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=C2=A9=20Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung?= Date: Wed, 7 May 2025 17:15:55 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; type="text/html"; boundary="----MultipartBoundary--KiKJfwWqxWXGItf7Tq15W9nMcW38NOGCkkFzwq0Qlq----" ------MultipartBoundary--KiKJfwWqxWXGItf7Tq15W9nMcW38NOGCkkFzwq0Qlq---- Content-Type: text/html Content-ID: Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: https://library.fes.de/fulltext/id/01712.htm State failure, globalization, and regime conflict : origins of contemporary= international terrorism in the Middle East / Herbert Kitschelt - [Electronic ed.] - Bonn, 2003 - 31 S. =3D 220 KB, Te= xt . - (Frieden und Sicherheit) - ISBN 3-89892-222-7 <br>Literaturverz. S. 29 - 31. - Electronic ed.: Bonn : FES Library, = 2003 <br><br><font size=3D-1><i>=A9 Friedrich-Ebert-Stif= tung</i></font>
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State failure, globalization, and regime conflict : origins of contemporary= international terrorism in the Middle East / Herbert Kitschelt - [Electronic ed.] - Bonn, 2003 - 31 S. =3D 220 KB, Te= xt . - (Frieden und Sicherheit) - ISBN 3-89892-222-7
Literaturverz. S. 29 - 31. - Electronic ed.: Bonn : FES Library, 2003

=A9 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

=3D"INHALT"


The Primacy of Politics: State Fai= lure and Economic Deprivation

The Challengers: Actors and Asp= irations in the Islamist Struggle

The Strategic Interaction bet= ween Regime Incumbents and Challengers

The Course and Consequence of= Terrorist Mobilization

Cross-Regional Comparison: Is= International Terrorism an Islamic Phenomenon?

Bibliography

[Zusammenfassung]

[page-number of print-ed.: 1]

Herbert Kitschelt:
State Failure, Globalization, and Regime Conflict: Origins of Contemporary = International Terrorism in the Middle East*

Moral judgments about the ethical justification of= political protest, violent insurrection and even terrorism must presuppose= an answer to two positive, empirical and analytical causal question: First= , are the human beings, collective actors and institutions that become targ= ets of violent or non-violent attack causally responsible for the human suf= fering and deprivations invoked by the agents of protest and insurrection a= s motivation for their actions? What and who brings about unwanted social c= onsequences against which human beings protest? Second, if the "efficient c= auses" of human suffering have been identified, are the actions of the insu= rrectionist "causally adequate" in addressing and remedying the existing st= ate of affairs? And if not, why do actors fight unwanted states of affairs = with causally inadequate strategies?

Positive empirical-analytical theory establishes t= he causal linkages between actors and consequences. Normative theory assess= es the justifiability of consequences and of causally feasible pathways tow= ard them. For example, are current societal mechanisms of allocating scarce= resources morally justifiable, given their contribution to the individual = welfare or social self-respect of members of society? Are feasible courses = of action to correct unjustifiable distributive outcomes morally defensible= ? Positive social science theory, however, can assist normative deliberatio= ns in once critical respect. At least within a mildly rationalistic ethical= discourse, sober minds would agree on the following proposition: Causal= ly inadequate courses of action can never be morally justified. But pos= itive theory may explain why such actions nevertheless occur.

My paper is concerned only with the positive theor= etical questions applied to political regimes in the Middle East and other = countries with predominantly Islamic populations. It seeks to throw light o= n societal deprivations and grievances that create challenges to political = regimes in this region. It then examines the strategic configurations of re= gime incumbents and challengers that may shape their patterns of interactio= n and political outcomes. International terrorism is a particular move on t= he part of opponents to established political rule that occurs under identi= fiable, specific conditions, namely when the regime incumbents have suffici= ent resources to be intransigent to challenger demands and the challengers = themselves are unable to assemble a broad coalition of dissatisfied constit= uencies.

The empirical core of my paper is a causal account= of political tensions surrounding political regimes in the Islamic region = with a specific emphasis on Islamist terrorism unfolding over the past thir= ty years and reaching its climax in the attack on the twin towers of New Yo= rk's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September of 2001. As in all ca= usal stories in the social sciences, but many other sciences as well, an ex= planatory account is probabilistic and constructs a complex interaction of = forces and actions that bring about the consequences to be explained. Becau= se of the probabilistic nature of causal relations and the complexity of th= e social world, social scientific knowledge can retrospectively explain cer= tain events with some plausibility, but does not lend itself to making p= oint predictions about the future occurrence of particular events. For = this reason, economists and political scientists could not predict the timi= ng and process yielding the collapse of the Soviet Union, although they had= pretty good insights into the allocational inefficiencies of a planned eco= nomy and the political strains brought about by a repressive polity. Nor ca= n social scientists predict the precise trajectory of a specific stock mark= et bubble or the electoral victory of a particular political party just as = little as geologists can predict the precise timing and location of a major= earthquake, even if they have a deep understanding of plate tectonics.<= b>(1= )

In order to motivate the normative-moral relevance= of my causal account about social deprivations, political rule and insurre= ction, let me contrast the theory of "state failure" I advocate in this pap= er to a stylized al-

[page-number of print-ed.: 2]

ternative account emphasizing exogenous economic a= nd cultural processes. In its ideal-typical simplicity, the alternative may= not represent any living political ideologue's or social scientist's actua= l reasoning, but elements of it are implied in many positive or normative d= iscourses about contemporary international terrorism and its justifiability= . The stylized theoretical adversary is a descendant of imperialism theorie= s ranging from Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin to its latter-day incarnation in de= pendency theories of the 1960s and 1970s and their most recent revival amon= g critics of economic globalization. The essential argument is that socio-e= conomic deprivation in poor and less-developed societies result from and ar= e exacerbated by such countries' economic, political and cultural interacti= on with the capitalist West. The capitalist West is the exogenous source of= immizeration in the developing world. In economic terms, global markets fo= r goods, services, capital and human beings, unrestrained by local tariffs = on or the national regulation of such cross-border flows, create asymmetrie= s of exchange that systematically disadvantage the holders of valuable asse= ts in the less developed world. Economic globalization results in changing = terms of trade benefiting the advanced capitalist countries and thus fuels = poverty, inequality, and political repressiveness of "Third World" predator= y regimes that stand in the service of the hegemonic power(s) of the world = economic system. Furthermore, economic globalization uproots indigenous cul= tures and identities and thus provokes a backlash. Islamic terrorism agains= t the West may therefore be one extreme incarnation of an anti-imperialist = insurrection with the purpose of unleashing the poor countries' socio-econo= mic potential while simultaneously preserving their cultural identity and u= nique normative communities within the domestic socio-cultural fabric.

From this perspective, international terrorism is = an extreme strategy to defend an existing way of life, including both econo= mic well-being and the social identity of Third World citizens, against the= overpowering forces of world market incorporation, led by capitalist Weste= rn polities. Even theories postulating a "clash of civilizations" (Huntingt= on 1996) can be made compatible with a dependency based account of insurrec= tional activities and terrorism emanating from less developed countries. In= ternational terrorism and local civil wars involve a "cultural clash" with = the West in which the preservation of traditional religious beliefs provide= s a critical focal point to fight off a rising external political and econo= mic threat. Unlike modernization theory, where culture tends to be a passiv= e medium of social coordination that is subordinated to and follows economi= c change with some time lag, the current successors of political-economic d= ependency and imperialism theories conceive of non-Western cultures as foun= tains of social identity formation that organize resistance to the imperati= ves of capitalist world markets.

Against dependency and imperialism theories, as we= ll as a variety of cultural accounts of insurrectional activity in Third Wo= rld countries, I advance here a theory of state failure. In contrast to sim= ple developmentalist accounts, the domestic quality of governance ultimatel= y affects the nature of political struggles and corresponding regime perfor= mance. The development of markets proceeds only if there are non-market ins= titutions in place that make possible, nurture, and preserve free market co= ntracting, thereby lowering individuals discount rates and encouraging savi= ngs and investment. Only if state institutions that enable and enforce effi= cient voluntary contracting are present can globalization proceed and facil= itate economic growth. Where political institutions are inimical to economi= c development, globalization has little chance to do any good. From this pe= rspective, the source of social deprivation, strain and ultimately violent = conflict is the absence of state institutions conducive to market contracti= ng. Bad institutions, in turn, coincide with a resistance to or failure of = globalization. I argue, therefore, that Islamist international terror= ism is associated with polities and regions of the world where economic glo= balization has not taken place because public institutions do not support t= he development of viable capitalist markets.

To make this perspective analyticall= y more satisfying, institutions and practices of governance should be accou= nted for as well. I explore the causal role of four mechanisms in shaping p= olitical governance: (1) patterns of property rights and asset control befo= re market development and before and during colonialism; (2) the impact of = colonial practices on the governance of contemporary states; (3) natural re= source rents in lieu of taxation as prime source of state revenue; and (4) = the role of religious doctrines in the governance of societies and in insur= rectional challenges to the incumbents. Even under condition of weak or fai= led political institutions, however, insurrection and international terrori= sm are not the inevitable, natural political outcome. If challengers to inc= umbent elites appear, terrorism and its international variant, as currently= emanating from the Islamic Middle East, constitute only one among several = pathways in which regime conflict may articulate itself. I therefore discus= s how political opportunity structures and strategic capabilities of regime= incumbents and challengers may translate into different sequences of polit= ical interaction. Applied to Middle Eastern Islamist movements, internation= al terrorism

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is only one, and probably not the predominant res= ponse of challenging groups in an environment of failed states and failed g= lobalization. The final sections of the paper speculate about the future co= urse of international terrorism and its development in geographical regions= where it has not yet occurred.

The design of my explanatory account follows a sim= ple scheme derived from theories of rebellious mobilization, social movemen= ts and revolutions (e.g., Della Porta and Diani 1999; Parsa 2000). For such= political mobilization to take place, intense, widely experienced human su= ffering and deprivation must exist (section 1). For such suffering to motiv= ate mobilization, political ideologues must articulate interests and a broa= d cultural interpretation that explains to potential activists how deprivat= ions have come about and how to overcome them (section 2). These interpreta= tions can be disseminated to target constituencies only if political opport= unities are conducive for political entrepreneurs to overcome collective ac= tion problems and build insurrectional organizations. What this involves is= a strategic interaction between forces protecting the status quo and those= challenging it (section 3). In case of contemporary Islamist movements, th= is process has led to a splintering of different challenging groups and an = isolation of radicals who have resorted to sectarian terrorist strategy (se= ction 4). International terrorism is a sign of the weakness, and not of the= strength, of Islamist movements in the Middle East to challenge the regime= incumbents (Kepel 2002). The observable dynamic in the Middle East may not= be unique, although I do not currently see other places on earth where con= ditions would fuel an effective international terrorist mobilization (secti= on 5).

The Primacy of= Politics: State Failure and Economic Deprivation

Economic affluence and growth are the fountains no= t only of physical and material well-being, but of social integration as we= ll. Widespread material affluence is a necessary, but not a sufficient caus= e for the absence of intense political struggles. Deprivations imposed by e= conomic distress, stagnation and decline are a principal source of civic st= rife, rebellions, revolutions, and terrorist activity. Not by chance, there= fore, political regimes tend to collapse in times of economic misery (Przew= orski and Limongi 1997). But politics is also at the heart of economic grow= th. I first turn to the linkage between political life and economic success= or failure. Then I consider the causes of predatory political regimes that= prevent the emergence of a virtuous circle between politics and economic g= rowth. In both respects, I empirically illustrate my arguments with data fr= om the Middle East and the Islamic world more generally, the geographical a= reas from which international terrorist organizations have emerged most rec= ently. The fact that this region has produced extraordinary economic grieva= nces, however, is not by itself the cause of international terrorism.

State Power and Econo= mic Development

Taking their lead from Adam Smith, normative liber= al political philosophers (Nozick 1973) as well as social theorists (Polany= i 1946) realized that markets are fragile, vulnerable rule-based modes of s= ocial coordination that are likely to collapse in the absence of external i= nstitutions to enforce rule compliance, above all those of the state. State= s establish a monopoly over the control of means of coercion, depriving all= market participants from the option to resort to violence as an alternativ= e to voluntary contracting as mode of allocating scarce resources. Moreover= , states can address a variety of market failures by providing collective g= oods and preventing collective bads. Such goods/bads include a judicial sys= tem, external military protection, safeguards to protect the commons (natur= al environment) and facilities to enable all members of society to become o= r to remain competent participants in the market order (e.g. by providing a= modicum of education, health care, unemployment and retraining services). = This also implies the maintenance of only moderate inequality in the social= order, as both extreme wealth and income differentials as well as strong e= galitarianism enforced via redistributive mechanisms remove incentives for = investment and accumulation.

Whether or not states deliver such goods and servi= ces, however, depends on the power and dispositions of the rulers. Market p= articipants would want states that are strong enough to protect and enforce= property rights and expedite the process of economic accumulation, but not= so strong as to empower the rulers to expropriate the market participants = themselves (Weingast 1995). Rulers become predatory, if their power is unch= ecked and if they have short time horizons (high discount rates) that make = the expropriation of current market participants through very high tax rate= s, followed by weak investments and economic growth, preferable to lower ta= x rates, followed by strong investment and high growth that would deliver g= reat wealth to rulers in the more distant future. Rulers have high discount= rates, when they are under immediate internal or external threat of extinc= tion (Levi 1988).

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Their discount rates may also be high in the oppo= site circumstance, if they face no internal or external threat of extinctio= n at all. In both instances, predatory exploitation of the citizenry is the= dominant strategy of political incumbents.

The rulers' discount rates and their propensity to= predation are lowest, when they face moderate international and domestic i= nsecurity about their own position of rule. Self-enforcing systems of insti= tutions that establish checks and balances among power holders establish mo= derate domestic insecurity and make it impossible for any one of the rulers= to create a power monopoly with predatory consequences. Facilities to brin= g this about are the separation of powers both in functional as well as ter= ritorial-jurisdictional terms (federalism). Moderate international insecuri= ty results from organized state systems with a small number of competing st= ates or blocs of states none of which has military supremacy over all the o= thers taken together. Moderate international and domestic insecurity feed u= pon each other, when in a state system members of each polity have the capa= city to exit one state and join another. The threat of exit by its members = restricts the predatory capacity of the rulers (Thibout 1956). Before we re= turn to the causes of predatory government, however, let us examine the con= sequences of predation.

In addition to a very high rate of extraction/expl= oi-tation, predatory rule entails the absence of formal institutions in whi= ch rulers would make credible commitments to the economic property rights a= nd civic liberties of their subjects. Access to resources is based on perso= nal connections and relations of loyalty rather than binding rules and laws= . Following Weber, Juan Linz calls this regime "sultanism" to indicate the = arbitrary and often unpredictable character of rule experienced in the Midd= le East (Linz and Stepan, 1996; Chehabi and Linz, 1998). Correlates of pred= atory rule are (1) high levels of corruption; (2) patrimonial and neo-patri= monial resource allocation (clientelism, patronage); (3) low levels of civi= l service competence and professionalism; and (4) few civil and political l= iberties. In predatory regimes, government consumptive expenditures are hig= h relative to the economic development of the polity and rates of domestic = investment are low, either because the rulers consume so much of the wealth= generated and/or capital flight transfers a substantial share of wealth ab= road. Predatory rule furthermore leads to high population growth, net of le= vels of economic affluence of a country (see Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub a= nd Limongi 2000: chapter 5). Because predatory rulers invest little in soci= al infrastructure, such as health care and education, rates of mortality ar= e high and life expectancy is low. Repressive acts of government further wo= rsen the picture. People respond to this insecurity by high fertility rates= . A numerous offspring should secure that at least some children grow up to= participate in family-based hedging strategies against the adversities of = life under predatory governments.

Predatory rule also has implications for the globa= lization of the economy. It is inimical to trade openness and the free move= ment of capital. Imports and exports are favorite transaction points at whi= ch predatory rulers and their henchmen capture rents. They have to administ= er capital movements in order to prevent subjects from employing the transf= er of resources abroad as a vote of no-confidence in a predatory government= . Globalization thus threatens predatory rule and potentially shifts the ba= lance of power in a polity from a small core of rulers to a broader mass of= property holders.

There is a sophisticated econometric literature th= at has established several important consequences of predatory government (= for a review until 1999, see Landa and Kapstein 2001). While such results w= ill always remain contentious among economists and political scientists, th= ey are empirically about as robust as any encountered in these social scien= ces. They confirm the relationships between arbitrary rule, economic growth= , inequality, and globalization postulated above.

(1) Predatory rule, as measured by the absence of = institutions protecting property rights and nurturing collective goods, dep= resses economic growth. Bad institutions (traced by indicators of corruptio= n, absence of rule of law, etc.) trump all other potential rival explanatio= ns of cross- national diversity in long-term economic growth and they are t= hemselves not statistically endogenous to such other causes or to economic = growth itself (Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson 2001; Easterly 2001; Easterl= y and Levine 2002; Rodrik, Subramanian and Trebbi 2002).

This does not imply that democracies create greate= r growth than all authoritarian regimes, even once we control for the endog= eneity problem that either democracies or authoritarian regimes may break d= own faster when economies decline (Przeworski et al. 2000: chapter 3). Some= authoritarian regimes are non-predatory and may in fact deliver better eco= nomic growth than democracies because the former offer more certainty to in= vestors than the latter. But many authoritarian regimes are predatory and o= ffset the advantageous economic performance under non-predatory authoritari= anism by wretched economic performance under predatory rule. Hence all we m= ay be able to say about the relationship between authoritarian regimes, de-=

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mocracy and economic growth is that authoritarian = regimes display economic growth patterns that are highly volatile over t= ime and variable across space. Among authoritarian regimes, non-predato= ry types may deliver exceptionally good growth whereas predatory types deli= ver particularly disappointing economic results. By contrast, democracies h= ave on average no better economic performance than authoritarian polities, = but they display less volatility of variance of growth, failing to deliver = either spectacular or atrocious economic outcomes (Quinn and Woolley 2001).=

(2) Inequality depresses economic growth, especial= ly in interaction with political instability, a common correlate of predato= ry rule (Alesina and Perotti 1996; Alesina and Rodrik 1994). Because inequa= lity generates pressures for redistribution and thus instability, it tends = to lower investment rates. Moreover, high resource concentration makes it d= ifficult to dissipate investment funds. A commonly asserted negative relati= onship between redistribution and economic growth can be (over-)compensated= , provided policies aiming at greater equalization coincide with predictabl= e, stable institutional frameworks and especially policies that provide col= lective goods (education, etc.) or that lower transaction costs of market e= conomies (cf. Landa and Kapstein 2001: 282-9).

(3) Globalization in markets for goods, services, = and capital promotes economic growth, but only if non-predatory domestic po= litical institutions are in place (Rodrik 1999; World Bank Policy Research = Report 2002). Where predatory rulers disable their subjects from acquiring = the assets and competencies to compete in international markets, globalizat= ion of markets has detrimental effects.(2)

(4) The effect of globalization on inequality is c= ontingent upon the quality of institutions and the propensity of rulers to = invest in education and health care. Trade openness and especially foreign = direct investment/technology transfer may have the effect of increasing ine= quality, because they tend to boost the demand for more qualified labor, yi= elding a skill premium on wages for scarce talent. This wage inequality is = greater in predatory regimes that do not counteract inequality and skill sh= ortages by boosting the supply of educated workers through government polic= ies investing in education and health care (Aghion and Williamson 1998; Wor= ld Bank Policy Research Report 2002).

Herbst (2000) and especially Van de Walle (2001) h= ave written superb books on the economic consequences of predatory regimes = in Africa that make depressing reading. A volume edited by Beissinger and Y= oung (2002) compares predatory regimes and failing states in Africa and pos= tcommunist Central Asia. Several other books examine countries in the Middl= e East as predatory regimes (cf. Waterbury 1993; Richards and Waterbury 199= 6; Henry and Springborg 2001). Let us now simply provide some empirical evi= dence that Middle Eastern countries tend to have predatory governments that= are associated with bad economic performance over recent decades. These co= nditions, in turn, generate a potential popular sentiment of political diss= atisfaction. We will be looking at the relationship between predatory gover= nments, economic growth, and globalization, as stipulated in findings (1) a= nd (3) above. Unfortunately, the evidence on patterns of inequality in the = Middle East is too spotty and unreliable to permit systematic comparison. A= key feature of inequality, however, it the concentrated control over natur= al resources and the rents their sale generates for Middle Eastern economie= s. Natural resource rents, particularly those derived from oil exports, how= ever, are a feature that characterizes inequality in many Middle Eastern po= lities and has major detrimental economic and political consequences.

Predat= ory Rule

Predatory rule is limited to a subset of au= thoritarian regimes. Predatory government provides neither popular particip= ation in and control of government nor safeguards for private property righ= ts, such as a secure rule of law. A classification of world-wide political = regime according to the extent to which they guarantee democratic rule deve= loped by Diamond from Freedom House ratings of civic and political rights a= llows us to gauge the general potential for predatory rule in a region (tab= le 1). The Middle East is the only region in which there is no single full = liberal democracy with well-protected civil and political rights aside from= Israel. Turkey qualifies as an "ambiguous regime" (score 4), Lebanon, Iran= and Yemen as "competitive authoritarian" (score 3), and all others as hege= monic electoral authoritarian (score 2) or closed authoritarian (score 1). = The potential for predatory rule in the Middle East is thus even greater th= an in Sub-Saharan Africa or Asia.

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TABLE 1: MIDDLE EASTERN POLIT= ICAL REGIMES IN GLOBAL COMPARISON (END OF 2001)

REGION

AVERAGE REGIME SCORE =

(6 =3D liberal democracy;
1 =3D closed authoritarian rule)

STANDARD DEVIATIONS

NUMBER OF COUNTRIES <= /font>

(N of full democracies in
brackets)

WESTERN DEMOCRACIES =

6.0

0.0

24 European countrie= s plus four Anglo-Saxon
settler democracies

LATIN AMERICA
(including Carribean and
Central America, excluding
8 Carribbean micro-polities)

4.92

1.22

25 countries
(9 full democracies)

POSTCOMMUNIST REGION=

4.33

1.71

27 countries
(11 full democracies)

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

3.31

1.60

48 countries
(5 full democracies)

ASIA
(East, Southeast, South)

3.16

1.95

25 countries
(3 full democracies)

MIDDLE EAST-
NORTH AFRICA

2.05

1.31

19 countries
(1 full: Israel)

Source: coded from Diamond (2002: 2= 9-30). Liberal democracy =3D 6; electoral democracy =3D 5; ambiguous regime= =3D 4; competitive authoritarian regime =3D 3; hegemonic electoral authori= tarian =3D 2; politically closed authoritarian =3D 1.

Table 2 (see page 7) provides some indirect tracers= of predatory authoritarian rule, as captured by the lack of control over c= orruption, the absence of the rule of law, and weak government effectivenes= s. The scores on these attributes are based on expert judgments of numerous= rating agencies, consolidated in a single data set by Kaufmann, Kraay and = Zoido-Lobaton (2002). The grouping of countries should not yet suggest a ca= usal argument, but nevertheless provide some analytical order within the mu= ltitude of political regimes around the globe. To give a sense of perspecti= ve, advanced Western capitalist OECD countries generally score in excess of= +1.50 on each of the indices (rule of law, control of corruption and gover= nment effectiveness). At the other end of the spectrum, the worst scores ca= n be found among postcommunist Central Asian countries with scores mostly b= elow -1.00 and Sub-Saharan Africa with most scores in the -.50 to -1.00 ran= ge.

The first group of Middle Eastern countries consis= ts of populous oil producers with moderate ratios of oil revenue per capita= . They are generally characterized by very intense predatory rule.(3) Borderline cases of rather modest per capita oil production include E= gypt, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, although all of them indirectly benefit from= neighboring large oil producers that offer jobs to temporary migrants from= these countries. With the partial exception of Egypt whose scores may be b= etter than the case study literature suggests (e.g. Henry and Springborg 20= 01: 138-66), all of these Middle Eastern regimes conform to a pattern of pr= edatory governance. Henry and Springborg (2001: 63-4) refer to these politi= cal regimes as "bunker states" or at least "bully states" (Egypt). <= /p>

The next group in table 2 consists of oil producin= g countries with very high levels of oil revenue per capita either because = their populations are so small or, in Saudi Arabia's case, because their oi= l revenues are so vast. These wealthy microstates can afford to maintain au= thoritarian rule with only a modicum of predation because they control huge= natural resource rents. In contrast to members of group I, the tremendous = oil resources controlled by rulers in group II helped them to bribe their p= eoples and prevent the replacement of monarchies with military and one-part= y rulers in the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s so familiar among members of group I.=

A partial outlier in group II is Saudi Arabia with= distinctly higher scores of predatory rule than common for the rest of the= group. Saudi Arabia is situated at

[page-number of print-ed.: 7]

TABLE 2: CORRELATES OF PREDAT= ORY RULE (2000/2001)

<= /tr>
 

RULE OF LAW

CONTROL OF CORRUPTIO= N

GOVERNMENT EFFECTIVE= NESS

AVERAGE PREDATION IN= DEX

PER CAP

GDP IN 1999
($ AT PPP)

<= /td>

I. POPULOUS MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES (low oil revenue/population= ratios)

ALGERIA (30)<= /p>

-.97

-.62

-.81

-.80

4,753

EGYPT (62)

.21

-.16

+.27

+.11

3,303

IRAN (63)

=

-.39

-.64

-.21

-.41

5,163

IRAQ (23)

=

-1.64

-1.15

-1.41

-1.40

no data

LIBYA (5)

=

-.89

-.90

-1.12

-.97

no data

SUDAN (31)

-1.09

-1.24

-1.34

-1.21

no data

SYRIA (16)

-.52

-.83

-.81

-.72

2,761

YEMEN (17)

-1.12

-.70

-.77

-.86

688

group average

-.80

-.78

-.86

-.80

  

II. NON-POPULOUS MIDDLE EASTERN OIL PRODUCERS (high oil revenue/= population ratios)

BAHRAIN (0.6)=

.42

.04

.62

.36

no data

KUWAIT (1.9)<= /p>

1.10

.54

.13

.67

no data

OMAN (2.5)

1.06

.44

.85

.78

no data

QUATAR 0.6)

1.00

.57

.82

.80

no data

SAUDI ARABIA (28)

.19

-.35

.00

-.05

no data

U. A. E. (2.6)

1.12

.13

.60

.62

no data

group average

.82

.23

.50

.53

  

III. MEDIUM AND SMALL MIDDLE EASTERN NON-OIL PRODUCERS

JORDAN (5)

.66

.09

.42

.39

3,542

LEBANON (4) <= /p>

-.05

-.63

-.02

-.23

4,129

MOROCCO (28)<= /p>

.46

.44

.10

.33

3,190

TUNISIA (9)

.81

.86

1.30

.99

5,478

group average

.47

.19

.45

.37

  

IV. LARGE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE MIDDLE EASTERN CORE/NON-= OIL PRODUCERS

BANGLADESH (128)

-.76

-.64

-.54

-.64

1,475

INDONESIA (207)

-.87

-1.01

-.50

-.79

2,439

MALAYSIA (23)=

.34

.13

.53

.33

7,963

PAKISTAN (135)

-.74

-.79

-.48

-.67

1,757

TURKEY (64)

-.16

-.48

-.15

-.26

6,126

group average

-.44

-.56

-.23

-.41

  

V. FAST GROWING EAST AND SOUTH ASIAN NON-ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

CHINA (1,250)=

-.19

-.30

.14

-.12

3,291

INDIA (998)

.23

-.39

-.17

-.11

2,149

S. KOREA (47)=

.55

.37

.44

.45

14,637

 

.20

-.11

.14

.07

  

SOURCE: Kaufman, Kraay, and Zoido-L= obaton (2002); World Bank (2001);

[page-number of print-ed.: 8]

least halfway between group II and group I. This ma= y reflect the changing status of the Saudi political regime. As rapid popul= ation growth lowers the level of oil revenue per capita, incumbent rulers h= ave fewer resources to co-opt potential challengers. The regime therefore i= s in need of relying on more repressive techniques to enforce civil complia= nce rather than cooptation based on material side-payments, a topic to whic= h I will return below in section 3. Rapid Saudi population growth may reduc= e the per capita oil revenues of the country sufficiently to make it progre= ssively more difficult for Saudi Arabia to buy citizens' loyalty with mater= ial inducements. Instead, the regime relies on more authoritarian practices= and may become less stable.

The third group in table 2 consists of two small t= o medium size monarchies and two republics without oil resources. Also here= , levels of predation are generally lower than in the bunker and bully stat= es of group I. Except in Tunisia, group III income levels are not greater t= han those of several group I bunker states, but their propensity to predati= on is lower. The lower bargaining power of regime incumbents may help a lit= tle to restrain the rulers' authoritarianism and predatory practices. Leban= on qualifies as competitive authoritarianism, whereas Jordan, Morocco and T= unisia are authoritarianisms with electoral and parliamentary facade (Diamo= nd 2002: 28).

The fourth group consists of large Islamic countri= es outside the Middle East, typically endowed with rather modest oil resour= ces relative to population size (with the partial exception of Indonesia). = In these countries, the quality of institutions is closely related to wealt= h, with the wealthier countries having less predatory governments than the = Middle Eastern reference cases and very poor countries, such as Bangladesh = and Pakistan, having less predation than many more affluent oil-rich Middle= Eastern countries (such as Algeria, Iraq, Libya, or Syria). While none of = these countries has developed a stable democracy with firm civil and politi= cal rights, all of them have intermediate, hybrid regimes. Based on scores = for 2000-2001, Diamond (2002) rates Bangladesh comparatively closest to a f= ull democracy with civic and political rights. The country qualifies as an = electoral democracy, followed by Indonesia and Turkey as ambiguous regimes = and Malaysia as competitive authoritarian regime. Pakistan is currently a h= egemonic electoral authoritarianism, but has experienced several spells of = electoral democracy in the past. Moreover, rather open, competitive legisla= tive elections have moved the country toward a competitive authoritarianism= in 2002-3.

For reasons of broader comparison, I add a final g= roup of non-Islamic and non-Middle Eastern rapidly growing economies. Even = controlling for per capita income levels, these countries' institutions are= less predatory than those of Middle Eastern bunker and bully states, as we= ll as non-Middle Eastern large Islamic countries, with the exception of Mal= aysia. Overall, predatory rule appears to be most pronounced in the core po= pulous states of the Middle East, followed by Islamic countries in the peri= phery. Very affluent oil rentier microstates, however, have better institut= ions, as do non-oil Middle Eastern countries and non-oil and non-Islamic ra= pidly developing Asian countries.

Preda= tory Rule and Economic Growth

Does predatory rule translate into greater = socio-economic strains and weak economic growth? And what possible role, if= any, could religion play in such patterns of economic growth? Answering th= ese questions requires complicated multivariate econometric statistical tec= hnology that incorporates a fully specified theoretical model and considers= endogeneity of some variables and interaction effects. This project has be= en pursued by others sufficiently well to draw on their findings.(4)= Predatory rule matters, but religion does not, provided appropriate st= atistical controls are added such as investment rates in social infrastruct= ure (education) that boost economic performance.

Table 3 (see page 9) provides data for the period = from 1990 to 1999 on economic growth rates, population growth and growth ra= tes per capita member of the labor force (aged 15-64) for the Middle East a= nd a few external reference cases, including a broad regional comparison.(5<= /a>) Because of missing controls, such as levels of GDP/capita at t= he beginning of the time period, trade openness, or dependence on natural r= esource exports, and of many missing cases of Middle Eastern countries that= simply do not report relevant data, as well as the skewedness of the sampl= e of countries listed here, no direct inferences can be drawn from the pres= ence or absence of simple bivariate relations between predatory governance = scores reported in table 2 and effective per capita labor force GDP growth = reported in table 3. The missing cases are not randomly distributed. Almost= the entire group of small oil-wealthy micropolities as well as many predat= ory regimes disappear in table 3 because they do not sur-

[page-number of print-ed.: 9]

TABLE 3: ECONOMIC AND DEMOGRA= PHIC DEVELOPMENTS 1990-1999

= = = = = = <= /tr> = <= /tr> <= /tr> = = <= /tr> = = = = <= /tr>
 

ANNUAL GROWTH OF GDP=

ANNUAL POPULATION GR= OWTH

ANNUAL LABOR FORCE G= ROWTH (15-64 YEAR OLD)

PER CAPITA
ANNUAL LABOR FORCE GDP GROWTH

AVERAGE
PREDATION
INDEX)

I. POPULOUS MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES (low oil revenue/populat= ion ratios)

ALGERIA (30)<= /p>

1.6

2.2

4.0

-2.4

-.80

EGYPT (62)

4.4

1.9

2.9

+1.5

+.11

IRAN (63)

=

3.4

1.6

2.4

+1.0

-.41

SYRIA (16)

5.7

2.8

4.0

+1.7

-.72

YEMEN (17)

3.0

4.0

4.7

-1.7

-.86

pop. weighted group average (188)

3.6

2.1

3.2

0.4

  

II. NON-POPULOUS MIDDLE EASTERN OIL PRODUCERS (high oil reven= ue/population ratios)

SAUDI ARABIA (28)

1.6

3.4

3.1

-1.5

-.05

III. MEDIUM AND SMALL MIDDLE EASTERN NON-OIL PRODUCERS=

JORDAN (5)

4.8

4.4

5.2

-0.4

.39

LEBANON (4)

(7.7)

1.8

3.1

(+4.6)

-.23

MOROCCO (28)<= /p>

2.3

1.8

2.7

-0.4

.33

TUNISIA (9)

4.6

1.6

2.8

+1.8

.99

pop. weighted
group average (46)

3.5

2.0

3.0

0.5

  

IV. LARGE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE MIDDLE EASTERN CORE/N= ON-OIL PRODUCERS

BANGLADESH(128)

4.8

1.6

3.0

+1.8

-.64

INDONESIA (207)

4.7

1.7

2.6

+2.1

-.79

MALAYSIA (23)=

6.3

2.5

3.0

+3.3

.33

PAKISTAN (135)

4.0

2.5

2.8

+1.2

-.67

TURKEY (64)

4.1

1.5

2.8

+1.3

-.26

pop. weighted
group average (557)

4.6

1.8

2.8

1.8

  

V. FAST GROWING EAST AND SOUTH ASIAN NON-ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

CHINA( 1,250)=

10.7

1.1

1.3

+9.4

-.12

INDIA (998)

6.1

1.8

2.3

+3.8

-.11

S. KOREA (47)=

5.7

1.0

2.1

+3.6

.45

pop. weighted gro= up average (2,295)

8.6

1.4

1.8

6.9

  

CROSS-REGIONAL COMPARISON

EAST ASIA (1837)

7.4

1.3

1.5

+5.9

no data

South Asia (1,329)

5.7

1.9

2.5

+3.2

no data

Latin America (509)<= /font>

3.4

1.7

2.5

+0.9

no data

Middle East +
North Africa (291)

3.0

2.2

3.1

-0.1

no data

SubSaharan
Africa (642)

2.4

2.6

2.6

-0.2

no data

SOURCE: World Bank (2001)

[page-number of print-ed.: 10]

render the data needed for a comprehensive, accurat= e comparative analysis of the region. The same applies to some of the most = odious predatory regimes in group I of table 2. Of course, tables 2 and 3 a= lso do not include really "high institutional quality" polities with averag= e scores in column 4 of table 2 of greater than +.50, let alone +1.00 typic= al for advanced capitalist democracies.

Table 3 therefore has a very simple descriptive pu= rpose. It shows that much of the Islamic Middle East has been in an economi= c depression throughout the 1990s. Once we control for demographics, and pa= rticularly growth of the labor force, personal incomes are close to stagnan= t or even falling slightly throughout the region. This applies to the oil p= roducing countries, but also to small to medium sized Arab neighbors withou= t oil production. Islamic countries outside the Middle East have performed = slightly better (group IV) and fast growing East and South Asian economies = with on average better and less predatory institutions have performed even = much better than Asian Islamic countries (group V). In part, computationall= y this is due to lower population growth in non-Islamic Asian countries tha= n in the Islamic world, but this correlation may not constitute a causal li= nk, if demographics is itself endogenous to political regimes and growth ra= tes, as Przeworski et al. (2000) have suggested. If the economy is volatile= and politics insecure, people can invest less in each individual son or da= ughter for fear of losing their investment through premature death or break= -up of family support networks. Instead, they maximize the number of offspr= ing as a hedging strategy, but invest relatively little in each child.

Overall, the broad regional comparisons at the bot= tom of table 3 show that, next to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and N= orth Africa are the regions on earth that have economically performed the w= orst in the decade of the 1990s. If we added the 1980s, the picture would n= ot change much. During its "lost decade" of economic growth, Latin America = would join the club of countries with weak economic performance, while East= and South Asia were rising throughout that decade as well. There is thus n= o question that the intensity of socio-economic deprivation felt throughout= much of the Middle East has become great.

Glob= alization and Economic Misery

As a final descriptive piece of information= about the specific deprivations imposed on people living in the Middle Eas= t and the Islamic world more generally, let us consider globalization. Crit= ics of globalization would presume that greater trade exposure depresses wa= ges, leads to a decline in standards of living, and promotes greater inequa= lity. Nothing could be further from the truth (cf. World Bank Policy Resear= ch Group 2002), because good governance can counteract the negative forces = of globalization through investments in social infrastructure and safeguard= s of property rights that allow countries to turn global opening into a pro= ductive, wealth enhancing force. Our descriptive data on the Middle East in= comparative perspective illustrate that resistance to globalization is = strongly correlated with economic misery. Of course, as long as bad ins= titutions prevail in the Middle East, a global opening could not improve an= d possibly worsen economic performance. The Middle East appears to be trapp= ed in a vicious circle of low growth, bad institutions of governance, and r= esistance to economic globalization.

Table 4 (see page 11) reports levels of manufactur= ed goods exports as the total of merchandise exports in 1990 and 1998 as we= ll as annual growth rates of goods and services exports in that same period= in the Middle Eastern and reference countries employed in previous tables.= In the oil producing countries of the Middle East, low levels of exports o= f manufactured goods and services coincide with low per capita growth rates= . The picture is not much better in the non-oil Arab Middle Eastern countri= es that are functionally tied into the regional oil economy through the exp= ort of workers to oil producing regions and their remittances home to their= countries of origin (e.g., Morocco, Tunisia as well as the relatively low = oil-producing populous countries of Egypt and Syria).

The proximate cause of this economic predicament i= n all these countries is the prevalence of import substituting industrializ= ation (ISI) strategies that rely on (1) overvalued currencies that make exp= orts uncompetitive, but facilitate the administratively regulated import of= capital and consumer goods, (2) tariff and non-tariff barriers to the impo= rt of goods, services and capital and (3) a state-run bureaucratic planning= machine that allocates scarce resources, administers prices, and owns a wi= de range of industries. ISI industrialization undercuts incentives to inves= t and produce efficiently and generates a huge unproductive public employme= nt sector strategically used by authoritarian regimes to co-opt critical se= gments of the population with mediocre quasi-jobs. Just as in Latin America= from the 1940s through the 1970s, ISI based economic strategies follow an = imperative of political survival by the economic elites, but are economical= ly detrimental, when the challenge of economic development is to increase t= he sophistication and efficiency of manufac-

[page-number of print-ed.: 11]

TABLE 4: GLOBAL ECONOMIC EXPO= SURE

= <= /tr> <= /tr> <= /tr> = <= /tr> = <= /tr> <= /tr> = <= /tr> = <= /tr> = = = = = <= /tr> <= /tr> <= /tr>
 

PER CA= PITA GDP 1999

(at purchasing power parity)

MANUFA= CTURED EXPORTS
AS PERCENT OF TOTAL MERCHANIDSE EXPORTS

(percent of total exports)

<= /td>

CHANGE= IN MANUFACTURED EXPORTS AS % OF MERCHANDISE EXPORTS
1990 to 1999

PERCEN= T ANNUAL EXPORT GROWTH IN GOODS AND SERVICES

1990

1998

I. AND II. MIDDLE EASTERN OIL PRODUCERS (low OR high oil revenue= /population ratios)

ALGERIA (30)<= /p>

4,753

3

3

0

2.2

EGYPT (62)

3,303

42

44

+2

3.1

IRAN (63)

=

5,163

no data

no data

no data

no data

SAUDI ARABIA (28)

no data

7

8

+1

no data

SYRIA (16)

2,761

36

10

-26

5.2

YEMEN (17)

688

1

no data

no data

10.2

pop. weighted gro= up average (206 million)

3,875 (no Saudi A= rabia)

24 (no Saudi
Arabia)

25 (no Saudi
Arabia, Yemen)

+1 (no Saudi
Arabia, Yemen)

4.4 (no Iran, Saudi Arabia)

III. MEDIUM AND SMALL MIDDLE EASTERN NON-OIL PRODUCERS

JORDAN (5)

3,542

51

52

+1

5.5

LEBANON (4)

4,129

no data

no data

no data

15.6

MOROCCO (28)<= /p>

3,190

52

49

-3

3.0

TUNISIA (9)

5,478

69

82

+13

5.1

pop. weighted gro= up average (46)

3,758<= /p>

56

=

56

=

+1

=

4.8

IV. LARGE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE MIDDLE EASTERN CORE/NON-= OIL PRODUCERS

BANGLADESH(128)

1,473

77

91

+14

13.2

INDONESIA (207)

2,439

35

45

+10

9.2

MALAYSIA (23)=

7,963

54

79

+24

11.0

PAKISTAN (135)

1,757

79

84

+5

2.7

TURKEY (64)

6,126

68

77

+9

11.9

pop. weighted gro= up average (557)

2,703<= /p>

60

=

70

=

+10

8.9

V. FAST GROWING EAST AND SOUTH ASIAN NON-ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

CHINA( 1,250)=

3,291

72

87

+15

13.0

INDIA (998)

2,149

71

74

+3

11.3

S. KOREA (47)=

14,637

94

91

-3

15.6

pop. weighted gro= up average (2,295)

3,027<= /p>

72

=

81

=

+9

=

12.3

CROSS-REGIONAL COMPARISON

EAST ASIA (1837)

3,410

68

81

+13

12.6

South Asia (1,329)

2,030

71

77

+6

9.6

Latin America (509)<= /font>

5,580

35

49

+14

8.7

Middle East +
North Africa (291)

6,280

17

19

+2

no data

Sub-Saharan
Africa (642)

1,450

20

36

+16

4.4

Source: World Bank (2001)

[page-number of print-ed.: 12]

turing industries and services (cf. Richards and Wa= terbury 1996; Henry and Springborg 2001).

Non-oil producing Islamic countries outside the Ar= ab core of the Middle East perform better in terms of levels and growth rat= es of external trade exposure. Islamic countries with the greatest propensi= ty to embrace market and export orientation in recent decades have also exp= erienced the greatest economic success. This applies especially to Banglade= sh, Indonesia, and Malaysia, whereas Pakistan and Turkey are both polities = more wedded to the ISI development model with predictable negative conseque= nces. At least in the case of Bangladesh, not even comparatively bad instit= utions of governance (table 2) have held back the beneficial impact of trad= e openness.

Without having to plunge into the complications of= existing econometric analyses that would confirm our result, the simple de= scriptive evidence reveals a close association between economic openness an= d growth. The Middle East and Islamic North Africa constitute the regions o= n earth with the greatest resistance to globalization, as the cross-regiona= l figures in the last part of table 4 show. The Middle East ranks even behi= nd Sub-Saharan Africa in capabilities to embrace economic globalization. Ba= d institutions and anti-globalizing political propensities feed on each oth= er. Where predatory institutions exist, political actors anticipate further= economic decline form trade openness because institutional conditions give= domestic economic actors few incentives and opportunities to invest in pro= ductive capacities that allow them to take on foreign competitors successfu= lly. Thus they can never enter the virtuous circle of international competi= tion, gains from trade, and increasing domestic productivity and economic g= rowth. As a consequence, in countries with bad institutions the costs of ma= rket opening are especially high and the resistance of powerful rent-seekin= g constituencies configured around the state sector is particularly intense= .

General Finding about Economic Immizeration in = the Islamic Hemisphere. Middle Eastern and some non-Middle Eastern Is= lamic countries clearly generate socio-economic conditions of deprivation t= hat may constitute the fountain of insurrectional activity. Over long perio= ds of time, such Islamic countries have economically performed worse than t= he rest of the world, save Sub-Saharan Africa. It is difficult for large co= horts of young people entering the labor market to find employment, make a = living and feed a family. Nevertheless, desperate economic conditions compe= l people to raise large families because they cannot resort to any other sa= feguard than the future assistance of their offspring in an environment of = predatory and failing institutions. The Islamic Middle East is clearly a re= gion "left behind" by much of the rest of the world, with the possible exce= ption of Sub-Saharan Africa and a pocket of Central Asian fission products = of the Former Soviet Union. This is a fact progressive Arab intellectuals h= ave become worried about (United Nations Development Programme 2002).

But why are many Middle Eastern and other Muslim p= olities economically so depressed? Are the doctrines of Islam, for example = the propensity to fuse religion, economics and politics, the cause of this = misery? Or are religious doctrines sufficiently malleable to accommodate di= fferent economic institutions so that other cause(s) than cultural beliefs = must be bringing about bad results in the region? Let us briefly address th= ese issues and then return to the next step in the main argumentation of th= e paper, namely how objective deprivations in the Middle East may convert i= nto overt resistance to political rule and different strategies of resistan= ce to predatory rulers, one of which may be international terrorism.

Islam is Not the Ca= use of Weak Economic Performance. Endogenizing Authoritarian Predatory Rule=

Culture, religion, and civilizational norms play a= role in different explanatory accounts of the predicament of Middle Easter= n countries. In the introduction I sketched a "radical" version of the cult= ural argument interpreting Islamist mobilization as an insurrection against= Western imperialism. Let me now focus on the "conservative" version of the= cultural argument regarding Islam as a cognitive impediment that disables = whole societies from creating good governance and economic wealth. This cul= tural story about the causes of societal deprivations runs as follows: Isla= m posits doctrines of the good society that call for a fusion of the econom= ic, political, and religious sphere. By regulating all economic and politic= al activity under the auspices of religious norms and values, Islamic count= ries cannot release the "animal spirits" of innovative capitalism and harve= st the creativity generated by individualistic, tolerant polities based on = broad political participation and free economic exchange made possible by a= legal framework indifferent to market participants' private religious beli= efs.

This cultural account identifies several mechanism= s mediating between Islamic religious doctrines and economic performance. B= ecause such religious doctrines call for a fusion of economic, political, a= nd reli-

[page-number of print-ed.: 13]

gious norms, they favor interventionist ISI econom= ies. Predatory authoritarian rulers, in turn, are regime incumbents that ha= ve the greatest stakes in preserving state interventionist economies and th= at may want to legitimize their fusion of politics and economics in religio= us terms. The presence of authoritarian rulers and administered economies a= lso helps to preserve another religious tenet, the exclusion of women from = equal participation in economic and political life. Cultural norms thus ins= pire economic and political governance structures that create disincentives= for efficient investment in fixed or human capital (e.g., women's educatio= n) and further the privileges of rent-seeking groups benefiting from state = intervention.

How robust are the causal relations posited betwee= n religion, institutions, strategies of human capital investment, political= rule, and economic growth? While some econometric studies confirm the post= ulated causal linkages, there is reason to be skeptical about these claims.= Without adding another statistical stab at the problem here, let me point = to some of the problems encountered in studies that tend to confirm the cau= sal significance of the religious variable for good governance, authoritari= anism, and ultimately economic growth.

The effort to establish a direct causal linkage be= tween the most distant elements of the causal chain running from Islamic re= ligion, at the beginning, to economic growth, at the end, can be most easil= y demolished. Various economic growth models and recent efforts to consolid= ate them into a single encompassing model find no direct effect of religion= or region on economic growth. Major determinants of economic growth, howev= er, include intermediate causal variables that can be postulated to be endo= genous to religious doctrines: the quality of institutions, male (as oppose= d to female) schooling and economic openness. For the sake of argument, let= us also assume that, on balance, democracy is a political regime form that= is conducive to economic growth. This argument is controversial in the eco= nometric literature and there is a bounty of theoretical arguments to suppo= rt or deny this linkage.(6) Nevertheless, for the cultural argu= ment to work, it would have to be the case that Islam promotes authoritaria= nism, while authoritarianism in turn promotes predatory rule with inefficie= nt economic consequences. How plausible, then, is the first link in that ch= ain, the causal impact of religion on political rule?

Studies of the quality of institutions, mea= sured as control of corruption or rule of law, generally find that historic= al conditions affect contemporary political rule, but Islam does not stand = out as a determinant of institutional quality. If anything, it is the preva= lence of Protestantism in a polity that boosts institutional quality compar= ed to all other religions none of which leaves an additional significant po= sitive or negative distinctive imprint on the dependent variable (cf. La Po= rta et al. 1999; Treisman 2000). Treisman shows that existing levels of eco= nomic affluence together with British colonial rule enhance the quality of = political institutions, measured as control of corruption. Other studies I = referred to earlier endogenize the quality of institutions in terms of hist= orical and geographical conditions at the time of colonialism in the ninete= enth century (Acemoglu et al. 2001; Easterly and Levine 2002).

The large literature on the determinants of dem= ocracy also yields little support for the cultural hypothesis. Przewors= ki et al. (2000: 124) find no evidence that Islam hinders democracy, once o= ther conditions are taken into account. But many major Arab countries are d= ropped from their sample. Others find a consistently negative effect of Isl= am on democracy, but do not control for other theoretically specific featur= es of the Middle East (e.g. Barro 1997; 1999). Michael Ross (2001) establis= hes that Islam affects democratization negatively, once per capita income, = OECD membership as well as oil and other raw materials exports are controll= ed for, among other things. But Islam vanishes as a determinant of authorit= arianism, when a regional dummy for Middle East is added. Apparently, outsi= de the Middle East Islamic countries are not particularly undemocratic, giv= en their economic structure and level of development. In contrast to the Mi= ddle East, some of the largest Islamic countries on earth, such as Banglade= sh, Indonesia, and Malaysia have had spells of electoral democracy. Even Pa= kistan has a better democratic track record than just about any Middle East= ern country. This suggests that there may be something else than religion t= hat hinders democracy in the Middle East. It needs to be captured in differ= ent theoretical terms.

[page-number of print-ed.: 14]

Fish's (2003) recent study establishes a statistic= al association between authoritarianism and Islam that is mediated through = the gap between male and female schooling. As his most important proposal f= or a mechanism linking Islam to authoritarian rule, he suggests an isomorph= ism between patriarchal family relations in Islamic countries that deprive = girls of education and a preference for authoritarian polities. But his sta= tistical analysis is woefully short on control variables and thus cannot co= unt as an adequate test of the cultural thesis. Indeed, Middle Eastern Isla= mic countries have much higher illiteracy rates among women than men, somet= hing that cannot be found among non-Islamic countries with equal lower-inte= rmediate per capita incomes (table 5, page 15). But poor Islamic countries = outside the Middle East, such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, do not have highe= r gender-based literacy gaps than non-Islamic poor countries, such as India= . Furthermore, middle-income Islamic countries outside the Middle East have= small gender-based literacy gaps, such as Indonesia and Malaysia. =

If Islam is neither a determinant of predatory rul= e nor of low economic growth per se, how can we shed light on the mystery t= hat the Middle East has proved to be so resistant to democratization or goo= d governance based on a formal-procedural conception of the rule of law, pr= otection of private property rights? Let me advance two minor and two major= arguments to account for the structural inability of the Middle East to em= brace non-predatory rule and democracy. We should keep in mind, however, th= at even disregarding these variables, we should not expect the Middle East = to be a predominantly democratic region. Based on economic development alon= e, the position of most populous Middle Eastern countries between wretched = poverty and lower-middle income status limits the probabilities that any on= e country becomes and stays democratic over time.

Ironically, the first substantively minor determin= ant for the absence of non-predatory rule may be the comparative shallownes= s of colonialism in the region, and more specifically the absence of lastin= g British colonialism. Extended British rule may have improved the quality = of institutions in a durable fashion in a number of countries by introducin= g professional civil services (cf. La Porta et al. 1999; Triesman 2000), al= though British rule has not increased the probability to find democratic go= vernance among contemporary polities (cf. Barro 1997: 70-74; but see Midlar= sky 1998). The Middle East experienced British overlords, but little sustai= ned direct governance from the center.

The second most likely substantively minor conditi= on predisposing the Middle East to predatory rule may be the absence of = severe international pressure endangering the survival of domestic regimes<= /i>. Very severe external threats emanating from a large hostile regional h= egemon, such as experienced by Japan after 1856 and by South Korea or Taiwa= n since 1948, may force authoritarian regimes to restrict predatory resourc= e extraction from their own people and nurture economic growth through good= governance and the respect of property rights in order to create a positiv= e mutual reinforcement between the growth of private wealth and the expansi= on of military power even with low rates of taxation. In the Middle East, n= ot even Israel posed a hegemonic threat to the survival of Arab governments= , nor did any other foreign power. Predatory Middle Eastern regimes therefo= re did not have to fear that unproductive economic development strategies w= ould weaken their military strength sufficiently to threaten their domestic= survival.

Clearly a major condition for the relative poverty= and predatory nature of Middle Eastern regimes is natural resource wealth = provided by oil. Ross (2001) has specified and tested a variety of causal m= echanisms that link oil exports to corruption and predatory rule. At the ba= se of all these mechanisms is the idea that rulers will not accommodate to = representation as long as they do not have to tax subjects. Where authorita= rian rulers do not need to rely on the fruits of their subjects' ingenuity,= they will not share power, but employ their independent revenue flow to br= ibe critical segments of the population into subservience.(7) T= hus oil wealth is a curse in disguise. It undermines the quality of governa= nce, creates cronies and clients, and promotes import substituting industri= alization regimes that are counterproductive for economic growth.

The potentially most interesting deeper historical= cause of predatory authoritarianism in the Middle East may build on an ada= ptation of Barrington Moore's (1966) account of the origins of democracy an= d dictatorship to that region. It can be linked to Boix's (2003) recent gen= eralization of Moore's argument that great concentration of asset ownership= (land, natural resources) in a small ruling class, together with the immob= ility or specificity of such assets across borders makes democratization le= ss likely.(8) Great inequality of resource control radicalizes = the demands of poor challengers. Because democracy would enable the poor

[page-number of print-ed.: 15]

TABLE 5: EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEM= ENTS IN DIFFERENT REGIONS

= <= /tr> <= /tr> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
 

PER CA= PITA GDP 1999

ADULT = ILLITERACY IN 1998
(people age 15 and older)

GENDER= GAP
IN ADULT ILLITERACY: FEMALES MINUS MALES

PER CA= PITA
LABOR FORCE GDP GROWTH 1990-99

MALE

FEMALE

I. AND II. MIDDLE EASTERN OIL PRODUCERS (low OR high oil revenue= /population ratios)

ALGERIA (30)<= /p>

4,753

24

46

-22

-2.4

EGYPT (62)

3,303

35

58

-23

1.5

IRAN (63)

=

5,163

11

33

-22

1.0

SAUDI ARABIA (28)

no data

17

36

-23

-1.5

SYRIA (16)

2,761

13

42

-29

+1.7

YEMEN (17)

688

34

77

-43

-1.7

pop. weighted gro= up average (206)

3,875 (no Saudi A= rabia)

24

=

49

=

-25

+0.2

III. MEDIUM AND SMALL MIDDLE EASTERN NON-OIL PRODUCERS

JORDAN (5)

3,542

6

17

-11

-0.4

LEBANON (4)

4,129

9

21

-12

(+4.6)

MOROCCO (28)<= /p>

3,190

40

66

-26

-0.4

TUNISIA (9)

5,478

21

42

-21

+1.7

pop. weighted gro= up average (46)

3,758<= /p>

30

=

52

=

-22

+0.4

IV. LARGE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE MIDDLE EASTERN CORE/NON-= OIL PRODUCERS

BANGLADESH(128)

1,473

49

71

-22

+1.8

INDONESIA (207)

2,439

9

20

-11

+2.1

MALAYSIA (23)=

7,963

9

18

-9

+3.3

PAKISTAN (135)

1,757

42

71

-29

+1.2

TURKEY (64)

6,126

7

25

-16

+1.3

pop. weighted gro= up average (557)

2,703<= /p>

26

=

45

=

-19

1.8

V. FAST GROWING EAST AND SOUTH ASIAN NON-ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

CHINA ( 1,250)

3,291

9

25

-16

+9.4

INDIA (998)

2,149

33

57

-24

+3.8

S. KOREA (47)=

14,637

1

4

-3

+3.6

pop. weighted gro= up average (2,295)

3,027<= /p>

19

=

38

=

-19

6.9

CROSS-REGIONAL COMPARISON

EAST ASIA (1837)

3,410

9

22

-13

+5.9

South Asia (1,329)

2,030

35

59

-24

+3.2

Latin America (509)<= /font>

5,580

11

13

-2

+0.9

Middle East +
North Africa (291)

6,280

26

48

-22

-0.1

Sub-Saharan
Africa (642)

1,450

32

49

-17

-0.2

Source: World Bank (2001)

[page-number of print-ed.: 16]

masses to redistribute such assets, wealthy rulers = have little inclination to make democratic concessions. The physical immobi= lity of assets further stiffens the spine of such rulers. If they cannot th= reaten to leave a polity with their assets once democracy is granted, they = cannot constrain the redistributive desires of the democratic plebs =

Oil is one obvious fixed asset that makes rulers f= ight against political democratization because democracy almost certainly l= eads to their expropriation. But as Simon Bromley (1997) argues in his adap= tation of Moore's (1966) argument to the Middle East, the concentration of = fixed resources around large landowners and a small commercial class may ha= ve antedated the impact of oil in a number of countries. Only where a mass = of agrarian smallholders and a dispersed class of traders and craftsmen exi= sted, have Middle Eastern countries shown any sign to relax authoritarian r= ule and to grant a modicum of broad democratic participation in the politic= al decision making process. Concentration of land and other assets is more = pronounced in the Middle East than other polities with Islamic majorities i= n Asia.

I supplement Bromley's treatment of Middle Eastern= countries with Henry and Springborg's (2001: esp. 24-7; 83-95) analysis of= Middle Eastern business communities and capitalist legacies as well as Joh= n Hall's (1986) explanation of Middle Eastern regimes, inspired by Ernest G= ellner's work on the significance of lasting tribal rule on political regim= e formation in twentieth century Middle Eastern countries. Where political = authority was based on tribal governance until well into the twentieth cent= ury, it impeded a separation of economic and political governance as well a= s the development of formal, procedural rule of law. Polities remained pers= onalistic, shallow and "cyclical." As a consequence, they have encountered = difficulties in developing capitalist market economies together with a corr= esponding regulatory legal framework.

Table 6 (see page 17) provides the Freedom House r= ankings of civic and political rights for a large number of Middle Eastern = and some non-Middle Eastern Islamic countries in 2001. Low values indicate = strong civil and political rights, high values their absence. The authorita= rian maximum score on each scale is seven. The countries are distributed ac= ross the cells of the table according to (1) the extent to which a country = relies on oil revenues in order to run its state apparatus and (2) the natu= re of economic property relations and legacies of political-economic govern= ance structures, differentiated into three categories. Only dispersed comme= rcial-agricultural property relations with relative egalitarian and mobile = asset structures are conducive to democratization. Bold-faced cases are dis= cussed by Bromley. All other polities are tentatively entered into the tabl= e based on fragmentary information gleaned from my sources. Some may be mix= ed cases, such as Pakistan with an important tribal governance component; o= thers may require reclassification in light of closer scrutiny. The table s= hould therefore be treated as a heuristic exercise to advance a hypothesis = about the lineages of predatory political rule in the Middle East. <= /p>

Conditions for democratization are generally best = where countries lack large oil reserves and must rely on agrarian smallhold= ers and/or small traders and craftspeople. Indeed, countries in the upper a= nd middle right corner of the table have the relatively most democratic reg= imes at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In some instances the di= spersed nature of their business communities is in part due to non-Islamic = Chinese settlers and their international business networks. Countries in th= e lower left and the lower middle with oil resources and/or concentrated pr= operty relations or tribal origins have the most authoritarian and typicall= y predatory regimes, tempered by very high oil revenue per capita ratios th= at enable rulers to afford more welfare and less arbitrariness in their exe= rcise of political rule.

In the lower right corner (high oil revenues, disp= ersed agrarian and commercial classes), Iran is an interesting case, as its= authoritarian Freedom House ranking is consistent with its oil prowess, bu= t not its class and property relations. This may indicate one or both of tw= o conditions. First, Freedom House scores may not fully appreciate that for= all of the Islamic Republic's repressiveness it is one of the very few Mid= dle Eastern regimes where the procedural provisions of a formal constitutio= n have some bite in the political realities of governance and instill compe= tition (Feldman 2003: 87-100). Setting aside Turkey, Iran is the only funct= ioning multi-party polity in the Middle East with at least semi-competitive= elections and at least partial responsibility of the government to parliam= ent. Second, the authoritarianism of the current Iranian regime is indeed t= o a certain extent incommensurable with the realities of societal pluraliza= tion in Iranian society that intensify pressures for political participatio= n and democratization. This internal strain may therefore give rise to part= icularly powerful and persistent collective mobilization against the rule o= f the Shiite clergy. Indeed, domestic political contestation has been more = vibrant in Iran than anywhere else in the region over the past decade.

[page-number of print-ed.: 17]

TABLE 6: LEGACY OF SOCIO-ECON= OMIC ORGANIZATION,
OIL EXPORT ECONOMY, AND CIVIL AND POLITICAL FREEDOMS 2001

 

CONCENTRATED
MERCHANT CLASS AND LAND OWNERSHIP

TRIBAL AND/OR
NOMADIC SOCIO-ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION

SMALL/MEDIUM MERCHAN= TS AND FARMERS

(+ Non-Islamic minority)

Family based
business networks

MEDIUM INCOME
ECONOMY WITH NO OR MODEST OIL EXPORTS

(< 100% of domestic
energy consumption)

Egypt (6/5)

Syria (7/7)

[Tunisia? (6/5)]

[Kazakhstan ? (6/5)]=

[Morocco ? (5/4)]

[Turkmenistan ? (7/7)]

Jordan (4/4)

Lebanon (6/5)

Turkey (4/5)

[Indonesia ? (3/4)]

[Malaysia ? (5/5)]

LOW INCOME ECONOMY W= ITH NO OR MODEST OIL EXPORTS

[Pakistan? (6/5)]

[Afghanistan ? (7/7)= ]

[Azerbaijan ? (6/4)]

[Kyrgyzstan ? (6/5)]

[Mauritania ? (6/5)]

[Tajikistan ? (6/5)]

[Uzbekistan ? (7/6)]

[Yemen ? (5/6)]

[Bangladesh ? (3/4)]=

MAJOR OIL EXPORTER

Iraq (7/7)

[Algeria? (6/5)]

[Libya? (7/7)]

Kuwait (4/5)

Saudi Arabia (7/7)

Gulf States:

=B7 Bahrein (7/6)

=B7 Oman (6/5)

=B7 Quatar (6/6)

=B7 United Arab Emirates (6/5)

[Brunei ? (7/7)]

Iran (6/6)=

Also in the upper left corner, where regimes ar= e located with low oil revenue/per capita, but highly concentrated agrarian= and commercial property structures, one might expect more civil strife and= a potential opening of the polity (Egypt, Syria). The incumbent authoritar= ian regimes are precarious because they cannot bribe their populations with= oil revenues and have to rely on the domestic tax base. Remittances by nat= ionals working in oil-rich neighboring countries, however, may financially = make them more similar to oil economies.(9)

Overall, there is considerable diversity of politi= cal rule among Islamic countries, although empirically that diversity is sk= ewed toward authoritarian and predatory governance. Nevertheless, the evide= nce discussed casts some doubt on efforts to draw a causal line from religi= ous doctrines through political regimes to economic performance. Appreciati= ng the diversity of political regimes in the Islamic world is important in = order to understand the strategic options incumbent rulers might exercise i= n fighting challengers to their regime. Once we have an idea of who these c= hallengers are and how the incumbents may respond to them, we can address t= heir strategic interaction, one specific mode of which may be international= terrorism.

[page-number of print-ed.: 18]

The Challengers: Actors and Aspirations in the Islamist Struggle

Goldstone (1991a and 1991b) critiqued common state= -centered theories of revolution such as Skocpol's (1979) as too myopic in = their causal analysis. First of all, Skocpol did not illuminate the social = and economic deprivations that lead to the internal divisions and struggles= among elements of an authoritarian ruling elite. Historically, Goldstone c= an show that in pre-industrial times these deprivations originate in Malthu= sian cycles of fast demographic expansion and slower acceleration of food p= roduction. Under given property rights regimes and political-economic insti= tutions, population growth led to falling wages, underemployment and declin= ing rents for the ruling elite and its offspring. Intensifying scarcity the= n triggers a struggle for survival at all levels of society. But Goldstone = goes beyond this rational-instrumental and economic account of deprivations= and interests in revolutionary change. He shows that the success of revolu= tions hinges upon the availability of innovative ideas that would project s= olutions to existing predicaments into the horizon of future societal devel= opment. In other words, while opposition to the status quo can be accounted= for in terms of narrow instrumental economic interests, the construction o= f a new world of institutions and methods of resource allocation requires p= rogrammatic ideological visions of new societal arrangements that will over= come existing ills. Because uncertainty shrouds the operational feasibility= of alternative visions, such ideas do not strictly follow from the self-in= terest of aggrieved actors. Political-economic grievances and crises lea= d to revolutions only where new ideas inspire the construction of novel ins= titutions. Interests alone face too much uncertainty about the conseque= nces of untried institutions to guide political visions without ideological= vision. Let us take up the instrumental-rational and the ideational parts = of Goldstone's argument and apply them to the current Middle Eastern situat= ion. Fundamentalist Islam is a locally available ideational interpretive fr= ame to express grievances, although its victory is unlikely to alleviate ex= isting grievances, provided it calls for an ISI based economic development = strategy.

Instrumental Intere= sts

In an environment of economic decline triggered by= import substituting industrialization, anti-globalism, and predatory gover= nance, who has an interest in attacking the status quo? Kepel (2002) identi= fies three groups that attack existing Middle Eastern regimes and analyses = the conditions under which they coalesce or divide.

The first constituency for change is the increasin= gly desperate urban mass of unemployed youths. Because of the inabil= ity of ISI economics to generate new productive jobs, they are socially mar= ginalized in the "informal sector." They are the most numerous socio-econom= ic constituency receptive to radical appeals to challenge the status quo. B= ut they have few material and cognitive resources or organizational skills = to advance an insurrection. Akin to Marx's characterization of peasants in = 19th century France, they are like a "sack of potatoes" that can= not organize itself in purposive collective action, but has to await the le= adership of external political entrepreneurs.

The second group is the young intelligentsia, trai= ned at Middle Eastern and often Western universities, with advanced degrees= in medicine, engineering, and the sciences. They provide the intellectual = ferment of oppositional movements. Like Goldstone's (1991a) French ruling c= lass offspring in the 18th century, they cannot find promising p= ositions in the stagnating economic and administrative environment of conte= mporary Middle Eastern polities. Nothing is worse for an incumbent regime t= han to face young, un- or underemployed intellectuals because they have the= cognitive and organizational capabilities to challenge the status quo, pro= vided they can agree on a political objective.

The third group is the older, market- and trade-or= iented independent middle class of private sector traders and artisans, a g= roup referred to as Bazaaris in Iran. Often religiously devout and c= onservative, they are also struggling with deteriorating economic condition= s. They face gradual decay in the stagnant ISI regimes. At the same time, w= ere economic policy to shift toward global competition, their prospects are= not bright either. Because they have little human and financial capital, m= arket liberalizing reforms exposing them to foreign competitors are likely = to make them economic victims of "progress," even if the net effect of libe= ralization may be positive for Middle Eastern countries as a whole.

If the young marginalized and young intellectuals,= together with the old petty bourgeois middle class furnish the reservoir o= f discontent with existing Middle Eastern regimes, what does this leave as = pillars of incumbent regime support? The most important regime constituency= is the mass of salaried urban dwellers employed in the economically protec= ted state sector. This includes state-owned and state-regulated industries = just as much as branches of the state bureaucracy and their semi-public app= endices. Altogether, these

[page-number of print-ed.: 19]

market-sheltered employment groups may account fo= r anywhere between one quarter and one half of all jobs in the official eco= nomy. They are supplemented by rent-seeking private entrepreneurs who benef= it from affiliation with the incumbent regimes through clientelistic bonds.=

Table 7 offers a simple division of groups along po= litical and economic lines. Politically, there are those who expect to bene= fit from the downfall of the incumbent regimes ("political winners") and th= ose who oppose regime change ("political losers"). Economically, there are = those who may feel threatened by economic reforms that end ISI economics in= favor of the "Washington consensus" of trade and price liberalization, tog= ether with privatization, banking sector reform, and hard financial budget = constraints imposed on private companies, as well as those who may expect t= o benefit. The critical hypothesis of table 7 is that those who work in = favor of the downfall of the existing ISI predatory political regimes in th= e Middle East do not stand to benefit from any single economic policy alter= native. In fact, some of the urban poor as well as the young intelligen= tsia may very well be winners of market liberalization, while the old petty= bourgeoisie definitely will be on the losing side. Most of the supporters = of the existing ISI regimes stand to lose from economic reform, with the ex= ception of a few industrialists and state technocrats.

If this tableau of economic interests is correct, = it generates an intriguing consequence to which I will return in section 4:= It is easier to unite the supporters of the status quo politics around a c= lear economic policy, namely the maintenance of the ISI regime with minimal= concessions, than to coalesce the opposition around a new economic policy,= whether it is economic liberalization or some other "third way" between so= cialism (and ISI), on one side, and market liberalism, on the other. What u= nites the opposition is a rejection of the incumbent regime. As soon as the= y have done away with the incumbents, the internal programmatic disunity of= the insurrectional coalition may come to the fore.

In the most spectacular regime displacement of the= last thirty years, the removal of the Shah of Iran and the installation of= the Iranian Islamic Republic, at least initially all three major oppositio= n groups - marginalized young urbanites, young intelligentsia, and establis= hed petty bourgeoisie - coalesced around the objective to remove the incumb= ent. The existing regime's state led economic growth pleased none of the op= positional groups. But it turned out to be much harder to find a new econom= ic development strategy that could maintain the same social coalition.

This instrumental analysis, however, excludes the = ideational dimension. The struggle against the incumbent regime may be insp= ired by an ideational vision of an alternative society that papers over the= potential disunity among challenging groups. It may even generate "false c= onsciousness" among some coalition members about the sort of societal insti= tutions that will serve their interests in the future. Once incumbents have= been defeated, this ideology may preserve the winning coalition for some t= ime, before the realities of economic conflicts of interest within the winn= ing coalition discredit the ideology and ultimately lead to a break-up of t= he winner's coalition.

TABLE 7: WINNERS AND LOSERS O= F ECONOMIC LIBERALIZATION AND POLITICAL REGIME CHANGE

 

ECONOMIC LIBERALIZATION

WINNERS

LOSERS

PO= LITICAL REGIME CHANGE

WINNERS

  • segment of young urban intelligentsia <= /li>

  • minority of existing private industrialists

  • segment of the marginalized urban young<= /li>

    		•

  • segment of young urban intelligentsia <= /li>

    =B7 segment of the marginalized urban = young

    =B7 petty traders and craftsmen=

    • LOSERS

    =B7 majority of exis= ting private industrialists

    =B7 some managerial technocrats=

    =B7 salaried bureauc= rats

    =B7 workers and employees in state-own= ed and state-regulated enterprises

    <= font face=3D"Arial" size=3D"-1"> [page-number of print-ed.: 20] =

    The Ideational Comp= onent.=20 Modernization and Political Ideology

    In order to build a political coalition of social = forces, movement entrepreneurs must have an exciting programmatic vision th= at provides (1) a convincing analysis of a polity's current predicament and= (2) the prospect of a plausible remedial strategy of institutional innovat= ion that can remove the current deprivation and advance the well-being of m= embers participating in the revolutionary coalition. The elaboration of suc= h an ideology has to build on frames that "resonate" with the target consti= tuencies. The demonstrable success of a foreign model provides one avenue t= o create a frame that resonates with large constituencies. Frame resonance = also draws on past positive and negative domestic experiences. But movement= entrepreneurs are not simply passively adopting the evaluation of the past= , but also actively creating it. Historical interpretation is an imagined p= ast.

    In the construction of radical Islamism to create = a society based on Sharia law and strict observance of the moral cod= e laid down by the Koran, two mechanisms play a critical role. The first de= rives from modernization theory and has more recently been applied to the I= ranian revolution, but also generalized in a comparative-historical account= by Said Arjomand (1986; 1988). Economic development and structural change = trigger an endogenous preference change that under specific conditio= ns may lead to a yearning for a communitarian social order. The second mech= anism reconstructs a choice among ideological templates as based on an i= nstrumental elimination of alternatives in light of recent domestic experie= nce. Ideologies that obviously "have not worked" cannot inspire new ins= urrectional movements. Both development induced preference change and instr= umental sorting of the past performance of ideological programs taken toget= her account for the temporary attractiveness of an Islamic communitarian id= eology that opposes the differentiation of life spheres into separate sub-s= ystems, such as the economy, the polity, religion and scientific research. =

    The developmentalist account begins with the obser= vation that the transition from traditional small-group based pre-industria= l societies to encompassing modern capitalist market organization and mass = politics involves a radical change in the way individuals relate to the soc= ial order. Whereas beforehand they complied with group norms that regulated= details of their lives, they are now released from normative guidance and = expected to make individual choices for themselves in a variety of social r= ealms. In Durkheimian language, the "collective consciousness" of rules and= norms shrinks and releases the actors into an environment of "institutiona= lized individualism." The individualization of society releases innovative = capacities and enhances the efficient allocation of resources through volun= tary trade, but also creates subjective normative anxieties and new economi= c vulnerabilities, particularly among those not well endowed in terms of co= gnitive capacities or asset control to cope with the risks of a market soci= ety. These anxieties will be particularly virulent at a time when the new s= ocial order has not yet developed policies to prepare individuals for their= freedom or to provide protection from the risks of individualization. In a= dvanced capitalist democracies with good governance, investments in human c= apital (education, health care) and social insurance systems provide the in= stitutional support for individualism. Predatory regimes with weak economie= s do not provide such assistance and thus make market liberalization less p= alatable for many citizens.

    Faced with the exposure to individualized risk, ac= tors with few assets and capabilities to cope with market society are likel= y to develop a yearning for a different social order that at least partly r= econstitutes the security of a communitarian collectivist pre-industrial or= der. Arjomand (1986) traces this yearning for community in a world increasi= ngly organized by voluntary associations and market contracting through his= tory from the anti-liberalist movements of a radical Protestant Puritan str= and in the time of the English Revolution of the 17th century vi= a anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements of the nineteenth and twentie= th century to fascism and contemporary Islamist fundamentalism. Even Marxia= n socialism has a strong communitarian side that resonates with individuals= caught up in the transition to an individualist market and association bas= ed social order. As already Organski (1968) claimed for fascism, it is part= icularly societies "in transit" between community-based, small-scale social= organization and societies configured around large-scale markets, bureaucr= acies, and associations that generate communitarian backlash movements of v= arious kinds. For Arjomand (1986; 1988), Islamic fundamentalism is but the = latest incarnation of this yearning for the restoration of a community with= normatively patterned, personalized face-to-face relations.

    Islamist fundamentalism is a functional equivalent= for anti-liberal ideas that have inspired social movements over the past s= everal hundred years in geographical regions other than the Middle East. Bu= t the developmentalist theory of ideological preference formation can accou= nt only for the broad class of communitarian beliefs to which Islamic funda= mentalism

    [page-number of print-ed.: 21]

    belongs, not for the specificity of fundamentalist= Islam or its functional equivalents, whether they were fascist, communist,= or anarcho-syndicalist. It is a cognitive mechanism to eliminate ideologic= al candidates based on recent negative experiences that accounts for the sp= ecific choice of fundamentalist Islam in the late twentieth century Middle = East as the ideology that inspires challengers of incumbent rulers. In the = eyes of potential insurrectionists, Western liberalism is unsuitable to org= anize an interpretive frame for their desires to topple current rulers beca= use (1) it endorses individualism and thus does not serve the communitarian= yearning and (2) Middle Eastern collective memories associate liberalism w= ith colonial rule of the past and the decline of Middle Eastern countries r= elative to Western Europe. In a similar vein, by the 1980s and 1990s Marxia= n socialism or nationalist socialisms of varying kinds, including fascism, = have become implausible ideological templates because they were falsified b= y historical experiences in the Middle East and elsewhere. Many existing Mi= ddle Eastern ISI regimes resulted from military insurrections against tradi= tional monarchies and were inspired by national socialist, secular, and ant= i-liberal beliefs about the virtues of planned economies and national (or r= egional) paths to egalitarian socialist societies. The failure of the ISI t= rajectory has made this interpretive frame as implausible and unattractive = as Marxian communism has been since the Brezhnev and post-Brezhnev era marr= ed by the decay and ultimately collapse of the Soviet Union. By elimination= , fundamentalist Islam remains the one interpretive frame available that ha= s not been discredited by the experience of Middle Eastern countries over t= he past fifty to one hundred years. As Shlomo Avinieri (2001: 96) wrote in = a perceptive article:

      "In the wake of this opening to the West = [in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century], practically al= l the various ideologies and institutional arrangements prevalent in the We= st in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been tried in the Arab wo= rld: liberal constitutionalism, monarchical or republican, was tried in cou= ntries like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq - and failed; in the 1930s and 1940s, Ir= aqi, Syrian, and Palestinian intellectuals toyed with fascism - and came to= no good; later, various strands of secular nationalism, Marxism, and Third= World ideologies were tried - Nasserism was perhaps the most sophisticated= amalgam of them - and failed. As some Arab writers like Fouad Ajami or Sad= iz Jelal al-Azm have written - all the Western ideologies have been tried i= n the Arab world - and all have failed.

      Hence the recourse to Islam should not come a= s a surprise. It is, in a way, a return to the region's roots, as well as a= return from the exile, as it were, among alien, Western ideas, which are c= onsidered by some Islamic radical thinkers as quasi-pagan, similar to the i= mmorality of pre-Islamic days, the era of the Jehaliyya, the time of barbarism, ignorance, and Godlessness." <= /font>

    An account of the rise of fundamentalist Isla= m as the point of crystallization around which various oppositional forces = can potentially coordinate who wish to challenge established predatory rule= rs in the Middle East, we thus need not resort to a Weberian theoretical ac= count. For Weber, religion as an intellectual artifact - in the sense of do= ctrines and moral imperatives about ways to lead the good life - prefigures= the organizational and institutional incarnation of society after a succes= sful revolution. The doctrines inspire actors and limit the feasibility spa= ce of institutional innovation. In my alternative account, actors adopt par= ticular religious doctrines situatively and interpret them in light of the = predicament of modernization, combined with the historically contingent tra= jectory of ideologies and experiences they have made in the run-up to the c= urrent situation.(10) Religious doctrines, by themselves, have = little bite to organize society. They are embedded into economic and cultur= al contexts and interpreted against this backdrop.

    From a social science point of view, it is therefo= re a useless enterprise to try to determine whether the "true" and unadulte= rated doctrines of Islam make possible or preclude this or that political a= nd economic organization (democracy, rule of law, equality of the sexes, to= lerance for non-believers, etc.). From a sociological point of view, purpos= ive actors with conflicting interests interpret religious doctrines within = a historical context against a backdrop of rhetorical moves made by propone= nts and adversaries of a variety of rival beliefs. Whether or not there is = an "essence" to particular religious doctrines is irrelevant for the sociol= ogical enterprise to explain the rise or demise of particular belief system= s. What counts here is the pragmatics of communication: How available is an= interpretive frame to potential challengers of a regime and how well does = it resonate with people who have definitive interests to

    [page-number of print-ed.: 22]

    change the status quo, given the historical develo= pment of political regimes and their modes of legitimation in the memory of= the actors?

    The Strategic Interaction between Regime Incumbents and Challenger= s

    So far, I have generated propositions about econom= ic deprivations, instrumental group interests in wealth and power, and idea= tional orientations that guide the struggle against predatory Middle Easter= n rulers. But grievances and interpretive frames, by themselves, cannot acc= ount for the concrete strategic options and choices both incumbents and cha= llengers make when they engage in battle. In order to explain such choices,= we must focus on the strategic configuration of resources and capabilities= under control of the adversarial camps and account for their strategies of= interaction in that light. Terrorism, and more specifically international = terrorism, is but one specific strategic avenue challengers may choose to a= dvance their cause.

    When faced with a challenger, regime incumbents ha= ve three options they may employ individually or in combination with each o= ther: (1) cooptation; (2) repression; (3) negotiation and concessions, poss= ibly leading to democratization. The choice of strategy depends on the regi= me's resources and the asymmetry of asset control and power concentration i= t has created. Regime access to ample resources, indicated by very high oil= revenues per capita, favors strategies of cooptation, combined with repres= sion. Access to moderate resources, signaled by lower oil revenue/per capit= a ratios, may make cooptation too costly and compel incumbent regimes to re= sort to repression, particularly if they have created great power and wealt= h differentials that make it hard to compromise with challengers. Incumbent= regimes with very limited access to resources facing challengers with cons= iderable power assets may not be able to mobilize sufficient resources to r= epress a challenger and will be more inclined to compromise.

    Potential opponents can overcome collective action= problems only if resources are sufficiently dissipated in society to creat= e a critical mass of potential followers who are united not only by grievan= ces against the existing regime, but also control resources that can be emp= loyed in their struggle. This places the commercial middle class of traders= and craftspeople, as well as university trained young intellectuals in a d= ecisive position. Only where these groups are sufficiently numerous and res= ourceful can opponents successfully address collective action problems and = trigger the mobilization of the marginalized urban masses. Furthermore, onl= y where regime incumbents find themselves unable to repress or co-opt poten= tial challengers, political entrepreneurs can hope to mobilize encompassing= domestic mass movements. Most conflictual and open are interactive situati= ons in which incumbents control moderate resources, i.e. relatively low oil= revenue/capita flows common to populous oil producing countries, and have = thus a propensity to repress, while agrarian and commercial middle classes = are relatively dispersed and resourceful, thus giving them a capability to = mobilize. Let us now look at eight strategic constellations of regime incum= bents and opponents depicted in table 8 (see page 23) and work through the = logic of strategic interaction in each of its cells.

    Small non-populous oil producers have a relatively= easy time to maintain authoritarian regimes without facing much civil stri= fe because they have all the resources in the world to co-opt critical segm= ents of the population who anyway do not have much independent access to va= luable resources (upper left cell). For this reason, most of them have rema= ined monarchies, while other power configurations led to the removal of kin= gs. But countries may not stay in this happy state forever. As a profession= al middle class grows and gains resources and capacities to mobilize (movin= g the polity into the right column of dissipated resources and capabilities= ), oil monarchies may feel the heat of the opposition and respond with poli= tical liberalization (upper right cell). Or, as erstwhile thinly populated,= resourceful oil monarchies become more populous, they may find that resour= ce scarcity limits their ability to employ strategies of cooptation. This i= s the predicament in which Saudi Arabia has found itself since the 1990s an= d that may make reliance on repression relative to cooptation increasingly = unavoidable. It may be for this reason that Saudi Arabia's efforts to co-op= t potential opposition forces, particularly by embracing Wahhabism as an or= thodox Sunni religious doctrine, are in danger of becoming counterproductiv= e for the regime incumbents and actually fund potential opponents. <= /p>

    Where political regimes control moderate resource = flows, as is the case in populous oil-based economies, the struggle for sca= rce resources led to the displacement of monarchs or colonial powers in the= 1950s or 1960s. As the cases of Egypt, Iraq or Syria illustrate, junior of= ficers replaced monarchs with single-party dictatorships espousing a secula= r, national, socialist ideology and vigorously embarking on ISI economic st= rategies (second row left cell). These regimes repressed both radical Marxi= an challengers emerging from the universities as well as Islamist challenge= s of various stripes. Where resources have been highly concentrated, the sm= all opposition groups of intellectuals and

    [page-number of print-ed.: 23]

    TABLE 8: STRATEGIC INTERACTIO= N BETWEEN REGIME INCUMBENTS AND CHALLENGERS

     

    DISSIPATION OF RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES IN SOCIETY

    HIGH CONCENTRATION

    WIDE DISSIPATION

    RE= SOURCES CONTROLLED BY INCUMBENT REGIMES

    VERY GREAT RESOURCES=

    (high oil revenue/capita ratios, non-p= opulous oil producers)

    dominant elite strat= egy: cooptation; best challenger response: acceptance;

    (small oil-based monarchies: Bahrein, = Brunei, Kuwait, Oman, Quatar, United Arab Emirates, formerly Saudi Arab= ia)

    dominant elite strat= egy: cooptation and concessions;
    best challenger response: acceptance;

    (no empirical case, likely to evolve f= rom oil-based monarchies)

    MODERATE
    RESOURCES
    (low oil revenue/ capita ratios, populous oil producers)

    dominant elite strat= egy: repression;
    best challenger response: acquiescence, limiting opposition to small-gro= up terrorism;

    (populous oil-based single-party
    dictatorships: Algeria, Iraq, Libya)

    (increasingly: populous oil-based m= onarchy: Saudi Arabia)

    dominant elite strat= egy: repression, intermittent concessions;
    best challenger response: mobilization, testing limits of patience; =

    (populous oil-based dictatorship: Iran= )

    SCARCE
    RESOURCES

    (small oil producers, oil non-producer= s, reliance on remittances)

    dominant elite strat= egy: repression with sporadic concessions;
    best challenger response: acquiescence with intermittent mobilization; t= errorism;

    (populous non-oil single-party dictato= rships: Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, some Central Asian countries in the future)<= /font>

    dominant elite strat= egy: mixed strategy of concessions and intermittent repression;
    best challenger response: mobilization;

    (populous non-oil monarchies, single-p= arty or military dictatorships: Indonesia; Jordan, Morocco?)

    EXTREMELY SCARCE RESOURCES

    (oil non-producers, few remittances)

    dominant elite strat= egy: concessions, case-by-case repression;
    best challenger response: mass mobilization;

    (populous non-oil producers with singl= e party dictatorships: Pakistan, some Central Asian countries)

    dominant elite strat= egy: concessions, democratic transition;
    best challenger strategy: cooperation;

    (populous non-oil producers with semi-= authoritarian regimes and intermittent democracy: Bangladesh, Malaysia, Tur= key)

    their offspring based in universities could be = isolated by the heavy hand of the security establishment. It is an environm= ent in which broad social constituencies disaffected by the incumbent regim= e have been divorced from insurrectionist intellectuals that the latter are= likely to resort to terrorist strategies. Terrorism further deepens the ri= ft between professional revolutionary cadres and mass constituencies. If th= e regime succeeds in then liquidating many insurrectionists, the survivors = may go abroad and reconstitute their terrorist struggle in the internationa= l arena. From anarchists and communists in late nineteenth century Russia t= o the present, acts of terrorism signal the presence of weak, divided, and = isolated opposition groups unable to appeal to broad domestic social strata= .

    Iran constitutes an interesting and unique configu= ration within the Middle East (second row right cell). Here an oil-based di= ctatorship, disguised behind a monarchical veneer, ruled with the assistanc= e of quasi-colonial external and domestic military support. Its resources p= ermitted it to choose a mixed strategy of severe repression and selective c= ooptation. But it faced a civil society with a fairly wide dissipation of r= esources, particularly a domestic middle class of traders, artisans,

    [page-number of print-ed.: 24]

    and farmers that was difficult to hold in check b= ecause it had resources and capabilities to mobilize, mediated by the organ= izational structure of the Shiite clergy. This configuration yielded an exp= losive mixture of repression by the forces of order combined with intermitt= ent, but often sustained popular radical mobilization. The challengers coul= d finally assemble a broad coalition of peripheral urban masses, young inte= llectuals, and older petty bourgeois economic groups under the leadership o= f the Shiite clergy in the late 1970s and topple the Shah's regime. =

    As soon, as this new regime had consolidated and f= ended off external challengers, however, the internal economic divisions of= its support coalition came to the fore. The Shiite clergy essentially buil= t a new ISI-inspired protectionist political economy that delivered neither= growth nor jobs for the young educated or peripheral labor market entrants= . It only satisfied the rent-seeking desires of the traditional petty bourg= eoisie that was co-opted into the regime by its protectionist practices.

    Where regime incumbents are operating under condit= ions of considerable resource scarcity, yet face a civil society with weak = organizational capabilities, repression, combined with intermittent concess= ions and efforts to disorganize the incipient opposition, may well be the b= est survival strategy for incumbent authoritarian regimes (third row left c= ell). Also such regimes tend to originate in military coups that displaced = ineffectual monarchs who lacked the resources or the partners in civil soci= ety to build more pluralist regimes. This situation prevails in Egypt, Syri= a, to some extent in Tunisia and increasingly in Central Asian countries so= me of which may yet rise into the tier of oil-rich, but populous dictatorsh= ips. Also under these conditions, the prospects for a broad-based Islamist = oppositional movement are quite dim. The insurrectional leadership base is = narrow and opportunities to forge broad societal coalitions are few. Again,= insurrectional nodes of the young urban intelligentsia may choose radical = terrorist strategies under these circumstances and face physical liquidatio= n, if they do not emigrate to a foreign country.

    Where authoritarian incumbents are operating under= conditions of resource scarcity, but economic resources and capabilities a= re widely dissipated across an independent middle stratum in the market eco= nomy, there chances are considerably brighter that incumbent regimes make c= oncessions or that domestic challengers force a political opening, although= also here the ruling groups will resist full democratization (third row ri= ght cell). Domestic political opportunity structures here induce political = entrepreneurs on the challenger side to assemble broad coalitions and to pa= rticipate in a political process of negotiation with the regime incumbents = rather than to opt out and choose terrorist strategies. The stop-and-go lib= eralization and de-liberalization in Jordan and Morocco can illustrate such= developments. Even the multi-facetted domestic struggle of the Palestinian= s for liberation from Israeli governance may fit this configuration.(= 11)

    Extreme resource scarcity on the part of political= incumbents, finally, leaves open primarily strategies of appeasement and c= oncession vis-=E0-vis opposition forces, punctuated by brief and ineffectua= l campaigns of repression (bottom row left cell). A broad dissipation of ec= onomic resources and associational capabilities in the population exerts fu= rther pressure on the incumbent elites to make concessions and open the dem= ocratic process (bottom row right cell). Obviously, as the case of Malaysia= demonstrates, even under such conditions semi-authoritarian rule is likely= to remain viable as long as economic performance is superior. It is not by= chance that very populous non-oil producers operating in an environment of= extreme resource scarcity and vibrant civic oppositional mobilization have= displayed the greatest propensity to grant democratic competition, even th= ough with constraints and intermittent authoritarian backlashes. It is also= such constellations that facilitate the cooptation of fundamentalist Islam= ist movements. One examples of cooptation is the Muslim Youth Movement of M= alaysia whose leader Anwar Ibrahim joined Mahathir Mohamad's ruling party a= nd rose to the position of finance minister, deputy prime minister, and hei= r-apparent of the leader, until an internal power struggle landed him in ja= il. The other prime example is the Turkish Islamist party that has conteste= d elections under ever new labels each time the existing party was outlawed= under pressure from the secular Turkish military. In its most recent incar= nation the party for the first time holds a majority in the Turkish parliam= ent and supplies the government after moderating its appeal and turning int= o what may be the Muslim equivalent of West European Christian Democracy. <= /font>

    A survey of the eight configurations of regime inc= umbents' and their potential challengers' assets and capabilities reveals t= hat the interaction of repressive governments with domestic or internationa= l terrorist insurrectional militants does not constitute the only, or even = the dominant, strategic configuration in struggles

    [page-number of print-ed.: 25]

    over political regime form within the Islamic worl= d. In fact, in this region configurations of regime incumbents' resource co= ntrol and dissipation of assets to potential challengers are distributed su= ch that all of the four most populous Muslim countries on earth with togeth= er more than 500 million inhabitants - in the order of population size Indo= nesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey - were electoral democracies for so= me or most of the time in the 1990s. In none of these countries, terrorist = activities were the dominant strategy of the opposition forces. Even Mushar= raf's current military dictatorship in Pakistan recently had to tolerate se= mi-competitive parliamentary elections in which fierce opposition parties c= ontested the election and almost carried the day. In a similar same vein, t= he fifth most populous Islamic country - Iran - has an authoritarian regime= tempered by constitutional, procedural constraints that have some efficacy= even in the face of clergy rule behind the scenes. Also here, domestic mas= s protest rather than clandestine terrorist activity is the main mode of ar= ticulating oppositional demands. Thus neither predatory authoritarianism on= the part of rulers nor domestic or international terrorist activity on the= part of challengers is associated with Islamic countries in general. Only = in the Arab Middle East, North Africa, and possibly Central Asia have polit= ical-economic conditions and legacies led to specific configurations of rul= er and challenger asset control that favor the combination of repressive re= gimes with terrorist insurgent activities. The Islamic countries in which t= his configuration prevails account for a relatively small fraction of the I= slamic world population.(12)

    From Domestic to International Terrorism: A Mat= ter of Political Opportunity Structures ...

    The preceding discussion clarifies conditio= ns under which opponents to authoritarian regimes, particularly in their pr= edatory variant, may mobilize and challenge the incumbent rulers. Terrorist= strategies result from the isolation and powerlessness of regime opponents= precipitated by political relations in which (1) the incumbents have acces= s to more than minimal and often quite ample economic means that are not ex= tracted from the population, but derive from natural resource rents and (2)= the potential challengers have few financial and organizational resources = and capabilities to mobilize a broad social coalition. But further argument= s are needed to explain how terrorist strategies move from domestic insurre= ction to international terrorism that targets external Western allies of th= e regimes in the Middle East the insurrectionist wish to see collapse. By t= argeting civilians in advanced capitalist democracies and above all the Uni= ted States, terrorists intend to get back at repressive Middle Eastern regi= mes propped up by Western powers and probably not viable without their cont= inuing support. The prime examples that come to mind are Egypt and Saudi Ar= abia. It is not by accident that many international terrorists assembled in= Al Qaeda originate from these countries, but not from Bangladesh, I= ndonesia, Iran, Turkey, or even Pakistan.

    There are at least two conditions that have facili= tated the transfer of struggles against nationalist-socialist predatory reg= imes in the Middle East and Saudi monarchy into the international arena. Fi= rst, as a consequence of the oil shocks, the Saudi Arabian monarchy employe= d its initially boundless resources domestically and internationally in a d= rive to promote its domestic version of fundamentalist Islam in order to bo= lster the legitimacy of its regime and advance its standing in the Islamic = world. Fuelled by petro-dollars, Saudi religious charities strongly associa= ted with state-sponsored Saudi religious conservatism, Wahhabism, began to = export its fundamentalist reading of Islam to the rest of the Middle East. = As Kepel (2002: 70) reports:

      "By becoming the managers of a huge empir= e of charity and good works, the Saudi government sought to legitimize a pr= osperity it claimed was manna from heaven, blessing the peninsula where the= Prophet Mohammed had received his Revelation. Thus, an otherwise fragile S= audi monarchy buttressed its power by projecting its obedient and charitabl= e dimension internationally."

    Not only Saudi proselytism, but also the flow= of migrant labor into and out of the Arab peninsula's major oil producer s= upported a fundamentalist Wahhabist reading of the Koran. Many professional= s from all over the Middle East who temporarily worked in Saudi Arabia retu= rned affluent to their home countries, but also deeply influenced by the Wa= hhabite milieu: "[S]ocial ascent went hand in hand with an intensification = of religious practice." (Kepel 2002: 71) With the Iranian revolution of 197= 9 and the second oil shock, Saudi Arabia intensified its petro-dollar drive= n bid for ideological supremacy in the Islamic world. Later in the 1980s, S= audi Arabia and other oil sheikhdoms, together with the United States, fina= nced the Islamic uprising against Soviet hegemony in Afghanistan. This effo= rt ultimately resulted in the rule of the Taliban in

    [page-number of print-ed.: 26]

    Afghanistan and the development of safe heavens f= or Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in that country.

    Saudi foreign policy has followed contradictory im= peratives. On the one hand, its external system of military and economic al= liances has relied on support by the United States, particularly in the wak= e of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War of 1991. On the other hand,= for reasons of domestic legitimation and international regional leadership= , the Saudi monarchy has promoted an anti-Western fundamentalist reading of= Islam that helped to educate many of the terrorist cadres who turned again= st Saudi Arabia and the West in the 1990s. Religious fundamentalists displa= ced from other nationalist-socialist repressive dictatorships in the Middle= East supplemented these cadres in their struggle against the incumbent Mid= dle Eastern regimes and the West. The contradiction between religious funda= mentalist teachings and international alliance system came into the open in= the 1990s with the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, ch= anges in Saudi Arabia's domestic political economy - precipitated by declin= ing oil prices and the demographic explosion - have make hitherto practiced= techniques of financial cooptation of and side-payments to potential oppon= ents increasingly unviable and force the Saudi regime to rely increasingly = on repression of opposition rather than financial incentives to instill com= pliance with the existing order.

    The second aspect of the international opportunity= structure that facilitated the shift of the sites of battle about Middle E= astern regimes into the international arena has to do with the civil libert= ies and political freedoms enjoyed by residents in the Western hemisphere. = Just as Russian opponents to the Tsarist regime in the 19th cent= ury preferred to seek shelter in Western democracies such as Switzerland or= the Netherlands where civil rights allowed them to plan their insurrection= ist activities, also contemporary Western democracies grant civil rights to= non-citizens that have made such countries suitable platforms for displace= d challengers from the Middle East to prepare terrorist activities back in = their home region and beyond. West European bases of operation have been pa= rticularly convenient because of the presence of sizeable Muslim minorities= and associational networks in such countries that have permitted potential= terrorists to swim "like fish in the water" without easy detection. Furthe= rmore, Muslim diaspora communities in West European democracies include a s= ufficiently large mass of economically marginalized migrants to create also= the intellectual and emotional setting in which terrorist cadres could cou= nt on passive acceptance, if not active support. Ironically, it is the civi= l liberties that fundamentalist Islamic terrorist cadres wish to abolish th= at facilitated their own activities in the first place.

    The displacement of fundamentalist Islamist terror= ist activity into the international arena is thus the result of domestic po= wer configurations between repressive, predatory Middle Eastern regimes and= weak, isolated insurrectionist cadre as well as external political opportu= nities created primarily by Saudi foreign policy and the hospitality of Wes= tern countries to Middle Eastern opposition figures. Whatever religious leg= itimation adorns the attacks inflicted on Western citizens and institutions= , such actions are the collateral damage resulting from a new strategy of I= slamic insurrectionists to fight predatory Middle Eastern regimes. The liqu= idation of domestic opposition in countries such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia l= eft many radicals no choice but the international arena. At the same time, = Middle Eastern regimes funded international activities in Afghanistan and e= lsewhere that contributed to the growth of Islamist fundamentalism abroad. =

    The Course and Consequence of Terrorist Mobilization

    It may be technically difficult to contain terrori= sm unleashed by Islamist insurgents who target Western citizens and institu= tions. But the fact that such terrorism has become a major channel of artic= ulating radical Islamist demands is a definitive sign that fundamentalist I= slam in the Middle East is in decline. Terrorism often results from the fai= lure of oppositional forces to building encompassing oppositional coalition= s against regime incumbents. Kepel (2002) and Feldman (2003) have convincin= gly argued that this proposition characterizes the current situation in the= Middle East. Terrorism does not only result from political isolation, but = also reinforces it. While broad social strata in many Islamic countries may= be receptive to a general Islamist message, voicing discontent with ineffe= ctive, corrupt, predatory incumbent rulers and resentment of Western (Chris= tian?) affluent democratic polities, the practice of terrorism tends to div= orce insurrectionist cadre from those strata.

    The high water mark of Islamist fundamentalism occ= urred in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the fall of the Soviet regime = in Afghanistan, the advent of fundamentalist Islamic government in Sudan, a= nd the moral loss of reputation in Saudi Arabia when it began to host Weste= rn troops in the aftermath of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. Since then, fund= amentalist Islamists have suffered a number of defeats that drove them furt= her and further into isolation, but made them

    [page-number of print-ed.: 27]

    more likely to embrace international terrorism as= prime venue to draw world attention to Middle Eastern political and econom= ic deprivation. What caused the decline of fundamentalist Islamist movement= s?

    The first and possibly most important, lasting set= back for Islamic fundamentalism is the failure of the Iranian Shiite clergy= to develop a successful Islamic road to economic development. The regime h= as delivered a warmed-over version of ISI economic policy with all the fami= liar detrimental consequences for domestic investment, savings, and product= ivity increases. As a consequence, it has generated a huge discrepancy betw= een the vast mass of job seekers and the small number of available position= s in a labor market driven by the entry of very strong demographic cohorts.= The Shiite clergy has delivered benefits of protectionism to the old petty= bourgeoisie of devout merchants and craftspeople and an initial windfall o= f political-administrative jobs for members of the revolutionary generation= of 1979, provided they survived the war with Iraq. In the 1990s and beyond= , the regime has produced economic drift and stagnation that deprives both = the marginal urban poor as well as the young intelligentsia of economic opp= ortunities. The Shiite clerical regime thus sets the stage for a new revolu= tion with a secular, pro-Western thrust. Whether and when this revolution t= akes place depends on the determination and unity of the ruling clergy to e= mploy force against insurrectionist stirrings.

    The second disaster of Islamist fundamentalism cam= e about by the military victories of the fundamentalist movements in Sudan = and Afghanistan. Instead of demonstrating the ability of religious fundamen= talists to create a modicum of social order and stability, initial success = precipitated fierce internecine struggles that discredited the Islamists' p= romises to bring about a new vision of social development. As Kepel (2002: = 361) paraphrases the interpretation of a Sudanese Islamic writer living in = London, Abdel Wahab al-Effendi, "Afghanistan was the [Islamic renewal] move= ment's greatest triumph of modern times before it turned into its supreme c= atastrophe." According to Effendi, the fact that Islamists were solely resp= onsible for these disasters, without being able to blame foreign interferen= ce, delegitimized the movement's efforts much more than the defeats of fund= amentalism by military repression in Egypt and Algeria.

    The third nail in the coffin of fundamentalist Isl= am was the bloody civil war in Algeria. Whereas in 1988 the fundamentalist = Islamists initially could claim to be the standard bearers not only of mora= l renewal, but also of democracy fighting a corrupt and predatory military = one-party regime, their later terrorist actions against the Algerian civili= an population completely discredited them and alienated the conservative pi= ous Islamic urban middle class who turned toward support of the incumbent r= egime. In the end, the tactic of the radicals backfired to murder large num= bers of Algerian civilians who were unwilling to cooperate with their cause= . After a final round of bloodletting in 1997, the Islamist Groupe Islam= ique Arm=E9 declared in its last communiqu=E9 "responsibility for the m= assacres and justified them by declaring impious all those Algerians who ha= d not joined its ranks. Thus, the GIA had finally chosen the option of t= akfir, the excommunication of society as a whole." (Kepel 2002: 273)

    In a similar vein, international terrorist activit= ies masterminded by fundamentalist Islamists, even those directed against n= on-believers, are likely to divide Muslim constituencies that potentially s= hare a common aversion to the incumbent Middle Eastern rulers. The level of= violence and the absolutist rhetoric of fundamentalist insurrectionists si= gnal to mass constituencies in the Middle East that regimes led by Islamist= challengers could become at least as repressive, tumultuous, and economica= lly ineffective as those of the current incumbents in their respective coun= tries.

    The broader lesson of the events in Iran, S= udan, Afghanistan and Algeria is that the economic interests of the potenti= al constituencies for Islamist fundamentalism are too disparate and contrad= ictory to create lasting alliances that could translate into stable and eco= nomically viable political regimes. Furthermore, considerable segments of t= he most aggrieved and alienated societal sectors - such as the young margin= alized urban poor and the underemployed technical intelligentsia - could be= nefit from policies of market liberalization that directly fly in the face = of a fundamentalist Islamist vision of society. Whereas the latter calls fo= r the fusion of economic, political, and religious governance, such groups = may benefit from market liberalization and a clear dissociation of markets,= politics, and religion.

    Cross-Regional Comparison: Is International Terrorism an Islamic P= henomenon?

    This paper has vigorously argued against the claim= that the ultimate consequence of Islamic religious beliefs and of Islamic = insurrectional movements against regime incumbents is international terrori= st violence against the Judaeo-Christian West. I have developed a multi-lay= ered causal argument that associates the empirical incidence of internation= al terrorist actions with a specific configuration of regime incumbents an= d chal-

    [page-number of print-ed.: 28]

    lengers in the Middle East. At its root, a necessa= ry, but insufficient condition for terrorism is the prevalence of predatory= authoritarian regimes whose incumbents extract resources while not offerin= g the security and predictability of property rights and the regulatory ins= titutions that would sustain competitive markets and make rationally calcul= ating individuals save, invest, and thus promote economic growth. The depri= vations suffered by large segments of the population in an environment of p= redatory, rent-seeking governance, however, translate into political mobili= zation only when two further conditions coincide. First, the strategic cons= tellation of incumbents' and challengers' resources and capabilities is suc= h that the latter have a fighting chance to press for regime change without= facing certain demise. Second, the challengers have an ideational roadmap = consisting of several elements. It allows them to distinguish "friends" fro= m "foes" and identifies the root causes of the current predicament. Further= more, it incorporates the vision of a new social order and of strategies to= improve economic, political, and cultural well-being that resonates with l= arge segments of the population and that is not discredited by past societa= l experiences. In the 1980s and 1990s, a particular fundamentalist interpre= tation of Islam served that purpose. Depending on the configuration of asse= ts controlled and capabilities exercised by regime incumbents and challenge= rs, the ensuing political mobilization could result in international terror= ist activity.

    Terrorism as a strategy to articulate dissatisfact= ion with an incumbent regime actually signals the failure of challengers to= rally broad popular support around alternatives to the political status qu= o. The prevalence of Islam in a polity is not a sufficient condition for th= e propensities of revolutionary cadres to engage in terrorist violence agai= nst the West. But is the further inference justified that Islam may neither= be a sufficient nor a necessary condition for the occurrence of widespread= terrorism in the twenty-first century? Following Goldstone (1991a and b), = I believe that a unifying ideology is necessary to sustain political mobili= zation ultimately rooted in severe economic and social deprivations and aim= ed at a fundamental replacement of the existing political system. If the pr= evalence of Islam is not a necessary condition for sustained international = terrorism at this time, what are the ideational alternatives that could but= tress terrorist activities elsewhere under circumstances of severe socio-ec= onomic grievances and a political opportunity structure characterized by in= transigence of the rulers to demands advanced by insurrectionists? <= /p>

    At least currently, I do not see an alternative id= eology waiting in the wings and ready-to-go that has terrorist potentials e= quivalent to or exceeding those of fundamentalist Islam. As the earlier quo= te from Avinieri illustrated, other known alternatives to democratic libera= lism have been discredited in the eyes of most citizens in Middle Eastern c= ountries by historical experiences in the twentieth century. The current la= ck of ideational alternatives to Islam, however, does not rule out that fut= ure revolutionary cadres will be able to invent new ideologies to guide the= ir struggles, just as the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion did in mi= d-nineteenth century China. We know certain functional features a viable= ideational doctrine must invoke to mobilize opposition to predatory au= thoritarian governance. Above all, such doctrines must promise a new commun= itarian unity that fights against the economic and political individualism = and its correlates - alienation and anomie.

    We also know that outside the Middle East there ar= e regions of the world structurally conducive to revolutionary insurrection= s the failure of which may fuel international terrorism. The Central Asian = fission products of the Former Soviet Union, from Azerbaijan and Chechnya (= when it was semi-independent) via Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to Tajikistan, = Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan certainly have developed (or preserved and refu= rbished?) predatory authoritarian regimes over the past decade. They involv= e configurations of actors that may lead challengers to opt for internation= al terrorism. So far, these terrorist aspirations have been framed in Islam= ist terms (cf. Rashid 2002). The other world region with severely predatory= governance, isolation from the world economy, and ongoing relative and eve= n absolute economic decline is Sub-Saharan Africa (Van de Walle 2001). In a= significant subset of countries in this region, fundamentalist Islam would= currently be an attractive interpretive frame to fight existing grievances= , in many others it would be not. It is unclear, however, what other ideati= onal offers could guide insurrectional activities and ultimately terrorism,= where fundamentalist Islam is not a viable option.(13)

    Thus, while ideology is indispensable to orient fi= ghts for political power and control, it would be inaccurate to characteriz= e any particular world religious civilization as more or less prone to a pa= rticular kind of democratic or authoritarian rule. The association of Islam= with

    [page-number of print-ed.: 29]

    authoritarian and predatory rule in the Middle Ea= st, but nowhere else to the same degree and intensity, is the result of eco= nomic conditions and institutional legacies unique to this region, but not = derivative from Islam in general. Both regime incumbents and challengers in= this region employ religious arguments to frame their own claims and persu= ade individuals and groups to join their struggle. But it is conceivable th= at insurrectional actors invoke non-Islamic religious or secular ideologica= l justifications of their struggles in other world regions where predatory = rule causes severe social grievances and challengers find political opportu= nities to attack regime incumbents.

    Let me finally return to the second positive analy= tical question I posed in the introduction to this paper. Is fundamentalist= Islam, and more specifically its international terrorist variant, a "causa= lly adequate" response to the grievances that prompted its growth since the= 1960s? My tentative answer to this question is no. Where fundamentalist Is= lamists have gained power, they have been unable to organize a political-ec= onomic strategy of development overcoming the economic grievances that prom= pted mobilization. Because of this policy failure, Islamist regimes cannot = maintain the political coalition of social forces that achieved the collaps= e of the preceding predatory political regimes. Important elements of the I= slamist coalition would be economically better off, were they to embrace ma= rket-liberalizing, secular political programs. This applies at least to the= young intelligentsia that furnishes the radical insurrectionist cadres and= terrorist suicide bombers, but also to segments of the marginalized young = urban poor.

    Where fundamentalist Islam has failed to gain powe= r, finally, terrorist strategies of its most radical current have divided t= he potential coalition partners even where they agree on a rejection of the= political status quo. While in the future Islamist fundamentalists may sco= re an occasional victory over an existing Middle Eastern political regime h= ere or there, for example in an oil-rich, but populous and economically dec= lining country with a predatory government, its grand vision is a spent for= ce and unlikely to win whole blocs of countries over to the Islamist cause.=

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    Herbert Kitsch= elt:
    State Failure, Globalization, and Regime Conflict: Origins of Contemporary = International Terrorism in the Middle East

    International terrorism is a strategy which = the opponents of predatory regimes are liable to take under specific condit= ions: most importantly, if they face strong repression at home and cannot f= orge a broad anti-regime coalition.

    At the root of today's Islamist terrorism is preda= tory rule, which characterizes much of the Middle East and North Africa. He= re, an institutional legacy from pre-modern times, oil wealth, and a lack o= f serious foreign threats have together consolidated a regime type whose in= cumbent rulers have a strong incentive to secure for themselves and their s= upporters a large part of the country's resources. Islam is not a discernib= le factor in this development.

    Predatory regimes hinder economic growth with thei= r rent-seeking policies that resort to arbitrary coercion, patronage, and t= ight control of markets. As soon as resource wealth is no longer able to ke= ep up with population growth and thus imposes ever narrower limits on the s= trategy of co-opting potential opponents these regimes are confronted with = mounting discontent.

    Against this background, a fundamentalist reading = of Islam has become a powerful tool in the political mobilization of the va= rious dissatisfied groups (the urban poor, the young intelligentsia, and th= e traditional petit bourgeoisie) into a (temporarily) united opposition mov= ement. Its communitarian model of society appeals to those who have been up= rooted and displaced by modernization. Furthermore, it has attained a sort = of interpretive monopoly because all other ideologies presently available -= notably those with socialist leanings - have failed.

    Only where repression foreclosed the path of mass = mobilization did Islamist activists turn to terrorism as a strategy for cha= llenging the regime. Terrorism became internationalized as a consequence of= opportunity (Saudi-financed proselytism has created a transnational commun= ity of fundamentalist Muslims), need (effective repression at home), and a = salient target (Western support for predatory regimes).

    In fact, the surge of Islamist terrorism heralds t= he decline of the Islamist ideology which is losing its appeal due to its t= rajectory of failures (Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan). However, the structural c= onditions that might give rise to a new surge of terrorism once the "right"= ideology became available exist in various parts of the world, above all i= n Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia.

    [Fu=DFnoten:]

      * Paper initially prepare= d for presentation at the conference on "Die globale Frage. Empirische Befu= nde und ethische Herausforderungen", organized by =D6sterreichische Forschu= ngsgemeinschaft, June 2003, Vienna.

      1 - That is why all Wes= tern countries closed down their earthquake prediction facilities in the 19= 80s and 1990s, with Japan the last country to make that step.

      2 - I am disregarding h= ere debates about the effect of deregulation of global short-term capital m= arkets on economic growth. It is by now generally recognized that speculati= ve waves, e.g. in currency markets, can unfairly penalize rich and poor cou= ntries and are not necessarily conducive to greater economic growth. See th= e discussion on capital markets in World Bank Policy Research Report (2002)= as well as a recent special theme paper in the Economist, "A Cruel = Sea of Capital. A Survey of Global Finance," May 3, 2003.

      3 - Oil revenue as a p= ercentage of export earnings exceeds in all of them 50%, except in Egypt (4= 3%) and Oman (29%). See Henry and Springborg (2001: 40 and 132 for Sudan).<= /font>

      4 - In addition to the= already cited studies, see as a recent effort to evaluate the major rival = endogenous growth theories comparatively Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002).

      5 - The data in table = 3 as well as subsequent tables are World Bank's 2000/2001 World Developm= ent Report (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

      6 - Preworski et al. = (2000) propose an ingenious, but contentious way to endogenize political re= gimes and correct for selection effects in estimating the effect of politic= al regime on economic growth. Their result is that political regime form is= irrelevant for economic growth. But their economic model of growth is rudi= mentary and lacks the controls typically included in the most sophisticated= growth models currently advanced by economists. These models, from Barro (= 1997) to Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002) tend to identify a curvilinear relati= onship according to which initial increments of democracy contribute to eco= nomic growth, while higher levels of civil and political rights may weigh n= egatively on economic growth. This effect emerges after introducing a host = of controls, among which the usual institutional suspects and economic open= ness have a large substantive impact.

      7 - In other regions = of the world, foreign aid may play the same role of degrading already preda= tory political governance by relieving governments from reliance on resourc= es produced by their subjects. Cf. Knack 2000; Easterly 2001; Van de Walle = 2001.

      8 - For the link betw= een inequality and authoritarian rule, see also Muller (1995).

      9 - On the magnitude = of financial flows, see Henry and Springborg (2001: 37).

      10 - As Gellner (1981= : 7) has argued in many instances, from a Weberian perspective Islamic doct= rine could be viewed as the most modern of the major world religions: "[B]y= various obvious criteria - universalism, scripturalism, spiritual egalitar= ianism, the extension of full participation in the sacred community not to = one, or some, but to all, and the rational systematization of social= life - Islam is, of the three great Western monotheisms, the one closest t= o modernity."

      11 - Of course, Pale= stinians have pursued a broad menu of strategies, including domestic terror= ism. Because there are so many opportunities for insurrectional activity at= home, Palestinians may have played a very low profile role in internationa= l terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda.

      12 - All Middle East= ern countries listed under groups I through III of table 3, minus Iran and = the small oil sheikhdoms, barely add up to 230 million inhabitants, compare= d to the more than 550 million Muslims living in countries of group IV.

      13 - Of course, in a= number of countries, more narrowly defined ethnocultural concerns have ins= pired civil wars and domestic acts of terrorism. One might think of Sri Lan= ka or of Peru, to name only two conflicts prominently featured in internati= onal news media. To become more than local struggles, however, they would h= ave to connect to a broad, generalized, universalistic ideology. In Latin A= merica, at least, this link usually still goes to latter day variants of de= pendency theory, such as among the intellectuals guiding the Indio movement= in Chiapas/Mexico or on the Peruvian highlands.

    =A9 Friedrich Ebert Stiftung | technical sup= port | net edition=20 fes-library | Dezember 2003
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