it was pointed out the government is
not increasing taxes on nonessential goods such as cars or cigarettes (as was
the case before), but today, tariffs are increased on water and electricity and
subsidies are removed from the most essential items including bread.
Al Rai’ newspaper reported recently that Jordan had to pay 336 million
JDs during the first half of 2013 to cover the interest accumulated due to gov-
ernment lending practices from external and internal sources. This amounted
to 33.2 percent increase compared to the amount paid last year for the same
period. The newspaper added that most of that amount in fact (290.3 mil-
lion JDs) was paid to cover the interests of debt due to internal borrowing
by the government from local banks and some public sector institutions7.
Most recently, the prime minister of Jordan declared while attending the first
sessions of the Socio-Economic Council, and in an attempt to pacify the
situation, that the government of Jordan had made difficult decisions to “face
pain rather than popularity.”8 Immediately after that declaration, taxes on
cloths were increased by 20 percent.9
The postneoliberal era in Jordan did not really witness a change in the
practices of neoliberal processes but rather a continuation, and, if anything,
this era could be characterized by an excessive corporatization of the “state’s”
public sector institutions (e.g., electricity, water) accompanied by what
is declared to the general public as “policy reform” leading to a period of
deregulation of public sector institutions. According to Tomaira (2008), in
Amman, such reforms were part of a widespread deregulation and corpo-
ratization of public sector institutions and reflected the broader trends of
privatization and commercialization in water-specific institutions. Mahayni
(2013, p. 6) elaborated on the current corporatization and deregulation of
the water sector in Jordan. This phenomenon is not restricted to Jordan;
he added (citing Furlong and Bakker 2010) that, in fact, many third world
countries are facing key shifts in the neoliberal era of water governance: First,
public water institutions were institutionally reformed through privatization
or public–private partnerships; and second, institutions were commercialized
or corporatized to utilize market governance logics in water management.
In Amman, the corporatization of the water sector, according to Mahayni
(2013, p. 1), resulted in selling, buying, and reselling again of state institutions.
The shift in reality means a reworking of the state organizations from privatization
to corporatization and commercialization through public–private partnerships.
The shift from the privatized “LEMA” water companies (a consortium of water
companies: Lyonnaise des Eaux—Montgomery Watson—Arabtech Jardaneh,
which was strictly a management company responsible for billing, distribution,
and customer services while contracts and assets of the water sector remained
with the state) to today’s MIYAHUNA, which is owned by the Water Authority
of Jordan (WAJ) is a perfect example. WAJ is now responsible for regulating
MIYAHUNA. Here, part of this deregulation is not only the fact that the owner
is serving as regulator simultaneously; but rather this deregulation marks a shift
in the priority of the management structure where the real emphasis is on how to
provide water and on cost recovery (where cost is expected to increase) especially
in a time where the government is not investing in water harvesting projects, but
rather in quick fixes that are expensive with no future rewards such as the Disi
Project, which pumps water from the Disi aquifer in the south to Amman lead-
ing to the depletion of a major aquifer in Jordan. Of course, the utilization of
market governance logics in water management was previously facilitated by the
privatization of the sector (e.g., training of local government-sector employees
by foreign companies’ executives) and is reinforced today by the involvement of
the transnational capitalist-class in the infrastructure domain for many of the
executive committee members of MIYAHUNA come from the private sector.
The postneoliberal excessive corporatization and deregulation of the
“state’s” public sector institutions in the electricity sector was very evident,
manifested by the government’s selling, and reselling, of the sector’s institu-
tions while borrowing from local banks to facilitate these purchases. It was
mentioned earlier that in 2006, the government approved the privatization
of the generation of electricity for a second time around and negotiated
with “ENARA” lead by Jordan-Dubai Capital; and in 2007, the Council of
the Prime Ministry agreed to sell 51 percent from the National Electrical
Company responsible for electricity generation to ENARA (in the amount
of 140 million JDs) and to also sell 9 percent to the Social Security Institu-
tion. The purchase included that the main strategic investor (Jordan-Dubai
Capital) should pay off 51 percent of the company’s debt in the amount of
171 million JDs.10 The trend continue as most recently, as Jordan-Dubai
Capital was sold in 2013 to an investment company from Hong Kong
(HPF Private Investment Fund Company Ltd.) in the amount of 92 million
JDs. The Hong Kong Company established a new trust in the amount of
$150 million to invest in several sectors in Jordan including infrastructure,
industries, and services.11
More recently, the Council of the Prime Ministry agreed in 2007 to sell
out all the shares of the Electrical Distribution Company and 55.4 of the
shares of Irbid’s Governorate Electrical Company to Energy Investments
(composed of three multinational Gulf companies: Jordan-Dubai Capital,
the Privitization Holding Company (PHC), and United Arab Investors).12
It is obvious that many Arabian-Gulf companies, and after the recession in
the construction and real estate ventures, opted to invest in infrastructure
provision and distribution in several other Arab countries. For example, the
Privatization Holding Company (PHC), formerly known as Kuwait Privati-
zation Projects Holding Company (KPPHC) was established in 1994 with
a capital of 1 million KDs. PHC is a Kuwaiti Shareholding Company listed
on the Kuwait Stock Exchange with a capital of 79.3 KDs and a shareholder’s
equity of almost 161 million KDs. The objective of PHC is to invest directly
in infrastructure projects (e.g., energy, infrastructure, telecom, and utilities),

and to own significant stakes in companies with the same objectives.13
Forms of Resistance
In an attempt to provide a substitute to state-orchestrated “development”
projects, this period of postneoliberal transformations is witnessing the
emergence of new concepts linked to development including “entre-
preneurship” and “corporate social responsibility”14 where projects of
development are now spearheaded by corporations (and even in certain cases
some state institutions), by NGOs, or by foreign-funded. addressing these
concepts. This signals, as the author had elaborated earlier, a clear shift from
“Big D” to “small d” development projects. An example of these “small d”
development projects orchestrated by donor agencies is the USAID-funded
INJAZ Program. Relaunched in 2001 as an independent nonprofit Jordanian
organization, the project emphasized entrepreneurship by thriving to inspire
and prepare young Jordanians to become productive members in their society
and succeed in the global economy. INJAZ brings various capacity-building
courses to classrooms in public schools, universities, community colleges, and
various social institutions, promoting financial literacy, social leadership, and
business entrepreneurship.15
After the financial crises of 2008–9 and the recession in the construction
and real estate business, Amman witnessed the termination and failure of
many neoliberal urban projects leaving the city full of empty construction
sites with high environmental hazards. The current urban condition in a
postneoliberal age has hence worsened by the second. In 1984, the famous
Jordanian novelist Abdelrahman Munif published one of his most inspiring
novels (Mudun al-milh: Cities of Salt). The novel is set in an unnamed Arabian
Gulf country in the 1930s and attempts to describe the transformations that
affected this desert Bedouin community when oil is discovered by foreigners
(Americans) who end up directly and indirectly colonizing the country and
the radical impact of that discovery on the physical and human landscape.
The epic unfolds over a large span of years and sketches in detail the rise of
this fake urban civilization and especially the abundance of surplus capital
from the oil revenues, which is mostly spent on real estate development and
lavish banquets. This novel is actually banned in several Middle Eastern
countries, including Saudi Arabia. The novel ends in its fifth volume by a
detailed description of the fall and demise of this oil-dollar/American colony
culture and the author skillfully depicts (and especially in the fifth volume of
the novel entitled: Badiyat al Thulmat: Desert of Darkness) the destruction and
downfall of this oil-based economy and civilization.
The significance of this novel is not only in its sketching the details of the
transformation of this desert-bound Bedouin community when confronted
with the discovery of oil and its impacts on the physical landscapes and socio-
cultural and human conditions, but also, it is in its prediction, as early as the
mid-1980s, of the fragility and unaccountability of this oil-based economy
and its related neoliberal real estate boom that had circulated to other places
in the Middle East (Amman, Beirut, and Cairo to mention a few). The most
recent financial crises of 2008–10 in cities like Dubai and in other places
in the Middle East testified to the vulnerability and unreliability of such an
economy with the ceasing of many real estate projects, termination of hun-
dreds of thousands of jobs, and the lack of socioeconomic stability. Amman
was very much affected by the latest economic crises and especially that many
of the real estate projects were actually financed by major neoliberal transna-
tional capitalist companies in places like Dubai and other cities in the UAE
and Saudi Arabia. Touring the city of Amman today, one cannot but notice
the ceasing of several of these neoliberal real estate projects whose legacy had
left the city’s urban landscape with unfinished projects with static cranes,
rotted reinforcement, and huge craters in the ground with potentially severe
environmental problems (Daher 2011). One can mention several cases such
as several projects and business towers in Abdali, the Wall, Jordan Gate, and
Limitless Towers in Abdoun.
Official discourses today are trying to preoccupy the masses with attempts
for economic reform (e.g., the “state” establishing councils and commis-
sions that adopt a liberal-charged discourse camouflaging the mobilization
of speculative financial instruments in opening up new arenas for capitalist
profit making). This is leading gradually to a separation between the eco-
nomic and political reform initiatives that was evident immediately after the
end of colonization in the Arab world where the way forward was paved
through national large-scale development projects coupled with an insep-
arable high level of intellectual political climate. More recently the prime
minister chaired a meeting of the Higher Agricultural Council declaring
that the government is planning to strongly support the agricultural sector
in the country by adopting a liberal position stating that this sector should
be evaluated through its contribution to the subsistence of many families,
emphasizing the social and future security dimensions of the sector. Yet the
outcome of such a “liberal” position is translated into simply decisions about
the preparedness of the sector to export to international markets.16 Bayloumy
had elaborated that the 1990s began with “economic reform accompanied by
significant political reform—the return of Parliament and the legalization of
political parties” (2008, p. 279). She added that by the beginning of 2000,
“economic liberalization had sped up while political reform had reversed,
resulting in what some have called “deliberalization” (ibid.). Today, I observe

that “democracy politics” manifested in the popularity of parochial parlia-
mentary and municipal election poles work as a pacification mechanism of
any potential organized or serious resistance.
Conclusion
Via an investigation of three geopolitical and socioeconomic transformation
phases that the Jordanian state has gone through since the decolonization period,
I endeavored to demonstrate in this chapter that the current situation in Jordan
is that of an excessive corporatization (projects of development are spearheaded
by large corporations [e.g., Manaseer] and the role of NGOs in development is
growing), which then leads toward almost an end of welfare. Aid from the World
Bank and IMF pushes Jordan furthermore to increase tariffs on infrastructure
and to gradually corporatize and regulate public sector institutions creating a
higher level of distress between public authorities and end users (e.g., water and
electricity sectors). After the financial crises of 2008–9, many neoliberal urban
projects have been terminated and/or failed, leaving the city full of empty con-
struction sites with high environmental hazards with increasing spatial social
segregation and no public housing plans. These processes are being camouflaged
and pacified, moreover, by the preoccupation of the masses with attempts for
economic reform and “democracy politics” such as parliamentary and municipal
elections. Promotion of salvation through “democracy politics” manifested in
the popularity of election poles (e.g., municipal, parliamentary) acts therefore as
a pacification mechanism of any potential organized resistance. There are signs
of burgeoning civil society activities questioning such neoliberal policies (e.g.,
TAKADDM, Ammani School of Consciousness Building). However, this is a
beginning of a political discussion with a “small p.”
Notes
1. Public Lecture by Omar al Razzaz at Ras al Ain Gallery on September 28, 2011.
2. Al Rai’ newspaper, Thursday, January 17, 2013, issue 15424 Main Section p. 34.
3. Information is based on a public lecture delivered by Basma Moumani on
December 15, 2010, at Greater Amman Municipality.
4. During a recent visit to Rabbat (October 2009), the author was astonished by
the similarities in terms of investors, developers, and even rhetoric and discourses
of development between neoliberal investors in Beirut, Amman, and elsewhere
in the Marshreq and the ones in Rabbat. This global capital is definitely circulat-
ing not only surplus capital from the oil, but also images and models of neolib-
eral development.
5. www.jabalomar.com (viwed on April 23, 2005).
6. Public Lecture by Omar al Razzaz at Ras al Ain Gallery on September 28, 2011.
7. Al Rai’ newspaper, September 13, 2013, issue 15660 (Economy section), p. 1.
8. Al Rai’ newspaper, September 13, 2013, issue 15660 (Main section), p. 1.
9. Al Rai’ newspaper, September 21, 2013, http://www.alrai.com/article/608147
.html, (viewed on September 22, 2013).
10. Al Rai’ newspaper, July 9, 2012, issue 15236 (Main section), p. 27.
13. http://www.phc.com.kw/ (viewed on September 20, 2013).
14. An example includes Ruwad al Tanmiya, a community development project
funded by Aramex (one of Jordan’s leading logistics companies) as part of its
social responsibility initiatives. It centers on social and community development
in a Jabal al Natheef (a less-privileged neighborhood located in East Amman
with a severe lack of social services).
15. http://www.injaz.org.jo/SubDefault.aspx?PageId=186&MenuId=45, (viewed on
September 11, 2013).
16. Al Rai’ newspaper, September 20, 2013, issue 15667 (Main section), p. 3.
CHAPTER 5
Islamism and Neoliberalism in

the Aftermath of the 2011 Arab
Uprisings: The Freedom and Justice
Party in Egypt and Nahda in Tunisia
Katerina Dalacoura
Introduction
This chapter investigates the relationship between Islamism and neoliberal-
ism in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings in the Middle East focusing
on the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political
party) in Egypt and the Nahda movement in Tunisia. Through the analysis
of the two movements, I seek to contribute to the broader discussion, in this
volume, on neoliberalism, the concept of “governmentality,” and the future
of the state in the Middle East following the 2011 Arab uprisings.
The access to power that the FJP and Nahda at least partially achieved
following the overthrow of the Hosni Mubarak and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali
regimes gave them the opportunity to apply some of their ideas and policies
or at least to propose specific policies in response to concrete circumstances.
Their words and actions showed that the FJP and Nahda are comfortable
with neoliberal structures and do not aim to challenge or transform them
in any fundamental sense—in other words, that Islamism cannot, in these
cases, be regarded as an antisystemic force. The chapter argues that Islamists’
approaches to neoliberalism are shaped by the history of each movement
and the evolving political and socioeconomic context in which they oper-
ate. It proposes that the Muslim Brotherhood/FJP’s and Nahda’s changing
class support basis have rendered them readier to defend the neoliberal poli-
cies and structures that had been previously promoted by the Mubarak and
62 ● Katerina Dalacoura
Ben Ali regimes. However, the neoliberal tendencies of the movements were
considerably tempered by their need to retain—in the context of worsening
economic conditions—broader political support through promoting “social
justice,” which had been a key popular demand of the uprisings in Egypt and
Tunisia. This was not in the context of a radical restructuring of the economy
but with a view to balancing the interests of their middle-class supporters
with those of the poorer segments of the population.
The history of neoliberalism in the Middle East has been a checkered
one. Cronyism and corruption have undermined and even invalidated neo-
liberal reforms, accentuated their (already high) costs, and prevented the
region from enjoying many of their potential benefits. The enormous socio-
economic discontent in the Middle East region was a central—though not
the only—reason for the 2011 uprisings. What we see, however, at least
in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, is that Islamist movements that did not
challenge neoliberalism—the “existing economic paradigm,” in the words
of Emel Akçalı in the Introduction of this volume—were voted into power
immediately after the overthrow of existing regimes.
Akçalı proposes two possible ways of explaining this apparent paradox.
On the one hand, we can do so using Michel Foucault’s idea of “neoliberal
governmentality,” whereby subjects are disciplined into docility by the exi-
gencies of “the market” while having only the illusion of being “free” and
responsible agents. Alternatively—and more convincingly, in her view—we
can interpret the developments in the Middle East in a more subtle manner:
as one instance of an “interaction of neoliberal rationality with the local [in
this case, the Middle East and North Africa]” producing “new forms of sub-
jectivities, hybrid identities, transformed structures, resistances that arise against
or as a result of such governmentality techniques” (Akçalı, Introduction). The
present chapter provides empirical material for the reader to address these
theoretical questions and investigate more deeply the volume’s core concep-
tual concerns.
Islamist Approaches to Capitalism, Charity, and Social Justice

Islamism is not a class-based political ideology. It denounces the divisive-
ness entailed in “class” while calling for “justice” for society in its totality.
Socioeconomic concerns and demands are some of the most important
components of Islamism across the board. This is where our ability to
generalize about Islamism ends, however. Islamism is, in fact, fluid and
malleable in its approach to socioeconomic issues and appeals variously
to different social groups. Islamist movements comprise a multitude
of different trends that constantly evolve, so much so that referring to
Islamism and Neoliberalism in the Aftermath ● 63
them as part of a single phenomenon becomes, at times, unsustainable

and unconvincing. Furthermore, Islamists are not drawn from any one
particular class (Kurzman and Naqvi 2010).
Islamism and Islamists are not inherently pro- or anticapitalism (see also
Tripp 2006). In the post-1970s retreat from the statist-led model of develop-
ment in the Middle East, which coincided with the ascendancy of Islamism
in the region, “in contradictory ways, Islamism appeals to both the losers
and the winners of global neoliberal economic restructuring” (Beinin 2005,
p. 113). In Beinin’s words, Islamism “may be systemic or anti-systemic. In the
era of neoliberal economic restructuring, it has been both simultaneously”
(Beinin 2005, p. 116).
One reason for the rise in popularity of Islamist movements of all hues in
the Middle East after the 1970s was their social activism. Insofar as we can see
Islamism as the product of failed developmentalism (linked with authoritari-
anism) and modernization programs gone awry (Rahnema 2008), socioeco-
nomic concerns are at the root of the phenomenon itself. Social activism has
typically been an aspect of dawa (missionary) activities of Islamist movements
but was also a means of implementing their broader ideological demands for
social justice, which resonate with traditional Islamic terminology (Ruthven
1997; Kung 2007).
Islamist movements of a radical and often violent type, pursuing a variety
of objectives that included social justice, emerged in a number of Arab coun-
tries after the 1970s and were particularly active and prominent in the 1990s.
The 1979 revolution in Iran was partly caused by economic discontent and
the Islamic Republic initiated policies of considerable wealth redistribution.
Although the causes of Islamic radicalism are more complex, there has been
an association between Islamic radicalism and economic deprivation (Ibrahim
1980, 1995; see also Kurzman and Naqvi 2010, pp. 138–39), though this
was not limited to the grievances or aspirations of any one class. Rahnema
points to the many different social groups comprising the supporters of radi-
cal Islamist movements1 (Rahmena 2008, p. 494); he, and Beinin, emphasize
the support given to radical groups by the salaried middle classes and the
“lumpen intelligentsia,” university graduates who—following the economic
turn in the post-Nasser era—saw their prospects worsen considerably (Beinin
2005, pp. 123–28). However, only one strand in the broader phenomenon
of “Islamism” is associated with economic deprivation and radical socioeco-
nomic demands (see also Tripp 2006, chs. 3, 5).
More often than not, Islamist activists’ provision of social services in the
post-1970s Middle East did not entail an antisystemic stance. Islamist groups
delivered health and education services and often simply foodstuffs and
money to the poorer strata (Harrigan and El-Said 2008). Islamic charities and
welfare associations were also run by and for the middle classes, offering them
vital medical and instruction facilities at relatively low cost (Clark 2004). In
filling in the role gradually forfeited by the state in the post-1970s Middle
East, Islamist groups challenged the state, in that they sought to replace it,
but did not try to overturn the structures of people’s dependence on it. In
Asef Bayat’s view (2007), the Islamists provided services to the people with-
out seeking to politicize and mobilize them. This rendered Islamist groups,
seemingly paradoxically, potential allies of the state.
That most Islamist groups in the post-1970s Middle East have not been
antisystemic actors is also evident, in what may appear in the first instance
as a paradox, in their ubiquitous calls to expiate corruption. Islamist groups
present themselves as the most capable of achieving the latter because
they are morally upright and have “strong values.”2 The attention paid
to corruption, however, implies that socioeconomic structures are viewed
as fundamentally sound and able to work perfectly well, if only the “bad
apples” are removed.
Although it is difficult to measure these things, I would hazard to argue
that, despite important exceptions, most Islamist movements in the Middle
East at the present juncture, do not aspire to overturn capitalist socioeco-
nomic structures that rest on the twin institutions of private property and
free enterprise.3 They want the distortions of the system removed through
the elimination of corruption and its rough edges smoothed over for the
most vulnerable members of society through charity—but not to tamper
with its basic parameters. The phenomenon of “Islamic finance” does not
invalidate this argument: Despite its purported opposition to the charging
of interest, Islamic finance otherwise operates within the existing rules of the
global financial system (Khan 2010); it is a niche in, not a challenge to, it
(Tripp 2006, p. 142). The combination of respect for private property and
free enterprise with charity and anticorruption stances, and broad appeals
to “social justice,” has allowed Islamist movements to seek simultaneously
the support of middle-class and poorer constituencies. These class coali-
tions have constituted the backbone of numerous Islamist movements in the
Middle East but the incongruent interests they involve have rendered them,
as we shall see, more difficult to sustain when Islamists move from opposition
to government and/or in times of economic contraction.
New Trends in Islamism: “Pious Neoliberalism”

Within the kaleidoscope of recent Islamist trends in the Middle East, we can
identify a new development, termed “pious neoliberalism.” Turkey has been
the pioneer here, as described, among others, by Cihan Tuğal.4
Through ethnographic research in one poor area of Istanbul (Sultanbeyli)

in the 2000s, Tuğal (2009) traces the gradual abandonment of radical Islam
by its “pious Muslim” inhabitants and the emergence of moderate Islam. He
contends “that moderate Islam is the culmination of a long process of pas-
sive revolution as a result of which erstwhile radicals and their followers are
brought into the fold of neoliberalism, secularism, and Western domination”
(Tuğal 2009, pp. 3–4). Tuğal understands the Gramscian term “passive revo-
lution” as “one of the convoluted, and sometimes unintended, ways by which
the dominant sectors establish willing consent (‘hegemony’) for their rule”
(Tuğal 2009, pp. 3–4).
After coming to power in 2002, the Justice and Development Party
(AKP) absorbed within it various Islamist cadres and strategies and enabled
the “pious business community” in Turkey to establish its hegemony (Tuğal
2009, p. 14). This hegemony entails “support for unfettered markets,
integration with the international business community, deregulation,
privatization, and emphasis on a conservative morality” (Tuğal 2009, p. 8).
Tuğal contrasts the AKP’s “internalization of capitalism” (Tuğal 2009,
p. 218) with the Just Order program of Necmettin Erbakan and the Wel-
fare Party—the previously politically prominent Islamist party—which
“claimed that it would both establish a morally sound market economy
and protect people from poverty, while also abolishing major inequali-
ties” (Tuğal 2009, p. 137). Although not everyone in the AKP pushed for
neoliberalization consistently—some social justice–oriented Islamists did
remain in the party (Tuğal 2009, p. 228)—Islamists “were able to build a
modern Islamic (and neoliberal) civil society, effectively pacifying resistance
to neoliberalization” (Tuğal 2009, p. 193).5
What do these developments signify for Islamism’s changing relationship
to socioeconomic issues and specifically to neoliberalism? In all the variants
of Islamist ideology, I would argue, justice means everyone being given “their
due”: in a just order, individuals and social groups coexist with one other in
a complementary and nonconflictual manner (very much as members of a
family should do, in the Islamist worldview). As we saw above, despite some
exceptions of radical groups, altering socioeconomic structures with the aim
of promoting equality has not been at the heart of Islamist projects. Char-
ity plays a key role in the maintenance of these structures and it is seen as a
key expression of dedication to God. However, the “pious neoliberal”—and
herein lies the new development—does not believe in passing handouts to
the needy but seeks to turn the individual into a responsible and entrepre-
neurial “subject” (Atia 2012). Pious neoliberalism has moved away from the
idea that social justice is something to be implemented “from above,” by God
or the state or even the Islamist group, in favor of the notion that, with God’s
blessing of course, the individual himself or herself will attain the position
they deserve. In pious neoliberalism, “justice” is the attainment of the indi-
vidual’s potential as a result of his or her own efforts—a principle that lies at
the heart of neoliberalism more broadly.
The phenomenon of pious neoliberalism is more advanced in Turkey
because of the specific circumstances of that country, in particular the emer-
gent socioeconomic realities following the shift to export-led policies from
the 1980s onward. The transformation of Turkish Islamist ideology from
the Welfare Party’s economic nationalist, protectionist policies, to the AKP’s
export-led, outward-looking, unbridled capitalist mode, is a reflection of
the changing sociological makeup of Turkey following the emergence of an
“Anatolian” conservative middle class, which formed the backbone of AKP
support.6 The Turkish case shows that the relationship between Islamist ide-
ology and ideas about the economy, justice, and, ultimately, the individual’s
relationship to society are to a considerable extent a reflection of the chang-
ing social, economic, and political dynamics within specific societies. Pious
neoliberalism has emerged in those contexts, such as the Turkish one, where
capitalist transformation has moved the farthest and gone more deeply than
in other societies (Joseph 2010a).
Compared to Turkey, the Arab economies are, for the most part, still
inward-looking, protectionist, and state-dominated; neoliberalism in most
Arab settings is tantamount to crony capitalism (Al Din Arafat 2009, see
especially ch. 4; World Bank 2014). This constitutes an important back-
drop in examining the relationship between Islamist movements and their
socioeconomic ideologies in the context of the Arab uprisings and beyond.
Nevertheless, trends within some strands of Islamism in Egypt, as described,
among others, in the work of Mona Atia (2012) and Asef Bayat (2007),
demonstrate similarities to the Turkish case.
Atia’s research was on faith-based development organizations in Cairo and
also the popular religious “star” Amr Khaled. She found that their discourses
contained an emphasis on voluntarism and self-help and the promotion of
financial investment entrepreneurship and business skills as components of
religiosity. In these discourses, the individual and the community take over
the role of the state, which facilitates the coming together of Islam and neo-
liberalism. What distinguishes this formulation from neoliberalism of the
West is its emphasis on spirituality as well as on materialist values (Atia 2012).
Asef Bayat (2007), similarly to Tuğal (2009), describes the emergence of
pious neoliberalism in Egypt as “passive revolution.” According to Bayat, the
Muslim Brotherhood and radical groups reached their pinnacle in the Egypt
of the late 1980s. The Egyptian state, partly through the institution of al-
Azhar, responded to the challenge of political Islam by expanding its own
dawa (Bayat 2007, pp. 136–37). As conservative religiosity and individualized

piety spread in Egypt, the Islamist movement declined and fragmented. In
Bayat’s words, “against the backdrop of contentious economic liberalization,
social change, and cultural globalization, conservative Islamism merged with
strong nativist sentiment while the state moved to appropriate religious and
moral authority.” Socioreligious change initiated from below was appropri-
ated by the state (Bayat 2007, p. 138), which actively participated in the
ongoing Islamization project in Egypt (Bayat 2007, pp. 166–74). Both radi-
cal Islamists and the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood were “deprived of
popular support for mobilization” because large segments of their constitu-
ency, pacified, felt no need to confront the state. Islamism changed from a
political project to one concerned with personal piety and global malaise
(Bayat 2007, p. 146).
While the Egyptian poor turned to folk piety, the middle classes turned
to preachers such as Amr Khaled (Bayat 2007, pp. 149–51), from whom
they heard the message that “they could be religious and still lead a normal
life” (Bayat 2007, p. 153). The youth, on the other hand, were able to
combine “prayer, partying, pornography, faith, and fun, even though their
activities might make them feel remorse and regret” (Bayat 2007, p. 163).
“The Egyptian young never articulated their innovations as legitimate
alternative visions, but remained remorseful, apologetic, and subservient
to orthodoxy.” They distrusted political Islam but opted for conspicuous
consumption (Bayat 2007, p. 164). The result was terrible stagnation in
socioreligious thought and in intellectual life more generally (Bayat 2007,
pp. 174–81). From his perspective, Bayat confirms that in Egypt prior to
the 2011 uprising, Islamism, in most of its forms, no longer presented a
challenge to neoliberal structures.
The Economic Policies of the Freedom and Justice Party

It should be clear from the above discussion that the Muslim Brotherhood
and its political party, the FJP, is only one strand in a broader Islamist
movement in Egypt. It constitutes the focus of this chapter, however, first
because it was the most important Islamist actor following the 2011 upris-
ing and, second, because its acquisition of power in that period, partial
though it was, presents us with a rare opportunity to observe the imple-
mentation of Islamist principles, as opposed to their enunciation in the
abstract.7
The Muslim Brotherhood underwent a transformation as Egypt became
more integrated within the world economy in the decades following the infi-
tah (economic opening) of the 1970s. This strengthened its moderate wing
and differentiated it from the radical Islamist forces in the country (Ateş
2005, pp. 133–44).8 A substantial part of the “infitah class” that emerged
under Sadat had an Islamist cast. According to Joel Beinin, “by 1980 elders
of 8 of the 18 families who dominated Egypt’s private sector were affiliated
with the Muslim Brothers” (Beinin 2005, p. 120). In the late 1990s a new
generation of Islamist leaders “most of them with business and entrepre-
neurial backgrounds, started gradually replacing the Muslim Brotherhood’s
older, theologically trained cohort, which had dominated the group for the
previous half century” (Osman 2013, p. 1). Egypt’s emergent Islamist busi-
ness class—whose members did not necessarily establish formal links to the
Brotherhood but were part of a broader Islamist milieu—had connections
with the Arab Gulf states and were influenced by their conservative brand of
Islam (Beinin 2005, pp. 121–22).
Under the Mubarak regime in the 1980s, the Brotherhood entered the
Egyptian parliament through electoral contestation (its candidates standing
as independents), an experience that also shaped its stance on socioeconomic
issues. It successfully fought the 1987 elections through the Islamic Alliance
with the left-wing Labor Party; this encouraged it to become involved in
national trade union elections for the first time (Beinin 2005, p. 132). In the
process, “tensions between the views of the wealthy leaders of the Muslim
Brothers and the more populist elements of the Labor Party” were revealed
(Beinin 2005, p. 133). Islamists within the trade unions usually did not
engage in militant collective action and were criticized by the left for limit-
ing their trade union work to providing social services. Overall the Islamic
trend’s gains in the labor movement were much more modest compared to its
successes in middle-class professional associations in the 1990s (Beinin 2005,
pp. 133–34).9
In its recent history, the Muslim Brotherhood displayed “a friendly
sensibility toward business activities, including wealth accumulation and
free-market economics. Islamism is a bourgeois movement consisting
mainly of middle class professionals, businessmen, shopkeepers, petty mer-
chants, and traders” (Gerges 2013a, p. 407). But a differentiation within
the broad category of “middle class” gradually occurred, at least with regards
to the Brotherhood leadership: While the professional middle-class had
“traditionally constituted the group’s backbone,” over the decade preced-
ing the 2011 Egyptian uprising the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau and
Shura Council witnessed an “unprecedented ascent of businessmen to
senior positions.” Some of them were liaisons between the Brotherhood and
Mubarak’s cronies (El Houdaiby 2013, p. 3).10 As we shall see, this devel-
opment exacerbated the potential for conflict between the Brotherhood’s
various constituencies in the post-2011 period, especially as the uprising
that overthrew Hosni Mubarak was caused, to a considerable degree, by

discontent over the neoliberal policies spearheaded by his son, Gamal.
It is not the place here for yet another discussion of the causes of the
Egyptian uprising. Suffice it so say that socioeconomic demands were equally
important to political demands in driving the rebellion. Protesters called for
“dignity”; they claimed freedom and accountability, if not democracy as such
(Salih 2013; Filiu 2011; Haddad, Bsheer, and Abu-Rish 2012). But they also
called for “bread” and “social justice.” The Mubarak regime’s ineffectiveness
and incompetence, its inability to address the long-standing economic prob-
lems of the country and the corruption of its elites, constituted a core driver
of the rebellion. Its mismanagement exacerbated the effects of the worldwide
2008 global financial crisis and the rise in foodstuff prices (Achcar 2013;
Gerges 2013b; Hanieh 2013; Kaboub 2013; Campante and Chor 2012;
Dahi 2012).
The Brotherhood did not take a leading role in the 2011 Arab rebellion,
joining it, rather, alongside other political forces. However, Islamist groups
were the main beneficiaries of political change, at least in its immediate after-
math. Arguably, it was not the Islamists’ propositions for economic change
that brought about their electoral successes. Although economic discontent
had been a core reason of the uprising, the economy was not at the fore-
front of the campaign and coalitions formed around identity politics, not
economic policy (Kinninmont 2012, pp. 1, 3). This did not indicate that
economic issues were unimportant but that the electorate saw moral upright-
ness as the “solution” to economic problems: The Islamists sent the message
that, because they were morally “righteous”—good Muslims—they would be
able to deliver better governance. Masoud (2014) makes the equally plausible
argument that the Brotherhood/FJP succeeded in the polls because the Egyp-
tian electorate, and the poorer classes in particular, believed that they—in
contrast to their leftist rivals—would distribute wealth.11
Having established itself as the political party arm of the Muslim Brother-
hood in May 2011, the FJP contested the elections that were held between
November 2011 and January 2012 and won almost half the seats of the lower
chamber of the People’s Assembly. It also won a majority of the elected seats
for the higher chamber, the Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council), which
were contested in January and February 2012 (Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace 2012). The hard-line Salafi groups won a further quarter
of the seats. The two assemblies in turn elected the members of the Con-
stituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly was declared unconstitutional
by the courts in April 2012 but was reconstituted in June (Ottaway 2012;
Brown 2012). The second Constituent Assembly operated until December
2012 when the new constitution came into effect, following a popular
referendum. The Freedom and Justice Party’s candidate, Mohamed Morsi,

was elected as president of Egypt in June 2012 and he remained in power
until a military coup overthrew him in July 2013, on the back of mass popu-
lar protests against him. The transitional and contested nature of political
arrangements in that entire period meant that the FJP did not really “control”
government—it was constrained by far too many competing forces for that—
but it, and particularly Morsi, did exercise considerable power, enough for
one to get a sense of their approach to economic issues.
The party political platform of 2011, with which the FJP entered the
electoral contestations, laid out, with regard to socioeconomic issues, a cen-
trist position “between capitalism and socialism” (Saif and Abu Rumman
2012, p. 5). It called for pragmatism and respect for private property rights;
it did not advocate the nationalization or renationalization of state-owned
enterprises. It welcomed partnerships with the private sector, especially in
the areas of public utilities and infrastructure; called for good governance,
for an end to corruption and waste, and for socially just policies; declared
its commitment to international agreements; and offered Islamic financing
(Saif and Abu Rumman 2012, pp. 1, 9–13). It also announced the creation
of an Islamic charity fund financed by a 2 percent voluntary zakat levy
(Kinninmont 2012, p. 3), stressed the Islamists’ social work in support of
the poor, and emphasized their support of a Keynesian model of active state
interventionism (Gerges 2013a, pp. 408–9).
The FJP program was a product of compromise between various interests
and positions of the party’s existing and prospective supporters. The unem-
ployed, the job seekers, and government employees exerted an influence on
the FJP. It won popular support on the basis of its social services in poor areas
and its commitment to “greater economic equality,” in the context of the
vehement turn in public opinion against the liberalization policies associated
with the late Mubarak era (Economist Intelligence Unit [EIU] July 2012,
p. 5). On the other hand, it condemned labor protests after the rebellion
for “undermining national consensus” (Sallam 2011). Religious business-
men were very influential in the FJP, just as they had been in the Muslim
Brotherhood: According to some analysts the market-oriented faction was
exerting more influence than the government-oriented faction. The Broth-
erhood established in March 2012 its first Business Development Associa-
tion “to act as a link between investors and the government and to support
small and medium-sized enterprises” (Paciello 2013, p. 17; Kinninmont
2012, p. 3). Led by key Muslim Brotherhood businessmen, it also acted as a
bridge with some of Mubarak’s cronies who had fled the country (El Hou-
daiby 2013, p. 3). Khairat el-Shater was the most prominent business leader
in the Brotherhood. Described as “a millionaire businessman [who] was the
Brotherhood’s key strategist, financier, and deputy head until he resigned in

April 2012 to run for president” (Gerges 2013a, p. 394),12 he was also the
FJP deputy chairman and was responsible for drafting the economic agenda
for the 2011 elections (Habibi 2012). El-Shater addressed the American
Chamber of Commerce in Egypt (Amcham) in May 2012 as part of the FJP’s
outreach to Western investors (Kinninmont 2012, p. 3).
The “contradicting class and institutional socio-economic interests”
within the FJP (El Houdaiby 2013, p. 3) came to the fore most poignantly
with Morsi’s handling of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the
subsidies issue. Reforming food and fuel subsidies, which constituted roughly
a quarter of the country’s budget at the time, was the most pressing economic
policy problem that confronted the Morsi presidency. One of the reasons
why Morsi was unable or unwilling to negotiate the delivery of a $4.8 billion
facility with the IMF was because it would have entailed the end of these
subsidies. It is worth remembering that, in the past, the Muslim Brotherhood
had characterized the IMF and the World Bank (WB) as part of US influ-
ence in the Middle East, which, together with a hegemonic American youth
culture, was “geared at dissolving the cohesion among Middle Eastern societ-
ies and weakening society from within” (Monier and Ranko 2013, p. 114).
A tentative deal between the IMF and the SCAF (Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces), which had taken over in the transition period after Mubarak’s
overthrow, had been reached in June 2011, but, when it was not signed,
the Brotherhood/FJP applauded this as “an assertion of Egyptian sovereignty,
while being careful not to rule out future multilateral lending” (Nelson and
Sharp 2013, p. 5). They put strong emphasis in their electoral campaign on
finding alternatives to borrowing from international financial institutions
(and ties to Qatar and Turkey did deepen: El Houdaiby 2013, p. 14). How-
ever, when in power, Morsi and the FJP continued to negotiate with the IMF,
carrying out at least piecemeal reforms as part of these negotiations (Paciello
2013, pp. 10–11); and they stated that they did not object to the IMF loan
as such but to the timing of it (Kinnimont 2012, p. 3).
Hisham Qandil, a former irrigation and water resources minister, was
appointed Prime Minister in late July 2012 at the head of a technocratic gov-
ernment (EIU August 2012, p. 3). There was continuity in economic portfo-
lios and little change in fiscal policy (EIU August 2012, p. 5): Qandil at first
retained quite a few ministers from the Mubarak and SCAF periods (Paciello
2013, p. 9). However, as soon as Morsi came to power, in July 2012, he raised
public sector workers’ salaries and pensions by 15 percent (EIU July 2012,
p. 5). The government was soon faced with falling foreign currency reserves
(EIU August 2012, p. 22) and Christine Lagarde, managing director of the
IMF, arrived in Cairo in August 2012 to start negotiating the aforementioned
loan of $4.8 billion. This entailed plans to reduce fuel subsidies (EIU August
2012, p. 25), which Morsi resisted. At the same time, the Egyptian gov-
ernment placed emphasis on public–private partnerships and sought private
financing of Egypt’s infrastructure, resulting in donors such as Qatar and
Turkey promising funds (EIU October 2012, pp. 35–37). Together with the
Salafis, who were less keen on the free market, the FJP called for the introduc-
tion of an index of companies compliant with sharia (Gerges, 2013a, p. 408).
In the course of autumn 2012, signs of economic recovery remained faint.
In November, the Egyptian pound fell to an eight-year low (EIU November
2012, pp. 2, 25; and December 2012, p. 27). While that situation unfolded,
the government issued a ten-year development plan, which focused on both
social justice and economic growth, with job creation at its core; it was to
form the basis of the IMF agreement (EIU December 2012, p. 4). As part of
the deal, the government was going to reduce energy subsidies and increase
taxes. However, public outcry forced it to reverse course (Nelson and Sharp
2013, p. 6); tax increases introduced in early December had to be rescinded
within a day. Only 95-octane petrol prices were liberalized, affecting the
owners of more expensive cars. Because of fears of social unrest and loss of
popular support, in the context of renewed political instability, the govern-
ment asked the IMF to delay negotiations. The European Union approved an
aid package in November 2012 (EIU January 2013, pp. 5–6). Despite inter-
national help and domestic borrowing, however, foreign reserves kept falling
and the Egyptian pound kept losing its value (EIU February 2013, pp. 6, 8).
In January 2013, Prime Minister Qandil carried out a cabinet reshuffle
that included a change of finance minister. The Central Bank governor was
also changed, amid uncertainty on fiscal policy (EIU February 2013, pp. 19,
37–39). A new revised plan, which watered down tax increases and the reduc-
tion of food and energy subsidies, was presented to the IMF (EIU March
2013, p. 2) but was rejected. The continuing lack of agreement with the
IMF dented investor confidence and the economic slowdown contributed
to the rise in unemployment (EIU March 2013, p. 4). In February, Qandil
announced a new economic program that, according to the Economist
Intelligence Unit, “smacked of populism”; this was ahead of parliamentary
elections, which were at that point scheduled for April 2013 (they were later
postponed) (EIU March 2013, p. 26). There was some further liberalization
of fuel prices (EIU April 2013, p. 6). In February 2012 the FJP economic
team announced that a tax on stock exchange transactions, which had been
on the FJP electoral platform, was no longer on the agenda. More generally,
no effort was made to introduce a more progressive tax system and the
imposition of taxes on property and capital gains was repeatedly postponed
(Paciello 2013, pp. 10–11).
Overall, public expenditure increased by 30 percent between July 2012

and January 2013 (Laursen and Al Nashar 2013, p. 5). The slide of the Egyp-
tian pound continued and the budget deficit soared in the first three quarters
of 2012–13 partly due to the high public sector wage increases mentioned
above (EIU May 2013, pp. 2, 25, 28–29). The fiscal outlook worsened and
instability continued. Further negotiations with the IMF ended without
agreement in April 2013, although, by that point, Egypt had received more
pledges of support from Qatar and Libya (Nelson and Sharp 2013, p. 8), the
former offering a loan of $3.5 billion with soft terms (EIU June 2013, p. 24).
The “markets” celebrated Morsi’s removal in July 2013. This was not least
because the move came with a pledge of $12 billion in aid from Saudi Arabia,
the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait (EIU July 2013, pp. 2, 45).13
No doubt it was also due to the perception that the FJP, and President Morsi
in particular, had been fumbling and uncertain in their policies, even incom-
petent. There were many reasons for this, for instance the lack of high caliber
cadres within the Brotherhood/FJP that led to a “weak legislative agenda” and
a failure to present a clear alternative to the policies it had previously criti-
cized (El Houdaiby 2013, p. 10). A further important cause, however, and
most relevant to the argument of this section, was the FJP’s attempt to satisfy
the incompatible interests of its various constituencies.
The difficulty of marrying the FJP’s pro-capitalist and “social justice”
agendas came through every step of the way during the party’s one year in
power. The FJP preserved the status quo with regard to the business sector,
presumably to send positive signals to investors, but at the same time “took a
number of steps to reconfigure prevailing power relations in favour of Broth-
erhood-affiliated businessmen” (Paciello 2013, p. 16). During the FJP’s spell
in power “new economic players, with links to Islamic movements within
Egypt and the Gulf, seemed to be rapidly increasing their market shares in
the banking, construction, real estate, transport, retail, and other sectors”
(Osman 2013, p. 2). It tried to keep “good connections and contacts with the
former regime’s entrepreneurs” (Paciello 2013, p. 16). It sought to expand its
influence over the Egyptian Trade Union Federation and responded to con-
tinuing labor unrest, according to Paciello’s critical account, in an “intran-
sigent” manner, “using force and arrests, the criminalization of strikes and
intimidations, and the firing of union leaders and disciplinary actions against
them” (2013, p. 15). It failed to “restructure the state and dismantle the
networks of crony capitalism tied thereto” (El Houdaiby 2013, p. 10). It
seemed keen not to upset senior bureaucrats and business tycoons, allow-
ing business representatives, for example, to accompany Morsi on his trips
abroad (El Houdaiby 2013, p. 12).14 However, while it made efforts to satisfy
its business constituency, the FJP was loath to alienate its poorer and more
disadvantaged supporters. It tried to keep them on its side by continuing “to

play the identity card to defend Morsi’s decisions, even if they were irrelevant
to religious concerns” (El Houdaiby 2013, p. 11). It prevaricated on the IMF
deal because its resultant reduction of subsidies would have flown in the face
of the Egyptian uprising’s popular demands for social justice and the public’s
aversion to neoliberal policies. Stuck in the middle, in the constrained con-
text of deteriorating economic conditions, the FJP brought upon itself the
worst of both worlds.
The Economic Policies of Nahda

The Tunisian uprising of late 2010 to early 2011 was, perhaps more clearly than
others in the region, the result of relative deprivation—as opposed to absolute
poverty—which deepened popular grievances and caused an eruption. At the
forefront of the rebellion were both those who felt that their living standards
were falling or not rising in line with their expectations and, particularly, those
hailing from the disadvantaged regions of the country’s south and the interior,
where average rates of poverty were four times higher compared to those in the
richer coastal areas. The mass protests in Tunisia also targeted the kleptocracy
that had formed around Ben Ali and his family. All in all, grievances about the
economy, lack of political freedoms, failures in governance, and corruption
were the main reasons behind the rebellion, with the first (economic griev-
ances) being slightly more significant (World Bank 2014, p. 27).
The Tunisian Islamist movement, Nahda, had been banned under Ben
Ali and—similarly to the Brotherhood in Egypt—was not at the forefront of
the uprising that overthrew him. However, it quickly regrouped following its
legalization and contested the elections of October 23, 2011, obtaining a plu-
rality of 89 out of 217 seats in the National Constituent Assembly (NCA),
which was tasked with writing the country’s new constitution. In December
2011, a new interim government was formed, headed by Nahda’s Hamadi
Jebali and comprising three partners, Nahda, the Congrés pour la République
(CPR) and the Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés (Ettakatol).
On December 10, 2012, the NCA adopted an interim constitution that was
to remain in place until the approval of the final version and, on December
13, the NCA elected Moncef Marzouki, a secular and leftist political and
human rights activist, to the position of president of the Republic. The gov-
ernment lasted until March 14, 2013, when a cabinet reshuffle reduced the
influence of Nahda in the cabinet; another Nahda member, Ali Laarayedh,
became prime minister. Laarayedh was replaced on January 29, 2014, when a
national unity government was formed, by an independent figure of national
consensus with strong links to Nahda, Mehdi Jomaa.
The NCA went through an arduous process of drafting the new Tunisian
constitution, while being constantly confronted with social and political
tensions and crises, including the killing of opposition figures. On several
occasions the secular opposition threatened to boycott the work of the assem-
bly. Much of the debate on the constitution related to the role of Islam as a
source of law and the relative merits of a parliamentary versus a presidential
system. The tumultuousness of the process notwithstanding, consensus was
reached and on January 26, 2014, the NCA approved the new constitution
with two hundred votes in favor; the following day the president signed it
into law. Because the new constitution was approved by more than two-thirds
of the assembly no referendum was required (Mersch 2014).
The emergence of Nahda as the preeminent political force in Tunisia fol-
lowing the overthrow of Ben Ali can be seen as deriving from the regional
imbalance, which has marked modern Tunisian history in its entirety, between
the developed coastal areas of the Sahel and the poorer south and interior of
the country; an imbalance that had also driven the rebellion of 2010–11
itself. The country’s dominant elites since independence in 1956 were drawn
from the coastal areas of the Sahel (Pargeter 2009, p. 1035), in contrast to
the underdeveloped, socially conservative, and Islamically oriented south and
interior. The historical link between Nahda, and its predecessor the Mou-
vement pour la Tendance Islamique (MTI), and the less developed region
of the southern interior of Tunisia, is widely accepted. The leadership and
many of the rank and file of the movement hark from the south, although
the movement has also spread to Tunis, the capital city and the country’s
melting pot (Pargeter 2009, pp. 1031–32). The regional economic disparity
had already, in the past, prompted a number of rebellions in the south and
the interior, most prominently in Gafsa in 1980 and Sfax in 1982, which the
MTI capitalized on—even though, as Pargeter notes in a revealing comment,
“it never sought to champion the poor per se” (Pargeter 2009, p. 1037).
Van Hamme, Gana, and Ben Rebbah (2014) caution us, in their analysis
of the electoral geography of the October 2011 poll, against conflating the
socioeconomic and regional/territorial dimensions of party political support.15
This caveat notwithstanding, we can still agree with Merone’s broad argu-
ment that Nahda’s legalization, institutionalization, and its (at least partial)
take over of power, following the overthrow of Ben Ali, was the culmination
of a long process of nation-building (which may not be “as revolutionary
as it first seemed”) whereby a conservative middle class became “included
within the structures of power through its political representative, Al-Nahda”
(Merone 2015, p. 75; see also Cavatorta and Merone 2013). This reconcilia-
tion between two ideologically different middle classes, which drove political
change in post-2011 Tunisia, came at the price of the continuing neglect of
Tunisia’s disenfranchised and intensified the flocking of the excluded lower

classes to Islamic extremism; it also explains the low electoral turnout in 2011
(Merone 2015, p. 83).16
The October 2011 elections brought to power a “totally new political
class” (Paciello 2013, p. 18), and Nahda ministers, in particular, though
well-educated, lacked previous administrative experience (EIU January
2012, p. 11). Following the national elections for a Constituent Assembly
in October 2011 and the formation of the new government, Nahda took all
cabinet portfolios except finance and defense.
The new government was confronted with a tough economic situation,
which deteriorated as a result of political unrest. Intensified expectations of
reform following the overthrow of the old regime rendered the problems all
the more difficult to handle. Tourism and foreign direct investment saw a
drop. The economy experienced a downturn of 1.85 percent in 2011, the
fiscal deficit remained high, and GDP growth continued to be weak, at 2.8
percent; these problems were exacerbated by continuing strikes and sit-ins in
Tunisia but also by the dire economic situation in the EU, with which the
Tunisian economy is intimately linked (EIU January 2012, pp. 3, 7; February
2012, p. 3). The economic indicators worsened especially in the interior, with
agricultural workers even going on hunger strikes (EIU February 2012, p. 8).
Salafi activities and violence, and the protests against them that they gave
rise to, added to the general sense of precariousness and further damaged the
economy. Although some encouraging signs existed in mining and foreign
investments did come in, including from the Gulf, there was a drop in tour-
ism and some foreign companies shut down; business confidence continued
being undermined (EIU February 2012, pp. 14–15; April 2012, p. 13).
The historic trade union federation (known by its French acronym,
UGTT, for Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail), played an important
role in the post-2011 Tunisian setting and influenced both the political and
economic situation. The UGTT had been instrumental in the 2011 uprising,
contributing to its success by organizing and coordinating the demonstra-
tions that brought down the regime through its network of local associations.
Political tensions between it and the government soon emerged, though, flar-
ing up in February 2012 when widespread UGTT demonstrations protested
vandalism against its offices, allegedly by Nahda (EIU March 2012, p. 10). In
the economic sphere, the UGTT also played an important role: It took part
in ongoing negotiations with the government, pressing the case for labor and
social rights (Toensing 2011).
Outside actors impacted the Tunisian economy in complex ways. The new
government enjoyed the support of some Gulf states and there were many
economic links with the countries there. A Tunisian businessmen delegation
visited Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE (EIU February 2012, p. 3). There was
a visit by the Qatari crown prince, Qatar being the leading Arab provider of
loans and investments in Tunisia (EIU August 2012, p. 2, 19). The G8 and
World Bank were supportive of Tunisia with loans (EIU January 2012, p. 5).
Tunisia received $3 billion in aid in 2011, which went some way to cover its
needs, estimated by its Central Bank at $5 billion (EIU February 2012, p. 3).
In its first months, the Nahda-led government tried to preserve a balance
between a pro-business agenda and attention to social justice, which inevita-
bly led to tensions. Its economic policy plans and objectives were deemed to
be similar to the old regime’s but there was also an attempt to ensure benefits
were more evenly distributed among the population, as well as a push for
good governance and anticorruption measures (EIU January 2012, pp. 5, 7).
For example, in a speech to the Constituent Assembly on December 22,
2012, Prime Minister Jebali promised job creation but also that the govern-
ment would be business-friendly. He also promised transparency in financial
transactions and announced that the government was drawing up the legal
framework to encourage Islamic banking and finance (EIU January 2012,
pp. 13–14; March 2012, p. 13). The government announced its priorities
as consisting of job creation, regional development, human rights, and good
governance (EIU January 2012, p. 11). It tried to stimulate the economy
through high spending. The 2012 budget increased social spending by 7.5
percent, to fund infrastructure in the interior and a rising public sector wage
bill (EIU January 2012, pp. 6, 16). At the same time, Nahda reassured for-
eign investors that pursuing foreign direct investment would remain a key
economic policy (EIU January 2012, p. 6). To ease the situation and help
the economy, the government drew up and introduced a 120-page “middle
of the road” action plan, developed in collaboration with the UGTT and the
employers’ association, UTICA (EIU April 2012, p. 11).
The tensions within the government over issues of economic policy and
between a pro-business and a social justice agenda continued. The Central
Bank governor was sacked, over differences over the rise of interest rates: He
wanted to lift them to keep inflation down, but the government wanted to
avoid dampening growth. The finance minister, one of the few independents
in the government, resigned, complaining that government spending was
excessive and unsustainable and that it was not reaching those who needed
it most; he also expressed concerns about the central bank governor dis-
missal (EIU August 2012, pp. 2, 20). The government announced plans
to revive the privatization program (EIU November 2012, p. 31), decrease
food subsidies, and increase taxes on luxury goods to cut the budget deficit
(EIU December 2012, p. 28). However, the plans to cut food subsidies were
subsequently repudiated (EIU February 2013, p. 25).
The assassination of opposition activist Chokri Belaid in February 2013

by radical Islamists led to massive antigovernment demonstrations. Prime
Minister Jebali resigned after his proposal of a cabinet of technocrats to lead
Tunisia out of its political and economic crisis was rebuffed. Ali Laarayedh,
also of Nahda, succeeded him but by way of compromise Nahda accepted
a number of independents in the government, which thereby became more
broadly based (EIU March 2013, p. 22). However, political and economic
discontent continued and further efforts to reduce fuel subsidies were met by
anger (EIU April 2013, p. 2). The fiscal deficit ballooned and the economy
remained sluggish (EIU April 2013, pp. 5, 33). Foreign direct investment fell
to levels lower than before the revolution (EIU April 2013, p. 4).
The IMF, World Bank, and European Union increased the pressure on
Tunisia’s government by calling for faster reform in reducing food and fuel
subsidies and in changing labor and investment laws, in return of financial
support (EIU May 2013, p. 23). However, fear of increasing social strife meant
that the government was not moving toward reform in labor laws, private–
public partnerships, investment laws, banking sector, business infrastructure,
and privatization and kept sending business mixed messages. Internal govern-
ment differences also exacerbated the problem with Nahda’s partners in gov-
ernment, the CPR, and President Marzouki arguing, from a more left-wing
perspective than Nahda, that the “old” model had failed (EIU May 2013,
pp. 24–25); although Marzouki, alongside other senior figures, also called for
a settlement with many business figures from the previous regime accused of
corruption (EIU June 2013, p. 23). Finally, the IMF approved a $1.75 bil-
lion two-year program in spring 2013 that, according to critics, committed
“Tunisia to implementing the same neoliberal agenda and macro-stabilisation
measures pursued under the Ben Ali regime” (Paciello 2013, p. 18). In a dif-
ferent development, a new law was approved that allowed the issue of sukuk,
bonds that conform to sharia law (EIU August 2013, p. 26).
In July 2013, another opposition figure, Mohamed Brahimi, was assassi-
nated and the ensuing political crisis further exacerbated the economic crisis
(EIU September 2013, pp. 29–33). The Nahda-led government of Laarayedh
stepped down in favor of a national unity government, which eventually took
office in January 2014. In the period of autumn 2013, the finance minis-
ter announced austerity measures to reduce the soaring budget deficit (EIU
October 2013, p. 2) and a new investment law, promised to the IMF and
World Bank, was prepared (EIU December 2013, p. 29). The government
was under pressure to reduce the subsidy bill but there was public opposition
to this and elections loomed (EIU November 2013, pp. 24–26).
Similarly to the Justice and Freedom Party in Egypt, Nahda in Tunisia
pursued a neoliberal, pro-business agenda while attempting not to alienate
the poorer segments of the Tunisian population, whose grievances had driven
the rebellion.17 Webb argues that Nahda did not propose systematic eco-
nomic redistribution and that, despite its rhetoric to the contrary, offered
no alternatives to neoliberalism; it only proposed that it would work better
if it were run by virtuous, moral individuals, in other words, good Muslims
(Webb 2014, p. 13). According to Piacello’s critical analysis, Nahda did not
introduce “a substantial fiscal reform towards better wealth redistribution and
tax collection capacity.” The 2013 budget was denounced by trade unions as
disproportionately affecting wage workers (Paciello 2013, pp. 19–20). In the
areas of wages, job creation, and economic policy, continuity with the Ben
Ali era was the order of the day and the Jebali and Laarayedh governments
“confirmed their full support for a market economy in line with interim
governments and Ben Ali’s regime. Privatisation [has] accelerated, with the
sale of state properties confiscated from people linked to the previous regime
. . . together with the creation of new industrial zones open to foreign inves-
tors” (Paciello 2013, p. 24). The Nahda-led government tried to obstruct
the UGTT’s initiatives and used repressive and intimidatory tactics against
workers’ protests (Paciello 2013, pp. 26–27). Nahda’s leaders “never miss a
chance to call for more capital, stimulation of the private sector and engage-
ment in economic partnership that is based on international free market
principles” (Al-Anani 2012). On the other hand, Nahda’s economic plat-
form emphasized economic justice (Paciello 2013, p. 19) and the govern-
ment it led did make an effort to cater to the needs of the lower classes and
the country’s poorer regions (Habibi 2012). It appeared to rely on the state
in generating employment and investment (Saif and Abu Rumman 2012).
The Nahda-led government pursued an expansionary budget policy, which
translated into a rising subsidies and the public sector wage bill (World Bank
2013); it also presided over an increase in public employment (Dworkin
2014, p. 3).18 This was a particularly difficult balancing act to maintain in a
period of economic downturn and turmoil, however, and presumably con-
tributed to Nahda’s loss of popularity and electoral support in the October
2014 parliamentary election, where the party lost a number of its seats and
came second to the recently formed, anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes.19
Conclusion
The economic policies of the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt and of
Nahda in Tunisia in the post-2011 setting were situated within a broader
discussion of Islamism and neoliberalism in the Middle East region and
in particular the emergence of “pious neoliberalism.” The records of the
two groups show that they were comfortable with a neoliberal agenda and
that they were unwilling to challenge the socioeconomic structures of the

countries they came (at least in part and for a time) to rule. This sat uneasily
with the demands for social justice put forward during the uprisings that
overthrew the regimes of Mubarak and Ben Ali. To meet this challenge, the
two movements tempered their neoliberal agendas by desisting from harsh
measures that would further punish popular strata already suffering from
the negative economic consequences of political turmoil. This was the result
of the pragmatic need to satisfy their mixed constituencies and hang on to
the power they had so unexpectedly achieved.
Following the uprisings, the FJP and Nahda realized, as did Islamist
groups elsewhere, that they had to deliver in adverse conditions, namely
in the economic crises that had gripped their countries in the post-2011
context (Habibi 2012). In doing so, they were mindful of trying to balance
their middle-class and lower-class constituencies. They tried to give moral
and ethical considerations a prominent place in the economy and occupy a
centrist position between socialism and capitalism (Saif and Abu Rumman
2012). They attempted to balance between individual and public interest. In
both Egypt and Tunisia, interim governments, which Islamists dominated
or participated in, increased government spending and domestic borrowing.
The result was higher government deficits and inflationary pressures. These
populist policies were not due to antineoliberal preferences, however, but to
Islamist groups seeking to retain their positions of power.
The post-2011 records of Freedom and Justice and Nahda show that, if we
understand “system” as the fundamental socioeconomic structures in Egypt
and Tunisia, these Islamist actors cannot be considered antisystemic forces
(Secor 2001). Taking a step back, we can see that the uprisings in the two
countries did not alter these structures (see also Kienle and Ettinger 2014),
although they did remove the predatory circles that had formed around their
respective presidencies. Islamists took positions of power fairly soon after-
ward but they did not show any serious intention of interfering with the
fundamentals of the established socioeconomic order (although they were, of
course, part of the wave that had overthrown the preexisting political order).
What they aimed for, at least in the case of Egypt, was a change of personnel:
They would want their supporters to benefit from new opportunities and
the business people associated with their movement to take over positions of
economic control. What the Islamists sought, in other words, was a change of
elites within the preexisting socioeconomic structures, which had otherwise
remained intact.
This chapter has provided empirical material relevant to the bigger ques-
tions of the present volume on neoliberalism, governmentality, and the state
in the post-2011 Middle East. The arrival of the Islamists in power following
the uprisings and the economic policies they pursued confirm that, “while
economic conditions were amongst the first reasons in causing the Arab
revolts and that there has been a toppling of the existing governmental struc-
ture in certain cases, what does not appear to be challenged adequately in the
region today is the already existing economic paradigm” (Akçalı, Introduc-
tion, this volume). However, the popular turnaround against the Islamists in
Egypt and Tunisia—despite the fact that its causes are still not fully known
and will be fully established by future research—may include popular aver-
sion to the Islamists’ neoliberal agenda, even though it was tempered, as we
saw, by an attempt to cater to “social justice.” These developments confirm
that Foucault’s concept of neoliberal governmentality, at least in its original
understanding, is—as Akçalı suggests—of limited applicability to the context
of the Middle East. In the region as a whole and specifically in Egypt and
Tunisia, the relationship between the state, society, politics, and neoliberal
structures is currently being renegotiated and transformed into something
new. It is evident that, in these countries at least, a socioeconomic revolution
has not taken place. Equally, however, we can observe that neoliberal struc-
tures continue being the subject of intense contestation.
Notes
1. These include: the salaried middle classes, recent rural migrants, the lower ech-
elons of traditional urban middle classes (such as shopkeepers, small retailers),
and the lumpen proletariat. Rahnema distinguishes between the salaried and
professional middle classes and argues that liberal Muslims emerge among the
latter (Rahnema 2008, p. 494).
2. The emphasis on personal values and uprightness partly explains why Islamists
do not pay attention to the building of institutions for the elimination of cor-
ruption. The neglect of institutions can be observed generally in the ideological
proclamations of many Islamist movements and also became apparent in the
Muslim Brotherhood/FJP and Nahda’s performance in the post-2011 periods.
3. Observers of Islamist movements have ascribed their pro-capitalist orientation
to the religious precepts of Islam, which command respect for private property
(Atasoy 2009; Davis and Monk 2007). For an alternative and, in my view, more
convincing interpretation, which focuses on the force of material conditions in
determining the relationship between Islam and capitalism, see Rodinson (2007).
4. See also Atasoy (2009), and, for a discussion of similar issues in an Indonesian
context, see Rudnyckyj (2010).
5. Interestingly, Tuğal argues that, as a consequence of this process, there occurred
a de-Islamization of everyday life (Tuğal 2009, ch. 9).
6. One must note, however, that, in terms of class support and ideology, the AKP
took over the mantle, not only of the Welfare Party, but of the right-wing
Democrat Party and its successors, such as the Motherland Party.
7. The series of electoral contestations following the overthrow of Mubarak also

brought into the Constituent Assembly a number of Salafis, hard-line Islamists
who constituted a distinct group from the Brotherhood. Their socioeconomic
policies are important in themselves, of course, but will not be examined here:
The focus will be on the FJP, which, as well as being the largest group in the
assembly, came to dominate the Egyptian presidency.
8. In contrast to the Brotherhood, the militants of the Islamic Group in the
1980s—unlike the armed militants of the 1970s and the Islamist students and
graduates of the period—were of rural origin with little university education
(Beinin, 2005, p. 129). Beinin also notes: “Some Imbaba [a poor area of Cairo]
construction workers tried to join the Muslim Brothers but were rejected as hav-
ing insufficient education” (Beinin 2005, p. 130).
9. The leader of the Labour Party, ‘Adil Husayn, expressed a “corporatist approach”
to relations between labor and capital similar to ideas advanced by the Muslim
Brothers since the 1940s: “Our position derives from our Islamic method which
requires equity and justice in the Islamic society we are seeking. Muslims in
such a society will be as one body in which the employer will be duty-bound to
respect the rights of the workers and workers will be duty-bound to be diligent
in their work to build the economy of the umma (Islamic community)” (Beinin,
2005, p. 132, quoting Husayn as reported in al-Sha’b, December 16, 1997).
10. Al-Din Arafat argues that the term “businessman” must be understood differ-
ently in the Egyptian context. Businessmen are in fact “owners of capital” or
“moneyed people,” a category rendered more accurately by the Arabic term Ragal
al-Amal (Al-Din Arafat 2009, p. 62). This important insight is worth bearing
in mind when trying to understand the Egyptian context in which the Muslim
Brotherhood has operated and from which it has been formed.
11. Masoud’s analysis (2014) offers a possible explanation of the rapid disillusion-
ment of voters with the Brotherhood, once it became apparent that redistribution
was not their primary objective.
12. Gerges makes an interesting comment about el-Shater and the ideological fac-
tions within the Brotherhood to which he belongs. He argues that, although,
politically, el-Shater had previously appeared as a moderate, after Mubarak’s
overthrow he defended “the group’s traditional view of itself as a society within
society that employs politics as just one tool to Islamize the country” and moved
against more liberal members and those who hoped to change the Brotherhood’s
insular and hierarchical culture. He preached the virtues of an Islamic state and
pledged to introduce the sharia (Gerges 2013a, pp. 392–95). A pro-business,
pro-capitalist Islamist perspective does not necessarily go hand in hand with
moderate positions politically but can coexist with ultraconservatism.
13. The long-awaited $4.8 billion IMF facility was also offered. Economic stability
was immediately improved and the Egyptian pound was strengthened (EIU July
2013, p. 4).
14. It is interesting to note that the IMF deal was more vehemently opposed by left-
ist political forces—the main opposition to Morsi—than by Islamists, including
hard-line Salafis (Nelson and Sharp 2013, p. 10).
15. Van Hamme, Gana, and Ben Rebbah (2014) analyze the relationship between
regional/territorial dimension and socioeconomic cleavages and party prefer-
ences in the October 2011 elections. It is impossible to fully address these issues
within the confines of this chapter except to emphasize that they constitute an
enormously complex picture that belies simplistic conclusions. It is interesting
to note that the authors characterize Nahda as “liberal” in terms of the economy
in everything except employment policy (p. 755).
16. Turnout in the 2014 elections was even lower. Boukhars also argues that power
in Tunisia is “confined to demographically narrow strata of society that are inter-
dependent and interlocked. The same elites, who alternate between competition
and coordination, still dominate the economy and enjoy strong connections
with international circles of influence. Worse, many of the most compromised
elite [sic] of the old regime still hold leadership positions in the bureaucracy and
the media.” In the 2014 elections, Moncef Marzouki, who hailed from the left
but also attracted the Islamist vote, and originated from the south, was seen as
“an alternative to the power structures that have dominated Tunisia since inde-
pendence in 1956” (Boukhars 2015, p. 8). Halimi indirectly confirms this also
by pointing out the similarities between Nahda and Nidaa Tounes—the winners
of the 2014 elections—when it comes to economic policies and preference for
neoliberalism, neither of which can solve—according to the author—the prob-
lem of huge regional inequalities (Halimi 2014).
17. Note, however, that—according to one analyst (Iqbal 2014)—Tunisia pursued
more wide-ranging economic reforms than Egypt.
18. In 2013, Nahda hired 6,000 new civil servants on the basis of their political
allegiance to the party (Milan and Cristiani 2014).
19. The 2011 election campaign had focused almost exclusively on ideological issues,
such as Islamization, because previously these had not been openly discussed
(Marks 2014, p. 11). According to one analyst, however, the 2014 campaign
and its results showed that the majority of voters care more about economics
and development than moving to a “utopian Islamist social order,” which was a
lesson for Nahda (Boukhars 2015, p. 13).
CHAPTER 6
Jihadism in the Aftermath of

Arab Revolutions: An Outcome
of the “Failed State”?
Farhad Khosrokhavar
J
ihadism in the Arab world is not recent. It has a history, specifically ori-
ented in each country. In Egypt and many Arab countries, the Six-Day
War, the failure of the Arab coalition against the Israeli army in June
1967, and the death of Nasser in September 1970 were the swan song
of the pan-Arabism and the beginning of the radical version of Islam as a
new type of legitimizing ideology and action to fight against Israel, the West,
and the inept and corrupt governments that had caused the military disaster.
During the Sadat reign that ended up in September 1981 by his assassination
by radical Islamist officers, a new type of economic policy, namely the Infi-
tah, the Opening, was implemented that denied state subsidies to large parts
of the population, much in the same vein as in many other Arab countries.
In Tunisia, these policies increased the class gap between the poor and the
rich and concentrated the economic power among the hands of an elite that
had close connections to the family of President Ben Ali, widening as well
the chasm between the southern and internal regions and the northern and
coastal ones where tourism gave an impetus to the economic development.
Jihadism, by and large, therefore is an outcome of the failure of the Arab
Nationalism and its economic policies of the protection of the lower-class
people through state interventionism. The military setbacks of Nasser played
also a major role in discrediting the “secular” solutions and, in particular,
the peaceful and reformist attitudes to do away with the authoritarian and
corrupt governments that played less and less a positive role in terms of the
social perception of their action, within many Arab societies. Jihadism is in
86 ● Farhad Khosrokhavar
some countries like Saudi Arabia the result of their government’s cooperation
with the West against the Islamic values as reinterpreted by a new genera-
tion of radicalized people who saw no possibility of another type of agency
in order to overcome the obstacles that caused, in their view, the downfall of
Islamic values. In Iraq, Jihadism is directly linked to the American and British
invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the advent of Shiite governments that did not
recognize the rights of the Sunni minority to have a major share in ruling the
country. In Syria, radical Islam is the outcome of the refusal by the despotic
Assad regime to recognize the rights of the citizens after the Arab revolutions
and their promise of freedom and dignity.
After the Arab revolutions, a new type of Jihadism has thrived, arguably
due mainly to the “failed state” status of many countries, particularly Syria,
Yemen, and Libya. All these factors point to the fact that Jihadism is not a
gratuitous logic of violent action. It is rooted in the modern history of many
Muslim countries, in particular the Arab societies where geopolitics, internal
political stalemate due to authoritarianism, and the economic policies of the
autocratic governments led to the radicalization of significant parts of the
population. More specifically, this paper will endeavor to demonstrate that
with the notable exception of Tunisia, the rout of the Arab revolts contrib-
uted to the spread of Jihad, not only in the Arab world, but also in part of the
Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular Mali, and more and more, the neighboring
countries. The deepening crisis of many Arab countries between 2012 and
2014 gave furthermore a major boost to Jihadism. It prospered on the ruins
of the Arab revolutions, opening up a new phase in the tortuous pathway of
the radical holy war in the world at large. The crisis of the new revolutionary
movements has therefore opened up new opportunities for radicalism. The
failed states like the Saleh regime in Yemen or the weakened dictatorships
initiating civil war like the Assad regime in Syria made it possible for radical
Islamists to develop new strategies, using the state vacuum or its crisis as a
ground for their violent action. One can divide the period extending from
2011 (Ben Ali was forced to leave Tunisia on January 14, 2011) up to August
2014 into four distinct eras in regard to Jihadism within the Arab countries.
The first period marks the crisis of Jihadism: Partisans of radical Islam were
reduced to the role of spectators in a world where Jihad as promoter of action
was sidelined to the benefit of peaceful action within the new social upheaval.
The second period that began around the end of 2011 marked the crisis of
the Arab revolutions and the return of violence on the street in many coun-
tries. Jihadists were on the defensive but found new opportunities within the
crises of the Arab societies. The third period beginning around 2013 was that
of a new thriving for Jihadist organizations due to the civil war in Syria and
the failed state in some countries like Libya and Yemen. The fourth period
Jihadism in the Aftermath of Arab Revolutions ● 87
began with the advent of a Jihadist state, the ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq
and Sham, the first Jihadist state, since mid-2014. The strategy of gaining a
territorial foothold in order to spread the Islamic caliphate has become the
main goal of this Jihadist group.
The First Period of the Arab Uprisings

At its outset the Arab revolts marginalized the Jihadist1 trend in the Arab
world. Even before the demise of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt,
radical Islam had undergone a visible decline, due to repression by Western
and Muslim countries, but also because of their lack of any positive project
that might go beyond the mere violence of the “enemy.” Besides that,
Jihadists had shown their willingness to put to death fellow Muslims and the
number of Muslims killed by them was by far greater than non-Muslims in
their terrorist attacks. The Arab revolutions brought a whole new set of
ideological concepts based on secular values like the dignity of the citi-
zen (karamah) and peacefulness (salmiyah) and these became significant
values, in contradiction to the violence-prone radical Islam and the denial
of the citizen’s rights in the name of a rigid Islamic community (the neo-
Ummah), cherished by the Jihadists. The values of the new generations and
their cultural tendencies were in absolute contradiction to radical Islam.
Still, the beginning of the Arab revolutions was marked by the opening up
of the doors of the prisons, the fleeing of many Jihadists, or the tolerance
of the new revolutionaries toward them, believing that they might change
their attitude in societies where political freedom might induce them into
adopting a less radical attitude.
Arab revolutions hence changed the pattern of Islamic radicalization in the
region during the first year, in 2011 and even part of 2012. They advocated
new values, rooted in peaceful secularized Islamic notions that were in deep
opposition to the Jihadist cultural values, like the dignity of the citizen (kara-
mah) and peaceful political mobilization (salmiyah). Even before the downfall
of the Tunisian and Egyptian autocracies, the Jihadist trend within Muslim
countries was on the decline. Repression against Islamic radicals, but also the
utter violence of the Jihadists and their lack of any constructive project for
their host societies brought down their prestige. Their attacks against tourists
and Muslims in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere made them unpopular among
many Muslims for whom tourism was their main economic activity. How-
ever, Arab uprisings administered to the Jihadists a major blow. The “easy”
fall of Tunisia and Egypt engendered an internal crisis among Jihadist circles,
based on this commonsense observation: In more than two decades they had
been unable to bring down any Arab regime, whereas peaceful demonstrators
had overthrown two major autocracies in less than a month (respectively,

28 and 18 days in Tunisia and Egypt). The Jihadist strategy, based mainly
on massive violence and small group of activists was questioned: Peaceful
street demonstrations and “leaderless” protestors were more successful than
the violent promoters of a “holy war” who did not succeed to topple any of
the Arab regimes. Ayman al Zawahiri’s words, “There is no solution except
through Jihad, all other solutions are futile. Rather, other solutions would
only worsen the state of dilapidation and submissiveness in which we live;
[purported solutions that exclude jihad] are equivalent to treating cancer with
aspirin” (Lahoud and Al-Ubaydi 2013, p. 8), became pointless in that period.
Besides that, Jihadists suffered two major setbacks: The execution of
Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, by American forces in Pakistan and the
assassination of Anwar al Awlaki, the American turned Jihadist, one of the
editors of a Jihadist electronic journal in English, Inspire, on September 30,
2011, by US drones in Yemen (Meleagrou-Hitchens 2011). These two kill-
ings had a symbolic impact on Jihadist circles around the world. The first
period of the Arab Spring, which extended to the end of 2011, had a dev-
astating effect on Jihadist attraction in the Arab world, as much because it
contradicted their pattern of action (mass killings by small groups of devoted
radicals) as their ideas (Jihad, universal caliphate, intransigent Islamist val-
ues). Through the new protest movements, the Arab street learned how to act
nonviolently in order to topple autocracies that the Jihadists had been inca-
pable of overthrowing for many decades. In the first months of the uprising,
symbolic places like Tahrir square (Cairo), Taqhyir square (Sanaa), and the
Pearl roundabout (Manama) became foci for the apprenticeships of public
actions that put into question the legitimacy of the radical Islamic model,
which had been comprised of small groups, motivated by violent and spectac-
ular actions, devised in secrecy within Jihadist circles. The pattern of mobi-
lization within these peaceful protest movements was thus frontally opposed
to the Jihadist pattern of avant-garde action by self-proclaimed Islamist elites
of warriors (mujaheed, those combatants who perform Jihad). People learned
to express their grievances and demands premised on the individuals’ rights,
in dire opposition to the Jihadist worldview in which the individual has no
right, only religious duties summarized in martyrdom through which one
achieves the status of an Islamic hero by fighting against the worldwide
disbelievers. If somehow forlorn during the first period of the Arab revolu-
tions, still some major Jihadist ideologues thought that the Arab revolutions
had initiated a new period in which the fall of the dictators would, at the
end, make Jihad easier, once alternative solutions would have shown their
inconsistency in achieving the ultimate goal of promoting the rule of Islam
(Lahoud and Al-Ubaydi 2013).
The Second Period of the Arab Spring

After the first shock of the easy demise of the Tunisian and Egyptian autocrats,
many Arab authoritarian regimes began to successfully put up new strategies
against the seemingly irresistible wave of street demonstrations. The latter
shook for a while the autocratic rulers in Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain, and
in some monarchies it did force the kings to make minimal concessions to
the public demand by introducing new constitutions that paid lip service to
the aspiration for change, as was the case in Morocco (a referendum held on
July 1, 2011, approved changes within the constitution that did not put into
question the king’s prerogatives).
The downfall of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes was not followed by
any other one after 2011 under the pressure of the street demonstrations.
The Libyan regime fell in August 2011 after many months of fighting, by
the intervention of NATO and the assistance of European and some Arab
countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar). In Syria, after more than three years of street
protest, the Assad regime is still resisting in July 2015. Its overthrow is not on
the agenda, due to the Russian and Iranian support and the Jihadist groups’
involvement pushes the Western countries to a modus vivendi with the
regime. In this second period, the shattered autocracies gave birth to “failed
states,” and their loosened repressive grip on society opened up new oppor-
tunities for the Jihadists. In Yemen, al-Qaeda affiliated groups emerged that
were able to show continuity and perceptible presence in some parts of the
country, from their stronghold in the south. In Syria, Jihadist groups origi-
nating from Iraq were able to show their teeth in terrorist attacks in the cities.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda after the elimination of Bin Laden,
addressed Syrians and urged Muslims to fight for their Syrian brothers as well
as Syrians themselves. He asserted: “Wounded Syria is still bleeding day after
day, and the butcher (Assad) isn’t deterred and doesn’t stop.”2
The Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda (the al-Qaeda in Iraq, AQI) carried out
bombings in Damascus, the capital of Syria, and was probably behind sui-
cide bombings. The first attack occurred on December 23, 2011, in which
at least 44 people were killed and 160 wounded, and the second, on January
6, 2012, in which 26 people were killed in an attack against an intelligence
agency compound. The bombings came on the orders of Ayman al-Zawahiri
(Landay 2012). AQI began operations in Syria, finding an opportunity to
expand outside Iraq by the crisis of the Assad regime after the popular upris-
ing in March 2011. In both Iraq and Syria, the target is “Shiite power,” in
Syria the Assad regime being regarded as a Shiite deviant sect in the eyes
of the Jihadist Sunnis. In Yemen, al-Qaeda’s strongholds are in the south
but the organization operates in many places, with partial or full al-Qaeda
control in towns of Jaār, Radda, Shuqrah, Zinjibar, Hawta, Rawdah, and

Azan. The Saleh government used al-Qaeda as a scapegoat to dissuade the
Western governments from supporting the civil movement against its auto-
cratic rule. With Yemen, the poorest Arab country, being devoid of a credible
government during the year 2011, al-Qaeda attacks intensified and extended
to many parts of the country. The fragmentation of the Yemeni state thus
increased al-Qaeda’s operational capability and its geographic extension in
the country. In Libya, armed militia and the lack of a centralizing govern-
ment led to greater disorder and a fragmented power structure that encour-
aged the return of the Jihadists. The fact that many Jihadists had joined Libya
after their freeing from prison in order to fight the Gadhafi regime strength-
ened their ranks for future attacks inside and outside that country, some of
them becoming prominent in the new political structure and renouncing
violence, others looking for new opportunities to promote Jihad.
In Egypt, during Morsi’s rule (up to June 2013), the predominantly non-
repressive attitude toward the Jihadists (they were supposed to become open
to dialogue if not frontally repressed), gave them some leeway for taking roots
and preparing for future actions. Turning to the Sunni/Shiite relations in the
wider Muslim world, their strife was heightened following the invasion of
Iraq by the United States and Great Britain in 2003. Before that date, kill-
ing and maiming Shiites did not exist in Iraq on a large scale. In the sectar-
ian strife, Jihadists found new opportunities to mobilize radicalized Sunnis
against Shiites. A similar picture is seen within the crisis in Syria, where the
Alawites, considered as a heretical Shiite sect by many Sunnis, have ruled the
country for many decades. The civil war within Syria has increased the antag-
onism between the two religious groups, amplifying mutual hatred and mul-
tiplying the violent self-defense among the Sunnis. The opposite happened in
Iraq: The Sunnis, under Shiite rule for the first time after the demise of Sad-
dam Hussein, felt humiliated and reacted violently to what they considered
Shiite–American complicity and then, after the departure of the Americans,
the sectarian rule of Maliki strengthened the radical Sunnis’ legitimacy.
The dynamics of the new order pushed many Shiites toward radicalization,
in particular in Bahrain where the Sunni regime, supported by Saudi Arabia,
denies political freedom to the Shiite majority. In many Emirates Shiites are
considered as heretical Muslims and rejected by the Arab governments as
the Trojan horse of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The democratically minded
civil society movement, made of a majority of Shiites in Bahrain but also
many Sunnis who rejected the autocracy of the ruling monarchy was crushed
with the direct assistance of Saudi Arabia through the Cooperation Council
for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) army in March 2011. The move-
ment was framed by the government as a sectarian conflict, the government
taking the side of the Sunni minority against the Shiites. More generally,
authoritarian governments endeavored to transform the civil society move-
ments into sectarian clashes in order to repress them with the complicity of
part of the broader society, as is the case in Syria where the Assad govern-
ment exploited Alawite/Sunni, Christian/Muslim, and Arab/Kurd divisions,
successfully breaking down the protest movement for democracy.
The Third Period

The third period began in 2013 when the crisis deepened in most of the Arab
countries, due to the resistance of the autocratic governments and the assis-
tance of the counterrevolutionary regimes to their client states: Saudi Arabia
economically assisting the Egyptian regime after the military coup, militarily
and financially supporting Bahrain and proposing to integrate Morocco and
other North African countries into the GCC, Iran assisting the Assad regime,
Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. On top of it, the disintegration
of the Arab uprisings under economic hardship and the radicalization of the
activists who acted more and more violently, as was the case in Egypt and
Syria, put into the question the fundamentals of the Arab uprisings (nonvio-
lence, dignity of the citizen, etc.). In Egypt and Syria, radicalization occurred
through different paths. In the other countries like Yemen and Libya, the
government suffered from the failed state’s predicament, the only country in
transition to a democratic status being Tunisia (on January 26, 2014, Tuni-
sia’s National Constituent Assembly ratified a new secular constitution).
In Syria, the crisis deepened into a civil war, the Assad regime killing and
indiscriminately maiming the opposition (around 140,000 people killed on
both sides), alternatively losing ground and regaining it through violence
through air and chemical bombings against numerous opponents divided
into three main categories: the more or less secular Free Syrian Army, the
“legitimate Jihadist groups” (recognized by al-Qaeda), and the other Jihadists
who do not recognize the legitimacy of al-Qaeda’s chief, Ayman al Zawahiri.
Syria has also become a magnet that attracts Jihadists from all over the world,
from Europe around one thousand young people having joined the Jihadist
militia there. In Egypt, the military coup in July 2013 and the subsequent
killing of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) members in street protests (cul-
minating in the August 14, 2013, mass killing of 638 people, including 43
police officers, according to the Ministry of Interior) made reconciliation
with them impossible. Jihadist groups that had lost legitimacy in the first
period of the Egyptian Revolution, vindicated the appropriateness of Jihad in
this period, due to the failure of the MB to remain in power: Since moderate
Muslims (the MB) were ousted from the government by the military, there
was no other way than revolutionary violence cautioned by Allah to establish

Islamic rule. Jihadism attracted part of the MB youth, disappointed by the
“passive” attitude of the MB hierarchy toward the repression by the army. In
particular, in Sinai daily clashes with the security forces became routine for
many months after the military coup.
In Egypt, in Tunisia, as well as in Libya and Yemen, the changes introduced
by the uprisings involved the freeing of many Jihadists from prison, either
legally (they were pardoned) or illegally (they escaped during the period of
turmoil). They joined in some cases the non-Jihadist forces for Islamization
from below (the Salafis) or for changes through peaceful means (the MB), but
a large part went either in other countries to promote Jihad (Libya, Syria, etc.)
or remained home in order to build up new cells and prepare for the future
violent action. The justification was that Egypt and Tunisia had become lands
of proselytizing and calling (da’wa), not Jihad, during the rule of Ennahda
(Tunisia) and MB (Egypt). That was regarded as the second step in accordance
with the Prophet’s pattern of action, beginning with calling to join the ranks of
the Muslims before engaging in a war against the Infidels. After the overthrow
of Morsi’s government in Egypt by the military and the toughening in Tunisia
following the murder of two major political figures (Belaid and Brahimi) in
2013 by the Jihadists, the situation of mutual tolerance gave way to a new
attitude on the part of the governments. In Tunisia, many people in the street
demonstrations and in the security forces advocated military action against the
radical Islamists. In Egypt, under Morsi’s rule the attacks on the security forces
in Sinai were followed by military reprisal. After the coup, the military adopted
a much tougher line against the Jihadists, in particular in the Sinai desert, not
hesitating to bomb their headquarters and killing their sympathizers.
The Fourth Period: The Birth of the First Major

Jihadist State, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham
On June 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (or Levant, meaning the
greater Syria), ISIS, extended its control over a territory between Syria and
Iraq that was around the size of Jordan and his chief Abu Bakr al Baghdadi
was proclaimed the Caliph of Islam. The declaration was made on a video
by the latter.3 The group, originally was composed of many Sunni insurgent
organizations, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Jaysh
a Fatiheen, Jund al Sahaba . . . as well as many Sunni Iraqi tribes opposed
to the Shiite rule by the Maliki government that marginalized the Sunnis by
imposing Shiite domination in Iraq.
ISIS’s growth massively owed to its participation in the Syrian war, the
complacency of the Assad regime toward the Jihadist groups in order to
discredit the opposition to its rule in the eyes of the Western governments,
its financial support by a number of wealthy influential people from Saudi
Arabia and the Emirates who resented the domination of the Shiites in Syria
and Iraq, the abduction of the people and their freeing through ransom, as
well as its close ties with al-Qaeda until February 2014, which was the end of
their cooperation due to its refusal to leave Syria to the rival faction al Nusra
Front supported by Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda.
In its declaration through a video released in English in June 2014, the
group, named by its abbreviated acronym Daesh mainly by its opponents,
called for an end to the boundaries set up by the Sykes-Picot Agreement
(McGrath 2014). Its major difference with other Jihadist groups lies in the
fact that its primary aim is to conquer a land, to stabilize its rule in it, and to
establish the Islamic Caliphate, expanding it progressively to the other Mus-
lim countries. The al-Qaeda–type Jihadist group aimed not so much to build
up an Islamic government as to overthrow world idolatrous powers (taqut) in
order to create a wholesale global Islamic power in a way that was akin to the
proclamation of the world proletariat through a major economic or political
crisis before the establishment of the Soviet Union. Once it imposed its rule
on a territory overlapping part of Syria and Iraq, Daesh removed the refer-
ence to Iraq and Syria, calling itself the Islamic Caliphate. Another feature of
the group is the role of the foreign fighters in it: Besides those from Iraq and
Syria, few thousand fighters from around the world and in particular around
a thousand from Chechnya, few hundreds from Europe, more than three
thousand foreigners fight side by side under its banner. The Chechen Jihadist
Abu Omar al Shishani was made in 2013 the commander of the northern
sector in Syria.
Financially speaking, Daesh disposes of around $2 billion in assets (Chuloy
2014), being by far the richest Jihadist group in the world, most of it coming
from the capture of Mosul in June 2014, part of it resulting from a systematic
extortion policy and robbing banks and other financial institutions as well
as selling crude oil from Northern Iraq. The group developed better fighting
abilities in its combat in Syria against the Assad army and Hizballah, chang-
ing its status from a guerilla group into an army. Besides using brutal force, it
became involved in civil tasks like repairing roads, helping the poor, restoring
electricity supply, as well as setting up an efficient propaganda machinery
through the shrewd use of the social media, in particular Twitter, through
I’tissam Media Foundation set up in March 2013 (Zelin 2013). The long
civil war in Syria, the assistance of economic and political Sunni elites in
the region as well as the inept rule of the Maliki government in Iraq have
been instrumental in promoting ISIS. The capture of Mosul by Daesh as well
as Kirkuk by the Iraqi Kurdish forces that foretell a de facto independent
Kurdish government are the two major changes within the geography of the
region due to the crisis of the Arab revolutions.
Yemen as the Case of a Failed State and Its Impact on Jihadism

The Yemeni case can illustrate the failed state situation and the manner in
which Jihadists exploit it. In this country, Islamist militants, directly linked
to al-Qaeda became much more active than before, in part due to the com-
placency of the Saleh regime that intended to frighten the West and push it
to their side by agitating the scapegoat of radical Islam, and in part due to the
uprising in Yemen as part of the Arab revolutions. On May 27, 2011, around
300 Islamist militants attacked and captured the city of Zinjibar. They killed
seven military men. The fighting with the army left a toll of around 800
people during the entire year.4 On March 4, 2012, Jihadists launched an
attack against the army on the outskirts of Zinjibar, killing 187 soldiers and
wounding some 135 others, 32 Jihadists being killed in the battle. The group
called itself Ansar al Sharia, a new brand name for al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula. The city of Lawdar was attacked by the Jihadists in early April. The
army launched a massive military operation at the end of the same month,
reaching the center of Zinjibar after several days of intense fighting, with
around 50 militants killed and 85 soldiers captured by the Jihadist group.5
After the departure of Saleh in February 2012 and his replacement by
Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, new trends underlined the resiliency of the
Yemen organizations tied to al-Qaeda. The city of Zinjibar was divided de
facto into two parts between the Jihadists and the government forces and
the number of people displaced due to the fighting was estimated at around
97,000.6 On March 31, 2012, Islamist militants attacked an army check-
point in Lahij governorate, killing 20 soldiers and capturing heavy weapons
and at least two tanks.7 On April 9 a group of Jihadists attacked the city of
Lawdar, killing 94 people in the attack, the militants being driven out with
the assistance of the local population. This was the third assault in recent
months, two similar attacks in March left more than 130 soldiers dead and
70 as prisoners of the al-Qaeda groups.8 On April 10, the fighting raised the
number of dead to 124 in two days, including 102 militants, 14 soldiers,
and more than 8 civilians. Among the Jihadists’ dead there were 12 Somalis
and some Saudis, which showed the transnational character of the Ansar
al Sharia. Planes bombed the areas near Lawdar and the road to Zinjibar,
killing 51 people, most of them from al-Qaeda.9 On April 13 the fight-
ing was still raging around the city, spreading to Mudiyah, the only town
apart from Lawdar that the Jihadists did not control in the area.10 Fighting
resumed on April 18, many cases of suicide car bombing were reported, and
the government responded with air strikes and shelling.11 In other parts of
Yemen, in Aden, a checkpoint was assaulted, killing four soldiers and eight
attackers. The town of Radda, south of the capital Sanaa was briefly occu-
pied by the Jihadists, before being taken back by the government forces a
week later. On May 21, 2012, a soldier detonated a suicide bomb in a crowd
of military personnel for the rehearsal for the Unity Day Parade in Sanaa,
killing 96 people and wounding more than 200. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack.12
On December 12, 2013, the fighting between the Houthis (a dissident
Shiite group) and the radical Sunnis in the North left 40 people dead, after
the Salafis took over a Houthi stronghold in the strategic area close to Saudi
Arabia.13 On January 16, 2014, Jihadists killed 10 Yemeni soldiers in three
simultaneous attacks in Rada; 8 militants were killed.14 The US drone attacks
on the Jihadists began in November 2002, with the approval of the Yemen
government. Like all the drone attacks, the “collateral damage” sometimes
benefited the radical groups. In May 201, a drone attack against the al-Qaeda
members in Wadi Abida killed five people, among them the deputy gover-
nor of the province who was mediating between the government and the
Jihadists. His killing angered his tribesmen, the Shabwanis, who attacked the
government security forces and the oil pipeline in Maarib.15 As in Pakistan
and Afghanistan, in spite of the government complicity, the Yemeni govern-
ment demanded the suspension of the drone attacks. Suspected drone attacks
on April 2012 in Shabwa and Abyan provinces, predominantly under the
control of the Jihadists, were launched by the United States, killing at least 9
militants.16 On September 30, 2011, Anwar al Awlaki, the American-Yemeni
prominent al-Qaeda member was killed by a US drone strike that killed him
and another significant Jihadist figure, Samir Khan as well as few other mili-
tants who were in the same car.
The Yemeni case displays the complex nature of the Jihadists’ action
within a society where the tribal order, the government’s clientelist struc-
ture, and the ambitions of a leader intersect. President Saleh reluctantly
gave up power in February 2012, after having weakened the government
through his multiple manipulations and the geopolitics of Jihad involving
the United States and the Saudi governments, as well as the capacity for
renewal of the Jihadists. The al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula changed
its name to Ansar al Sharia, probably in order to attract the pious rural
population of Yemen, exploiting the government weakness due to the pro-
test movements during the Arab uprising by establishing themselves in
few towns for long periods of time and marking their capacity to be more
than sheer fighting groups, able to dominate urban zones and their rural
hinterland for many months.
2013 and 2014 as Seminal Years for Jihadism

On the whole, 2012 and, more significantly, 2013 and 2014 were propitious
years for al-Qaeda and even more so, Daesh, due to the deep ongoing crisis
of the Arab revolutions. In Iraq, Jihadist violence attained the highest levels
since 2007. In Northern Syria, some cities fell under their control. Jailbreaks
were successful in three countries in less than two weeks. On July 21, 500
prisoners from the notorious Abu Ghraib jail were freed, among them many
Jihadists. On July 28, 2013, 1,117 inmates from Benghazi’s Kuafiya prison
in Libya were freed, as a result of a Jihadist attack, according to Interpol. On
July 30, in Pakistan (a non-Arab country where al-Qaeda is powerful), in
a prison break, around 250 prisoners escaped, among them many Jihadists
(Gartenstein-Ross 2013). In Tunisia, two prominent political figures, Belaid
and Brahimi, were killed in 2013 by Jihadists, in spite of the denials by the
radical Islamist group Ansar al Sharia. The fight exacerbated between the
security forces and the latter, and eight Tunisian soldiers were killed by the
Jihadists in an ambush in July 2013. After the historical compromise in Janu-
ary 2014 over a secular constitution, the new technocratic government in
Tunisia put an end to the strategy of tolerance toward the Jihadist groups. But
on the borders of Tunisia with Libya and Algeria, they still operate without
major obstacles.
In Egypt, Jihadist networks like al Furqan Brigades, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis,
and al Jamal network increased their activities after the military coup in July
2013. From a land of da’wa (proselytizing and appeal to join the Muslim
militants peacefully), Egypt became a land of active Jihad. Jihadist veterans,
freed from jail after the demise of Mubarak or escaping through jailbreak
in recent years in the other Arab countries, appear to have flocked to Sinai,
many from Yemen, Somalia, Algeria, and Libya (Dettmer 2013). Their cross-
ing the borders was the easier as the intelligence services had almost collapsed
in many Arab countries after the uprisings. Prison escape and the freeing of
the veteran Jihadists filled the vacuum between two generations of Islamist
militants, the more experienced ones coming to the assistance of the younger
and acting as magnets to attract new candidates: Ramzi Mowafi, an Egyptian
physician close to Bin Laden, or Mohamed Jamal al Kashef, captured by the
Egyptian security forces in 2012, are cases in point. Some young people from
the MB, desperate at the sight of the military repression against them, joined
the Jihadists, Sinai becoming a major battleground, due to its closeness to the
Israeli border and because it is inhabited by poor Bedouins, reticent toward
the central government. The deterioration of the situation in Libya and the
inability of the central government to hold the warlords under its sway made
the country almost a failed state. Jihadist groups from outside find sanctuaries
in its desert areas. The large quantity of weapons that were seized by the
militias during the fight against Gadhafi were sold to the largest bidders,
Jihadists groups included.
In Syria, the major outcome of the civil war was the constitution of a new
Jihadist entity, the Islamic Caliphate of Iraq and Sham that extended its rule
over large areas in Syria and Iraq, becoming de facto a new Jihadist state for
the first time in modern history (the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was not
Jihadist in origin but Salafist Fundamentalist, the Sudanese regime of Omar
al Bashir getting close to radical Islam through Hasan al Turabi who was
closely related to Bin Laden in the 1990s).
The Sectarian Strife and the Renewal of Jihadism

The Arab revolutions reactivated the Jihadist trend in the West through three
main factors. First and foremost, some countries suffered the predicament of
the failed states: Libya, Yemen, and Syria. The latter became also a major the-
ater of a bloody civil war, claiming the lives of around 140 thousand people.
The second factor was that the turmoil caused by the Arab revolutions, the
crisis of power made possible many Jihadists’ escape or the remission of their
sentences by the authorities. From Tunisia to Egypt and Libya, many hun-
dreds of Jihadists were set free, galvanizing the radical Islamist movements
that were joined by the experienced persons who had field experience and
could fight efficiently on the ground. At the same time, the MB type of gov-
ernment that took the reins of power in Tunisia (Ennahda) or in Egypt (MB)
harbored the view that Jihadists could be convinced to join their moderate
view of Islam and that they would renounce violence if given the opportunity
to act legally within the prevailing framework. Therefore, there was a de facto
tolerance toward them up to a high degree, Jihadists using this indulgence
in order to take root in many areas, or bolster their base, as was the case in
Tunisia where they firmly established themselves in the poor districts around
Tunis and in the poor central and southern Tunisia.
The third factor was revival of sectarianism through the opposition
between the Sunnis and the Shiites. It began long before the Arab upris-
ings, after the invasion of Iraq by the American and English armies in 2003.
Before that date, there was no major sectarian strife in Iraq. The overthrow
of Saddam Hussein and the handover of power to the Shiites pushed the
Sunnis to the side of the Jihadists and general Petraeus’s policy of buying a
Sunni clientele and oppose it to the Jihadists partially worked out until the
pullout of the American army and the election of Nuri al-Maliki as the prime
minister in May 2006. The latter acted in a manner that alienated the Sunnis
and rekindled the Jihadists’ legitimacy among them. Since then, the al-Qaeda
in Iraq (AQI) and its recent incarnation the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) rose not so much in
opposition to America as to Maliki’s policies of excluding the Sunnis from
power. It also resulted in the partial domination of the Jihadists in some dis-
tricts of the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in 2014 (Cordesman 2014).
In Syria, the Assad regime, rooted in the Alawite community, a dissident
Shiite minority (around 12 percent of the population), harshly repressed
the protesters, treating them as Sunni terrorists allied to the Jihadists (they
did not, at the beginning, assert any Sunni identity, their main slogan being
“Neither Sunni, nor Shiite, only Syrian!”). Geopolitics played in this situa-
tion a major role: Saudi Arabia came to the defense of the Sunnis, Qatar the
Muslim Brotherhood, Iran the Shiites, Russia siding with the Assad regime,
the West providing assistance to the non-Islamist opposition to Assad (mainly
the so-called Free Syrian Army). The civil strife took on multiple dimensions:
sectarian (Sunni versus Shiite), ethnic (Kurd versus Arab), secular versus
Jihadist (Free Syrian Army versus Jihadist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra [JN]
among others), and inter-Jihadist fighting (warring between radical Salafist
factions like the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham [ISIS], on the one hand,
Ahrar al-Sham [AS] and JN, on the other). The latter antagonism developed
into one of the most violent clashes between the Jihadists, in particular in
Deir al-Zour and al-Hasakah, and on a smaller scale in rural Aleppo and
Raqqa (January 2014). Al-Qaeda’s chief Ayman al Zawahiri took sides and
condemned ISIS, ordering its withdrawal to Iraq, to no avail.
In Yemen, with the weakening of the government, the al-Qaeda in the Ara-
bian Peninsula (AQAP) emerged over the past few years as the most active
group claiming allegiance to Ayman al Zawahiri. The group owes its origin
before the Arab uprisings in 2009, as the result of the merger of the Yemeni and
the Saudi branches of al-Qaeda (Abdallah 2014). Jihadism in Egypt resulted
in the presence of hundreds of Egyptians in Syria, a major battlefield where
Islamic extremism is thriving. Those who choose to fight in Syria do so for
sectarian reasons: fighting against the heretical regime of Assad (Shiite) rather
than declaring Jihad in their own homeland. Some have become “professional
revolutionaries” like Abu Ahmed, in his early thirties, who fought the Mubarak
regime in Egypt and, then, was drawn to the holy war in Syria (Fahmy 2013).
The National Situation and Its Impact on

Jihadism after the Arab Uprisings
The second and third periods witnessed the return to the local and
national conditions as paramount. The first period gave the impression
to the world and Arab public opinion of an irresistible vague de fond that
submerged almost all the Arab world. Dictatorships seemed powerless in

front of the massive and peaceful demonstrations. This enthusiastic view
did not resist against the Arab conservative governments and a “return
to reality” operated, the ways of each country becoming distinct and the
fragmentation setting in within the Arab world. Tunisia, a rather small
country with a population of around 11 million within a zone deprived of
any geopolitical major significance, underwent a deep crisis, still avoiding
the political and social rupture that gradually set in within Egypt. Syria
went through a crisis ending up in a civil war in 2013 and the emergence
of Jihadist groups, recruiting not only in the Arab world, but also in the
West, among the Muslim communities in Europe and the converts, a new
type of Jihadist government (Da’ish, then Islamic Government) appearing
between Syria and Iraq that had no place in the ideology or projects of Al-
Qaeda. Yemen’s crisis polarized the South against the North, the Houthis
against the Sunnis, the tribes bribed by the central government against
each other, creating a political vacuum in many regions where Jihadist
groups could prosper.
Tunisia’s policies of tolerance under the Ennahda government were
used by the radical Salafists to promote Jihadist groups in the deprived
regions of the Center and the South and in the poor suburbs of the
large cities, among others Tunis. The revolutionary crisis increased the
economic plight of the poor people and Salafists, with their assistance
and locally focused concerns brought some measure of comfort to these
populations who regarded them as being on their side against the elites
of the Ennahda or the secular middle classes, insensitive to their plights.
In the regions close to Algeria, newly formed Tunisian Jihadists merged
with the old Algerian ones to build up transnational groups fighting the
Algerian and, occasionally, the Tunisian government. The Libyan case is
also peculiar. The post–Gadhafi era was marked by a failed state that was
unable to unify the country under the aegis of a central government, the
warlords establishing de facto local or regional power bases, giving birth
to a new distribution of power within that country. The crisis left many
regions deprived of any political power, Jihadist groups prospering there
and the frontiers becoming safe havens for the Jihadist groups from else-
where. In Egypt, Jihadism found new opportunities in the Sinai desert, a
region peculiar in the sense of its opposition to the central government,
the tribes being unruly and the role of the government being regarded as
mainly repressive. The demilitarized zones leaving some leeway to the bur-
geoning Jihadist groups that found new recruits after the repression of the
MB by the army and the advent of the new government after the military
coup of July 2013.
The Invigoration of the Western Jihadism

under the Impact of the Arab Crisis
The civil war in Syria had an unexpected consequence: the influx of many
young Muslims from the West and particularly Europe into Syria, to fight
under the banner of the radical Islamist groups against the Assad regime.
The numbers are uncertain but in January 2014, according to the French
authorities some 250 Frenchmen fought in Syria, more than 20 of them hav-
ing perished in the combat zones. For the Belgian experts, more than 200
nationals were involved in Jihad in Syria, more than 20 of them having died
in the battle zones. For the German authorities, more than 270 Germans
were fighting in Syria, 15 of them having died there. For the British experts,
at least 200 Englishmen were involved in Jihad in Syria. Two Jihadist groups,
Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Sham) are the major
recipients of the young European Jihadists.17 On the whole, according to
the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization, an estimated num-
ber of between 3,300 to 11,000 foreign fighters were in Syria at the end of
2013, the crushing majority on the side of the Jihadist groups.18 The major
difference between the Western Jihadists in Syria and those who perpetrate
violence in Europe is that the former have, at the outset, a strong “humani-
tarian” urge coupled with a strong view of the Assad regime in terms of sec-
tarianism (Shiite, and, therefore, not legitimate Muslims). Once on the spot
in Syria, they are indoctrinated by the radical Islamist groups in order to
become staunch Jihadists. Those who operate in Europe consider their native
country (or those in which they have grown up) as heretical and anti-Islamic
and their violence is directed toward their home country and not outside it.
The young people, Muslims or converts who go to Syria, do not primarily
consider Europe as a battlefield for Jihad and their ire is directed toward the
Infidel regime of Assad who kills genuine Muslims (Sunnis) and belongs to a
fake Muslim sect (the Alawite).
Many young men from France,19 Germany,20 Denmark,21 England,22 and
North Africa fight in Syria, journalistic stories describing their adventures
and giving sometimes a more or less romanticized picture of their deeds,
alerting the authorities, but also unintentionally pushing other young men
to choose the Jihadist pathway. Besides Europeans, around 1,000 young men
from Tunisia, some of them with ties in France are fighting the holy war in
land of “Sham” (Syria). They will join their home in case of survival and some
might end up as violent fighters against the European societies.
European Jihadists find themselves in national brigades, the English
together as well as the French or the Germans, due to the linguistic problems
(most of them do not master Arabic).23 This togetherness during the war
strengthens their ties and their friendship can be put at the service of the
holy war once back home. The return of the European Jihadists to Europe
will pose many problems, beside the trauma of the war zone, their ideological
tenet, and their capacity to fabricate bombs, as well as their general military
capability (shooting, fighting) giving them a strong leverage in comparison
to the so-called homegrown Jihadists who mostly behave in an amateurish
fashion in terms of making bombs or technical devices.
Conclusion
This chapter tried to demonstrate that with the Arab revolutions, a new type
of Jihadism has thrived that is due mainly to the “failed state” status of many
countries, particularly Syria, Yemen, and Libya. The rule by Ennahda in
Tunisia since 2011 and by the MB in Egypt since 2012 meant also that the
Islamist political rulers believed they might attract Jihadists to a more concil-
iatory attitude, using them as well as a scapegoat against the secular people
but also as the new political actors who might become peaceful Salafists,
accepting democracy as a means to implement Islam in a nonviolent manner.
Part of the former Jihadists became Islamic political actors under the ban-
ner of Salafism, but some used the new policy of tolerance to promote their
radical view, recruiting new adept members and taking roots in some poor
districts in Tunisia as well as in Egypt, not to mention Libya and in particu-
lar Syria where the civil war gave a boost to them in the struggle against the
Alaouite Assad Regime, backed by Iran, a Shiite country rejected as heretical
by the Sunni Jihadists.
At the end, with the notable exception of Tunisia, the Arab uprisings in
many ways contributed to the spread of Jihad, not only in the Arab world,
but also in part of the Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Mali, but also in
other neighboring countries. The deepening crisis of many Arab countries
between 2012 and 2014 gave furthermore a major boost to Jihadism. Such
development naturally demonstrates that global discourses of democracy,
modernity, emancipation, liberty, secularism, and individual rights and lib-
eralism may translate contrarily on the ground. Given that the symptoms
of radicalism range from poverty to civil war to ethnic diversity to power
sharing, the idea that a single remedy can cure all the problems of the failed
states in order to stop Jihadism in the Middle East and North Africa does not
sound very promising, either. (Call 2008, p. 1496). Plus, the recruitment of
Jihadists is often not related with ideology nor theology but identity, which
this chapter has tried to show as well. If radicalism is not merely a natural out-
growth of extreme Muslim religious beliefs, couldn’t it be a product of socio-
economic inequality prevailing both in the Western and Muslim societies
then? Or could it be an outcome of the belief that there are two irreconcilable
civilizations, one trying to dominate the other by infiltration and aggression,
and that the others must fight to protect their traditions and values from the
outsiders? Could it be the most radical challenge to neoliberal rationality?
These are the questions that need to be scrutinized in order to go down to the
root causes of Jihadism in the region.
Notes
1. The words Jihadism, and Islamic radicalism or extremism, or Jihadists and
Islamic extremists are used here as synonyms to designate those trends within
Islam that justify violence in the name of Jihad (the holy or just war).
2. Al-Qaida Targets Syria; Military Uses Hostages; World Fumbles for Syria Policy,
available at http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/al-qaida-targets-syria-military-uses
-hostages-world-fumbles-for-syria policy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium
=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20Syriacomment%20%28Syria%20
Comment (last accessed March 14, 2015).
3. See the Declaration of the Islamic Caliphate’s full translation: http://www.track
ingterrorism.org/chatter/islamic-state-restores-caliphate.
4. “Suspected al-Qaeda militants seize Yemeni town.” France24.com. 2011-05-29;
“Eight dead in south Yemen violence: Security officials.” News.egypt.com. Viewed
on November 17, 2013. “AQAP claims responsibility for Yemen attacks.” Edition.
cnn.com. Viewed on November 17, 2013.
5. “Huge death toll doubles in Yemen ‘slaughter.’” Edition.cnn.com. Viewed on
November 17, 2013; “Heavy Yemeni troop losses reported in raid” Aljazeera.
com. Viewed on November 17, 2013. “Al-Qaida says it captures 70 Yemeni
soldiers in Abyan’s battle.” News.xinhuanet.com. Viewed on March 5, 2012.
6. Thomson Reuters Foundation, News, Information and Connections for Action,
Trust.org. January 14, 2012.
7. Thomson Reuters Foundation (March 31, 2012). “Qaeda-linked militants kill at
least 20 Yemeni soldiers.”
8. “Yemen: 44 killed in clashes with al-Qaeda fighters,” USA Today, April 9, 2012.
9. “133 killed in Qaeda violence in Yemen” Khaleej Times via AFP. April 10, 2012.
10. “Toll hits 200 in battle with Qaeda for Yemen town” France24. April 12, 2012.
11. “South Yemen violence kills 2 children, 6 militants” Fox News. April 18, 2012.
12. “Al-Qaeda claims deadly Yemen suicide blast.” Al Jazeera. May 21, 2012;
“Yemen: 8 militants, 4 troops killed when al-Qaida attacks checkpoint in south-
ern city.” Washington Post. April 14, 2012.
13. “Sectarian clashes kill at least 40 in Yemen.” The Daily Star. December 12, 2013.
14. “Militants kill 10 soldiers in central Yemen.” The Arab American News. January
17, 2014.
15. “Drones spur Yemenis’ distrust of government and U.S.” Reuters. October 27,
2010.
16. “US drone strike kills 5 Qaeda militants in Yemen” Hindustan Times. April 17,
2012.
17. See the numbers based on AFP report, “Swelling ranks of European fighters
in Syria sparks concern,” Daily Times, January 24, 2014. http://www.daily-
times.com.pk/foreign/24-Jan-2014/swelling-ranks-of-european-fighters-in-syria
-sparks-concern.
18. “Up to 11,000 foreign fighters in Syria: steep rise among Western Europeans,” ICSR,
http://icsr.info/2013/12/icsr-insight-11000-foreign-fighters-syria-steep-rise
-among-western-europeans/.
19. Christophe Cornevin, L’inquiétant profil des djihadistes français en Syrie, Le
Figaro, September 13, 2013.
20. Kurt Pelda, Fodder for the Front: German Jihadists on Syria’s Battlefields,
Spiegel.de, April 30, 2013, theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/fodder-for
-the-front-german-jihadists-on-syrias-battlefields/.
21. Danish Jihadist reportedly killed in Syria, January 13, 2014, http://cphpost.dk/
news/danish-jihadist-reportedly-killed-in-syria.8302.html.
22. UK Jihadists Join Fight in Iraq, The Economist, January 12, 2014.
23. Syria: Sky News gains Access To UK Jihadists, December 18, 2013, news.sky.
com/story/1183820/syria-sky-news-gains-access-to-uk-jihadists; Benjamin
Weinthal, The German Jihadists’ colony in Syria, Long War Journal, December
19, 2013, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/12/the_german_jihad-
ists.php, Paule Gonzales, Le recrutement de jeunes djihadistes pour la Syrie, c’est
l’usine, Le Figaro, January 17, 2014.
CHAPTER 7
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: The Israeli

Nuclear Taboo and the Limits of
Global Governmentality
Ali Diskaya
Introduction
It is a well-known “secret” that Israel is a nuclear weapon state (NWS). Just
like India and Pakistan, Israel has secretly developed a nuclear arsenal, but
unlike the two, Israel did not advertise its possession of nuclear weapons by
publicly declaring or testing them. Indeed, even today the Israeli government
refuses to say anything factual about its nuclear activities, and neither affirms
nor denies the existence of an Israeli nuclear arsenal. This policy is commonly
referred to today as “nuclear ambiguity” (in Hebrew, the phrase is amimut)
and remains Israel’s unique contribution to the nuclear age. Ambiguity has
provided Israel with the best of all possible worlds: the advantages of nuclear
deterrence to protect against existential threats in an anarchic world (espe-
cially against its “hostile” Arab neighbors and a potentially threatening Iran),
but almost none of the potential political drawbacks of possessing nuclear
weapons, such as the scrutiny—and occasional disapprobation—applied to
the world’s eight acknowledged nuclear powers (Cohen and Miller 2010).
Moreover, over time, ambiguity has expanded beyond the sphere of (offi-
cial) state policy to become a powerful sociocultural prohibition, which is at
the core of Israel’s national attitude toward the bomb. While the entire world
is constantly discussing Israel and its nuclear capability, within Israel, the
“nuclear issue” has become an all-encompassing taboo (Cohen 2012b). As
one Israeli commentator (Dolev 2013b) recently put it:
The Israeli ambiguity affects mostly the Israeli society . . . As a society, we

learned not to talk or even think about the Israeli bomb. Keeping the secret by
106 ● Ali Diskaya
not thinking about it became some sort of a patriotic act. As a society we keep
Israel safe by not thinking of an Israeli nuke, asking about it, or campaigning
against it.
However, recently published analyses by Israeli antinuclear activists (Dolev

2010, 2013a,b) show that the majority of Israelis do not only remain quiet on
issues related to the Israeli bomb, but also actively silence anybody who tries to
raise the nuclear issue in public. As Sharon Dolev (2010), founder and direc-
tor of the newly established Israeli Disarmament Movement (IDM), put it:
Fear is the foremost enemy of the anti-nuclear struggle in Israel. We are treated
as traitors and people keep telling us that just talking about the nuclear issue is
a life-threatening blow to state security . . . The perception is that [we] oppose
the state in any case and are, therefore, willing to expose it to existential threats.
In this sense, Israel is not at all like other nuclear-armed democracies, such
as the United States, the United Kingdom (UK), or France, where people do
not only openly and often loudly speak their mind about any range of nuclear
issues, but also try to shape the nuclear policies of their respective states by
campaigning against them. It is important to note, however, that the Israeli
case is not considered to be unique because activists here failed to influence
nuclear policy whereas in other nuclear-armed democracies they have been suc-
cessful. Indeed, antinuclear movements in all the nuclear-armed democracies
ultimately failed to (radically) change the nuclear policies of their respective
states. However, these movements managed to recruit an impressive amount of
supporters and organized large antinuclear demonstrations and protests with
millions of people in attendance. Furthermore, over the years these movements
created a global network of antinuclear organizations that seek to promote
nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament norms around the globe. Indeed,
national and transnational antinuclear activism in the West had consider-
able impact on public and policy discourse (Wittner 2009). However, similar
attempts by transnational and local antinuclear movements in Israel have been
resisted by the Israeli state by managing to mobilize society around its policy
of nuclear ambiguity (Ben-Eliezer and Kemp 2008). Hence, the Israeli case is
unique because here members of disarmament movements do not only have
problems to recruit supporters, but are also constantly being silenced by their
fellow citizens in the moment they want to raise the nuclear issue in public.
The aim of this chapter is to contribute to the emerging literature on the
limits of global and neoliberal governmentality (Joseph 2010a, 2012; Malmvig
2014; Akçalı and Korkut 2015; Tağma, Kalaycıoğlu, and Akçalı 2013; Tepe
2012) by investigating how the Israeli state manages to resist global govern-
mentality through its own “secret nuclear governmentality,” which produces
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ● 107
local “nuclear subjectivities” that are not receptive to molding from outside.
This is merely because “if we take governmentality to refer to techniques that
regulate the conduct of others, governmentality does not necessarily assume
the substantive presence of neoliberal practices of government” (Thomas 2014,
p. 167). Such an approach allows us to study a range of “contragovernmen-
talities” (Joseph 2010a, p. 236) around the globe that resist, reverse, and
counter global and neoliberal governmentality.
This chapter will proceed in three parts. Part one will briefly introduce
the notion of (global) governmentality and discuss its limits both as an ana-
lytical framework and as a political practice. Drawing on recent theoretical
and empirical work in the field of global governmentality studies, part two
aims to demonstrate that different regimes of governments exercise their own
model of governmentality by using different techniques and technologies,
producing different subjects as well as forms of counter-conduct. It will hence
attempt to develop a framework that can be used to analyze the workings
of a range of different (contra)governmentalities around the globe and how
these interact with global governmentality. Part three will apply this frame-
work to the Israeli case, showing not only how global governmentality tries
to conduct the conduct of the Israeli state from a distance, but also how the
Israeli government manages to resist these attempts through its own secret
nuclear governmentality. The chapter will conclude by briefly revisiting the
main arguments and discussing why the proposed global governmentality
approach is important for the study of world politics in the years to come.
Global Governmentality and Its Limits

Foucault introduced the notion of governmentality in his lecture series on
“securité, territoire, population” at the Collège de France in 1978. He defined
governmentality very broadly as the “conduct of conduct” (Gordon 1991, p. 2;
Weidner 2009, p. 389): that is to say, any more or less calculated means of shap-
ing, guiding, or affecting the conduct of individuals or of groups—“the govern-
ment of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick” (Foucault
2000, p. 341). The central insight of Foucault’s work on governmentality is that
modern government “is daemonic . . . because of its capacity to mold people’s
subjectivities and bodies that they nevertheless consider to be uniquely their
own” (Merlingen 2008, p. 273). As Foucault (2000, p. 331) put it:
[Governmental] power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes

the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own iden-
tity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others
have to recognize in him. It is a form of power which makes individuals subjects.
108 ● Ali Diskaya
Governmental power is furthermore exercised “from a distance” (Joseph

2010a, p. 226) through “the ensemble formed by the institutions, proce-
dures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics” that are empow-
ered to govern the conduct of conduct (Foucault 1991, p. 102). Understood
in this way, governmentality refers to the workings of a form of productive
power that is concerned with the “constitution of all social subjects with vari-
ous social powers through systems of knowledge and discursive practices of
broad and general scope” (Barnett and Duvall 2005, p. 55). It is important
to note, however, that governmental power is not exclusive of other types of
power such as coercive and disciplinary forms of power, but rather intimately
tied to them (Foucault 1991, p. 102).
However, Foucault used governmentality not only to refer to a specific
political practice, but also as a distinct analytical perspective on questions of
power and governance, which moves beyond the limits of centralized state
power to look at the microinstitutional relations of power that organize the
everyday relations of people and make them into subjects (Merlingen 2003,
p. 266; Kurki 2011, p. 352). As such, governmentality provides an important
conceptual framework for studying the mechanisms and processes of subjec-
tivation in terms of the heterogeneous political rationalities and technologies
of governmental practice “that link the aspirations of the rulers with the con-
duct of the ruled” (Miller and Rose 1995, p. 594).
In recent years, governmentality has “gone global” (Merlingen 2011
p. 151). A growing number of critically oriented international relations
(IR) scholars use governmentality as a diagnostic device to uncover rela-
tions of power operating at international and global levels (Walters 2012,
pp. 82–83; Weidner 2009, p. 390). Indeed, with their focus on the politi-
cal rationalities and technologies of government, “global governmentality”
approaches to world politics allow IR to conceive of global governance
in a new way: as a constellation of neoliberal governmentalities now
“becoming detectable at the global level . . . reconfigure[ing] the relations
between states and other actors” (Neumann and Sending 2010 p. 16). As
Merlingen (2003, p. 370) put it, global governmentality conceives of global
governance as “a de-centered process involving a complex of relays that
assembles international governmental organizations (IGOs), international
non-governmental organizations (INGOs), transnational corporations,
states and other actors” aiming to govern the globe in accordance with a
neoliberal rationality of government.
It is important to note, however, that unlike problem-solving “global
governance” scholarship, which tends to naturalize the instruments of
global governance and is generally confident in their workings (or at least in
their perfectibility), critical IR scholars who upload Foucault to the global
denaturalize these practices and by and large criticize them. For example,
global governmentality scholars have convincingly argued that IGOs and
INGOs do not primarily aim to improve the well-being of populations in the
developing world but rather try to control and regulate the behavior of target
states and their governments through a range of governmental techniques
such as “competitiveness indexing” and “country benchmarking” (Fougner
2008; see also Merlingen 2003; Joseph 2009). Furthermore, looking at the
European Union’s (EU) recent democracy promotion and political reform
initiatives in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from a global
governmentality perspective, Tağma, Kalaycıoğlu, and Akçalı (2013) have
revealed that these are not just innocent attempts at promoting democracy,
but rather a form of governmental technology that seeks to foster a mode of
subjectivity in Arab societies that is conducive to the EU’s own norms and
interests. Neumann and Sending (2006, 2010), through the case studies of
the international campaign to ban landmines and international population
policy, have also shown that the role of global civil society in shaping and
carrying out global governance functions is not an instance of transfer of
power from the state to nonstate actors but rather an expression of a chang-
ing rationality of government, the liberal will to govern the globe, which rules
through global civil society by harnessing their expertise and ability to channel
political will-formation.
However, critics of global governmentality studies such as Joseph have
repeatedly warned that global governmentality risks becoming “a catch-all
category that can be applied far too generally” (Joseph 2010a, p. 226). The
idea of the “global as a neoliberal governmentality” (Neumann and Sending
2007, p. 698) cannot be taken uncritically from Foucault’s writings, Joseph
contends, since the concept of governmentality emerged from Foucault’s
account of predominantly Western arts of government, where specific condi-
tions facilitated the creation of free subjects who govern themselves in par-
ticular ways. Thus, when the practices and projects of governmentality or the
scholarly diagnoses of power based on governmentality “are applied outside
the bounds of Foucault’s original empirical work where facilitating conditions
differ, these projects and analysis will fail” (Thomas 2014, p. 166). This failure
occurs because other parts of the world, such as developing countries or failed
states, contain different conditions that may not support the creation of free
and self-governing subjects and instead reinforce “something more basic, or
else . . . closer to what Foucauldians would call “disciplinary power” rather
than fully fledged liberal governmentality” (Joseph 2010a, p. 225). Ignor-
ing the highly uneven nature of the international, with its different stages of
development, its different spatiality and its varying social forces, by “scaling
up” governmentality from the domestic and state levels to the international
110 ● Ali Diskaya
and the global realms “may delude us into thinking that governmentality is
now universal and irreversible” (Joseph 2012, p. 43). Accordingly, Joseph
suggests to adopt a “sociological approach” that recognizes “big differences
between the neoliberal centers of governmentality, and the very different con-
ditions in the rest of the world”; exploring in detail the social conditions
under which neoliberal governmentality works in some places while it fails to
do so in others (Joseph 2010b, p. 203).
The fundamental question that needs to be asked is whether this indicates
the limits of global governmentality both as an analytical framework and as a
political practice. In a reply to Joseph, Vrasti argues that global governmental-
ity scholars are well aware that the world is not a smooth and homogenous
space and that they “must be careful not to overstate the effects of global
governmentality or the term may [indeed] become misleading and vacuous”
(Vrasti 2013, p. 55). As such, Vrasti supports Joseph’s call for greater concep-
tual and empirical specification of where governmentality can be applied and
where not “if only to preempt reified images of global power, on the one hand,
and premature celebrations of global community, on the other” (Vrasti 2013,
p. 55). Where Vrasti parts ways with Joseph is his “limited understanding” of
how global liberalism functions. According to Vrasti, global liberalism is best
understood as “civilizational project”—which “harbors a universal imagina-
tion despite the global being an uneven and fractured place” (Vrasti 2013, p.
51). Within this civilizational project, liberalism, or the liberal art of govern-
ing, functions as a universal, albeit not yet global, measure of truth according
to which the globe has to be governed. Hence, while global governmentality
scholars contend that “global neoliberal government . . . does not, and cannot,
work on a truly global population” (Kiersey 2009, p. 385), they neverthe-
less point to the fact that this does not undercut the hegemony of the liberal
program as it “manifests its force not through the actual number of people it
controls, but by acting as a standard of reference against which all forms of life
(individual, communal, political) can be assessed” (Vrasti 2013, p. 64).
Accordingly, Vrasti argues that the task of global governmentality studies
should not be to draw a map of all the places where liberal governmentality
works and those where it does not, as Joseph seems to suggest, but rather to
explore how the various strategies and technologies of liberal rule, including
the more overt and violent strategies like military intervention, sanctions,
and coercion (Barkawi and Laffey 1999, p. 422), are exercised in practice in
an attempt to move from a liberal art of government in the West to a liberal
world order.
Another significant critique of global governmentality studies concerns
the notion of resistance. Merlingen (2006, 2008) has pointed out that most
global governmentality scholarship ignores or downplays resistance toward
governmental tactics, assuming that the governed are already always docile
or enthusiastic enough to conform to governmental practices. Indeed, so far,
global governmentality studies, whether dealing with IGOs/INGOs, neolib-
eral centers of governmentality, or global civil society, have tended to focus
preponderantly on “successful” cases rather than on obstacles to governmen-
talization. This is surprising, since Foucault (2007a, pp. 199–202) repeatedly
argued that governmental technologies are never complete, and possibilities
of refusal and resistance in the form of “counter-conduct” always exist.
Counter-conduct is a “struggle against the processes implemented for con-
ducting others” (Foucault 2007a, p. 201). Struggles “not to be governed like
that, by that, in the name of those principles, with such and such objective
in mind and by means of such procedures, not like that, not for that, not by
them” (Foucault 2007b, p. 75). For Foucault, counter-conduct is a vital and
necessary aspect of governmentality both as an analytical framework and as a
practice. Yet, while some global governmentality scholars “allow for conflict,
contestation and agency with respect to how different societies and actors
define themselves in relation to liberal governmentality” (Neumann and Send-
ing 2007, p. 698), they seem to be unwilling to incorporate this resistance
into their analytics of governmentality. This not only brings with it the risk of
representing governmentality as a “complete and all-successful form of power,
and the subjects of governing technologies accordingly . . . as mere passive
targets or docile objects of liberal modes of conduct” (Malmvig 2014, p. 296)
but also the risk of missing opportunities to analyze how (global) governmen-
tality works at the microlevel. From a governmentality perspective, resistance
in the form of counterconduct is not the binary opposite of power but rather
it relies upon, and is even implicated within, the strategies, techniques, and
power relationships it opposes (Death 2010, p. 240; see also Odysseos 2011).
Understood in this way, resistance can be used as a “diagnostic of power,” that
is, “in the rich and sometimes contradictory details of resistance the complex
workings of social power can be traced” (Abu-Lughod 1990, p. 42).
Indeed, this and similar critiques gave rise to one way of productively
applying Foucault to the international/global that might be labeled the
“limits of neoliberal governmentality” literature (Joseph 2010a; Akçalı and
Korkut 2015; Malmvig 2014; Tağma, Kalaycıoğlu, and Akçalı 2013). These
scholars use governmentality as diagnostic device in order to uncover the
technologies of power through which global liberalism tries to extend West-
ern rule and social institutions to the rest of the world; they bring into focus
the contingency of this process and, most important, explore the ways in
which it is, and can be, resisted, reversed, and countered. Benoit Challand in
this volume argues for instance that the Arab uprisings need not (only) to be
assessed against the backdrop of institution changes (elections, writing of a
112 ● Ali Diskaya
new constitution, the emergence of a party system, etc.), but instead we need
to consider the revolts as a set of historical events sharing, beyond the differ-
ences that so disparate countries as Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, or Egypt can
offer, a common aspiration toward a renewed and reactivated sense of citizen-
ship from below, that is from spontaneous forms of civil society. Similarly,
Rahman Dağ discusses that the idea of delivering or imposing democracy
to Iraq has apparently failed and seems that it would take much longer than
expected to tackle the issues in the way to democracy due to local resistance.
In short, global governmental power interacts in complex ways “with diverse
political spaces and within these spaces it is appropriated, hybridized, rede-
scribed, hijacked, and tinkered with” (Zanotti 2013, p. 300).
The aim of this chapter is to contribute to this emerging literature on the
limits of global and neoliberal governmentality (Joseph 2010a; Akçalı and
Korkut 2015, Malmvig 2014; Tağma, Kalaycıoğlu, and Akçalı 2013; Tepe
2012), by investigating how the Israeli state manages to resist global gov-
ernmentality through its own secret nuclear governmentality that produces
local nuclear subjectivities that are not receptive to molding from outside.
If we take governmentality to refer to techniques that regulate the conduct
of others, governmentality does not necessarily assume the substantive pres-
ence of neoliberal practices of government. Drawing on recent theoretical
and empirical work in the field of global governmentality studies, the next
section attempts to develop a framework in which the workings of a range of
different (contra)governmentalities around the globe, and how they interact
with global governmentality, can be analyzed.
Beyond the Limits of Global Governmentality:

Traveling without Neoliberal Baggage
All of these reflections on governmentality . . . should not be taken as gospel
truth. This is not finished work, it is not even work that’s been done; it is
work in progress, with all that this involves in the way of inaccuracies and
hypotheses—in short, it amounts to possible tracks for you, if you wish, and
maybe for myself, to follow. (Foucault 2007a, pp. 135–36)
In light of recent debates in IR concerning the feasibility of “scaling up” gov-

ernmentality to the international and the global realms, the fundamental ques-
tion that needs to be addressed is whether governmentality both as an analytical
framework and as a political practice can be applied outside the boundaries of
Foucault’s original empirical work, which has exclusively dealt with Western
governmentalities. Drawing on recent theoretical and empirical work in global
governmentality studies, I argue that governmentality can “travel well” into
other areas of the world once we get rid of the neoliberal baggage. Indeed, in a
series of papers a range of prominent IR scholars have criticized the use of gov-
ernmentality as interchangeable with neoliberalism. In his response to Joseph’s
argument against the (over)use of governmentality in IR, Walters argues that
Joseph seems to conflate neoliberalism with governmentality, writing as if the
neoliberal art of government is the limit of what can be understood as govern-
mentality. Walters (2012, p. 40) suggests that we should consider governmen-
tality as a “research program” rather than as a “depiction of discrete systems of
power.” In a parallel fashion, Thomas (2014, p. 167) argues that “if we take
governmentality to refer to techniques which regulate the conduct of others,
governmentality does not necessarily assume the substantive presence of neo-
liberal practices of government” since, as Death (2013, p. 773) put it, “even
authoritarian regimes seek to conduct their subjects through propaganda, reli-
gion, and economic incentives, rather than pure or total coercion.”
Hence, what these scholars suggest is that the practice of governmentality
is not limited to the governments of Western states but that it is also exercised
in very different societies and contexts around the world, by different regimes
of government, using different techniques and technologies, producing differ-
ent subjects as well as forms of counter-conduct. Indeed, this claim is substan-
tiated with detailed empirical studies exploring a range of governmentalities in
places as diverse as Africa (Death 2011, 2013), China (Sigley 2006), and India
(Thomas 2014). Hence, instead of starting research with a fixed idea of what
governmentality entails, these scholars argue, “scholarship should begin with
an analysis of local practice” (Thomas 2014, p. 167). Only in this way can
research uncover heterogeneous accounts of governmentality “that are analyti-
cal, contextual and decidedly empirical” (Walters 2012, pp. 94–95).
In order to “travel well” to different places with governmentality, these
scholars use it as a “toolbox” that offers a “light” conceptual apparatus that
is flexible enough to adapt to different situations on the ground while at
the same time maintaining Foucault’s central insights about the demonic
nature of modern forms of government. Analytically, such a governmental-
ity approach is in broad terms concerned with: (1) the thinking, problema-
tization, justification, and calculation embedded in governmental practices
(governmental rationalities); (2) the ways and manners employed to direct
conduct (governmental technologies); (3) the modes of subjectivation
involved in these rationalities and technologies; and (4) the ways in which
governing technologies and rationalities are countered, reversed, and resisted
(counter-conduct) (Death 2013; Malmvig 2014; Merlingen 2011).
Yet, although the key strength of the governmentality framework is its range
of local conceptual devices and its analytical focus on the link between macro-
and microlevel phenomena, contemporary global governmentality studies
114 ● Ali Diskaya
is still marked by a tendency to use empirical evidence rarely and/or mainly

philosophically (Merlingen 2006, p. 189). As Joseph (2010a, p. 241) observes,
“global governmentality approaches have a tendency to focus too much on the
mentality aspect,” on discursive rationalities of government rather than on how
these rationalities are implemented in actual governmental practices or resis-
tance against these practices. The tendency toward a top-down analytic optic
in contemporary global governmentality studies is problematic as it ignores
Foucault’s central insight that power circulates through capillaries throughout
society rather than being held or imposed by an omnipotent administrator:
power is only power (rather than mere physical force or violence) when
addressed to individuals who are free to act in one way or another. Power is
defined as “actions on others’ actions”: that is, it presupposes rather than annuls
their capacity as agents; it acts upon, and through, an open set of practical and
ethical possibilities. Hence, although power is an omnipresent dimension in
human relations, power in a society is never a fixed and closed regime, but
rather an endless and open strategic game. (Gordon 1991, p. 5)
Hence, there might be “glitches between the programs for government and
the actual governing practices” (Neumann and Sending 2007, p. 679), since
(governmental) power is addressed to reflexive individuals who are free to act
in one way or another through multiple acts of counter-conduct. The limits
of global and neoliberal governmentality approach, as opposed to mainstream
governmentality approaches, pays close attention to these glitches since it
brings into focus the contingency of global mechanisms and processes of sub-
jectivation and explores the ways in which they are, and can be, resisted.
In the following section, I will use the governmentality toolkit in order to
analyze not only how global governmentality tries to conduct the conduct of the
Israeli state from a distance, but also the ways in which the Israeli government
manages to resist these attempts through its own secret nuclear governmentality
that produces local subjectivities that are not receptive to molding from outside.
The Israeli Nuclear Taboo and the Limits

of Global Governmentality
As mentioned in the introduction, when it comes to the issue of nuclear
weapons, Israeli subjectivities and modes of governing the self and others are
unique compared to those found in other nuclear-armed democracies such as
the United States, the UK, or France. On the one hand, Israelis do not think
or care, and even forget about the Israeli bomb while, on the other hand,
they silence themselves and others (i.e., their own and others production of
discourse) in the moment somebody tries to raise the nuclear issue in public
(Dolev 2010). In short, Israelis don’t ask and don’t tell about the Israeli bomb.
Under these tough conditions the Israeli Disarmament Movement (IDM) is
striving to bring about fundamental change in Israel. The IDM was estab-
lished in 2007 and is the first ever Israeli grassroots antinuclear movement.
Its main aims are to change the attitude of the Israeli society toward nuclear
issues and to promote the idea of a global nuclear ban and a Middle East free
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) (Dolev 2010, 2013a). Contrary to
policy elites and the majority of Israelis, who associate nuclear weapons with
the provision of national security through deterrence, members of the IDM
believe that Israel’s nuclear weapons constitute a source of potential security
risks for Israel and the wider region as they might cause a regional nuclear arms
race, and thereby increase the risk of deliberate, or accidental, nuclear war.
However, looking at the IDM from a global governmentality perspective,
it becomes evident that it belongs to, or is even the product of, a global anti-
nuclear weapons network that tries to spread liberal nuclear norms—nuclear
nonproliferation and disarmament—around the globe. Indeed, the IDM
was established as a Greenpeace project and is the local representative of the
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) (Dolev 2010,
2013b). ICAN is a global campaign coalition “working to mobilize people
in all countries to inspire, persuade and pressure their governments to initi-
ate and support negotiations for a treaty banning nuclear weapons” (ICAN
2015). As such, ICAN is a broad and inclusive campaign that operates on
a “partnership model” focused on mobilizing civil society in target coun-
tries around the specific objective of negotiating a global nuclear weapons
abolition treaty: “Any organization that agrees with the campaign’s aims . . .
may become an ICAN partner organization. Partners pledge to promote the
objective of a treaty banning nuclear weapons and identify publicly with the
campaign” (ICAN 2015). Hence, rather than trying to directly address state
leaders, ICAN establishes and/or supports local civil society organizations
in target countries in an attempt to conduct their conduct from a distance.
Today ICAN has more than three hundred partner organizations and is active
in more than eighty countries worldwide.
Yet, while ICAN partner organizations have no problems organizing mass
protests against nuclear weapons and recruit supporters in most countries
around the world, the antinuclear campaign in Israel remains an “uphill bat-
tle” (Dolev 2013b). Just like their activist colleagues in other nuclear-armed
democracies like the United States, the UK, or France, members of the IDM
protest on Israel’s streets in order to raise attention to their cause and recruit
supporters. However, unlike their colleagues in the West, members of the IDM
do not only have problems recruiting supporters, but they are also constantly
116 ● Ali Diskaya
being silenced by their fellow citizens. Hence, the IDM tries to use tactics,
which seem to have worked in other nuclear-armed democracies, in Israel,
where they are resisted. From a governmentality perspective, the fundamental
question that needs to be asked is how the Israeli state manages to “produce”
these local nuclear subjectivities that are not receptive to molding from outside.
In order to understand why and how the Israeli state is conducting the
conduct of its subjects in the way described above, we have to look at the cir-
cumstances that lead to Israel’s special bargain with the bomb. In the shadow
of the Holocaust and confronted by continuous existential threats, real or
imagined, Israel made a determined effort to acquire an existential deterrent
in the form of nuclear weapons soon after its independence in 1948. How-
ever, just as fear of another Holocaust is the key to understanding Israel’s
nuclear resolve, that same fear has also encouraged nuclear restraint. The
dilemma that Israel was facing during the 1950s was that of how to develop
a nuclear deterrent without the risk of provoking a regional nuclear arms race
with its Arab neighbors. After all, “if Israel’s enemies also acquired the bomb,
the Jewish state might well face destruction, given its small size and high
population density” (Cohen and Miller 2010, p. 30).
After initial disagreements within the political and military elite over
whether and how Israel should go nuclear, then Prime Minister David Ben-
Gurion, who was haunted by the nightmare that a coalition of Arab states
could overwhelm Israel’s conventional forces, gave the order to secretly
develop the bomb. To this end, Israel began covertly constructing a nuclear
reactor in the desert city of Dimona using technology and materials pro-
vided by friendly powers, notably France. In June 1967, by the time of the
Six-Day War, Israel managed to secretly cross the nuclear threshold. How-
ever, while complete secrecy enabled Israel to develop the bomb without a
risk to create a regional nuclear arms race and without external interference,
it had to publicly announce, one way or the other, that it had acquired
nuclear weapons in order to make them effective deterrents. Another factor
that rendered the situation more complicated was that the United States
had discovered Israel’s “bomb in the basement” (Karpin 2007) in the late
1960s. A nuclear-armed Israel was a problem for the United States as it
would seriously undermine its efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons
technology by establishing a global nonproliferation norm. On the other
hand, however, US leaders were sympathizing with the only democratic
state in the Middle East and its “unique geopolitical situation.” Knowing
that Israel would never voluntarily give up its existential deterrent and that
the United States was not in a position to force Israel to do so, US leaders
decided that the only objective they might achieve is to persuade Israel to
keep what they have secret.
Hence, Israel’s nuclear dilemma soon also became a US dilemma and

eventually led to Israel’s unique policy of nuclear ambiguity: neither straight-
forwardly denying the possession of nuclear weapons, since such a resource
together with the awareness of its existence works to Israel’s advantage, nor
explicitly confirming the possession either, in order to minimize (but not
eliminate) the incentive for others in the region to follow Israel in acquir-
ing the bomb (Cohen 1998, 2012b; Cohen and Miller 2010; Karpin 2007).
Indeed, internationally, ambiguity has enabled Israel to maintain what one
scholar calls “nuclear exceptionalism,” in which Israel is effectively outside the
global nuclear order (Cohen 2012, p. XI).
However, this exceptional bargain with the bomb required Israeli elites
who were in charge of the country’s nuclear program to neutralize any
possible public debate on the nuclear issue inside Israel, as this would seri-
ously undermine ambiguity (Kimmerling 2003). Once ordinary Israelis
began talking about their country’s possession of nuclear weapons as a fact,
it would amount to a confirmation that would make the official ambiguity
policy impossible (Cohen 2012, p. 115). To this end, the Israeli govern-
ment established a three-layered institutional framework that shields Israel’s
nuclear secrets: the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), which is the
creator of Israel’s nuclear secrets; the Office of Security for the Israeli Defense
Establishment (MALMAB), which guards the secrets; and the Office of the
Military Censor (the so-called Censora), whose mission is to control public
discourse and enforce ambiguity (Cohen 2012, pp. 88–120). Whereas the
IAEC and MALMAB operate almost invisibly in the background, the Cen-
sora acts as the gatekeeper between Israel’s nuclear secrets and the external
world. The main aim of the Censora is to enforce a law that prohibits Israeli
publications from referring directly to the nation’s nuclear weapons (publi-
cations may refer to them only by quoting “foreign sources”) by banning any
material that fails to conform to this requirement (Cohen 2012, p. 109).
It is important to note, however, that the removal of nuclear knowledge
in itself is not what makes the Israeli case unique. Every NWS is character-
ized by what Masco (2002) has termed a “secret governmentality on a truly
massive scale” since the nature of the ultimate weapon forces states to keep
certain aspects of their nuclear policies top secret. However, Israel is the only
NWS that maintains an active military censorship institution that bans any
reference to the Israeli bomb from public and policy discourse. As Cohen
(2012, p. 110) has put it:
The Censora’s legal authority and scope are almost limitless. Virtually any
media item about Israel’s defense and foreign affairs is required to be submit-
ted to the Censora for prepublication review, not only the print and electronic
118 ● Ali Diskaya
media (including foreign media based in Israel) but also any books (even
fiction), professional newsletters, and even postings on the Internet . . . Israel’s
nuclear issue remains the most highly scrutinized subject of all.
Indeed, military censorship and the (almost) complete removal of all

nuclear knowledge might explain why Israelis do not think or care, and
even forget, about the Israeli bomb. It might also support the argument that
people in modern societies are not only governed and objectified into sub-
jects through processes of power/knowledge but also through the “removal
of knowledge” (Galison 2005; Masco 2002). However, while the removal of
nuclear knowledge might explain why Israelis do not think or care, and even
forget, about the Israeli bomb, censorship in itself cannot explain why many
Israelis silence themselves and others in the moment somebody tries to raise
the nuclear issue in public. One way of analyzing this phenomenon, from a
governmentality perspective, is to look at the practices of counterconducts as
they rely upon, and are even implicated within, the strategies, techniques, and
power relationships they oppose (Death 2010, p. 240). From this perspective,
resistance becomes a diagnostic device through which the complex workings
of social power can be traced (Abu-Lughod 1990, p. 42). To this end, I want
to look at what I consider to be the most important act of counter-conduct
against Israel’s secret nuclear governmentality: Mordechai Vanunu’s revela-
tions of Israel’s nuclear secrets.
In the fall of 1986, Israel’s policy of ambiguity faced its most severe chal-
lenge when Vanunu, a former junior technician at the Dimona nuclear reac-
tor, told the London Sunday Times all he knew about Israel’s nuclear secrets.
Having worked at Dimona’s most sensitive part, the underground reprocess-
ing plant, Vanunu was able to provide detailed information about Israel’s
nuclear activities as well as photographs of the Israeli bomb. Israel’s policy
elites feared that Vanunu’s revelations would render ambiguity no longer
politically viable as a national nuclear posture and, accordingly, tried all they
could to undermine the information provided by Vanunu, including feeding
disinformation to London papers by making use of the Mossad (Ben-Eliezer
and Kemp 2008, p. 154). However, at the end Israel was not able to prevent
the publication of a detailed feature article entitled “Revealed: The Secrets of
Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal.”
Yet, while the Israeli government was not able to control the effects of
Vanunu’s revelations internationally, it managed to control the situation
inside Israel through demonstrations of sovereign control and techniques of
secrecy and opacity. Soon after the article was published, Vanunu was lured
from London to Rome with the help of a Mossad “temptress,” drugged,
and then abducted and transported secretly to Israel—making clear that the
“omnipotent Israeli state does not allow its malefactors to hide behind inter-
national law and the global discourse of peace and human rights” (Ben-Eliezer
and Kemp 2008, p. 154). Vanunu was thus brought to Israel, tried, convicted
of treason and severe espionage, and sentenced in February 1988 to 18 years
in prison, 12 of which he spent in solitary confinement. The trial was con-
ducted behind closed doors and every time Vanunu was brought to court he
had to wear an iron mask. Indeed, the police van that transported Vanunu
to court constantly sounded the horns to prevent the prisoner from convey-
ing any message to reporters. However, according to Ben-Eliezer and Kemp
(2008, p. 155), all these techniques of secrecy and opacity were not imposed
to silence Vanunu, since Israel’s nuclear secrets had already been published in
Israel and the rest of the world, but rather to renationalize the nuclear issue:
[These techniques] of secrecy and opacity proved to be a domestic method of

re-nationalizing the nuclear issue. Through it, the Israeli state constituted the
nation as a closed community of (Jewish) Israelis who are in the know but are
silent . . . remaining in silence becomes a national mission, a means of identify-
ing with the community and part of its national identity. The preservation of
the open secrets as secrets, and the impression that individuals who abide by
this secrecy are responsible citizens, defined in a very clear and profound way
the cultural intimacy between the Israeli Jews and their nation-state.
Indeed, rather than weakening the Israeli nuclear taboo, Vanunu’s rev-
elations strengthened it. And while Israel’s secret nuclear governmentality
proved to be “susceptible to episodic acts of disclosure on the part of scien-
tists, technicians and military personal who, under various circumstances, felt
compelled to speak out” (Walters 2014, p. 284) the Israeli state managed in
all cases to further strengthen and bolster the nuclear taboo through similar
demonstrations of sovereign control and techniques of secrecy and opacity
as during the Vanunu affair. Indeed, these measures became rituals through
which the Israeli state is constantly mobilizing society around its policy of
nuclear ambiguity (Ben-Eliezer and Kemp 2008; Cohen 2012, pp. 121–46).
This situation makes it impossible for global antinuclear movements to bring
about normative change in Israel.
For example, soon after Vanunu’s imprisonment a few Israelis, who aimed
to free Vanunu and continue his struggle against Israel’s policy of ambigu-
ity, established the Israeli Committee for Vanunu and a Middle East free of
Nuclear Weapons. In order to increase pressure on the Israeli government,
the committee appealed to global peace movements, human rights organiza-
tions, and environmental groups. Indeed, while Vanunu was considered by
many as a traitor in Israel, elsewhere he was celebrated by the antinuclear
movement and repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. However,
120 ● Ali Diskaya
global campaigners were unable to mobilize the Israeli society against the
Israeli government. To the contrary, global activists “were frequently taunted
by the public and told to go back where they came from” (Ben-Eliezer and
Kemp 2008, p. 157).
Today, more than 20 years after the Vanunu affair, ICAN, a global cam-
paign coalition that promotes the objective of a treaty banning all nuclear
weapons, still tries to bring about fundamental change in Israel. However,
rather than trying to directly mobilize the Israeli society against the Israeli
government, as global campaigners did during the Vanunu affair, ICAN
establishes and supports local civil society organizations like the IDM through
the technology of “partnership” in an attempt to conduct the conduct of the
Israeli state from a distance. However, members of the IDM do not only have
problems recruiting supporters, but they are also constantly being silenced
by their fellow citizens in the moment they want to raise the nuclear issue
in public. This situation makes it impossible for the IDM to act as change-
makers as envisaged by ICAN.
Conclusion
It was the aim of this chapter to contribute to the emerging literature on
the limits of global and neoliberal governmentality by investigating how
the Israeli state manages to resist global governmentality. To this end, I have
attempted to suggest a framework that can be used to analyze the workings
of a range of different (contra)governmentalities around the globe and how
these interact with global governmentality. In the case of Israel, a global anti-
nuclear weapons network tries to conduct the conduct of the Israeli state from
a distance, while at the same time the Israeli government manages to resist
these attempts through its own secret nuclear governmentality that produces
local nuclear subjectivities that are not receptive to molding from outside.
Critics of global governmentality might be right in arguing that the global
is “characterized, above all else, by its uneven nature, its different stages of
development, its different spatiality, and its varying social forces” (Joseph
2010a, p. 242). As mentioned above, global liberalism tries to impose gov-
ernmentality on non-Western and nonliberal areas despite the uneven and
fractured character of the global space (Vrasti 2013). Hence, governmentality
remains a powerful diagnostic device for uncovering and analyzing the tech-
nologies of power through which global liberalism tries to extend Western
rule and social institutions to the rest of the world; to bring into focus the
contingency of this process and explore the ways in which it is resisted. This
type of scholarship takes the form of an ideology critique encouraging schol-
ars and practitioners alike to “engage in original reflection on goals and on
social, political and economic ethics that will eventually end the glorification
of the West and cease hindering other civilizations from achieving their cre-
ative potential” (Tağma, Kalaycıoğlu, and Akçalı 2013, pp. 388–89).
Furthermore, the uneven and fractured nature of the global might as well
give rise to radically different governmentalities than those found in North
America and Western Europe. In the case of Israel, I have shown that spe-
cific historical, social, and geopolitical conditions lead to a unique bargain
with the bomb, which, in turn, required the Israeli government to conduct
the conduct of its subjects in a way that is radically different from that of
other nuclear-armed democracies. The governmentality toolkit can hence be
applied in “other worlds” as well, in order to uncover and analyze the work-
ings of a range of different (contra)governmentalities around the world and
how they interact with global governmental power.
CHAPTER 8
Neoliberal Policies and the

Egyptian Trade Union Movement:
Politics of Containment and the
Limits of Resistance
Nadine Abdalla
Introduction
Following to the Nasserite rule, Sadat and Mubarak were both prone to
employ greater economic liberalization. Indeed, the year 1991 was the turning
point of the liberalization policies for Egypt. In May 1991, Egypt signed the
new structural adjustment program with the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), which has engaged Egypt with a series of neoliberal measures, in par-
ticular the sale of state-owned enterprises (Pratt 2001, p. 115). Already, the
enactment of the law 203 in 1991 favored privatization targeting 314 pub-
lic companies as eligible for privatization (Beinin 2011a, p. 186). Moreover,
with the arrival of the technocratic government of Prime Minister Ahmed
Nazif, Egypt witnessed a radical acceleration of the ongoing economic lib-
eralization since the mid-1990s. Having adopted a clear neoliberal agenda,
the Nazif government (2004–11) announced plans to privatize most of the
public companies. In 2005–6, the government sold therefore 59 public com-
panies for $2.6 billion (Rutherford 2008, p. 223), and, as a result, the GDP
grew at an average annual rate of over 6 percent until about 2008 (Roll 2013,
p. 7). However, this growth was accompanied with the formation of an oli-
garchy and rising social inequality. Moreover, the privatization process was
conducted with a total lack of transparency (El-Naggar 2009, p. 45). This
has resulted, at least partially, in a remarkable concentration of capital in
the private sector. Thanks to a widespread corruption in the sale of public
124 ● Nadine Abdalla
enterprises, a small number of entrepreneurs succeeded in establishing huge

commercial empires (Roll 2013, pp. 7–8).
Indeed, the “trickledown effect” on which the experts had based their
neoliberal economic strategy has never been realized especially because no sig-
nificant social measures had been put in place to support the liberal reforms
(Collombier 2012, p. 4). Therefore, this period witnessed a growth rate that
rose from 4.7 percent in the fiscal year 2004–5 to 7.2 percent the following
year (2005–6) and 10.9 percent in 2007 (El-Naggar 2007, p. 171). How-
ever, despite the GDP growth at the macroeconomic level, real wages did not
increase, and in many cases they actually declined. According to El-Naggar,
the ratio of wages to GDP decreased from 48.5 percent at the end of 1980 to
28.6 percent in 1995 and less than 20 percent in 2007 (El-Naggar 2009, p.
49). In 2007, the monthly basic salary of industrial workers was around 105
Egyptian Pound (EGP) per month ($19) (Beinin 2011a, p. 187) while the
average base salary for textile workers in the first half of the 2000s was 250
EGP ($36). Thus, according to El-Naggar, most public sector workers and
their families could be considered “poor” by the standards of the World Bank
(living on less than $2 per day per person). El-Naggar also stated that the same
observation was valid for more than 95 percent of the 5.8 million civil servants
in Egypt and their families (El-Naggar 2009, p. 49) since an employee who
worked for 30 years only earned a salary of about 730 EGP ($105.2 dollars)
(El-Naggar 2007, p. 179). This information is particularly important because
it explains why the state’s employees consider themselves as part of the labor
movement. As Rabab El-Mahdi states, recent developments of capitalism have
made it more difficult to distinguish between these two categories since “blue-
collar” workers in the industrial sector are better paid than the state employees
who are considered as “white collar” (El-Mahdi 2011, p. 389).
In response to such intensified policies of economic liberalization since the
1990s and their rapid increase in the second half of the 2000s, labor protests
have increased in parallel. Worth noting is that all of these labor protests
emerged outside of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which
is the official trade union federation co-opted by the state. Between January
1998 and December 1999, there were 287 workers’ protests although there
were only 37 in 1988–89, that is to say, before the launch of the privatiza-
tion policies (Pratt 2001, p. 120). Moreover, the period 1998–2003 saw an
average of 118 workers’ protests a year (Beinin 2011a, p. 187). Since 2006
and in parallel with the acceleration of the neoliberal economics policies
undertaken by the Nazif government (2004–11), Egypt has experienced the
“longest and strongest wave of workers protest since the end of World War
II” (Beinin and El-Hamalawy 2007). Furthermore, between 2004 and 2008,
more than 1.7 million workers participated in contentious collective actions.
Neoliberal Policies and the Egyptian Trade Union Movement ● 125
Actually, this wave of protests involved not only traditionally militant blue-
collar workers, but also previously quiescent employees and workers from
within the state’s own administrative apparatus, such as ministries and gov-
ernment agencies. The 2004 annual report of the Land Center for Human
Rights has thus reported that from 1998 to 2004, Egypt witnessed around
1,000 collective actions. A quarter of them took place in 2004 alone (about
266), which means a 200 percent increase when compared to 2003 during
which only around 86 protests took place (Beinin 2009, p. 77).
The liberal economic policies that were aggressively adopted by the regime
have hence incited the labor movement to enthusiastically join the revolution-
ary movement of January 25, 2011, in Tahrir square. Therefore, the Egyptian
labor movement played a decisive role in bringing down the authoritarian
regime despite the fact that it didn’t purposively articulate a pro-democracy
stance. The mobilization of workers on February 8, 2011, has thus served a
tipping point in the Egyptian uprising. As things were getting back almost
to normal on February 7 and 8, when demonstrations decreased and masses
began to leave “Tahrir square,” workers across many sectors began to strike,
refusing to work until their rights were duly recognized. They also organized
several protests across the country. These dynamics left the economy par-
alyzed, along with the main public facilities, evolving thereby into a civil
disobedience scene. As these protests increased in numbers and spread geo-
graphically throughout Egypt, the political scene transformed in favor of the
revolution (Abdalla 2012c, p. 89). In the aftermath of the public uprising,
the number of labor protests has even increased from 580 protests in 2010 to
1,400 in 2011 and 3,400 in 2012 (Beinin 2013) and contributed thereby to
an already dire economic situation.
Following the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, new trade unions inde-
pendent of ETUF have been formed right across all sectors of the economy,
including farmers, private-sector workers, public transport drivers, employees,
etc. (Abdalla 2012c, p. 90). Nevertheless, the labor/trade union movement
appeared in the aftermath of the January 25 Egyptian uprising unable to
influence the political process in a way that reflects its organizational or socio-
economic interests. More specifically, it was unable to exert pressure on the
successive governments that come in the aftermath of the uprising to issue a law
guaranteeing syndical freedoms, and it was incapable of enforcing the establish-
ment of a general political debate about reforming the existing economic order.
In this framework, the chapter raises the following questions:
How did the successive rulers in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolt seek to
control/contain the Egyptian labor movement?
Why has the latter remained incapable of resisting such strategies?
In order to answer these questions, this chapter will examine the following
points: (1) the correlation between Sadat’s and Mubarak’s regimes’ neoliberal
policies and these regimes’ mounting control over the ETUF, the official body
that represents the labor, as well as the form of workers’ resistance in the eve
of the January 25 uprising, (2) the new rulers’ continuous attempt to adopt,
after Mubarak’s downfall, the old neoliberal agenda that their predecessors
pursued and their attempt therefore to control ETUF and contain the new
trade union movement, and (3) the limits of the new trade union movement’s
resistance in the aftermath of the uprising; as well as the challenges—namely
in terms of structural weaknesses and ambiguous relations with the power
structures—that have hindered the movements’ capacity to achieve its own
sociopolitical and organizational agenda.
State-Labor Relations in the Eve of the January 25 Uprising

In Egypt, the postcolonial state-labor relations were ruled by the moral
economy approach that stemmed from a pact established between the
state and society by the former President Gamal Abdel Nasser, in order to
assure the labor force’s loyalty to the state. The state’s role was therefore to
guarantee the workers a certain standard of living by ensuring a salary that
covers their basic needs. In return, workers provided the state with politi-
cal support and contributed to the project of national development and
production (Posuseney 1997, p. 15). Accordingly, Nasser built a populist
authoritarian political formula based on what Schmitter calls the “state
corporatism”: a representation system to link the associative interests of
the civil society with the governmental structure of the state (Schmitter
1974, p. 86).1 The intention was to provide the workers (or those social
sectors) supporting the regime with certain benefits such as job security,
better working conditions, free education and health care, and the distri-
bution of these goods and services was done through an expanded public
sector (Ayubi cited in Pratt 1998, p. 4). This legal consolidation of the
regime control of the trade unions took place between 1959 and 1964.
On January 30, 1957, Nasser created the Egyptian Trade Union Feder-
ation (ETUF) whose executive board was completely appointed by the
government.2 Following the collapse of the Nasserite rule after the defeat
of 1967 (El-Shafei 1995, p. 17), Nasser’s successors Sadat and Mubarak
were prone to employ even further economic liberalization. The economic
liberalization policies that they undertook were not accompanied by a par-
allel political liberalization, however. This has subsequently weakened the
regime’s mechanism of co-optation and generated new forms of resistance
among the workers.
Sadat’s political liberalization did not lead the state to soften its control
over the corporatist system (El-Shafei 1995, p. 18). Despite the introduction
of multiparty elections in 1977, the relative political liberalization was only
“illusory” for the workers (Pratt 1998, p. 18). It was only after the Mahalla
workers’ protests in 1975 and the “bread riots” in 1977, that the Sadat regime
introduced a series of legal reforms to strengthen the grip of the state’s cor-
poratist structure. Sadat therefore increased the powers of the Federation of
Trade Unions, but ensured that labor leaders loyal to the regime stayed in the
institution’s leadership (Bianchi 1986, p. 438). Furthermore, the act 35/1976
increased the powers of the federation and the minister of labor’s authority
on unions’ activities and funding. Similarly, this law incorporated the general
trade union leaders within the state bureaucracy by providing them the right
to participate in discussions over legislation related to social and economic
development (Pratt 1998, p. 19). The law 1/1981 also allowed an extension
of ETUF’s electoral term (Pratt 1998, p. 19), leading thereby to the perpetu-
ation of the top union leadership hierarchy and making the leaders even more
isolated from the base of the organization (El-Shafei 1995, p. 18). In addi-
tion, it gave the leaders the right to issue executive orders related with the
governance of the institution’s affairs. In contrast, local unions were deprived
of signing collective agreements without the permission of the General Union
in question (Pratt 1998, p. 20). Hence, the second period of the Egyptian
corporatism (1976–81) could be described as belonging to the “corporatism
of exclusion” understanding, since the alignment of the Egyptian economy
with the world capitalist economy led to the exclusion of social groups that
had previously benefited from Nasser’s populist policies (Pratt 1998, p. 8).
Effectively, under Mubarak, launching economic liberalization poli-
cies including the privatization process resulted in a bigger control over
the union’s federation. This control was achieved through a series of legal
reforms designed to co-opt the federation’s leadership while preventing verti-
cal rotation within the organization. During the first period of economic
liberalization (1991–96), the government changed law 35/1976 governing
trade union affairs by the amendment no. 12/1995 and enabled the union’s
leaders to remain in their position of leadership even after their retirement
(Pratt 2001, pp. 117–18). Therefore, following the 1996 elections, those who
were at the age of retirement could still continue to manage to lead 12 of
23 of the general unions of the federation (Pratt 1998, pp. 34–35). These
amendments were designed to maximize the power of the old guards loyal to
the regime at the expense of the younger generation, which was supposedly
more militant and radical in their views vis-à-vis privatization. Moreover, in
2003, the newly enacted unified labor code 12/2003 deprived the workers,
for the first time since 1957, of the right to employment security, by allowing
temporary employment contracts in the public sector. In return, the workers

were granted the right to strike although the exercise of this right was signifi-
cantly constrained.3
Moreover, the enactment of this unified labor code guaranteed the perma-
nence of union leaders loyal to the regime through the control of trade union
elections by the Ministry of Manpower. This was made possible through the
introduction of bureaucratic rules and constraints that have allowed the regime
to eliminate candidates from the opposition (especially the left, the Nasserist
and the Muslim Brotherhood). Candidates who could overcome these obsta-
cles had to face new challenges when filing or withdrawing their candidacy to
and from the national departments of the Ministry of Manpower. According
to an NGO observer, State Security officers were regularly reporting on such
candidates (Clement 2007, p. 73).
With Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif ’s technocratic government and via
the radical acceleration of the ongoing economic liberalization, the regime’s
control over ETUF increased in a remarkable fashion. Although the state
intervention in the union’s elections is a known fact in the Egyptian labor
history, labor activists insisted that the government’s intervention in this
election was remarkably higher than in the 1980s and the 1990s. This is
explained by the extent of the fraud that took place at all organizational levels
of the federation, in contrast to previous elections where fraud was limited to
leadership positions at the top of the federation’s hierarchy (at the level of the
federation and the level of general unions). The government interference and
electoral fraud were realized through two mechanisms: (1) the prevention of
a large number of candidates to participate in elections—NGOs estimated
that the number of candidates who were prevented from participating in the
elections was between 10,000 and 30,000 (Clement 2009 p. 109).4 Most
of the candidates were chosen by the president of the federation in close
collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower, State Security, and with the
help of the Business Representatives (ibid.), and (2) direct interference in
the elections to prevent the success of certain candidates who could have, for
one reason or another, escaped the constraints mentioned above. This was
the case, for example, of Kamal Abu Eita, the leading figure of the real estate
tax collectors movement.
However, the exceptionally high level of interference negatively affected the
government’s ability to exercise effective co-optation. Certainly, the increased
control increased the number of regime supporters in the corporatist struc-
ture. Nevertheless, it also resulted in the isolation of an increasing number
of workers. The extensive fraud experienced by the 2006 union elections
closed all the mediation channels between the workers and the regime. This
is because the extension of the fraud to the unions’ committees at the base
of the organization generated a complete disconnection between the workers

and the union structure. Thus, in order to assert their claims, the labor move-
ment had to resist and to definitively bypass the official trade union by pro-
testing thereby outside of it. It is not surprising hence that the 2006 union
elections were followed by a wave of workers’ protests gathering for more
than 500,000 workers. This wave of protest was the first of its kind since the
mid-1980s (Clement 2006, p. 110). Furthermore, since 2007, the number
of social mobilization of workers has experienced an exceptional growth: It
has almost tripled compared to 2006 as the number rose from 266 in 2006
to 614 in 2007 and 700 in 2009 (Beinin 2011a, p. 190). In late 2008, Egypt
witnessed also the emergence of the first “independent union” established
by the real estate tax collectors outside the framework of ETUF, with the
objective of reforming ETUF from within. This signaled an obvious rupture
with the ways in which state-labor relations had thus far been regulated and
invited the workers—in the aftermath of the down fall of Mubarak—to sup-
port new union structures that are more representative to their claims.
The Post-Mubarak State—Labor Transformation in Egypt

and the New Trade Union Law: New Rulers, Old Strategies?
The January 25 uprising presented for the labor movement an opportunity
to genuinely revise its old relations with the State. As the movement realized
the importance of building new structures of representation that are able
to resist the ongoing liberal economic policies from which they have previ-
ously suffered, hundreds of new trade unions emerged at lightning speed
after the uprising. These new unions were organized mainly under the roof
of two umbrella organizations: (1) The Egyptian Federation of Independent
Trade Unions (EFITU) that it comprised of unions operating outside of the
ETUF,5 (2) the Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress (EDLC), formed in
2011, but formally established as an independent trade union federation
with a reported membership of 186 unions in April 2013.6 It is worth not-
ing here that the legal framework governing trade union affairs, traditionally
determined by the law 35, promulgated in 1976 and amended by law 1 in
1981 recognizes ETUF as the only legitimate and legal federal body of labor
representation. That is why the enactment of a new law guaranteeing syndical
freedoms was one of the main priorities of the labor movement leaders during
the transitional period.
During the Mubarak era, the labor movement leaders had always criti-
cized the law 35 as contradicting the international conventions of the Inter-
national Labor Organization (ILO), in particular conventions no. 87 of 1948
and no. 98 of 1949 that stipulate the protection of the independence and
freedom of trade unions—both conventions were ratified by the Egyptian

government back in 1957. This section will emphasize hence the struggle
between the state authorities and the labor movement representatives over the
new rules of labor’s representation in the postrevolutionary period. Through
an analysis of these contentious dynamics, it will attempt to demonstrate that
although the opportunity of negotiating the rules of labor representation, and
therefore establishing a new pattern of state–labor relations, has arisen in the
aftermath of the Egyptian uprising, the new rulers adopted the old neoliberal
agenda and perpetuated the politics of labor containment of their predeces-
sors. Similarly to the Mubarak regime, they have worked on containing the
labor movement within the frame of ETUF and constraining its aspiration
to issue a new trade union law that legalizes its newly established structures.
More precisely, under the chairmanship of the Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces (SCAF), a decree guaranteeing the freedom of syndicalism has
been prepared in summer 2011, by the Minister of Labor Ahmed El-Borei.
This was followed by a social dialogue that involved both the representatives
of the new unions and labor activists of the Muslim Brotherhood, and, the
representatives of Chambers of commerce and industry. In this dialogue, a
draft law guaranteeing the freedom of union’s association was debated. The
Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) and the Egyp-
tian Democratic Labor Congress (EDLC) approved this draft law. However,
the SCAF that had a “conservative” political and economic vision remained
reluctant to enact the law. A few months after the parliamentary elections in
early 2012, the “Freedom and Justice Party” (FJP)—the political wing of the
Muslim Brotherhood—circulated a different version of the law, and pushed
for its adoption by the parliament. Accordingly, the parliament’s Labor Com-
mittee (Lagnet El-Kowa El-A’mela) agreed to adopt the draft presented by the
FJP before the dissolution of parliament on June 14, 2012, albeit EFITU’s
and EDLC’s opposition to it.7
While both drafts agreed on expanding the union freedoms, the FJP draft
law, unlike El-Borei draft law, strengthened the ETUF position vis-à-vis the
new unions. Similarly to the Mubarak regime, the Muslim Brotherhood
pursued a consistent neoliberal agenda just after the arrival of Mohamed
Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate to power, in May/June 2012
presidential elections. This agenda has been further consolidated by the nego-
tiations that President Morsi pursued with the IMF in late August 2012,
in return of a $4.8 billion IMF loan.8 Therefore, for the Muslim Brothers,
strengthening their control over ETUF, on the one hand, and constraining
the new trade unions, on the other hand, was necessary to contain the labor
movement while making unpopular economic decisions such as, for exam-
ple, reducing the subsidies on fuel as the IMF suggests. Moreover, the FJP
leaders already held some leadership positions within the ETUF transitional
administration committee: Yousry Bayoumi, the FJP leader was, for example,
the treasurer, and Khaled El-Azhari was its vice president. The latter would
be appointed as minister of labor by the government formed on August 2,
2012, after the election of President Mohamed Morsi. It is worth noting
that, in the aftermath of the January 25 uprising, the previous ETUF admin-
istration board that was elected in ETUF’s rigged elections in 2006 was dis-
solved because of the cabinet decision in August 2011.9 It was thus replaced
by a “transitional administration committee” whose role was to manage the
institution until the new elections take place. This transitional committee
was formed by Ahmed El-Borei, the previous minister of labor and brought
together former trade unionists rather close to the old regime with the various
politically militant workers openly opposing the old regime. It is in this con-
text that the Muslim Brotherhood has been given three seats in the ETUF’s
transitional administration committee, the treasurer and the vice president
included10 and has sought to seize this opportunity to consolidate its control
over this organization.
Furthermore, the appointment of Khaled El-Azhari, the vice president of
the labor committee in the parliament and ETUF’s vice president as minis-
ter of labor on August 2, 2012, tilted the balance of power in favor of the
FJP during this transitional period and offered thus to the FJP new tools for
implementing its strategy of controlling ETUF, containing new trade unions,
and pursuing its economic liberal agenda.11 As might be expected, the new
minister adopted a draft law, approved by the labor committee in the parlia-
ment despite EFITU’s and EDLC’s opposition. The next day, EFITU issued
a statement specifying the reasons for its refusal and its preference for the
law of El-Borei.12 Three controversial points, mentioned in this release, seem
to be important. These points highlight the conflict of interest between the
government represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, on the one hand, and
the new trade union federations, on the other: (1) Civil servants and profes-
sional unions’ (such as those of teachers, doctors, lawyers, and engineers)
issues because El-Azhari’s law draft does not grant the right to establish new
professional unions. Actually, it limits the right of employees to create a genu-
ine professional trade union and this situation contradicts the international
conventions on freedom of union’s association.
This situation was favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood, which con-
trolled the administrations within existing professional unions. The Muslim
Brotherhood had a de facto control, since the 1980s, over these professional
trade unions. (2) The structure of the trade union federation: Contrary to
El-Borei’s draft, which would empower local unions at the work places via
strategies of decentralization, Al-Azhari’s draft sought to preserve the current
centralized structure, which concentrates decision-making power at the

higher levels of the federation. EFITU believes that the more the structure
is centralized, the more it is easily co-opted by the regime. (3) Social funds:
The law does not tackle the problematic issue of the social funds (Sanadik El-
Zamala). To date, ETUF holds a monopoly on the social funds that provide
social security services for members of affiliated trade unions, and pensions
for their retirement. Contributions to the funds are included in the work-
ers’ membership fees for ETUF, which are usually deducted automatically
from their salaries (Beinin 2012, p. 13). Workers willing to establish new
unions that are independent from the ETUF framework are faced with losing
their claims to the social funds they have previously been financing. El-Borei’s
draft had tried to solve this dilemma by guaranteeing the workers’ freedom
to withdraw from ETUF without forfeiting their rights to the social funds.
EFITU stressed in its statement that because of the social funds obstacle,
El-Azhari’s draft would entail substantial disadvantages for the emergence of
new trade unions. Moreover, the statement added that this draft law would
only favor the Muslim Brotherhood’s interests, since it would ensure their
control over ETUF.13
Given the blockage between both parties and the approaching date of
ETUF’s annual internal elections (November/December 2012), the min-
ister of labor, backed by the constitutional declaration issued by President
Morsi on November 22, 2012, issued two amendments to law 35, in order
to consolidate the new government’s control over ETUF: The first postponed
ETUF’s internal elections until the adoption of a new law on trade union
freedoms and rights. The second amendment enforced the retirement of
ETUF’s leaders over the age of 60. Moreover, the amendment gave the min-
ister of labor the prerogative to choose new leaders for the unoccupied seats.
According to some estimates, therefore, the Muslim Brothers would get up to
150 seats out of a total of 502 seats in 201314 at the general union’s level of
the federation and up to 14 out of 24 leaders in ETUF’s administration board
(which includes a representative from each of the 24 unions).15 Both amend-
ments aimed hence to achieve one main goal: to allow the Brotherhood to
control, in the medium and longer term, the leadership positions within the
entire institution.16 For their part, EFITU and EDLC argued as well that
these changes reflected the FJP plan to control ETUF.
Following President Morsi’s ouster in July 2013, the new military-led gov-
ernment and the new president Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi have nevertheless pursued
the same neoliberal agenda as its predecessors. The unpopular decision taken
by Al-Sisi on July 5, 2014, and welcomed by IMF,17 to reduce subsidies on
fuel proves, for instance, the latest regime’s economic orientation for Egypt.
It is worth mentioning that the fuel subsidy accounts for about 20 percent of
the total government’s expenditure since 2008 and has thus contributed to
the increase of state budget’s deficit, which reached 12–13 percent of GDP,
according to latest estimates by the current finance minister. Furthermore,
despite the appointment of Kamal Abu Eita, pioneer of independent trade
unionism as the minister of labor, the state’s containment of the labor per-
sisted.18 In order to guarantee its control over ETUF, the new government
endorsed the replacement of 80 percent of the ETUF’s executive board mem-
bers, which of course included the Muslim Brother members. On the other
hand, Abu Eita was not able to push for the adoption of a new trade union
law, as he faced severe resistance while discussing this issue during the council
of ministers’ meetings. He was unable to convince the interim president,
Adly Mansour, to promulgate it, either.
We can therefore conclude by saying that in the post-Mubarak Egypt,
the trade union affairs have emerged as a major arena of political struggle,
rendering the unions targets of political contestation rather than drivers of
reform (Bishara 2014, p. 4). Furthermore, in the aftermath of the uprising,
the successive new rulers opted out, similarly to the old Mubarak regime, to
adopt a neoliberal agenda and in so doing have sought to contain the labor
movement. This has been undertaken both via the consolidation of their con-
trol over ETUF and via their reluctance to issue a new trade union law that
could legalize the formation of new structures that are more representative for
the workers but also more critical to the regime’s policies.
Third—The New Trade Union Movement in the Aftermath

of the January 25 Uprising: A Limited Resistance?
The appointment of Kamal Abu Eita, the president of EFITU, as minister of
labor in the aftermath of the June 3, 2013 election, has not changed much of
the equation since the law guaranteeing the freedom of syndicalism has never
been promulgated. As mentioned above, the regime was more interested
in controlling ETUF than in issuing a law that would legalize the workers’
representation and be more critical to governmental policies. Nevertheless,
this statement represents only one side of the coin: the other side consists
of the structural weaknesses of the new trade union movement. As we are
going to demonstrate in this section, its weakness is obviously hindering its
capacity to influence the governmental policies in a way that favors its own
socioeconomic interests. Moreover, the new trade unions relations to politics
remain ambiguous. Usually in countries that have witnessed increasing waves
of economic liberalization, the linkage between the trade unions and political
parties should be advantageous for all sides and must be in consequence pro-
viding the labor movement with an extra channel of support. However, this
is not the case in Egypt where the labor movement avoids the politicization
of its demands. Thus, in this section, we will scrutinize the reasons behind
this ambiguous relation between the trade union movement and the politi-
cal forces, its manifestations, and more important its influence on the labor
movement capacity to push for change.
Indeed, the new trade unions face difficulties, both in the public and
private sectors, in receiving recognition as legitimate representatives since
the law that should legalize their existence was never issued: The new trade
unions’ leaders in the governmental and public sector face barriers in offi-
cially registering their new organizations, since the legal framework is not
clear yet. Furthermore, getting the practical recognition of their unions on
the ground is at least equally challenging, as public employers prefer to deal
with the leaders of the officially registered and traditionally established syndi-
cates. The new trade unions’ leaders are hence largely considered to be leaders
of a protest movement. The new trade unions thus lack acceptance, which
leaves them unable to negotiate on behalf of the workers and achieve their
aspirations. However, the lack of legitimacy is not the only obstacle that is
weakening new trade unions. To be able to achieve structural changes in a
way that favors its interests, the labor movement must achieve both a high
union density in relation to the size of the labor force and a high density of
union affiliations in key areas of economic activity.
According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics
(CAPMAS), Egypt’s labor force is made up of 23,346 million workers,
61.2 percent of whom are salaried.19 While ETUF claims having an affiliation
of 3.8 million of workers, EFITU claims having an affiliation of 2.4 million
workers20 and EDLC claims having an affiliation of 886,000.21 If we consider
those numbers (more or less) as an indicator for the labor movement’s orga-
nizational capacity, it becomes evident that at least 65 percent of the labor
force is not yet organized. Indeed, the presence of new trade unions among
blue-collar workers in the manufacturing industries remains very low. Blue
collars in the industrial sectors (such as the textile workers) remain mostly
organized under the ETUF umbrella. Except for the presence of EDLC in
some industrial areas such as Madinat El-Sadat and El-asher men Ramadan,
new trade unions remain, in general, unable to colonize the industrial private
sector. Worth noting that private employers make use of their powerful posi-
tion vis-à-vis their employees, often depriving them entirely of their labor
rights to legal, social, and syndical protection. Therefore, workers suffer from
severe repercussions or risk getting fired if they engage in labor activism.22
The Center for Trade Unions and Workers’ Services (CTUWS) showed
in several cases that workers were fired just after organizing protests. In other
cases, according to the CTUWS, newly hired workers are obliged to sign
an undated document in which they submit their resignations, giving the

employer the liberty to fire workers at any given moment, and with no legal
protection whatsoever. On the contrary, EFITU and EDLC have a relatively
strong presence within white collars in the civil service and government sec-
tors (such as the real estate tax collectors and public transport). Therefore, to
be able to modify the system of state-labor power relations, new unions need
to be strong not only within white-collar sectors but also among blue-collar
ones. Furthermore, new trade unions suffer from structural weaknesses as
two major obstacles hinder the capacity of new trade unions to transform
into influential institutions: The first one is related to the new leaders’ lack
of experience in the most basic functions of a trade union. This is a short-
coming that largely results from the absence of any tradition of unionism
in Egypt—at least outside of ETUF (Beinin 2012, p. 13). Administrating a
new trade union and managing it thus poses a major challenge. The second
challenge is related to the lack of financial resources, due to the inability to
collect regular membership fees. This is partially a consequence of the inter-
nal administration’s weakness, but also related to the dilemma that members
are already paying ETUF membership fees, as previously mentioned. Given
the limited resources of both federations, EFITU and EDLC, their work on
strengthening their structural capacities and providing professional training
for their personnel—both at the federation and local levels—remains too
weak. Indeed, this situation has affected the functionality and professional-
ism of the two institutions. As a result, internal struggles have emerged and
institutional fragmentation has increased.
Moreover, it should be noted that the workers movement holds an
ambiguous relationship with the government, a fact that is preventing them
from politically channeling their claims. Political parties should have the
duty of advancing the workers’ interests and ensuring that they appear on
the government’s agenda. It should thus help the latter, either to channel its
opposition to the ongoing mode of economic governability or to propose
an alternative to it, which is not currently the case. This workers’ reluctance
vis-à-vis the political organizations definitely has its roots in the near history.
Actually, Hosni Mubarak’s regime carefully distinguished between peoples’
demands—those referring to their socioeconomic situations and those touch-
ing on political issues. Any kind of linkage was considered a red line not to be
crossed. Hence, labor movements consistently rejected alliances with political
parties, because they were aware that a violation of the regime’s unwritten
rules of the game would result in a systematic repression.23 The crackdown of
the Ghazel El-Mahalla labor movement strike—the Misr Company for Spin-
ning and Weaving, located in Mahalla, is the biggest of its kind with 24,000
workers—the April 6, 2008, event is an exemplary demonstration of how the
Egyptian authoritarian regime dealt with the politicization of social protest.

Cyber activists took up labor’s call for a strike and sit-in inside the factory and
transformed it into a call for a “national” strike. Followed by several political
opposition parties and movements, they turned the purely economic demands
of the labor movement into a harsh critique of the broader social and political
situation of the country—continuous price increases, widespread corruption,
and the torture of political activists by the police.24 Since 2005, the regime
had mostly reacted to workers’ protests with a mixture of indifference, tol-
eration, and concessions—and rarely resorted to violence to disperse protest
actions. However, following the April 6 strike, it used its security apparatus to
oblige the labor leaders to demobilize the workers and even cancel their strike
call. Leaders who did not concede were arrested.25 Therefore, the distrust of
the labor movement vis-à-vis political forces has its roots in the very history
of its relationship with the governmental power before January 25. The bitter
experience at Mahalla deepened the split between labor and politics, and the
labor movement remains suspicious toward involvement in politics.
During the transitional period, this separation has remained the norm for
the leaders of the newly established unions. The latter refused to display any
partisan or political affiliation. Two main reasons could explain this position.
The first is the lack of mutual benefit: For the labor movement, distanc-
ing themselves from political parties was not only to avoid repression but
also to escape from being exploited by the political parties that remained
weak. During the transition period, it could be very beneficial for the labor
movements to form alliances with the political parties. It could provide them
with an additional channel of influence on politics, since the latter has the
duty of putting the workers’ demands on their political agenda. However,
in the Egyptian case, this kind of alliance has appeared to be challenging
for the labor force due to the political parties’ weakness. In the 2011 and
2012 elections, the leftist coalition “Revolution Continues” achieved only
8 of 508 parliamentary seats. The Tajammu’ Party and the Egyptian Social
Democratic Party—the remaining leftist parties that were not part of the
coalition—won 3 and 16 seats, respectively.26 This leads to a continued feel-
ing of mistrust among ordinary members of the federation: As parties remain
unable to provide the workers with concrete political impact, the latter feels
it is being exploited by the political parties for the latters’ own leverage. In
addition, workers mistrust the political parties because of their potential to
divide them with different ideological approaches. As in the words of Adel
Elshazli, the president of the new union of public transport explains as fol-
lows: “I forbid we talk about politics in the trade union meetings. If I open
the door for politics, each one of us will advocate for a different position since
our political affiliations are different. Here, we are, and we should be united,
only around and for our economic demands. In any case, if we decided to ally
with a political party, the most rational ally would be the FJP, the strongest
party (during this period) on the political scene. However, choosing such an
alliance is not a wise because it is likely to divide our ranks.”27
It is worth noting, however, that a significant change in the relation-
ship between the labor movement and the political forces occurred in mid-
February 2013, about four months before President Morsi’s ouster. Indeed,
attempts of reconciliation between the leaders of two independent trade
union federations, on the one hand, and the National Salvation Front (NSF)
(an alliance of the non-Islamist political parties), on the other hand, has
emerged. The reluctance of the minister of labor to promulgate a law in favor
of union freedoms pushed the leaders of both new union federations to ally
with the NSF in order to ensure the latter’s affiliated political parties’ support
to the Ahmed El-Borei draft law in the parliament.28 Following the verdict
of the Administrative Court in March 2013 and due to certain procedural
problems, the parliamentary elections were postponed, however. Moreover,
the new postrevolutionary context has encouraged new unions to participate
more actively in “street politics.” As a consequence of the negotiations’ block-
age between the new unions and Morsi’s government, street politics have
become the last resort for a labor movement who believed that it had nothing
more to lose. Thus, the positive response of the new unions’ leaders to the call
launched by the “Rebellion” (Tamarod) youth movement during the month
of May 2013 to participate in the June 30, 2013, demonstrations reflects
a certain intersection of interests. The aim of these demonstrations was to
push for early presidential elections. Indeed, the two federations have issued
press releases announcing their solidarity and their participation. In addi-
tion, the EDLC created several rooms for operations (ghurfat amaliyyat) that
were in direct communication with the main office of the “Tamarod” move-
ment. The role of these offices was to coordinate the protest actions, fixing
meeting points and organizing marches to Tahrir Square and Al-Ittihadiyya
Presidential Palace. Moreover, the EDLC has set up two tents (in Tahrir and
Ittihadiyya) in order to facilitate the workers participation in the sit-in that
had to be organized.29
Thus, to conclude, one can say that the labor movement would have a
better chance of seeing its demands met if it were to better organize itself. Its
capacity to either influence the state socioeconomic policies or to challenge
the ancient rules of labor representation and build therefore a new social
pact highly depends on the new union’s ability to address its structural and
organizational weakness. In general, the labor remains very reluctant to get
connected with the political parties/movements mainly because of their weak-
ness. This situation deprives the trade union movement from any political
channels of support. Otherwise, it is worth noting that the political context

has considerably changed after the June 30 uprising since a new configuration
of power has taken place and wide street protests are not anymore tolerated.
This fact increases the necessity for the trade union movement to focus on
“formal politics” and think therefore about building links with political par-
ties despite their weakness.
Conclusive Remarks
The economic liberalization policies that Sadat’s and Mubarak’s regimes have
undertaken were not accompanied by a parallel liberalization of ETUF, but
were, paradoxically, accompanied by an increasing control over the latter.
Effectively, this control has increased in a very remarkable way with the radi-
cal acceleration of the neoliberal policies under Nazif ’s technocratic govern-
ment, starting from late 2004. Indeed, this attempt to contain the labor
movement has been reflected by the more extensive interference of Mubarak’s
regime in the 2006 union’s elections. This has resulted, though, in a deficient
co-optation of the workers, an intensification of labor resistance through the
multiplication of their protests, and, more important, the emergence of the
first “independent” trade union in the history of Egypt—a step that marks a
rupture with the old pattern of state-labor relations.
In the aftermath of downfall of Mubarak, the labor movement appeared
unable to secure its own sociopolitical interest despite the role it has played
during the January 25 uprising. Although the opportunity of negotiating the
rules of labor representation, and therefore of establishing a new pattern of
state-labor relation, has arisen in the aftermath of the uprising, the new rulers
adopted the old neoliberal agenda and perpetuated the politics of labor con-
tainment of their predecessors. This has been undertaken via both the consol-
idation of their control over ETUF and their reluctance to issue a new trade
union law that can legalize the formation of new structures that are more
representative of the workers but also more critical of their policies. The trade
union affairs appeared therefore to be a major arena of the political struggles
that have characterized the postrevolutionary period. Nevertheless, the new
unions lacked the organizational strength necessary to change the balance of
power in a way that serves their own interests. Therefore, the ancient rules
of labor representation or the old pattern of state-labor relations remained
unchanged since a new legal framework guaranteeing union’s freedom was
never promulgated. The labor movement remained therefore imprisoned in
the old set of structures, which are constraining its actions and interests.
With an amplified organization and a higher capacity to penetrate into the
society, workers as a whole would have a better chance to exert power on the
respecting regimes to make the necessary reforms. One such reform should
be to guarantee the independence of ETUF from the Egyptian government’s
administrative and financial oversights, as well as the other unions’ and fed-
erations’ legally established ability to form freely. Such basic reforms would
allow Egypt’s unions to address the genuine structural problems that have
brought about workers’ impoverishment and powerlessness in the first place.
Hence, an increased organization would help them to challenge the old social
pact that governmentalized their relationship with the state and enable them
thereby to create new forms of representation that are able to serve workers’
socio-economic needs and interests.
Notes
1. Its main aim is to incorporate social groups in vertical structures to mobilize in
favor of a national development project claiming to be socialist.
2. The first unified labor code—a reference point of the corporatist legislation—has
created a centralized hierarchical pyramid structure with the unions at the plant
level, grouped according to the professional activity.
3. This code stipulated that the strike had to be approved by two-thirds of the executive
committee of the general trade union. If the strike is approved, the workers must
notify their employer of the date of commencement of the strike by registered mail
within 10 days. They must be able to provide a receipt proving that the employer has
received the letter. This letter must state the reasons for the strike and its duration:
Unlimited strikes are illegal. Finally, funds for the strikes are controlled by general
unions, which imply that the local union committees do not have access to it.
4. Clement underlined that officially 35,000 candidates were registered for the
elections of union committees in November 2006.
5. In late 2013, EFITU claimed a membership of around 300 unions. EFITU
was founded and chaired by Kamal Abu Eita, leader of the Nasserite party “El-
Karama,” member of the dissolved parliament in June 2012 and minister of labor
in July 2013. As the founder of the real estate tax collectors’ union in 2008, Abu
Eita can be regarded as the pioneer of independent trade unionism in Egypt.
6. EDLC was founded by Kamal Abbas, a former labor leader at the factory iron
and steel city Helwanet and director of the Centre for Trade Union and Workers’
Services (CTUWS) (Dar El-El-Khadamat Nekabiya Wel Omaleya), an active and
renowned Egyptian NGO in defense of workers’ rights since its foundation in
1999. It is worth noting that the CTUWS has played an important role in the
legal and logistical support of the workers’ mobilizations since 2006.
7. The parliament is divided into several specialized committees in specific areas
like labor, education, human rights, etc. These have for their main task the dis-
cussion of issues related to these specific areas.
8. Abdel Ghani, S. (2012), “Morsi discusses with the IMF the conditions of the
loan of 4,8 milliards Dollars” (Morsi yabhas ma’ sanduq al-nakd al-sawli shurout
iktirad 4,8 milliards dollars), Al-Ahram Al-Masaie’, viewed on April 28, 2015,
at: http://digital.ahram.org.eg/articles.aspx?Serial=1000979&eid=1349.
9. In fact, the decision of the council of ministers is the execution of the court’s
verdict that judged the need to dissolve ETUF’s administration board elected by
fraud in 2006.
10. See: Azouz, A. (2011), “Al- Borei constitutes a temporel committee presided by
Ahmed Abdel-Zaher to manage ‘the labor’” (Al-Borei yushakil lagna moakaa’ta bi
riaa’set ahmed abdel zaher le idara ‘al-umal’), Al-Youm Al-Sabei, viewed on April
28, 2015, at: http://www1.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=468378&SecID=1
2&IssueID=0#.UtHRGXn8LIU. It should be noted that in the context of elec-
toral fraud in 2006, the Brotherhood succeeded only to have 138 seats whereas
the non–Muslim Brothers opposition have managed to get 187 seats over the
482 seats of the institution.
11. For a complete profile of the minister of labor, see: Azouz, A. (2012), “Khaled
Al-Azhari, the first Minister of Labor that is affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood”
(Khaled Al-Azhari awil wazir ikhwani lel kowa al-amilaa’), Al-Youm Al-Sabaei,
viewed on April 28, 2015, at: http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?News ID=747
634&.
12. See: Ramadan, F. (2012), “The Muslim Brotherhood law to put end on to the
labor and unionist movement” (kanoun el-ikhwan li zabeh el haraka el- omaleyia
wel nikabeyia), El- Hewar El-Motamaden No. 3762), viewed on April 28, 2015,
at: http://www.ahewar.org/debat/s.asp?aid=313259.
13. Fatma Ramadan, “The Muslim Brotherhood law to put end on to the labor and
unionist movement” (kanoun el-ikhwan li zabeh el haraka el- omaleyia wel nika-
beyia), op.cit.
14. On December 26, 2009, the twenty-fourth union was added to 23 unions form-
ing ETUF: the general union of the real estate taxes and customs collectors; this
explains from where the number of 502 seats in the whole institution comes.
15. It is worth noting that, in the 2006 union elections, the Muslim Brotherhood
didn’t win any of the seats of the administrative board of ETUF. They have only
won 18 seats of the administrative boards of the general union’s level of the
federation.
For an analysis of the amendments of law 35, see: Bishara, D. (2012), “Egyp-
tian labor between Morsi and Mubarak,” Foreign Policy, viewed on April 28,
2015, at: http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/28/power_grab_on_
egypts_unions. See as well: Abdalla, N. (2012b), “The Unionist Movement Faces
Autocracy” (elharaka el nikabiya bayn barathen el istebdad), Al-Masry Al-Youm,
viewed on April 28, 2015, at: http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/1292931.
16. This is supposed to enhance the chances of success of the Brothers in the upcom-
ing elections (that was postponed for a period of 6 months).
17. Ibid.
18. It is not entirely clear what motivated the military-installed government’s deci-
sion to appoint Abu Eita to this position. Given his history of activism and
his popularity in the independent trade union movement, his appointment
can be viewed as an attempt by Egypt’s new political leadership to court the
independent trade union movement that had taken an explicit oppositional

position toward the Muslim Brotherhood rule and have actively participated in
the June 30, 2013, demonstrations.
19. Abdalla, N. (2012a), “Egypt’s Workers—From Movement to Organized Labor,”
SWP Comments, viewed on April 28, 2015, at: http://www.swp-berlin.org/
fileadmin/contents/products/comments/2012C32_abn.pdf.
20. No concrete data base confirms this number. See: Abdalla, N. (2012a), “Egypt’s
Workers—From Movement to Organized Labor,” op.cit.
21. Interview with Saad Shaaban, the President of EDLC, Cairo, April 4, 2015.
22. This situation has been entrenched because of the weakness of the rule of law—
both in the former authoritarian regime and the current transitional one.
23. Abdalla, N. (2012c), “Social Protests in Egypt before and after the 25 January
Revolution: Perspectives on the Evolution of Their Forms and Features,” IEMeD
Mediterranean Year Book 2012, p. 87, viewed on April 28, 2015, at:http://www
.iemed.org/observatori-en/arees-danalisi/documents/anuari/med.2012/social
-protests-in-egypt-before-and-after-the-25-january-revolution-perspectives-on
-the-evolution-of-their-forms-and-features.
24. For more information about the April 6, 2008, strike, see: Duboc, M. (2009),
“Le 6 avril: un jour de colère sans grèves,” in Iman Farag (Ed.), Chroniques
2008, Le Caire. CEDEJ. See as well: Abdalla, N. (2009), “Grève du 6 avril en
Egypte: Abortion d’un mouvement ouvrier naissant,” published by Le Centre
des Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Arabe et Méditerranéen (CER-
MAM), viewed on April 28, 2015, at: http://www.cermam.org/fr/logs/research/
greve_du_6_avril_en_egypte_abo/.
25. Interview with Mustafa Foda, worker leader at the Misr Compagny at Mahalla
El-Kobra, Cairo, April 2010.
26. Abdalla, N. (2012d), “Egypt’s Workers—From Movement to Organized Labor,”
op.cit.
27. Interiew with Adel Al-Shazli, the president of the Public Transport new trade
union, June 2012.
28. See: Abdalla, N. (2013), “The Workers and the National Front of Salvation: A
Nucleous of a New Left in the Horizon?” (El-omal wel gabha: nouat yassar fel ufok ?),
Al- Masry Al-Youm, viewed on April 28, 2015, at: http://www.almasryalyoum
.com/node/1490771.
29. El-Shazli, H. (2013), “Where Were the Egyptian Workers in the June 2013
Peoples’ Coup?” Jadaliyya, viewed on April 28, 2015, at: http://www.jadaliyya
.com/pages/index/13125/where-were-the-egyptian-workers-in-the-june-2013-p.
CHAPTER 9
The Kurdish Question, Urban

Protests, and the Neoliberal
Transformation of the Turkish State
and Society
Zafer Fehmi Yörük
Introduction
Since the summer of 2013, Turkey has been known for turmoil on her streets,
political scandals, and a chain of political crises that continue to erode the
legitimacy of the existing government and rattle the foundations of the politi-
cal and judicial order. Street protests have certainly been inspired by both the
anticapitalist revolts in the West and the “Arab Spring,” while being the effect
of a series of domestic causes, including, among others, the rising urban/eco-
logical and secular concerns vis-à-vis the government’s policies, the arrogant
demonization of the youth and secular middle classes in the PM’s discourse
that accompanies sustained police violence, and the popular opposition to the
Turkish state’s de facto involvement in the Syrian civil war. However, analyses
that exclusively emphasize these manifest dynamics would risk neglecting the
significance of two latent elements that furnished the grounds of these protests:
the liquidation of the conventional republican elites (“the regime of tutelage”)
through political trials since 2008, and the subsequent launch of negotiations
between the Turkish government and the Kurdish movement. This chapter
will pose the question of the place of the Kurdish peace process, in particular,
and the Kurdish question, in general, among the structures and dynamics that
constitute the background of the ongoing unrest on all the streets of Turkey.
A thorough inquiry into this major question requires the exploration of
the genealogical relationship between the emergence of Turkish national
144 ● Zafer Fehmi Yörük
identity and the Kurdish question, and the extent to which the interactions
between these two elements shaped the major institutional structures of the
Turkish nation-state. In this context, the violent exclusion of Kurdish iden-
tity from the definition of citizenship during the formation of the republic
is taken as a key phenomenon. After outlining the trajectory of the Kurdish
opposition to this denial in modern Turkish history, the chapter will hence
focus on the recent three decades that witnessed the revival of the Kurd-
ish identity through military and political conflict, with tragic humanitarian
consequences. The unfolding of the conflict has progressively revealed that
the undeniable return of the Kurdish identity necessitates a comprehensive
transformation of the conventional ideological and political structures of the
republic. Consequently, the “peace process” became possible after a series of
judicial investigations specifically targeting the Kemalist military-bureaucratic
establishment. Although the ruling AKP had other expectations from these
operations, peculiar to its “moderate” Islamist program, this move has no
doubt paved the way for the recognition of the Kurdish identity.
The chapter will further examine the constitutional and institutional changes
that accompany the ongoing deconstruction and reconstruction of the Turkish
State in its relationship with the government’s initiative to reach a political solu-
tion to the “Kurdish question.” Along with the ideological modifications and
institutional changes at the level of the state and politics, a transformation of
common sense at the popular/social level has also been progressively observed.
In sum, both the Turkish state and Turkish society are in a process of synchronic
transformation, in parallel to the ongoing “peace process.” When considered
against the background of this transformation, recent urban protests would
become more comprehensible. Consequently, the chapter will emphasize the
latent nexuses—which operate beneath the manifest dynamics—between the
sliding grounds of politics and ideology, on the one side, and, on the other, new
political frontiers that have emerged through the recent urban protests.
Last but not least, the chapter will draw attention to the fact that the
Kurdish peace process and the urban revolts are situated within the frame-
work of neoliberal transformation of Turkey’s economy since the mid-1980s,
which gained tangible momentum since 2002 under AKP rule. The Peoples’
Democracy Party (HDP) has developed accordingly through a fusion of the
radicalized secular left with the Kurdish movement, as a case of recomposition
of the social and political opposition. There are parallels hence between the
shifting character and dynamics of Turkish politics, particularly the opposi-
tion movement, and those of the post–Arab revolt experiences on the one side
and the political results of the protest movements particularly in southern
Europe. The chapter will conclude by exposing comparative remarks on these
experiences.
The Kurdish Question ● 145
Genesis: Kurdish Identity Becomes a “Problem”

The Kurdish question in Turkey did not emerge as a result of the launch
of a guerrilla war by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the 1980s. It is
rather the other way round: The PKK is a result of the Kurdish question; and
although the roots of the problem date back to the nineteenth century,1 the
Kurdish question certainly gained its current shape in the formative years of
republican Turkey. In fact, the practices of the exclusion of Kurdish identity,
which accompanied the quelling of a series of revolts between 1925 and 1938,
also gave the republican regime its conventional shape.2 Here, instead of giving
a historical account of this process of exclusion, I shall note that the suppres-
sion of the Sheikh Said rebellion marks the commencement of the republican
leadership’s systematic war against Kurdish identity: In parallel to the military
suppression of successive rebellions, the exclusionary practices included offi-
cial decrees to reduce Kurdishness to the degree of a nonentity3 and, on the
political-cultural front, a policy of assimilation closely associated with the
republican Turkish historiography and literature, based on painstaking elabo-
rations to prove the Turkish origins of all Anatolian peoples.4
Political-cultural techniques of exclusion that accompanied the “real”
violence against the Kurdish existence included a “symbolic” annihilation of
the name “Kurd,” which the Kurds refer to as the politics of denial. Kurd-
ish identity was primarily associated in the republican discourse with the
“ancient regime” and “reactionaries,” that is, the imagined Islamist threat to
Turkish modernization. The official denial was then disseminated throughout
the popular field primarily with the implementation of compulsory military
service and national education.5 From 1925 onward, the state’s national-
ist discourse gained an increasingly ethnocultural character to accompany
the Kemalist policies of coercive assimilation. Kurdish provinces were effec-
tively turned into a land under colonial administration governed by a special
inspector, under virtual military invasion with sustained human rights viola-
tions. Until the 1950s, the Kemalist administration appointed deputies of the
Kurdish provinces, who were mostly of Turkish origin, even excluding those
“Kurdish Turks, who denied their Kurdish identity” (Kutlay 1997, p. 188).
There were also concrete limits to the policies of assimilation: The modern-
ized and educated Kurd could in the future present an even more articulate
and dangerous challenge to the republic’s integrity.6 Consequently, govern-
ment investment, the sole source of economic and social development under
the predominantly etatist economy of Turkey, remained poor in the Kurdish
provinces through the twentieth century. The denied Kurd was therefore
recognized by the state discourse, in addition to its paranoid perception as a
security threat, as an inferior entity perceived within a project of assimilation
aiming toward a racial hierarchy, as overtly formulated by Kemalist notable

Mahmut Esat Bozkurt in terms of a master–slave relationship:
My personal opinion is that the lords and masters of this country are the Turks.
Those who are not of pure Turkish stock have only one right in the Turkish
land, it is the right to be servants and slaves. (Bozkurt 1930, p. 3)
This “recognition” required the backwardness of the Kurd and Kurdistan to

prevail as a phenomenon of modern Turkey, which could invite the “uncivilised
and primitive” Kurds to become “good servants” as the sole route to assimilation
or to “melting” in the supreme pot of Turkish identity (Kutlay 1997, p. 267).
At the popular discursive level of republican nation-building, Kurdish
identity was presented primarily as a threat to the territorial integrity of the
Turkish homeland. In other words, the “Kurd” did not exist but the separat-
ist “Kurdish threat” to the integrity of the Turkish homeland was neverthe-
less emphasized. The denial of Kurdish identity was perversely related to its
recognition and the potential threat of the formation of the “real horrific
Kurdistan” as Inonu stated in a “secret East report.”7 Moreover, this threat
was associated with the imperialists’ territorial claims for which the Kurdish
rebellions were perceived as subcontracting. In this perception, Sheikh Said
rebellion (1925) was connected to the British claims on the Mosul province,
Agri rebellion (1930) was a project of the Russians, and the Dersim rebellion
(1938) was an attempt of the Armenians.8
After “Classical” Kemalism

If the 27 formative years of the Turkish republic under one party rule meant
a “great disaster” for Kurdish identity, the multiparty period of the 1950s,
1960s, and 1970s can be described as a latent stage during which a specifi-
cally Kurdish political subjectivity found various channels to develop gradu-
ally. In this sense, the three decades that followed the classical Kemalist era
were the prelude to the (re)emergence of the Kurdish political movement.
The spaces in which Kurdish identity found channels of expression and
participation in the political process included the center-right parliamen-
tary representation and radical-left politics. As expected, however, each of
these spaces had their specific limitations. Center-right political representa-
tion relied heavily on the tribal and clientalist structures, since the Kurdish
deputies never pursued Kurdish political demands. Instead, they resumed
their positions mainly as brokers in the patronage system, whereby they
delivered votes for conservative political parties in exchange for state favors
for themselves and their “clients.”9
Criticism of the tribal representation emerged from within the Kurdish

intelligentsia during the 1950s. A new philosophy called “Eastism” advocat-
ing economic development of the east sprang up, in parallel to the increasing
Kurdish activism in Iraq and the exposure of the eastern region to Kurdish
language radio broadcasts from neighboring countries. Although this early
awakening was suppressed in 1959 with the arrest and trial for sedition of
49 prominent Kurdish intellectuals (Barkey and Fuller 1998, p. 14; Poulton
1997, p. 209), the 49’s affair signified the emergence of a potential new lead-
ership of the Kurdish cause consisting of the Kurdish intelligentsia, which
was progressively alienated from the center-right politics toward the left of
the political spectrum.
In the 1960s, Kurdish political demands were articulated by the proliferat-
ing left-wing discourse, the prominent actor of which was the Workers Party
of Turkey (TIP). Many leading Kurdish intellectuals looked to the TIP, which
welcomed them into its ranks, took up the “Eastern cause” and established
branches throughout the Kurdish provinces. An immediate consequence of
this politization were the first Kurdish mass demonstrations in republican
history in seven Kurdish cities in August 1967 (McDowall 1992, p. 40).
Radical protest movements and the guerrilla groups that followed them for-
mulated the Kurdish question in terms of “right to self-determination,” while
the terms of “oppressing nation” and “oppressed nation”10 soon led to the first
formulations of Kurdistan as a “colony” within the radical-left literature.11
The leftist discourse placed the “national question” within the framework of
capitalist injustice, world imperialism and dependency. The solution to the
national question should therefore be relegated to a project of revolutionary
transformation of Turkey’s social order as a whole. In other words, “the Kurd”
was called to participate in the left’s struggle with conditions similar to the
Kemalist call to “the Kurd” to participate in the Turkish nation. As expected,
the Kurdish intellectuals were soon frustrated by the Turkish left’s less than
committed attitude to the Kurdish cause and began to contemplate forming
autonomous Kurdish organizations.12
In 1969, a group of leftist Kurdish activists split from the Turkish left and
formed the Revolutionary Eastern Cultural Hearths (DDKO). The forma-
tion of the DDKO, the cradle of a large number of radical Kurdish groups
of the following decades, was a turning point in Turkey’s Kurdish movement.
This move, in addition to being yet another manifestation of the young Kurd-
ish activists’ tendency to break with the traditional ties to act in parallel with
the radical-left movement, also included a separation from the Turkish left
toward the formation of a specifically Kurdish space of political activity.
During the 1970s, radical Kurdish groups proliferated to reflect different
variants of the international left.13 In the climate of sharpening left/right
polarization in Turkey, leftist Kurdish politics developed to challenge the

conventional structures of tribal representation. A significant indicator of this
challenge was the victory in 1977 municipality elections in Agri and Diyarba-
kir of independent candidates supported mainly by the clandestine Socialist
Party of Turkish Kurdistan (TKSP).
Military Regime and the Kurdish Resistance

The 1980 military coup held Kurdish “separatism” largely responsible for late
1970s political polarization in Turkey. The consequent state terror directed
against Kurdish politicians and intellectuals went far beyond any of its prede-
cessors.14 Hundreds of Kurdish militants and intellectuals were arrested and
dozens of them were killed in prisons. Diyarbakir prison, where most of the
Kurdish activists were held, became the synonym for unprecedented torture
and ill-treatment.15 Turkish troops were deployed heavily in rural areas and
terrorized civilian Kurds, which was officially called the policy of “disarming
the east and southeast regions.” While the written use of Kurdish had already
been prohibited, the oral use of it was also banned and penalized.16
It was in these circumstances that the guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Work-
ers Party (PKK), launched an armed struggle against the Turkish forces in
Kurdish provinces in August 1984. Parallel to the increase in PKK activities
throughout the 1980s, the military presence in the region grew dramatically,
intensifying persecution of Kurdish civilians. One clear consequence of these
oppressive policies was the growth of the PKK’s popularity, which the leader
of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, admits owed more to government terror than
to their own activities (Ballı 1991, p. 252). The PKK gained popular support
not only from among the population of southeast Turkey, but also from the
Kurdish inhabitants of major cities who constitute the largest portion of the
alienated urban poor.
With these features, the popularity of Kurdish nationalism had gone well
beyond the official claim that the whole movement was simply the work of
an isolated group of terrorists. In 1991, the People’s Labour Party (HEP)
was founded with the profile of a Kurdish party and formed an electoral
alliance with center-left SHP,17 which enabled 11 Kurdish deputies to be
elected to parliament. However, the Turkish state’s toleration of separatism
would not last long. On March 2, 1994, deputies of DEP18 were arrested in
parliament and charged with treason. The prevention of Kurdish participa-
tion in the political process was accompanied by an escalation of state vio-
lence in the “southeast” with immense human rights violations19 committed
by the soldiers, police, gendarmes, village guards, “death squads,” and some
23,000 “Special Teams” deployed by the organs such as the “Emergency Zone
Proconsulate” and “Special War Bureau.” The results were the strengthening
of a “core state” bringing together the “military-bureaucratic complex”
(Bozarslan 2000, p. 22), with the ultranationalist MHP and the Mafia,20
more than a million Kurdish refugees in Kurdish cities and major cities of
Western Turkey from the evacuated and torched villages and more than
30,000 deaths, mostly Kurdish civilians. In February 1999, Öcalan was cap-
tured and all these atrocities were attributed to him. The Turkish state felt
itself victorious: Another Kurdish rebellion was quelled, the “unitary state”
and “one nation” successfully prevailed, as declared in the 1999 indictment
of the Kurdish party HADEP:
There is only one identity in Turkey, that is, the Turkish identity. Demands for
recognition of the Kurdish identity are but the first step of a devious attempt to
divide the country. (Briefing, no. 1228, February 1, 1999, p. 10)
Prelude to Peace
The PKK’s armed struggle came to a tangible halt with the capture of Öcalan
in 1999, when the PKK reformulated their aims in terms of the formation
of a “democratic republic” in Turkey. This orientation, which was followed
by a unilateral ceasefire, represented a stark shift in the PKK’s conventional
position, which had oscillated between the demands of independence for the
Kurds of Turkey and the formation of a “united socialist Kurdistan” in the
Middle East. The self-demilitarization and peaceful gestures21 of the PKK
along with democratic pressure from the European Union have inevitably
led to some mitigation in the Turkish approach to the Kurdish question,
beginning with the removal of the Emergency Rule in the Kurdish provinces.
However, while it was possible, this rapprochement did not lead to any steps
toward a sustainable peace. Turkish authorities persistently avoided declaring
any form of amnesty to meet the PKK guerrillas’ evident will to surrender
and give up their arms. Despite this resistance from the Turkish state, a tan-
gible shift in the discourse and practice of the Kurdish movement toward the
language of politics at the expense of the grammar of violence and militarism
prevailed through time.
The moderate climate, which advanced further through the European
Union’s demands for reform, led to a boom in Kurdish politics in the first
five years of the new millennium. The popularity of DEHAP and then DTP
(Democratic Society Party)22 steadily increased, which could be measured by
DTP’s landslide victory in the municipal elections of 2002 in all the major
Kurdish provinces of East and Southeast Turkey. In the July 2007 general
elections, DTP candidates managed against all the odds to be elected as
independents from the Kurdish provinces to form a parliamentary group

with 20 deputies. 23
An important milestone on the road to Kurdish peace was the emergence
of the Kurdistan Federal Region as an internationally recognized entity in
northern Iraq. An autonomous Kurdistan had already been formed under
US protection since the end of the first Iraq war in 1991. With the 2003 US
invasion of Iraq, the Kurdish political entity gained constitutional status and
international recognition. It was obvious at the outset that it would not be
a smooth transition for the Turkish political establishment to come to terms
with this development given the potential for inspiration that the formation
of a Kurdish political entity in Northern Iraq may lead to among the Kurdish
citizens of Turkey. The military-bureaucratic establishment had used the PKK
existence in Northern Iraq as a pretext to conduct five major cross-border
operations between 1992 and 2008.
The Turkish political establishment, with all its political variants, was demon-
strating serious difficulties in accommodating the proliferating manifestations
of “Kurdish reality.” It is necessary at this juncture to point out a synchronic
political development, that is, the fact that a second, significant identity claim,
Islamic identity, was also forcing its way into the Turkish political order since
the 1980s. In order to discern this second dimension of the recent transforma-
tion of the Turkish State, which made the current peace process possible, the
development of pro-Islamist movement requires some reflection.
Moderate Islamism: A Reluctant Peacemaker

The escalation of Kurdish conflict occurred against the background
of the revival of another polarization, that between the secularist and
Islamist identities. The conservative-religious identity, which, along with
the Kurdish identity, had also been excluded from modern republican
identity, experienced a comparable ascendance since the 1980 military
coup.24 Under the postcoup leadership of Turgut Özal’s Motherland Party
(ANAP), the restoration of Muslim identity was connected with a struc-
tural shift toward economic liberalization and Turkey’s integration with
global capitalist markets (Yörük 1997 p. 125). The consequences of Islamic
restoration resulted in an unprecedented proliferation of pro-Islamist dis-
course, consisting primarily of traditionalism and antisecularism. The Wel-
fare Party (RP), acting as an umbrella organization for various Islamist and
conservative tendencies, grew rapidly to win the municipalities of Istanbul
and Ankara in 1994, and, in 1996, it became the major party of the coali-
tion government, with their leader, Necmettin Erbakan, becoming the first
Islamist prime minister of republican Turkey.
However, for the republican-secularist identity, Turkey’s transformation

into an Islamic state was the ultimate nightmare scenario. The secularist war
against the crystallization of this nightmare in the revival of Islamic political
identity was championed by Turkey’s conventional military-bureaucratic elite
armed with the republic’s official ideology, Kemalism. According to these
“guardians of the republic,” the main tenets of the republic were the unitary
state and secularism. From this Kemalist perspective, the RP-led government
was not a democratic expression of Turkish popular will, but merely a con-
spiracy to liquidate Kemalism. Consequently, the military stepped in once
again in the political scene. Following the imposition of anti-Islamist resolu-
tions in the National Security Council Meeting of February 28, 1997, the
RP-led coalition collapsed and the RP was closed down by a Constitutional
Court decree.
The February 28 intervention led to a split in pro-Islamist politics. The
charismatic mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, separated his followers
from the “old guard” to form the Justice and Development Party (AKP), with
the profile of a moderate Islamist party. Contradicting with their tradition,
the AKP promised Turkey’s full integration with the European Union, which,
according to the conventional Islamist discourse, is a “Christian Club.” The
AKP also promised to proceed further with the privatization of national
economy and integration with the global capitalist networks. These ten-
dencies were in stark contrast with the conventional pro-Islamist discourse,
which had tried to elaborate a project of “Just Order” in order to confront
“imperialism and capitalism.” The AKP won the 2002 general elections with
a clear majority, but as expected, the new government found itself from day
one under constant fire from the secularist elements. The power struggle
within the Turkish political establishment further intensified around the issue
of the presidential election. The military went as far as to issue an ultimatum
through the Chief of Staff’s website on April 27, 2007, which was followed by
mass rallies organized by secularist “civil society organizations.”
The AKP did not give up and won a landslide victory in the July 2007
elections, which resulted in the immediate appointment of its original can-
didate, Abdullah Gül, as the first Islamist president of the Turkish repub-
lic. To complete the settling of scores, the AKP government initiated the
Ergenekon investigation, an attempt of holistic liquidation of the “deep state”
along with the Kemalist military elites that had checked and balanced the
elected governments since the formative years of the republic. Since 2008,
the Turkish military has been fading away from Turkey’s political establish-
ment, with a series of new legislation initiated by the AKP accompanied by
judicial investigations. The Ergenekon and the subsequent Balyoz trials put
most of the military elite, including a former chief of general staff, behind
bars, for the charges of conspiring to overthrow the government. The peace
process became possible only after this weakening of the military position in
politics.25
Peace Process
In May 2009, President Abdullah Gül declared that the Kurdish question was
“the number one issue for Turkey” and that a historical opportunity for a real-
istic and rational solution had emerged. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan fol-
lowed suit by launching a “Kurdish opening.” Erdogan and the Ministry of
Interior commenced meetings with journalists and started delivering speeches
with connotations of recognition of Kurdish identity. The two opposition par-
ties, center-right Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the far-right Nationalist
Action Party (MHP) would immediately denounce the “opening” as treason.
Under fierce criticism from various wings of the political establishment,
the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) stepped back and turned
the “opening” into a “grand closure.” The Constitutional Court ruled on
December 11, 2009, that the DTP be closed and its leading figures banned
from politics. The final blow was struck on December 25, 2009, by the gov-
ernment, with a wave of arrests from within the structures of the Peace and
Democracy Party (BDP), which had been founded to replace the outlawed
DTP, including former parliamentary deputies and mayors. The wave of
detentions continued and the number of civilian Kurdish activists in prisons
reached thousands in the years that followed. In spite of this downturn, the
government insisted that its “opening” was not abandoned, but the military
conflict with injuries and fatalities regained momentum.
Before recommencing the peace process, the AKP had to go through two
electoral experiences to consolidate their power. In September 2010, the Turk-
ish public approved by a clear majority, through a constitutional referendum,
significant changes in the judicial system, proposed by the ruling AKP. In the
2011 general elections, the AKP once again obtained a clear majority and
Prime Minister Erdogan formed a new cabinet. The PKK, in the meantime,
intensified their armed campaign to pressurize the government to return to
the negotiating table. Between the summer of 2011 and the end of 2012, both
the Kurdish and Turkish sides lost hundreds of lives in armed conflict. The
bloodiest affair was the “Roboski massacre” of December 2012, when Turkish
jets bombed and killed 35 Kurdish civilians. Finally, PM Erdoğan declared
the recommencement of talks between the government and Öcalan. Abdul-
lah Öcalan’s letter, calling for an end to armed struggle, which was read both
in Turkish and Kurdish to Newroz demonstrators in Diyarbakır on March
21, 2013, marked the beginning of the peace process. The PKK announced
that they would comply with their jailed leader’s instructions for peace, while
Erdoğan promised to take concrete steps conditional upon the PKK forces’
withdrawal. In April and May 2013, images of Kurdish guerrillas withdraw-
ing from Turkey to northern Iraq began to appear in the Turkish newspapers
and TV broadcasts. According to the government, to the Kurds, and to most
of the Turkish media, this move marked the end of the 30-year-old conflict.26
Taksim Square Revisited

It is a rather meaningful coincidence that the 2013 summer of unprecedented
discontent erupted only days after the declaration of the end of the Kurdish
conflict (see Figure 9.1). The first impression about the Gezi protests from a
Kurdish perspective would inevitably notice the timing to perceive this upris-
ing as a roadblock in the freshly launched peace process. This position inevi-
tably corresponded with the ruling AKP’s interpretation of the events. It was
clear for the AKP at the outset that the Gezi movement was organized by the
main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in collaboration with the
“foreign powers.”27 In this view, the purpose of these protests was mainly to
sabotage Turkey’s economic development and democratization (including the
peace process) initiated by the government.
The majority of the protestors, on the other hand, often expressed their
stance against ecological damage, capitalist aggression toward urban space,
and the government’s imposition of conservative policies. In this view, far
from blocking it, the Gezi protests raised the demand of democracy, against
Figure 9.1 Gezi protestors under attack in Taksim, Istanbul, June 2013.
Source: Hüseyin Özdemir
the government’s authoritarian tendencies (Yörük 2014). The protestors

raised a rich repertoire of demands ranging from secularist/nationalist
discourses to libertarian ones (see Figure 9.2). The economic and politi-
cal issues that constitute the grounds of these discourses still need to be
identified.
The transformation of the Turkish State initiated by the AKP government
generated both conventional Kemalist and progressive criticism. The con-
ventional ancien régime criticism views the AKP reforms as a comprehensive
attack on the secularist and monolithic-nationalist foundations of the repub-
lic and associates the demilitarization of the state with the disintegration of
the unity of the Turkish “homeland”:
The synchronic processes of Silivri28 and Imralı29 are deeply intertwined. Public
perception of these developments is also in this direction given the popular
catchphrase: “life sentence to Silivri; dialogue with Imralı.” (Kongar 2013)
Progressive criticism, on the other side, points out that the Islamist move-
ment, which emerged as a liberation movement demanding the recognition
of the repressed Islamic identity is turning into an authoritarian power forcing
the imposition of their Islamic lifestyles and beliefs onto society. Along with
the manifest ecological and urban concerns, including the disastrous mining
Figure 9.2 Gezi protests continued for months despite immense police violence.
and energy policies around the country and the aggressive gentrification of
urban spaces, the opposition’s argument is that what the government presents
as democratization consists merely of the replacement of Kemalist elements
with pro-Islamist ones in the positions of authoritarian power without any
democratic reform of the nature of the existing oligarchic structures.
Kurdish political position toward Gezi oscillated from one extreme of these
interpretations to the other during the course of the protests. At the outset,
the pro-Kurdish BDP’s Istanbul deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder’s stance triggered
the mass protests. The next day, however, the leader of the party, Selahattin
Demirtaş, expressed the party’s concerns about being involved in a conspiracy
against the peace process.30 Öcalan’s statement dated June 7 was an attempt to
end this swing in a fragile balance: “I salute the resistance,” he said, and warned,
“we should not allow the nationalist circles to exploit these protests. Demo-
cratic, revolutionary, patriotic and progressive citizens of Turkey should not
allow this movement to be hijacked by these circles” (Radikal, June 7, 2014).
There was, in general, a low degree of Kurdish participation during the
Gezi protests, but meaningful moments were experienced, when young Turk-
ish generations unprecedentedly united with pro-PKK activists to resist police
violence. A few months after the protests, the Peoples’ Democratic Party
(HDP) was founded as an umbrella organization that united the pro-Kurdish
BDP with a number of radical groups and socialist parties. This merger was
Öcalan’s personal project, which aims to provide a political platform to all
shades of the political opposition.31 HDP project proved to be successful so
far, particularly in the August 2014 presidential elections, when the HDP
leader Selahattin Demirtaş received a record 9.76 percent of votes. Encour-
aged by the presidential election success, HDP declared that they were stand-
ing in the forthcoming general elections of June 2015 as a party, as opposed
to standing as independent candidates. Some observers already labeled this
move political gambling (Marcus and Karaveli 2015), which endanger all the
political gains of the Kurdish movement, but opinion polls forecast that the
HDP will manage to go over the 10 percent electoral threshold, thus winning
more than 50 seats in the next parliament. If this scenario fails, then, com-
mentators argue, the whole parliamentary system’s legitimacy, which would
exclude Kurdish representation, will be seriously questioned by society.
The political climate requires for the Kurdish movement to operate on
a fragile equilibrium between the peace negotiations with the government
and the demands of the radical opposition. Although HDP projects itself
is an expression of the political will of the Kurdish movement to unite the
fate of the Kurdish liberation with the libertarian demands of Turkish social
movements, which orient themselves mostly antagonistically against the
AKP, Kurdish demands are still on the negotiating table with the same AKP
government. The tension between these two poles becomes frequently visible
as the election date approaches. Establishing these dynamics that lie beneath
the manifest surface of the Gezi protests is important but the timing of the
protests that coincided with the declaration of the end of the Kurdish armed
conflict and the beginning of a peace process still needs explanation. As men-
tioned before, this coincidence vindicates the government’s charge that Gezi
was a conspiracy to sabotage the peace process. However, this would be an
easy and to a large extent not realistic explanation. I shall below, in conclu-
sion, attempt two related explanations regarding the link between the Gezi
protests and the dynamics of the Kurdish liberation movement.
First, political repression on Turkish society precedes the military con-
flict with the PKK. The 1980 military coup, by imprisoning around one
million people for political reasons, and by outlawing political parties, trade
unions, and civil society organizations, traumatized society to the extent that
until 2013, social opposition movements have been negligible. Besides, the
blossoming Kurdish movement has always been portrayed by the state and
mainstream media, far from legitimate opposition, merely as a grave threat
to national security. In spite of this political and ideological bombardment,
the Turkish public did follow the Kurdish movement’s struggle for their social
and political rights and obtaining certain gains. In this sense, the Kurdish
movement has been an inspiration for the emerging Turkish social opposi-
tion32 (see Figure 9.3). Having noted this, however, it needs to be recalled
that an opposite dynamic has also been operating. Turkey has been in an
undeclared war with the Kurdish movement for 30 years. Every war requires
sacrifices and many disadvantaged sectors of Turkish society have suffered
from economic hardship and political restrictions without expressing any
opposition to these sacrifices. A series of concerns, as expressed during Gezi
protests, and ongoing dynamics of potential conflict, as listed above, have
been tacitly compromised in those three decades. The protests, therefore,
are suitable for being interpreted as a belated, or deferred, battle between
the people and political authority, that is, an explosion of problems that have
built up, as soon as the conditions of war are declared to be over.
Considered either way, the advances of the Kurdish movement played an
important role in triggering the social opposition. However, if the Kurdish
peace process, which the ancien régime elements associate with the AKP-led
transformation of the secular republican horizon to a conservative Islamist
one, is a latent determinant of the Gezi uprising, this by no means reduces the
significance of a series of manifest causes, including, in particular, the effects
of the comprehensive transformation of Turkey’s economic system in line
with global capitalist structures. Therefore, the government’s interpretation
of the Gezi demonstrations as the resistance of the ancien régime elements
Figure 9.3 Women have played a leading role in the Kurdish liberation movement.
to “democratization,” or to put it simply, a battle between pro-Islamism and

secularism, is in fact not completely inaccurate, albeit not sufficient. At the
economic level, a careful look would reveal that the ecological and urban
concerns of the Gezi protests are deeply related to the government’s commit-
ment to neoliberal economic policies. The next section is devoted to a brief
discussion of these factors.
Neoliberal Globalization and the Transformation

of the Turkish State and Society
During its 13 year-long rule, the AKP government has decisively transformed
the logic of existence of the state from the “enlightened” vanguard of soci-
etal modernization to the inventor of a new trade regime. In this context,
the government implemented harsh neoliberal economic measures, includ-
ing a comprehensive “denationalization” of the economy, which consisted of
the privatization of public sector enterprises, the sell-out of the state-owned
assets, encouragement of the foreign capital to become a major player in
domestic financial markets, and restrictions on public investment, including
primarily health and education. In this new economic orientation, the global
capitalist obsession with the recently discovered value of energy, that is, the
full utilization of unused natural resources, has gained an exceptional impor-
tance. Two giant nuclear power plant projects accompany a greedy campaign
to build hundreds of new dams blocking almost every single river around the
country. The urban realty market and the proliferating construction sector
constitute the other major foundation of the new economic policies.
The ruling Islamist discourse presents these measures of integration with
global capitalist structures in terms of “debureaucratization” of the economy
and the liberation of society from the “CHP yoke.” However, there are certain
sectors of society, apart from the elements of the ancien régime that feel eco-
nomically hurt and/or excluded by these policies. Urban gentrification means
nothing but forcible resettlement in apartment blocks for the urban poor of
the major cities. The proliferation of dams, power stations, and mining sites
means the destruction of the rural poor’s natural habitus. It is not surprising
that throughout the 2000s, the ecological movement has developed tangibly
both in the countryside and in the cities, to eventually fuel the Gezi protests.
Furthermore, neoliberal globalization generates many negative effects
regarding labor rights. During the 2000s, the Turkish labor force has gone
through a comprehensive deunionization process. Under the conditions of
falling job security, health and safety measures, and social security, the ranks
of the Turkish “precariat” have swollen as in many European and Middle East-
ern societies. Consequently, the Gezi protests were to a large extent a radical
expression of frustration about the regression in labor rights along with the
shattered hopes of the well-educated but unemployed masses and the precariat.
A significant conflict at the level of the economy that surfaced during the
protests was that between the conventional bourgeoisie and the businesses that
have been nurtured by the state funds and contracts under the AKP administra-
tion. Most of the latter consists of provincial medium businesses that turned
into nouveau riche due to their connections with the new political authority.
The conventional business groups, on the other hand, such as Koç and Boyner
among others, the leading capitalists of TÜSIAD (Association of the Turkish
Industrialists and Businessmen), have been put under financial investigation by
the government for their overt or covert support of the protestors.
Cracks in the Power Bloc, Syrian Civil War, ISIS,

and the Battle of Kobane
Although Gezi protests did not yield any immediate and concrete political
results, political developments that have occurred since Gezi cannot be
abstracted from this event. A few months after Gezi, a new and effective
challenge to AKP government emerged from within the power bloc: Elements
of Gülen community within the ranks of the judiciary and the police launched
a corruption investigation on December 17, 2013, which led to the resigna-
tion of four ministers. The investigation, which also implicated Erdoğan’s son,
did not advance far enough when Erdoğan initiated a counterattack purging
hundreds of Gülen community members from the ranks of the police force
and the positions in the judiciary. Since then the Gülen community, referred
to as the “parallel state” in the AKP discourse, has become the archenemy
of the AKP power. Moreover, the government initiated the release of the
defendants of the ancien régime trials, most of whom are by now acquitted,
and blamed the “parallel state” for misleading the AKP regarding these trials.
Partly due to this crack in the power bloc, and the observable disagreement
between the AKP cabinet and Erdoğan about the limits of the presidential
powers since August 2014, when the latter was elected as the president, the
AKP has reportedly lost a certain degree of its popularity among its support-
ers around the country.33
Another unarticulated dimension of the protests was society’s concerns
related to the “shift of axis” in foreign policy orientation (Çağaptay 2009),
that is, turning away from European integration in favor of an assumption of
leadership of the Middle East. The government’s audacious involvement with
fanatic Islamist groups in the attempt to oust the Assad regime in Syria was
perceived particularly by the Alevi masses as involving dangers of importing
a sectarian civil war into Turkish society.34
With the conquest of Mosul in June 2014 by the Islamic State (IS) forces,
the controversy around Turkish government’s involvement with fanatic
Islamists has become a topic of international criticism. The IS continued
their campaign and reached to Turkey’s southern borders to besiege Kobane,
a Kurdish town in northern Syria, which was defended by the Kurdish guer-
rillas. Kurdish communities of northern Syria had an opportunity to declare
autonomy in the power vacuum that emerged in the civil war. The political
leadership of their three autonomous regions, one of which is Kobane, is
PYD (Democratic Union Party), a political group that has organic links with
Turkey’s PKK. PYD’s military wings YPG (People’s Protection Units) and
YJA (Women Freedom Brigades) decided to hold their positions and not
allow the IS in the Kurdish habitus. In October 2014, in the midst of fierce
fighting between the Kurds and the IS, Erdoğan declared that Kobane was
about to fall. This statement was perceived by the Kurdish masses of Turkey
as a breach of the peace process and a declaration of war against the Kurdish
identity by yet another Turkish government. The Kurdish civilian uprising
that began in Diyarbakır on October 6 and lasted only a few days concluded
with 50 deaths.
Pressurized by the Kurdish uprising and harsh international criticism for

their support of the IS, the government stepped back and promised to tighten
the border checks to prevent the Islamist militants’ entry through Turkey into
Syria. Besides, they were forced to allow Peshmerge (the army of the Kurd-
istan Regional Government of Northern Iraq) units with heavy weaponry
to drive through the Turkish soil to deliver military aid and assistance to the
Kurdish guerrillas of Kobane. The battle of Kobane was won eventually by
the late January 2015 to be recorded in history books as the first-ever defeat
of the IS. This battle, along with a number of others in northern Iraq, turned
the tables in Turkey’s peace process for a number of reasons.
First, the trust between the parties of the peace negotiations, consisting of
the high-ranking Turkish officials and a Kurdish delegation led by the HDP
had to be reinstated. This seemed to have been achieved by the signing of
a ten-point declaration drafted by the jailed leader of the PKK, Öcalan, by
both sides in March 2015. President Erdoğan, however, criticized the govern-
ment, particularly for its acceptance of the condition of independent observ-
ers, emphasizing once again that before the PKK destroyed its weapons no
peace was possible.
Second, the PKK, or its sister organizations in the region, have been rec-
ognized since the Kobane resistance as a regional force involved in the civil
wars of Iraq and Syria. This development has two subsequent consequences.
First, the call for a PKK disarmament becomes almost absurd, when the
PKK offshoots are fighting alongside a US-led anti-IS coalition in Syria and
Iraq. Second, the peace process needs to involve negotiations beyond the
Turkish borders for a settlement on the status of the Syrian Kurdistan, given
that both parties have their peculiar plans for the aftermath of the Syrian
civil war.
A third factor that threatens the previously existed balances is the
approaching elections, and the fact that the Kurdish movement represented
by the HDP has to engage in a fierce political competition with the rul-
ing AKP, particularly in the Kurdish provinces. Isolating the peace process
from the political competition requires a high level of abstraction, which is
very difficult to comply with. For one thing, Turkish right has traditionally
been in expectation of short-term electoral gains from any soft approach on
their side toward the Kurds, and this applies to a large extent to AKP leader-
ship. The rising political tension between HDP and AKP has the potential
of endangering the peace process between the Kurdish movement and the
Turkish state. Paradoxically, sustaining this tension is necessary for the HDP,
not only to win over 10 percent in the elections but also to fulfill its claim
to unite the left opposition, which primarily requires the demonstration of a
firm anti-AKP stance.
Conclusion
The genealogical inquiry in this chapter, which narrates the evolution of the
Kurdish resistance against the Kemalist policies of assimilation and denial
into a social movement, has attempted primarily to problematize the con-
temporary discourses on the “Kurdish problem” and “peace process.” The
inquiry demonstrates that being Kurdish or having Kurdish identity became
a “problem” or the subject of a “question” at a certain moment in history,
when the political authority of Turkey in the 1920s decreed to eliminate any
expression of this identity. Military, legislative, and judicial operations to this
end were accompanied by linguistic prohibitions35 and the dissemination of
Turkish nationalism through republican ideological apparatuses.36 This argu-
ment aims first to recall that Kurdish identity and Kurdistan (the land of
the Kurds) did exist without being qualified as a “problem” or “question”
prior to the Kemalist turn. In other words, while “Kurdish question” is a
specifically republican-Kemalist phenomenon, Kurdish identity has a much
longer history. Second, the current peace process, which has been presented
to the public exclusively as an attempt to resolve the recent decades’ armed
conflict, requires the elaboration of a comprehensive solution to the Kurdish
question, which primarily consists of deprohibiting Kurdishness, that is, the
annihilation of the attributes “problem” or “question” that accompany the
name Kurdish.
In other words, any peace operation requires a movement beyond the
“conflict resolution” approach toward an outlook that perceives the recent
30-year-old conflict primarily as a “symptom” of a century-old “pathology.”
Such an operation that targets the genealogical roots of the problem would
affirm the necessity of a comprehensive transformation of the republican
order to facilitate the accommodation—as opposed to the repression or
annihilation—of the multiethnic and multicultural identities at the political,
ideological, and institutional levels.
AKP certainly has a program of transformation of Turkey’s political struc-
tures, but their priorities and proposals do not necessarily correspond with
those of the Kurdish movement. For AKP, democratization consists of remov-
ing the conventional republican obstacles to the neoliberal transformation of
economic structures and the re-Islamization of the “oversecularized” state and
society. Kurdish peace enters into this project as a means rather than the end.
The Kurdish movement, HDP in particular, on the other hand, prioritizes the
need for a just and sustainable settlement of the Kurdish question and there-
fore their perception of democracy does not necessarily include the elements
of AKP’s definition. In fact, HDP’s presentation of itself as the party of social
opposition requires alliances not only with anti-AKP sentiments but also with
the anticapitalist left, heavily influenced by the international oppositional

trends against neoliberal globalization.
In these circumstances, various dimensions of HDP’s dilemma become
clear. First, in order to achieve peace with the Turkish state, it has to continue
to negotiate with an Islamist government that allegedly sponsors anti-Kurdish
fanatic Islamist forces in Syria and Iraq, and which frequently recourses to
expressions of anti-Kurdish sentiments when politically distressed.37 Second,
the same Islamist government is the very “negative myth” of the opposition
particularly since the Gezi protests. HDP and the Kurdish movement thus
came under pressure to clarify their position against the ongoing desecular-
ization of the state and society, which would drag them into further conflict
with the ruling AKP. Finally, in order to lead the social opposition, HDP
has to situate itself against the ongoing techniques of neoliberal governmen-
tality, including a firm oppositional stance against the AKP-led economic
transformations.
Pressurized by these paradoxes, HDP adopted, during the presidential
elections of August 2014, an overt discourse of “radical democracy.” The suc-
cess of Syriza in the 2015 elections in Greece encourages HDP to go further
in this direction. The HDP project, regardless of its result in the approach-
ing elections, seems to bring about two synchronic transformations. First,
the Kurdish movement is in transition from being merely the voice of the
Kurds to the advocate of the rights of all the oppressed, disadvantaged, and
excluded groups of Turkey’s population. This transition involves a shift from
an ethnic minority (or “national liberation”) movement to the ambitions of
political leadership of the majority of society. Second, Turkey’s political and
social opposition, which has been previously shaped by anti-AKP sentiments
blended by a good amount of anti-Kurdish sentiments, is also experiencing
a discursive shift that generates a space for the accommodation and defense
of the Kurdish demands. In this mutual interaction, the transformations that
both identities go through have been leading to the formation of a HDP-led
hybrid political entity that is neither the Kurdish movement nor the Turkish
left as such, but rather both at the same time.
It is too early to reach a verdict on the fate of this fusion of the storms
of protests with the dynamics of the Kurdish movement in Turkey. It is,
however, possible to conclude this chapter by pointing out the differences
between the Turkish experience, on the one side, and the results of the Arab
Spring and those of the protest movements particularly in southern Europe,
on the other. The immediate results of the Arab Spring, as discussed in vari-
ous chapters of this volume, could be generalized into two categories: civil
wars, as in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, with the danger of igniting regional
wars, and the reform of the prerevolution regimes after short experiences
of Islamist rule, as in Tunisia and Egypt. In Turkey, the rule of Islamism

dates back to at least ten years before the Arab Spring, and consequently the
dynamics and demands of the Turkish protests were different, but compa-
rable, to a certain extent, to the second episode of the Tunisian and Egyptian
springs when the protests turned against the Islamist governments. Protest
movements in the West, the United States, and Europe, on the other hand,
have yielded some concrete results at least in Greece and Spain. In these two
south European countries, postprotest radical-left parties have been replacing
the bankrupt center-left forces of the political establishment, with programs
reflecting popular opposition particularly against the financial pressures of
the European Union. In Turkey, the left of the political establishment, CHP,
did not suffer the fate of the Spanish Socialist Party and PASOK of Greece,
but the fusion of the social opposition’s demands with the Kurdish move-
ment is likely to yield the ascent of a new political movement, HDP, compa-
rable to the likes of Podemos and Syriza.
Notes
1. Early Kurdish rebellions resisted military recruitment and taxation, the conse-
quences of Ottoman centralization and modernization along the lines of the
emerging nation-states.
2. Kurdish resistance to the Kemalist project can be traced back to the 1921 Kocgiri
rebellion and the opposition of the Teali intellectuals of Istanbul. But noting this
opposition does not alter the fact that Muslim Kurds did rally behind the Kemal-
ist leadership en masse during the “national struggle.” The 1925 Sheikh Said
rebellion, on the other hand, represents an indisputable breaking point regard-
ing the relations between the republican regime and the Kurdish masses. Other
remarkable uprisings of the early republican period are the 1930 Agri rebellion
and 1938 Dersim rebellion.
3. In 1926, the Ministry of Education issued a decree prohibiting the use of ethnic
names such as Kurd, Laz, or Circassian, as they harmed Turkish unity (Mango
1999, p. 428).
4. Here, I refer to the Turkish History Thesis and Sun Language Theory (see Yörük
1997).
5. These two apparatuses of republican nation-building were constantly nourished
by historical and linguistic theories produced by the Turkish History Institution
and Turkish Language Institution, while the peculiarly Kemalist institutions of
People’s Houses, Village Rooms, and Village Institutes operated in junction with
the national education policies (see Acikel 2000; Yegen 2010; Yörük 2006).
6. Turkish Chief of Staff Fevzi Cakmak held this opinion and opposed the extension
of the educational facilities to the Kurdish region (Kutlay 1997, pp. 295–96).
7. See Yörük (2006).
8. See Yörük (2006).
9. Kutlay criticizes this form of representation arguing that these deputies “failed to
state overtly I am Kurdish, and failed to stand properly against injustices” (Kutlay
1997, p. 189).
10. Dr. Hikmet Kivilcimli, a dissident of the Communist Party (TKP) criticized
Kemalist practices in these terms during the suppression of the Ararat Rebellion
in 1931 (Kivilcimli 1979). His views were, however, overridden by the TKP’s
pro-Kemalist stance, leading to his expulsion from the party, which supported
the Kemalist regime’s war against “tribal feudalism” and “religious reaction” as a
progressive act of Turkey’s “bourgeois democratic revolution” (Tunçay 1981).
11. This was first formulated by Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, the founder of the Maoist
TKP-ML in 1972.
12. See Yasar (1988).
13. TKSP split from TIP in 1975 under Kemal Burkay’s leadership employing a radical
socialist discourse. Along with DDKD, TKSP was known for its pro-Soviet Union
stance. On the other hand, Kawa, a splinter group of DDKD, elaborated the Mao-
ization of the Kurdish discourse adding the Russian Social Imperialism to the ene-
mies of the Kurdish cause along with Turkish colonialism and the US imperialism.
Tekosin split from the radical Turkish left group Kurtulus in 1978 to start guerrilla
warfare with the aim of forming a socialist Kurdistan. Another major group of Kurd-
ish socialists, Rizgari, refused to take a position in this multilateral fragmentation.
14. Turkish public has only recently been invited to face the horrors of Diyarbakir
Prison in 1980s primarily with a documentary entitled Prison Number 5 (Cayan
Demirel 2008).
15. The conditions of Diyarbakir prison, which was worse than the Mamak (Ankara)
and Metris (Istanbul) prisons, both of which operated as concentration camps,
where the Turkish radical-left activists were held and systematically tortured,
were protested by hunger strikes and other forms of resistance. Three leaders of
the PKK set themselves alight in prison to protest “inhuman treatment of Kurd-
ish prisoners.” This method of protest through self-harm, taken after Vietnamese
Buddhist monks (Oran 2002, p. 878), would popularize among the Kurdish
movement particularly in the aftermath of Ocalan’s capture in February 1999.
16. Diyarbakir mayor Mehdi Zana’s is the most illustrious example: He defended
himself in Kurdish at the court and was penalized further for “using a language
prohibited by law” (Oran 2000, p. 153).
17. People’s Labour Party (HEP) was forced to an electoral alliance due to the 10
percent electoral threshold.
18. Prior to their arrest, Kurdish deputies were expelled from center-left SHP and
their party HEP was shut down, for speaking Kurdish at a meeting in Europe.
The party resumed activities with the name DEP, but only to be shut down
swiftly by a Constitutional Court decree.
19. For the records of human rights violations, see Amnesty International annual
reports from 1990 onward.
20. This “historic bloc” is what was referred in the Kurdish discourse as the “war
lobby.” It emerged with the commencement of the Kurdish conflict in 1984
and was strengthened with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s
providing the Cold War structures within the state with a new raison d’etat and
mission. The liquidation of the “war lobby” under the conditions of “low inten-
sity conflict” began with the Susurluk Accident of November 1996 but lost pace
within a year of legal investigations and parliamentary inquiries.
21. The PKK stopped operating under the name of the PKK as required by the
Turkish authorities and a number of leading figures of the movement returned to
Turkey as “ambassadors of good will” to surrender. The organization also declared
a permanent ceasefire, curbing the numbers of their armed wing (HPG) to a
minimum.
22. Kurdish politicians have been trying to form a legal political movement since
late 1980s. First HEP (Halkin Emek Partisi) was formed to be closed down
by a Constitutional Court decree in 1991. Then the same movement formed
DEP (Democracy Party) and entered the parliament with 11 deputies. In 1993,
DEP deputies were arrested in the parliament courtyard and charged with trea-
son, while the party closed down. Since then the remaining elements of the
movement formed OZDEP, which survived for a very short period, and then
HADEP (People’s Democracy Party), which also was closed down in 2002, and
then DEHAP. DEHAP’s closure coincided with the release of the jailed DEP
deputies and a new party DTP (Democratic Society Party) was formed in 2005
to carry out the mission of a Kurdish party in Turkish politics.
23. This was arguably a long-due tactic to be put into practice in order to overcome
the 10 percent national threshold, which had been imposed specifically to pre-
vent Kurdish political representation in the parliament.
24. Akin and Karasapan (1988) argue that the 1980 military regime was largely
responsible for the restoration of Islamism in Turkish establishment. In a political
climate where any political tendency was practically prohibited, the assignment
of religious elements to key positions in state bureaucracy and the educational
apparatus led to the swift ascendance of conservative pro-Islamist politics.
25. All the suspects of the Ergenekon and Balyoz trials have been released and reha-
bilitated by the end of 2014 but the “military regime” does not seem to have its
former to strength to attempt a comeback.
26. Cemal, H. “Silahlara Veda” (Farewell to Arms). T24 April 25, 2013. http://t24
.com.tr/yazarlar/hasan-cemal/silahlara-veda,6592.
27. http://www.internethaber.com/erdogan-olaylarin-arkasindakileri-acikladi
-542667h.htm.
28. Silivri Prison is where the suspects and convicts of the Ergenekon and Balyoz trials
are jailed.
29. Imralı Isle is where the captured leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, is held.
30. Milliyet June 1, 2014. http://www.milliyet.com.tr/demirtas-sureci-baltalamak/
siyaset/detay/1717345/default.htm.
31. http://www.aljazeera.com.tr/portre/portre-sirri-sureyya-onder.
32. This aspect is probably comparable to the relationship between the Civil Rights
struggle, which was mainly fought by the black people, and the subsequent erup-
tion of antiwar and antigovernment youth protests in the United States of the
late 1960s and early 1970s.
33. Recent opinion polls indicate that AKP votes, which have always been well over
50 percent since 2002, have fallen to around 45 percent. (http://tr.wikipedia.org/
wiki/2015_T%C3%BCrkiye_genel_se%C3%A7im_anketleri#cite_note-1).
34. Alevi involvement in Gezi protests was so important that almost all the “Gezi
martyrs,” the youth that were killed by the police during the protests, were
Alevis.
35. Turkish identity has managed to come to terms with the word “Kurd” only in
the twenty-first century. The enunciation of the word “Kurdistan” remains pro-
hibited for Turkish “common sense” probably because such enunciation would
trigger connotations of “separatism” and “disintegration.”
36. Including, the educational apparatus from primary schooling to the universities,
Turkish Language Institute and “Sun Language Theory,” Turkish History Insti-
tute and the “Turkish History Thesis,” Village Institutes, People’s Houses, and
Village Rooms.
37. One of these moments occurred recently on March 14, 2015, when President Erdoğan
denied the existence of a Kurdish question in Turkey. (http://www.radikal.com
.tr/politika/cumhurbaskani_erdogan_kardesim_ne_kurt_sorunu_ya-1314052).
CHAPTER 10
The Impossible Revolution: Why Did

the Arab Spring Fail to Materialize in
Lebanon and Israel/Palestine?
Daniel Monterescu and Yasmin Ali
Unlikely Comparison of Rebel Cities

The year 2011 was the year of the masses in the Middle East and the circum-
Mediterranean. Collective euphoria and popular mobilization forged unlikely
coalitions between historical rivals driven by a revolutionary imagination
embodied by a new political subject (Challand 2013). This transnational
space of possibilities diffused mimetically from its original core in Egypt and
Tunisia throughout the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. For the first
time in history, the Arab world became a mobilizing source of inspiration for
dissident movements worldwide. These in turn adapted its principles to local
disputes and national grievances from New York to Madrid. While in retro-
spect the Arab uprisings are largely acknowledged as a genie out of the bottle
they remain a rare historical experiment, which attests to the tremendous
power and fragility of democracy in postcolonial settings under neoliberal
conditions (Achar 2013, p. 162; Lynch 2012, pp. 136–37).
On the margins of the Arab uprisings, which were dominated by Muslim-
majority societies facing an authoritarian regime, two cases stand out in the
Eastern Mediterranean. In the wake of the Tahrir Square events, Lebanon
and Israel saw the respective emergence of an unprecedented collective effer-
vescence. Echoing the rallying cry to “topple the regime” in the name of the
“people,” each movement framed its demands in a specifically local way (see
Akçalı in this volume). In Lebanon, the first to respond, efforts were orga-
nized around the slogan “The people want to topple the sectarian regime,”
168 ● Daniel Monterescu and Yasmin Ali
while in Israel the movement was loosely framed as the “social justice protest.”
These movements instantiate one of the Arab uprisings’ fascinating paradoxes:
namely, the cross-regional emergence of a renewed national discourse of citi-
zenship rights, which manifested itself in the most deeply divided societies.
Exploring the tension between societal fragmentation, neoliberal governmen-
tality, and the cultural imaginary of national unity and peoplehood, this paper
seeks to follow the rise and fall of radical politics in two plural societies.
In contradistinction to the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, the Leba-
nese and Israeli movements exemplified what Arato (2012, p. 23) called “a
revolutionary process without revolutionary results,” which laid bare the fail-
ure of these movements to formulate an alternative political vocabulary of
citizenship and nationhood to the neoliberal sectarian regime.
Elaborating on Monterescu and Shaindlinger’s analysis of situational radi-
calism (2013) we read the itineraries of revolt against the structural forces,
which sought to undermine it. Despite the fact that Lebanon and Israel are
only rarely studied in comparison, they feature striking similarities often over-
looked for political reasons. Both countries are political mosaics of ethnocon-
fessional minorities, which consistently reject the separation between church
and state. More broadly we argue that both countries politicized the Ottoman
and colonial legacy of religious sectarianism and embedded it as an organizing
principle, a deep-rooted modus operandi that is simultaneously challenged and
reproduced by modern politics.1 In both cases the revolts were predicated on
nonviolent social movements that dissolved after six months of intense demon-
strations. Finally, both sought to address the constitutive element of peoplehood
and to redefine it by challenging the hegemony of sectarianism and ethnicity.
Often framed as a middle-class phenomenon, mobilization ultimately failed to
tackle social issues pertaining to the economic duress directly felt by society’s
“lower” social classes. It had thus remained theoretical in its “call” to topple a
regime rather than provide a viable socioeconomic alternative.2 These protests
manifested the simultaneous success and crisis of neoliberal subjectivity. They
exemplified the entrepreneurial and creative agency of rebel citizens but at the
end of the day remained conservative and limited in scope.
Beirut 2011: Movement Co-opted

The Lebanese civil war—generally labeled in Arabic as “the sectarian civil
war”—was the direct outcome of longstanding political divisions and recur-
ring clashes between pro-Palestine and pro-west/Israel factions and parties.
From 1975 till 1991 (the official periodization of the war) the alliances drawn
during the war changed and shifted along with the international and regional
vicissitudes of the political situation.
The Impossible Revolution ● 169
The official end of the war was announced in the wake of the Taif
agreement.3 Despite a “no victor and no vanquished” (la ghaleb wala maghlub)
settlement, the agreement essentially reinforced the outcomes of the final
combats and reshuffled the political map to fit the winning parties: It was the
constitutive moment when the sectarian system was transformed from a con-
vention to a sacred text. Warlords were given the absolute legitimacy to rule
their respective sects, and the country was put under two conflicting indirect
mandates, namely under Syrian and Saudi (read American) influence.
The country was then devastated by a reconstruction wave, part of the
neoliberal policies carried out by the Saudi-backed, then prime minister,
Rafik Hariri. For years, the Lebanese streets witnessed lively and dynamic
movements, led by the Lebanese left to oppose Hariri’s policies and the Syr-
ian blatant control of the country’s economy and political landscape. The
Christian Aounists also joined the protests against the Syrian presence. None-
theless, the violent oppression faced by activists from the Syrian Mukhabarat
(Intelligence) and army, which included assassinations, imprisonment, and
harassment, made it impossible to change the system: Hariri had backed up
his political and economic neoliberal project with the support of the military.
Hariri’s assassination in 2005 obstructed the development of such grassroots
movements, and the Lebanese political map seemed to shift into a totally
new plane: that of icon-creation (Hariri and other “martyrs” of the period),
and the call for the expulsion of the Syrian army by the same factions who
benefited from the presence of the Syrian regime in Lebanon and complotted
against the former demonstrators.
As the 2005 movements escalated, a vertical and rigid political “fissure”
was directly translated into the structure of the Lebanese society. Overlaying
the still-fresh religious and political segregations of the civil war, the 2005
movements (of March 14 pro-Hariri groups, and March 8 pro-Hezbollah
groups) succeeded in subduing the national anti-Hariri calls and trans-
formed the civil war residual politics into a blatant manifestation of sectarian
regional and social disintegration and seasonal miniwars. This inflicted the
urban scene with a new layer of identity-defining zones, manifested in the
way borders were re-created and reinstated. While the civil war resulted in a
divided city, split between a Muslim West Beirut and a Christian East Beirut,
since 2005 the lines, borders, enclaves, and “safe zones” changed. Whereas
during the civil war one clear and final green line separated East and West
Beirut—the Christian pro-Israeli and the Muslim pro-Palestinian factions—
the urban map that has been recently (post 2005) drawn as a result of this
vertical fissure created dotted lines, blurred borders, and personally drawn
limits. First, it created a “Christian safe zone.” A minority, the Christians
excluded themselves from this war, in terms of internal armed struggle: The
clashes were purely political between Aounists (alTayyar alWatany alHurr,

anti-Hariri block) on one side and the Lebanese forces and the Phalanges
(Hariri block) on the other.
This created a “peaceful” Christian zone, located in East Beirut or in vil-
lages and cities with a Christian majority. On the other hand, West Beirut
and the Muslim regions were (and still are) largely segregated and occasion-
ally closed to citizens due to armed clashes. This has generated (specifically
in Beirut) a political zoning in which the neighborhoods are not easily recog-
nized: a breaking of the binary city, where the monolithic definition of “self ”
and “other” is totally dismissed. Unlike the clear-cut social divide between
Christian and Muslim Beirut, West Beirut is truly an urban, political, and
social mesh. Marriages between Sunni and Shia Muslims had led to this
intermingling of families and social groups. Nonetheless, some areas started
a political differentiation. This was manifested by mainly two tactics: the
erection of za`im (leader) posters, party flags, and the broadcasting of politi-
cal songs, and the formation of groups of young men and their consequent
occupation of public space within different neighborhoods. These processes
marked the start of the urban manifestation of political power.
The political struggle over urban space was then expressed through an
economic and social boycott (simultaneously planned and spontaneous). Fli-
ers of lists of “Shia-owned stores” spread around neighborhoods with a Sunni
majority. Carpenters, grocery stores, butchers, vegetable markets, and small
businesses inside residential areas started losing their customers and, in several
instances, were forced to close and reopen in “their” neighborhood. Citizens
would also avoid visiting friends and families who live in “other” neighbor-
hoods. The urban rescaling of sectarian politics also entailed the redefinition
of the “other.” In some instances, “other” would mean a person belonging to
the same sect but carrying the adversary political view. Several armed clashes
reinstated the civil war tradition of “identity-card based killings,” where citi-
zens would be killed on sight for belonging to this confessional community
or that sect. The situation escalated in regions that historically had previously
fallen under the sturdy and oppressive rule of the Syrian army, namely the
northern regions (Tripoli, Menieh) where 22 episodes of seasonal wars have
been witnessed since 2005, killing hundreds and creating a deeply felt segre-
gation within the city’s families (Sakr 2007; Khalaf 2006).
The Rise of the Movement

The 2011 “fall of the sectarian regime” campaign took place amid such
political and social crises (see Figure 10.1). The scars of the unresolved
civil war led the postwar generation—which had no part in it but bore its
Figure 10.1 “We are the poor and they are the kings (building on Sheikh Imam’s popular
song) . . . Down with the sectarian regime” (“toppling the sectarian regime” flyer).
tragic outcomes—into working toward stopping a bloodshed, demanding

change in a deeply dysfunctional society and an absent state. At the time, the
launch of the Arab movements (thawrat or revolts), posed a radical challenge
to the political status quo in what were labeled “politically inexperienced”
communities. The Lebanese model presented a challenge to observers and

political activists alike. They didn’t only face a regime as strong as it is rooted
in the social, economic, behavioral, and historical strata, but they also had to
acknowledge the weaknesses of an attempt limited to mimicking the mani-
festation of long years of political activism, detached from appropriate and
favorable conditions. Young political activists, artists, leftists, feminists, com-
munists, Syrian Nationalists, and secularists, mostly an educated bourgeoisie,
met to launch a movement mimicking the Arab (Tunisian and Egyptian)
“revolutions.” What was known in other Arab countries as “fall of the regime
campaign” (hamlat isqat al-nizam) was translated into “fall of the sectarian
regime campaign” in Lebanon (hamlat isqat al-nizam al-ta’ifi).
What started as a demonstration of around 2,500 women and men under
heavy rains on February 27 (known as the “umbrella demonstration”) sur-
prisingly culminated in 30,000–35,000 demonstrators (see Figure 10.2). For
many, the need to “change the sectarian regime” was the only feasible amend-
ment to the agreement that had put an end to the civil war but had never
removed the practice from the “minds and the laws.” Since the end of the civil
war the status quo had reestablished the reign of the same warlords and the
Taif agreement only repositioned and ascertained what still manifests itself as
the sectarian regime.
Figure 10.2 Demonstrators filling the streets of Beirut.

Source: Hussein Baydoun, 2011
The movement developed on many levels and, in some instances, in

divergent and contradictory paths. The beginning was a public call that was
answered by more than 250 activists, students, and youth in Masrah Beirut,
a theater that was already threatened by the city’s real estate. The atmosphere
was one that had rarely been witnessed in postwar Beirut political discus-
sions: youth from different backgrounds meeting and agreeing on the need
to change the current system. The meeting also witnessed an unanticipated
absence of the veterans of the Lebanese political arena: the discourse, lan-
guage, and attitude were free from the older generation’s fears, constraints,
and folkloric comportment. Trying to break up from the traditional political
movements didn’t grow out of the organizers’ need to rebel for rebellion’s
sake. The majority of the organizers were previously involved in participating
and organizing previous political activities. Their short experience had proved
two major points: they were widely marginalized by the patronizing discourse
and presence of the traditional political figures (also known as “dinosaurs”)
in terms of participation, input, critique, and suggestions within the Leba-
nese political reality. But also the traditional discourse didn’t answer to the
current political situation, the socioeconomic reality, and the dismissal of
a large majority of the country’s youth. A majority of the organizers were
university graduates, coming from both low-income communities and a
certain educated bourgeoisie, had conducted personal struggles on different
levels (including LGBT, feminists, and single women), spoke three languages
(Arabic, French, and English), and had the opportunity to travel around the
world and correspond with different political causes and readings. It was this
youth that foresaw a different reality possible and had the opportunity of
breaking up from the familial bounds, sectarian legacies, and narrow regional
fears (see Figure 10.3).
Weekly, and sometimes daily, meetings were held in several places around
Beirut, mostly at the headquarters of the federation of syndicates, and at a
secular club center. The meeting points were chosen based on two major con-
cerns: First was that of security as the organizers were continuously afraid of
secret police raids and infiltration. No pictures or video recording were allowed
during any of the meetings. Second was the principle of neutrality—there
were no meetings at political parties’ headquarters even though party mem-
bers participated in the meetings. The meetings were a very efficient way to
posit a fresh and “revolutionary” character to the movement on different levels.
Since its inception, the organizers worked incessantly toward a constructive
critique of previous movements, in order not to reproduce the same “failures.”
This entailed a sensitive change in the discourse, the proposed participatory
approach, the language used, and the tools. In what follows we identify the
three basic components of the movement and analyze the problems it faced.
Figure 10.3 “I won’t change my country, I want to change the regime.”

Source: Hussein Baydoun, 2011
First, the discussions ventured into untraditional subjects: the participation

of different communities (different regions beyond Beirut) debating class,
gender, the Palestinian camps, women’s participation, political representa-
tion, and historical grievances. This was mainly possible due to the participa-
tion of members from traditionally disenfranchised groups (including LGBT,
Palestinians, leftists, and feminists).
The second component addressed the issue of language and representation.
The concerns and fears of the disenfranchised groups were openly pushed into
the agenda and were treated contrarily to the traditional language of and the
hierarchy-priority of the discussed subjects. Feminists were no longer called a
women’s rights’ group and they also openly presented their views, Palestinians
were not represented by the political factions, and they did directly contact
the youth in the camps to participate in the demonstrations (which was and
still is the way Palestinian factions are limited in the Lebanese political activ-
ity) but actively participated in the discussions and presented the concerns
and legal situation of the Palestinians in Lebanon. This nonetheless was not
sustained and the voices of the disenfranchised were silenced in small (but
sometimes shocking) steps.4 Contrary to conventional meetings and move-
ments, representatives of parties had the same weight in the discussions as any
other individual. This was also true for issues of representation.
Third, the major concerns regarding the effectiveness of tools addressed
the ways to broaden participation and connect with the most marginalized
actors, creating discussions in the regions, calling out for public debates and
breaking the existing myths about secularism. This entailed the creation of
a narrative, which portrayed the immediate and destructive effects of the
sectarian system. It was attempted during the demonstrations themselves,
through the places where they were conducted, and the subjects that they
addressed (women’s situation, the workers, the election law, etc.).
Workers’ unions also participated in meetings and demonstrations.
Since the group needed to meet in politically “neutral” spaces and at several
moments in secure places that would not be easily attacked by the police, the
National Federation of the Syndicates of Lebanese Workers and Employees
(FENASOL) offered its headquarters in Beirut for meetings, demonstration
preparations and logistics. The federation, led by members from the Leba-
nese Communist Party, was also actively participating in the demonstrations
through its syndicates and unions. Nonetheless, this participation could not
be indicative of the “involvement” of the working class in the movement,
for several reasons. The first being the present condition of the unions, syn-
dicates, and federation in Lebanon. The unions have been under direct and
savage attacks from the neoliberal governments (Hariri specifically), which
has led to the disintegration of the union movements around Lebanon, and
the creation of confessional-related and employers-controlled unions.5 The
FENASOL has succeeded in breaking the status quo, but is still weakened
by the general political atmosphere. An additional constraint on workers’
participation was the fact that the movement didn’t evolve into becoming
workers strikes and an “active” workers’ movement, but a simple participa-
tion in a political march on a Sunday.
Tents were also erected around the country as fixed centers of discus-
sions. Finally interviews on TV programs also opened the opportunity to
address the wider public. Conflicts started to emerge when the situation
seemed to need a “tool for change” and not only to spread the ideology
and open discussions. Questions such as “How are you going to change
the system?”; “What are you proposing as an alternative?”; and “How are
you proposing to implement it?” seemed to block the development of the
movement. At the same time internal and public discussions witnessed
strong fissures, clashes, and disagreements. These affected the leftist, the
communist, the trotskyist, the right-wing, the feminist, the LGBT activist,
the Palestinian, the NGO employee, the liberal activist, and the politically
undecided who had once agreed upon the need to change the system, and
were fused together under this umbrella. It all changed when the practical
questions were seriously posed.
The Disintegration of the Movement

In less than six months, the seeds of the nonsectarian Lebanese youth
“thawra” (revolution) failed to germinate. The downfall was felt first during
the demonstrations then during the meetings. In an “unorganized” group
with divergent political, social, rights, and economic perspective on the Leba-
nese situation, it was necessary to agree on basic issues. Differences were put
aside (for the time being) and the major slogans of the campaign were agreed
upon, with a consensus on allowing no flags of political parties to be car-
ried during the demonstrations (only Lebanese flags were allowed), and no
offensive banners. In one of the demonstrations, a group had carried a banner
(asking for the removal of the “emirs of the sects,” with pictures of warlords,
including Michel Aoun and Nabih Berri) that was perceived as offensive by
the groups assisting in the organization, specifically of March 8. In the sub-
sequent meetings and demonstrations, the issue was the manifestation of
deeper differences: Does fighting the “system” entail fighting individuals who
represent this system and implement it? If yes, who are they and are there any
red lines we should not cross?
Agreeing on these questions and the consequent discourse appeared
much more complicated than expected. In this vein, the discrepancies kept
growing and meetings became tense and loud, pushing aside both the voices
of the disenfranchised and their causes. The Syrian issue also amplified the
disparities: pro-regime and pro-opposition were among the organizers, and
no common ground could be agreed upon.
While the young activists tried to break away from traditional political circles,
maneuvers, and figures, they found themselves facing a need for much more than
a renewal of the form: The content of what they proposed had to be assessed and
remade. The movement’s failure could thus be summarized in five points:
1. The movement was created as a reaction to revolutions taking place

in other Arab countries and was not a response to the local needs of
Lebanese communities. This isolated it from the very same groups and
social actors that could have supported it.
2. The movement was shaped by several political groups, parties, and
nongovernmental organizations, which didn’t succeed in forging a uni-
fied and consensual framework and weren’t able to agree on the tools of
change. Moreover, the organizing members implicitly re-created exist-
ing references and frictions.
3. The movement’s structure—an “open,” politically “loose” nucleus—
resulted in a more democratic participatory relation with the diverse
communities. But it also meant indecisiveness, an unclear discourse
and conceptions, and the prevalence of an accommodating majority.
4. The movement failed to discursively connect the “Lebanese situation”
to that of the Palestinian, Syrian, and regional one. This lacuna over-
looked the colonial legacy of European powers that have historically
drawn the currently unrealistic borders.
5. The movement’s calls and discourse failed in addressing the needs of
the larger portion of the public. Carrying vague slogans as “civil state,”
“secularism,” and “citizenship,” which translated neither into practical
tools of change nor into direct effect on people’s lives, the movement
couldn’t succeed in going outside the circle of the educated few.
In sum, it is now possible to review the movement’s initial definition and

description of the “fundamental problem,” namely whether it is the “sectar-
ian regime” that is the central problematic issue in Lebanese society or is
this institutional framework possibly a manifestation of a much larger sys-
tem of power? Put differently, what are the changes suggested to “destroy”
this sectarian system, and when agreed upon by the diverse political groups,
how would the Lebanese public act toward a “new” system (creation of new
advantaged groups)?
It can be argued that the movement’s framing was furtive in its depiction
of the regime as “sectarian” instead of “neoliberal,” thus diverting the mate-
rialization of power away from economic policies, the control of warlords
on industries and services (real estate and banks specifically), and a general
laissez-faire state approach—to those of governmentality, institutional cor-
ruption, and clientelism.6 No matter how class-sensitive the organizers were,
they were still middle-class educated youth, who in many instances couldn’t
relate to the grievances and interests of low-income communities, peasants,
and non-Beiruti dwellers. Moreover, the project seemed to encompass their
capabilities and, for many, threaten their comfort zone and relation with the
state. At the end of the day, the majority of the organizers, or the dominant
discourse—whether consciously or not—seemed to be reformist and feared a
direct “friction” with the state, or an actual removal of the government. Hav-
ing attained a certain socioeconomic status, any movement in that direction
would have compromised their achievements. The activists’ aim was probably
a heartfelt need to amend what is generally perceived as an unfair system, crit-
ically hindering the country’s development as well as its population’s everyday
life. Nonetheless, the movement’s disintegration is only a clear manifestation
of its structural flaws. As much as it was resisted by sectarian parties and
actors who perceived some sort of challenge, this movement was not in fact
“destroyed” by its opponents as much as by its own internal weaknesses and
contradictions.
Tel-Aviv—Jaffa 2011: Situational Radicalism7

The magnitude of the Israeli Social Justice Protests of summer 2011 came as
a surprise to observers and participants alike.8 For a period of three months,
hundreds of thousands took to the streets in a rallying cry to redefine national
priorities thus turning in the process Israel’s major metropolises into “rebel
cities”—festive spaces of struggle and collective effervescence (Harvey 2012).
Heralded as the largest popular protest in Israeli history (equivalent to the
“400,000 protest” staged in the wake of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila mas-
sacres),9 the 2011 movement was yet another instance of what Saskia Sassen
recently called “the global street”—a social space that problematizes the rela-
tionship between powerlessness and empowerment.
Notwithstanding the politics of numbers, the truly remarkable feature of
these events was not merely the emergence of a collective agency but the
fact that for the first time in Israeli history, bottom-up mass mobilization
grounded itself explicitly in and of the region. Mediated by the Spanish 15-M
movement, symbolic networks of solidarity and models of contention sprang
from the Arab world all the way to the yuppie epicenter of Tel-Aviv. Ban-
ners exclaiming, “Egypt Is Here,” “Tahrir Corner of Rothschild,” “Walk Like
an Egyptian,” and above all the mantric chant “the People Demand Social
Justice” (mimicking the Egyptian slogan “the People Want the Fall of the
Regime”) seemed to celebrate this unprecedented connectivity as the birth of
a new historical generation.
As opposed to the dramatic martyrdom narratives in Tunisia and Egypt,
the eventful mobilization in Israel was far less violent and rather reform-
driven, as seen in the symbolic modification of the Egyptian slogan calling
for the fall of the regime to the vague call for social justice (cf. Della Porta
2008). Chronologically it can be seen as a direct response to the Spanish
protests rather than to the Arab revolts. Moreover, like its Spanish forerun-
ner, the Israeli protest was articulated first and foremost as a rebellion against
the neoliberal model of development (Beinin 2011b) and thus favored

what was termed in local discourse “social” problems (cost of living and
class-inequalities) over “political” issues (the Occupation and the Palestinian–
Israeli conflict) and over “cultural” identity politics (the Mizrahi and Arab
struggles for recognition). Tellingly, the major endogenous precedent to the
Israeli mass mobilization was the successful “Cottage Cheese Protest” in June
2011. Beginning as a protest group on Facebook, it targeted the rising food
prices and launched an effective consumer boycott, which brought the prices
down by about 12.5 percent.
Subsequently, it is rather the “politics of small things” (Goldfarb 2006)
that continued to mark the upcoming events. On July 14, Daphni Leef, a
25-year-old filmmaker, found herself unable to pay her rent and erected a tent
on Rothschild Boulevard, one of Tel-Aviv’s most expensive streets, a major
tourist attraction, and a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site. The next
day hundreds responded to Leef ’s call for action on her Facebook page and
some 50 tents were pitched on the boulevard gathering a crowd of 1,500.
After granting an initial permit to demonstrate, the police attempted to
revoke the permit and dismantle the tents. “In an instant the protest became
a struggle,” one of the founding members recalls the moment the denial of
freedom of speech amplified the protest. A week later a growing constituency
already numbering tens of thousands participated in the movement’s first rally
(July 23), and by the end of July the wave of protest had swept the whole
country. With home bases in 90 tent camps across the country, the main dem-
onstrations took place in the muggy weather of August and early September
(“The March of the Million”) bringing altogether an unprecedented number
of a million protesters from Israel’s center and periphery.
The three months of intense mobilization were marked by a sense of
euphoria and communitas shared by the multitude of dwellers in the tent
camps and squats that sprouted in most cities. “We called it our ex-territory,
a place which is outside space and time, outside our normal behavior in the
city and the state,” wrote one activist, “we called the outside Babylon but we
lived in the real world, a world with enough time to talk, a place where ideo-
logical enemies can reach an agreement, a place where the law awaits outside
for a moment, a place where rules are remade. We felt we’re creating a new
society. Soon enough it was strange—even scary—to venture out to Babylon”
(Mahalal 2012). The combination of a spectacle of cross-sector solidarity and
a liminal suspension of social order (“a sense that the world is coming to an
end” in the words of Stav Shafir, a leading member of the movement), left an
enduring mark in the Israeli collective memory.
Adopting the naming strategy of the “Revolution of 25 January” in Egypt
and the “May 15 Movement” in Spain, J14 (July 14) became the Israeli
protest’s trademark (http://j14.org.il/), complete with a yellow sigil of a

tent and a peculiar sign language. The framing in temporal terms of J14’s
genesis was particularly felicitous, pointing back to the French Revolution,
and hinting at the radical potential of the movement. Given this cross-
reference, it came as no surprise that one artist (Ariel Kleiner) responded by
posting a full-size guillotine in the middle of the boulevard to the general
amusement of the gathering crowds and to the dismay of the conservative
media. Some commentators went as far as comparing the artistic display to
the political incitement that preceded PM Rabin’s assassination. Tellingly,
Muzi Wertheim, head of Coca-Cola Israel, ex-Mossad agent, and owner
of Keshet, Israel’s most successful TV network, was recorded saying “when
I saw the Rothschild guillotine, my neck started to hurt” (Roy 2011). In
a similar vein, Tel-Aviv Mayor Huldai was driven away from the Roths-
child encampment and responded by blaming the revolutionary radicals
in charge: “I have supported the protest and I still support it. But it won’t
work this way. I believe in the values the protest talks about but people say
‘We shall demolish the old world’ and they want to wage a revolution not
a protest.”10
The hopes for and concerns about the imminent revolution soon proved to
be equally unfounded. The guillotine was removed with the apologies of the
movement’s leaders and most of the youth in Israel’s tent cities were preoccu-
pied with public debates on the prospects of participatory democracy, com-
monly thrilled by the sense of communitas and creative agency. In August, the
ambitious demands of the movement’s leadership concerning Israel’s budget-
ary and fiscal policies were answered by the right-wing government with an
ad-hoc committee endowed with limited budget and virtually no executive
power led by Prof. Trajtenberg, a PM-appointed economist who served as the
chairman of the Higher Education Planning and Budget Committee. By the
summer’s end the official dismantling of the symbol of the protest movement,
the tent encampment on Tel Aviv Rothschild Boulevard on October 3, had
led to the gradual dissolution of the movement, which eventually posed no
real threat to the political stability of the government.
The ambiguity of the Israeli “Housing Protests” was responsible for its
ultimate shortcomings. “On Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard,” writes one
critic, “the middle class demonstrators are attempting to wage an Arab Spring
without any Arabs” (Burris 2011). Based on a longstanding hegemonic Zion-
ist paradigm, another observer remarks, “their claims do not derive their
legitimacy from universal democratic or social rights but rather from the
contract supposedly signed between the Jewish-Zionist citizen and his state”
(Leibner 2012). Circumventing “political issues” such as the occupation of
Palestinian Territories the protest also neglected to address the grievances of
the Palestinian and Mizrahi citizens and remained a predominantly Jewish

phenomenon, hence sometimes dubbed “Jew14” and “the middle class
protest” (ibid.).
While it clearly made a profound impact on collective consciousness,
the summer tent protest instantiated a putatively fluid form of situational
radicalism—an autotelic political theater, which could not transcend its hori-
zontal definition of the situation. The popular attempt to redefine radical
politics, which, as Raymond Williams notes (1976, p. 210), “offer a way of
avoiding dogmatic and factional associations while reasserting the need for
vigorous and fundamental change,” was met with significant obstacles on
Israel’s street. Dependent upon a spontaneous collective mobilization, which
remained trapped in its charismatic and preinstitutional stage, it failed to
bring about concrete changes beyond the impressive fact of its own existence.
Bereft of political experience and prone to internal division, some of the lead-
ers of the protest for social justice persisted in the aftermath of summer 2011
as icons of a momentary upheaval, subdued by the traditional hegemonic
tactics of demobilization, co-optation, accommodation, and intimidation
(the threat of an external enemy) (Cohen 2012a). Against the background
of the Palestinian attempt to seek a UN-endorsed declaration of statehood,
the escalating violence around the Gaza strip, and above all the publicized
negotiation to free the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, the government was
diligently undermining the claims for social security by means of the politics
of national security. By the time of Gilad Shalit’s release on October 18, the
public was already out of the streets and back to its normal routine, consum-
ing the dramatic TV reports about the security situation and the prospects of
an Iranian nuclear attack. At the end of the day, the ambitious goals of the
movement were traded for an appeasing national symbol.
The internal conflicts and identity politics that were endemic to the Arab
uprisings—between Muslims and Copts, Alawis and Sunnis, secularists
and Islamists—were all but absent from the Israeli scene albeit in a differ-
ent constellation. During the summer protest, two of the main schisms in
Israeli society—between Jewish and Arab-Palestinian citizens and between
the Ashkenazi elites and the Mizrahi underclass—resurfaced in the form of
a discourse about the uneven development of center and periphery. While
the mainstream leadership was largely imagining itself to wage a color-blind
all-inclusive movement, Russian, Ethiopian, Arab, and Mizrahi activists
felt systematically excluded and organized accordingly under the umbrella
“Forum Periphery,” “Hamaabara—the Transit Camp,” and many other like-
minded frameworks. Indeed soon after the meteoric success of the movement
in July, voices were heard from the periphery that the Rothschild leader-
ship misrepresents the popular movement, voices that went as far as blaming
the nonelected leadership of corruption, favoritism, and nontransparency.

In a letter dated August 15 addressed to Prof. Trajtenberg, signatories’ dif-
ferent encampments claimed that “the Rothschild team lost its legitimacy
in the eyes of many of the tent encampments’ dwellers” (Trajtenberg 2011).
The Rothschild “team” was thus accused of serving sectarian interests and an
elitist political faction. Regardless of the truth-value of these accusations, the
rhetoric trope opposing the Mizrahi periphery and the proletarian “neighbor-
hoods” to the bourgeois “state of Tel-Aviv,” points to a serious blind spot that
inflicted the protest movement—its inability to stand for the working classes
and the marginalized groups.
A similar sense of alienation characterized the Palestinian citizens of Israel
who belatedly joined the protest and in relatively low numbers. Reviewing
the Arabic media on the topic sociologist Nabil Khatab divides Palestinian
participation into three groups: “Between the demand for social justice and
the demand for national justice persists a sense of confusion, which caused a
split between three groups: part of the Arab public refrained from playing any
role in the protest; another part chose to wage a separate struggle; and a third
part chose to join the struggle of the Jews. The latter two yielded opposition
to each other and even opposition to the opposition. This might have been
the reason that the Arab voice had not been heard until three weeks later”
(Khatab 2011). The ethnically mixed city of Jaffa, made up of a minority of
30 percent of Palestinian residents, displayed similar tensions of Palestinian
participation. In the wake of “The March of the Million,” which marked the
climax of the summer revolt (as well as the end of the summer vacation), the
Rothschild leadership decided to continue waging the protest by other means.
A few days later, most of the encampments were evacuated with the active
involvement of the local municipalities. The Jaffa tent camp was no exception.
With the gradual dispersal of the activist core, internal discord arose, which
in one case prompted one resident to burn the tent of another. Along with an
aggressive evacuation policy, the city paid homeless tent dwellers enough for a
few month’s rent (10,000 New Israeli Shekel-NIS). Altogether, these policies
made for a relatively uneventful dismantling process. The process lasted until
early February 2012, when the last tent was evacuated.
Trapped between a class-based welfare agenda and a Palestinian national-
ist frame of action, the largely Palestinian encampment remained ambivalent
vis-à-vis its role in the Israeli protest for social justice. Visual evidence of
this ambivalence remained on site until the dismantlement of the tent camp
was complete. One of these placards featured Handhala, the iconic Palestin-
ian cartoon figure whose back is turned to the world in a gesture of defiant
innocence (see Figure 10.4). Reading “I await a house!! And so is he,” with an
arrow pointing to Handhala, the sign conveys the converging grievances of
Figure 10.4 The nationalist figure of Handala on a placard outside the Jaffa camp. The sign
reads in Arabic: “I await a house!! And so is he.”
Source: Daniel Monterescu, September 9, 2011
both the Palestinian community in Jaffa and the general Palestinian cause in
the Occupied Territories and the Diaspora. An additional placard, oft waved
during the protests, was found among the debris of the deserted camp, index-
ing the subversive union of national collective rights and social housing rights
that failed once again to materialize: “The Right of Return to Old Jaffa.”
Figure 10.5 “A cage needed from Egypt for 120 people (the number of Israel’s MPs): Details
with the People.”
Source: Daniel Monterescu
By now it has become clear that the notion of the “people” invoked
throughout the protest functioned as an “empty signifier” (Laclau 2007). It
constituted the discursive center but only at the price of emptying its content
could it produce an apparently universal discursive formation. In Laclau’s
terms the concept of the people was “present as that which is absent . . . it
becomes the signifier of this absence” (p. 44). Entertaining simultaneously

republican, ethnonational, social-democratic, and liberal notions of people-
hood, the politics around the protest thus articulated “a struggle to fill the
emptiness with a given content—to suture the rift of the discursive centre
and to create a universal hegemony.”11 In the process, the outside is antago-
nistically mobilized to affirm the legitimacy of the center: “The outside is not
merely posing a threat to the inside, but is actually required for the definition
of the inside. The inside is marked by a constitutive lack that the outside
helps to fill” (Torfing 2005, p. 11). During the summer protest, the exclusion
of a truly radical agenda was thus not a mere condition of possibility but a
condition of necessity for the ostensible universal import of the movement.
Cleansed of political alterities such as Palestinian, Mizrahi, and proletarian,
whose access to the visible center was virtually blocked, the movement could
present itself to itself, to its audience, and to the ruling class as both prag-
matic and populist, representational and revolutionary, at one and the same
time (see Figure 10.5).
The display of unity in protest, however, was semiotically and politically
unstable, inviting moments of radical intervention (like the guillotine) only
to disavow them as moments of transgression, inappropriate for a “respon-
sible” leadership. This fluctuating process, which we term situational radi-
calism, was the outcome of an indecisive play of boundaries, of presence
and absence, inside and outside. The concept of situational radicalism thus
reflects the modus operandi of the summer protests as a performance of radi-
calism divorced from a revolutionary constitution.
In the aftermath of the 2011 events, organizers and observes alike pon-
dered about the future of the movement considering the ongoing support
by 80 percent of the Israeli public of resuming the protests.12 These expecta-
tions, however, never materialized and the summer of 2011 remained a mere
memory of another lost opportunity for social change.
Conclusions: Paths of Dissolution and the Endurance

of the Neoliberal–Sectarian Complex
The 2011 uprisings in cities throughout the Middle East and North Africa
heralded the birth of a new political subject and the rise of a new histori-
cal generation. Notwithstanding the emergence of a revolutionary collec-
tive imaginary, predicated on principles of freedom, accountability, and
distributive justice, these events threw into relief the foundational question
of the coherence and unity of this fledging political subjectivity. In the face
of ethnic diversity, class inequalities, and urban fragmentation, the notion of
the nation invoked in each of these countries calls for collective negotiation
between rival factions often with dire consequences. In Cairo, slogans such
as “Christians + Muslims = One Hand” have mobilized a cohesive view of
the sovereign people (al-sha`b) presented as a moral community (watan)
composed of a solitary Muslim majority and a Christian minority. Tragi-
cally, however, the aftermath of the regime change in Egypt soon gave way
to ethnic violence directed against the very Christian brethren who dem-
onstrated and prayed together with the Muslims in Maidan al-Tahrir. The
collective rage (ghadab) heretofore directed exclusively against the corrupt
authoritarian regime has violently targeted the Coptic minority perceived
as disruptive of a unified image of the Muslim nation (ummah). Similarly
in Syria, Muslim protesters were recorded chanting “The Christians to Bei-
rut, the Alawis to the coffin.” Originally read predominantly as a process
of democratization (Al-Momani 2011), the Arab revolts also bring to the
fore the dangerous liaisons between ethnic pluralism and political violence
notably after the intervention of Islamic factions, and in cities marked by a
history of ethnic mix.
Prima facie, the comparison between the Israeli and Lebanese move-
ments points to the failure of both movements to produce a collective and
durable mobilizing structure, which resulted in fatal organizational fatigue
that brought about the dissolution of the movements. The comparison
also brings about an examination of the neoliberal rationality that governs
both regimes—two political entities thriving on structurally exclusionary
paradigms of peoplehood. These movements seem to expose the Lebanese
and Israeli regimes’ failure in sustaining a livable concept of the “people”
beyond class and sect/ethnicity, but, moreover, their failure in allowing for
a space of negotiating the conception of the people. Similarly, when “the
people demanded to topple the regime,” the movements themselves failed
to produce a notion of the “people” that breaks out of the neoliberal ratio-
nality. They might as well have missed out on the significance of the issue
altogether.
Despite these parallel shortcomings vis-à-vis neoliberal governmental-
ity, a deeper analysis points to two significant divergences. While the Leba-
nese movement forged an Arab national framework against sectarian divides
organized around the Lebanese flag, the Israeli movement failed to define a
unifying frame of citizenship that would include the Palestinians minority.
Likewise, while the Lebanese movement highlighted the “political” aspect of
sectarianism, the Israeli movement stressed “social” inequalities. These dis-
tinctions notwithstanding, in both cases the notion of peoplehood was ill
defined and eventually collapsed. In the aftermath of the momentary upris-
ing, pluralism withdrew into an ever-deepening schismogenesis between seg-
mentary rivals. The discrepancy between the protests’ multiple grammars of
revolt, we argue, resulted in an unstable modality of action that reproduced

an ambiguous notion of the sovereign people posed as a revolutionary sub-
ject. Analyzed as an “empty signifier” the collective subject invoked through-
out the protests was predicated on the exclusion of political and class-based
alterities thus eventually undermining its own radical potential.
At the end of the day, under the fragmentary conditions of neoliberal
politics, the street protests seemed increasingly “dissociated from anything
beyond themselves” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2001, p. 322). Only time will
tell whether they were part of what was described as the “death of politics”
or whether they planted the seeds of revolution for a future movement that
will engage the neoliberal–sectarian complex in an integrated and thus radical
framework.
Notes
1. Both Lebanon and Palestine were part of the Ottoman Empire for over 400
years, until 1918 when the area was divided between the French Mandate of
Syria and the British Mandate of Palestine following World War I. On Sep-
tember 1, 1920, France formed the State of Greater Lebanon as one of several
ethnic enclaves within Syria. Lebanon was a largely Christian (mainly Maronite)
enclave but also included areas containing many Muslims (including Druze).
On September 1, 1926, France formed the Lebanese Republic. The republic was
afterward a separate entity from Syria but still administered under the French
Mandate of Syria. Lebanon gained independence in 1943, while France was
occupied by Germany. Following a series of bloody clashes between Jews and
Palestinians (notably, 1921, 1936–39, and 1948), Palestine remained under
British rule until May 15, 1948.
2. One of the major demands of the movement in Lebanon proposed the concept
of “equal citizens” . In his article on the failure of the movement,
Samah Idriss argues that the movement had called for “a civil secular state which
equates between its citizens” , a demand
that couldn’t easily translate in practical terms for the majority of the public,
http://adabmag.com/node/509.
3. The Taif Agreement ( , also “National Reconciliation Accord”) planned
to end the Lebanese civil war. This was an agreement aimed at providing “the
basis for the ending of the civil war and the return to political normalcy in
Lebanon.” It was signed on October 22, 1989, and had set a time frame for the
withdrawal of the Syrian troops, as well as asserting the representation of the
sects in the state.
4. On one occasion, a two-hour discussion involved a feminist and seven
organizers who objected to the use of the word “gender” in one of the
manifestos. They implicated she is a lesbian and accused her of asking for social
disintegration.
5. Read Sami E. Baroudi’s “Economic Conflict in Post-war Lebanon: State-Labor

Relations between 1992 and 1997,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Autumn
1998), pp. 531–50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4329252.
6. See Mahdi Amel’s works on the Lebanese state and the Lebanese war.
7. The section draws extensively on Monterescu and Shaindlinger (2013). We
thank the publisher and Noa Shaindlinger for the permission to use the text.
8. In local discourse, the protest is also known as the tents protest, the housing
protest, the cost of living protest, the real estate protest, as well as the middle-class
protest. Starting off on July 14 it is commonly labeled among activists as J14.
9. More than 400,000 people, or 5.5 percent of the Israeli population of 7.75
million, were involved in the largest demonstration (“The March of the Million”
held on September 6, 2011), the equivalent of 3 million people in Britain or
more than 18 million in the United States.
10. Yuval Goren, “Riot Police Smuggled Huldai after being Surrounded by Protest Activ-
ists,” NRG, September 10, 2011. http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/282/957
.html. The phrase “We shall demolish the old world” is a reference to the Interna-
tionale anthem. Unlike the French origin (“Le monde va changer de base”) and
the equally moderate English and American versions, the Israeli-Hebrew anthem
(translated in 1922 by poet Abraham Shlonsky) is largely inspired by the Russian
rendering, which introduces violence to the radical transformation.
11. Claes Wrangel, “Towards a Modified Discourse Theory pt. 1: Laclau’s ‘Empty Sig-
nifier,’” That’s Not It, May 3, 2007. http://thatsnotit.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/
towards-a-modified-discourse-theory-pt-1-laclaus-empty-signifier/. The conclud-
ing section was largely inspired by Wrangel’s excellent synthesis of Laclau’s theory.
12. These numbers draw on a survey conducted by the College of Management in
March 2012. See Anat Jorji, “Newsweek Poll Reveals: 80% of the Public Sup-
ports the Renewal of the Protest; Only 30% Are Content with Trajtenberg’s
Solutions,” The Marker, March 29, 2012. http://www.themarker.com/marker-
week/1.1674729. As of June 26, 2012, 69 percent of the Israelis remain in favor
of resuming the protests.
CHAPTER 11
In Lieu of Conclusion:
From Bare Life to Dignity
Mark LeVine
A
s I write these lines, the one hundredth anniversary of the Arme-
nian genocide is being commemorated around the world, although
still not in Turkey. The systematic murder of 1.5 million Armenians,
during what was then history’s most brutal and deadly war, reminds us that
the violence, exploitation, and oppression are in no way unique to the pres-
ent neoliberal global order. In the past century alone, Stalinism, Maoism,
Nazism, Cold War imperialism, and a host of local and globally intentioned
ideological-cum-political systems and their attendant economies—in partic-
ular, exclusivist national and religious identities—have all had equally (and
in many cases far more) deleterious consequences. The “politics of denial” (as
Zafer Fehmi Yörük describes it in his chapter in this volume on Turkish state
repression of Kurdish identity) is a common place in most every large-scale
system of social, political, and economic organization, precisely because most
every macrolevel, or “state” system, ultimately functions in practice more or
less as a mafia or protection racket—syphoning off as much wealth as possible
to elites while offering a modicum of protection for the masses of society (cf.
Tilly 1985).
The questions before students of neoliberalism are, then: Are there specific
dynamics and processes associated with neoliberalism that characterize it as a
fundamentally new phonemenon? Does neoliberalism manifest itself more or
less in one manner globally, or are their identifiable variations in the dynam-
ics of its functioning arising from the specificities of culture, country, and/
or region in which it is being considered? Indeed, is neoliberalism ultimately
another name for globalization or is it a particular form of global integration
190 ● Mark LeVine
and interaction? Finally, in what ways if any are the Middle East and North
Africa unique in their experience of neoliberalism and in their positioning(s)
vis-à-vis the larger international system?
No one volume can answer these questions fully. But the book you are
now reading goes a long way to providing strong empirical data with which
to make a proper assessment when it comes to the MENA region.
From Bare Life to Dignity

Dignidad. Karamah. Dignity. Before karama was being chanted in the streets
of Tunis, Cairo, or Yemen, it was the core chant of the first great revolt against
neoliberalism: the Zapatista revolt of January 1994, launched the day the
North American Free Trade Agreement—NAFTA—officially took effect.
Why do neoliberal reforms seem to generate revolts for dignity? Rahman
Dağ’s powerful chapter on state (re)building in Iraq points out how neo-
liberal governmentality depends on a conceptualization of citizens as homo
economicus, atomized individuals—“somatic singularities” in his terminology
(Foucault 2008b)—who in neoliberal ideology are accorded a unique rela-
tionship to and power to shape the “market.” In theory, homo economicus
recognizes the weakness and limits of state sovereignty (Foucault 2003); in
reality, its functioning depends, as most every chapter in this book has shown,
on even greater state power and violence.
What I believe Dağ’s and other analyses of the political economy of
neoliberalism in the MENA reveal is how homo economicus tends within
neoliberal systems of governmentality to be reduced even more to homo
sacer (Agamben 1998)—outside the bounds of social and political law and
regulation, and thus prey to whatever exploitation, degradation, and even
death might make him a more profitable cog or tool in the broader capital-
ist system. Too little work has yet been done on what the evidence in this
book shows to be the inherent link between humans as essentially atomized
economic beings and as essentially and at any moment actually devoid of
all rights of citizenship, and even life at anything more than the barest of
levels (cf. Agamben 1998). It is here that Akçalı’s introductory discussion
of Foucault reveals its importance as a response to the critique by scholars
such as Spivak of the “muting” of subaltern voices allegedly encouraged
by his approach to conceptualizing and critiquing power. What the mul-
tiple accounts of how neoliberalism functions within a broadly authori-
tarian Arab and broader MENA state system(s) contained here point to
is not merely how illiberal most neoliberal transformations are. Equally
important, is to reveal how elites at the national, global, corporate, military,
and “crony”/comprador levels develop new forms and combinations of
In Lieu of Conclusion: From Bare Life to Dignity ● 191
sovereign, disciplinary, and governmental power (often including a strong

dose of the classical forms of “pastoral” power as well [Foucault 2007a]).
States of Confusion
Turkey is known in the literature as being a model for the idea of the “deep
state” (derin devlet). While not covered in this volume, the Moroccan
makhzen offers a similar and indeed far older example of a political-economic
elite surrounding the center of power—in Morocco’s case, the Sultan and
after French rule, the King—that includes senior military, security, intelli-
gence, religious, and economic actors, and who act to shape the governance
outside the view and control of any form of elected, or at least publicly
acknowledged, mechanisms of governance. What this volume reminds us is
not merely that most MENA systems are governed in practice by “deep” or
“mafia” states (as the regime of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
was famously termed by US diplomats in Tunis), but that every state is far
deeper and its boundaries far more porous and nebulous than allowed for in
traditional conceptualizations of the state.
In that regard, Nadine Abdalla’s discussions of the greater control exerted
by the Egyptian government over labor unions even as it (re)imposes neoliberal
reforms that are supposed to enable greater freedom, as well as the important
contributions by Challand’s, Daher’s, and Dalacoura’s analyses all point to
the need for a fundamental reimagination of the nature of state power, how
to schematize and describe it, as fundamental tasks before both social scien-
tists and activists alike. The “privatization” of formerly “public” assets that
from Rabat to Cairo, Tunis to Amman, almost always seems to leave the most
valuable assets in the even tighter grip of senior members of the ruling class
reminds us of how deeply neoliberalism in practice is the very opposite of the
ideology it professes and is guided by at the political and rhetorical/ideological
levels. It is this dynamic that affirms the necessity of offering the kind of sub-
tle critical-of-transition discourses imported from late 1980s Latin American
transitions that occurred in very different historico-political circumstances,
and in very different regional political economies compared to the present day,
as Challand points out in his chapter. Indeed, his analysis reminds us that even
the subtle discussions of scholars such as Adam Hanieh can still uncritically
treat the state and its alleged “hollowing out” under neoliberalism as having a
material rather than largely discursive reality.
At the same time Challand’s call to focus on “citizenship from below” links
together not just the protests and uprisings across the Arab world, but also
with those returning to the seminal uprising of Chiapas as well. In doing so,
however, it points to deeper realities underlying the failures of Lebanese and
192 ● Mark LeVine
Israeli and Palestinian societies, as evoked by Daniel Monterescu’s and Yasmin

Ali’s chapter, to experience the transversal types of uprisings that defined the
Arab Spring. On the one hand, it could be argued that Lebanon witnessed
the earliest instantiation of the revolts with the 2006 “Cedar Spring,” and
similarly that the herald of the 2010–11 uprisings was in fact not the self-
immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid, but the release of the
Manifesto of the Gaza Youth Breaks Out movement a few weeks prior, which
captured the utter frustration, sense of hopelessness, and willingness to risk
everything for a chance at dignity that would define the uprisings in the
first year (GYBO 2011). What Monterescu’s and Ali’s analysis clearly shows,
however, is that even subtle shifts in the balance of forces both within state
apparatuses and between them and the people living under their control can
render impossible the chances of even successful revolt, even temporarily.
And yet, as Mitchell’s seminal analysis (1991) of the “limits of the state”
make clear, even at the metropolitan core of late capitalist world politics, the
same fuzziness exists in the boundaries between state and corporate domains
and actors, so much so that, as he argues, it is likely more accurate to con-
ceive of and describe the state as an “effect of power” than as a set of dis-
creet institutions and actors. I argue that this analysis, which builds on Tilly’s
seminal work already mentioned linking the state to mafias (in this regard,
let’s remember that the seminal “mafia,” in Sicily and other parts of southern
Italy, emerged along with and as a necessary correlate to the unified Ital-
ian nation-state system), has yet to be appreciated for its prismatic abilities
to penetrate—analytically if not usually politically—the systems of political
power operating across the MENA. It also allows for a greater nuance of Far-
had Khosrokhavar’s exploration of the role of “failed” states in the emergence
of Jihadism. If we see states as effects of power and conglomerations of com-
plex networks, conduits, and arenas of power, discourse, and attendant forms
of governmentality and disciplinarity, then we can see the so-called failure of
states rather as recalibrations of ever-changing flows of political, economic,
and cultural-ideological power, while the tension between the historic focus
on “social justice” and the move toward neoliberal political economies by
movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Nahda in Tuni-
sia, as described by Dalacoura, becomes easier to understand.
If this volume points to the ongoing importance of Foucault’s oeuvre for
studying the dynamics of neoliberalism in the MENA region, and the con-
comitant need to develop deeper and more robust theories and narratives of
state power to account for neoliberalism’s redefining of the role and prac-
tice of government, two areas that still demand greater thought by scholars
are the role of culture as a vector for and site of resistance to neoliberalism.
On the one hand, neoliberalism penetrates societies globally through culture
more than most any other medium or force (cf. LeVine 2005, 2008). At the
same time, culture is notoriously hard to control; its “liberation” through
the liberalization/privatization of controls over cultural production, distri-
bution, and consumption can both increase the control of major media by
state-aligned elites (as happened in Egypt after the January 25 revolution,
for example) and, at the same time, offer new networks, conduits, and tech-
nologies of communication that those outside of state-power networks are far
more adept at manipulating than those in political and economic power, at
least for a time.
The role of music, graffiti, and other forms of artistic production in the
early Arab Spring protests, as well as the various forms of social media through
which they were actively disseminated to millions of people, reminds us of
how crucial the cultural component of neoliberal globalization is to most
forms of resistance to it (a dynamic that was in fact already clear with the
Zapatista rebellion a generation ago). These forms of cultural-cum-political
practice will continue to be among the most important means for resistance
to and transcendence of the still authoritarian systems dominating most of
the countries of the region (cf. LeVine and Reynolds 2016). Yet, at the same
time, at the heart of neoliberalism is a dynamic of militarized capitalism that
is showing itself today to be especially powerful and deadly to the peoples of
the region (and the world). As the most recent epidemic of mass deaths of
refugees and migrants attempting to flee the wildfire of war and poverty in
the southern and eastern Mediterranean remind us, if global capitalism and
global war have always driven large-scale human migration, there is a new
and even more toxic dynamic today. Broadly speaking, despite decades of
trenchant criticism of its policies, the World Bank alone has displaced well
over three million people in the developing world through its “development”
and “modernization” projects (Chavkin et al. 2015). The full costs of decades
of globalized neoliberal capitalism, when the policies of the IMF and other
Washington Consensus institutions, as well as US and other great power poli-
cies are considered, has yet to be tallied.
Juan Gonzalez in his Harvest of Empire (2011) reminds us that a very simi-
lar south–north movement has been occurring between Latin America and
the United States for more than half a century. Here, too, the toxic mixture
of colonialism and imperialism, foreign exploitation, savage capitalism, and
brutal authoritarian governments, topped off by the imposition of neoliberal
reforms and civil wars have been the primary push factors, while the chance at
a better life in “El Norte” has long provided the pull, despite the risks involved
in the journey north. If one considers his account with those in this volume,
it becomes clear that the MENA region is the rule, not the exception, in how
neoliberalism expands outside the metropole. The one area where it is unique
194 ● Mark LeVine
is in the role of the unprecedented wealth generated by petroleum resources in

supporting repression and extremism—whether in/of governments or oppo-
sition forces—across the region. But what the present civil wars and crises
spreading across sub-Sahelian and North Africa, the Middle East, and into
Central Asia represents is an even more deadly mix of neoliberalism, and
the increasing concentration of wealth and environmental degradation it pro-
duces, with what increasingly looks like precisely the unending (Wood, 2007,
Graham 2014)—and endlessly profitable—war US strategic elites have spent
the last generation preparing (and hoping) for.
One does not have to return to the era of European imperial dominance
of the Middle East and Africa to locate some of the most important “root
causes” of the current crisis. Far more relevant and frightening are the
changing dynamics of global capitalism reflected in the present conflict.
Specifically, thirteen years ago, in their Global Political Economy of Israel
(2002), economists Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler laid bare a
cyclical ebb and flow in the profits of the petroleum, arms, and associated
industries. Their research revealed how even brief “resource conflicts” (or
merely the threat of conflict) every ten or fifteen years ensured a return to
high oil and arms prices and sales, and the political power that accrued
with them to the weapons, petroleum, and related industries (the infamous
“military–industrial complex”).
Endless War
But today we’re in the midst of a fifteen year-long period of global war and
the unprecedented wealth and power that unprecedentedly high oil prices
and arms sales (both of which benefit US corporations far more than those of
any other country aside from the main Arab/Gulf oil producers) bring to the
countries and corporations at the heart of these industries; and it shows no
signs of abating. Yesterday it was al-Qaeda, today it’s ISIL, tomorrow it will
no doubt be something else, as presidents, kings, dictators, and Democrats
alike have turned the arc of instability stretching from sub-Sahelian Africa
across the Mediterranean and fertile crescent into an evermore fertile arena
for chaos and war, with no end in sight. They have succeeded in creating the
kind of self-perpetuating war and profit machine that would made Professor
Moriarty blush.
The active engagement of the Egyptian and Saudi and broader Gulf mili-
taries in the civil wars ranging from Libya to Yemen epitomizes this dynamic
after decades remaining broadly aloof from the conflicts around them. With
every sortie and missile launched millions of dollars are flowing into the
coffers of the American War industry and its European competitors and
comrades, while at the same time further entrenching the power of the most
conservative and undemocratic elements of their respective political systems.
This dynamic’s only function is to ensure the violence continues as long as
(in)humanly possible. We are witnessing quite literally a perfect storm of war
and greed, profits and murder, and a set of ideological and political narra-
tives on all sides that will ensure the conflicts producing them continue for
the foreseeable future. There is simply too much money to be made, and
too much power to arrogate and retain. If we want to know why President
Obama and his counterparts seem powerless to stop this violence, we need
look no farther than here.
The reality is that if the world wants to end the strife across so much of
Africa and Asia, stanch the flow of refugees and migrants into Europe or the
United States, and drain the swamp of the extremism that feeds ISIL and al-
Qaeda, those who most benefit from the neoliberal globalized system must
stop the flow of weapons to their clients and allies that has driven the present
conflicts, support real democratic reforms uniformly and in every country of
the region, and transform the economic blueprint guiding the globalization
of the region from one that increases inequality, exploitation, and authoritar-
ian rule toward one that encourages locally guided and sustainable develop-
ment models (cf. LeVine 2005).
Nothing short of a paradigmatic shift in global governance will bring the
violence, and the refugees, to a halt. This laudable volume provides much new
information and ideas on how to diagnose the problems before us. But the
hard work of developing alternatives to the current system, and the far deeper
knowledge of its present functioning and dynamics, is only just beginning.
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Notes on Contributors
Nadine Abdalla holds a PhD from Sciences-Po Grenoble, France, and an

MA in International Relations from Sciences-Po Paris. She has worked with
several Egyptian and European think tanks and research centers such as the
Arab Forum for Alternative Studies (AFA) and Al Ahram Center for Political
and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), the German Institute for International and
Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, and the Center for Studies and Research
about the Arab World and the Mediterranean (CERMAM) in Geneva. Her
research interests include social movements, labor and youth movements, and
social and political change in Egypt. Her policy papers and academic articles
on youth and labor movements, in particular, and on the Egyptian political
transformation, in general, have been published by the European Institute of
the Mediterranean (IEMed) in Barcelona, the Arab Reform Inititiative (ARI)
in Paris, the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, the SWP in Berlin
as well as the Egyptian think tanks such as the AFA and the ACPSS in Cairo.
Nadine also writes a weekly column for the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Emel Akçalı is assistant professor at the Department of International
Relations and European Studies of Central European University (CEU)
in Budapest. Her teaching and research interests span the state, society,
conflict, and politics in the Middle East and North Africa, social move-
ments, upheavals and (trans-)formation of collective identities in the
age of globalization, the limits of neoliberal governmentality outside of
the Western realm, critical realist philosophy, and non-Western and alterna-
tive globalist geopolitical discourses. She has been awarded the CEU Insti-
tute of Advanced Study and Aix-Marseille University Institute for Advanced
Study resident fellowships for her ongoing research on the challenges of state
and societal transformation in postrevolutionary Tunisia. She is the author
of Chypre: Un enjeu géopolitique actuel (l’Harmattan, Paris, 2009) and her
work has been published in Political Geography, Security Dialogue, Eurasian
Geography and Economics, Antipode, Annals of the American Geographers,
Asian Journal of Social Sciences, and Geopolitics.
220 ● Notes on Contributors
Yasmin Ali is a researcher in urban issues and an activist. She works on slums,
Palestinian camps, and informality in Lebanon. She is currently working on
surveying the coping mechanisms developed by female Syrian refugees in
Lebanon, in an attempt to understand the effects of the ongoing war in Syria
in economic, social, and spatial terms. She has been involved in unions and
student movements in Lebanon.
Benoît Challand is associate professor in Sociology, New School for Social
Research. His fields of research are civil society and political mobilization,
foreign aid, and social theory. He is the author of Palestinian Civil Society:
Foreign Donors and the Power to Promote and Exclude (Routledge, 2009) and
has edited a special issue of Constellations: An International Journal of Critical
and Democratic Theory on “Social Theory and the Arab Uprisings” (2013, vol.
20, no. 3).
Rahman Dağ is the acting head of Cesran (Centre for Strategic and Research
Analysis) Turkey Desk and assistant professor in Adıyaman University in
Turkey. He obtained his BA from Istanbul Yeditepe University and then
MA degree from the SOAS (School of Orient and African Studies) in Lon-
don. He was awarded a PhD from Exeter University, Institute of Arab and
Islamic Studies, with a thesis on the perceptions between ethnonationalist
and Islamist political movements in Turkey.
Rami Farouk Daher is a practicing architect and an academician. He
earned a BA in Architecture from the University of Jordan (1988), an MA in
Architecture from the University of Minnesota (1991), and a PhD in Archi-
tecture from Texas A&M University (1995) and did his postdoctoral studies
at the University of California, Berkeley (2001). He has taught at the German
Jordanian University, the American University of Beirut, Jordan University
of Science and Technology, and Texas A&M University. Daher is a heritage
and urban regeneration specialist interested in research related to politics and
dynamics of public space making and new interventions in existing historic
settings. He is also the cofounder and the principal of TURATH: Architecture
& Urban Design Consultants (1999–present), and Metropolis: Cities Research
Council (2008–present): the research arm of TURATH. TURATH had
worked on several leading urban regeneration and adaptive reuse projects in
Amman and in the region including the urban regeneration of Rainbow and
Faisal Streets in Amman, the adaptive reuse of the Amman Electricity Hangar
and the Building of Ras al Ain Gallery, the adaptive reuse of Abu Jaber House
in Salt, the interpretation center for the Church of the Map in Madaba, in
addition to several residential houses in the city of Amman. Furthermore,
TURATH had worked on the conservation, interpretation, and management
Notes on Contributors ● 221
of several World Heritage and other Sites including Erbil Citadel, Qa’a’at al
Bahrain, and the Baptism Site in Jordan to mention a few.
Katerina Dalacoura is associate professor in International Relations at the
London School of Economics and Political Science. She previously worked at
the University of Essex and at the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
Her main areas of expertise are in human rights, democracy, and democracy
promotion in the Middle East; political Islam; and culture and religion in
International Relations. She is author of Islam, Liberalism and Human Rights:
Implications for International Relations (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003) and
Engagement or Coercion: Weighing Western Human Rights Policies towards Tur-
key, Iran and Egypt (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2003).
She has published in the Review of International Studies, Millennium, Interna-
tional Affairs, Democratization, International Studies Notes, Third World Quar-
terly and International Relations and has authored a number of chapters in
edited books. Her book, Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East
was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011.
Ali Diskaya is a doctoral candidate at the Department of International Rela-
tions and European Studies of Central European University, Budapest. He
holds a BA in English Language and Literature and Political Science from
the University of Bremen and an MS(Econ) in International Relations from
Aberystwyth University. His research focuses on the limits of global govern-
mentality via the case study of the Israeli nuclear taboo. His broader research
interests include: international relations theories (including a particular ori-
entation toward critical theory approaches), critical security studies, and
nuclear proliferation and disarmament.
Farhad Khosrokhavar is professor at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales in Paris, France. His main fields of study are the Iranian society after
the Islamic Revolution and Islam, in particular its radical forms in Europe
and the Middle East. He has published 17 books, 3 of which translated
in 9 different languages and more than 70 articles, mainly in French, a dozen
in English, few in Persian. He has been a Rockefeller fellow (1990), has given
conferences in different European and American universities (Saint Antony’s
College in Oxford, Britain, Princeton, NYU, Columbia, UCLA, USC, Stan-
ford, Harvard, Yale, Texas University at Austin . . .) and many think tanks
and other institutions. He was a Yale Visiting Scholar in 2008 and a Harvard
Visiting Scholar in Winter 2009. His latest books are: Radicalisation (Maison
des Sciences de l’Homme Publisher, Paris, 2014), Iran and the Challenges of
the Twenty-First Century (with Houchang E. Chehabi and Clément Therme,
eds., Costa Meza, Mazda Publishers, 2013), The New Arab Revolutions That
222 ● Notes on Contributors
Shook the World (Boulder, London, Paradigm Publishers, 2012), Jihadist

Ideology: The Anthropological Perspective (The Centre for Studies in Islamism
and Radicalization [CIR], Aarhus C, Scandinavian Book A/S, 2011), Inside
Jihadism: Understanding Jihadi Movements Worldwide (Boulder, London,
Paradigm Publishers, 2009).
Mark LeVine is professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, and a distin-
guished visiting professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund
University, senior columnist at al-Jazeera, and contributing editor at Tik-
kun Magazine. He is the author of four books and one forthcoming book,
The Five Year Old Who Toppled a Pharaoh (UC Press, under contract); An
Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (London: Zed Books, 2009);
Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam (NY:
Random House, 2008); Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of
Evil (Oneworld Publications, 2005); and Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel
Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine (UC Press, 2005). He is the editor of half a
dozen books and journal special issues, including One Land, Two States, Israel
and Palestine as Parallel States (coedited with Ambassador Mathias Mossberg,
UC Press, 2014); “Theory and Praxis of the Arab Uprisings,” special issue of
Middle East Critique, Editor, Winter 2014; Heavy Metal Controversies and
Countercultures (coedited with Keith Kahn-Harris and Titus Hjelm, London:
Equinox Books, 2013); Struggle and Survival in Palestine/Israel (coedited
with Gershon Shafir. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012); Reap-
proaching Borders: New Perspectives in the Study of Israel-Palestine (Rowman
Littlefield, 2007); and Religion, Social Practice and Contested Hegemonies:
Reconstructing the Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Societies (coedited with
Armando Salvatore, Palgrave, 2005). He has published in numerous leading
scholarly journals in his fields of research, including the International Journal
of Middle East Studies, Contemporary Islam, the Middle East Journal, the Jour-
nal of Palestine Studies, and Critique.
Daniel Monterescu is associate professor of urban anthropology and PhD
program director at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropol-
ogy at Central European University. He received his PhD in Anthropology
from the University of Chicago (2005) and held a Marie Curie postdoctoral
fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence. Monterescu
currently studies the Jewish revival in Central European cities (Budapest,
Berlin, Krakow) and the history of wine making in Israel, Hungary, and
Italy. He has published widely on ethnic relations and urban space in bina-
tional (mixed) towns as part of a larger project on identity, sociality, and
gender relations in Mediterranean cities. His previous projects examine the
construction of Arab masculinity and the narration of life stories in Jaffa.
Notes on Contributors ● 223
His publications feature articles in Public Culture, Constellations, Identities,

World Development, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Ethnolo-
gie Française, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Theory and Criticism, Israeli
Sociology and contributions to numerous edited volumes in English, Arabic,
and Hebrew including Islamic Masculinities (Zed Press), and Re-approaching
Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel and Palestine (Rowman
and Littlefield). He is author (with Haim Hazan) of Twilight Nationalism:
Tales of Traitorous Identities—a bilingual (Arabic-Hebrew) study of autobio-
graphical narratives of Palestinians and Jews in Jaffa (2011), and editor (with
Dan Rabinowitz) of Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities: Historical Narra-
tives, Spatial Dynamics and Gender Relations in Jewish-Arab Mixed Towns in
Israel/Palestine (Ashgate Publishing, 2007). His monograph entitled Jaffa,
Shared and Shattered: Contrived Coexistence in Israel/Palestine is forthcoming
at Indiana University Press.
Zafer Fehmi Yörük holds a MA and a PhD in Ideology and Discourse
Analysis, at the University of Essex. He currently teaches at the Faculty of
Communication of Izmir University of Economics. He is the author of
Identity Crisis in Turkey: A Genealogical Inquiry into the Exclusion of the Others
(Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010). Dr. Yörük’s theoretical research
interests include identity politics, discourse analysis, and psychoanalysis. His
research focuses on politics of Middle East and Turkey with special reference
to media and communications.
Index
Abbas, Kamal, 139 Amman, 45, 46, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55,
Abida, Wadi, 95 56, 58, 59, 191, 203, 211, 216, 220
Abu Eita, Kamal, 128, 133, 139, 140 Ansar, Al-Sharia, 94, 95, 96
Africa, 1, 4, 10, 12, 14, 31, 34, 42, 52, Arab Spring, 1, 20, 23, 28, 88, 89, 143,
62, 81, 96, 100, 101, 109, 113, 185, 162, 163, 167, 180, 192, 193, 201,
190, 194, 195, 200, 204, 205, 208, 202, 206, 210, 211, 212, 214, 215, 216
212, 214, 216 Armenian genocide, 189
Agamben, Giorgio, 190 Armenians, 146, 189
aid, 2, 19, 22, 23, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, Assad, Bechir, 86, 89, 91, 92, 93, 98,
58, 72, 73, 77, 160, 220 100, 101, 159
AKP (Justice and Development Party), Atia, Mona, 66, 198
65, 66, 81, 144, 151, 152, 153, 154,
155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, Baath Party, 37, 40, 43
162, 166 Baathification, 35, 40
Al-Abadi, Haider, 35 Baghdad, 38, 41, 43
Al-Awlaki, Anwar, 88, 95, 211 Bahrain, 17, 20, 26, 27, 77, 89, 90, 91,
Al-Azhar, 66 112, 221
Al-Azhari, 131, 140, 199 Barzani, Massoud, 38, 40, 43
Al-Hasakah, 98 Bayat, Asef, 22, 64, 66
Al-Jaafari Ibrahim, 40 Beinin, Joel, 2, 63, 68, 82, 123, 124,
Al-kadhibun, 25 125, 129, 132, 135, 179, 199, 200
Al-Nahda (political party, Tunisia), Beirut, 52, 53, 57, 58, 168, 169, 170,
75, 192 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 186, 203,
Al-Nusra Jabhat [JN], 98 205, 209, 215, 216, 220
Al-Sham, Ahrar, 98 Belaid, Chokri, 78
Al Shishani, Abu Omar, 93 Ben Ali, Zine el-Abidine, 61
Al Sisi, Abdel Fatah, 18, 132 Bhabha, Homi K., 8, 200
Al Zawahiri, Ayman, 88, 89, 91, 93, 98 Bin-Laden, Osama, 88
Alawite, 90, 91, 98, 100 Brahimi, Mohamed, 78, 92, 96
Aleppo, 98 Bremer, L. Paul, 35, 40, 201
Alevi, 159, 166 Bread riots, 127
Allawi, Ayad, 40 Bouazizi, Muhammad, 192
American Chamber of Commerce in Bourgeoisie, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 158,
Egypt (Amcham), 71 172, 173
226 ● Index
Bozkurt, Mahmut Esat, 146, 201 deep state (Derin Devlet), 151, 192
Business Development Association Deir al-Zour, 98
(Muslim Brotherhood), 70 democracy, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17,
28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 42, 46, 50, 51,
Cedar Spring, 192 58, 69, 91, 101, 109, 112, 125, 153,
Chaderchi, Naseer, 40 161, 162, 167, 180, 198, 199, 200,
Chalabi, Ahmad, 40 201, 202, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209,
Chechnya, 93 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, 221
Chiapas, 191 democratization, 15, 16, 20, 21, 31, 34,
CHP (Republican People’s Party), 152, 153, 155, 157, 161, 186, 198, 200,
153, 154, 158, 163 201, 201, 208, 213
Citizenship, 10, 11, 13, 18, 19, 24, 29, demos, 18, 24, 26, 27, 28
42, 112, 144, 168, 177, 186, 190, deregulation, 46, 50, 53, 54, 55, 65
191, 202, 210 de-sectorialization, 23
citizenship from below, 18, 112, 191 Development, 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 17,
civil society 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 18, 23, 29, 34, 22, 27, 33, 34, 36, 39, 45, 46, 47,
35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 58, 65, 90, 91, 48, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62,
109, 111, 112, 115, 120, 126, 151, 64, 65, 66, 68, 72, 77, 78, 81, 83,
156, 198, 200, 202, 208, 209, 216, 85, 101, 109, 120, 124, 126, 127,
220 139, 145, 147, 150, 153, 154, 158,
class (social classes, middle classes, lower 160, 169, 176, 178, 179, 181, 193,
classes), 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 195, 198, 203, 205, 207, 208, 209,
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 210, 211, 213, 214, 216, 223
28, 29, 46, 47, 51, 52, 55, 61, 62, Diyarbakir Prison, 148, 164
63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 75, 76,
79, 80, 81, 85, 99, 143, 168, 174, economic liberalization policies, 126,
175, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 185, 127, 138
186, 187, 188, 191, 200, 203, 211, Economist Intelligence Unit, 70, 72, 205
212, 215 Edward Said, 8
Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), 35 Egypt, 2, 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19,
Congrès pour la République (CPR), 74 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 43, 52,
Constituent Assembly, 69, 74, 76, 77, 53, 61, 62, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73,
82, 91, 213 74, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 87, 88,
Cooperation Council for the Arab States 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102,
of the Gulf (GCC), 90 112, 123, 124, 125, 126, 129, 132,
Counter-conduct, 8, 107, 111, 113, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141,
114, 118, 204, 211 163, 167, 178, 179, 184, 186, 192,
Co-ownership, 8 193, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202,
Crony capitalist, 6 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 209, 210,
211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217
Daesh, 93, 96 Egyptian Trade Union Federation
Dawa party, 40 (ETUF), 73, 124, 126
dawa, 63, 67 Egyptian Federation of Independent
de-Baathification, 35, 40 Trade Unions (EFITU), 129, 130
Index ● 227
Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115,
(EDLC), 129, 130 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 162,
effect of power, 192 168, 177, 186, 190, 192, 198, 204,
EJADA (Euro-Jordanian Action for the 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211,
Development of Enterprises), 50 212, 213, 216, 217, 218
El-Azhari, Khaled, 131, 132 green book, 17
El-Borei, Ahmed, 130, 131, 132, 137 Guidance Bureau (Muslim Brother-
El-Shater, Khairat, 70 hood, Egypt), 68
empty signifier, 184, 187, 188, 210, 217 Gulf, 73, 76, 90, 194
Ergenekon, 151, 165
ethno-nationalism, 10 Hamadi, Jebali, 74
EU (European Union), 3, 8, 9, 10, 22, Harvest of Empire (film), 193, 207
23, 34, 72, 76, 78, 109, 149, 151, Heterotopias, 46, 53
163, 198, 199, 206, 209, 213, 192 HDP (Peoples’ Democracy Party), 144,
155, 160, 161, 162, 163, 211
failed state, 12, 85, 86, 89, 91, 92, 94, Hizballah, 93
96, 97, 99, 101, 109, 192, 202 homo economicus, 8, 33, 39, 190
Fallujah, 98 homo identicus, 39
Forum démocratique pour le travail et homo politicus, 39
les libertés (Ettakatol), 74 homo sacer, 190, 198
Foucault, Michel, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 33, 62, Houthi, 95, 99
81, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113,
114, 190, 191, 200, 206, 207, 210, Indignados, 2
212, 214, 215 International Campaign to Abolish
Freedom and Justice Party (FJP, Egypt), Nuclear Weapons, 115, 208
12, 61, 67, 70, 79, 130 International Monetary Fund (IMF),
Free Syrian Army, 91, 98 71, 123
intersectionality, 18, 23, 26
G8, 77 Iraqi Interim Government (IIG), 40
Gamal Abdel Nasser, 126 Iraqi Leadership Council (ILC), 40, 43
Gaza Youth Breaks Out (GYBO), 192, Islamic finance, 64
206 Islamic State, 82, 87, 92, 98, 100, 151,
General Abd al-Karim, 36 159, 206, 218
Gentrification, 1, 155, 158 Islamism, 11, 12, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65,
Gezi Protests, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 66, 67, 68, 79, 150, 157, 163, 165,
158, 162, 166 214
Global Governmentality, 105, 106, 107, Israel, 1, 9, 12, 13, 19, 51, 85, 96, 105,
108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 106, 107, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117,
115, 120, 210, 217 118, 119, 120, 121, 167, 168, 169,
Gonzalez, Juan, 193, 207 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185,
Governmentality, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 186, 188, 192, 194, 200, 203, 204,
11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 27, 28, 31, 209, 210, 212, 213
32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, Israeli Disarmament Movement,
61, 62, 80, 81, 105, 106, 107, 108, 106, 115
228 ● Index
Jaffa, 178, 182, 183 Makhzen, 191

Jihadism, 12, 85, 86, 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, Maliki, 41, 90, 92, 93, 97, 98, 203
99, 100, 101, 102, 192 Marzouki, Moncef, 74, 78, 83
Jihadist, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, MHP (Nationalist Action Party), 149,
94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 152
102, 103, 202, 204, 222 Middle East, 1, 4, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16,
Jordan, 2, 11, 19, 22, 27, 45, 46, 47, 19, 21, 22, 31, 34, 43, 52, 56, 57,
48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64, 71, 79, 80, 81, 101,
59, 87, 92, 199, 203, 204, 209, 216 109, 115, 116, 149, 158, 159, 167,
185, 188, 190, 194, 198, 199, 200,
Karamah (dignity), 87, 190 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208,
Kemalism, 146, 151 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216,
Khaled, Amr, 66, 67 217
Kobane, 158, 159, 160 militarism, 10, 25, 149
Kurdish movement, 143, 144 military industrial complex, 194
Kurdish question, 144, 145, 147, 149, mobilization, 87, 88, 125, 129, 134,
152, 161, 166, 199, 209, 217 139, 167, 168, 178, 179, 181, 199,
Kurdistan Regional Government 200
(KRG), 38, 160 modernization, 50, 63, 145, 157, 163,
Kurdistan Democracy Party (KDP), 38 193
Kurds, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 145, 146, Morsi, Mohamed, 21, 29, 70, 71, 72,
148, 149, 153, 159, 160, 161, 162, 73, 74, 82, 90, 92, 130, 131, 132,
163, 209, 211, 213 137, 139, 140, 197, 201
Kuwait 23, 55, 73, 77 moral economy, 126, 214, 216
Morocco, 7, 89, 91, 191, 199, 207, 214
Laarayedh, Ali, 74, 78, 79 Mosul, 32, 38, 93, 146, 159
labor protests, 70, 124, 125 Mouvement pour la Tendance Islamique
labor union, 191 (MIT), 75
Labour Party, 82, 148, 164 Mubarak, Hosni, 3, 13, 21, 26, 61, 68,
Lagarde, Christine, 71 69, 70, 71, 80, 82, 87, 96, 98, 123,
Lawdar, 94 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 133, 135,
Lebanon, 13, 23, 52, 91, 167, 168, 169, 138, 140, 198, 201, 205, 214, 215
172, 175, 187, 188, 192, 199, 204, Mudiyah, 94
215 multilevel rule regimes, 51
liberal democracy, 3, 36 Muslim Brotherhood, 12, 22, 61, 66,
Libya, 12, 17, 23, 25, 73, 86, 89, 90, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 81, 82, 91, 98,
91, 92, 96, 97, 99, 101, 162, 194, 128, 130, 131, 132, 140, 141, 192,
214 199, 205, 212, 214
limits of the state, 192, 212
National Constituent Assembly (Tuni-
mafia, 149, 189, 191, 192 sia), 74, 91
Mahdi, Adel, 40 National Salvation Front (NSF), 137
Majlis Al-Shura (Consultative Council, NATO, 25, 89
Egypt), 69 Nazif, Ahmed, 123, 124, 128, 138
Index ● 229
neoliberal governmentality, 3, 5, 6, 7, privatization, 2, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 54,

8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 27, 28, 31, 55, 65, 77, 78, 123, 124, 127, 151,
32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 157, 191, 193
62, 81, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, PYD (Democratic Unity Party), 159
112, 114, 120, 162, 168, 186, 190
neo-Ummah, 87 Qandil Hisham, 71
Neoliberalism, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, Qatar, 3, 23, 71, 72, 73, 77, 89, 98, 214
17, 26, 33, 34, 42, 45, 61, 62, 64, Qualified Industrial Zones, 48, 50, 55
65, 66, 79, 80, 83, 113, 189, 190,
191, 192, 193, 194, 198, 201, 202, Rabia al-Adawiyya, 21, 29
203, 204, 207, 208 Ramadi, 98
New Trade Union Law, 129, 130, 133, Raqqa, 98
138 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 159
New Trade Unions, 125, 129, 130, 131, relative deprivation, 74
132, 133, 134, 135 resistance, 207, 210, 222
Newroz, 38, 152 revolt, 182, 197, 204, 207, 216
nuclear ambiguity, 105, 106, 117, 119, revolution, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127,
121, 203 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134,
NGO, 9, 23, 48, 50, 56, 58, 128, 139, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140
176, 213 RP (Welfare Party), 87
Obama, President Barack, 195 Sa’id, Khaled, 25, 26

Ocalan, Abdullah, 148, 152, 165 Sadat, Anwar, 68, 85, 123, 126, 127, 138
organization, 2, 3, 8, 9, 16, 29, 33, 37, Salafi groups/Salafism, 69
40, 41, 48, 54, 56, 66, 86, 89, 92, Salafist, 98, 99
94, 106, 108, 115, 119, 120, 127, Saleh, Ali Abdallah, 25, 99
129, 131, 134, 135, 138, 139, 147, Salmiyah, 87, 98, 99
150, 151, 155, 156, 160, 165, 176, Sanaa, 18, 20, 88, 95, 115
177, 189, 199, 209 Saudi Arabia, 56, 57, 73, 86, 89, 90, 91,
93, 95, 98, 156
Palestine, 11, 19, 21, 22, 23, 27, 167, Sectarianism, 14, 32, 36, 37, 97, 100, 186
168, 187, 204, 207 Shatt Al-Arab, 38
Palestinian citizens, 181, 182 Sheikh Fadlallah, 9
peace process, 13, 51, 143, 144, Sheikh Kishk, 9
150, 152, 153, 155, 156, 159, Shiite, 20, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41,
160, 161 43, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 97,
PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), 145, 98, 100, 101
148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155, 156, Shura Council (Muslim Brotherhood,
159, 160, 164, 165 Egypt), 68
politics of containment, 123 Sidi Bouzid, 9, 192
politics of denial, 145, 189 social funds, 132
populist nationalism, 3 social justice, 12, 14, 20, 21, 62, 63, 64,
precariat, 158 65, 69, 72, 73, 74, 77, 80, 81, 168,
presentism, 28 178, 181, 182, 192
230 ● Index
somatic singularity, 190 38, 43, 70, 71, 91, 129, 131, 136,
Spivak, Gayortri, 7, 190, 215 141, 150, 162, 191, 199, 201, 202,
State, 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, 22 207, 211, 213, 2016, 217
state corporatism, 126 Transitional Administrative Law (TAL),
state-building, 11 38
structural adjustment program, 11, 46, Transitology, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23,
47, 48, 49, 123 25, 27, 28, 29, 213
structural weaknesses, 126, 133, 135 Transnational capitalist class, 46, 47,
subaltern voices, 190 55, 215
subjectivity, 3, 6, 19, 40, 42, 109, 146, Transnational rule-regimes, 51
168, 185, 208, 209 Tunisia, 1, 2, 3, 9, 11, 12, 17, 20, 22,
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces 23, 24, 25, 61, 32, 74, 75, 76, 77,
(SCAF), 130 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86,
syndical freedoms, 125, 129 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 99,
Syria, 12, 41, 43, 53, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 100, 101, 112, 163, 167, 168, 177,
93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 172, 191, 192, 198, 201, 202, 205,
103, 143, 164, 170, 172, 176, 177, 206, 207, 208, 211, 212, 213, 216,
186, 197, 204, 205, 210, 220 217, 218, 219
Syrian civil war, 143, 158, 160, 161, Turkey, 1, 3, 13, 64, 65, 66, 71, 72,
162, 169 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149,
150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 156, 159,
Tahrir Square, 27, 88, 125, 137, 153, 167 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166
TAKADDM (Ammani School of Con- 189, 191, 198, 199, 201, 202, 207,
sciousness Building), 58 209, 211, 212, 213, 217, 218, 220,
Taksim Square, 153, 217 221, 223
Tamarod (Rebellion), 29, 137 TÜSIAD (Association of the Turkish
Taqhyir Square, 88 Industrialists and Businessmen), 158
The Egyptian Democratic Labor Con-
gress (EDLC), 129, 130 Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail
The Egyptian Federation of Independ- (UGTT), 76, 77, 79
ent Trade Unions (EFITU), 129, 130 United Arab Emirates, 23, 52, 73
The Egyptian Trade Unions Federation United States, 1, 2, 9, 14, 15, 16, 22,
(ETUF), 124, 126 32, 33, 35, 48, 49, 90, 9, 106, 114,
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria 115, 116, 163, 165, 188, 193, 195,
(ISIS), 98 209
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant USAID, 50, 56
(ISIL), 98
The Islamic State of Iraq and Sham Vanunu, Mordechai, 118, 119, 120, 200
(ISIS), 98 Violence, 4, 10, 11, 16, 18, 19, 24,
trade unions, 9, 68, 79, 125, 126, 127, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 76, 86, 87,
129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 88, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 100, 102,
156, 199, 205 114, 136, 143, 145, 148, 149,
Transition, 2, 3, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 154, 155, 181, 186, 188, 189, 190,
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 195, 201
Index ● 231
Yemen, 11, 17, 20, 24, 25, 27, 86, 88, 65, 66, 81, 150, 182, 199, 203,
89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 208
99, 101, 102, 112, 162, 190, 194, World Bank, 2, 46, 47, 49, 51, 58, 66,
201, 202, 203, 206, 208 71, 74, 77, 78, 79, 124, 193, 202,
Yezidi, 39 207, 210, 217
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, 9 World Economic Forum (WEF), 13, 48
World Trade Organization (WTO), 48
Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ), 13, 54
Welfare, 5, 11, 13, 42, 45, 46, 47, Zapatista, 190, 193
48, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57, 58, 64, Zinjibar, 90, 94

Emel Akcali Neoliberal Governmentality and The Future of The State in The Middle East and North Africa

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Neoliberal Governmentality

and the Future of the State in the

Edited by Emel Akçalı

List of Illustrations vii

1 Introduction: Neoliberal Governmentality and the Future

8 Neoliberal Policies and the Egyptian Trade Union Movement:

1.1 The Middle East and North Africa in revolt by

AKP Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party)

FJP Freedom and Justice Party

PYD Partiya Yekidiye Demokrat (Democratic Union Party)

created a radically different political structure by dismantling the ancien

individual subjectivities are being formed in the MENA societies. Foucault

investment and valorization, and capable of enhancing the quality of the

In neoliberal discourse, subjectivities are shaped by an economic rationality

may be harnessed to seemingly traditional concerns, but ultimately, they are

Zarakol’s suggestion that posits that the “true manifestation of agency of

to demonstrate two observable phenomena: the ways in which the global

rights (“social justice” and “antisectarianism”), which manifested itself in the

Squaring the Circle? Transitology

Rethinking the Relation between Transitology

breakdown of autocracies in Latin America and Europe in the 1980s, be

social configurations diverge widely between cases such as Bahrain, Libya,

How Has Transitology Been Applied to the Arab Uprising?

2011; Salvatore 2011) expressed the capacity through physical proximity to

Representation and the Role of the Middle Classes

and the existence of a transnational bourgeoisie whose span of action and

Representation as the Reappropriation of Violence

civil servants) (Soliman 2011). A regional economy, with intense capitalist

part (once domesticated and used in a restrained manner) of any social

The Failure of the State

capitalism or socialism/communism. The MENA states were no exceptions.

governmentality has organic connections with the idea of “changing historical

Nationalism and Sectarianism

of the regime. Following this victory, it was understood by the regime,

State-Rebuilding Process in Iraq since 2003

Iraq’s sociopolitical fragmentation, ever since proportional representation

Welfare Genocide: Rentierism,

Jordan as a Rentier State: Oil Rent, Foreign Aid, Remittances,

remittances at their highest during this period equaled to 124 percent of Jordan’s

Jordan Neoliberalization Process of Privatization,

Jordan witnessed a substantial decrease in the country’s welfare mechanism

of Jordan’s economy, excessive privatization, and economic competitiveness

financial crises that “reduced government investments in water delivery

Linking Neoliberal Processes of Urban

Postneoliberalization and Excessive

in infrastructure projects (e.g., energy, infrastructure, telecom, and utilities),

resulting in what some have called “deliberalization” (ibid.). Today, I observe

Islamism and Neoliberalism in

Islamist Approaches to Capitalism, Charity, and Social Justice

them as part of a single phenomenon becomes, at times, unsustainable

New Trends in Islamism: “Pious Neoliberalism”

Through ethnographic research in one poor area of Istanbul (Sultanbeyli)

dawa (Bayat 2007, pp. 136–37). As conservative religiosity and individualized

The Economic Policies of the Freedom and Justice Party

that overthrew Hosni Mubarak was caused, to a considerable degree, by

referendum. The Freedom and Justice Party’s candidate, Mohamed Morsi,

Brotherhood’s key strategist, financier, and deputy head until he resigned in

Overall, public expenditure increased by 30 percent between July 2012

disadvantaged supporters. It tried to keep them on its side by continuing “to

The Economic Policies of Nahda

Tunisia’s disenfranchised and intensified the flocking of the excluded lower

The assassination of opposition activist Chokri Belaid in February 2013

that they were unwilling to challenge the socioeconomic structures of the