Theopposingforcesofeconomicgrievanceandsocialfragmentation

DistinguishedMajorsThesis,UniversityofVirginia

PhilipDavidSweigartSocialdifferences canbedivided into twovarieties: class‐basedandgroup‐baseddifferences. In societieswhereclass‐baseddifferencesareprominent,massmovementismorelikelytooccur.Wheregroup‐baseddifferencesaremoresignificant,socialfragmentationalongethnic,tribalandreligiouslinesmakesmassmovementlesslikely.Thisstudyexamines the accuracyof these two claimsby testing their validity in the contextof theArabuprisingsof2011. Of a list of economic grievance factors including perceptions of corruption, unemployment rates, youthunemployment rates, and GDP growth rates, only perceptions of corruption are found to have a positive andstatisticallysignificantrelationshipwithmassmovement.Bothhighandlowlevelsofethno‐religiousfragmentationare found to be correlatedwithmassmovement. Tribalism has a negative effect onmassmovement, but it isunclearwhetherthiseffectisactuallyduetoregimetype.

April22,2012

PhotobyStrategicInstituteUnitedStatesArmyWarCollege

CausesoftheArabUprisings

Sweigart 2

Distinguished Major Thesis

--- Causes of the Arab Uprisings

The opposing forces of economic grievance and social fragmentation ---

PHILIP DAVID SWEIGART University of Virginia

April 2012

Sweigart 3

In early 2011, a series of popular revolutions rocked the Arabic-speaking world as

citizens rose up, overthrowing governments in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt and threatening

autocrats elsewhere. In Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, government forces continue to pacify mass

protests, by force when deemed necessary.

These revolutions are unprecedented in the Arab world, an area where scholars have

speculated for years over the absence of effective mass movement. Academics have studied in

depth the extraordinary resilience of autocratic regimes in the region, regimes that skillfully

employed a repertoire of repression and faux democratic institutions to deflect forces for change.

The role of religious and ethnic differences in Middle Eastern politics has often enjoyed

considerable attention – after 9/11, the Middle East came to be seen as a hotbed of religious

fundamentalism, and as a result many secularist regimes enjoyed support from the United States

and European countries. The popularization of Islamist movements in the 1980s, as well as

widespread sympathy for Al Qaeda after 9/11, led many policymakers and observers to view

historical trends in the region as a struggle between progressive, secularizing leaders and

backwards Islamic fundamentalism, often spearheaded by Iran. The idea of religion and

religious intolerance as one of the primary causes of unrest in the region was reinforced by the

invasion of Iraq, which not only led to terrible sectarian violence, but also saw ethnic and tribal

tensions play a deadly role. Even today, the case has been made that the Arab uprisings of 2011

are no more than a continuation of battles that have been fought in the past between secularists,

Islamists, Christians, and Sunni and Shia Muslims. The successes of Islamist parties in recent

elections in Tunisia and Egypt, as well as manifestations of sectarian and ethno-tribal violence in

Syria and Egypt, are presented as evidence for this viewpoint.

Sweigart 4

Largely absent from the above analysis is an appreciation of the economic factors that

have also been at work in the region. Many have cited high unemployment, a burgeoning

population of youths and general social decay as some of the main reasons why protests erupted.

Economic difficulty is common in the Middle East, which suffers from low job creation and high

unemployment, as well as stagnant growth in GDP per capita.

This study was conceived in order to test the significance of tribal, ethnic and sectarian

differences versus economic trends in predicting the mass movements that emerged in 2011. We

expect that sectarianism, ethnocentrism and tribalism are negatively correlated with mass

movement, while economic grievances are positively correlated.

Bill & Springborg (1994) frame this debate admirably in their description of the social

foundations of Middle Eastern power structures. The authors suggest that there are two different

types of cleavages that separate members of a society from each other: class-based, or horizontal,

cleavages, and differences in group membership, or vertical cleavages.

In Western societies, horizontal cleavages are more significant than vertical ones. Large,

formalized organizations that cut across lines of group membership are more powerful than the

networks of personal and social relationships. These organizations are set up to advance the

interests of a certain class of people, such as minorities or the elderly or, in the case of unions,

the working class. Political parties also tend to be class-based. In Middle Eastern societies and

other societies where vertical cleavages are more prominent than horizontal cleavages, most

important decisions are made in the context of small, informal, groups where interaction is

highly personalized. Membership in these groups typically transcends class structures: members

of the same group may belong to the upper, middle or lower classes, and move between them

Sweigart 5

with relative ease. In contexts where group formations are resilient, class conflict appears to be

tempered due to the social mobility that they provide. The most effective vehicle for social

advancement is forging alliances with powerful members of one’s own group, not collective

action in the context of class conflict. The most important vertical cleavages are defined by

common descent.

Vertical cleavages: Ethnicities

The importance of descent in determining ethnic identity is well-documented. Max

Weber, Horowitz (1985), Hutchinson & Smith (1996), and Fearon & Laitin (2000) all assert that

ethnic identity is based primarily in some way on descent or myths of descent, although other

factors are also discussed.

A large body of literature explaining the causal link between ethnic differences and civil

conflict emerged in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War, when ethnic

nationalisms seemed to regain relevancy following the implosion of Communist ideology. This

was the era of ethnic and sectarian conflicts in the Balkans, the secession of the Central Asian

republics from the USSR, and when Samuel Huntington first published “The Clash of

Civilizations.”

One strand of theory frames ethnic conflict within the large body of literature on civil

conflict. Ethnic and religious variation in a society or organization has been shown to decrease

the likelihood of cooperation (Easterly & Levine 1997, Alesina et al 1999, Collier 2001). Others

transposed international relations theory onto the milieu of ethnic groups, treating ethnic groups

more or less as states. Posen (1993) argued that ethnic groups, like states, experience the effects

of the security dilemma: a history of inter-group conflict, geographic isolation, or vulnerability to

Sweigart 6

extremists can engender mistrust between ethnic groups, causing them to take defensive actions

against their rivals that are misconstrued as offensive. Other scholars (Lake and Rothchild 1996,

Walter 1999) picked up on this issue of insecurity, expanding it to include explanations of

rational choice. Collier and Hoeffler’s seminal 2004 article “Greed and Grievance in Civil War”

uses the index of ethno-linguistic fractionalization (the probability that two people will be drawn

from different ethnic or linguistic groups) to quantitatively evaluate its effect, finding that the

higher the value of the index, the more likely a society will experience civil war.

Social psychologists have also offered up a number of explanations for ethnic conflict.

Staub (1989, 2008), theorizes that collective frustration causes groups to vent their anger,

creating conditions in which genocidal violence can occur. Drawing on examples from early

modern European witch hunts, the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide and the Rwandan

genocide, Glick (2002, 2005, 2008) goes farther, proposing a model of “ideological

scapegoating” in which ethnic groups blame each other for their own perceived misfortunes.

Due to complex causes of misfortune and lack of information, established cultural ideologies and

stereotypes of the “other,” and the attractiveness of blaming others rather than facing their own

shortcomings, ethnic groups often scapegoat other groups, leading to conflict. Others (Hewstone

et al 2008) posit that in situations where sustained positive intergroup contact occurs, stereotypes

break down, lessening the chances of conflict.

Chandra (2006) critiques some of the methodologies used in studies that use ethnicity as

an independent variable. Attempting to standardize definitions of ethnicity, she posits that

“ethnic identity categories…are a subset of identity categories in which eligibility for

membership is determined by descent-based attributes.” These attributes can be either real or

imagined. Chandra then proceeds to define the range of descent-based attributes:

Sweigart 7

(a) They are impersonal – that is, they are an “imagined community” in which members are not

part of an immediate family or kin group; (b) they constitute a section of a country’s population

rather than the whole; (c) if one sibling is eligible for membership in a category at any given

place, then all other siblings would also be eligible in that place; and (d) the qualifying attributes

for membership are restricted to one’s own genetically transmitted features or to the language,

religion, place of origin, tribe, region, caste, clan, nationality, or race of one’s parents and

ancestors. (Chandra, 400)

Chandra admits that the ethnic identity categories “appear somewhat arbitrary,” and ultimately

concludes that they present problems for research that measures ethnicity. Ethnicity can change

relatively quickly over time. Languages and places of origin change with migration. Religion

changes through conversion to other faiths. Even genetically transmitted features such as skin

color, while more difficult to alter, can be changed with modern technology. This presents a

special problem for the majority of studies on ethnicity, which assume that it is fixed (Chandra &

Boulet, unpublished). Chandra thus divides ethnic characteristics into two categories: “more

sticky” and “less sticky.”

Ethnic diversity in the Middle East has long played a significant role in the politics of the

region. Restive Kurdish minorities in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey have advocated secession

from those countries and the formation of a Kurdish state since the first World War (e.g., Olson

1989). Berbers and Touareg in North Africa, particularly Algeria, have at times had a

confrontative relationship with their Arab neighbors (Maddy-Weitzman, 2006).

A word should also be said about religion. Religion in the Middle East is a relatively

sticky ethnic characteristic. Bahrain was the only country in the Middle East and North Africa

that did not score “0” in the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Data Project in 2010 – a score

of zero indicates that there are severe restrictions on religious freedom in that country, including

Sweigart 8

but not limited to restrictions on conversion to minority religions. Because conversions to other

religions are so rare, religion is treated in this analysis as a sticky ethnic characteristic.

Tribes

The Middle Eastern context is complicated by the predominance of tribes in addition to

ethnicities. A tribe is a group of individuals united by a common ancestor, or at the very least, a

myth of a common ancestor. Tribes are composed of clans, which are in turn composed of

smaller units called ‘asha’ir, or literally, “groups of ten.” Unlike other parts of the world where

tribes and ethnic groups are largely synonymous, such as Africa, tribes in the Middle East are

ethnically similar and claim common ancestry: tribes can thus be thought of as a subset of

ethnicities (Tibi 1990).

An important question is whether theories of ethnic conflict can be applied in the Middle

Eastern tribal context. Tibi’s (1990) definition of tribes as a kind of sub-ethnicity suggests that

this may be the case. Chandra, as well, includes tribes and clans in her list of ethnic

characteristics, although she may be referring to non-Middle Eastern concepts of the tribe.

However, tribes pose a special problem for the application of ethnic conflict theory because,

even more so than is the case with ethnicities, membership in tribes is highly dynamic and fluid.

Tribal confederations, usually forged through blood ties (imagined or real), are constantly

shifting, fragmenting, and reforming (Bill & Springborg 1994). It is virtually impossible, then,

to construct a quantitative measure that takes into account tribal differences.

Salzman (2008) discusses in detail the importance of tribes in Middle Eastern society and

their political implications with respect to conflict and modernization, drawing on

anthropological ethnographies of Middle Eastern tribes such as Lancaster’s authoritative study

Sweigart 9

on the Rwala Bedouin of the Levant (1981), as well as other studies on tribes in Iran (Avery

1965, Fisher 1968), Libya (Evans-Pritchard 1949), Oman (Barth 1983, Chatty 1996), and Saudi

Arabia (Cole 1975). Traditional patterns of conflict in tribal societies, Salzman asserts, reflect an

old Bedouin saying: “I against my brother; I and my brother against my cousin; I, my brother,

and my cousin against the outsider.” Salzman calls this the principle of “ally with the closer

against the more distant.” Not only do these mantras express the system of vertical cleavages

that divide tribes and clans, but they also recall the “security dilemma” invoked in studies of

ethnic conflict, reflecting the realist strand of international relations theory.

Horizontal cleavages: Class

A second body of literature explores the role of horizontal cleavages, particularly class

differences, in causing mass movements. The theory that economic grievances bring about

collective action first arose in the 1960s. Relative deprivation theory (Davies 1962, 1969; Gurr

1968, 1970; Feierabend et al 1969) holds that collective action occurs when there are gaps

between expectations and reality. These gaps cause individuals to mobilize collectively in order

to narrow the gap. Increasing political repression or unexpected economic decline were two

commonly suggested factors. Out of resource mobilization theory developed social breakdown

theory, which suggests that collective action occurs when the social structures that normally

regulate human life deteriorate or collapse, sowing frustration and moral outrage (Thompson

1971, Scott 1976). The pressures that weaken social structures can be demographic, ecological,

or economic in nature.

Breakdown theory was challenged in the 1970s by resource mobilization theory,

championed by Charles Tilly (1975, 1978) and others. Proponents of RM theory attributed

Sweigart 10

collective action to social solidarity rather than social breakdown, citing examples from Western

Europe, China and Russia to substantiate their claims. Collective action, dubbed “contentious

politics” or “politics by other means,” came to be seen as a tactic of highly cohesive groups,

wielded in the pursuit of group interests. RM theory quickly became the dominant paradigm for

explaining collective action.

Proponents of breakdown theory challenged this conclusion. Piven & Cloward (1977) in

their analysis of social movements in the United States in the 1930s and 1960s assert that the

breakdown of social structures due to the Great Depression and rapid modernization and

migration following WWII led to collective action in the 1930s and 1960s. Useem (1997; 1998),

citing examples from the civil rights movement and later race riots, contends that the RM and

breakdown theories explain two different phenomena. RM theory explains routine collective

action such as electoral rallies and peaceful protest, while breakdown theory is a better

explanation for non-routine collective action such as rebellion, collective violence and riots.

Caren (2011) revisits the role of social breakdown in causing collective action, offering a

quantitative analysis of three causes of economic grievance: relative inequality, economic

decline and unemployment, and ethnic or group discrimination. Caren also investigates other

factors, such as the percentage of youths in the general population.

Research design and measurements

The unit of analysis is the Arab nation-state. For the purposes of this study, which is to

examine the causes of non-routine, anti-government mass movements, Lebanon and Iraq are

omitted from the universe of Arab states under discussion, because their governments are too

weak to exert control over large sections of society. Using indicators of tribalism, ethnic

Sweigart 11

fragmentation and economic grievance, we will test each of these three measures for their effects

on mass movement. Because the dependent variable of mass movement will be a binary variable

coded as “0” or “1,” the statistical model used in testing will be logistical regression. Tribalism

and ethnic fragmentation are expected to have a negative relationship with mass movement,

while economic grievances are expected to exhibit a positive relationship.

In order to measure the degree to which a society is fractionalized along ethnic lines, an

adaptation of the index of ethno-linguistic fractionalization as described by Bossert et al (2005)

is used. This index, used by Collier and Hoeffler in 2004, expresses the probability that two

individuals selected at random from the population come from two different ethnic or linguistic

groups. The equation used to calculate the index is the following:

The value pk represents the share of group k in the total population. We depart from the

traditional ethno-linguistic index to include religious groups in addition to ethnic groups, better

reflecting the degree of fractionalization present in Middle Eastern societies. For example, while

the original index might classify Syrians as “Arabs” or “Kurds,” the new index classifies Syrians

as “Sunni Arabs,” “Alawite Arabs,” “Christian Arabs,” “Druze Arabs,” and “Sunni Kurds.” The

justification for adding religion is that it is one of the descent-based characteristics included in

Chandra. The proportion of ethno-linguistic-religious groups in countries was calculated from

various sources. Where applicable, data was used from the CIA World Factbook. Data on the

religious composition of national populations was gathered from publications by the Pew Forum

Sweigart 12

on Religion and Public Life. For Oman, data was used from an academic paper on ethnic

differences in that country (Kharusi 2012).

Tribal structures are endemic in Middle Eastern countries and present a special challenge

for measurement. Because it is impossible to gather precise data on tribes, and the importance

and relevance of tribes varies enormously from country to country or region to region, the level

of tribalism in a given country will be measured through a qualitative analysis of the composition

of governing institutions. Using lists of national leaders from the 2010 CIA World Factbook, the

tribal origins of high-ranking government officials and military commanders (depending on the

country, usually the prime minister and/or president, foreign minister, defense minister, finance

minister, interior minister, chief of staff, heads of intelligence and sometimes police chief or

other important military figures) will be measured for the diversity of family origins. On the

basis of that analysis, countries will be classified as “less tribal” or “more tribal,” respectively

coded as 0 or 1. Less tribal countries will display high levels of diversity at the highest levels of

government, while more tribal countries will exhibit low levels of diversity, with nearly all high-

ranking officials belonging to one or a few tribes and families. Government officials whose

relatives have previously been in government but who may not have relatives in government at

the present time are still counted as related to other officials. Inherent in this measurement is the

assumption that regimes reflect the social makeup of their societies, which may or may not be

the case. The results of this measurement are reported in Figure 2. Justification for the results is

provided below:

Algeria – 0 . All of the important figures in Algeria’s government are from differing

tribal and family origins. Algeria’s president, Abdulaziz Bouteflika, was born in Oujda, a town

located across the Moroccan border. Although he rose to prominence as a member of the

Sweigart 13

powerful “Oujda clan,” headed by former president Houari Boumedienne, the Oujda clan was

not a tribal or family group, but rather a cadre of rebel commanders in the Algerian War of

Independence who had been based in Oujda (Joffe 1997). Bouteflika also holds the defense

portfolio. PM Ahmed Ouyahia, FM Mourad Medelci, Finance minister Karim Djoudi, National

Gendarmerie commander General Ahmad Boustilla, armed forces chief of staff Mohamad

Lamari, and Algeria’s dreaded intelligence chief, Mohamad Medienne, also known as “Toufik”,

do not appear to be related to one another. Algeria is coded as “0”.

The GCC States: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and

Oman – 1. In the Gulf monarchies, virtually every important government official is a member of

the royal family. In Saudi Arabia, the only high-ranking government figures that are not from

the House of Saud are chief of staff Saleh al-Muhaya and Ibrahim al-Assaf, both originally from

Qassim province in the Nejd region of Saudi Arabia – the same region in which the Saud family

has its origins. The Sabah family dominates the upper echelons of Kuwait’s government. In

Bahrain, every important member of the cabinet, down to the captain of the Royal Guard, is from

the Khalifa tribe. Qatar’s ruling Thani family is prominent in government, although the Attiyah

family holds a few mid-level and upper-level posts. Government ministries in the United Arab

Emirates are split relatively evenly between the Nahyan clan, which rules Abu Dhabi, and the

Maktum family from Dubai. In Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said wields personal control over

most government ministries, holding portfolios for defense, foreign relations and finance, while

delegating lesser tasks to other members of the Busaid clan of which he is a member.

Egypt – 0. Before the 2011 revolution, Egyptian government was relatively non-tribal in

composition. President Hosni Mubarak, PM Ahmed Nazif, Defense minister and chief of staff

Mohamad Tantawi, FM Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, Finance minister Yousef Boutros-Ghali, Interior

Sweigart 14

minister Habib al-Adly, and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman do not appear to be related to one

another.

Jordan – 1. While Jordan’s royal family has not penetrated government institutions to

the same extent as is visible in the Gulf, the Hashemite monarchy has shrewdly forged alliances

with powerful Jordanian and even Palestinian families, often through marriage. The Rifai

family, originally from Safad in Galilee, has long been prominent in Jordanian politics. PM

Samir Rifai, who also held the defense portfolio, is the son and grandson of Jordanian prime

ministers. His great-aunt was married to Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh’s father, who after her

death married the daughter of Hassan bin Talal, King Abdullah II’s uncle. Finance Minister

Umayya Toukan is the son of Ahmed Toukan, a Palestinian regime loyalist who was briefly

prime minister in 1970 during the Black September crisis. The Majali family, from Kerak in

central-southern Jordan, has also traditionally held a few significant government posts: the

current head of the Public Security Directorate, a branch of the Jordanian intelligence services, is

Hussein al-Majali, whose father Hazza’ al-Majali was PM. Hussein’s sister, Taghrid al-Majali,

married Prince Muhammad bin Talal, King Abdullah II’s uncle. It seems that every political

figure in Jordan is somehow related. The exception to the rule is Jordan’s military, which is one

of the most professional in the Middle East.

Libya – 1. Due to the intensely personal control that Muammar al-Qaddafi exerted over

pre-revolutionary Libya, it is especially difficult to determine which Libyan government officials

were significant players. The subsequent defection of many high-level officials during the

course of the revolution indicates that most were probably not related to the Qaddafi family.

Several key figures, however, did not defect and are related to Qaddafi. Among these are

military intelligence chief Abdallah al-Senussi, who is married to Qaddafi’s sister-in-law,

Sweigart 15

Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Hasan al-Kabir al-Qaddafi, Special Forces commander

Al-Saadi al-Qaddafi, and National Security Advisor Mutassim al-Qaddafi. The incidence of

family connections in the Libyan government is significant enough to justify a coding of “1”.

Morocco – 1. The family of King Mohammed VI, like the Hashemite family in Jordan,

depends on a number of important families in government. PM Abbas al-Fassi appears to be

somehow related to FM Taieb Fassi-Fihri. Minister of Finance and Economy Salaheddine

Mezouar is not related to the royal family, but the political party of which he is a member was

founded by King Hassan II’s brother-in-law. Army Inspector General Abdelaziz Bennani is

related to the queen of Morocco, Salma Bennani. Morocco’s police chief, Housni Benslimane, is

related to Abdel Krim Khatib, the founder of the opposition Justice and Development party. His

cousins, Mohamad Saad Hassar and Moulay Ismail Alaoui, also hold significant government

posts, while another cousin is married to former PM Mohamad Karim Lamrani.

Syria – 0. President Bashar al-Asad is related to General Intelligence director Hafez

Makhlouf, his maternal cousin, Republican Guard commander Maher al-Asad, and deputy chief

of staff Assef Shawkat (married to Bashar’s sister). The Asads are from the town of Qardaha in

Lattakia province, in the western coastal mountains, and are members of the Kalbiyya tribal

group. The Interior minister, Said Mohamad Samur, hails from Jibla, a town neighboring

Qardaha. While these are not insignificant figures in the regime, the rest of the figures are

largely unrelated. Defense Minister Ali Habib Mahmud was also from the coastal mountain

regions, near the city of Tartus, although not related. VP Farouk al-Shara’a, who was one of the

longest serving foreign ministers in the world and close to Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Asad, is a

Sunni Muslim from Dera’a, a town in the south. FM Walid Moualem is from Damascus,

although his family traces their roots to the Zubaid tribe. Chief of staff Daoud Rajiha is a Greek

Sweigart 16

Orthodox Christian from Damascus governate. PM Mohamad Naji Otari is from Aleppo, in the

north of Syria. Air Force intelligence chief Jamil Hassan and General Security Director Ali

Mamluk are Sunnis. While a few government figures are related, many very significant ones are

not.

Tunisia – 0. Tunisia’s pre-revolution government, although highly corrupt, was not filled

with relatives of President Ben-Ali. PM Mohammed Ghannouchi was widely viewed as a

technocrat. FM Kamel Morjane worked for the UN before becoming defense minister, then

foreign minister. Interior Minister Rafiq Kasem, defense minister Ridha Grira, and finance

minister Mohamad Chalgoum do not appear to be related.

Yemen – 0. Yemen’s pre-revolution government was surprisingly diverse. President Ali

Abdullah Saleh was from northern Yemen. His VP, Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi, was a former

government official in South Yemen before unification. PM Ali Muhammad Mujawar was from

Shibwa province in southern Yemen. Interior minister Mutaher al-Masri, finance minister

Noman al-Suhaibi, and defense minister Ali Nasir Mohammad al-Hassani also do not appear to

be related.

In order to minimize the effects of changing ethnic identities, as described by Chandra,

the period under examination will be limited to 2011. This period also provides the most

variation in oucomes: while the impetus for collective action in the Middle East had been

building momentum for two decades (Lynch 2012), incidents of mass movement during that

period were largely routine rather than non-routine in nature. Social movements before 2011,

largely limited to strikes and labor protests, are better analyzed through the prism of RM theory

rather than the economic factors suggested by social breakdown theory. Limiting the analysis to

Sweigart 17

the Tunisian revolution of December 2010 to January 2011, and the events around the Middle

East that followed it, also controls for the immediate cause or spark of the revolutions, namely

the self-immolation of Mohammad Bouazizi and the subsequent overthrow of the Tunisian

government.

Economic grievances will be measured by examining four different indicators: the

Perceptions of Corruption index from Transparency International, rates of growth in GDP,

unemployment, youth unemployment. The GINI index of inequality would have been included

in the analysis, but information was incomplete. While other scholars have used GDP per capita

on a PPP basis, the effects of GDP are complicated in the GCC member states by the millions of

expatriates who reside in those countries and whose numbers tend to rise and fall with rates of

economic growth. Due to the problems of measurement that this poses, national GDP growth

rates are used. Unemployment poses a similar problem in the GCC states: rates of

unemployment are calculated as a percentage of the entire workforce, both nationals and non-

nationals. This tends to deflate the rate of unemployment among nationals because all non-

nationals are employed; without employment they would lose their work visas and be deported to

their countries of origin. For Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the only two GCC states for which

complete data is available, the unemployment rate is adjusted upwards using the latest figures

available for the proportion of non-nationals resident in those countries to more accurately reflect

rates of unemployment among nationals (Shah 2007).

The corruption index (Figure 3) is constructed through surveys that Transparency

International distributes to local NGOs in various countries, which then rate the level of

corruption that they perceive in their government. It is particularly useful because it measures

perceptions, which are often more important than reality in triggering collective action. It is

Sweigart 18

available for all country-years from 2003 and onwards. GDP growth rates are obtained from the

2011 IMF World Economic Outlook. Unemployment rates (Figure 4) are taken from the IMF

World Economic Outlook for 2011. Where data is unavailable from the IMF, it is taken from the

International Labor Organization’s (ILO) “Key Indicators of the Labour Market,” (KILM) 2011.

For the two countries that lack data from both of these sources, Yemen and Libya, data is drawn

from publications from the Arab Labor Organization, rough estimates in the CIA World

Factbook, and news sources. Youth unemployment rates (Figure 5) are taken from the KILM,

except for Oman and Yemen. Youth unemployment in Oman is taken from an ILO report, and

unemployment in Yemen is taken from a news report. Unemployment, youth unemployment,

and GINI index data are incomplete for several countries.

The mobilization of mass movements will be measured qualitatively. An examination of

news reports and articles will ascertain to what extent collective action is country-wide.

Movements that numerically small, taking root in one or two regions or cities but failing to

sustain themselves over time or spread farther afield, will be classified as “local” and coded as

“0”. These small movements share many characteristics with routine movements, which are

better explained by RM theory. Movements that are nation-wide and mobilize at least tens of

thousands in every major city will be classified as “national” and coded “1”. These movements

are generally non-routine and are thus better explained by grievance and breakdown theory.

Results are displayed in Figure 6, while justification is provided below using information from

news reports:

Algeria – 0. Although protests in Algeria began in many cities in January and February

2011, on February 12th a few thousand protestors were decisively halted in Algiers by as many as

Sweigart 19

30,000 riot police (Nossiter & Williams A11). Minor protests continued, but rarely in numbers

above several hundred, and were unable to gain traction.

Bahrain – 1. Protests in the tiny island country of Bahrain began on February 14th, 2011

with several thousand protestors occupying the Pearl roundabout in downtown Manama, the

capital and only major city. Escalation continued until the 22nd of February, when approximately

150,000 protestors occupied Pearl roundabout, according to the Bahrain Independent

Commission of Inquiry. (Bassiouni et al, 2011)

Egypt, Tunisia, Libya – 1. These three nations experienced nationwide protest

movements that led to the fall of their regimes. In the case of Libya, the protest movement

morphed into a full-scale rebellion.

Jordan – 0. Protests here began in January 2011 and peaked on February 25th, when 7-

10,000 protestors marched on the streets of Amman. Protests eventually lost momentum and

subsided.

Kuwait – 0. A few isolated protests occurred, the biggest not drawing more than a few

thousand on September 21st. A group of protestors stormed parliament in November calling for

the resignation of the prime minister (Baker).

Morocco – 0. Demonstrations in Morocco were organized by online youth activists to

begin on February 20th, 2011. Protests in the capital Rabat reportedly drew 10,000 people, and

widespread looting and protests continued to occur there and elsewhere in the country for several

months, petering out by late summer.

Sweigart 20

Oman – 0. A few hundred protesters gathered to demonstrate against government

corruption in January. Protests in the northern city of Sohar attracted several thousand people

and continued for several months, but were eventually cleared by the police.

Qatar, the United Arab Emirates – 0. No protests were reported in these countries.

Saudi Arabia – 0. Protests organized in the capital city of Riyadh for March 11th

famously fell flat, with thousands of police and plainclothes security officers flooding the streets

as a single man protested. While protests have been much more numerous and persistent in the

eastern provinces, which are populated by a Shia minority, they have not spread to the rest of the

country.

Syria – 1. Protests began on March 15th, when security forces beat a number of youths in

Dera’a for spray-painting “the people want the overthrow of the regime” on a wall. Escalation

was gradual but persistent, leading to an unconfirmed protest of 100,000 people in the southern

town of Dera’a on the 25th of March. They quickly spread around the country, to Idlib province,

Homs, Hama, and Deir az-Zour, with areas escaping government control for weeks on end.

Significantly the protests did not seem to take root in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo,

although they raged in the poorer suburbs. Also, in areas where minorities predominate, such as

the coastal mountain areas and the coastal towns of Lattakia and Tartus, protests have attracted

fewer participants. Many have speculated that this may be because minorities enjoy a privileged

status under the Asad regime. Information has also been extraordinarily hard to collect and

verify, due to the media blackout that is being enforced by the government. Despite these

difficulties, protests in Syria are widespread and numerous enough to justify classifying them as

“national.”

Sweigart 21

Yemen – 1. Protests erupted as early as January 2011 in the capital, Sana’a and Aden.

By March 2011, they had spread to Hudaydah, Ibb and Taiz. Huge numbers of people

participated in the protests – one protest in Sana’a on March 4th allegedly stretched out for two

kilometers, while on March 8th nearly a million protestors marched in the city of Ibb.

We expect that countries with deep ethnic or tribal divides will be less likely to

experience mass movements. But if class-based grievances are causing today’s mass

movements, countries that experience increasingly high levels of inequality, unemployment and

inflation, as well as low levels or stagnation of GDP, should be more likely to experience mass

movements. Movements that mobilize over economic grievances should have a much greater

ability to mobilize participants from all sections of society. For this reason, we expect that

nationwide protest movements will be mobilize primarily around economic grievances. To test

these propositions, several hypotheses have been formulated:

H1: Nations that score higher on the index of ethno-linguistic-religious fractionalization

(ELR index) should experience a lower level of collective action.

H2: Nations that are more tribal in their social makeup should experience lower levels of

collective action.

H3: Nations with increasing rates of growth in corruption should experience higher levels

of collective action.

H4: Nations with decreasing rates of growth in GDP should experience higher levels of

collective action.

Sweigart 22

H5: Nations with increasing rates of growth in unemployment should experience higher

levels of collective action.

H6: Nations with high levels of youth unemployment should experience higher levels of

collective action.

Two extenuating factors must be controlled for in this study: the effects of the rentier

state and regime type. Regime type and institutional differences among Arab states have been

speculated to have an effect on mass movements. Generally speaking, every Arab state prior to

the 2011 uprisings was an autocracy. These autocracies fell into one of two categories:

monarchies and presidential dictatorships (most of which came to power through military coups).

It is important not to select cases on the dependent variable: Gelvin (2012) and others have noted

that not a single Arab monarchy (with the possible exception of Bahrain) was seriously

threatened by the uprisings of 2011, while presidential autocrats were overthrown in Tunisia,

Libya, and Egypt, and faced severe opposition in Yemen and Syria. Yet he draws no causal link

between monarchies and the lack of uprisings. Simply noting that monarchies did not experience

uprisings is no proof that monarchy has an effect. What is of more concern for this study is that

monarchs in the Middle East are located in countries that are expected to be classified as “very

tribal” – the GCC states and Jordan. Thus, monarchy is a confounding variable, as what can pass

for the effects of tribalism might actually be an unknown effect of monarchy. In order to control

for regime type, monarchy will be treated as a dummy variable, with monarchies receiving a

value of “1” and non-monarchies coded as “0” (Figure 8).

Rentier state theory, developed in the early 1970s by Mahdavi (1970) and expanded upon

by others (Beblawi and Luciani 1987; Yates 1996; Ross 2001, 2006, 2009; Gray 2011), suggests

Sweigart 23

that revenue accrued from oil has special properties that decrease the likelihood of democratic

transitions in autocracies. While democracy is not the primary focus of this study, of more

concern is the mechanism by which oil rents prevent democracy. Ross (2001) suggests that oil

revenues prevent democracy by three mechanisms. Firstly, they remove the need for taxation in

oil-rich autocracies, thereby dissolving the social contract between the state and its citizens. Oil-

rich autocracies sponsor massive welfare states that provide subsidies for basic necessities such

as health care, housing, electricity, water, food and petrol. This economic largesse provides a

basis of legitimacy for the regime. Secondly, oil and gas rents create a “repression effect.” States

that accrue large amounts of revenue from natural resource sales are able to spend more on

internal security, and are better able to crush democratic movements. Thirdly, a “modernization

effect” suggests that revenue due to natural resource rents is not spent in ways that encourage the

development of a democratic society. Ross identifies a lack of occupational specialization and

lower levels of education as key in this regard.

Of these three effects, only the rentier effect will be controlled for. Marc Lynch (2012)

suggests that increases in repression were actually positively correlated with increases in mass

movement in the 2011 uprisings: in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, regimes that immediately

cracked down brutally on uprisings found that instead of halting them, repression fueled popular

anger. Other regimes that were less brutal, such as Algeria, were not challenged to the same

extent. This is in agreement with the work of proponents of breakdown theory such as Useem

(1998), who suggests that repression is useful in repressing routine collective action but tends to

have the opposite effect on non-routine collective action. Since the Arab uprisings of 2011 are

assumed to be an example of non-routine collective action, this study will not control for

Sweigart 24

repression. With regard to the modernization effect, Gray (2011) submits that, at least in the

GCC states, modernization has been proceeding at a rapid pace in spite of massive oil rents.

The rentier effect, however, must be controlled for not because of its anti-democratic

effects but because it provides an alternative definition of citizenship that is primarily economic

rather than political. This complicates the causal link between economic grievances and social

breakdown, and mass movement. In a state where the rulers claim personal ownership of the

country (Saudi Arabia, named after the Saud family, comes to mind) and frame the distribution

rents among the population as an act of generosity rather than a response to citizens’ rights,

traditional economic grievance issues lose their rationale. By both removing economic

grievances and preventing collective action, the rentier effect acts as a confounding variable. It

is not possible to include it as a cause of economic grievances because although it deals with

economic outcomes, it is based on the notion that citizenship in a rentier state is economic by

definition, rather than political. This differs fundamentally from the economic relationship that

this study proposes between the state and its citizens. While rentier state theory deals with the

effects of the political and economic structure of a country, deprivation and social breakdown

theories measure the effects of economic changes over time.

In order to control for the rentier effect, a variable is constructed based on “oil rents per

capita” in Ross’s 2009 study. The new variable, “oil and natural gas rents per capita,” (Figure 7)

will be calculated from data provided by the World Bank. For select countries, other significant

sources of rent are also included. For Egypt, U.S. military aid, and revenues from the Suez

Canal are included. For Jordan, U.S. aid for FY 2008 is also included. For countries that receive

nontrivial foreign assistance, World Bank figures for foreign assistance are included. In addition

to these changes, oil rents per capita are calculated based on the citizen population of countries.

Sweigart 25

In the Gulf, for example, many countries have a large population of expatriate workers, who

sometimes form a majority of the population. But because expatriate workers are not citizens,

they are not eligible for much of the economic largesse that the government distributes, and are

therefore excluded from calculations.

Another way in which rents interact with perceptions of hardship is through government-

funded subsidies. Subsidies represent the direct economic effects of rents, and are part of the

economic social compact between states and their citizens. Not surprisingly, rentier states are

more able than non-rentier states to bankroll massive subsidies. As well as controlling for rents

per capita, the effects of subsidies will be analyzed. Ideally, it would be possible to construct a

quantitative variable, “subsidies per capita” in U.S. dollars that includes subsidies for fossil fuels,

water, food, health care and electricity, but for many countries data was not in the public domain.

Instead, analysis will be qualitative. Information on subsidies is contained in Figure 9.

Analysis and results

H1: null hypothesis not rejected. Upon closer analysis, ELR fractionalization appears to

have a different causal relationship to collective action than previously thought. We had

originally expected high fractionalization to impede mass movement and low fractionalization to

facilitate it. Instead, both high and low fractionalization appeared to cause mass movement,

while not a single one of the seven observations with moderate levels of fractionalization (0.13 to

0.42) experienced significant mass movement:

Sweigart 26

Jordan, which is an outlier with a value of 0.453 on the ELR fractionalization index but no mass

movement, was based on the inclusion of Palestinians as a separate ethnic group from Jordanians

– a questionable division, but one that the author felt was justified due to the significant

polarization and tensions between Palestinians and Jordanians in that country. More

interestingly, although perhaps coincidentally, the three observations that scored lowest on the

ELR index (Egypt, Tunisia and Libya) experienced mass movements that succeeded in

overthrowing their governments, while in the three high-scoring observations (Bahrain, Yemen

and Syria), the protestors failed to topple the regime. At risk of generalizing, the lack of success

of mass movements in highly fractionalized countries may be due to governments’ success in

emphasizing ethnic and sectarian differences, transforming their own group into a support base.

The effects of fractionalization along the lines of ethnicity and religion are more

complicated than had been supposed. The bimodal distribution of mass movements, clustered

around the upper and lower parts of the ELR fractionalization continuum, suggest that a different

causal mechanism is at work.

ALG

BAHEGY

JORKUW

LIB

MOR OMNQTR

KSA

SYRTUN

UAE

YEM

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

Inci

denc

e of

mas

s mov

emen

t

Ethno-linguistic-religious fractionalization

Figure 10: Mass movement and ethnic fractionalization

Sweigart 27

Logistical regression analysis was performed separately on each the remaining variables:

tribalism, oil and natural gas rents per capita, unemployment rates, tribalism, GDP growth rates,

the GINI index, and corruption levels.

H2: null hypothesis not rejected. Analysis reveals that the effects of tribalism on mass

movement were significant. Countries that were more tribal were less likely to experience mass

movements:

Figure 10: Tribalism and Mass movement More tribal Less tribal Mass movement 1 7 No mass movement 4 2

Logistical regression analysis was performed on the relationship between tribalism and mass

movements, with the following results:

As was feared, however, monarchy and tribalism were covariate. All countries that were

classified as tribal were monarchies, except for one (Libya), while not a single non-tribal country

was a monarchy. It is not clear, then, to what extent the effects of tribalism are in actuality

effects of monarchy, although clearly one or the other (or both) are decreasing the likelihood of

mass movements occurring. Without more variation in the sample, it is impossible to draw firm

conclusions.

H3: null hypothesis rejected. Increasing levels of perceived corruption appear to have a

strong positive effect on the incidence of mass movement. For each country, simple linear

Sweigart 28

regressions were performed on observations of the corruption index from 2003 to 2011 in order

to determine the trajectory of corruption. The value of the coefficient slope of the line of best fit

indicated which countries were becoming more corrupt and which were becoming less corrupt.

Logistic regression analysis was then performed on the values of the slope coefficients in order

to test whether countries where the corruption score was decreasing (i.e., the country was

becoming more corrupt) were more likely to experience mass movements than countries that

were becoming progressively less corrupt. This was found to be the case, with corruption’s

effects significant at the p=.1 level:

It is perhaps not surprising that the most theoretically sound indicator of economic grievances

and social breakdown is the best predictor of mass movement. With a coefficient of -21.6,

decreasing levels of corruption have a strong negative effect on mass movement. This means

that countries that showed gains of 0.05 each year (or 0.45 from 2003-11) were predicted to

experience no mass movement. Scholars have speculated that perceptions of government

corruption may have been a significant factor in bringing protestors out on the streets (Gelvin

2012). It makes sense, then, that corruption’s effect on mass movement is statistically

significant.

H4: null hypothesis not rejected. In order to quantitatively measure the effects of GDP on

the incidence of mass movements, regression was performed on GDP growth data points from

1991 to 2009 to determine the trajectory of growth. (For Kuwait, data for 1991 to 1993 was

Sweigart 29

excluded due to the effects of the first Gulf War and its aftermath.) A one-year lag was assumed

for the effects of economic decline to be fully realized and to avoid reverse causality – if

economic data for 2011 had been used, it would be unclear whether economic changes in that

year had caused protests or resulted from them. Based on the line of best fit, projections for

growth rates in 2010 were calculated and then subtracted from actual growth rates to find the

“shortfall.” A logistical regression of the resulting data revealed that GDP growth is a poor

predictor of mass movement:

With a p-value of .241, the effect of GDP growth is actually positive – countries with increasing

growth rates are actually more likely to experience mass movements than countries with

decreasing growth rates. This may be because of the effects of rent. Perhaps oil-producing

rentier states were more likely to be economically impacted by the fall in oil prices that

accompanied the 2009 global financial crisis, and also less likely (according to rentier theory) to

experience democratic mass movements.

Controlling for rents reveals that part of the positive effect of GDP growth on mass

movement is explained by oil and natural gas rents, as the coefficient decreases from 0.26 to 0.11

and the p-value increases to 0.65:

Sweigart 30

As expected, rent also has a negative effect on protest of -0.085 for every $1,000 in rent

per capita. This means that countries with $12,000 in rent per capita or more should not

experience mass movements – an observation that holds true in the dataset.

Nor does a qualitative analysis of GDP growth trends in each individual country shed

light on the causes of mass movement, even after omitting observations in which rents per capita

in 2008 exceeded $10,000. In Algeria, growth was highly volatile, but even after three straight

years of decreased growth rates from 2004 to 2006, no protest movement emerged. In Egypt, the

growth rate from 2008 to 2009 dropped 2.5 percentage points, but increased again in 2010. A

protest movement might have occurred when annual growth rates decreased from 5-7.5 percent

in 1996-98 to around 3 percent in 2001-03, but no overtly anti-government protests happened at

that time, although there were significant protests against the Israeli treatment of Palestinians

during the intifada that may have released some pent-up pressure (Lynch 2012). If any country

might have been expected to experience a revolution in 2011 due to decreasing rates of growth, it

was Jordan, where annual GDP growth rates decreased from 8 percent in 2007 to 2 percent in

2010, but Jordan was spared. In Yemen, the growth rate of GDP had been gradually slowing

down for two decades. Perhaps the only country that fit the model is Tunisia, which was badly

affected by the global economic crisis in 2009.

The prevalence of subsidies throughout the Arab world sheds some light on the extent of

the rentier effect. Many scholars, such as Gelvin (2012), submit that the privatization of

Sweigart 31

government companies and moves to end subsidies were one factor that led to revolutions, as the

social compact that had been established after independence was dissolved. In general, however,

the effect of subsidies better reflected rentier theory: governments with higher subsidies tended

not to experience nationwide protest movements. The exception to this general rule was Libya.

Although Libya’s subsidies were smaller in relation to other rentier states in the region, it still

challenges the analysis that rentier states tend not to experience mass movements.

Ultimately, neither rent nor GDP growth rates are good determinants of mass movement.

H5: null hypothesis not rejected. Unemployment was analyzed in the same way as the

Perceptions of Corruption index – linear regression was performed for the values of

unemployment for each country and the slope coefficients for all observations used in logistic

regression. Due to insufficient data for Bahrain, Libya, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and Yemen,

these observations were omitted from the analysis. The result is reported below:

With a p-value of 0.533, unemployment is a weak predictor of mass movement.

H6: null hypothesis not rejected. Youth unemployment was used instead of the

percentage of the youthful population, based on the reasoning that unemployed youth are more

likely to protest than employed youth. Using the most recent figures for youth unemployment in

each country, logistical regression was performed with the following results:

Sweigart 32

Youth unemployment is positively associated with mass movements, but the effect is not

statistically significant, making youth unemployment a poor predictor of mass movement.

Limitations

The study was plagued throughout by problems of measurement. For many countries,

data was low quality, limited or even non-existent. There was a clear divergence between

unemployment figures reported by government ministries and those reported or estimated by

outside sources. The CIA estimated in 2003 that unemployment in Yemen stood at around 35

percent, while official government figures reported 11.46 percent and 16.3 percent for 2002 and

2004, respectively. Measurements for rent were imperfect, as it was not possible to gather data

on every type of rent accrued by governments – figures were not available for revenue from

import and export duties, which for many countries is a significant source of revenue. Even the

Perceptions of Corruption index, which was ultimately the most useful variable for predicting the

desired outcome, had a relatively broad confidence interval, especially for earlier observations.

Statistical significance was a problem.

In calculating the ethno-linguistic-religious fractionalization index, measurements of the

percentages of ethnic and religious groups in each country were rudimentary. In most cases,

exact figures were not available for the percentage of ethnic groups, usually for political reasons.

Shia Muslims in the Gulf are neglected, marginalized and discriminated against, while Berbers in

North Africa and Kurds in Syria constantly face pressures to assimilate. Not surprisingly,

Sweigart 33

governments who persecute these minorities do not usually provide demographic figures on

them. North Africa in particular posed a special problem that illustrates Chandra’s concept of

“sticky identities.” Because almost all Arabs are of Berber extraction and a large percentage of

Berbers speak Arabic, it was a challenge to decide whether to include all Berber-speakers in the

Berber ethno-linguistic group (including those who know Arabic), or to limit the group to those

who speak Berber but not Arabic. Ultimately, a decision was made for the latter on the basis that

Berbers who speak Arabic are in the process of assimilation, but it is doubtless the case that

many of these identify strongly as Berbers, not Arabs.

The importance of tribal affiliations was very difficult to measure. As noted above, there

are problems with basing the level of tribalism in a society on an analysis of the identities of

government figures. Certainly countries that are not tribal tend not to have tribes in power

(Western Europe and the United States come to mind here), and tribal countries tend to have

tribal governments. But often this rule does not hold true. For instance, Turkey under Ataturk

illustrates an example of a government that is more forward-looking and Westernizing (hence

non-tribal), ruling over a Turkish citizenry that was still very traditional at that point.

Conversely, the rapid modernization and urbanization taking place in the GCC states may be

slowly eroding the tribal ties among their populations, but they remain very much ruled by tribes.

Another difficulty posed by measuring tribalism in this way is that, as Bill & Springborg

(1994) explain, formal institutions are often relatively meaningless in contexts where the tribe is

more important. Real power is contained in informal connections expressed in family and tribal

affiliation. For example, the minister of defense may be overruled by the chief of staff of the

armed forces, if the chief of staff is related to the president and the minister is not.

Sweigart 34

The coding of Yemen is a case in point. Even a casual observer of the Arab world would

recognize that in comparison to other Arab societies, Yemen should be coded as “more tribal,”

yet this was not at all apparent in the composition of the Yemeni government. The president’s

relatives were prominent in a few branches of the armed forces, but were totally absent from the

cabinet of ministers and other prominent government posts. One explanation for this

discrepancy is that because Yemen’s central government was weak, President Saleh found it

necessary to offer concessions to important members of powerful southern tribes, giving them

high-ranking government posts. Another explanation is that those government posts might be

relatively insignificant due to the impotence of formal institutions. The real source of power in

the Yemeni government may instead have been Saleh’s relatives in the military. All in all, a

better way to measure the importance of the tribes would have been to conduct a survey of an

appropriate number of randomly selected subjects in each country asking them questions about

their daily habits, who are their closest friends and associates, and other questions that would

indicate how important the tribe is to them.

Attempts to code mass movements as “local” or “national” were also less than

satisfactory. Ideally, information would be available about the numbers of people present at

every rally in every city and town during 2011. This would have allowed the researcher to give a

rating to each country based on how widespread and numerous the protests were. In reality, a

host of factors converged to make it incredibly difficult to measure the size and breadth of mass

movements in detail. Media blackouts imposed by hostile governments, the difficulty of access

due to violence in many areas, and the tendency of activists to inflate the actual number of

participants at rallies and protest marches made it virtually impossible to measure mass

movements with any accuracy. Also, the “yes/no” coding system does not capture the very real

Sweigart 35

differences between many movements. Libya’s movement to overthrow Qaddafi and Syria’s

rebellion against the Assad regime evolved in a very different direction than the Egyptian and

Tunisian protest movements. Finally, the decision to use binary coding for mass movements also

meant that there was insufficient variation in the dependent variable to perform a multivariate

regression analysis, meaning that testing was restricted to simple logistical models with one or

two independent variables.

Another unfortunate but unavoidable limitation in this study was that the lack of data

precluded measuring the effects of inequality on mass movement. Due to the political sensitivity

of data about inequality, most traditional measures of inequality, such as the GINI index or the

share of income of the richest 10 percent of the population, were unavailable for the majority of

countries in the sample. This is a significant drawback, particularly because inequality may have

shed light on the reasons why high levels of ethno-linguistic-religious fractionalization appear to

be correlated with mass movement. It is conceivable that conflict and mass movement may be

more likely to occur in situations where vertical cleavages and horizontal cleavages coincide.

This can happen when one group becomes economically or politically dominant and other

groups are disenfranchised. In these circumstances, the effects of economic deprivation/social

breakdown theory and resource mobilization theory combine to explosive effect. Non-routine

collective action is sparked by economic grievances and social breakdown, while group

structures and social connections provide fertile ground for social movements to take hold,

transforming them from non-routine into routine movements. One proposed example of this

phenomenon occurred in Lebanon, where the perceived dominance of the Maronite Christians in

the 1970s led to discontent on the part of other groups, particularly the Shia in the south,

Sweigart 36

sparking a long and bloody civil war. Another example might be Bahrain today, where a Shia

majority claims that it is discriminated against by the island’s Sunni ruling family.

The fact that horizontal and vertical cleavages coincide is not enough by itself to explain

why highly fractionalized countries tended to experience mass movements. The dominance of

one group over others need not be limited to highly fractionalized countries. But the larger the

disenfranchised group is, the greater its ability to foment a nation-wide uprising. Two of the

three observations that were highly fractionalized and that were coded as having mass

movements, Bahrain and Syria, are ruled by minority regimes. The existence of a

disenfranchised majority may be the reason why they experienced nation-wide protest

movements, whereas in other countries with relatively small minority groups, such as Morocco

or Saudi Arabia, disenfranchised groups were too small of a minority to cause mass movement

on a national scale.

Another limitation of this study is that it does not control for citizens’ perceptions of the

utility of joining in mass movement. The calculus employed by Tunisians when they first began

protesting against the government in December of 2010 was very different from the perceptions

of Egyptians, who had seen the success of the Tunisian revolution. Even more different is the

case of Syria, where citizens had seen two successful revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia but also a

stalled protest movement in Libya that was quickly evolving into a civil war. In short, it was

impossible even to control for the broader historical context of each mass movement, much less

the perceptions of each protester or non-protestor.

Lastly, this study is using state-level observations to draw conclusions about an outcome

(mass movement) that ultimately depends on the individual. The assumption in this study that

Sweigart 37

national economic hardship leads to personal economic grievances is not a foregone conclusion.

In fact, the only statistically significant relationship found between economic factors and mass

movements was the perceptions of corruption index, which directly measured perceptions rather

than corruption itself. Seemingly, it would be possible to gather data at the individual level: one

might assume that a simple random survey, asking protesters in each country why they decided

to protest, could have easily identify their motivations. But this is not necessarily the case. Arab

societies have been brutalized for decades by secret police agencies, or the mukhabarat, as they

are known colloquially. Suspicion and fear of government reprisal could prevent many from

replying with honesty, and would influence the results of such a survey.

Conclusion

It is somehow appropriate that among the economic grievances studied, the best predictor

of mass movement was the Perceptions of Corruption index. The entire causal relationship

between economic hardship and mass movement was predicated on the assumption that

economic decline and social decay was perceived as such by citizens, who then mobilized

against the regime. The only indicator that clearly described perceptions, however, was the

index of corruption. Other data dealt solely with the macroeconomic situations in various

countries.

Another interesting result was that both high and low levels of fractionalization seem to

be positively correlated with the incidence of mass movement. Further study, probably with a

more experimental focus, is needed in order to explore the role of fractionalization in causing or

facilitating mass movement. The caveat is that researchers must now deal with the effects of

reverse causality – the sectarian narrative of violence that has broken out in places such as Syria

Sweigart 38

and to a lesser extent Bahrain may have been the result of mass movement and unrest, rather than

its cause. The construction of post-hoc identities based on ethnic group and sect, often

encouraged by governments, can obscure previous forms of identity that may have been more

important prior to the polarization process.

Another area in which further research is needed is the effects of regime type on mass

movements. While it is true that no monarchies in the Arab world were overthrown or even

faced nation-wide protest movements, not every monarchy is the same. Absolute monarchies

such as Oman or Saudi Arabia, where kings rule by decree, differ greatly from the constitutional

monarchies in Jordan and Morocco that have parliaments and at least some of the trappings of

democracy. Responses to domestic unrest differed accordingly, as absolute monarchs in oil-rich

Gulf countries announced enormous social welfare programs costing in the tens of billions of

dollars, while monarchs in Jordan and Morocco made concessions to opposition parties,

dissolved unpopular parliaments, and reshuffled cabinets.

Bill & Springborg in 1994 identified signs that the group-centric social structure of

Middle Eastern society could be slowly eroding. Westernized, university-educated doctors,

engineers and other professionals comprise a new class of individuals that seek prestige and

position based on merit rather than personal connections and group membership. The emergence

of this class, they propose, could have one of two effects. At best, it could unleash forces that

herald the start of an era in which the power of official institutions ultimately eclipses that of

personal networks and private groups. At worst, the new class could be corrupted and coopted

by governments that see it as both a threat and a useful tool.

Sweigart 39

Do the mass movements sweeping the Middle East stem from class-based conflict? The

supposed emergence of a modernizing middle-class as an agent of social change was posited by

Manfred Halpern as early as 1963 in order to explain the waves of political change sweeping the

region at that time. As it became clear later on, old social structures proved resilient and the

alleged social “revolutions” of the 1950s and 60s were in reality small, usually personalized

groups of army officers seizing power. Observers today would do well to avoid a similar

mistake. At this point in time, it is still unclear whether or not the current political events in the

region will mark the beginning of real change, or result in more of the same.

Yet there are signs that in the Middle East, as elsewhere, economic grievances can act as

a basis for social movements. Issues of social concern, of which corruption is but one, have the

power to mobilize millions, as the recent revolutions in the Arab world demonstrated. Nor is the

story over – social discontent continues to simmer in many countries today, nearly eighteen

months after the Tunisian revolution began. Simply because a number of countries have not

experienced mass protest movements yet does not mean that they will escape them in the future.

Sweigart 40

Works Cited

------------------------------------------------

International Monetary Fund. World Economic Outlook May 2011; Asset Prices and the Business Cycle. Washington, D.C. 2011.

International Labour Organization. Key Indicators of the Labour Market. Geneva, 2011.

The Pew Forum. Mapping the Global Muslim Population, Washington, D.C. 2009.

United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Report 2011. Geneva, 2011. Vision of Humanity. Global Peace Index 2011. Sydney, 2011.

The World Bank. World Development Indicators, 2011.

The World Factbook 2010. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2010.

The World Factbook 2012. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2012. Alesina, Alberto, Reza Baqir, and William Easterly. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions." Quarterly Journal of Economics. 114.4 (1999): 1243-1284.

Avery, Peter. Modern Iran. New York: F. A. Praeger, 1965.

Baker, Aryn, and . "Storming Kuwait's Parliament: What's Behind the Latest Arab Revolt." Time 17 Nov 2011, n. pag. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/17/storming-kuwaits-parliament-whats-behind-the-latest-arab-revolt/>.

Barth, Fredrik. Sohar, Society and Culture in an Omani Town. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

Bassiouni, Cherif, and Nigel Rodley and Badria Al-Awadhi and Philippe Kirshcer and Mahnoush Arsanjani. “Report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry.” November 2011.

Beblawi, Hazem, and Giacomo Luciani. The Rentier State. London: Croom Helm, 1987.

Bill, James A, and Robert Springborg. Politics In the Middle East. 4th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

Blackorby, Charles, Walter Bossert, and David Donaldson. Population Issues In Social-choice Theory, Welfare Economics and Ethics. New York: Cambride University Press, 2005.

Caren, Neil. “Bringing Adversity Back In: Economic Breakdown and the Pace of Collective Action.” University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 2011 (unpublished).

Chandra, Kanchan and Boulet, Cilanne. “A Model of Change in an Ethnic Demography”. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003 (unpublished).

Sweigart 41

Chandra, Kanchan. "What is Ethnic Identity and Does it Matter?." Annual Review of Political Science. 9. (2006): 397-424.

Chatty, Dawn. Mobile Pastoralists : Development Planning and Social Change In Oman. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Cingranelli, David L. and David L. Richards. 2010. "The Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project." Human Rights Quarterly 32.2: 401-424.

Cloward, R.A., and F.F. Piven. United States. Department of Justice. Social Structuring of Deviant Behavior. US: NCJRS, 1977.

Cole, Donald Powell. Nomads of the nomads: The Āl Murrah Bedouin of the Empty Quarter. Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co., 1975.

Collier, Paul. "Implications of Ethnic Diversity." Economic Policy. 16.32 (2001): 127-166.

Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. "Greed and Grievance in Civil War." Oxford Economic Papers. 56.4 (2004): 563-595.

Davies, James C. "Political Stability and Instability: Some manifestations and causes." Journal of Conflict Resolution. 13.1 (1969): 1-17.

Davies, James C. "Toward a Theory of Revolution." American Sociological Review. 27.1 (1962): n. page.

Easterly, William, and Ross Levine. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions." Quarterly Journal of Economics. 112.4 (1997): 1203-1250.

Enloe, Cynthia. “Religion and Ethnicity.” Ethnicity. Eds. Hutchinson, John, and Anthony Smith. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. The Sanusi of Cyrenaica. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949.

Fearon, James D., and David D. Laitin. "Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity." International Organization. 54.04 (2000): 845-877.

Feierabend, IK, and RL Feierabend. "Social change and political violence: cross-national patterns." Violence In America : Historical & Comparative Perspectives. Ed. Hugh Davis Graham and Ed. Ted Robert Gurr. Rev. ed. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1969.

Fisher, W. B. The Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge: University Press, 1968.

Gelvin, James L. The Arab Uprisings : What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Glick, Peter. "Sacrificial Lambs Dressed In Wolves' Clothing: Envious prejudice, ideology, and the scapegoating of the Jews." Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust. Ed. Leonard S. Newman and Ed. Ralph Erber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 113-142.

Sweigart 42

Glick, Peter. “Choice of Scapegoats.” On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years After Allport. Eds. Dovidio, John F, Peter Samuel Glick, and Laurie A Rudman. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publising, 2005. Glick, Peter. “When Neighbors Blame Neighbors: Scapegoating and the Breakdown of Ethnic Relations.” The Breakdown of Ethnic Relations: Why Neighbors Kill. Ed. V. M. Visser and Ed. R. A. Vernon. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Gray, Colin S. Another Bloody Century : Future Warfare. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005. Gurr, Ted. "A Causal Model of Civil Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices." American Political Science Review. 62.4 (1968): 1104-1124.

Gurr, Ted. "Psychological Factors in Civil Violence." World Politics. 20.2 (1968): 245-278.

Gurr, Ted Robert. Why Men Rebel. Princeton University: Princeton University Press, 1970.

Halpern, Manfred. “The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa”. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, September 1963.

Hewstone, Miles. "Stepping Stones to Reconciliation in Northern Ireland: Intergroup Contact, Forgiveness, and Trust." The Social Psychology of Intergroup Reconciliation. Ed. Arie Nadler, Ed. Thomas E Malloy and Ed. Jeffrey D Fisher. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 97-116.

Horowitz, Donald L. Ethnic Groups In Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.

Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Joffé, George. “The Army in Algerian Politics and Government” in Reza Shah-Kazemi Ed. Algeria: Revolution Revisited. London: Islamic World Report, 1997. Kharusi, Nafla S. “The Ethnic Label Zinjibari: Politics and language choice implications among Swahili speakers in Oman.” Sultan Qaboos University, 2012.

Lake, David, and Ronald Rothchild. "Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict." International Security. 21.2 (1996): 41-75.

Lancaster, William. The Rwala Bedouin Today. 2nd edition. Prospect Heights: Waveland, 1997.

Lynch, Marc. The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East. New York: PublicAffairs, 2012.

Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce. "Ethno-politics and globalisation in North Africa: The Berber Culture Movement." Journal of North African Studies. 11.1 (2006): 71-84.

Mahdavi, Hossein. “The Pattern and Problems of Economic Development in Rentier States: The Case of Iran”, in Michael Cook (ed.) Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. pp 428-468.

Sweigart 43

Olson, Robert W. The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880-1925. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.

Posen, Barry R. The security dilemma and ethnic conflict. Survival (London) 35.1 Mar 1993: 27-47.

Ross, Michael. "A Closer Look at Oil, Diamonds, and Civil War." Annual Review of Political Science. 9. (2006): 265-300. Ross, Michael. "Does Oil Hinder Democracy?." World Politics. 53.3 (2001): 325-361.

Ross, Michael. "Oil and Democracy Revisited." Political Science. 9. (2009): n. page. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Reprinted with a new Afterword. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995.

Salzman, Philip Carl. "The Middle East's Tribal DNA." Middle East Quarterly. 15.1 (2008): 23-33.

Scott, James C. The Moral Economy of the Peasant : Rebellion and Subsistence In Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976.

Shah, Nasra M. “Migration to Kuwait: Trends, Patterns and Policies.” American University in Cairo, 2007.

Staub, Ervin. The Roots of Evil: the Origins of Genocide and Other Forms of Group Violence. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Staub, Ervin. “The origins of genocide and mass killing, prevention, reconciliation and their application to Rwanda.” The Breakdown of Ethnic Relations: Why Neighbors Kill. Ed. V. M. Visser and Ed. R. A. Vernon. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Thompson, E.P. "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century." Past and Present. 50. (1971): 76-136.

Tibi, Bassam. "The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in the Modern Middle East." Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East. Ed. Philip S. Khoury and Ed. Joseph Kostiner. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. 127-152.

Tilly, Charles. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1978.

Tilly, Charles, and Gabriel Ardant. The Formation of National States In Western Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975.

Useem, Bert. "Breakdown Theories of Collective Action." Annual Review of Sociology. 24. (1998): 215-238.

Useem, Bert. "The State and Collective Disorders: The Los Angeles Riot/Protest of April, 1992." Social Forces. 76.2 (1997): 357-377.

Sweigart 44

Walter, Barbara, and Jack Snyder. Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Weber, Max. [1922] Economy and Society eds. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, trans. Ephraim Fischof, vol. 2 Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Weber, Max, A. M Henderson, and Talcott Parsons. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. [1st American ed.] New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1947.

Yates, Douglas A. The Rentier State In Africa : Oil Rent Dependency and Neocolonialism In the Republic of Gabon. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1996.

Sweigart 45

Appendix: Tables & Graphs ------------------------------------------------

Figure 3: Transparency International Index of Corruption Country 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Algeria 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.1 3 3.2 2.8 2.9 2.9 Bahrain 6.1 5.8 5.8 5.7 5 5.4 5.1 4.9 5.1 Egypt 3.3 3.2 3.4 3.3 2.9 2.8 2.8 3.1 2.9 Jordan 4.6 5.3 5.7 5.3 4.7 5.1 5 4.7 4.5 Kuwait 5.3 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.3 4.3 4.1 4.5 4.6 Libya 2.1 2.5 2.5 2.7 2.5 2.6 2.5 2.2 2 Morocco 3.3 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.5 3.5 3.3 3.4 3.4 Oman 6.3 6.1 6.3 5.4 4.7 5.5 5.5 5.3 4.8 Qatar 5.6 5.2 5.9 6 6 6.5 7 7.7 7.2 Saudi 4.5 3.4 3.4 3.3 3.4 3.5 4.3 4.7 4.4 Syria 3.4 3.4 3.4 2.9 2.4 2.1 2.6 2.5 2.6 Tunisia 4.9 5 4.9 4.6 4.2 4.4 4.2 4.3 3.8 UAE 5.2 6.1 6.2 6.2 5.7 5.9 6.5 6.3 6.8

1 Figures for Algeria’s Berber population (20-25 percent) are drawn from: Silverstein, Paul, “Berbers in France and Algeria: Realizing Myth,” Middle East Research and Information Project, No. 200, Winter/Spring 1995.

Figure 2: Tribalism coding Country Score Algeria 0 Bahrain 1 Egypt 0 Jordan 1 Kuwait 1 Libya 1

Morocco 1 Oman 1 Qatar 1

Saudi Arabia 1 Syria 0

Tunisia 0 UAE 1

Yemen 0

Fig. 1: Index of ethno-linguistic-religious fractionalization Country Score Algeria1 0.32 Bahrain 0.42 Egypt 0.1 Jordan 0.453 Kuwait 0.349 Libya 0.13

Morocco 0.183 Oman 0.41 Qatar 0.18

Saudi Arabia 0.219 Syria 0.504

Tunisia 0 UAE 0.255

Yemen 0.469

Sweigart 46

Yemen 2.6 2.4 2.7 2.6 2.5 z2.3 2.1 2.2 2.1

Sweigart 47

Figure 4: Unemployment rates Country 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Source

Algeria 27.31 25.66 23.71 17.68 15.3 12.3 11.8 11.3 10.21 10.03 IMF Bahrain 3 5.6 KILM Egypt 8.808 10.05 11.28 10.53 11.47 10.92 9.205 8.78 9.523 8.987 IMF Jordan 14.69 15.33 14.44 14.7 14.84 14.06 13.1 12.65 12.94 12.5 IMF Kuwait 1.097 1.305 1.221 1.42 1.349 1.37 1.701 1.671 1.639 2.072 IMF Libya 30 13 20.74 Morocco 12.3 11.3 11.4 10.8 11 9.7 9.8 9.6 9.1 9.1 IMF

Oman 17 16 15 ILO, ALO

Qatar 0.5 KILM Saudi 8.34 9.66 10.35 11 11.52 12 11 9.8 10.46 10 IMF Syria 8.171 11.67 10.8 12.3 8 8.3 9.2 10.9 8.1 8.4 IMF Tunisia 15.13 15.26 14.51 14.24 12.8 12.5 12.4 12.6 13.3 13 IMF UAE 3.1 4 KILM Yemen 11.46 35 16.3 18.46 ALO

Figure 5: youth unemployment levels (KILM) Country 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Algeria 47.8 43.4 31.1 24.3 Bahrain 20.1 28.3 Egypt 27.7 27.1 34.1 29.9 24.8 Jordan 28.3 27.5 27 Kuwait 11.3 Libya N/A Morocco 18.9 17.6 17 15.4 15.7 16.6 18.3 21.9 Oman 30 (ILO) Qatar 1.6 Saudi Arabia 28.2 Syria 26.3 19.5 18.3 19.1 22.4 16.7 19.2 Tunisia 30.7 UAE 8 12.1 Yemen 52.9

Sweigart 48

Figure 6: Incidence of national protests

Country Protests Algeria 0 Bahrain 1 Egypt 1 Jordan 0 Kuwait 0 Libya 1 Morocco 0 Oman 0 Qatar 0 Saudi Arabia 0 Syria 1 Tunisia 1 UAE 0 Yemen 1

Figure 8: Monarchy Country 0-no, 1-yes Algeria 0 Bahrain 1 Egypt 0 Jordan 1 Kuwait 1 Libya 0 Morocco 1 Oman 1 Qatar 1 Saudi Arabia 1 Syria 0 Tunisia 0 UAE 1 Yemen 0

Figure 7: Oil & Natural gas rents per capita, 2008 Country Rents Algeria 2091 Bahrain 13409 Egypt 534 Jordan 174 Kuwait 83801 Libya 10582 Morocco 1 Oman 15827 Qatar 273644 Saudi Arabia 17360 Syria 775 Tunisia 392 UAE 27923 Yemen 380

Sweigart 49

Figure 9: Subsidies

Country Average fossil fuel

subsidies/capita (includes electricity)2

Public health spending/capita

(constant 2005 $)3 Other subsidies

Algeria $298.4 257 $2.4bn for food (2008)† Bahrain - 794 food and fuel subsidies worth $1.33bn (2008)4 Egypt $250.1 108 $4.4bn on food, $2.2bn on other subsidies† Jordan - 303 Food and fuel subsidies worth $330m in 2009†

Kuwait $2798.6 911 Food; water; free education; housing Libya $665 491 Morocco - 93 $3.4bn for fuel; $700m for food (2008)† Oman - 479 Food; water; petrol subsidized to $1.20/gallon Qatar $2446 1257 Food; water Saudi Arabia

$1586.6 609 $20bn for water5

Syria - 80 $7.6bn for fuel, $1.7bn for food (2008)† Tunisia - 262 $700m for fuel, $900m for food (2008)† UAE $2489.6 1149 Food; water Yemen - 30 $1.8bn for fuel (2009)6

†Calculated using data from the World Bank and Ronald Albers and Marga Peeters, “Food and Energy prices, Government Subsidies and Fiscal Balances in South Mediterranean Countries,” Brussels: European Commission, 2011. Except in the case of Syria, this data does not include implicitly subsidized products, such as domestic petroleum production that is offered at discounted prices.

2 Figures from 2010. Taken from “Fossil fuel consumption subsidy rates as a proportion of the full cost of supply,” IEA World Energy Outlook, 2011. Accessed online at: http://www.iea.org/subsidy/index.html. 3 2010 figures calculated from information provided by the World Bank. 4 “Bahrain spends $1.3bn on inflation subsidies,” Reuters, June 10, 2008. 5 Ailam, Abeer. “Subsidies give Saudis an appetite for oil.” Financial Times, May 12, 2011. 6 Breisinger, Clemens and Wilfried Engelke and Olivier Ecker. “Petroleum Subsidies in Yemen: Leveraging Reform for Development.” International Food Policy Research Insitute Discussion Paper, March 2011. Accessed online at: http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp01071.pdf