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Notes The Rentier State and its implications

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Cooption [inclusion]:
1. to elect into a body by the votes of the existing members

2. to assimilate, take, or win over into a larger or established group

3. to appropriate as one's own; preempt

Coercion [Zwang]
1.the act of coercing; use of force or intimidation to obtain compliance.

2.force or the power to use force in gaining compliance, as by a government or police force.

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Migdal:
- Strong state: ability to penetrate society [taxation and law enforcement]; the weaker the state, the stronger the society

Ayubi:
- Fierce state: weak, so opposed to society, that it has to use coercion and force [police state, security state, Mukhabarat state]
- Strong state: complementary, not contradictory to society

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Mitchell Dreamland_ The Neoliberalism of Your Desires _ MERIP 2010

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Ayubi, N_Etatisme vs Privatization_Economic Transition in the Middle East_Ch 7

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4. The Developmental State [Liberalisation] 

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4. The Developmental State [Liberalisation] 

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What kind of processes produce what kind of state?

Economic liberalisation --> political liberalisation: theoretical frameworks
> transitions framework: economic liberalisation leads to political liberalisation
> empirical evidence shows otherwise --> other theories?

Retreat vs Redeployment of the state
> state that is privatised is a state of privilege, patronage, and violence
> transformative effects, but not what IMF and WB aimed at
> problematic (contraproductive?) connection with political liberalisation
> politics of contestation [uprisings of 2010

Cases:
1. Egypt
- phase 1: difference between what is private and what is public? nationalist and developmental impulse leading to war
- phase 2: redeployment of the state, infitah, beneficiaries: cronyi capitalists (e.g. under Mubarak)
2. Syria
- phase 1: bourgeoisie belief that state should be in charge, Ba'thist socialism leading to intervention and war, and Hafiz al-Asad
- phase 2: redeployment of the state, Asad's followers main beneficiaries of privatisation, e.g. Rami Makhlouf (Syria Telecom)

Main thinkers
Mitchell – both

Beinin – Amanda

King - Amanda

Hinnebusch – Rebekka

Ayubi - Rebekka

Previous exam questions:
¹⁾ Discuss the view that neo-liberal economic policies in the Middle East have worked against, rather than in support of political liberalisation. Illustrate your answer with reference to MORE THAN ONE Middle Eastern country
²⁾ To what extent has the process of neo-liberal economic reform, visible throughout the Middle East during the past twenty years, represented a ‘retreat of the state’? Illustrate your answer with reference to MORE THAN ONE Middle Eastern state.
³⁾ In what ways, if at all, have the economic reforms associated with neo-liberalism reshaped the politics of those states in the region where such reforms have been introduced? Illustrate your answer with reference to MORE THAN ONE Middle Eastern state.

Economic Liberalisation > Political Liberalisation?

Linear understanding of political processes?
Modernisation theory?

Neoliberal approach

claims: yes! (separates political power from economic power)

Privatisation is giving power to the people

"proof": international capital puts pressure on regimes (see worker's movement in Egypt)

ideal: retreat of the state (and tax coercion)

Empirical example

The empirical evidence shows otherwise, as across the Arab world see e.g. Egypt and Syria

Infitah in 1974: move away from statist regimes and

in an authoritarian context: increase in resources available to the state elite

Cronyi capitalists under Mubarak

Asad followers as beneficiaries

Redeployment, not retreat of the state

Hinnebusch (1995) reregulation, not deregulation

Creation of conditions for political dissent, see workers' movement in Egypt, or 2011 uprisings

Conclusion: no automatic connection, but...

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Milani: rapid, fundamental change in the social structures as well as in the state’s personnel, institutions and foundations of its legitimacy, accomplished through outside legal channels and accompanied in part by a movement from below. – distinguishes from coup d’états, rebellions and “revolutions from above”.
Skocpol: rapid, basic transformations of a country's state and class structures, and of its dominant ideology. Moreover, social revolutions are carried through, in part, by class-based upheavals from
below.
Goldstone: A large range of events claim revolutionary features (including fascist,
Nazi, communist transformations of nations), common features:
• a. efforts to change the political regime that draw on a competing vision of a just order
• b. a notable degree of informal or formal mass mobilization
• c. efforts to force change through noninstitutionalized actions such as mass demonstrations, protests, strikes, or violence

Definition of rev:  an effort to transform the political institutions and the
justifications for political authority in a society, accompanied by formal or informal
mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine existing
authorities.

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Goldstone, J. Towards a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory Annual Review of Political Science (4)[2001] pp 139-187

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Amanda Essay on the ideas behind the Iranian revolution (Ale-Ahmad & Shariati)

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Revolution from above [Trimberger, 1987]

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Revolution from above [Trimberger, 1987]

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1. The extralegal takeover of political power and the initiation of economic, social, and political change is organized and led by some of the highest military and often civil bureaucrats in the old regime.

2. There is little or no mass participation in the revolutionary takeover or in the initiation of change. Mass movements and uprisings may precede and accompany revolution from above, but military bureaucrats who take revolutionary action do so independently from, and often in opposition to, such movements.

3. The extralegal takeover of power and initiation of change is accompanied by very little violence, execution, emigration, or counter-revolution.

4. The initiation of change is undertaken in a pragmatic, step-at-a-time manner with little appeal to radical ideology. Both the third and fourth characteristics are the result of control and use of a bureaucratic apparatus for radical aims.

5. Military bureaucrats who lead a revolution from above—as opposed to a coup d'état—destroy the economic and poliitcal base of the aristocracy or upper class. This destructive process is basic to both revolution from above and from below.

Example: Egypt (1952), overthrow of King Faruq

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The Iranian Revolution 1977 79 Interaction and Transformation

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Milani, M_The Making of Irans Revolution_Chapter 1

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Abrahamian_The Islamic Revolution_Iran Between Two Revolutions_Ch 11

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- Identify key debates on each subject
- Write maximum 3-4 main points

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•  institutions and transparency

•  mechanisms of accountability

•  popular movements for democratic change

•  executive power and the tendency towards exclusivity

1. Democracy
- what is it?
- analytical problems
- assumptions and implications - contingency!

2. Democratisation
- civil society

- vs. state
- political movements

- "Why has democratization not occurred in the Middle East?"

3. Democratisation - external support
- helps or hinders?

4. Cases
- Egypt (trade unions penetrated by state)
- Iraq (failure of foreign support)

5. Main thinkers
Amanda:
- Bellin (general) (2000)
- Albrecht and Schlumberger (2004)
Rebekka:
- Burnell (2013)
- Salamé (1994)

Seminar question: What are the main difficulties faced by those who seek greater democratic accountability in Middle Eastern states?

Exam questions:
1. What have been the problems faced by those trying to translate popular protest into political accountability? Illustrate your answer with reference to MORE THAN ONE Middle Eastern country.

2. What analytical problems arise in seeking to link movements for greater democratic accountability in the Middle East to the development of civil society organizations?

3. Does external support for movements of democratic change in the Middle East help or hinder the process of democratisation? Illustrate you answer with reference to MORE THAN ONE Middle Eastern state.

Essay questions:
1. What analytical problems arise in seeking to link movements for greater democratic accountability in the Middle East to the development of civil society organizations?

- foreign support to NGOs - does not lead to democracy
- NGOs and civil society organisations often

2. Does external support for movements of democratic change in the Middle East help or hinder the process of
democratisation? Illustrate you answer with reference to MORE THAN ONE Middle Eastern state

- popular protest
- political accountability
- analytical problems
- movements (of democratic change)
- democratic accountability
- civil society
- external support
- democratisation
- hinder or help?

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•  understanding revolution as process

•  revolution as ‘mirror’ of the state

•  violent change and the logic of revolution

•  coups d’état, revolution from above, popular uprising

•  state power and transformative projects

1. Theories of Revolution
- Theories of revolution generally part of theory of something else: history, political sociology, structural-functionalism

-  Theories of revolution are also theories about consciousness and social action

a. Vulnerability of the state
- Strong state /fierce state - latter seen as vulnerable to revolutions, but Syria
- Conflicts within elite - Sudan: leading to coup; may create preconditions, but what replaces it? Algeria: led to civil war
- Central administration paralyzed - PNA and Hamas, led to revolution in Gaza
- Vulnerability to external shocks affecting economy - eg wars: FR, Russia, China. Saudi Arabia: fears in oil-price down turn periods. But Iraq: goal of the sanctions was to weaken the state, but has the opposite effect

b. Social structures - "revolutionary potential" (Marxist/materialist)
(1) Disruption of an old order: structural changes - economic, industrial changes, demographic movements, attitudes to authority (2010-11 example)
- These conditions might make revolution possible, but does not make them happen
- These approaches often focus on when revolution happened, but not when they didn't, and not on counter-revolutions
(2) Theories of frustration: rising expectations thwarted, deteriorating material conditions - relative deprivation
- the J-curve: revolutions most often occur at a point of rapid decline - eg. Iran
- But not sufficient explanation: things are getting worse often in the Middle East
- Skocpol example of Marxist theorist on revolutions

1&2 have in common:
- pre-existing changes of fundamental kind
- mass engagement

c. Revolutionary ideals: aim and justification of the revolutionary project
Reintroduction of agency  : people need to risk their lives to revolt, thus there has to be a motivating idea - a vision to fight towards
(1) distance and critique: capacity to stand outside the existing order
- a counter-hegemony has to exist (Gramscian sense)
- often driven by power of exile and exclusion
- education, elitism & intellectuals: Shariati, Lenin, social media
- but in the ME problem of some intellectuals "reconnecting" with mass of population: problem of leftism historically, advantage of islamism
- people have been thinking outside of hegemony for a long time, what is important is how it's mobilized -->
(2) mobilizing capacity of the idea
- ideas and their time: nationalism and national liberation, often infused with islamic symbols
- Algerian war of independence, Iranian revolution

(3) Imagination communicated:
- vision of radically reordered and "better" society - ethical justification for self-sacrifice, violence and potential for mobilisation
- powerful visions of "nation": Zionism, Turkey, Palestine

2. Revolutionary transformations? - what changes?
- Revolution is a process, not an event - often claimed as an event by leaders. For example, the Kurds, the working class, Trotskyists, liberals etc also had a stake in the Iranian revolution - Islamists declared themselves as "winners"
- Post-revolutionary struggles are often about what the revolution was about  - eg. Iran 2009

(1) Areas of change
- structures/relations of power?
- economic relations: property relations?

(2) Degrees of change
- change to pre-existing system? Changes in cosmetics - putting on a suit instead of a uniform (Sisi, Egypt). Changes in political behavior? Changes in attitudes and in possibility?
- but difficulty of measuring potential except in results - revolution as a process
- always the state that benefits from revolutions?
- Engels: "revolution is authoritarian" // Arendt: revolutions become suppressive in order to perpetuate the myth of their "success"
--> state became stronger in FR, EG, China etc after revolution
- "revolution from above" - EG, TR, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan
- do they count as revolution?
- do revolutions from above open up for the possibility for revolutions from below?
- aftermath often key in judging whether a revolution has taken place.

------------------------------------------
- Conditions - an event to be considered a revolution; and conditions for a revolution to occur.
- mass participation
- Analytical value (lack of generalizable content/aspects)
- predictability?
- Process vs. event

2. Normative question of change
- Significance: when does smth count as a revolution and for whom?
- Assumptions: idea of progressive vs. reactionary
- Positively connoted term - often used to legitimize different events

3. State formation
- democratisation
- Engels: revolution is authoritarian
- "mirror" of the state
- revolution as part of state structures and history

4. The role of violence
- the role of the army

5. Radical change vs. revolution
- coups d'etats
- popular uprisings
- revolutions from above
Cases:
- Iran
- Egypt
- Arab spring?

Main thinkers:
Amanda:
- Abrahamian 1983 (Iran)
- Milani 1994 (Iran)
- Skocpol 1994
Rebekka:
- Dunn 1989
- Goldstone 2001
- Seeberg 2014 (Iran)

Seminar question: In what ways does the Iranian revolution of 1978/79 enhance our understanding of the generic political phenomenon of revolution?

Essay question: To what extent did the Iranian revolution of 1978/79 challenge or reinforce existing theories of revolution?

- 3 generations of definitions
- Skocpol published just before the Iranian revolution
- 1979 Iran revolution generated a fourth definition (e.g. Goldstone): more dynamic, less rigid; combination of structure and agency

- Iranian revolution = turning point of the analysis of the phenomenon
- Khomeini as revolutionary thinker was able to develop a revolutionary ideology
- Combination of structure and agency:
- Structure: - collapse of the Pahlavi state
- international pressures (economic penetration, exploitation of natural resources)
- domestic (state is the arena and a key actor in the revolutionary process, Skocpol)
- Agency:    - a process that cannot be structurally predicted
- Shia ideology and the figure of Khomeini

Exam questions:
1. Why are revolutions apparently so difficult to predict, yet seemingly easy to explain once they have occurred? Illustrate your answer with reference to AT LEAST ONE country in the Middle East.

- third generation (structure/system/material): claims to predict; if a certain set of conditions are fulfilled, revolution will occur. Same with J-curve - relative deprivation
- But: there are multiple examples where structural conditions have been met, and there has been no revolution
- And/or: where the structural conditions have not been met, and revolution has still occurred (Iran?)
- Before Iran, scholars (including Skocpol) claimed to be able to predict, with Iran she had to adjust her theory

- Forth generation: added human agency to analyze progress and process
--> the structure can be explained beforehand (but does not predict in itself), and agency can only be analysed in hindsight. Cannot be measured.

- Revolution is a process and not an event - so it's problematic in itself to define when a revolution has "ended"
- Seemingly easy to explain because in hindsight you can put all the factors together

2. Is there any analytical value left in the concept of revolution, given the variety of political phenomena that have been given this label across the Middle East during the past fifty or so years?

- Arab uprisings
- Egypt 1952
- Iran 2009 "green revolution"/"white revolution" (1963-1978)
- The claim of an event as a "revolution" to gain legitimacy
- But: Keeping the analytical category permits to in-or exclude processes
- The analytical category allows for subcategories to show differences between processes/diversity

3. To what extent can theories of revolution account for the phenomenon of ‘revolutions from above’? Illustrate your answer with reference to AT LEAST ONE country in the Middle East

- event vs. process
- Goldstone includes it
- Mass mobilization depends on how you define it - what's a mass?
- If one argues that a revolution is a process and not an event, 1952 Egypt would not count - revolutions from above are connected to specific events
- Normative question of change; how much change is "significant change"?

4. “A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon” (F. Engels) Discuss what the implications of this might be for state formation with reference to AT LEAST ONE revolution in the Middle East.

- How does a violent revolution impact the state formation?
- Arendt: revolutions become suppressive in order to perpetuate the myth of their "success"
- Authoritarian revolution leads to authoritarian state/ a revolution in itself is authoritarian

Iran:
- 1963-78 White revolution (series of reforms launched by the Shah)
- 1978-79 Islamic revolution (overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty)
- 2009 Green Movement ("Persian Awakening" during Presidential Election)

- "Revolution", Analytical value
- Theories of revolution
- Predictability vs. hindsight
- Variety
- Revolutions from above
- Authoritarian, violent aspects
- State formation

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•  territorial nationalism as ultimate rationale of the state

•  state as manufacturer of political field, imaginative and otherwise

•  emergence and significance of state-based nationalisms

•  religion and the secular logic of the state

•  state religion and the displacement of authority

1. State project

- the use of nationalism to assert state power (nationalism as a tool)

- Legitimacy, sovereignty, territory

- Relationship between nation-state-society'

2. Secularism vs. religious authority

3. Belonging

- religion

- symbols (language)

- belonging

- legally

- identity

4. Nationalist movements

- Israel

- Iran

- Arab nationalism
- Egypt (Nasserism)?

5. Main thinkers
Rebekka:
- Smith 1998
- Liebman 1990
Amanda:
- Vaters 2016
- Shafir 2002

Seminar question: What have been the causes and consequences of the failure to develop a secular Israeli nationalism?

- Nationalism
- Religious Authority
- Nationalist Movement
- Secular Nation
- (Problems of Development)
- Political Project
- Religious Principles and Identities
- Jewish identity
- Secular Nationalism
- effects
- relationship between religion and nationalism

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•  genealogy of the rentier state

•  forms of rentierism – oil revenue based and otherwise

•  political implications for relations between government and people

•  neo-patrimonialism and its utility, practically and analytically

1. Rentier state theory
Marx: the monopolisation of the access to and ownership of a certain good gives one part of society the opportunity to accumulate wealth without contributing to the society
Hossein Mahdavy (1970): The Patterns and Problems of Economic Development in Rentier States [Iran]
Giacomo Luciani (1987):

allocation vs. production states

→ origin vs. nature of income → function of the state in that context

= earning 40+ percent of their revenues from abroad & and expenditure as substantial share of GDP

the character and behaviour of state formations is influenced by the prevailing features of economic life in the countries that they rule

no representation without taxation → social contract

GDP can be raised by spending and personal benefits obtain priority

the organization of political opinion is hindered [only a production state offers the infrastructure for political discussion as well as political unions, e.g. factories]

"allocation states are neither better nor worse than production states from a moral point of view, and they are neither more nor less modern" (p.78)

Hazem Beblawi (1990):

the rentier: a social group being unproductive, almost anti-social, sharing effortlessly in the produce, without contributing to it, rentier mentality: a break in the work-reward causation

1) rent is the predominant income

2) a substantial amount of that rent is gained externally, i.e. sustaining an economy in the absence of "a strong productive domestic sector"

3) rent is earned by only a small fraction of the society; the majority of the society should be "involved in the distribution or utilisation"

4) the government receives the external rent

oil impacted the role of the state in the Middle East profoundly, tribal origin of oil states emphasise the rentier nature

→  citizenship becomes a source of economic benefit

→ relationship between state and society that is based on the distribution of favours and benefits: citizens are far less demanding in terms of political participation

"the oil disease has contaminated all of the Arab world" (p. 98)

2. Implications
- a link between rentier-states and authocratic regimes
- rentier states have a large degree of autonomy in economic control (can distribute wealth along patronage lines)
- supposed bias towards service sector jobs

- political: relations between state and society
- monarchy and persistance
- state autonomy:
Hertog (2007) posits that in fact it is not constant over time
- oil > no infrastructure for political discussion > less political organisations (e.g. labor unions); Mitchell (2009): strategic suppression of political organisation by US

3. Limitations
- judgmental: demeaning assumption on the "rentier mentality
- generalisation: Abulof (2015): only occasionally scholarship on the rentier state theory recognises its heterogeneous and dynamic nature; the rentier state is “more accurately a rentier regime”
- oversimplification: economic determinism
- inability to distinguish between state and government
- contingency: alternative explanations

US impact (Mitchell, 2009)

elite decisions in state creation

colonial impact

Alternative explanations for the lack of democratic development in oil-states
- The telescoping effect (Hertog 2007) -> outcomes from oil-managing: oil magnified already existing undemocratic structures - solidifies structures, and make them more difficult to change. Focuses on the kind choices and policies that governments make as a result of having vast oil-revenues at their disposal.
- Colonialism and neo-colonialism

Contributions
- strategies of regimes in maintaining democratic legitimacy
- how institutional frameworks have been built
- distribution of wealth affects political processes

4. Cases
- Saudi Arabia
(Hertog)
- Iran

- SA has "masterfully" used a combination of repression and distribution to maintain stability
- Iran: focused only on repression which turned out to be counter-productive (no patrimonial ties with traditional elites)

- dynastic states:  chieftaincy and state in Arabia – varied forms, depending on degree of external (British) intervention – e.g. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Oman

5. Main thinkers
Rebekka:
- Hertog 2007
- Beblawi & Luciani 1987
- Luciani 1990
Amanda:
- Champion 2003
- Lowi 2009

Seminar question:  How useful analytically is the concept of the ‘rentier state’ in seeking to explain state-society relations in the oil producing states of the Middle East and North Africa?
Previous exam questions:
1) How far is it the case that the political processes in all the major oil producing states of the Middle East are broadly similar, despite their outward differences? Illustrate your answer with reference to MORE THAN ONE Middle Eastern country.
2) To what extent does the concept of the ‘rentier state’ help to explain the survival of the existing monarchies of the Arabian peninsula?

ignoring fine grain of very different political orders and trajectories in e.g. Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iran

much more going on in politics than ‘rentier state’ theory can account for, even in framework of a rentier economy

more productive to look at this from other perspectives [shadow state, lineages of absolutist state, revolutionary societies and moments, military politics, politics of the clan etc

Hanieh, Adam:

The rentier-state theory relies on the assumption of the “autonomy” of the state vis-à-vis the people, which presupposes a distinction between the state and the society.

“..this approach is misleading since it views the state as a separate object – severed from the class relations of Gulf society – with politics interpreted as the struggle over this object.” (12)

“Within the rentier framework the analytical focus is typically placed upon the state (usually assumed to be opposed to an all-encompassing “society”) with little attention given to capitalism as a social system.” (12)

“Care must be taken when speaking about the “autonomy” of the state. In capitalist society, the state apparatus acts to articulate and manage the interests of the capitalist class” (13)

1. Defininig the "rentier state" theory (Mahdavy, Beblawi, Luciani)

2. How does the "rentier state" explain the survival? (implications)

1. Autonomy of the regime from the people - do not need consent, no representation without taxation

2. Government has economic monopoly - "rentier mentality"

3. Passive citizens - "rentier mentality"

4. Absence of independent middle class and working class > missing infrastructure for political struggle

5. "the social contract" -- ability to buy political support

6. > this would explain absence of democratisation

3.  "It is certainly true that it was trying to assess the political impact of massive oil revenues, and this may help us to think about how governments manage - or mismanage - rentier economies, but it is very problematic as a theory of state" + > WHY PROBLEMATIC?

1. Generalises  if there is oil, the political process will always be the same

2. Reductionist - the state as a mirror of the economy

3. Ignores preexisting structure / historical contingencies (colonialism, US impact, neo-colonialism

4. Ignores international influence (neo-colonialism, US involvement)

3) To what extent does the concept of the ‘rentier state’ provide a useful way of understanding and comparing the politics of major oil producing states? Illustrate your answer with reference to MORE THAN ONE Middle Eastern country.

- Concept/defiinition
- Political processes
- Similarity / differences > generalisability
- oil-production
- monarchy and persistance

# data[].attributes.body
The State

The Shadow State

State Class and Military

The Developmental State

The Rentier State

Dynastic Rule

Accountability

Nationalism

Revolution

War

# data[].attributes.body
Marx: Political superstructure based on an economic base; the capitalist class = the state

Weber (1919): monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force / human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

Gramsci: either government in its narrow sense (political society), or whole machinery of rule and hegemony of the ruling class; state = political society + civil society

Shirin: Agency vs. Structure