5a. Structural Changes and Normative Resistance

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From the course by University of Copenhagen

After the Arab Spring – Democratic Aspirations and State Failure

161 ratings

University of Copenhagen

After the Arab Spring – Democratic Aspirations and State Failure

161 ratings

Learn why the hope and excitement of the Arab Spring is gone, why so many Arab states are falling apart, why the youth are so frustrated, why there are so many refugees, and what can be done about it. The so-called Arab Spring appeared to end decades of exceptionalism and bring the Arab world back into the mainstream of global developments. The rebellions promised the return of politics and the reassertion of popular sovereignty against their corrupt and geriatric leaders. Much hope and flowery language greeted the young men and women who deposed their leaders and tried to build new, better societies. Today, the Arab world is in deep crisis. Of the 22 member states of the Arab League, at least five have essentially collapsed: Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Syria exist only in name today, as their territories have fallen to competing, murderous armed groups. In the remaining countries, the old autocracies have reasserted themselves. The repression at home is now worsened by regional conflict on an unprecedented scale, and the resulting frustration has led to the biggest refugee flows in recent memory. What went wrong? This course offers an overview of the structural shortcomings of Arab states and societies, which help us understand why the democratic awakening did not happen but instead “has given way to civil wars, ethnic, sectarian and regional divisions and the reassertion of absolutism.” This raises the obvious and renewed question whether there is something inherent in the Arab, and by analogy Muslim, condition that makes them special. Does this condition make this part of the world impervious to generally observable trends towards greater accountability, popular participation in political decision-making, greater generation and fairer division of economic wealth? Join this course to find out!

From the lesson

Human Development: Growth and Frustration

Structural changes beyond anyone’s control lead to different ways of living and, thus, value changes. With explosive population growth, social institutions have not kept up and norms are contested, often violently. Arab education and research especially have underperformed.

5a. Structural Changes and Normative Resistance7:29

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Ebrahim Afsah
Associate Professor
Faculty of Law

[MUSIC]

The Iranian dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji, argued in an article for

the American news channel CNN, that the west gets Iran wrong.

Much of what he wrote is directly applicable also to our societies.

Ganji begins by stating that much contemporary academic popular and

official analysis about the state of liberalism, economics and

feminism in Iran and by implication also in the Arab world has been mistaken.

He notes the principled ideological objection

by the founder of the Islamic Republic and his successors to western concepts

of liberal democracy to Marxism to capitalism and to feminism.

As Ganji notes it is apparent from both Khomeini's writings and

his actions in government that he quote, was not really familiar

with liberalism and Marxism, yet he was opposed to both, end of quote.

Interested, he and his successors postulated.

Religious democracy as both superior to liberal democracy in producing government

outcomes and crucially, as more respectful of family values than liberal democracy.

[FOREIGN] the official ideology

that gives the prominent and institutionalized role to the clergy and

governing the state is peculiar to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But the claim that democracy needs somehow to be tampered by religious precepts,

respectful of Muslim identity and interest is not peculiar to Iran.

The claim that the clergy as the interpreters of God's law

should be given some role and formulation and implementation of law and

public policy in enjoys considerable appeal.

The enormous electoral success of Islamists

throughout the Arab world after the uprisings.

Indicates popular support for the idea that religion must play a strong, if

not controlling role in public affairs to ensure authenticity and Muslim identity.

The constitutional debates in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya,

that have seen regime change as a result of the uprisings.

Or in Jordan, Morocco or Algeria, that did not.

All devoted considerable time to questions of the appropriate role of Islam

in the machinery of the state.

What Ganji then goes on to state has important repercussions on the way

we perceive both the source and the likely trajectory of the Arab uprisings.

While the commitment to competitive elections and

popular participation in social and

economic decisions certainly is much larger in Iran than in any Arab nation.

The Iranian leadership shares with all Arab regimes the belief

that key decisions simply can not be entrusted to the electorate.

At best, they subscribe to a guided religiously tempered version

of democracy which allows the leadership to retain ultimate control.

So far, so depressingly familiar.

But Ganji then goes on to say something counterintuitive.

Yet anyone believing that Khamenei's views have in turn resulted In

a top down squashing of political discussion

even of imported ideas would be mistaken, end of quote.

He explains this by restating the well know opposition of all Islamists including

the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran to western notion of feminism.

Because they quote consider their own views on women and

their rights to be fair and just, and claim that unlike the west.

Islam is opposed to using women as an object for

advancing one's own agenda, end of quote.

Irrespective of our assessment of the veracity of this position.

We can acknowledge that there exists an important difference in opinion

about social values between the idealized Islamic vision of the good life,

and that observed in modern western societies.

The reason Ganji surmises, that the Islamist leadership has been unable

despite trying very, very hard to impose its social vision on society

is due to the existence of structural changes beyond anyone's control.

These have brought about realignments in society which cannot be turned back and

which in turn leads to normative changes that no one decreed and

that no one can steer.

The dramatic rise in literacy,

in urbanization, in female university attendance,

in the availability of foreign ideas in translated books and through the Internet.

Economic pressures of urban life which force both spouses to earn a living.

The opening of professional careers to women, required by macroeconomic needs,

and many similar structural changes inevitably and

irrevocably leads to normative changes that cannot be controlled.

Ganji points to the dogged and often violent determination of the Iranian

supreme leader to stop these changes, but observes the futility of these efforts.

Quote, and yet, despite this,

certain social developments are beyond his control.

In part because his power is not absolute, and also because of the strides

that Iranian civil society has made in recent years, end of quote.

The point to note here, is the dualism between an immutable ideological,

often religious, dogma, controlled and defended by an identifiable group

of persons often the clergy or political leaders, on the one hand.

In structural, impersonal forces on the other hand.

These forces lead to often drastic changes in what is perceived appropriate behavior.

As people's practice changes in response to material changes

in their livelihoods, idealization change ensues.

People begin to look differently onto the world and

eventually their normative world view changes.

A public order that is unable to accommodate these inevitable

changes in the way people perceive the world and

what they consider to be legitimate will be inherently unstable.

[MUSIC]

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