University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

An alternative model of transition in the Middle East: bounded consociotionalism

(USC Thesis Other)

An alternative model of transition in the Middle East: bounded consociotionalism

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content

AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL OF TRANSITION IN THE MIDDLE EAST:

BOUNDED CONSOCIATIONALISM

by

Zaid Eyadat

____________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLITICAL SCIENCE)

December 2004

Copyright 2004 Zaid Eyadat
ii

Dedication
For my mother and father who give, teach, and live freedom and love.

iii
Acknowledgements
This dissertation is the work of many hands of which mine are only two. My parents
deserve the first mention. This work owes most to their moral nourishment and
discipline. Special thanks go to my brother Waleed and his family for their ongoing
support, generosity, and understanding. In Jordan, I thank my brother Adnan for his
support and encouragement. In pursuing my doctoral studies, I labored with my
family near, if not in space, then in mind.

At USC, Jodi, Wanda, and Veronica in the Political Science Department helped in
many ways to facilitate my burdens. My graduate advisors, Randa Issa and Aria
Smith, were especially helpful guides to navigate through the particulars of the
program. I am thankful for the financial support of the Political Science department
through both teaching and research assistantships. Special thanks go to Professors
Mark Kann and Howard Gillman whose leadership roles as department chairs have
made the study of political science at USC a truly rewarding experience. I am also
grateful to the Marshall School of Business, especially IBEAR Program Director,
Professor Jack Lewis, for financial support and a challenging teaching experience.
The College of Letters, Arts, and Science (CLAS) provided the final funding for the
completion of this study.

iv
The work of Ms. Anoush Baghdasarian in typing and editing the manuscript was
instrumental to the completion of this dissertation. Her skillfulness and attention to
detail are greatly appreciated and I thank her for her patience, loyalty, and generosity.

Two personal friends merit special expressions of gratitude. My friend, Michelle
Flores, provided endless support in times of need with her kindness, generosity, and
feminist spirit. Michelle’s great heart and beautiful mind gave my life in Southern
California a different color, and contributed immensely to my well-being at USC.
Haig has been a warm and cheerful companion, and musical inspiration. I learned
from him what true friendship means.

My student colleagues as well as my professors greatly enriched my intellectual
environment. I am particularly grateful to the members of my qualifying
examination committee—Professors Richard Hrair Dekmejian, Alison Dundes
Renteln, Sheldon Kamieniecki, Laurie Brand, and Jack Lewis—for providing both
intellectual stimulation and encouragement. I thank them for their genuine interest in
my work and for their generosity of knowledge and time.

The chair of my dissertation committee, Professor Richard Hrair Dekmejian has had
an enormous impact not just on this work, but also on my development as a scholar
and on the development of my character. It is truly an honor to count myself among
his students. Professor Dekmejian is a man of integrity who embodies learning and
v
who gives from a deep well of knowledge and spirit. I am grateful for the challenge
of continuing his work and hope that my words will be adequate expressions of all
that he has inspired in me. Truly, he has been like a father to me and I thank him and
his family for giving me a sense of home so far away from my own.

vi
Table of Contents
Dedication ...................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... iii
List of Figures ............................................................................................................vii
Abstract .................................................................................................................... viii
Chapter I. Democratization in the Middle East ............................................................ 1
Chapter II. Theoretical Framework and Methodology ............................................... 18
Chapter III. Jordan: Consociationalism in a Monarchical Setting ............................. 39
Chapter IV. Kuwait: Bounded Consociationalism in an Emirate .............................. 73
Chapter V. Iraq: An Unfolding Experiment (2003-2004) ......................................... 93
Chapter VI. Conclusions: The Utility of the Consociational Model ........................ 120
References ................................................................................................................ 132

vii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Spectrum of Bounded Consociational Regime Types ................................ 31
Figure 2: Bounded Consociational Sequential Extensive Game ................................ 36

viii
Abstract
This study investigates the complex processes of political change taking place in
Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq. The primary task is to explain the dynamics of the
transition toward democratization by analyzing how political actors pursue their
preferences in a milieu of autocratic constraints. Thus, unlike macro-level theories of
democratization, this study employs micro-level analysis to capture the underlying
dynamics of political change. In seeking to explain recent political developments in
the Arab context, this study utilizes a combination of Lijphart’s consociational
theory, Ibn Khaldun’s political sociology and rational choice theory that provides the
essential linkage between the two foregoing constructs. In contrast to studies that
apply purely Western concepts to the investigation of political processes in non-
Western polities, the present study proceeds from the socio-political foundations of
Arab societies and the indigenous cultural forces that need to be taken into account
in order to correct a distorted view of reality imposed by culturally biased theories.
Given the segmented reality of the Arab social fabric and the consensual and non-
adversarial traditions of decision-making in authoritarian contexts, this study utilizes
a consociational approach modified to include a central role for an “umpire regime”
that would preside over the bargaining process with the constituent subgroups. The
use of modified consociationalism, along with thickened rational choice theory that
incorporates culture in terms of subgroup identities and solidarities (asabiya),
resulted in the identification of:

ix
1. rules governing the onset of liberalization and deliberalization;
2. rules governing the rise and decline of subgroup solidarities;
3. rules of cooperation among the subgroups;
4. cultural prerequisites of subgroup participation in power-sharing, i.e. group
consensus, social peace, harmony and tolerance.
A final determination concerned the conditions to be satisfied for successful exit
from the “trap” of transition: a) long-term cooperation among the subgroups; b)
growth of cross-cutting ties and interests among the subgroups; c) commitment to
gradual change based on cultural traditions. The good “fit” between the modified
consociational model and the political process in the three case studies, demonstrated
the feasibility of an alternative explanatory approach to Arab politics that uncovers
the laws of political change.

1
Chapter I. Democratization in the Middle East

Introduction
In the last two decades democratization has emerged as a primary focus of scholarly
inquiry in political science. After the demise of the Soviet Union, there was renewed
interest in democratization, as a growing number of authoritarian countries began to
experiment with democratic norms. In the 1990s, the quest for democratization
assumed global significance, impacting the evolution of three subfields of political
science. In comparative politics, there was a new emphasis on the determinants of
political change and the need for more sophisticated theoretical explanations. In
international politics, the new wave of democratization prompted inquiries into
“linkage politics,” reflecting the domestic-foreign policy nexus as a formative factor
in shaping interstate relations and the theory of democratic peace. In political
methodology, the rapid spread of democratization heightened the urgency of finding
more rigorous modalities of research in devising new measurements of variables and
the integration of quantitative and qualitative modes of analysis.

Democratization was late in coming to the Middle East where authoritarian norms
have been entrenched since the rise of independent states. Although there were
several incremental attempts at democratization, the scholarly literature paid little
attention to Middle East developments. Consequently, the state of the art of
2
democratization studies in the Middle East remained underdeveloped relative to that
of South Europe, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

Statement of Purpose
A combination of external and internal factors has triggered a new momentum for
accelerated political change in the Arab countries. The purpose of this study is to
investigate the complex processes of political change taking place in recent years in
Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq. The primary focus of the study is to explain the dynamics
of political change—how the major political actors pursue their preferences in a
milieu of autocratic constraints. By explaining the behavior of the actors in the
political arena, it will be possible to identify the causal factors shaping political
change as well as the actual and possible outcomes. In terms of theoretical and
methodological approaches, this study radically departs from the existing literature
on democratization in the Middle East because of the latter’s failure to capture the
underlying dynamics of transition. To be sure, these studies have applied macro-
level theories of structural and cultural change derived from the democratization
experience in South America and Southern and Eastern Europe. In contrast, the
present research will employ an eclectic theoretical framework that combines
modified consociational theory with rational choice theory in order to model the
processes of transition using game theoretic methodology. The choice of modified
consociational theory is justified by its relevance to the Middle East’s socially
segmented popular base and traditional modalities of governance. The use of
3
rational choice further shifts attention to the micro-foundations of society and the
strategic interaction among the subgroups. It will be shown that the application of
rational choice/game theoretic models will bring new rigor to the prognostication of
the success or failure of democratization in the Arab Middle East. Moreover, the
combined use of consociational theory and rational choice/gaming tools will
introduce a novel modality of inquiry into the field of democratization and the larger
field of political methodology.

The use of the rational choice/modified consociational model is particularly suitable
for answering the main research questions in this study: 1) What are the causal
factors responsible for the recent political changes? 2) What are the mechanisms
driving the process of transition? 3) Do the recent political changes constitute
democratization as defined by transition theorists? In seeking answers to these
questions, this study shall focus on Jordan and Kuwait because of their two decades
of experience with forms of liberalization, in contrast to Iraq where the process of
political change is in its nascent stage. The investigation of the modality of the Iraqi
transition is expected to reveal the extent to which the process fits the
consociational/game theoretic model used in the Jordanian and Kuwaiti case studies.

Sources of Data
Three categories of source materials will be used in the investigation of political
change in Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq. The first includes existing descriptive and
4
analytical studies in books and periodicals. A second category of sources consists of
empirical data on elections, social and economic data, and legal and constitutional
documents. In view of the focus of the study on inter-group bargaining processes, a
special effort will be made to obtain data on the size, structure, and preferences of
the various subgroups and their interaction in the three countries. A third category of
materials will include primary Arabic language sources and documents to increase
the precision in the model’s specification. In addition, up-to-date information will be
acquired from personal contacts with reputable scholars and former and incumbent
government officials who are personally known to the author.

Literature Review
The scholarly literature on democratization has proliferated in the last two decades.
This literature can be divided into three categories: transition, consolidation and
survival. Studies of democratic transition take the form of macro and micro analyses.
Macro-level studies involve the identification of the sufficient conditions that are
required to effect the process of transition as explicated in theories of modernization,
structuralism, culturalism, and civil society. The focal point of micro-level studies
is to examine the role of political agents in the transition process and the nature of
the relationship amongst subgroups in affecting political evolution (Kugler and Feng
1999).

5

Transitions to Democracy
The problem of democratic transitions has been addressed largely using a variety of
macro-level approaches focusing on the role of socioeconomic and cultural
structures in triggering political change. Lipset’s groundbreaking work (1959)
identified certain socioeconomic requisites of democracy, suggesting that
development and modernization could pave the way to democracy. The strength of
the modernization theory is in its simple, empirically identifiable logic. In its
clearest formulation, it argues that economic development broadens the middle class,
creating a broad educated base receptive to democratic values (Lipset 1959).
Similarly, Dahl (1989) demonstrated the impact of economic development on the
devolution of authority and the dissemination of democratic values, norms and ideas.
Insistent that transition to democracy needs economic development, Samuel
Huntington (1991a, 1991b) also noted the importance of institution building to
prevent political decay. For the purpose of developing a more elaborate explanatory
model, he provides an analysis of various theories that have attempted to identify the
factors behind democratization (Thompson1999). Derived from these and from a
thorough reading of the literature, Huntington proposes a five point model of
democratic evolution as follows: "legitimacy problems for authoritarian regimes,
global economic growth and expanding urban middle classes, the active engagement
in politics by religious institutions that formerly defended the status quo, the
increasing influence of external political actors on domestic politics, and demands
6
for democratization by people who witness other authoritarian regimes giving way to
popular will" (Thompson 1999:24).

Barrington Moore (1966) and Theda Skocpol (1979), on the other hand, took a more
class based approach. Thus, as the foundation of class structures, economic
development and political cultures corresponded to different types of political
domination (Colomer 2001:134). To impersonal economic indicators and
institutions, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (1963) added the concept of “civic
culture” which they saw as mediating between the level of everyday social processes
and larger political processes . Their work suggested that gross measures of
economic development might not be as strong an indicator of the likelihood of
democratic transition as once expected. Indeed, the historical record confirms that
even without high levels of economic development, other factors can lay the
foundation for- or even prompt- democratic transition (Kugler and Feng 1999). One
such factor, important especially in states where the landed classes are relatively
weak, is a more equal distribution of wealth (Kugler and Feng1999). Furthermore,
to the extent that one adopts a narrow view of democracy, it is possible for external
actors to impose democratic rule on regimes that would not otherwise initiate
transition processes which build on already existing democratic tendencies within a
state. Thus, it is clear that while economic and other structural factors seem to
explain many cases, modernization theory could not close the book on the
relationship between economic development and democracy. Indeed, empirical tests
7
of the modernization theory and its short and long term implications have been
largely inconclusive and the debate is still open (Kugler and Feng 1999).

Perhaps the most important product of this debate has been a renewed effort to
resolve the inherent tension between macro and micro-level approaches and to
account for variable levels of democratization as discussed in the consolidation
literature below. In response to the criticism that macro-level approaches tend to
present static analyses, micro-level approaches attempt to see political change as a
series of strategic actions. By building dynamic models of political action, micro-
level models provide one possible way of bridging the divide between the conditions
for democratization and the process of transition that seeks its consolidation.

Democratic Consolidation
As a concept, democratic consolidation, presents a more complex and problematic
research agenda than the concept of democratic transition. According to Gerardo
L.Munck (2001), the literature on democratic consolidation by authors such as
Diamond (1999) and, Linz and Stepan (1996), includes conflicting definitions and
measures which have led to interpretative challenges and theoretical disarray .In an
attempt to seek clarity, Munck points to the concept of democratic consolidation as it
was originally used in writings on Latin American democratic transitions. The study
of democratization in the Latin American context, allowed for the development of
democratic consolidation as a concept appropriate to the history of a region in which
8
democratic transition usually involved a process of redemocratization whereby new
democratic regimes had regressed to autocratic rule .Therefore, the concern was the
viability of the new democratic regimes. To Munck, the conceptual problem is
largely rooted in the way scholars have defined and measured democratic transitions.
He states that:
…after adopting the view that democratic transitions are concluded with
founding elections, at which time a new phase of consolidation begins,
scholars realized that this minimalist definition of democracy directed their
attention away from other significant aspects of democracy. And they
realized that democratization could proceed by partial and gradual change.
(Munck 2001:128).

Therefore, Munck called for a reconceptualization of democratic consolidation by
"recasting as attributes of transition to democracy the numerous attributes that over
time have come to be inappropriately associated with the consolidation process "
(Munck 2001:128).

Finally, Munck seeks to sharpen the concept of democratic consolidation by
suggesting the new concept of democratic quality which could impact the survival of
democracies. Thus, the definition of transition was broadened, opening the way for a
shift in focus to the survival of new democracies.

Survival of New Democracies
Rather than attempting to explain a definitive moment of democratization, scholars
of democratic consolidation focus on the institutional and structural measures which
routinize the new democratic practices. However, Przeworski and his colleagues
9
have pointed to the importance of identifying the causes of survival or erosion of the
newly democratized systems (Przeworski et al 1996, 2000). In their work, several
important variables are treated as independent variables in studies on the survival of
the transition: the type of change, economic growth, type of institutions, and whether
the new democratic system is parliamentary or presidential. In a similar vein, Paul
Warwick (1992) analyzed the relationship between trends in key economic indicators
(inflation, unemployment, and growth in GDP) and government survival in sixteen
postwar European parliamentary democracies (Warwick 1992:875). Employing the
partial likelihood method, he demonstrated causality between inflation and
unemployment and the rate of survival of the governments in West European
parliamentary systems.
First postulated by Juan Linz, the idea that the type of government would have a
definitive impact on its survival gained widespread currency in the 1980s and 1990s
(Cheibub and Limongi 2002). In support of his thesis, which argues for the
advantages of parliamentary government, Przeworski et al (2000) concluded that
presidential systems are more likely to die compared to parliamentary ones. Yet in
an important challenge, Cheibub and Limongi (2002) use empirical analysis to
falsify this hypothesis, concluding that the impact of political system type on the
survival rate is due to constitutional and other legal arrangements rather than the type
of regime as such. Their work opened a new avenue for research in which the
correlation between legal structures and rate of survival would be further
investigated. They suggest that the organization of the decision-making process is
10
the most important factor in accounting for the difference between parliamentary and
presidential regimes.

The study of cabinet survival and termination has also led to important theoretical
insights as well as methodological innovations which bear directly on the current
study. The work of Browne et al (1984) is concerned with the stochastic processes
that govern cabinet survival as developed in their concept of “critical events” which
are seen as “independent” circumstances which “appear” on a “schedule not fully
controlled by actors” " (Browne et al 1984:180). Such an approach downplays the
strategic aspects of regime survival and gained further support in the work of Alt and
King (1994) who found that hazard rates were constant over the life of a regime—
that is the cabinet duration did not impact the likelihood of regime survival or death.
Building on the concept of “critical event” while countering these nonstrategic
models, Lupia and Strom (1995) present a game theoretic model of cabinet duration
which argues that what makes events critical is the strategic configuration in which
they occur. Furthermore, they differentiate between the causes of cabinet
termination and the processes by which this occurs.Diermeir and Stevenson (1999)
further investigate these modes of cabinet termination and find that hazard rates
indeed increase over time. The theoretical innovations in the work on cabinet
survival and termination has demonstrated one way in which game theoretic analysis
can help explain processes which otherwise register as random in large-n statistical
analyses.
11

Democratization in the Arab World
Despite a number of important recent contributions, the democratization literature on
the Middle East continues to suffer from a paucity of empirically grounded case
studies, regional comparisons, conceptual innovation, and methodological rigor.
Perhaps more problematic, this shortcoming is less reflective of the quality of
scholarly work on the region than it is a reflection of the slow incorporation of data
from the region in the comparative politics literature and a more generalized failure,
stemming from a variety of sources, to see the region as a source of meaningful,
generalizable comparative analysis. Thus, the early works of Augustus Richard
Norton (1995) and Saad Eddin Ibrahim (1995a) represent the pioneering efforts of
two well established area specialists to pinpoint the causal relationship between
developments on the level of civil society and the rise of viable democracies. From
this early start, arose a theoretical interest in understanding the development of
political culture as a precondition for democratization. This apparent causal
connection has led some analysts, including Lewis (1996), Kedourie (1994), and
Huntington (1991a), to conclude that Islam and tribalism are incompatible with
democratic development. On the other hand, Esposito and Piscatori (1991) argue
that Islamic values can be reconciled with democracy depending on the interpretation
of the religious texts. A lack of parsimonious measures for the wide range of
religious doctrines and practices in the region complicates these analyses.
12

Several positions have emerged to explain the absence of democracy in the Arab
world representing a variety of approaches. Among scholars of political economy, it
has been noted that there is a disproportionate number of rentier states in the region
whose monopoly over financial resources and coercive means reinforces their
independence from the citizenry that precludes the development of democratic norms
or pressure (Luciani 1995; Brynen 1995; Brumberg 1995). Other political
economists maintain that Arab governments have been forced by economic
circumstances to liberalize their political systems as a means to offset the potential
political drawbacks from the implementation of structural adjustment measures
(Brumberg 1995). Finally, some theorists trace the democratization process to
external factors such as globalization, international financial and political pressures,
and the diffusion of democratic values (Gause 1995). Nevertheless, one should not
overemphasize the positive impact of external factors. Despite the widespread
expectation that regional peace processes contribute to democratization, Jordan’s
1994 treaty with Israel had the opposite effect on the Kingdom’s liberalization
process (Brand 1999). Furthermore, because external pressure stems from a variety
of sources, it is important to differentiate between those which are more or less likely
to contribute to democratization.

The empirical scholarship, however limited, includes case studies of specific Arab
countries analyzing election results, the narrow parameters of democratization, the
13
persistence of authoritarian regimes, as well as limited comparisons. Based on
macro-level analysis, these authors (Thompson 1999; Vandenberg 2000) conclude
that regimes have employed policies of “defensive liberalization” and “tactical
democratization” in order to assure their own survival. Missing from these studies,
however, is an analysis of the micro-level factors which lead to the choice of specific
survival strategies, which likely involve dynamic bargaining processes between
regimes and their respective societal subgroups, or a clear definition of defensive
liberalization versus other types of liberalization.
Consociational Theory
Originally employed in the study of small European democracies (Lijphart 1977;
Daadler 1974; Meir 1994; Zolberg 1977; Lehmbruch 1993), consociational theory
has assumed growing salience in the explication of inter-group dynamics in
segmented societies outside of the European context (Apter 1961; Chinwuba 1980;
Dekmejian 1978; Zakaria 1989; Dew 1994; Hughes 1982; Lijphart 1996, 1999;
Jabbra and Jabbra 2001). Specifically, consociational theory is used to explain
stability in deeply divided countries where various subgroups engage in continuous
bargaining within an “elite cartel” in order to maximize their self interest.
Consociational theorists reject the applicability of the majoritarian model of
democracy in plural societies, and emphasize the crucial role of political elites.
According to Lijphart’s updated 1996 formulation, consociationalism possesses four
main features: first, a grand coalition of political elites representing the subgroups of
society and working for the preservation of the existing system; second, a high
14
degree of subgroup autonomy so that each group can maintain its normative
integrity; third, a system of proportionality in subgroup representation in government
agencies; and finally, the exercise of mutual veto power by the subgroups over
policies that affect their vital interests.

In its application to less developed countries, consociational theory was modified in
various degrees to incorporate theoretical alterations suggested by Lustick (1979)
and Rothchild (1986). Such modifications place greater importance on the regime’s
role in the power sharing process among diverse subgroups. It has been
hypothesized that communal divisions in the Arab states may be well suited for the
development of balanced state-society relations based on mutual accommodation and
compromise (Brynen et al 1995; Salame 1994). According to Saad Eddin Ibrahim
(1995b), an equilibrium of governance existed among the ethnic, sectarian, and tribal
subgroups in many traditional Arab societies. As will be demonstrated in this study,
this traditional equilibrium might well be revived; and, it could provide an alternative
pathway toward democratization in the Arab states.

Gaming and Democratic Transitions
In comparison with macro-historical analyses of transition, micro-level analysis
shifts attention to the actions rather than the conditions of political change, by
focusing on the strategic interaction among political actors. A second wave of
democratization in the 1970s and 1980s struck a blow to macro-level analyses of
15
democratization whose deterministic structural approach was unable to account for
the timing and processes of these transitions. In response, scholars began to look for
more potent analyses which could not only spell out the requirements of transition,
but explain its dynamics as well. In keeping with Rustow (1970), O’Donnell,
Schmitter, and Whitehead (1986) set forth a theory which explained political change
as a dynamic process involving a series of strategic decisions by actors with different
preferences. The actors were then defined according to their preferences as
hardliners, softliners, members of the regimes, and moderate or radical members of
the opposition groups. Juan Linz and Stepan further questioned the macro-analytical
approach in their analysis of the breakdown of European democracy in the interwar
period. Their work demonstrated that there is no correlation between economic
development and democratic stability as the modernization thesis would suggest.
Instead, they emphasized the significant role of political factors in political change,
especially the role of leadership (Linz and Stepan 1978).

Adam Przeworski’s (1991) pathbreaking work continued to build on this foundation
by pursuing more thorough micro-analysis of the democratic transition. The
rationale behind micro-level analysis rests on the fact that while macro-level studies
could explain why a regime was bound to fall, they were unable to predict when the
regime would collapse. Using data from Eastern Europe and Latin American states
and incorporating variables to account for the timing of breakdown in authoritarian
regimes, Przeworski proposed a game theoretic model which would be flexible
16
enough to sustain the inherent uncertainty that characterized the transitional process
in which democracy is just one of many possible outcomes (Przeworski 1991). In
this way, he attempted to adjust not only for the problems presented by macro-level
analysis, but also for the deterministically linear view of political change on which
they often rested. This focus on processes and actions rather than conditions and
structures was picked up by many scholars including Colomer (1991, 1995, 2000)
and Zielinski (1995) who saw democratic transitions as multistage processes marked
by the decomposition of authoritarian regimes(Kugler and Feng 1999). All of these
studies emphasized the strategic bargaining among subgroups. Siddharth
Swaminathan (1999), for example, used a timing game to elucidate regime – sub-
group dynamics by analyzing " the impact of shifting power distributions among
competing groups"( Swaminathan 1999:178) during the process of democratic
transition. In his work, Jakub Zielinski (1999) uses game theory to explain violent
transitions, not easily accounted for by statistical or structural approaches. He finds
that miscommunication within the regime can initiate strategic interactions which
lead to violent transitions even when not apparently in the interest of any of the
actors initially. Thus, in his comparative study of Hungary and Poland, Zielinski
(1999) found that miscommunication within the government and between reformers
and opposition accounted for the different outcomes in those two countries. Mark J.C.
Crescenzi (1999) has also contributed to this literature in his efforts to use game
theory to explain why peaceful and violent transitions occur and the difference
between them. Taken together, these works have shown both the promise of the
17
game theoretical approach and the need for more in depth case studies and empirical
evaluation of existing theories of transition and consolidation.
18
Chapter II. Theoretical Framework and Methodology

The construction of a research design and its theoretical and methodological
components need to be shaped by the specific problems and questions that confront
the researcher. It is safe to assume that Arab polities are in the midst of dynamic
socioeconomic cultural and political changes, the causes, directions, and
consequences of which are not easily identifiable. A salient question is whether the
sum total of recent developments actually constitutes a democratizing trend, and if so,
is destined to culminate in the establishment of democracies as defined by Western
standards.

To be sure, the critical question is the obvious bias that pervades most of the
democratization literature that applies Western experiences, concepts, theories, and
measurements to assess the political evolution taking place in non-western polities,
including the Arab countries. Consequently, the proposed research design shall seek
to reduce Western conceptual biases through an eclectic combination of: 1)
indigenous sociocultural factors, 2) selective use of modified consociational theory,
and 3) new methods to analyze the processes of inter-group bargaining and formulas
of power sharing.

19
Theoretical Framework
Societal pluralism (al-Ta‘addudiyah al-Ijtima’iyah)
Despite the long-term, often coercive efforts of Arab elites to bring about national
integration, the social fabrics of virtually all Arab countries remain segmented along
tribal, communal, sectarian, regional, and socioeconomic cleavages. During the
heady years of dysfunctional nation building, the traditional equilibrium of
governance in Ottoman times over these plural societies was disrupted (Ibrahim
1995a). However, as recent developments demonstrate, the old patterns of group
identity and solidarity have reasserted themselves. Consequently, any empirical
investigation of these polities would have to take into account the historically
grounded plural nature of these societies.

It should be noted that in theorizing on democratization, some prominent Arab
scholars such as Saad Eddin Ibrahim (1995a; 1995b; 2003), Ghassan Salame (1994),
Muhammad Abid al-Jabri (1971; 1993), and Khaldun Hasan al-Naqeeb (1990, 1991)
have come to emphasize the significant role of social pluralism (al-ta‘addudiyah al-
ijtima‘iyah). In view of the segmented reality of the Arab social fabric, a
majoritarian theory will fall short of explaining persistent patterns of stability and
change. Indeed, the fundamental weakness of the structuralist and culturalist
approaches to Middle East democratization is precisely their underestimation of the
pluralist factor and their exclusion of the role of political agents in shaping the
transition in the Arab countries. Therefore, this study is designed to bring
20
micropolitics into the explanatory model to analyze the dynamics of inter-group
bargaining that determine the balance of power-sharing and mutual accommodation;
hence, the need for a modified form of consociational theory.

Bounded Consociationalism and Rational Bargaining
Beyond its usefulness in explaining the processes of governance in socially
segmented Western countries, consociationalism has been widely applied to a score
of non-Western plural societies. The major advantages of consociational theory are
its focus on: 1) the constituent subgroups in society which participate in the political
system as sociopolitical units; 2) the formal and informal autonomy of these
subgroups in terms of their possession of social space in society and pursuit of their
communal interests; 3) the relationship among the subgroup elites who come
together in an ‘elite cartel’ or ‘grand coalition’ to resolve inter-group conflicts, to
reach agreement on national policy and the allocation of resources among the
subgroups (Lijphart 1968b:20-24;Lijphart 1969:211-216).

The extension of this consociational model to non-western polities raises some key
questions. Critics like Lustick (1979), Horowitz (1985), and Rothchild (1986) point
out that many non-western states are not only deeply divided but also possess an
authoritarian political culture, which means greater power for the ruling elites
relative to subgroups in society. This necessitates a modification of Lijphart’s
consociational theory by supplanting it with Lustick’s notion of an ‘umpire regime’
21
and Rothchild’s theory of ‘hegemonial exchange’ (Lustick 1979, Rothchild 1986).
Such a composite model, to be called ‘Hegemonic Consociationalism’ or ‘Bounded
Consociationalism’, features a hegemonic regime which legitimizes and sustains
itself by an ongoing process of explicit and implicit bargaining with the communal
elites, who are brought into a ‘grand coalition’ through electoral and/or appointive
mechanisms (Dekmejian and Eyadat 2004). Despite the asymmetric power
relationship between the regime and the diverse subgroups, the rational imperatives
of self-interest require subgroup inclusiveness and power-sharing, which in turn take
into account the basic interests of the constituent subgroups.

The model of ‘Bounded Consociationalism’ is particularly applicable to Arab
countries that meet three conditions: 1) social segmentation along two or more
communal (vertical) cleavages; 2) hegemonic umpire regimes which have acquired,
in the period of state formation, sufficient political, economic, and coercive
resources to maintain control over their constituent subgroups; and 3) management
of competing interests through ongoing processes of bargaining and negotiation to
assure regime survival and subgroup interests.

Ibn Khaldun’s Theory of Political Change
It should be noted that the conceptual dynamics of bounded consociationalism are
embedded in Arab political thought and historical experience. In terms of Ibn
Khaldun’s theorizing, the political arena consists of competing subgroups, each
22
possessing distinct ‘asabiyat—, i.e., communal identities, solidarities, self-interests,
and psychopolitical passions to gain dominance over the others (Rosenthal 1958, al-
Jabri 1971). At a point where the ‘asabiyah of one of the competing groups
overcomes the ‘asabiyat of its rivals, then a strong state will emerge. In such a
situation the weaker subgroups will coalesce (iltiham) around the dominant
‘asabiyah (Ibn Khaldun1965). Should it be impossible for an emerging hegemonic
‘asabiyah to achieve full coalescence and total dominance, the aspiring hegemonic
cohort will pursue a second best preference through establishing a contractual state
(dawlat al-‘aqd) based on negotiated agreements with their rival ‘asabiyah .This
arrangement will result in a weaker state—a situation that corresponds to the state of
Arab polities in the contemporary period. Relevant examples include the attempts to
impose competing state ‘asabiyat such as Hashemite Arab nationalism, Nasserism,
Ba‘thism, and Saudi Wahhabism, which succeeded in establishing a degree of
temporary coalescence in their respective polities, only to face challenges from
internal ‘asabiyat that pushed these hegemonic regimes to base their survival on a
contractual state. Such an outcome represents reaching a form of equilibrium
whereby the regimes as well as their respective challengers are forced to settle for
their second best preferences that involve framing contractual arrangements to
coexist (ta‘ayush) in relative harmony (tawafuq).

23
Methodology
The choice of an appropriate methodology represents a primary challenge because of
its fundamental role in shaping the research findings. Among the competing
methodological tools, this study proposes to use a combination of qualitative and
formal models of analysis to seek answers to the research questions and to generate
explanations of political processes. As King, Keohane, and Verba (1994) emphasize,
a fundamental issue in political methodology is to build causal inferences in both
qualitative and quantitative research. In addition to providing empirical tests for the
formal models, this study aims to bridge the gap between qualitative and
mathematical approaches. Such a combination of methods is deemed necessary
because qualitative analysis helps capture the rich diversity of causal factors of
political change, while game theory provides precision in explaining the players’
strategies and actions.

Units of Analysis
In terms of comparative method it is necessary to identify the units and levels of
analysis in order to control against possible ecological fallacy. This study will adopt
a micro-level analysis of subgroup interactions as a prelude to explaining macro-
level outcomes. Thus, in terms of political change, the units of analysis are the
competing subgroups and regimes in each polity. Consequently the comparative
analysis shall focus on the processes of group interaction in the three case studies.

24
Definition of Concepts
Throughout this study several key concepts will be used which require conceptual
clarification based on definitions derived from their usage in the political science
literature and the theoretical framework of this research.

Democracy: This study will employ a two-fold definition of democracy. Any
definition of democracy will inevitably run up against limits in terms of scope
and generalizability. The definition of democracy presented here, based on the
work of Schumpeter (1942), Dahl (1971), and Riker (1962), and elaborated by
Pzeworski (1991), aims to capture both the foundational and process oriented
aspects of political change most relevant to the goals of this study. Thus,
democracy is defined as:
 a system of governance in which those who govern are chosen through
contested elections and are demonstrably responsible to those over whom
they rule.
 a system of governance in which the resolution of conflict is a contingent
process dependent on the actions of participants but not under the control of
any single force. In other words, the outcomes of political conflicts in
democratic systems are not known to the participants before they engage in
political processes; rather, the outcomes of political processes are inherently
uncertain (Pzeworski 1991).

25
Democratization can be defined both with respect to the system of governance
and its institutions and to the expansion of democratic governance to include a
broader demographic. To capture both of these dynamics, democratization is
defined in this study as the set of processes through which the rules, rights, and
procedures of democratic governance and citizenship are carried out in political
institutions not previously governed democratically or as the expansion of
democratic governance to include persons or groups not previously governed by
a democratic system. Finally, democratization can refer to the expansion of
democratic governance over issues and institutions not previously governed
democratically (Przeworski 1991; O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986).

Liberalization refers to the process whereby an undemocratic regime allows a
greater degree of autonomous organization of civil society and expands
authoritarian institutions to include previously excluded social groups or persons.
Liberalization is generally understood as an effort by the regime to relax social
tension and fortify its own political power by broadening its social base
(Przeworski 1991; O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986).

Bounded consociationalism is a system of controlled contestation in which a
hegemonic regime sustains itself by a continual process of bargaining with
subgroup elites who are brought into a “grand coalition” through electoral and/or
26
appointive mechanisms (Lijphart 1968a, 1969; Lustick 1979, 1997; Rothchild
1986)
Societal pluralism refers to societies consisting of diverse subgroups with
distinctive solidarities (asabiyat) defined by sectarian, tribal, regional, communal,
and/or socioeconomic cleavages (Ibrahim 1995b, Salame 1994, al-Naqeeb 1990).

Case Studies: Criteria of Choice
Case studies are most appropriate to answer how or why questions (Yin 1989). The
case study method is particularly useful for testing hypotheses deductively derived
from existing theories (Yin 1989). In this work, case studies are used as a part of the
research design in order to test the propositions and hypotheses contained in the
formal model.

The countries chosen as case studies are Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq. Although the
general model of political transition proposed in this study may be applicable to
many Arab political systems, the choice of Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq is based on a
number of factors including the availability of empirical evidence about recent
political developments, the similarities in state-society relations, the processes of
hegemonic exchange, and the patterns of interaction among diverse subgroups. Thus,
this study employs a “most similar systems” design marked by the systematic
similarities mentioned above as well as similarities in terms of social and cultural
27
norms (Przeworski and Teune 1970). This research design was chosen to allow for
better specification of the dynamics of transition.

Game Theory
The analytic tools of game theory will be employed to build an explanatory model of
the process of political transition in the three case studies. Although purely
descriptive and qualitative approaches do provide important correlational insights,
game theory has the advantage of uncovering the underlying causal factors that
shape political change (Przeworski 1991, Colomer 1995, 2000). In particular, game
theory is a powerful tool to analyze the strategic interaction among political actors in
environments of uncertainty and incomplete information (Kuglar and Feng 1999). In
such situations, the choices of different players are a function of the expected payoffs
and the anticipated choices of the competing players.

In relating the gaming method as described above to the theoretical model of
bounded consociationalism, the process of political change in Arab countries can be
viewed as taking place in uncertain environments, where each subgroup is
attempting to maximize its self interest by securing the best possible option for itself
in the emerging arenas of reformist political change.

Existing game theoretic studies of democratic transitions model the interaction
between the regime and the opposition using two- or three-player games, mugging,
28
and prisoner’s dilemma (Colomer 1995, 2000; Prezeworski 1991; Crescenzi 1999;
Feng and Zak 1999; Zielinski 1995). The present study departs from the previous
literature by modeling Arab political change as a four-level gaming process with
different indicators of the formulation and ordering of preferences:
1. Bargaining and coalition building within the regime
 Possible results:
o Strengthening the regime’s hegemonic ‘asabiyah
o Retreat to assure regime survival by contractual means

2. Bargaining within respective subgroups in order to articulate and rank their
preferences (collective action).
 Possible results:
o Maintain subgroup ‘asabiyah to maximize expected payoffs
o Weakened ‘asabiyah

3. Bargaining between the regime and the respective subgroups
 Possible results for the regime:
o Strengthen its hegemonic ‘asabiyah
o Retreat to assure regime survival by contractual means
o Regime change
 Possible results for subgroups:
o Power-sharing in “grand coalition”
o Contractual settlement
o Coalescence around hegemonic regime with unconditional
acquiescence (iltiham)

4. Bargaining among the subgroups
 Possible results:
o Non-cooperation based on the preservation and strengthening of
each group’s ‘asabiyah
o Building coalitions among the subgroups to share power with
hegemonic regime
o Inter-group strife (fitnah)

The four levels of the transition game can be formally expressed by using Bayes’
theorem and perfect Bayesian equilibrium for the first three levels, and social
29
matching games as developed by Fearon and Laitin (1996) for the fourth level.
Bayes’ theorem of conditionality is expressed by the following equation:
P (A |B) = p(B|A) p(A)
p(B|A) p(A) + p(B|~A) p(~A)

Where p= probability that an event or action will occur
A= the event or action of the first player
B= the event or action of the second player
~A (not A) = the event or action of the first player not occurring
~B (not B) = the event or action of the second player not occurring. (Gates
and Humes 1997:122):

From this equation it is understood that the probability that an event or action will
occur depends on the polarity of the correlation between A and B—i.e. if these are
positively related, then p (A|B) > p (A); if negatively related, then p (A) = p (A|B) p
(B) + p (A|~B) p (~B). (Gates and Humes 1997:122):

Bayesian theory was chosen for this study because, as Gates and Humes (1997)
suggest, when used to analyze political change, its flexibility allows for the
consideration of the role of culture and subjectivity in the players’ calculations.
According to Gates and Humes "because the solution of Bayesian equilibria requires
both backward induction and forward Bayesian inference"(Gates and Humes
1997:122), Bayesian theory incorporates the very conditionality which is part and
parcel of political change. Furthermore, because it assumes that players continually
alter and update their political decisions based on what they believe other actors are
30
doing, Bayesian theory avoids the pitfall of more static models and is thus ideal for
capturing the dynamic of transition. (Gates and Humes 1997).

While it would be possible to apply the Bayesian rule to the fourth level of the
game—i.e., bargaining among the subgroups—for this study Fearon and
Laitin’s(1996) social matching game is a better match because it more adequately
expresses the potentiality of both conflict and cooperation among the subgroups
while taking into account their disparate size and internal dynamics, including
variable levels of asabiyah, operating within an environment of imperfect, limited,
and costly information.

Bounded Consociationalism: General Model
In this study, political change in socially segmented societies is conceptualized along
a continuum of regime types ranging from “autocratic rule,” to “bounded
consociationalism”, to a fully developed “consociational” system. In the Arab
context, it is deduced that the evolution of political systems along this continuum is
the outcome of the type of strategic interaction and dynamics of bargaining between
the regime and subgroups and among the subgroups themselves. It is further assumed
that the sequential moves by each actor are conditioned by: 1) the moves of the other
actors; 2) the level of each actor’s internal solidarity (‘asabiyah); 3) the nature of
each actor’s relationship with other actors (negative, positive, neutral); and 4) the
31
relative power of the actors. These conditions are to be held constant for all actors
throughout the game’s duration.

Figure 1: Spectrum of Bounded Consociational Regime Types

As depicted in Figure 1, the spectrum of possible outcomes includes four types of
political systems. At one end are authoritarian systems representing a general
absence or failure of attempts at political change and characterized by a high degree
of regime control and a low level of subgroup representation. The other end of the
spectrum represents fully developed consociational systems that feature a democratic
governing structure encompassing representatives from all the autonomous
subgroups that have come together to form a contractual state. Between the two
extremes is the category of Bounded Consociationalism representing regimes that
combine, in differing degrees, elements of autocratic rule and consociational
formulas. Such regimes are the outcomes of the interaction and bargaining among
the major political actors within the constraints imposed by the rules of the game.
The Bounded Consociational category itself represents a sub-spectrum of gradations
Bounded Consociationalism
BC
Consociationalism
C
Regime Controlled
Consociationalism
RCC
Hegemonic/Narrow Less Hegemonic/Broad
HNB LHBB
32
of regime types, ranging from strongly hegemonic systems with narrowly based
subgroup representation, to less hegemonic and broadly inclusive polities.

Paths of Transition
The four regime types of the spectrum represent the outcomes of political processes
which can be initiated by the regime, the subgroups, or some combination of the two.
Regime controlled consociationalism (RCC) occurs when internal conflict, economic
failure, and/or legitimacy crises result in a sense of weakness among the ruling elite
which responds by offering some measure of political participation(Przeworski
1991). In this situation, the regime reasons that it can address its legitimacy crisis by
strengthening and broadening its social base and support while maintaining power by
controlling the terms of participation. Within the two forms of Bounded
Consociationalism (BC), the Hegemonic Narrow type involves subgroups which
initiate change by pressuring the regime to readjust the balance of power in favor of
their interests. Such pressure from subgroups to open up the political system is
likely to result from the rise of ‘asabiyah among alienated subgroups, dysfunctional
governance, or external pressures, such as war, occupation, or international
economic forces. Meanwhile, the Less Hegemonic Bounded Consociational system,
also initiated by the subgroups, is more likely to involve independent action on the
part of the subgroups which the regime is later forced to accept as faits accompli or
to coopt as a face saving measure. Finally, the most open Consociational type occurs
when reformist initiatives emanate from both the regime and the subgroups.
33

Players and Preferences: Structure of the Game
The process of transition is depicted as a sequence of rational moves calculated to
maximize the interests of the players within the bounds of uncertainty and available
information. Each game has three players pursuing competing interests according to
different orderings of their preferences to reach one of five possible outcomes.

The players are the regime, subgroup A, and subgroup B. The regime’s preferred
outcomes are:
(5) (4) (3) (2) (1)
RCC > HNB > LHBB > C > CS

The regime’s assigned payoffs are indicated above with (5) being the most desirable
and (1) the least desirable. Thus, the regime would prefer to maintain the status quo
and maximize control (RCC) over hegemonic control bounded by a narrow range of
subgroup inclusion (HNB), over less hegemonic control constrained by broader
subgroup representation (LHBB), over full-scale consociational system (C), over
civil strife—fitnah (CS).

Subgroups A and B are the two main ethnic/tribal groupings in society, which are in
rivalry in maximizing their self-interests and extracting “goods” from the regime.
34
The conflicting ‘asabiyat' of the two subgroups lead to differences in ordering their
preferences. Subgroup A’s preferred outcomes are:
(5) (4) (3) (2) (1)
LHBB > C > HNB > RC > CS

The assigned payoffs are indicated above with (5) being most preferable and (1) least
preferable.

Subgroup B’s preferred outcomes are:
(5) (4) (3) (2) (1)
C > LHBB > HNB > RC > CS

Each of the foregoing preferences is an outcome of the multifaceted bargaining
processes involving each of the players which are guided by the principle of
conditional cooperation to secure a maximal role for themselves in the future
governing coalition. The rationale behind this three-way bargaining process is the
uncertainty that characterizes the path of political change, where the winners or
losers are not predetermined, which provides sufficient incentives for all three actors
to participate in the transition (Przeworski 1991).

A further attribute shaping the game structure is the asymmetric power relationship
among the three players, which usually favors the regime in terms of its possession
of coercive instrumentalities, ability to impose costs or offer rewards to the
subgroups and the option to ally itself with one or the other subgroup. Yet, despite
the regime’s power position of superiority, the subgroups retain necessary and
35
sufficient power to enter the game that constitutes their “threat factor” (Bates, de
Figueiredo, and Weingast 1998:227-230; Rui, de Figueiredo, and Weingast
1999:263-270). This threat factor, within the context of bounded consociationalism,
is defined as the ability of each player to alter the structure and outcome of the game
(Bates, de Figueiredo, and Weingast 1998:248-250). The implementation of the
threat factor may take the form of a shift in alliances, mass mobilization or boycott,
thereby challenging the legitimacy of the whole political process outcomes
(Przeworski 1991). . The most effective method of using the threat factor is through
signaling by using references to public memories and beliefs and historical events
and current public concerns. (Bates, de Figueiredo, and Weingast 1998; Rui, de
Figueiredo, and Weingast 1999).

The transition will be modeled as a sequential extensive game consisting of two
variants. The first is a “cooperative game” resulting from “social matching” practices
in order to bring about cooperation among the subgroups and extract power from the
regime. The possible outcome of such a cooperative game is an “efficient
equilibrium”. The second variant is a “non-cooperative” game where the subgroups
choose not to cooperate with each other, as in a prisoner’s dilemma situation, thereby
achieving an inefficient equilibrium that favors the regime’s first two preferences.

36

The sequential extensive game can be represented as a tree in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Bounded Consociational Sequential Extensive Game

To understand the logic of Figure 2, one can resort to either forward or backward
induction. The starting point is a regime decision, whether or not to reform the
political system. Should the choice be not to reform, the game ends with perpetuation
of the status quo – the first best option for the regime, and the second worst option
for the subgroups, with payoffs (5, 2, 2) respectively. Among the causal factors
influencing a regime move toward reform in bringing the subgroups into the political
process are 1) regime weakness due to internal splits; 2) economic crisis; 3) domestic
pressure from the subgroups; and 4) external political and/or economic pressures.
Should the regime choose to initiate a controlled reform process, the subgroups
Hegemonic Regime
LHBB
HNB CS
No Reform
Offer Reform 1
Accept
Subgroups A & B
Reject
Hegemonic Regime
RCC
Offer Reform 2 Repress
r (succeed)
1-r (fail)
C
37
would face two options: either to participate or to abstain in order to induce
additional concessions from the regime. These subgroup choices are conditioned by
three factors: 1) whether the regime’s offer corresponds to the subgroups’ interests
and preference ordering; 2) the relative power of each subgroup in terms of its size,
resources and internal solidarity vis-à-vis the other players; 3) whether the
relationship between subgroups A and B is cooperative or non-cooperative. Should
the subgroups choose participation; the game’s outcome will be LHBB – a less
hegemonic broad bounded consociational regime with a payoff of (3, 5, 4). Should
the subgroups decline the regime’s initial offer, and continue to push for greater
concessions, the regime either could agree to move toward a more robust
consociational system, or resort to coercive measures to constrain the subgroups’
activism. Should the regime estimate that repression would not be successful, it will
choose reform, with a full-scale consociational outcome, and payoffs (2, 4, 5). On
the other hand, if the regime estimates that repression will succeed, it will proceed to
use various degrees of coercion. Should the repression succeed in constraining the
subgroups’ challenge, the outcome will be HNB – Hegemonic Narrow Bounded
Consociational rule, with payoffs 4, 3, 3. This outcome presupposes the regime’s
success in co-opting some of the smaller subgroups and hence its designation as a
bounded consociational system with a “narrow” base. The worst outcome for both
the regime and subgroups is the outbreak of civil strife resulting from the use of
coercion and its inability to contain subgroups’ challenges.

38
In applying the decisional model in Figure 2 to the contemporary Arab context, it is
most likely that full-scale consociational rule or civil strife is the least possible
outcomes. In all likelihood, the dynamics of transition will gravitate between status
quo hegemonic rule (RC), less hegemonic narrow bounded consociationalism
(LHBB) and hegemonic narrow bounded consociationalism (HNB).

In order to solve for the game, Matrix 1 enumerates the possible payoffs and the
resulting equilibria. Clearly, HNB and LHBB represent the equilibria of the game. If
the game’s outcome is LHBB, then a peaceful transition is expected. In contrast, a
HNB outcome portends a violent transition.
Matrix 1: Players' Payoffs

Regime
Subgroup A
5,2,2 (RC) 3,5,4 (LHBB)
4,3,3 (HNB) 2,4,5 (C)
39
Chapter III. Jordan: Consociationalism in a Monarchical Setting

Jordan constitutes an important case study because it has had the longest experience
in Bounded Consociationalism as defined in this study. As a society segmented along
ethnic, sectarian, regional and ideological cleavages, the Hashemite Kingdom was
among the first Arab countries that experimented with political and economic
liberalization under monarchical rule. In order to understand the formative influences
shaping the political process in modern Jordan, it is necessary to briefly outline the
country’s historical development.

State Formation (1921 – 1950)
The modern state of Jordan was the product of the Arab Revolt of 1916 and Britain’s
imperial machinations in the aftermath of World War I. Established by Britain in
1921 as the Emirate of Trans-Jordan under Emir Abdullah, the new Arab state owed
its genesis to British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill’s decision, rather than the
consensual arrangement worked out by leaders of the indigenous people of the
region (Musa 1989). Consequently, Emir Abdullah’s first challenge was to
strengthen his authority over disparate subgroups through a mix of cooptative and
coercive measures. In his quest for legitimacy, the Emir had to overcome the
polycentric tradition of the autonomous tribes by advancing a normative justification
of monarchial rule based on the Hashemite dynasty’s genealogical ties to Prophet
Muhammad’s Quraysh tribe and his family’s leading role in the 1916 Arab revolt
40
against the Ottoman Turks (Salibi 1993). In subsequent decades, the politically
salient role of tribal identity and solidarity (‘asabiyah) was to become a primary
factor in shaping the political process and structuring the power-sharing game. To be
sure Abdullah ruled through the traditional practice of consultation (shura), with the
tribal chiefs with the aim of achieving pan-tribal consensus (ijma` al-`asha’iri) in
formulating government policies (Layne 1994). This type of outcome, known as al-
dimuqratiyah al-`afwiyah—spontaneous democracy—constitutes an efficient
equilibrium, in which each player achieves its preferences in power-sharing and
insuring its basic interests. Reaching such an equilibrium was facilitated because
Jordan’s tribes and the newly chosen Emir and his family shared tribal roots and
identities.

Indeed, the formation of a native Jordanian identity was a complicated process that
emerged from the confluence of rival social forces and identities. Emir Abdullah was
not initially preoccupied with the forging of a Trans-Jordanian identity because of
his ambition to pursue the Greater Syria scheme that aimed at bringing under his rule
Syria, Lebanon and Palestine (Musa 1989). Thus, the Emir co-opted non-Jordanian
leaders from the neighboring Arab countries to serve in top positions in order to
achieve his irredentist schemes, while counter-balancing the tribal leadership at
home. In this context, the native element sought to increase and reinforce its
presence within the regime. Although the 1928 Constitution provided representation
41
to all of the tribes and minorities, the document did not focus on a peculiarly Trans-
Jordanian identity.

The nativist/tribalist reaction to the King’s policies was manifested during a series of
six National Conferences (al-Mu`tamarat al-Wataniyah) that took place between
1928 and 1933(Abu Odeh 1999; Musa 1996). These conferences became a vital
crucible for the development of a Trans-Jordanian identity. Moreover, these
conferences served as a bargaining device to extract a share of power and benefits
from the Emir. To be sure these conclaves became a venue for collective action to
pressure the regime for concessions—a stratagem that was to be repeated in
subsequent decades. Notably, the discourse during these conferences stressed the
theme of a Trans-Jordanian identity as distinct from the Palestinians and Arab unity
schemes, in order to secure the interests of the native population (Abu Odeh 1999;
Musa 1996). The nativist identity was further reinforced by the formation of the
Arab Legion in 1923, consisting wholly of tribal recruits and dedicated to the
preservation of the monarchy (Musa 1996).

The progressive growth of the Zionist movement in British-ruled Palestine became
an impetus to the rise of a distinct Arab-Palestinian identity side-by side with a
Trans-Jordanian identity. In view of the Hashemite family’s ambitions to rule over
an extended Arab state as outlined in the 1916 Hussein—McMahon Correspondence,
the rise of separate Trans-Jordanian and Palestinian identities presented the Emir
42
with a dilemma of major proportions (Muhafiza 1973, 1990). Clearly, there was a
conflict of preferences between the three parties concerning the fate of Palestine,
even prior to the unification of West East Banks. The Palestinian Arabs aspired to
independent statehood ruled by Palestinians and not by Emir Abdullah. The Trans-
Jordanians sought to strengthen their own state, independent of Britain and distinct
from Palestine, while they supported the establishment of an independent Palestine.
In sharp contrast, the Emir’s ordering of priorities placed the Greater Syria scheme
as his primary goal, followed by a united Palestinian-Trans-Jordanian state; hence a
purely Trans-Jordanian nationalism received least attention in the Emir’s agenda.
Consequently, in the years leading to independence in 1946 and the 1948 Arab-
Israeli war, there were three players with incompatible goals: 1) the Trans-Jordanians,
having achieved statehood, wanted to secure it and maximize their role in the power
sharing formula; 2) the Palestinians wanted to secure full control over Palestine by
fighting the Zionist movement for the land and opposing Hashemite and British
hegemony; 3) the Emir aiming to secure an expansive realm over the two banks of
the river Jordan—an objective that was partially realized by his annexation of the
West Bank in 1950.

Altering the Game: New Land and New People (1950-1964)
The onrush of Palestinian refugees prompted by the 1948 war and the annexation of
the West Bank in 1950, transformed Jordan’s demographic makeup and the balance
between the Trans-Jordanian and Palestinian population(Aruri 1972). The unification
43
between the two banks of the Jordan was preceded by four Palestinian conferences
held between October 1948 and January 1949 (Lynch 1999; Musa 1996). In the
wake of the Arabs’ defeat, the Palestinian leadership was forced to accede to
Jordanian sovereignty, despite a split within its ranks because of loyalties to dissident
factions opposed to King Abdullah (Abu-Odeh 1999). Thus, the unification changed
the structure of the game prior to 1950; the main players were Abdullah and the
native tribes, with the Palestinians and their land playing an indirect role affecting
the calculations of the two sides. After 1950, there was a shift in the structure of the
game, the number of players, ordering of their preferences and possible outcomes.
For King Abdullah, expansion of his sovereignty over the West Bank and its
Palestinian population necessitated the latter’s integration into Jordanian society and
their acceptance of Hashemite identity as his subjects. For the Palestinians, the major
concern was security from Israeli threats that necessitated the King’s protective
umbrella, although without the loss of Palestinian identity within a pan-Hashemite
Jordanian ‘asabiyah and refusal to support the King’s efforts to reach a final peace
settlement with Israel. As to the East Bankers, they had the most to lose from the
tripartite game given their goals of preserving their nativist identity, maximizing
their role within the ruling order and competing with a new partner—the Palestinians.
Clearly, there was an asymmetric power relationship between the East Bankers and
the Palestinian newcomers, because the latter were more numerous, well organized
and better educated (Abu-Odeh 1999).
44
When King Talal succeeded his father, the Palestinians had acquired a strong
position within the regime vis-à-vis the native Jordanians, a reality reflected in the
1952 constitution (Aruri 1972). Meanwhile, several factors converged to alter the
rules of the game and the balance of power among the players, and reshape their
preferences. Talal’s reformist policies included liberalizing the political system,
integrating the Palestinian and Trans-Jordanian constituencies, enhancing Palestinian
representation in government and steps toward a constitutional monarchy. Moreover,
Talal abandoned his father’s Greater Syria scheme, normalized relations with the
Arab countries and was disinclined to accommodate British and Israeli interests
(Aruri 1972; Abu-Odeh 1999). Talal’s reticent personality, combined with his
willingness to expand the framework of power-sharing among various constituencies,
as embedded in the consociational provisions of the 1952 constitution, were in sharp
contrast to Abdullah’s determination to impose his personal Hashemite ‘asabiyah
over the ‘asabiyat of his Palestinian and native Jordanian subjects. A primary trigger
responsible for the ascendance and convergence of the respective Palestinian and
native Jordanian ‘asabiyat was the rising tide of Pan-Arabism that was sweeping the
Arab world (Naqrash 1992; Lynch1999). It was no accident that both the Jordanian
and Palestinian subgroups succeeded in increasing their respective influence relative
to King Talal’s position. Consequently, when King Hussein took power in 1953, the
monarchy’s hegemonic position had considerably weakened as compared to King
Abdullah’s regime.

45
In his first year, King Hussein continued his father’s policies thereby signaling to
both constituencies his willingness to expand the liberalization process and
cooperation with the newly formed political parties. However, it soon became
apparent that the combined power of the two main subgroups outweighed his power
position. The empowerment of the Jordanian and Palestinian subgroups resulted
from the revolutionary social forces and movements besetting the larger Arab orbit
(Naqrash 1992). Triggered by the loss of Palestine and Western designs to maintain
hegemony, the force of Pan-Arab nationalism radiating from Nasser’s Egypt and
Syria’s Ba`thists had a polarizing influence on Jordanian politics. The turbulent
environment that challenged the young King included popular Arab opposition to
membership in the Baghdad Pact (1955), the Suez War (1956), the Eisenhower
Doctrine (1957) and the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq (1958)
(Naqrash 1992). The cumulative impact of these crisis factors evoked strong feelings
of Arab nationalism and anti-Westernism among both Palestinians and native
Jordanians, causing them to transcend to a degree their parochial interests .Thus, to
the extent that Arabist sentiments were shared by large segments of the two
subgroups, they could pursue their common interests and identical preferences vis-à-
vis the regime which gave them sufficient bargaining power to shape the game’s
outcome close to their first preferences. Thus, from 1954 to 1957, the subgroups in a
cooperative game, succeeded in achieving their three preferences: 1) extracting from
the regime benefits and concessions toward implementation of consociational
schemes in democratic power-sharing as reflected in the 1954 elections and the
46
resulting government under Prime Minister Sulayman al-Nabulsi; 2) pushing the
monarch to adopt a radical policy stance on the Palestinian cause vis-à-vis Israel; and
3) pressing the monarch to move closer to Arab nationalist ideological norms and
rapprochement with Nasserists and Ba`thists (Al-Khazindar 1997). However, during
1956-57, it became apparent that the combined nationalist opposition was
overplaying its hand and underestimating the King’s residual sources of domestic
and international support. This escalation of pressures against the King upset the
equilibrium of forces and culminated in an abortive coup in April 1957, led by the
Free Officers organization (Massad 2001). With resolute support from the U.S. and
Britain, combined with his family’s domestic allies, the King turned the tables on the
opposition and secured the monarchy’s survival. This pattern of hegemonial survival
and restoration within a conflictual uncooperative game persisted for a half decade,
reflecting a shaky and inefficient equilibrium, as the two subgroups and the regime
sought to move the outcome closer to their own preferences. For each side, the
events of the 1950s were instructive as formative experiences. This historical legacy
taught the King 1) the danger paused by the ideological convergence and cooperative
relations between the native Jordanian and Palestinian nationalists; 2) the necessity
of garnering external political and economic support against domestic and regional
threats; and 3) the need to recreate competing Palestinian and native Jordanian
identities in the context of a new Pan-Jordanian identity reflecting Hashemite
interests. From the perspective of the opposition, the subgroups learned the utility of
47
cooperating with each other to broaden power-sharing and the dysfunctionality of
using violence against the regime.
Shifting the Balance (1964 – 1971)
The equilibrium that King Hussein had achieved at great cost after 1957 proved too
unstable and temporary. The King’s original strategy was to deconstruct the cross-
ethnic Arab nationalist identity, that many native and Palestinian Jordanians had
come to share, by replacing it with a Pan-Jordanian Hashemite identity. The logic of
this strategy was to redirect the competition between the throne and each of the
subgroups toward each other. Such an approach was expected to satisfy the native
Jordanians whose leaders were given leading positions in the regime (e.g. – Hazza`
al-Majali and Wasfi al-Tal), while making the Palestinians more dependent on royal
support because they lacked a unified leadership which enjoyed official recognition
(Abu-Odeh 1999). The anticipated outcome was a strong regime, where the King
could play the role of supreme arbiter or umpire. However, unexpected
developments would intervene to destabilize the situation.

The major factor disrupting Hussein’s equilibrium was the dynamics of the
Palestinian problem. While the King had sought to encapsulate the Palestinian cause
within Jordan’s sphere of interest, by the early 1960s the Palestinian quest for
liberation and statehood had assumed central importance in the larger orbit of inter-
Arab politics; hence the establishment in September 1964 of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (Musa 1996;Lynch 1999).
48

The PLO’s emergence resulted from the convergence of a growing sense of
Palestinian identity, the rivalry among the Arab states and the conflictual dynamics
of the Arab-Israeli confrontation(Abu-Odeh 1999). The PLO’s creation at the second
Arab Summit in September 1964 in Alexandria, presented King Hussein with a
serious dilemma. Refusing to recognize the PLO would have isolated Jordan in the
Arab sphere and generated opposition among his Palestinian subjects. However, his
acceptance of the PLO could have undermined the foundations of the newly united
Hashemite state. In the end Hussein recognized the PLO while hoping to control it
and contain its potential threat to his regime. Also, such a move would solidify
Palestinian support at home as well as garner Arab nationalist support that would
place the King in the Pan-Arab/Nasserist mainstream. This situation proved
untenable because the King could not continue to act as the legitimate spokesman for
the Palestinian cause, as the PLO would provide an alternative future for the West
Bankers (Lynch 1999). The King’s attempts to control the PLO ended in failure
because the Arabist revolutionary milieu strengthened PLO’s position as a quasi-
autonomous actor within and outside Jordan. Consequently, PLO’s emergence as a
potential symbol of Palestinian identity altered the calculations of the three players
as follows: for the King, the priority would be to maintain the West Bankers’
loyalties in his role as the sole leader of the Palestinian cause, while permitting the
PLO to operate at the communal level as an Arab nationalist organization; for the
native Jordanians, the PLO seemed a threat to the integrity of the Jordanian state, as
49
it began to operate as a state within the state; for Palestinian West Bankers, there was
an insoluble dilemma—how to sustain their identity and interests as citizens of the
Hashemite Kingdom, while lending support to the PLO as a means to liberate
Palestine (Musa 1996; Abu-Odeh 1999; Susser 1994). The three years following
PLO’s rise witnessed the intensification of the interaction among the domestic and
regional players in the context of escalating conflict leading to the June 1967 war.
The evolution of the tripartite game within Jordan was being influenced by outside
actors—PLO, Egypt, Syria, Israel and Saudi Arabia—which reshaped the
preferences of the three players within Jordan. This was a “game by proxy” that
involved Egyptian and Syrian use of PLO to weaken Hussein’s regime; Saudi Arabia
supporting the King against Nasser, Syria and the Pan-Arabist movement; PLO
attacking Israel with Syrian support to legitimize its claim to leadership of the
Palestinians and recruit fighters from the West Bank; and Israel responding by
attacking Palestinian and Jordanian civilians to weaken the PLO (Abu Odeh 1999;
Musa 1996).. Caught in a trap of conflict and uncertainty, the three players turned to
find ways to safeguard their positions. Thus, the alliance between the King and his
native Jordanian constituency was strengthened while the West Bankers moved
closer to the PLO. The looming confrontation represented a situation of
disequilibrium that was radically altered by the outbreak of the 1967 war.

Although the King’s decision to enter the war lent him Palestinian and Pan-Arab
legitimacy, the war’s outcome was disastrous for the monarchy. Israeli occupation of
50
the West Bank and Jerusalem, a second wave of Palestinian refugees into the East
Bank, deconstruction of the state’s infrastructure and the Army’s defeat, combined to
dramatically change the fundamentals of the political process(Abu Odeh 1999). In
order to reassert control, the King relied on martial law, suspended basic political
rights, and imposed a freeze on political participation (Amawi 1994). Striving to
secure his first preference as Hashemite monarch, Hussein continued to act as the
head of a united Palestinian-Jordanian entity—a position that was given Pan-Arab
legitimacy by the Khartoum Summit of 1968. As to the PLO, its power position was
enhanced after the 1967 defeat in terms of acquiring new recruits and resources to
launch a war of attrition against Israel from bases in Jordan. For the West Bankers
the loss of their land faced them with two choices: 1) to withdraw from the
Hashemite project and adhere to PLO’s claim as the representative of the Palestinian
cause; or 2) to stay within Jordanian sovereignty, while dividing their loyalties
between the King and the PLO. This unsettled dialectic of divided loyalties,
combined with the growing distrust between Palestinians and Jordanians, set the
stage for the evolution of the Kingdom’s political process for the next four decades.

In the period after the Khartoum Summit, the absence of inter-Arab cooperation
became manifest amid growing rivalry between the King and PLO for West
Banker’s loyalties, and escalating clashes between the PLO and Israel. These
developments shaped the role of each player in terms of power-sharing, right to
claim leadership of the Palestinian cause, and the type of policy to be pursued toward
51
Israel. The interaction of the competing interests led to the 1970-71 civil war
between the PLO and the State of Jordan(Naqrash 1992;Lynch 1999;Mufti 1999)

In the period leading to the civil war, PLO had gained considerable military strength
and organizational support drawn mostly from the Palestinian refugees, which
shaped the organization’s sense of superiority vis-à-vis the King and the Jordanian
army. PLO’s newly acquired power was demonstrated by two abortive attempts to
assassinate the King, attacks against Israel, highjacking of planes and defiance
toward native Jordanians, particularly the military and security forces. Eventually, all
of Amman, except the governmental buildings, was controlled by PLO’s militia,
thereby creating a state within the State of Jordan (Abu-Odeh 1999). This stance
placed the PLO in direct rivalry with King Hussein over the future rulership of
Jordan and not merely a partner seeking to increase the Palestinians’ share of power
within the Hashemite political system. Denied of any negotiable option, the King
resorted to use of military power to neutralize the PLO in September 1970 and July
1971. The defeat and withdrawal of PLO’s forces to Southern Lebanon abruptly
ended the progressive rise of the PLO-led Palestinian ‘asabiyah’s challenge to
Hashemite power.

The Rise of Trans-Jordanian ‘Asabiyah (1971-89)
The outcome of the 1970-71 war marked the start of an emergent asabiyah among
the native Jordanian population that had been the backbone of the army and the
52
mainstay of Hussein’s popular support. First, this outcome caused a readjustment of
the alliance between the Trans-Jordanians and the King whereby the natives acquired
a greater share of power within the regime as a result of their decisive role in saving
the monarchy and defending the state. Given that the King owed his regime’s
survival to the Trans-Jordanians, the latter viewed the monarchy as first among
equals with their own ‘asabiyah. Second, the war weakened the Arabist ideological
commonalities between Jordanian and Palestinian intelligentsia and widened the rift
among the two mass constituencies. Third, the war reinforced and deepened the
communal memories of mutual harm and distrust that would persist in their future
interaction. Fourth, the strengthened post-war position of the East Bankers vis-à-vis
the King and the Palestinians, moved the equilibrium toward the natives’ first
preference, i.e., Less Hegemonic Broad-Bounded consociationalism (LHBB) in
terms of re-Jordanization of Jordan (ardanat al-Urdun)(Lynch 1999). This
preference required increasing the East Bankers’ presence in the governing apparatus
– an outcome that still corresponded to the King’s third preference and Palestinian’s
second preference.

Despite these outcomes, the three players continued to better their respective
positions in the competitive game. As he experienced a diminution of power vis-à-
vis the Jordanians, the King continued to strive for his first preference by giving
some concessions to the Palestinians, while permitting the natives to fill in the power
vacuum in the regime. Consequently, in 1972 the King proposed “the United Arab
53
Kingdom” scheme as a modified version of the Hashemite project of unification of
the two Banks of the Jordan River (Lynch 1999). This scheme faced rejection by
both the Jordanian and Palestinian constituencies, as well as by the other Arab
countries. The natives viewed the United Kingdom scheme as a threat to their
position within the state and its stability, while the Palestinians perceived it as a
continuation of the King’s claim to represent their interest at the expense of an
independent Palestinian identity. The resulting situation of disequilibrium became an
issue at the 1974 Rabat summit conference that recognized the PLO as the sole
legitimate representative of the Palestinians, thereby abrogating Hussein’s claim
(Lynch 1999). The implications of this shift for domestic Jordanian politics were
reflected in the King’s heavy-handed policies. Basically, the King ruled by decree,
replacing Parliament with a consultative council, a situation resulting in HNB—
Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociationalism (Amawi 1994; Baaklini, Denoeux,
Springborg 1999).
The post-1970 rift between the native Jordanian and Palestinian ‘asabiyat and the
weakening of the latter’s position within Jordan were ameliorated by the opening of
economic opportunities in the Gulf Arab states. The growing developmental needs of
these countries prompted thousands of Palestinians to leave Jordan. This
development transformed the power-sharing game into a tacit equilibrium: the King
would rule without checks and balances; the native Jordanians would dominate the
public sector and reinforce Jordan’s nativist identity; the Palestinian’s loss in power-
sharing would be replaced by their growing economic power derived from newly
54
acquired wealth in the Gulf States which benefited the Jordanian economy through
remittances. Thus, the King’s hegemonic role and the native Jordanian’s heightened
‘asabiyah was funded by the Palestinian expatriates, in exchange for the King’s and
the native’s role in guarding Palestinian wealth. This tacit equilibrium was suddenly
interrupted by the weakening of the PLO in the context of the Lebanese civil war
(1975-91) and the 1982 Israeli invasion that pushed PLO’s forces out of Lebanon
with U.S. assistance.

The diminution of PLO’s power reinforced the asymmetric relationship among the
three players. Clearly, the King gained power vis-à-vis the Palestinians and
proceeded to move toward his preferred outcome by reasserting the Hashemite
claims over the Palestinians, their land and the issue of the occupied territories. Thus,
in 1982 the King began to negotiate with the PLO a new scheme that would bestow
upon the monarchy the legitimacy to pursue peace with Israel on behalf of both his
Palestinian and native constituents. These negotiations resulted in the 1985 Amman
Accord that called for total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied land, Palestinian
self-determination within a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation and an international
conference to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, where the PLO would be a part of
Jordan’s delegation (Abu-Odeh 1999; Lynch 1999; Tahboub 1994). The Amman
Accord, centering on the King’s push for his first preference, was unwelcome among
the native Jordanians, because it threatened to dilute their role in the power-sharing
regime and strengthened Hussein’s hand. Also, the West Bank Palestinians were
55
ambivalent toward the Amman Accord due to the negative consequences of failure
and their desire to minimize the political fallout associated with the uncertainty of its
success. These factors, combined with splits within the PLO and U.S. refusal to deal
with the PLO, led to Hussein’s decision in 1986 to terminate the Amman Accord
(Tahboub 1994). Instead, the King switched to win over the West Bankers directly
by allocating financial resources to create jobs through a 5-year developmental plan
because technically the Palestinians under occupation still were his subjects (Lynch
1999). Indeed, cooptation of the West Bankers would have strengthened the King’s
position vis-à-vis the PLO, Israel and the native Jordanians. The rationale was
mirrored in the 1986 electoral law, which provided a robust parliamentary presence
for the West Bank Palestinians(Mufti 1999). However, the King’s new initiative to
achieve his first preference failed once again, signifying the last phase of the
progressive decline of Hashemite hegemonic schemes going back to the Arab Revolt
(1916), the Greater Syria scheme, the unification of the West and East Banks (1950),
the United Arab Kingdom project (1972), and the confederal union under the
Amman Accord (1985). This continued diminution of Hashemite ambitions was
partly the result of the persistent rise in the ‘asabiyat of the King’s native and
Palestinian constituencies.

The final blow to Hashemite pretentiousness was the sudden explosion of the
Palestinian Intifadah in Gaza and the West Bank in December 1987 which
dramatically heightened a Palestinian asabiyah that neither the King nor the PLO
56
could control. As the Intifadah intensified, in July 1988 the King announced Jordan’s
disengagement from the West Bank by declaring an end to the 1950 unification of
the two Banks of the Jordan (Naqrash 1992; Naqrsh 1995b; Lynch 1999). This
momentous decision appeared to be prompted by several interacting causes that
included the King’s need to contain the sympathies of his Jordanian and Palestinian
subjects for the Intifadah, his fear of the spread of the Intifada to the East Bank as
well as to rebut the declared policy of Israel’s Likud government that “Jordan is
Palestine” (Abu-Odeh 1999; Massad 2001). Indeed, the uses of the motto “Jordan is
Palestine” represented a potentially explosive stratagem, that characterized the three
phases of the Jordanian political game: 1) King Abdullah I used this motto as a threat
factor toward the Palestinians as he unified the two Banks in 1950; 2) the PLO used
this motto as a threat to the Hashemite regime until 1970-71 when their power was
neutralized by King Hussein’s army; and 3) the Israelis used it in the 1980s as a
threat to the King, the Palestinians and Jordanians, under the rubric of Jordan being
an alternative homeland to replace Palestinian statehood in the West
Bank/Gaza(Lynch 1999). The latter factor was the most plausible explanation for the
King’s alteration of preferences because Israeli policy to push for a Palestinian state
in Jordan directly threatened the King’s position, the native’s sense of identity and
Palestinian rights to a homeland. In the final analysis, the 1988 declaration reshaped
the balance of power between the three players as it brought Jordan back to the pre-
1950 situation, except that 50% of its population was now of Palestinian origin and
the respective asabiyat of the two main communal groupings which had grown
57
stronger, relative to the declining ‘asabiyah of the monarchy(Naqrash 1995b).This
condition of disequilibrium prompted the King to move from “coalescence” to
“contract” in Ibn Khaldun’s theoretical explanation of political change – an outcome
that manifested itself in his 1989 liberalization initiatives.
Liberalization and the Contractual State (1989-93): LHBB
The immediate trigger of the King’s decision to open up the political system was the
April 1989 rioting that began in Ma`an and spread to other cities (Mufti 1999;
Greenwood 2003). These riots signified a manifest disequilibrium in power-sharing
where the native Jordanian constituency had resorted to extra-legal means by going
“off the path” to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo. To be sure there
had been a deepening crisis affecting the native Jordanian constituency in both the
economic and political realms. Although they dominated the political apparatus, the
natives became relatively disadvantaged vis-à-vis the Palestinians in benefiting from
the 1970s oil boom in the Gulf. The decline of oil prices in the 1980s, combined with
structural problems in Jordan’s economy, negatively impacted the per capita income
and rates of unemployment among the native Jordanians (Greenwood 2003). The
economy deteriorated further when a large number of Palestinians withdrew capital
from Jordanian banks venting their displeasure with the King’s July 1988
disengagement from the Palestinian West Bank, and signaling the King and the
native Jordanians the Palestinians’ possession of economic power, and in symbolic
support for the newly declared Palestinian state under the PLO (Lynch 1999; Massis
1998). Five months later the IMF intervened to rescue the Kingdom’s deteriorating
58
economy by imposing austerity measures that proved particularly harmful to the
native Jordanians.

The forgoing factors that describe Jordan’s political and economic evolution in the
1980s suggest the unique utility of rational choice theory to explicate the subsequent
process of political change. Indeed, none of the other theories are capable of
explaining why the King resorted to liberalization. After all, the King’s decision to
liberalize went against the cultural theorists’ notion that tribalism and Islam were
incompatible with democratization. Nor did Jordan’s collapsing economy fit the
threshold requirements set by modernization theorists. Furthermore, the King’s
liberalization initiative contradicted the structuralists’ thesis that monarchies cannot
democratize. Finally, there was no international pressure on the monarch to pursue
reformist goals (Mufti 1999). In contrast to the foregoing theories of transition,
rational choice focuses on the micro-level analysis of individual motivations,
collective actions and preference formulation in environments of rivalry where the
vital interests are at stake and the players are few (Fiorina 2000). Thus, the Jordanian
case provides an empirical example of the utility of rational choice to explain the
process of political change.

The Rationality of Fear: The Ma`an Riots
The process of transition to liberalization after the April 1989 riots can be modeled
as a 3-player game involving the monarchical regime, the Jordanians as subgroup A
59
and the Palestinians as subgroup B, the two ethnic/tribal groupings competing to
extract goods from the regime. On the eve of the riots, the native constituency was
witnessing the simultaneous erosion of their political and economic position, and the
consequent growth of asabiyah within their ranks leading to the decision to
challenge the regime. The intra-communal bargaining that resulted in the consensus
among the Jordanian tribal leaders was embodied in the Karak Declaration of
Demands that evoked maximum solidarity and support among the native subgroup
(Massis 1998).The demands included: political reforms, freedom of the press,
improvement of human rights and economic betterment (Massis 1998). The
Palestinian stance toward the natives’ demands corresponded to the principles of a
cooperative game in which the two subgroups cooperate and compete because of the
uncertainty of outcomes while seeking to secure their positions in the transition
regime (Przeworski 1991). This Palestinian stance was one of non-participation in
the riots, an outcome reached through intra-communal bargaining based on a “social
matching” and “inter-policing” methods (Fearon and Laitin 1996). Thus, the
Palestinian decision not to participate was sustained by using rewards and
punishments to prevent defections from the collective action to abstain from rioting.
The rationale of non-involvement was: 1) the Palestinian fear of a return to the 1970-
71 alliance between the King and native Jordanians that ended in Palestinian losses;
2) signaling the monarch about the possibility of an alliance against the natives; 3)
exercising the “free rider” option, where they could enjoy the public good of regime
liberalization, without paying the costs of confirmation with the monarch.
60

The King’s position represented the irony of facing opposition from his regime’s
backbone after being forced to give up his family’s traditional preferences of ruling
over an expansive Arab state. Hence, Hussein’s three options were: 1) suppression of
the riots and establishment of control; 2) controlled liberalization within the
framework of Bounded Consociationalism; 3) full-fledged consociational rule. In
calculating (r), the probability of the success of the first option, the King anticipated
that r could be 0, because of a) the rioters’ identity as native Jordanians experiencing
rising ‘asabiyah; b) the rapid spread of the riots to different parts of the Kingdom; c)
the country’s dire economic situation; d) the uncertainty about future Palestinian
actions; and e) the continuing Intifada against Israel that could be emulated in Jordan
itself. Consequently, Hussein chose not to use repression and move to the second
option of Bounded Consociationalism, hoping to avoid future loss of power under
option three—full consociational rule. The reason for avoidance of option three can
be found in the role of memory and the rationality of fear (Rui, de Figueiredo and
Weingast 1999), i.e. – the monarch’s dysfunctional experience with consociational
liberalization in the 1950s that ended up in a credible challenge to his power.
Moreover, the King’s avoidance of option three can be explained by the
unguaranteed exit strategy that was embedded in the uncertainty entailing the
transition to a full-fledged consociationalism.

61
The acceptance of the King’s offer to move toward a liberalized polity (LHBB) by
subgroups A and B signified the two players’ entrance into the game of transition.
For the Jordanians (A), the rationale for acceptance flowed from their estimation of
their own power position, the limited options facing the King and the fact that the
offer corresponded to their first preference. The primacy of this preference, defined
as a Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded (LHBB) political system, is because of; a) it
provided more space for the Jordanians’ ‘asabiyah by putting their imprint on the
state; b) it increased the Jordanians’ power relative to the hegemon and subgroup B;
and c) it opened the possibility of alliance with the regime or subgroup B against one
or the other player. As for subgroup B, the King’s offer met the Palestinians’ second
preference whereby they could; a) regain their political power lost in 1970-71; b) use
their economic strength to shape the outcome of the process; c) increase their utility
as a needed partner for the regime or subgroup A; and d) consequently, being in a
position to push the outcome toward their first preference, i.e. – full-fledged
consociational rule (C), should it prove necessary to ally themselves with the
Jordanians as in the 1950s, or replacing the Jordanians as allies of the regime in a
Hegemonic Narrow Bounded consociational system (HNB). Since none of the three
players had the incentive to unilaterally alter the outcome, the transition in 1989
resulted in a Nash equilibrium.

Negotiated Contract: al-Mithaq al-Watani (1991)
62
The transition culminated in the November 1989 Parliamentary elections that
signaled the onset of the liberalization process, brought on by the strategic
interaction among the two subgroups and the regime. The electoral result was an
unexpected upsurge of oppositional forces of secularists and Islamists who
controlled over forty percent of the seats (Amawi 1994). This opposition bloc
represented a confluence of native Jordanian and Palestinian deputies that
symbolized cooperation between these rival subgroups as a prelude to a potential
alliance between them. As subgroups A and B continued to mobilize themselves and
solidify their mutual cooperation within and outside Parliament, the King faced the
paradox of conceding too much power to the extent that the outcome would be his
least preferred option – full-scale consociationalism. A clear indicator of the
subgroups’ strength was their ability to mobilize mass support against the U.S.-led
coalition against Saddam in the 1991 Kuwait war, hence, the King’s decision to stay
out of the U.S. coalition—a move reflecting the internal balance of power within
Jordan (Naqrash 1995a;Lynch 1999).

In view of the logic of the process of transition centering on the uncertainty of the
next phase, amid the growing ‘asabiyat and mutual cooperation of subgroups A and
B, the King chose to make a strategic move to secure his hegemonic position in the
game. In pursuit of this goal, the King offered the other players a contractual solution
to be negotiated by the three players in order to secure their basic interests and reflect
a new equilibrium. This was an unprecedented move in Jordan’s history in which a
63
King was forced to negotiate his role as “umpire” within the system. To undertake
these negotiations that led in June 1991 to framing the National Charter (al-Mithaq
al-Watani), the King appointed a 60-member Royal Commission consisting of
representatives of all the subgroups (Mufti 1999; Massis 1998). This document
represented a new social contract to regulate the relationships among the 3 players.
In terms of the conceptual scheme of this study, the King had failed to sustain his
power through coalescence (iltiham), and therefore settled for his second option,
i.e.—contractual state (dawlatal-`aqd). In a sense, the Charter was meant to freeze
the transition as seen from the King’s perspective, while the subgroups saw it as a
way of institutionalizing their newly gained shares of power as a step toward further
liberalization. The three most salient achievements of the Charter were; 1) to accord
the King an exit strategy by recognizing the Hashemites’ permanent role as
hegemonic arbiters in a monarchical, hereditary and parliamentary system; 2) to
institutionalize the respective positions of the two major subgroups – native
Jordanians and Palestinians – within the power-sharing system; and 3) to reinforce
the benefits of mutual cooperation of the two subgroups on the basis of equality of
all Jordanian citizens regardless of their ethnic origins (al-Mithaq al-Watani 1991).
Significantly, only after contractually legitimizing and securing his position through
the Charter, did the King proceed to expand and deepen the liberalization process by
lifting martial law, legalizing political parties and relaxing controls over the
press(Greenwood 2003;Mufti 1999) Thus, the Charter constituted the very zenith of
Jordan’s new experiment with liberalization. Indeed, the distinctive feature of the
64
Charter is the real concessions made by the monarch to the subgroups in response to
their rising ‘asabiyah and organizational mobilization. In this sense, the Jordanian
Charter is distinct from the practice of concluding “national pacts” that are an
outcome of an alliance between liberalizers within the regime and moderates in the
opposition or a regime strategy to co-opt the growing opposition (O’Donnell and
Schmitter 1986; Anderson 1991).

The Irrationality of Non-Cooperation (1993-99)
King Hussein’s abstention from the 1991 Gulf War and policies of political reform
contributed to a rise in his popularity, which gave him the opportunity to re-
strengthen his position in the system (Naqrash 1995a;Mufti 1999) In his new efforts
to reassert hegemonic rule, thereby pushing the game to his first preferred outcomes,
the King learned not to place himself in a position of weakness as was the case in
1957, 1970 and 1989. These painful experiences informed his calculations on the
shaping of the relationship between the throne and the two subgroups and between
the subgroups that would maximize his power position. With respect to the native
Jordanians, the King wanted a strong nativist asabiya to support him, counter-
balance the Palestinians and pose a potential threat factor to the Palestinians’ role.
However, the King was disinterested in strengthening the Jordanians’ ‘asabiyah to
the extent that they would pose a threat to the monarchy. In contrast, the King had
learned that it served him to have a weakened Palestinian ‘asabiyah to the extent that
they would need his protection and could be co-opted in order to justify the
65
continuing Hashemite claim to represent the Palestinian cause; yet there would have
to be sufficient Palestinian strength to checkmate the nativist asabiya, the excessive
strength of which would challenge the King’s hegemony. As to the interactions
between the two subgroups, the King’s interest required a modicum of inter-group
cooperation to avoid civil strife – his worst possible outcome –, while encroaching
robust rivalry between them to prevent full cooperation that could lead to full-
fledged consociationalism (C) – the King’s 2
nd
worst preference. These were the
political parameters, based on the King’s past experiences, within which he sought to
recast the game in the context of new opportunities that presented themselves after
the 1991 Gulf war.

The factors that shaped the King’s next move were his rising popularity, indications
of inter-group non-cooperation as reflected in the behavior of Palestinian and native
Jordanian political parties, and the growing rift between the two subgroups triggered
by the return of 300,000 mostly Palestinian Jordanians expelled by Kuwait. It was no
mere accident that in August 1993, the King unilaterally changed the rules of the
game by decreeing a new electoral law that replaced block voting with a one-person-
one-vote system (Wiktorowicz 1999). This move, involving one player to change the
game’s rules, and determine ex ante the outcome constituted a violation of the rules
of democratic transition. Another factor that complicated the game was the
September 1993 Oslo Accords that shifted the Palestinian issue into the Israeli-PLO
framework, thereby excluding a Hashemite role. The result of changing the law and
66
the Oslo negotiations brought to a head the ultimate question of Jordanian identity,
i.e. – who is a Jordanian? – man huwa al-UrdunAbui(Abu-Odeh 1999;Lynch 1999).
The resulting growing chasm between the natives and the Palestinians clearly
signaled the onset of a non-cooperation game that benefited the King. Since Oslo had
opened up the option of Palestinian statehood, the native Jordanians sought to restrict
the Palestinians’ participation in domestic politics, risking the enmity of their
potential allies against the King. For their part, the Palestinians risked being trapped
because they could not choose to go to a yet non-existent Palestinian state, nor could
they fully participate in the Jordanian polity on an equal footing with the natives.
This unsettled situation signified a weakening Palestinian ‘asabiyah, although
without an anticipated corresponding increase in the natives’ position. This outcome
resulted from the implementation of the 1993 electoral law that heightened intra-
tribal competition and conflict among the native Jordanians, thereby undermining
their collective ‘asabiyah. In an ironic twist, the natives’ support for the new
electoral law ended up harming the inter-tribal solidarity that had been their ultimate
political resource. Thus, it is important to revise the generally accepted notion that
the King sought to weaken the Palestinian/ Islamic constituency by using the 1993
electoral law; he also fractionalized the Jordanian’s power base and their social
capital. In sum, the 1993 elections and the Oslo Accords achieved the King’s
intentions by moving the game toward HNB – Hegemonic Narrow Bounded
Consociational rule – the regime’s 2
nd
preferred option and the two subgroups’ 3
rd

67
preferred option. Hence, the irrationality of non-cooperation between subgroups A
and B ended in a downward shift in their payoffs.

The situation of non-cooperation persisted and intensified when the King concluded
The Treaty of Wadi Araba with Israel in October 1994(Mufti 1999). The Palestinians
rejected this treaty as being against their interests, while a majority in Parliament
ratified it(Mufti 1999) because it ended Israel’s policy of making Jordan the
alternative state for the Palestinians. However, there were cross-cutting alliances
between some native Jordanians and Palestinians to resist the pace of normalization
of Israeli-Jordanian ties. These attempts were unsuccessful in changing the King’s
agenda because of the declining state of the two subgroups’ cooperation on the
communal level. Consequently, the treaty with Israel further empowered the King
and freed his hand on the domestic front. The outcome of these developments was
the deliberalization process under a re-invigorated Hashemite asabiya vis-à-vis the
weakened asabiyat of the subgroups. Thus, the rationale for the deliberalization
policies can be found in the growing non-cooperation between the native and
Palestinian subgroups, and not merely be explained by the political economy of
regime security (Greenwood 2003) or by regional peace initiatives such as the Oslo
and Wadi Araba treaties (Brand 1999).

68
The shifting of the outcome of the game toward kingly power continued throughout
the mid-1990s despite a precipitous economic decline that was exacerbated by the
imposition of IMF measures (Baaklini, Denoeux, Springborg 1999).
The so-called “peace dividend” from the Wadi Araba treaty had not materialized,
fueling grass roots opposition to normalization of relations with Israel. The
combined effects of economic hardships and political deliberalization led to the
August 1996 Bread Riots (Greenwood 2003). As in the 1989 Ma`an riots, the 1996
unrest was centered in the southern towns populated by the native Jordanian
subgroups that had been most heavily affected by the economy’s decline. In sharp
contrast to his conciliatory reaction to the 1989 riots, the King used an “Iron Fist” to
suppress the rioters of 1996(Mufti 1999). This coercive response could be explained
by three factors. First, there was the declining of inter-communal solidarity between
the indigenous and Palestinian subgroups as well as a split within the native
Jordanian constituency. These rifts, documented by public opinion surveys, showed
evidence of diverging attitudes between the subgroups as well as between subgroup
leaders and their popular base (Center for Strategic Studies 1995). Second, the
King’s growing hegemonic position as exemplified by the change in 1993 electoral
law, making peace with Israel, accelerating normalization of ties with Israel and
imposition of IMF controls, reinforced his unwillingness to conciliate the rioters. The
combined consequence of factors 1 and 2 was the King’s estimation that the
probability (r) of the success of the suppression of the riots was very high (close to 1).
This hegemonic behavior became institutionalized as the King muffled the press,
69
placed constraints on freedom of expression, strengthened police controls and
refused to modify the electoral law as requested by the subgroups (Dekmejian and
Eyadat 2004). Consequently, the 1997 elections took place in a milieu of social
tension, where the natives’ sense of identity and solidarity was disrupted, in the
midst of their growing distrust of the Palestinians. As for the Palestinians, they
awaited the birth of a Palestinian state, while defending their stake in Jordanian
politics against nativist critics. This sense of popular dissatisfaction was expressed
by the boycott of the 1997 elections by the Islamist, leftist, Arabist and Jordanian
nationalist politicians (Dekmejian and Eyadat 2004; Lucas 2003). In contrast to the
paralysis besetting the subgroups, the King entered the context with a strong hand,
externally reinforced by U.S. and Israeli support. As expected, the outcome of the
1997 elections was a clean sweep for the regime’s supporters (Dekmejian and Eyadat
2004).

The sum total of developments in the 1990s altered the rules of the game in
Jordanian politics by weakening the asabiya of the subgroups and their mutual
cooperation, while bringing the game to correspond to the King’s preferred outcome
(RCC). Thus, the political system had moved from Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded
Consociationalism (LHBB) in 1989, to Hegemonic Narrow Bounded
Consociationalism in 1993, and culminating in 1997 in Regime Controlled
Consociational rule (RCC).

70
New King: Repeated Game (1999- )
Despite growing public revulsion, Hussein persisted in hegemonic behavior until his
death on February 7, 1999. Just prior to his death, the King had changed the rules of
the game within the Hashemite clan by shifting the succession from his brother
Hasan to his son Abdullah, who inherited all of the dysfunctional attributes of his
father’s rule, i.e. – unstable equilibrium (RCC), growing mistrust among the
subgroups, economic crisis and deteriorating relations with neighboring Arab
countries – which collectively produced an environment of uncertainty. Thus,
Abdullah II’s foremost priorities were to legitimize himself and stabilize the country.
To achieve these goals, the new King pursued a mix of policies of change and
continuity to satisfy the subgroups’ concerns. The concerns of the native Jordanians
included uncertainty about the King’s policies regarding their identity and role in the
new order. For the Palestinians, the new situation represented both fear of being
excluded under nativist pressure and hope to upgrade their power share given the
regime’s need of Palestinian wealth and loyalty. In response to these concerns, the
King offered a new era of liberalization to both subgroups, as well as specific
incentives to each subgroup to ensure their cooperation (Ryan 2002). The incentives
offered to the native constituency included strengthening the Jordanian character of
the state by appointing Abd al-Rauf Al-Rawabidah, a hard-core nativist as prime
minister, and deemphasis on Hashemite expansionism to represent the Palestinian
cause. The incentives given to the Palestinians were a broader presence in
governmental institutions, disengagement from claims to Palestinian lands and
71
pretension to represent their cause and a liberalized economic policy that would
further contribute to their prosperity. Also, the King offered incentives to both
subgroups to satisfy their common interests—reviving Jordan’s inter-Arab relations,
emerging economic growth, fighting corruption and infuse a new spirit of renewal
into Jordanian society (Ryan 2002). This package of reformist offers received
acceptance by the subgroups based on their calculations of self-interest. For the
native constituency, the King’s offer represented a return to their traditional role of
being the backbone of the Jordanian state, and provided them with an opportunity to
achieve their preferred
outcome of a Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociational system. For the
Palestinians, the King’s offer brought them back into the system as full-fledged
players and provided them with the opportunity to convert their economic power into
political gains. The outcome of this tripartite game was an equilibrium based on the
King’s third preference, the native Jordanians’ first preference, and the Palestinians’
second preference. This situation harked back to the outcome of the 1989 game,
albeit achieved with different means.

The King’s promising start toward re-liberalization proved to be short-lived. In
preparation for the parliamentary elections scheduled for November 2001, the King
introduced several changes in the law including an increase in the number of seats, a
quota for women, and the redrawing of electoral districts (Greenwood2003).
Although these changes were responsive to popular demands, the King postponed
72
the November 2001 elections and returned to his father’s game of rule by decree. As
his reasons for the postponement, the King cited the outbreak of the second
Palestinian Intifada (September 2000) and the looming crisis over Iraq after the
attacks of September 11, 2001. Meanwhile, the King shifted the focus of popular
debate from the electoral campaign that would center on foreign policy issues such
as the Intifada and Iraq, to a domestic dialogue on his “Jordan First” slogan (al-
Urdun Awwalan) and the new plan for socio-economic transformation – Khittat al-
Tahawwul al-Ijtima`i wal-Iqtisadi (Greenwood 2003). By all indications, after 2001
the King ruled with a Regime Controlled Consociational system (RCC) that lasted
until the June 2003 elections that signified a return to the Less Hegemonic Broad
Bounded Consociational formula (LHBB).
73
Chapter IV. Kuwait: Bounded Consociationalism in an Emirate

As a case study, Kuwait displays several valuable attributes seen from the
perspective of the general model of Bounded-Consociationalism. It is a small Gulf
State ruled by an Emir belonging to a tribal dynasty. Its population is segmented
along tribal, urban, sectarian and ideological entities that enjoy significant degrees of
cultural and political autonomy. The Constitution of Kuwait provides the basis for
power-sharing among the ruling family, the merchant class and the tribes (Al-Najjar
2000). In order to explain the dynamics of Kuwait’s political process, an overview of
its history is necessary.

Beginnings of Statehood
The origins of modern Kuwait can be traced to the 18
th
century when the leading
families of the Utab tribe consented to accept the Al Sabah family’s ruling role as
Amirs. In later decades the Al Sabah succeeded in maintaining their primacy that
was based on the consensus of the major tribal and merchant families (Al-Najjar
2000, Tetreault 2000). The implicit bargain was that as long as the Al Sabah could
provide external security, domestic tranquility and freedom to trade, they would
enjoy the financial and political support of these subgroups. This outcome
corresponds to the equilibrium of the “cooperative game” of the model, as it meets
the conditions of Ibn Khaldun’s “contractual state”. However, the balance of power
shifted in favor of the Amir under Shaikh Mubarak (1896), although the merchants
74
succeeded in pressuring the ruling family to convene a shura council in 1921 that
proved dysfunctional. The 1930s saw a wave of dissatisfaction against Shaikh
Ahmad’s autocratic rule. Hence, the formulation of a coalition in 1938 among Arab
nationalists, the merchants and dissident Al Sabah members which pressured the
Shaikh to accept the election of a fourteen member legislative council that passed
laws and wrote a constitution to limit the Amir’s power. This attempt to reshape the
game’s outcome failed because the Amir, with British support, dissolved the council
and used violent means to suppress the opposition (Crystal 1990; Tetreault 2000).

A radical change occurred under Shaikh Abdallah Al Salim (1950-65) who set up a
council that drafted a constitution. The rationale behind the Shaikh’s decision to
liberalize included Iraq’s threat to annex Kuwait, the coalition among the merchants
and tribes and superpower rivalries in the Gulf region (Al-Najjar 2000). Shaikh
Abdallah’s steps to establish a constitutional monarchy corrected the imbalance in
the power-sharing formula and brought the political game into a stable equilibrium
as reflected in the 1963 parliamentary elections.

Confrontationism and the Minimax Principle (1965-1990)
At the time of Shaikh Abdallah’s death and succession by Shaikh Sabah Al Salim,
the stage was set for the three players to interact strategically to secure their basic
interests. The Al Sabah would aim at maximal regime control (RCC) with a weak
consociational
75
system as its first preference, given the natural propensity of such authoritarian
monarchies. If the regime fails to achieve RCC, due to cooperation between the
subgroups of the opposition, then it will settle for a Hegemonic Narrow Bounded
Consociational formula (HNB). Should the subgroups manifest stronger asabiya and
greater mutual cooperation, the regime would be forced to retreat to its third or
fourth preferences (i.e., LHBB or C) in order to prevent civil strife (CS).

The two main subgroups in the game A and B, are the tribes (‘asha’ir) and the
urbanite merchants (hadar). As noted earlier, these subgroups had been the main
actors, along with Al Sabah, since the 18
th
century. Despite the passage of time, these
groups have continued to maintain a degree of internal coercion and strong sense of
asabiya. Thus, in the context of consociational theory utilized in this study, the tribal
vs. urbanite cleavage is seen as more fundamental than cross-cutting ideological
cleavages.

As in the case of Al Sabah, the two subgroups have sought to maximize their share
of power in governance. The tribes, as subgroup A, constitute the second major
player because of their large population, historical ties to the Al Sabah family and the
traditional character of Kuwaiti society. Although the country’s ten major tribal
groupings maintain their distinct identities, they together possess an overarching pan-
tribal identity that sets them socially apart from the urbanites (Ghabra 1997).

76
The collective preferences of the tribal constituency are the outcome of internal
bargaining among the tribes. Thus, their ability to maximize their collective interests
is a function of the strength of their tribal ‘asabiyah and success in social matching
practices. Hence, the ordering of subgroup A’s preferences would be Less
Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociationalism (LHBB), over full-fledged
consociationalism (C) over Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociationalism (HMB),
over regime controlled consociational rule (RCC) over civil strife (CS). The rationale
for the tribal choice of LHBB as first preference is due to their desire to secure their
traditional role as the permanent allies of the regime. This approach gives the tribes
room to maneuver between the two players in leaving open the option of alliance
with the urbanites should the regime deny them sufficient incentives. The third major
subgroup (B) is the hadar, the traditional merchant class of Kuwait City. Although
smaller in size than the tribes and weaker in their sense of traditional ‘asabiyah, the
hadar share a modern culture and common economic and political interests. The
internal bargaining among the hadar is the instrument that determines their collective
preferences in maximizing their share of power and commercial position. Thus, the
first best preference for the hadar is to aim for full-fledged consociational rule (C),
followed by Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociationalism (LHBB), followed
by Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociationalism (HNB) and lastly, Regime
Controlled Consociational rule (RCC). As in the case of the regime and the tribals,
civil strife (CS) is the first worst option that the hadar wish to avoid. The hadars’
rationale for choosing full consociational rule as their first best preference is because
77
it accords them the optimal means to transform their economic and organizational
strength into political clout in the power-sharing game.

At the system level, the tripartite game is rationalized by structural and exogonous
factors. Structurally, Kuwait’s small size, precarious location, oil wealth and military
weakness shape the player’s calculations and behavior, to a significant degree. These
structural factors, combined with the external threats facing the state from powerful
neighbors (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia) create a turbulent environment that propels the
three players toward compromise and consensus. Consequently, in facing these
threat factors, the regime will have two clear options; 1) impose full-scale
authoritarian control (RCC) in the name of national security; or 2) move toward its
second and third preferences to institute a consociational power-sharing formula. In
view of the fact that the Al Sabah have been unable to effectively confront the
external threats facing the country because of structural weakness they gravitated
toward their second choice, i.e. – to compromise with subgroups A and B in the
context of their second and third preferences, i.e. – HNB or LHBB. This behavior
would secure the country and assure the regime’s survival.

From the perspective of the subgroups, they also face the dilemma of Kuwait’s
structural weaknesses and external vulnerability. Hence, the subgroups confront two
choices; 1) exert maximal pressure upon the regime to liberalize the system; or 2)
accept the rules of the game by entering the Bounded consociational system of
78
power-sharing whereby they can achieve any of their first three preferences:
Consociationalism, Less Hegemonic Bounded Consociationalism, Hegemonic
Narrow Bounded Consociationalism. In their awareness of their country’s security
dilemma, the subgroups have recognized that their first choice – to push for full
consociational rule – may risk Kuwait’s security, signal weakness to outsiders and
compromise the subgroups’ own interests. Hence, the minimax principle – the three
players are striving to minimize their maximum losses, instead of maximizing their
benefits.

The central issue in the consociational game beginning in the mid-1960s was oil. To
be sure, the oil issue for Kuwait was what the Palestinian issue was for Jordanian
politics. The control of growing oil revenues accorded the regime a new source of
power vis-à-vis the other two players. For the urban merchants who used to provide
funding to the regime and jobs for the tribes (Tetrault 2000), the regime’s control of
oil revenues rendered it more independent of the urbanites’ economic largess. Thus,
the oil factor caused a redistribution of power in the system that favored the regime
and the tribes. In the ensuing competition between the regime and the
urban/merchant class, the tribes assumed a decisive role in determining the outcome
of the game. One intervening factor in the domestic bargaining game was the rise of
Arab nationalism among the more educated urbanites that the regime sought to curb.
In this competitive context, the tribes found an opportunity to maneuver in order to
enhance their political position by intermittently shifting their allegiance toward the
79
regime for political goods and benefits. The confluence of new factors in the game,
namely—control of oil, the need for tribal allies and the impact of Arab
nationalism—provided the regime with sufficient incentives to recast the game to its
advantage (Crystal 1992). This was achieved through the elections of 1967, 1971 and
1975.

The 1967 elections were characterized by regime intervention through
gerrymandering, miscounts and mass naturalization of pro-Al Sabah bedouins
(Crystal 1992; Ghabra 1997). The latter effort to win over an emerging tribal force
indicated the regime’s intentions to impact the conduct of the game. The full payoff
of this strategy became apparent in the results of the 1971 elections that produced a
more compliant parliament, where the pro-government and tribal deputies were
dominant. Yet the merchant class persisted in its challenge to Al Sabah regarding the
nationalization of oil and ownership of this resource by Kuwaitis. Although the 1975
elections confirmed the regime’s dominance, the opposition continued its call for
nationalization of the oil sector, which was finally realized in late 1976. Meanwhile,
in August 1976, Shaikh Sabah had dissolved parliament in order to subdue the
opposition and to satisfy Saudi opposition to parliamentary rule in Kuwait (Crystal
1990, 1992). The Shaikh’s success in dissolving parliament without risking
instability was due to his new strength derived from oil revenues, his ability to use
oil wealth to co-opt tribal and other opposition elements and weakened the
cooperation between the tribes and urban merchants. The quest for greater state
80
hegemony continued under Shaikh Jabir who took over after Shaikh Sabah’s death in
1977. It was no coincidence that one of Sabah’s first steps was to revise the
constitution by redistricting, that gave the tribes greater legislative representation
(Crystal 1992).

In sum, the period after 1965 witnessed the rise of Al Sabah’s ‘asabiyah and their
coalition with tribal elements against the hadar and other opponents. The outcome of
1967, 1971 and 1975 elections symbolized Al Sabah’s preeminence and
corresponded to a Hegemonic Narrow Bounded consociational system (HNB). The
interaction of the ruling family’s ‘asabiyah with the emergence of an oil-based
rentier state constitute the rationale for the HNB outcome. On the other hand, the
parliament’s 1976 dissolution and the consequent growth of hegemonic rule moved
the outcome of the game to the regime’s first preference, i.e. – Regime Controlled
Consociationalism (RCC). The urbanite/ merchants’ decline in asabiya, the tribal
groups’ increasing reliance on Al Sabah, and the resulting non-cooperation between
the two subgroups, facilitated the regime’s RCC style rule.

Two major external events came to disrupt the regime’s imposed equilibrium: the
1979 Iranian Revolution and the 1980 Iraq-Iran war. In response to security threats
from Iran and Iraq, Shaikh Jabir resorted to “cheap talk”, by attempting to persuade
the two players (subgroups A and B) that the rules are changed enough to meet their
preferred outcomes within the power-sharing game. Basically, the Shaikh was
81
signaling his willingness to return to parliamentary rule in order to promote domestic
unity to face external threats, while maintaining Al Sabah’s upper hand. In the
preparation for the February 1981 elections, the regime set the stage to assure a
favorable outcome to itself by gerrymandering and giving financial and political
incentives to the tribal and Islamist candidates, who could become its allies against
the urbanite liberal and nationalist groups (Herb 2002). As anticipated, the regime’s
tribal and Islamist allies won handsomely, although their subsequent behavior in
parliament deeply disappointed their official benefactors. In the next four years, the
regime’s prospective allies joined with the urban/nationalist opposition to challenge
the regime on civil liberties, power-sharing, internal security, official corruption, the
role of Islamic law and foreign policy (Crystal 1992). As a result, the regime sought
to learn from its 1981 mistakes by changing its strategy for the 1985 elections. The
new approach was to split the tribal-Islamist coalition, weaken and exclude the
Islamists from the Al Sabah-tribal alliance and provide some space for the urban/
nationalist/liberal constituency to enter the game. Thus, the 1981 and 1985 election
results corresponded to the tribes’ first preference, the hadars’ second preference and
the regime’s third preference (LHBB), marking a softening of hegemonic rule and
greater consociational power-sharing.

However, the outcome of the 1985 elections proved to be problematic for the regime.
Some tribal deputies, having coalesced under the Islamist banner, formed an alliance
with the urbanite liberal faction, to mount a coordinated opposition regarding the
82
1982 Suq al-Manakh stock market crash and attacking members of Al Sabah for
corruption (Baaklini, Denoeux, Springborg 1999). These actions signaled to the
regime the beginning of a cooperative game between the subgroups, threatening the
Amir’s dominant position. In the face of a recalcitrant parliament, combined with
collapsing oil prices, economic crisis, acts of domestic violence and security threats,
the Amir dissolved parliament in July 1986 (Tetreault 2000; Crystal 1992).

Although the suspension of parliament represented the imposition of a regime-
preferred outcome (RCC), the dramatic cooperation among rival subgroups before
the dissolution symbolized the birth of a democratization movement that would
reappear in subsequent phases of Kuwait’s political development (Herb 2002). To be
sure, three years after the return to autocratic rule, popular opposition began to
mobilize around former tribal and urban parliamentary leaders. The emerging
democracy movement was fueled by public anger against the Amir’s suspension of
parliament, continued hegemonic rule, economic stagnation, successive failures of
government policies to clean up the 1982 stock market meltdown and the example of
collapsing communist regimes. After a series of confrontations between the pro-
democracy cross-communal coalition and the regime, the two sides continued to
push the game toward opposing ends, with each player pulling for its preferred
outcome and using its available means of power against the other. Thus, the Amir
resorted to forceful repression in January 1990, while the opposition used its
mobilizational capabilities to its advantage in persisting to challenge the Al Sabah. In
83
the face of well-organized cooperative players, the uncertain nature of the outcome
and the need to avoid civil strife, the regime proposed the election of a National
Council (al-Majlis al-Watani) as a way out of the trap without a full return to
parliamentary life. The rationale behind the National Council was to split the
opposition, maintain regime dominance and redirect the game. Despite the boycott
and opposition from the pro-democracy movement, the elections took place in June
1990 with sixty-two percent turnout, which reflected considerable support for the
regime and its success in splitting the opposition (Tetreault 2000). The regime
marketed the National Council as a transitional institution that would redesign
parliamentary politics to avoid new crises. This objective was not realized as Iraq
occupied Kuwait on August 2, 1990.

Rationality of Cooperation: A Restructured Game (1991-2003)
Prior to the occupation, one major logic behind the regime’s policies of compromise
with the subgroups as well as for the latter’s willingness to cooperate with the regime
was the fear of outside intervention and the very survival of Kuwaiti independent
statehood. Thus, the holding of parliamentary elections was as important for Al
Sabah as for the competing subgroups. On the eve of the Iraqi occupation, the power
game was stuck in a long period of unequilibrium since the 1986 dissolution of
parliament and suspension of some constitutional rights. The consequent strategy of
the regime was to use a mix of coercive means and cooptative moves in order to
divide and demoralize the pro-democracy movement of 1989. The regime’s growing
84
use of hegemonic methods, including its attempt to replace parliament with a weaker
constitution council by the 1990 elections, reflected the regime’s miscalculation
about the opposition’s intentions. In insisting on hegemonic rule, the Amir signaled
his unwillingness to compromise with the opposition, resulting in the creation of
domestic dissatisfaction and discord. The protracted standoff and disunity was
obvious for all to see, including Saddam, perhaps fueling his revanchist ambitions. It
took a brutal Iraqi occupation and the loss of sovereignty to bring Al Sabah to correct
its nihilistic disequilibrium and restart the liberalization process during the months of
exile in Saudi Arabia. The great lesson was that the very survival of the state and the
regime was a function of an institutionalized power-sharing game.

Politics of Blame (1990-1991)
The swift invasion and takeover of the country served as the launch pad for the
subgroups to blame the regime and question Al Sabah’s policies in the months
leading to the attack. During the months of exile, the tribal and mercantile subgroups
coalesced in using the “blame strategy” as a bargaining device against Al Sabah,
while pursuing their common and immediate goal to liberate Kuwait. Thus, the
subgroups blamed Al Sabah for 1) diplomatic mishandling of Iraq’s pre-war
demands regarding oil production levels, financial debt and territorial concessions; 2)
unpreparedness to defend Kuwait’s territorial integrity; 3) quick exit from the
country, leaving behind the population to fend for itself; 4) using increased oil
revenues from oil production to coopt and undermine the pro-democracy movement,
85
while antagonizing Saddam Hussein by bringing down oil prices (Tetreault 2000).
For the opposition, these mistakes of Al Sabah could only be explained by the
regime’s insistence on hegemonic control, closed decision-making practices and
absence of parliamentary oversight. In view of the regime’s multiple failures, the
subgroups mobilized to extract concessions as a means to re-balance the game.

From the perspective of Al Sabah, the opposition’s activities both inside occupied
Kuwait and throughout the expatriate community appeared threatening. First was the
subgroups’ campaign to blame the regime for systematic failure in securing the state
in keeping with the traditional social contract. Second was the surprising coalescence
of the subgroups and their success in mobilizing the expatriate communities as well
as running their affairs under the occupation independent of the ruling family. These
concerns prompted Shaikh Jabir to convene the Jadda Conference of 1200 leading
Kuwaitis to forge a new social contract that would provide a new equilibrium to the
system. The assemblage recognized the renewed legitimacy of Al Sabah by pledging
obeisance (bay`ah) in exchange for far-reaching political reforms (Rabi 2000). The
rationale for the new contractual state for all players was the struggle to liberate their
country. From Al Sabah’s perspective, the contract would serve as a legitimizing
mechanism as well as framework of containment to encapsulate the free-flowing
activities of the subgroups. For the two subgroups, the contract would serve to
institutionalize and widen the power-sharing formula at a time of the regime’s
weakness. For the urbanite/merchants, the contract was a step toward reclaiming
86
their former prominent role of the pre-oil era. For the tribal subgroups, the contract
was an opportunity to recoup their losses encumbered by the regime’s autocratic rule.
Since 1986, despite their strong support for Al Sabah, the rise of the Islamist factor
within the tribal subgroup further strengthened their bargaining position vis-à-vis the
ruling family. The relative ease with which the three players reached a contractual
compromise was chiefly due to the high level of uncertainty regarding the future of
occupied Kuwait and the imperative to secure each players’ position in a liberated
state. As Crystal and al-Shayeji (1998) point out, the compromise pleased none of
the players, but suited the players’ interest well enough.

The Contract’s Payoffs: 1992 Elections
The return of the exiles after Kuwait’s liberation in February 1991 reopened the
political game centering on the implementation of the 1990 Jadda accord. Notably,
this implementation was the subject of extensive and heated bargaining among the
three players that extended over 18 months. This delay can be explained by Al
Sabah’s desire to re-empower themselves and set the stage for elections, the
outcomes of which would maximize their interests. This priority was achieved by
two means, 1) the imposition of martial law justified by the need to reestablish order
and secure the land against potential threats; and 2) buying-of as many Kuwaitis as
possible by providing generous handouts to secure their loyalty (Crystal and al-
Shayeji 1998). But, despite the use of the “carrot-and-stick” strategy, much of the
populace and the subgroups insisted on holding early elections. The persistence of
87
the popular sentiment to reinstate the democratization process took its strength from
the organizational momentum that had been first created by the 1989 pro-democracy
movement. In applying the general model of Bounded Consociationalism, the
opposition’s strategic move to continue its mobilizational activities and the mutual
compromises resulting from intra and inter-subgroups bargaining were the factors
pushing the regime to agree to hold elections. Thus, the payoffs of the 1990 Jadda
contract yielded the 1992 elections and its democratizing results.

In the campaign leading up to the 1992 elections, the role of the Diwaniyat was
crucial as forums of popular participation, speechmaking by the candidates and
networking among the subgroups (Al-Najjar 2000). The results represented a
resounding victory for the pro-democracy movement and a rebuff for Al Sabah’s
ambitions to reassert their hegemonic role (Baaklini, Denoeux and Springborg 1999).
In terms of the players’ preferences, Al Sabah moved down to their 3
rd
preference,
the tribes settled for their 1
st
preference, and the urban merchant class achieved their
2
nd
preference – a partial return to their traditional leading role in the system. Hence
the outcome of the game was a Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociational rule
(LHBB). In Kuwait, as the case of the 1989 Jordanian elections, the immediate
trigger to effect the transition to a more liberalized system that favored the subgroups,
was cooperation among the subgroups vis-à-vis the regime. This proposition emerges
as the key explanatory factor for the onset of liberalization, while a low degree of
88
subgroup cooperation is likely to lead to a contract on the political process, setting
the stage for a Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociational system (HNB).

Hegemon’s Return (1996)
Clearly, the 1992 electoral outcome that reflected Al Sabah’s third preference, was
untenable for the ruling family. In the ensuing four years, the regime sought to block
parliamentary attempts to reassert itself involving several controversial issues, i.e. –
the oil sector, state expenditures and investments, corruption, defense, role of Islam,
gender, and bad debts (Tetreault 2000). These same issues caused splits among the
subgroups as well, thereby weakening their cooperation, which signaled the regime
about the opportunity to reassert itself. Among the most salient cleavages was that
between the secularist and Islamist factions, which roughly corresponded to the
division between the urban/merchant (hadar) and tribal subgroups. Disagreement on
these issues caused serious dysfunctionalities in the political process and deadlock in
parliament, leading to growing public dissatisfaction (Tetreault 2000; Baaklini,
Denoeux, Springborg 1999). In order to exploit the situation, the regime employed
disruptive tactics to maximize non-cooperation between the subgroups by favoring
the Islamist/tribal constituency and highlighting the parliamentary recalcitrance.
These moves proved advantageous for the regime as shown in the outcome of the
1996 elections. The significant increase in the election of pro-regime and tribal
deputies at the expense of the secularist/hadar subgroup, indicated shifting of the
game in Al Sabah’s favor toward its second preference and the third preference for
89
the tribes and hadar. Thus, the loss of subgroup payoffs was directly attributable to
weak cooperation between the tribes and hadar, thereby permitting the regime to
restore its former position as a Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociational system
(HNB).

War over Wealth: 1999 Elections
The regime’s expectations that the electoral outcome of the 1996 election would be a
pliant parliament proved incorrect as a coalition of newly elected deputies rose to
challenge Al Sabah’s economic policies. Thus, the overall game centered on the
control and distribution of Kuwait’s oil wealth. Specifically, the parliament insisted
on its right to provide oversight of public funds, particularly the regime’s
unauthorized withdrawals. In order to achieve these goals, the legislators set up the
Protection of Public Funds Committee (PPFC) in 1996 that served as a platform for a
campaign to stop the theft of public funds (Tetreault 2000). Although the
urban/merchant subgroup controlled this committee, it also included tribal deputies
who joined the anti-regime coalition as a means to protest their interests. Despite the
parliament’s persistence, the regime refused to permit the questioning of key
ministers from the ruling family during the debates and denied any access to
legislative investigators regarding expenditures. Fearing that the regime would
dissolve the parliament to cover official corruption, the deputies established citizens’
watchdog groups in their constituencies for grassroots mobilization and
dissemination of information about the government’s financial misdoings (Tetreault
90
2000). By bringing the public into the game, the deputies were expanding the
coalition as a substitute for the coalition’s internal weakness relative to the regime,
because of the latter’s attempts to invest in coopting members away from joining the
coalition (Arab Times June 29, 1997). The confrontation reached its breaking point
when in April 1999 the government purposed a plan for upstream privatization and
restructuring the state’s social welfare policies. Upon the deputies’ rejection of these
plans, the Amir dissolved parliament on May 4, and proceeded to rule by decree until
the elections of July 3, 1999. The parliament’s vigorous opposition signified the
coalescence of the two subgroups, because the proposed cuts on social welfare would
hurt the tribal constituency and the privatization of oil businesses would undermine
the hadar by introducing international competition.

The outcome of the 1999 elections was a defeat for Al Sabah. Despite the regimes
dissolution of parliament and attempts to split the opposition by issuance of a decree
on women’s political participation, the opposition gained most of its pre-1996
strength, pulling the game into the LHBB category, the regime’s 3
rd
preference.

Hegemonism & Crisis Conditions: 2003 Elections
Faced with the prospect of deadlock, the regime sought to co-opt, with some success,
key opposition members into cabinet positions (Mideast Mirror, July 17, 1999). In
addition, the coalition against upstream privatization was weakened when pro-
regime deputies, with Islamist support, elected Jasim al-Khurafi to replace Ahmad
91
al-Sa`dun, as Speaker of Parliament (Kuwait Times, July 22, 1999). Meanwhile, the
Amir’s decree on women’s political rights continued to be used as a wedge issue to
split the liberals from the Islamists. By all indications, the regime was persisting in
its well-known determination to move the system from a Less Hegemonic Broad
Bounded Consociational (LHBB) to a Hegemonic Narrow Bounded system (HNB),
through control of oil revenues, and machinations to divide the parliamentary
opposition by soliciting allies among its members.

Two external events impacted Kuwaiti politics as the emirate entered the 21
st

century: the attacks of 9/11/2001 and the looming crisis in Iraq. As a result, the
security issue came to dominate the debate and the dynamics of domestic politics.
The attacks of 9/11 put pressure on the regime that outlawed Islamic charity
organizations and instituted controls that created a rift between Al Sabah and
Islamist factions. The intensification of the Iraqi crisis leading to war in March 2003
heightened Kuwait’s security dilemma. Because the Iraqi threat factor had been a
pillar in Kuwaiti politics, there was confluence of interests among the three players
in uniting behind the optimal strategy to secure the state. The outcome of this
confluence was the strengthening of the regime’s position that became confirmed by
the results of the 2003 parliamentary elections. The victory of a block of pro-regime
deputies advanced the regime’s hegemonic position, as the liberals suffered big
losses; only the conservative block consisting of some Islamist, tribal and
92
independent deputies, remained to oppose the government (Al-Watan, July 15, 2003).
Thus, after the 2003 elections, the Kuwaiti polity was again entrenched in a
Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociational system (HNB).

93
Chapter V. Iraq: An Unfolding Experiment (2003-2004)

The application of the Bounded Consociational/rational choice model to Iraq
represents a unique opportunity to investigate the political process as it has been
unfolding since the U.S. ouster of Saddam Hussein’s Ba`ath regime. Moreover,
applying the model to Iraq as a case study is expected to provide an empirical test in
terms of the explanatory and predictive power of the consociational/rational choice
approach. To be sure, the twin rationales for extending the model to Iraq’s evolving
transition resides in 1) the segmented nature of the country’s social fabric that
corresponds to the consociational component of the model; and 2) the rational actor
model that shapes the behavior of all the players on the Iraqi scene. Moreover, the
applicability of the model to Iraq could expand its utility as an alternative theoretical
and methodological tool to explain the fluctuations of political change in the Arab
context.

Historical Background
Unlike Jordan and Kuwait, modern Iraq has not experienced any period of transition
to a liberalized system. A backwater of the Ottoman Empire, Iraq witnessed the rise
of Arab nationalism, first directed against the Ottoman Turks, and later against the
British who had broken up the Arab East and carved out an Iraqi state based on their
oil interests and imperial ambitions.

94
In fashioning Iraq’s boundaries, the British threw together the Ottoman provinces of
Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, that consisted of a diverse population segmented along
ethnic, sectarian and tribal cleavages. Although these divisions were expected to
facilitate British governance of the country through the “divide and rule” principle,
this diversity proved to be detrimental to stable development. In 1920 the British put
down a bloody insurrection led by Shi`ite clerics and faced unrest in the Kurdish and
Christian populated areas in the North. Britain’s installation of Emir Faisal bin
Hussein as the Hashemite King of Iraq (1922-1933) had a stabilizing influence. After
Faisal’s death in 1933, Iraq witnessed a series of coups d`etat and insurrections
leading to the July 1958 Free Officers’ revolution, led by Brigadier General Abd al-
Karim Qasim that overthrew the monarchy (Khadduri 1960; Simons 2004). The
Qasim regime was in turn toppled in February 1963 by Col. Abd al-Salam Arif,
leading a coalition of Nassirist and Ba`thist officers, although the latter were soon
purged as Ba`th members went underground to plot their return to power. In July
1968, in a bloody insurrection, the Ba`th Party took power and held it until the US-
led invasion of March 2003.

The leadership of the Ba`th regime under Gen. Ahmad al-Bakr was dominated by the
Sunni minority, in keeping with the Sunnis dominant position since the
establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921. Although the governments before the Ba`th’s
takeover had to confront opposition from the Kurds and the Shi`ites, these problems
intensified under Ba`th’s totalitarian rule. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kurdish factions
95
in the North and the Shi`ite clerical dissidents in the South became major obstacles
to the Ba`th’s primacy (Sluglett and Sluglett 1993). These oppositional movements
were repeatedly suppressed by the regime’s rising strongman, Saddam Hussein, who
in 1979 assumed the presidency of Iraq. The 1979 Iranian Revolution and the 1981-
88 Iraq-Iran war intensified the regime’s policies of mass repression against both the
Kurds and the Shi`ites (Ghareeb 1986). A new wave of terror was unleashed against
Kurdish and Shi`ite dissidents who had rebelled against Saddam’s regime in
response to the US calls during the 1991 war (Simons 2004). In order to protest the
Kurds, in 1991 the UN passed a resolution to prohibit Iraqi overflights and establish
a safe haven in the Kurdish regions, where an autonomous regime was set up with
US assistance (Stansfield 2003). However, the Shi`ites were left to suffer Saddam’s
wrath, except the Marsh Arabs in the South who were protected by Allied overflights
and prohibition of Iraqi aircraft to operate in their region.

Iraq’s Social Fabric
Since ancient times, Mesopotamia – “the land between the rivers” – has been the seat
of great empires and civilizations that brought together diverse peoples and cultures.
This social diversity persisted during the Arab empires and later under Ottoman
domination. With the establishment of the British Mandate over the three former
Ottoman wilayats that made up modern Iraq, the country’s social fabric came to
reflect a rich cultural “mosaic” of large and small communities, each possessing its
own sense of collective identity and self determination (‘asabiyah), which
96
complicated the tasks of governance and national integration. The intra and inter-
communal interactions of these subgroups, combined with their relationship with
competing regional and international actors, shaped the course of Iraqi history since
the inception of statehood. Despite repeated attempts to impose a single Iraqi identity
or ‘asabiyah on the multicultural social structure, the indigenous communal
identities persisted to impact Iraq political development since British times. After
Saddam’s swift defeat, the major questions facing the Iraqis and the international
community is how to build a stable and sustainable democracy given Iraq’s
segmented society.

The Iraqi social mosaic may be viewed along several categories of group identities.
The two broad categories of ethnicity are the Arabs and the non-Arabs. The non-
Arabs include Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians and Armenians. The basic religious
cleavage is between Muslims and non-Muslims. The great majority of Iraqis are
Muslims, about 60% Shi`ites and 40% Sunnis, belonging to different schools of
Islamic law. The non-Muslim minorities are overwhelmingly Christians, i.e. –
Chaldean Catholics, Assyrians, Syrian Orthodox, Syrian Catholics and the
Armenians (Lukitz 1995). Despite the ethno-sectarian complexity of the societal
mosaic, the major politically salient players, were the Shi`ites, Sunnis, and Kurds.

97
Shi`ites
Representing Iraq’s largest community, the Shi`ites belonging to the Twelver sect
have been politically and economically marginalized since early times. Apart from
Baghdad, Basra and the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, the Shi`ites were decedents
of tribes who were converted to Shi`ism 200 years ago and settled in the rural areas
in the southern regions. Although the more educated urban Shi`ites assumed
governmental positions during the monarchy, the Sunni minority remained dominant
even after the 1968 Ba`th takeover of power. With the rise of Saddam Hussein to the
presidency in 1979, the Shi`ites were further marginalized as their clerical leadership
was decimated because of its resistance to Ba`th rule (Dekmejian 1995).

In view of the Shi`ite’s long-term alienation from successive Iraqi regimes, many of
their urban intellectuals joined the Communist Party, while the masses were strongly
inclined to follow the guidance of the clerical class. This pattern of clerical
supremacy was in keeping with the traditional Shi`ite system of religious hierarchy
where the mujtahids provided legal rulings based on Islamic law to guide the
people’s behavior. At the apex of the clerical hierarchy was the marj`iyyah – the
ranking Ayatullahs whose rulings on both religious and political matters were to be
obeyed by the Shi`ite faithful (Dekmejian 1995).

Despite their subservient status, the Iraqi Shi`ites possess special importance in the
Shi`ite world because they control the holy shrines of Najaf and Karbala that attract
98
thousands of pilgrims from the Shi`ite communities outside Iraq. The seminaries
situated in these cities were known as al-Hawzat al-Islamiyah, where high ranking
clerics taught generations of students who went on to work in mosques and schools
throughout the Shi`ite world. Hence the close connection between the Shi`ite clerical
establishment in Iraq and their counterparts in other centers of Shi`ite habitation, e.g.
– Iran, Lebanon, India and Pakistan (Batatu 1981). Most Iraqi Shi`ites are ethnically
Arab; a minority includes Iranians and Arabized Iranians.

Sunni Arabs
The Sunni Arabs inhabit the North-Central part of Iraq in the so-called “Sunni
Triangle” bounded by Mosul, Ramadi and Baghdad. Despite their minority status
with about twenty percent of the population, the Sunni Arabs have dominated Iraqi
politics since Ottoman times. Aside from the educated urban notables which became
the backbone of the new state as Arab nationalists, the Sunni Arabs also included an
urbanized lower middle-class as well as settled tribes. In addition to their control of
the state apparatus, the military became the linchpin of the Sunni Arabs’ asabiyah. In
contrast to the Shi`ites, the Sunni Arabs lacked the centralizing authority of a clerical
hierarchy and their leadership tended to be more secular and Pan-Arabist in
ideological orientation (Sluglett and Sluglett 1993).

99
Kurds
The Kurds are concentrated in the northern provinces across the border from the
Kurdish populated regions of Turkey and Iran. Although mostly Sunni Muslim, their
sectarian commonality with the Sunni Arabs has not bridged the ethnic cleavage
between them. In size, the Kurds are the smallest of Iraq’s largest subgroups with
about fifteen percent of the population. The centralizing policies of the Sunni Arab
leadership, combined with their policies of Arabization, alienated the Kurds and
triggered the rise of the Kurdish nationalist movement which received reinforcement
from similar trends in Turkey and Iran (Ghareeb 1986).

In order to reduce separatist sentiments, the Baghdad regime relied on indirect rule
by giving the Kurdish tribal leaders some autonomy. However, the Kurds continued
to aspire for independence, hence the cycle of rebellion and repression by the
government. Soon, the tribal chiefs were joined by Kurdish urban intellectuals,
professionals and army officers, all sharing aspirations of statehood. During the years
of bloody confrontation with the Iraqi military, there was a split between the
traditional tribal Shaikhs and the more modernized urban Kurds leading to factional
fighting and heavy casualties. After Saddam’s massacre of the rebellious Kurdish
factions at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, a Kurdish autonomous zone was
established under the protection of the US-led coalition. Since 1991, the enclave has
been ruled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan,
100
which have learned to coexist despite some clashes in 1996, and even preside over a
viable and prosperous entity free from Saddam’s repressive rule.

Turkmen
The Turkmen trace their beginnings to the Oguz Turkish tribes of Central Asia which
began to settle in Iraq in the 6
th
and 7
th
centuries and connected to Sunni Islam. After
the Ottoman collapse, the Turkmen were progressively marginalized by the Arab
government. Under the Ba`th, the Turkmen suffered deportation and repression as a
part of the regime’s Arabization process (Ketene 2004). The concentration of most
Turkmen in the North where the Kurds are a majority, have led to conflicts between
the two groups. After the defeat of the Ba`thi regime in March 2003, the Turkmen-
Kurdish confrontation emerged as a troublesome factor for US policymakers seeking
to build a stable and united Iraqi regime. To secure their collective interests, the
Turkmen factions came together in the Iraqi Turkmen Front, which has enjoyed the
support of the Turkish government.

Christian Sects
Iraq’s Christian sects, estimated at two percent of the population, include both native
Iraqis and immigrants who took refuge in Iraq, escaping Turkish persecution. Among
the native Arab Iraqi Christians are the Chaldean Catholics, the Jacobites, the Syrian
Catholics and the Nestorians, most of whom inhabit the major cities and towns in the
North, as well as Baghdad and Basra. These indigenous Christian sects were joined
101
by the Assyrians and Armenians from Turkey who came to Iraq to seek haven from
the atrocities perpetrated by the Young Turk regime during World War I. Both under
the monarchy and the Ba`th regime, the Christians enjoyed a significant degree of
cultural and religious autonomy, except in the case of the Assyrians who suffered
repression because of their British ties and aspirations of statehood. In view of their
multiplicity, the Christian sects do not constitute a cohesive collectivity to be able to
play any pivotal role in Iraqi politics.

After the Fall: Open Ended Games (2003- )
The forging sections on Iraq’s historical background and social fabric set the stage to
model the ongoing transitional processes that have been taking place since the US-
led occupation. Two theoretical factors need to be considered that are specific to the
Iraqi case. First, unlike other experiences with democratic transitions that are
initiated mostly by internal developments, the collapse of Saddam’s autocracy was
caused by conquest through external military force. Thus, the political change in the
Iraqi situation will provide a case study of linkages between external and indigenous
variables. Second, the Iraqi case is unique in that the starting point of transition will
be near zero, where the political process involves both establishing a state and a
political system.

102
Structuring the Game
In setting the parameters of the game based on a close reading of Iraqi developments
since March 2003, Ibn Khaldun’s theories of political change are especially relevant.
The Iraqi political scene is dominated by the competing ‘asabiyat of the ethno-
sectarian groups as well as that of the US hegemon which is trying to impose its own
asabiya on the evolving system. Thus, the developing game will be like a pendulum
swinging between the two ends of the possible outcome, i.e.—coalescence around
the hegemon’s ‘asabiyah or civil strife (fitnah). Within this framework, the dynamics
of power-sharing will be governed by 1) uncertainty; 2) asymmetric power between
the competing players’ strengths in terms of their level of ‘asabiyah and available
resources; and 3) the costliness of the players’ decisions because of the gravity of the
situation.

Certain central issues inform the players’ in the game and rationalize their respective
moves. These issues are: 1) the question of Iraq’s territorial integrity; 2) the extent of
Iraq’s independence and sovereignty; 3) the problem of establishing order and
security; 4) the type of political system and distribution of economic resources; 5)
the type of relationship between Islam and the state (Ismael and Ismael 2004). While
all players will be striving to maximize their self-interest, their calculations will have
to take into account the foregoing five issues. Thus, the political process will evolve
around these key issues and Iraq’s future will depend on the players’ decisions
regarding them.
103

A further parameter defining the game is the role of regional and international actors.
The major international actors such as France, China, Germany, Italy, Russia and
Japan are primarily concerned with Iraq’s stability and oil resources. Regional actors
view Iraq both as a threat and as a possible power vacuum that could lead to conflict
and instability beyond its borders. Thus, Iraq’s neighbors – Iran, Turkey, Syria,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel are acutely concerned with Iraq’s stability, oil
resources, type of regime, ethno-sectarian divisions and future ties to the US and
other major powers.

Different Players/Different Games
The logical framework of the game proposed above dictates two different gaming
procedures, depending on who is participating in the game. If the US is taken as a
major player and continues to remain a player in the present period of transition, then
the game will be a hegemonial game modeled as an extensive sequential game. In
this case, the US will make the first move, based on its own self-interest and its
expectations of the other players’ counter-moves. Such a scenario will place the US
in the position of the sole hegemon, paralleling the hegemonic role of governments
in Jordan and Kuwait. The moves of the subgroups will be determined by their own
self-interests as well as their anticipation of the actions of the other subgroups and
the subsequent moves of the hegemon. The possible outcomes of this game will
depend on the efficacy of the hegemon’s mix of coercive and cooptative capabilities
104
as well as the subgroups’ willingness to cooperate or to challenge the hegemon. As
the general model prescribes, the outcomes could range from regime controlled
consociationalism (RCC), to civil strife (CS), or something in between such as Less
Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociational rule (LHBB) or Hegemonic Narrow
Bounded Consociationalism (HNB). The full-fledged consociational type of regime
is not considered a real possibility in Iraq’s near-term future, given the hegemon’s
nature of interests and immense power, as well as the subgroups’ weakness and intra
and internal divisions.

The second type of possible game imagines that the US pulls out of the game and the
subgroups are forced to face the reality of their situation as defined by the games’
structural parameters, focused on the foregoing five issues central to Iraq’s survival.
What emerges is a static game where each player strategizes based on its own
interest and its understanding of the interests of the other players. Another feature of
the static game is its openness (al-li`b `ala al-makshuf) because each player knows
the others’ interest and all know that everyone knows each other’s interests.

Therefore, in a static/open game, the determining factor to start the game is the role
of “nature” – i.e., the probability that either one of the players will start the game
(Gates and Humes 1997). Once a player makes a move, the others will readjust their
calculations, update their information and reorder their preferences. At this point, the
game is transformed into a sequential game. The outcomes will be determined by
105
whether the subgroups cooperate or do not cooperate, the internal cohesion
(‘asabiyah) of each group and their relative power in terms of size and resources,
both domestic and foreign. The possible outcomes range from full-fledged
consociationalism (C) to civil strife (CS) and other regime types in between favoring
one of the subgroups.

Power Maps: Players and Preferences
The identification of the primary players in the Iraqi context is derived from the
existing power correlations in the social fabric. Both historically and at the present
time, the Turkmen and the Christian sects are too small and weak to play decisive
roles that could alter the game’s outcome. Therefore, the major players are the US,
the Arab Shi`ites, the Arab Sunnis and the Kurds. By all indicators, the sentiments of
group cohesion and identity are far stronger among the Shi`ites, Sunnis and Kurds
than any cross-cutting affiliations along ideological or other civil societal
connections (Wimmer 2003).

The utility function for each player depends on their respective group strengths that
shape the order of their preferences. However, the actual formulation of the
subgroups’ preferences incorporates their perceived self-interests, the impact of their
identities and the role of culture and historical memory. In terms of maximizing its
interests in Iraq and the Middle East, the US would want to avoid two most costly
outcomes, i.e. – an Iranian type Islamist theocracy and a return to Ba`thi secular
106
autocracy, both being at odds with US goals. Thus, the US first preference is a
Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociational system (HNB) > Less Hegemonic
Broad Bounded Consociational system (LHBB) > Regime Controlled
Consociationalism (RCC) > Consociational rule (C) > civil strife (CS). The logic
behind the foregoing preference ordering emanates from US calculations of benefits
and costs. The US preference for a HNB system is because it provides for a strong
Iraqi regime that can serve as hegemon over narrowly chosen subgroup
representatives. The HNB outcome can provide some legitimacy for the regime,
impose security and preserve the country’s territorial integrity, while maintaining
strong ties with the US and serving its foreign policy goals in the region. Although
the US might well prefer a Hegemonic Controlled Consociational system that is
more authoritarian, less representative and more subservient to US wishes, such a
regime may prove too costly militarily and economically to the US and harm
America’s announced objective to establish democracies in the Middle East. Thus, a
LHBB is considered as US’s second preferred outcome. Even more costly for the
US will be the drift into civil strife (CS), thereby forcing the US to settle for full-
fledged consociationalism as its second worst preference. The problem for the US
with variants of consociational rule is that the more consociational the system is, the
less it is likely to accept US hegemonic control, because the greater the subgroup
role, the greater will be their resistance to the US presence.

107
The Arab Shi`ite subgroup is the second major player due to its majority status and
potentially strong ‘asabiyah. However, the Shi`a community is not homogeneous, in
view of the existence of several centers of power within it. The important cleavage is
between the secular Shi`ites that include many former Ba`thists and Communists,
and the religious traditionalists led by four top clerical jurisconsults: Ali Al-Sistani,
Muhammad Ishaq Fayyad, Muhammad Sayyid Al-Hakim, and Bashir Al-Najafi
(Dawisha 2004). These high-ranking clerics constitute the marji`iyah – the highest
religious authority in the Shi`ite community. In addition, Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr, a
junior cleric, emerged out of the war’s chaos as a militant leader to challenge the US
and the new Iraqi regime. Other clerical led Shi`ite parties include the Da`wa Party
and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Finally, there is the division
between urban Shi`ites and the tribal Shi`ites most of whom have settled in the towns
South of Baghdad. Ultimately, the Shi`ite’s collective power is a function of the
community’s internal cohesion which in turn is dependent on intra-Shi`a bargaining
processes. Despite their internal divisions, the Shi`ites have necessary and sufficient
incentives to choose, cooperate and overcome their internal segmentation. The
factors that facilitate Shi`ite cohesion include their Arab identity, the acute sense of
belonging to a specific Muslim sect, their collective historical memory as a
marginalized and subservient community within the larger world of Islam, and their
subjugation by the Arab Sunnis, particularly in Iraq. To bridge their divisions, the
Shi`a need to engage in social matching practices through which they can reward and
punish their membership to impose unity and maximize their bargaining power. An
108
example of the Shi`ite’s successful bargaining and internal cooperation was the June
2002 “Declaration of the Shi`a of Iraq” that reflected their common interest as
expressed by factional leaders meeting in London (Karadaghi 2002). Since Saddam’s
ouster, the Shi`ite’s behavior has also reflected successful social matching practices
under Ayatullah Sistani’s leadership who has enjoyed preeminance in bargaining and
negotiation on behalf of the whole community. Although Muqtada Al-Sadr’s
rebellion against the Interim Iraqi Government and the US represented a deviation
from the general Shi`ite position, it can also be understood as a bargaining device to
promote Shi`ite interests by signaling the other players about alternative Shi`ite
reactions.

In order to understand the Shi`ites’ preference, one has to understand what they want
to avoid. At all costs, they want to avoid civil strife (CS) because it is too costly and
results in an uncertain future that could jeopardize their majoritarian status. Nor are
they willing to accept a return to subjugation by any hegemon, either internal or
foreign, i.e. – the United States. Ideally, the Shi`ite would want a united Iraq based
on a majoritarian system because they can have a dominant role in governance.
Given the restrictions on the game and its parameters, the Shi`ite’s first preference
would be a federal consociational system that would give them the largest share in a
power-sharing formula in which any checks on their power would come from Iraq’s
other subgroups that are smaller and weaker than the Shi`ites. Such an outcome
would be preferable to having an external hegemon (US) exercise checks from
109
behind the scenes. Should the dynamics of the game not result in a consociational
equilibrium, the Shi`ites would settle for a Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded
Consociational system (LHBB). The rationale for this choice is that in case of a
continued US presence, the Shi`a would want to limit its hegemonic role by bringing
the Sunni and the Kurds into the consociational cartel, which would also satisfy these
subgroup’s interests and prevent civil strife. If the LHBB is not achievable, then they
would sacrifice cooperation with the Sunni Arabs and Kurds in order to preserve
their nascent hegemonic position in alliance with the US – the external hegemonic
power. In summary, the Shi`ite utility function will be C > LHBB > HNB > RCC >
CS. Clearly, Regime Controlled Consociational rule (RCC) and civil strife (CS) are
the Shi`ites’ worst options, which they want to avoid.

Arab Sunnis are the third major player behind the US and the Shi`ites, because of
their relative size, ethnic ties to the Shi`ite Arabs and previous role as the dominant
subgroup. As such, the Sunni Arabs continue to posses a high degree of ‘asabiyah,
despite their displacement from power in March 2003. Another source of the Sunnis
collective asabiya is their greater internal cohesion, relative to the Shi`ites and Kurds.
Moreover, in the post-Saddam period, the degradations suffered by the Sunni Arabs
and their victimization by the three other players has caused a resurgence of their
asabiya and fighting spirit as shown in the recent insurrectionary events in the Sunni
Triangle (Hashim 2003). Although there exist divisions in the Sunni Arab
110
community along tribal, ideological and regional lines, they seem to have overcome
these cleavages under the banner of Iraqi nationalism.

The utility function of the Sunni Arabs is HNB > C > LHBB > RC > CS. The logic
of this preference ordering is as follows. Having lost their dominant role, the two
extremes they want to avoid are: 1) to be punished for their historical hegemonism
by being targets of retaliation, subjugation and/or exclusion from power-sharing; and
2) to engage in civil strife in a loose-loose set, that would be a very costly and
irrational means to defend their interests. Therefore, given the US presence and the
Sunni Arab’s minority status and experience in governing, their first preference will
be Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociationalism (HNB), where they become
America’s partner to rule hegemonically over underrepresented Shi`ites and Kurds.
This outcome would be a return to the Sunni Arab-US partnership of 1975-1990,
although without Ba`th’s autocratic rule. Should they fail to reach HNB, they would
settle for a consociational system that guarantees their representation and veto power
to secure basic interests. Should a fully consociational option be out of reach, the
Sunni Arabs would be forced to move to their third preference – Less Hegemonical
Bounded Consociationalism, because this would give them the minimum means to
sustain their self interest and allow them to work within the system in hoping for
future maximization of their role. As with the Shi`ites, Regime Controlled
Consociationalism (RCC) under US hegemony or civil strife (CS) are the Sunni’s
worst options.
111
The fourth player in terms of relative size are the Kurds, who, although mostly Sunni,
are ethnically and linguistically distinct from the Arabs. Thus, the divisive role of the
ethnic factor between the Kurds and the Sunni Arabs is far more important than the
bridging role of Sunni Islam that they both share.

The Kurd’s bargaining power is a function of their historical memory of
subservience to non-Kurdish rulers, the high collective cost of suffering particularly
under Ba`thi rule, and their possession of an autonomous polity endowed with oil
resources. All of those factors give the Kurds a strong ‘asabiyah which disposes
them to extract concessions from the US and the Iraqi central authorities, which can
be translated into a threat factor of separatism vis-à-vis the other players.

In deducing the Kurds’ preferences, one needs to set forth the range of options they
have available. One option is secession from Iraq to establish a separate independent
state. This is not an achievable option, given the parameters and restriction imposed
on the game. The other extreme option is to become marginalized and victimized
under US, Shi`ite or Sunni hegemons. Thus, a practical viable option is for the Kurds
to join in the power-sharing system within a united Iraq. Given this option, the
Kurds’ utility function becomes C > LHBB > HNB > RCC > CS. The rationale for
this ordering is that a fully developed federal consociational system (C) is the best
outcome that can secure the Kurds’ basic interest, i.e. – a share of power and cultural
and political autonomy. The very logic of consociationalism is to secure subgroups’
112
identity and interest. If this is not achievable, then their second preference is Less
Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociationalism (LHBB). Given the Kurds’ historical
memory and experience, the less hegemonic the regime is, the more secure they will
be. Thus, regardless of the hegemon’s identity (US, Shi`a, Sunni), the Kurds would
want to limit that hegemon’s scope of power. Should LHBB be denied to them, the
Kurds will settle for a Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociational regime (HNB) as
their 3
rd
preference. Within a HNB regime, the Kurds would want to be either allied
with whichever player happens to be the hegemon, or not end up as excluded or
underrepresented in the power-sharing coalition. The reason why the Kurds, like the
Shi`ites, had HNB as their third but not second preference, is the unstable and risky
nature of this outcome because of other subgroups’ credible incentives to challenge it.
Also, As in the case of the Sunni and Shi`ite, the worst options for the Kurds are
Regime Controlled Consociational rule (RCC) and civil strife (CS).

Having identified the players and their likely behavior on Iraq’s power map, it is
important to see how rational the political process has been since the Ba`th’s collapse.
Such an enquiry is expected to reveal the degree of the stability of the transition and
the extent to which it addresses the players’ interests.

Modeling the Transition (2003-2004)
The two essential foci of inquiry in the investigation of Iraq’s transition under the
occupation are the consociational character of the transitional authority structures
113
and the bargaining among the players. Despite the preachings of the US-led
Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) about establishing a liberal democracy in Iraq,
every one of the governing structures were the products of appointive procedures
rather than electoral processes. Thus, the three successive authority structures – the
Iraqi Governing Council (July 2003) and its cabinet, the Interim Iraqi Government
(June 2004) and 1000-member Iraqi National Conference that would choose the
National Assembly – were appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Moreover, the Transitional Administrative Law of March 2004, that would serve as
an interim constitution, was drafted under US guidance. The appointment of these
government bodies and the drafting of the constitution clearly reflect the hegemonic
role of the US in the transition. In addition to being pro-US, the main criterion of
choice for membership in these bodies, was the consociational principle of subgroup
representation. Thus, the combination of the American hegemonic role and the
consociational measures amounted to restrictions upon consociational practices,
resulting in a Bounded Consociational regime.

The bargaining process that proceeded in an environment of great uncertainty,
resulted in the following outcomes for the three governing structures. The twenty-
five-member Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) consisted of thirteen Shi`ites, five
Sunnis, five Kurds, one Turkman and one Christian (Dawisha 2004). The breakdown
of these appointments reflects a LHBB regime that represents the second preference
for the US, Shi`ites and Kurds, and the Sunni’s third preference with an assigned
114
payoff of 4, 4, 4, 3. The explanation of this outcome is US’s need for a broad social
base that roughly reflected the relative power and size of Iraq’s social fabric.
Although the US would have preferred a more hegemonic system, it settled for
LHBB because it had to reward and coopt its Kurdish allies, while pacifying and
coopting the Shi`ite majority, and signaling to the Sunnis about their possible
exclusion unless they cooperate. The Shi`ite and Kurdish acceptance of LHBB is
explained by their awareness that full consociational rule would not be possible
given US’s hegemonic presence and interests. As for the Sunni, they had no choice
but accept a lesser role, their third preferences. As a result, in Summer and Fall 2003
and Spring 2004, there was an upsurge of violence particularly in the Sunni Triangle
that signified the Sunni’s dissatisfaction with the game’s outcome.

The pattern of US preferential behavior persisted in the selection of the Iraqi Interim
Government (IIG) in June 2004. Of its thirty-six members, nineteen were Shi`ites,
eight Kurds, seven Sunnis, one Turkman and one Christian. The Shi`ite Prime
Minister, Iyad Allawi was invested with supreme executive power, with a Kurdish
Deputy Prime Minister, Bahram Salih. Notably, the Kurdish presence exceeded that
of the more numerous Sunni Arabs. Although the Sunni tribal leader, Shaikh Ghazi
Ajil al-Yawar, was appointed President, this was only a symbolic gesture, because
the presidency was assigned only a figurehead role (New York Times, June 29, 2004).

115
As anticipated the correlation of forces remained unchanged in the National
Assembly that was constituted in August 2004. Of its 100 members, nineteen were
drawn from the former Governing Council and the rest chosen by a National
Conference of 1,300 members, which were vetted by the regime. Two lists of
candidates competed for the eighty-one seats, and the winning list—qa’imat al-
wihdah al-wataniyah (National Unity List)—had been favored by the government
(al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 19, 2004). The bargaining process for choosing the
National Assembly membership was characterized by the new alliance between the
Kurds and the Shi`ites, reflecting the Sunni Arabs’ relative weakness (New York
Times, August 20, 2004).

The US hegemonic imprint and preferences can also be seen in the Transitional
Administrative Law of March 2004. These include – territorial federation that favors
Kurds and Shi`ites; the acceptance of Kurdish as a second official language; the
recognition of the Kurdish Regional Government; and the promise to financially
compensate the regions deprived by the Ba`th regime (i.e. Kurdish and Shi`ite areas).
While Iraq’s Arab majority was recognized as being a part of the “Arab nation”, Iraq
was not labeled an Arab country. In addition, Islam was made the official religion of
the state, but only “a” source of legislation, pointing to the US preference for a
secular Iraq (Qanun Idarat al-Dawlah al-Iraqiyah Lil-Marhala al-Intiqaliyah 2004).

116
Static Open Game: An Alternative Future
This game is based on several assumptions, i.e. – that the US presence is absent from
the Iraqi transition; regional and international restrictions are relaxed in terms of
external pressure and influence; the three major players are left alone to play the
game; and all three players are rational actors, each possessing asymmetries in terms
of their asabiyat, size and resources.

As a static game, each player first engages in strategizing by calculating its own
interest and estimating the other players’ interests and incentives. Three factors
shape each player’s calculations – social matching practices, the threat factor
available to the other players and the historical collective memory of each player.
The main restriction on the game is the uncertainty factor, where outcomes are
unknown ex ante, and therefore each player is careful to secure its own interest.

In terms of general calculation, all players are aware of the two options available:
1) mutual accommodation; or 2) civil strife. The latter is the worst outcome for all
three players because it is costly, risky and open ended, and hence, everyone wants
to avoid it. This leaves the pursuit of mutual accommodation as the only option in
which the three negotiable issues are power-sharing, how to achieve it, and how
much power each players gets. Although the choice of mutual accommodation
represents a commitment to effect a peaceful transition, the possibility of violence
cannot be completely ruled out. The players may act rationally but end up triggering
117
irrational outcomes. Moreover, some players may resort to violent means as they
negotiate to achieve their goals. What this model aims to explain is when a peaceful
transition is possible and when and how political violence might break out.

Shi`ites
Given their size, resources and collective necessary, the Shi`ites have sufficient
incentives to opt for a Regime Controlled Consociational system (RCC), where they
would act as the ultimate hegemon. However, what rules out the RCC option is the
Shi`ite’s knowledge of the other players’ interests and possible reactions. Indeed,
given the minority status of the Sunni and the Kurds, they will be unlikely to
cooperate with a Shi`ite hegemonic regime. Such non-cooperation may lead them to
individually resist the Shi`a or build an all Sunni coalition of Sunni Arabs and Kurds
against Shi`ite domination. Also, the Kurds possess the threat factor to secede from a
unified Iraqi state that would greatly increase the costs for the Shi`ite’s dominant role.
In view of the obvious irrationality of the RCC choice in terms of payoffs and costs,
the Shi`ites will update their interests and retreat to HNB – Hegemonic Narrow
Bounded Consociationalism. This option would give the Shi`ites the benefit of a
hegemonic role, while accommodating the basic interests of the other subgroups. Yet
an HNB solution might well be risky and untenable for the Sunni Arabs due to the
memory of their historically dominant role, and for the Kurds who already enjoy the
benefits of autonomous statehood backed by oil revenues. Consequently, the Shi`ite
will consider settling for a Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociational system
118
(LHBB) where they would become the senior partner enjoying a degree of
hegemony over the other players within a broad representational structure. The
problem with a LHBB outcome is the tendency to revert to a HNB system and its
inherent instability due to the Kurds’ and Sunni’s likelihood of rise in ‘asabiyah and
increased dissatisfaction. Therefore, the only stable equilibrium with the highest
payoff for Shi`ites is a fully consociational system (C) where their share power with
the others in a formula that would reflect and reward their majority status and
compensate them for historical injustices. Thus, the Shi`ites utility function will be :
C > LHBB > HNB > RCC > CS with assigned payoffs 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Sunni Arabs
Although the Sunni Arabs might still aspire to regain their dominant role, possibly in
an RCC or HNB type of system, the facts on the ground would force them to update
their calculations and modify their behavior. The Kurd’s and Shi`ite’s likely
coalescence and their memories of persecution by successive Sunni regimes will
always place limitations on the chances of Sunni domination. Thus, there remain two
options for the Sunnis to maximize their interests; 1) to accept a Shi`a dominant role
within a LHBB regime, where Sunnis will enjoy broad representation and have the
opportunity to upgrade their position in a more democratic future consociational
state; 2) a fully consociational system in which they will share enough power to
protect their collective asabiya and interests. Therefore, the Sunni Arabs’ utility
function is C > LHBB > HNB > RCC > CS with assigned payoffs 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
119
Kurds
Although the Kurds’ historical aspiration has been independent statehood with
control of oil resources, political realities rule out this option. Moreover, given the
Kurds’ relatively small size and non-Arab ethnicity, the RCC and HNB options are
not feasible, because the Sunni and Shi`ite Arabs will resist them. Thus, the Kurd’s
path to maximize their interest and get compensation for their historical
marginalization, runs to a Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociational system
(LHBB) or full consociational rule (C). Clearly, their first preference would be full
consociationalism which would approximate to a large degree, their present
autonomous status. Thus, the Kurds’ utility function: C > LHBB > HNB > RCC >
CS.

In summarizing the logic of this static/open game where the three players are left
alone in designing their future, it becomes apparent that the Shi`a, Sunni and Kurds
all have similar utility functions and same preference ordering. The more they move
toward consociationalism, the more their payoffs, which constitutes necessary and
sufficient incentives to cooperate. In contrast, moving toward the hegemonic end of
the spectrum – RCC and HNB – is risky, costly and likely to lead to political
violence, a situation in which all players will loose. In comparing the static/open
game of three players to the hegemonic sequential game with US participation, it
becomes obvious that the static game is more rational in terms of maximizing the
players’ interests, constraining political violence and launching a peaceful transition.
120
Chapter VI. Conclusions: The Utility of the Consociational Model

In concluding this comparative study, it would be appropriate to summarize the
findings about the three transitions to democracy and the fit of the Bounded
Consociational model to the three case studies. The contributions of this study can be
summarized under five general headings.

Theories of Democratization
Since the inception of the “Third Wave” of democratization, there has been an
explosion of theoretical writings on the economic, cultural and structural pre-
conditions of democratic transition. This focus on macro-level analysis has produced
mixed results in terms of theory-building and explanations of political change. In this
author’s perspective, the conceptual underdevelopment of the field and the
interconnectedness between the transition to democracy, democratic consolidation
and survival of new democracies, has resulted in theoretic confusion regarding the
start and end points of these processes. Moreover, macro-level studies are inherently
deterministic in making democratization the inevitable result of specific pre-
conditions.

This study is a departure from macro-level approaches by its focus on the political
process at the micro-level by emphasizing the role of political agents in the transition
process. Such an approach helps to humanize the political process by bringing people
into the political system. It recognizes that whether or not there will be transition to
121
democracy depends on people – political agents – to initiate change. Thus, the
central questions of democratization are when and why people initiate change, and
how the process develops.

Arab Democracy
The critique of macro-level theories also applies to the writings on democratization
in the Arab world. All too often, the absence of democracy or the persistence of
autocratic regimes is explained by cultural factors (Islam and tribalism), economic
factors (underdevelopment or rentier state), the weakness of civil society, and
dynastic rule. While these theories may explain stability in Arab polities, they fail to
explain political changes that have taken place and the processes of political change.

In sharp contrast, this study has sought to explain both stability and political change
by focusing on the role of subgroups in triggering and managing political change.
This is done through a mix of Lijphart’s consociational theory and Ibn Khaldun’s
political sociology. The essential linkage between these theoretical perspectives is
effected through the use of rational choice theory. By following Ibn Khaldun, Arab
society is perceived as consisting of ethno-religious social groups, each possessing a
sense of group solidarity (‘asabiyah) that determines the ups-and-downs of its
political behavior. In this logic, stability and political change is explained by the
competition between the rival ‘asabiyat to impose the authority of the strongest on
the others or reach a contractual settlement. By adopting Lijphart’s theorizing on
122
democratization in divided societies through power-sharing formulas, this study
solves Ibn Khaldun’s dilemma between coalescence under a hegemonic group and
the contractual state. In seeking explanations for the transition from Ibn Khaldun’s
hegemonic rule to the contractual state based on power-sharing, rational choice
theory was used in this study to provide both the logic and the methodological tools.

Utility of Modified Consociational Theory
This study demonstrated the utility of a modified consociational model to explain the
dynamics of political liberalization in the Arab context. In contrast to other authors
that apply purely Western concepts to political change in Non-Western political
systems, this study proceeds from the socio-political roots of Arab societies and the
indigenous cultural forces that need to be taken into account in order to correct a
distorted view of reality imposed by culturally biased Western constructs. In other
words, for the sake of objectivity, the scholar needs to be sensitive to the problem of
“cultural relativism” that emphasizes the key role of home-grown traditions and
practices (Renteln 1990). Given the segmented social fabric of Arab societies, and
the consensual and non-adversarial traditions of decision-making in authoritarian
contexts, this study used an eclectic model consisting of Lijphart’s consociational
theory, modified to include a central role for the “umpire” regime (Lustick 1979) that
would preside over the bargaining process with the constituent subgroups (Rothchild
1986). The fit between the modified consociational model and the political process in
case studies of Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq demonstrated the feasibility of an alternate
123
explanatory approach to Arab politics that uncovers the political laws that govern
political change.

Rationalizing Consociational Theory
In contrast to the existing literature on the Middle East and the general body of
writings in consociational politics, this study introduces rational actor modeling to
capture the essence of inter-elite bargaining and the resulting outcomes. Indeed, the
traditional consociational theorizing mostly focuses on the outcome of the political
process in divided societies, e.g. – constitutional arrangements, power-sharing and
institutional structures, while this study examines how outcomes are reached and
whether these outcomes produce an equilibrium that corresponds to subgroup
interests and overall systematic stability.

In introducing rational choice within modified consociational settings, once again the
cultural factor had to be considered. Therefore, instead of a purely materialistic (thin)
version of rational choice, a cultural variable was incorporated in keeping with the
“thick” models proposed by Ferejohn and Satz (1994) and Bates et al. (1998) . A
culturally informed rational choice analysis permits the linkage between a group’s
identity (‘asabiyah) and its behavior in terms of the formulation, ordering, and
pursuit of its preferences. The advantages of using rational choice included the
clarification of choices, analytical precision and logical consistency.

124
Rationalizing consociational theory helped develop a continuum of regime types
based on the type of relationship between the regime and the subgroups. Thus, in
socially segmented Arab societies, the dynamics of bargaining propelled the political
system through the four phases of political change ranging from Regime Controlled
Consociationalism (RCC), to Hegemonic Narrow Bounded Consociationalism
(HNB), to Less Hegemonic Broad Bounded Consociationalism (LHBB), to full-
fledged consociational system (C).

Rules of Transition
The application of the model to the three case studies points to the existence of
certain rules of political change that reside in both micro and macro level interactions.
While macro level analyses of democratization ascribe the transitions to institutional
and structural development (Huntington 1965; Linz and Stephan 1996), levels of
economic growth (Przeworski, et al. 2000), and/or degree of social and educational
attainment (Lipset 1959), this study ascribes the transition to the following rules:
A. Rules of onset of liberalization
1. High levels of subgroups’ ‘asabiyah, cohesion, and inter-group
cooperation, cause regimes to liberalize the political systems. In the
Jordanian case, the 1989 transition was triggered by the rising
‘asabiyah of the native Jordanians vis-à-vis the declining ‘asabiyah of
the Hashemite regime; greater cohesion within each of the Jordanian
and Palestinian subgroups; and maximal cooperation among them.
125
Similarly, in Kuwait, after the 1991 liberation, the transition was
caused by the hadar’s display of heightened ‘asabiyah vis-à-vis the
Al Sabah’s declining legitimacy and weakened ‘asabiyah; greater
intra-tribal and intra-hadar cohesion; and maximal cooperation
between these two subgroups. Although it may be too early to assess
the Iraqi transition, the present study suggests that transition to
democratization is possible in the proposed two games, if the
provisions of Rule 1 are met, i.e. – rising subgroups’ ‘asabiyah and
internal cohesion and cooperation between them.
2. Declining regime legitimacy and internal splits caused by policy
failures in external security, economic performance, a conflict
management, or coercive rule will push regimes to liberalize the
political system. Cases in point are Jordan’s 1989 liberalization and
Kuwait’s 1991-92 return to parliamentary politics. The obvious
interconnection between 1 and 2 reflecting declining regimes and
rising subgroup asabiyat and cooperation, represents a highly
plausible explanation of transition in these countries.

B. Rules of Fluctuations/Deliberalization
Onsets of liberalization could be followed by deliberalization. Two rules
explain this process:
126
1. Declining inter-communal cooperation among subgroups with
rising asabiya, cause deliberalization. The 1993-1999 deliberalization
in Jordan could be explained by the disruption of cooperation between
the native and Palestinian subgroups, both with strong asabiyat,
triggered by the Oslo accords and the subsequent debate on “who is a
Jordanian.” Similarly in Kuwait the 1996 hegemonic rebound was
caused by declining cooperation between the tribes and hadar.
2. Reversals in liberalization are caused by the regime’s exploitation
of non-cooperation between the subgroups, its cooptation of subgroup
leaders and changing the rules of the game ex ante through changes in
electoral laws. A case in point is King Hussein’s unilateral change of
the 1993 election law in order to deepen non-cooperation and weaken
the natives’ ‘asabiyah.

C. Rules of ‘Asabiyah
Rise in a subgroup’s communal ‘asabiyah is dependent on its level of
alienation from the regime and/or its leadership’s behavior. In Jordan the
progressive alienation of the native constituency from the king because of his
hegemonic behavior and economic policies, caused a rise in ‘asabiyah of the
indigenous population who rebelled in April 1989 and 1996. In contrast, the
rise of a new Palestinian leadership – the PLO – in 1964, led to an upsurge in
127
the ‘asabiyah of Jordanian Palestinians. Also, the alienation of Kuwaiti’s
hadar class since the mid-1960s triggered a rise in their ‘asabiyah that still
continues.

D. Rules of Cooperation
Cooperation among subgroups occurs when one of the following conditions
is met;
1. when proliferation of cross-cutting cleavages transcend each group’s
‘asabiyah;
2. when the regime fails to deliver and/or coopt, which gives the
subgroups an opportunity to cooperate and maximize extraction of power
from the regime. Two examples illustrate this rule:
a. The 1950s cooperation among the Palestinians and native
Jordanians was due to the increase in cross-cutting ties under the
banner of Arab nationalism. This was also the case with the pro-
democracy movement in Kuwait which brought together the tribes
and hadar.
b. Regime failures could be seen in Jordan’s 1989 economic crisis and
Kuwait’s 1990 occupation, both leading to subgroup cooperation
against hegemonic regimes.

128
E. Cultural Parameters
Since the transition to Bounded Consociationalism is a function of cultural
prerequisites, two societal characteristics need to be met:
1. subgroups will accept participation and power-sharing in a
Bounded Consociational system due to their cultural traditions and
norms of group-centered social action;
2. the regime offers reforms to the subgroups based on its expectation
that the subgroups will provide the ruling family with an exit strategy
in case of its failure, as opposed to revolution. The interaction of 1
and 2 are governed by the cultural environment of tribal consensus
(ijma qabali`), tribal peace (silm ‘asha’iri), harmony (tawafuq) and
tolerance (tasamuh).

Exiting the Trap
There is a tendency for liberalizing regimes to get trapped into a “gray zone” – or a
“hybrid regime” – where authoritarian attributes and liberalizing trends coexist
(Carothers 2002; Diamond 2002; Brumberg 2002). The close diagnostic study of
Jordan and Kuwait confirms the hypothesis concerning the “trap” of Arab democracy,
which has also occurred in other Arab liberalization experiments. In proposing the
“Bounded” form of consociationalism, this study has sought to capture the dynamics
of falling into the “trap” between autocracy and democracy. The reason why
transition experiments end up in traps is because of the condition of uncertainty
129
surrounding the subgroups’ decisions. Unsure about the regime’s intentions, future
developments and behavior of other subgroups, each subgroup accepts the regime’s
offer hoping to 1) secure their basic interests; 2) move the game toward full
consociationalism in a gradual manner. Once subgroups accept the regime’s offer,
the regime will try to use its asymmetric power to co-opt some subgroup leaders
through exchange mechanisms, hoping to pull the game backward toward
Hegemonic rule (RCC). The result is getting caught in the trap – a Bounded, Narrow,
or Broad Consociational system.

How to exit the trap? This is the fundamental issue in the democratization process in
the Arab countries. Several conditions should be satisfied if political systems are to
exit from the trap. 1) Ongoing and long-term cooperation among the subgroups; 2)
growth of cross-cutting ties and interests between the competing subgroups; 3) a
commitment to gradual change based on the cultural traditions that favor inter-group
consensus, harmony and tolerance. Notably, the above three conditions spring from
the learning process that results from expanding political participation. In this
context, Bounded consociationalism can be a gradual path toward democracy.

Democratization: Trends, Prospects, and Problems
Given the centrality of the general issue of democratization and specifically its
political importance in recent decades, scholars are bound to continue their search for
novel theories and methods to study this variant of political change. As shown in this
130
study, one promising approach is the application of rational choice theory to inter-
group dynamics, particularly in segmented societies. Beyond bridging the gap
between qualitative and formal models, what needs to be done is to establish links
between macro and micro level analyses of the transition. This could be done by
incorporating the structure, cultural and economic pre-conditions of democratization
into the formulation of the player’s preferences in rational choice analysis. This will
allow the empirical validation of formal models by deducing testable hypotheses
about liberalization. Such inclusive methodological experiments could help building
a more robust theory of transition, in which the problems of data collection, concept
formulation and measurements are rigorously treated.

Despite its merits, the use of a consociational/rational choice approach has its
limitations. Consociationalism tends to deemphasize cross-cutting cleavages and
favors collective actions by subgroups instead of the role of individuals in the
political process. Also consociational systems, as seen by Lijphart, is conditioned on
a polity’s small size and enlightened elite cartel, low level of decision load, and
generally non-turbulent environments. On the other hand, pure (thin) rational choice
theory tends to be reductionist, materialist, and individualist, whereby cultural and
structural variables are excluded. These theoretical shortcomings prompted the use
of a modified version of consociationalism, along with a culturally informed variant
of rational choice theory in this dissertation.

131
This study also points to the utility of using combinations of modified
consociationalism and rational choice to study transitions in many other socially
segmented Arab and non-Arab countries which are engaged in transitions to
democratic systems. Specifically, the model would effectively fit the evolving
situations in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan and Bahrain, where more or
less autonomous subgroups are given representation in grand coalitions, and are
actively engaged in bargaining and exchanges with the respective regimes with
different amounts of hegemonic power.

132
REFERENCES
Abu-Odeh, Adnan. 1999. Jordanians, Palestinians, and the Hashemite Kingdom in
the Middle East Peace Process. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of
Peace Press.
Almond, Gabriel and Sidney Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and
Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Alt, James and Gary King. 1994. “Transfers of Governmental Power: the Meaning of
Time Dependence” Comparative Political Studies 27: 190-210.

Al-Najjar, Ghanim. 2000. “The Challenges Facing Kuwaiti Democracy.” Middle
East Journal 54(Spring): 242-258.

Al-Watan, July 15, 2003

Amawi, Abla M. 1994. “The 1993 Elections in Jordan.” Arab Studies Quarterly
16(Summer): 15-27.

Anderson, Lisa. 1991. “Absolutism and the Resilience of Monarchy in the Middle
East.” Political Science Quarterly 106(1): 1-15.

Apter, David. 1961. The Poltiical Kingdon in Uganda: A Study in Bureaucratic
Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Arab Times June 29, 1997

Aruri, Naseer Hassan. 1972. Jordan: A Study in Political Development (1921-1965).
The Hague: Nijhoff.

Baaklini, Abdo, Guilain Deneoux, and Robert Springboard. 1999. Legislative
Politics in the Arab World: The Resurgence of Democratic Institutions.
Boulder: Lynne Rienner.

Batatu, H. 1981, “Iraq’s Underground Shia`a Movements” Middle East Journal 35:
578-594.

Bates, Robert et al. 1998. Analytic Narratives. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.

Bates, Robert H., Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, Jr. and Barry R. Weingast. 1998. “The
Politics of Interpretation: Rationality, Culture, and Transition.” Politics and
Society 26:221-256.

133
Brand, Laurie. 1999. “The Effects of the Peace Process on Political Liberalization in
Jordan.” Journal of Palestine Studies 28(Winter): 52-67.

Browne, Eric C., John P. Frendreis, and Dennis W. Gleiber. 1984. “An ‘Events’
Approach to the Problem of Cabinet Stability” Comparative Political Studies
17:167-97

Brumberg, Daniel. 1995. “Class, Economic Change, and Political Liberalization in
the Arab World” in Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany, and Paul Noble (eds.).
1995. Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, Vol. 1
London: Lynne Rienner.

________. 2002. “The Trap of Liberalized Democracy.” Journal of Democracy
13(4): 56-68.

Brynen, Rex, Bahgat Korany, and Paul Noble (eds.). 1995. Political Liberalization
and Democratization in the Arab World, Vol. 1 and 2. London: Lynne
Rienner.

Carothers, Thomas. 2002. “The End of the Transition Paradigm.” Journal of
Democracy 13(1): 5-21.

Cheibub, José Antonio and Fernando Limongi. 2002. “Democratic Institutions and
Regime Survival: Parliamentary and Presidential Democracies
Reconsidered.” Annual Review of Political Science.

Chinwuba, Felix Aneze. 1980. “Consociationalism as an Approach to Political
Integration: The Case of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” Ph.D. diss.,
Tulane University.
Colomer, Josep M. 1991. “Transitions to Agreement: Modeling the Spanish Way.”
American Political Science Review 85(December): 1283-1302

________. 1995. Game Theory and the Transition to Democracy: The Spanish
Model. Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar Publishing Company.

________. 2000. Strategic Transitions. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

________. 2001. Political Institutions: Democracy and Social Choice. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Crescenzi, Mark J. 1999. “Violence and Uncertainty in Transitions” Journal of
Conflict Resolution 43(April): 192-212.

134
Crystal, Jill. 1990. Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and
Qatar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

________. 1992. Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.

Crystal, Jill and Abdallah al-Shayeji. 1998. “The Pro-Democratic Agenda in Kuwait:
Structures and Context” in Political Liberalization and Democratization in
the Arab World, Baghat Korany, Rex Brynen, and Paul Noble eds. Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner.

Daadler, Hans. 1974. “The Consociational Democracy Theme.” World Politics
26(July): 604-621.

Dahl, Robert. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale
University Press.

________. 1989. Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Dawisha, Adeed. 2004. “Iraq: Setbacks, Advances, Prospects.” Journal of
Democracy 15(1): 5-20.

Dekmejian, R. Hrair. 1978. “Consociational Democracy in Crisis: The Case of
Lebanon.” Comparative Politics 10(January): 251-256.

________. 1995. Islam in Revolution. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Dekmejian, R. Hrair and Zaid Eyadat. 2004. “Democratization in the Arab World: A
Hegemonic Consociational Model.” Unpublished manuscript. Department of
Political Science: University of Southern California.

Dew, Edward M. 1994. Trouble in Suriname, 1975-1993. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Diamond, Larry. 1999. Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America.
Boulder: Lynne Reinner Publishers.

________. 2002. “Thinking about Hybrid Regimes” Journal of Democracy 13(2):
21-35.

Diermeier, Daniel and Randy T. Stevenson. 1999. “Cabinet Survival and Competing
Risks” American Journal of Political Science 43(October): 1051-1068.

Esposito, John L. and James Piscatori. 1991. “Democratization and Islam.” Middle
East Journal 45(Summer).
135

Fearon, James and David D. Laitin. 1996. “Explaining Interethnic Cooperation.” The
American Political Science Review 90(December): 715-735.

Feng, Yi and Paul Zak. 1999. “The Determinants of Democratic Transitions.”
Journal Conflict Resolution 43(April): 162-177.

Ferejohn, John and Debra Satz. 1994. Rational Choice Theory and Folk Psychology.
Stanford: University Working Press.

Fiorina, Morris P. "When Stakes Are High, Rationality Kicks In," New York Times ,
February 26, 2000: A15-17.

Gates, Scott and Brian D. Humes. 1997. Games, Information, and Politics: Applying
Game Theoretic Models to Political Science. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.

Gause, F. Gregory, III. 1995. “Regional Influences on Experiments in Political
Liberalization in the Arab World.” In Rex Brynen et al (eds.). Political
Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, Vol. 1: Theoretical
Perspectives. London: Lynne Rienner.

Ghabra, Shafiq. 1997. “Kuwait and the Dynamic of Socio-economic Change.”
Middle East Journal 15(Summer): 358-372.

Ghareeb, Edmund. 1986. “Domestic Politics and Development in Iraq” in Sources of
Domestic and Foreign Policy in Iraq, Z. Michael Szaz, ed. Washington,
D.C.: The American Foreign Policy Institute.

Greenwood, Scott. 2003. “Jordan’s ‘New Bargain:’ The Political Economy of
Regime Security” Middle East Journal 57(Spring): 248-268.

Hashim, Ahmed. 2003. “Military Power and State Formation in Iraq” Middle East
Policy 10(4): 29-47.

Herb, Michael. 2002. “Emir and Parliaments in the Gulf.” Journal of Democracy
13(October): 41-47.

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

Hughes, Arnold. 1982. “The Limits of ‘Consociational Democracy’ in the Gambia.”
Civilizations 32(2): 65-92.
136

Huntington, Samuel P. 1965. “Political Development and Political Decay.” World
Politics 17(3): 386-430.

________.1991a. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth
Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

________. 1991b. “How Countries Democratize.” Political Science Quarterly
106(4): 579-616.

Ibn Khaldun. 1965. Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldun: Tahqiq` Ali `abd al-Wahid Wafi, 4
Vols. Cairo: Lajnat al-Bayan al-`Arabi.

Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. 1995a. “Civil Society and Prospects for Democratization in the
Arab World.” In Augustus Richard Norton (ed.). Civil Society in the Middle
East. New York: E.J. Brill, 27-54.

________. 1995b. “Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World: an
Overview.” In Rex Brynen et al (eds.). Political Liberalization and
Democratization in the Arab World, Vol. 1: Theoretical Perspectives.
London: Lynne Rienner.

________. 2003. “Reviving Middle Eastern Liberalism.” Journal of Democracy
14(4): 5-10.

Ismael, Tareq Y. and Jacqueline S. Ismael. 2004. The Iraqi Predicament: People in
the Quagmire of Power Politics. London: Pluto Press.

Jabbra, Joseph G. and Nancy W. Jabbra. 2001. “Consociationalism in Lebanon: a
Flawed System of Governance” Perspectives on Global Development and
Technology 17(2): 71-90.

al-Jabri, Muhammad Abid. 1971. Al-Asabiya wal-Dawla [Solidarity and the State].
Dar al-Bayda, Morocco: Dar al-Thaqafa.

________. 1993. “‘Ishkaliyyat al-dimuqratiyya wa’l-mujtama al-madani
fi’l-watan al-arabi,’” [Problems of Democracy and Civil Society in the Arab
World]. al-Mustaqbal al-arabi. Beirut, Lebanon.

Jordan University. Isstitla’ lil-Ra’i Hawl al-Alaqa al-Urduniya al Filastiniya
[Opinion Survey Regarding the Jordanian-Palestinian Relationship] (Markaz
al-Dirasat al Stratijiya, al Jamia’a al Urdiniya [Center for Strategic Studies,
Jordan University], Amman, February 1995)

137
Karadaghi, Kamran. 2002. “Minimizing Ethnic Tensions” in How to Build a New
Iraq After Saddam, Patrick Clawson, ed. Washington, D.C.: The Washington
Institute for Near East Policy.

Kedourie, Ellie. 1994. Democracy and Arab Political Culture. London: Frank Cass.

Ketene, Orhan. 2004. “Rethinking Iraq: Sectarian Identities—The Turkmen.” Middle
East Institute. www.mideasti.org/articles/doc194.html.

Khadduri, Majid. 1960. Independent Iraq: 1932-1958. A Study in Iraqi Politics, 2
nd

Ed. London: Oxford University Press.

Al-Khazendar, Sami. 1997. Jordan and the Palestine Question: the Role of Islamic
and Left Forces in Foreign Policy-Making. Berkshire, UK: Garnet
Publishing.

King, Gary, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry:
Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.

Kugler, Jack and Yi Feng. 1999. “Explaining and Modeling Democratic
Transitions” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 43(April): 139-146.

Kuwait Times, July 22, 1999.

Layne, Linda L. 1994. Home and Homeland: The Dialogics of Tribal and National
Identities in Jordan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Lehmbruch, Gerhard. 1993. “Consociational Democracy and Corporatism in
Swizterland.” Publius 23(Spring): 43-60.

Lewis, Bernard. 1996. “Islam and Liberal Democracy: A Historical Overview.”
Journal of Democracy 7(April): 53-63.

Lijphart, Arend. 1968a. the Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in
the Netherlands. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

________. 1968b. “Typologies of Democratic Systems.” Comparative Political
Studies 1 (April): 3-44.

________. 1969. “Consociational Democracy.” World Politics 21(January): 207-
225.

________. 1977. Democracy in Plural Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.
138

________. 1996. “The Puzzle of Indian Democracy: A Consociational
Interpretation.” American Political Science Review 19(June): 256-268.

________. 1999. Pattern of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in
Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Linz, Juan J. and Alfred Stepan, eds. 1978. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University.

________. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern
Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.

Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic
Development and Political Legitimacy” American Political Science Review
53(1): 69-105.

Luciani, Giacomo. 1995. “Resources, Revenues, and Authoritarianism in the Arab
World: Beyond the Rentier State?” In Rex Brynen et al (eds.). Political
Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, Vol. 1: Theoretical
Perspectives. London: Lynne Rienner.

Lucas, Russell E. 2003. “Deliberalization in Jordan.” Journal of Democracy 14
(January):139-144

Lukitz, Liora. 1995. Iraq: the Search for National Identity. London: Frank Cass.

Lupia, Arthur and Kaare Strom. 1995. “Coalition Termination and the Strategic
Timing of Parliamentary Elections” American Political Science Review 89:
648-69.

Lustick, Ian S. 1979. “Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism
Versus Control.” World Politics 31(April): 325-344.

________. 1997. “Lijphart, Lakatos, and Consiciationalism.” World Politics
50(October): 88-117.

Lynch, Marc. 1999. State Interests and Public Spheres: The International Politics of
Jordan Identity. New York: Columbia University Press.

Massad, Joseph. 2001. Colonial Effects: the Making of National Identity in Jordan.
New York: Columbia University Press.

139
Massis, Maher J. 1998. “Jordan: A Study of Attitudes Toward Democratic Changes.”
Arab Studies Quarterly 20(3): 37-63.

Meir, Peter. 1994. “The Correlates of Consensus Democracy and the Puzzle of Dutch
Politics.” West European Politics 17(October): 97-123.

Mideast Mirror, July 17, 1999

al-Mithaq al-Watani. 1990. The National Charter. Amman, Jordan.

Moore, Barrington, Jr. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord
and Peasant in the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press.

Muhafiza, Ali. 1973. Al-‘allaqat al-Urduniyah al-Britaniyah 1921-1957 [Jordanian-
British Relations 1921-1957] Beirut: Dar al-Nahar lil-Nashir.
________. 1990. Al-fikr al-siyasi fi al-urdun. [Political Thought in Jordan] Amman:
Markaz al-Kutb al-Urduni.

Mufti, Malik. 1999. “Elite Bargains and the Onset of Political Liberalization in
Jordan” Comparative Political Studies 32(February): 100-129.

Munck, Gerardo L. 2001. “The Regime Question: Theory building in Democracy
Studies” World Politics 54(October): 119-144

Musa, Suleiman. 1989. Ta‘sis al-Imarah al-Urduniyah, 3
rd
ed. [Establishment of the
Jordanian Emirate] Amman, Jordan: Maktabat al Muhtasib

________. 1996. Tarikh al-Urdun Fi al-Qarn al-Ishrin, 1958-95 [Jordan’s
History in the Twentieth Century], vol. 2. Amman: Maktabet al-Muhtasib.

al-Naqeeb, Khaldoun Hassan. 1990. Society and State in the Gulf and Arab
Peninsula: a Different Perspective. London: Routledge.

________. 1991. al-Dawla al-tasallutiyya fi’l-Mashriq al-arabi al-mu’asir: Dirasa
bina’iyya muqarina. [The Authoritarian State in the Contemporary Eastern
Arab World] Beirut.

Naqrash, Abdullah. 1992. Al-Tajribah al-Hizbiyyah fi al-Urdn. [The Jordanian
Experience with Political Parties] Amman, Jordan: Manshurat Lajnat Tarikh
al-Urdun.

________. 1995a. “Al-mawqif al-siyasi al-rasmi al-urduni min azmat al-
khalij al-arabi.” [The Official Jordanian Political Position In The Arab Gulf
140
Crisis] Dirasat 21a (4): 319-349.

________. 1995b. “Athar al-Tarkib al-Sukkani fi al-Urdun ala al-Tawajjuh
al- Dimuqrati.” [Impact of Jordan’s Demographic Structure on Democratization].
Dirasat, 22A: 1497-1540.

Norton, Augustus Richard (ed.) 1995. Civil Society in the Middle East. New York:
E.J. Brill.
O’Donnell, Guillermo, Philippe C. Schmitter.1986. Transitions from Authoritarian
Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University.

O’Donnell, Guillermo, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead. 1986.
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Politics. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University.

Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic
Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Przeworski, Adam, Micheal Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi.
1996." What Makes Democracies Endure?" Journal of Democracy 7 (1):39-55.

Przeworski, Adam, Micheal Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi.
2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the
World, 1950-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Przeworski, Adam and Henry Teune. 1970. The Logic of Comparative Social
Inquiry. New York: Wiley and Sons

Qanun Idarat al-Dawla al-Iraqiya Lil-Marhala al-Intiqaliya. 2004. [Iraqi Transitional
Administrative Law].

Rabi, Uzi. 2000. “The Kuwaiti Royal Family in the Post-Liberation Period:
Reinstitutionalizing the ‘First Among Equals’ System in Kuwait.” In Middle
East Monarchies ed. Joseph Kostiner. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

Renteln, Alison Dundes. 1990. International Human Rights: Universalism versus
Relativism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Riker, William 1962. The Theory of Political Coalitions. New Haven: Yale
University Press.

141
Rosenthal, Franz. 1958. Ibn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, translated from Arabic.

Rothchild, Donald. 1986. “Hegemonial Exchange: an Alternative Model for
Managing Conflict in Middle Africa.” In Dennis L. Thompson and Don
Ronen (eds.) Ethnicity, Politics, and Development. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.

Rui J.P ;de Figueiredo, Jr., and Barry Weingast. 1999. “The Rationality of Fear:
Political Opportunism and Ethnic Conflict.” In Civil Wars, Insecurity, and
Intervention ed. Barbara F. Walter and Jack Snyder. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.

Rustow, Dankwart. 1970. “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model”
Comparative Politics 2(April): 337-363.

Ryan, Curtis R. 2002. Jordan in Transition. London: Lynne Rienner.

Salamé, Ghassan (ed.). 1994. Democracy without Democrats? The Renewal of
Politics in the Muslim World. New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers.

Salibi, Kamal S. 1993. A Modern History of Jordan. London: I.B. Tauris.

Salloukh, Bassel F. 1996. “State Strength, Permeability, and Foreign Policy
Behavior: Jordan in Theoretical Perspective.” Arab Studies Quarterly
18(Spring): 39-65.

Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York:
Harper and Brothers.

Simons, Geoff. 2004. Iraq: From Sumer to Post-Saddam, 3
rd
Ed. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.

Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolution: a Comparative Analysis of
France, Russia, and China. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sluglett, Peter and Marion Farouk-Sluglett. 1993. “Sunnis and Shi‘is Revisited:
Sectarianism and Ethnicity in Authoritarian Iraq” in Iraq: Power and Society,
Derek Hopwood, Habib Ishow, and Thomas Koszinowski, eds. Reading, UK:
Ithaca Press.
Stansfield, Gareth R.V. 2003. Iraqi Kurdistan: Political Development and Emergent
Democracy. London: Routledge Curzon.

142
Susser, Asher. 1994. On Both Banks of the Jordan: a Political Biography of Wasfi
al-Tal. London: Cass.

Swaminathan, Siddharth. 1999. “Time, Power, and Democratic Transitions.” Journal
of Conflict Resolution 43(April): 178-191.

Tahboub, Nasir Mahmoud. 1994. Siyasa al-kharajiyya al-urduniyya wa al-bahath an
al-salam. [Jordanian foreign policy and the search for peace] Amman.

Tétreault, Mary Ann. 2000. Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in
Contemporary Kuwait. New York: Columbia University Press.

Thompson, Eric Vincent. 1999. Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Islam: Jordanian
and Arab States. Ph.D. Diss. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.

Vandenberg, Andrew. 2000. Citizenship and Democracy in a Global Era. New
York: St. Martin’s Press.

Warwick, Paul. 1992. “Economic Trends and Government Survival in West
European Parliamentary Democracies.” American Political Science Review
86(December): 875-887.

Wiktorowicz, Quintan. 1999. “The Limits of Democracy in the Middle East: The
Case of Jordan.” Middle East Journal 53(Autumn): 59-74.

Wimmer, Andreas. 2003. “Democracy and Ethno-religious Conflict in Iraq.”
Survival 45(4): 111-134.

Yin, Robert K. 1989. Case Study Research: Design and Methods, revised ed.
Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

Zakaria, Haji Ahmad. 1989. “Malaysia: Quasi Democracy in a Divided Society.” In
Democracy in Developing Countries: Asia, ed. Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz,
and Seymour Martin Lipset. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.

Zielinski, Jakub. 1995. “The Polish transition to democracy: a game-theoretic
approach” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 36: 135-58.

________.1999. “Transitions from Authoritarian Rule and the Problem of Violence”
Journal of Conflict Resolution 43(April): 213-228.

Zolberg, Aristide R. 1977. “Splitting the Difference: Federalization Without
Federalism is Belgium.” In Ethnic Conflict in the Western World, ed. Milton
J. Esman. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Photography in movement: the right to photograph, ethics in imaging, and the art of making social change

PDF

The impact of 9/11 on the judicial treatment of Middle Eastern asylum applicants in the U.S. courts

PDF

Greening law: a socio-legal analysis of environmental human rights in India

PDF

Crimes of honor: an international human rights perspective on violence against women in South Asia

PDF

Conflict mediation: a comparative study of the effects that mediators have on dyadic conflicts

PDF

The elephant and the mouse that roared: the prospects of international policy and local authority in the case of the convention on international species (CITES)

PDF

Global governance of sport in a digital age: the political economy of sport integrity regulation

PDF

An argument for the criminal hoax

PDF

In pursuit of liberty: the civic liberalism of Frederick Douglass

PDF

Environmental policy reforms in a global and regional world: mimetic, diffusive, and coercive policy adoptions in France and Korea

PDF

Partisan media bias vs. structural media bias: which one dominates in a polarized environment?

PDF

(In)visible Asian American women: an analysis of how stereotypes in political cartoons reveal symbolic annihilation

PDF

Compliance and compromise: the jurisprudence of gender pay equity

PDF

Gagged: the politics of reproduction and U.S. foreign aid, 1961-2009

PDF

The politics of transformation: mass media and the Northern Ireland peace process

PDF

The resiliency of Arab authoritarianism and the Arab-Israeli conflict: the United States' role in the cases of Egypt and Jordan

PDF

A two-level analysis of foreign policy decision making: an empirical investigation of the case of China-Taiwan

PDF

Pathways of local economic development: tales of cities in the United States and South Korea

PDF

International politics and domestic institutional change: the rise of executive war-making autonomy in the United States

PDF

Defending Rawls's Law of Peoples against cosmopolitan critiques

Asset Metadata

Creator Eyadat, Zaid (author)

Core Title An alternative model of transition in the Middle East: bounded consociotionalism

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Political Science

Publication Date 08/07/2009

Defense Date 09/07/2004

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag comparative politics,Jordan,Middle East,OAI-PMH Harvest

Place Name Iraq (countries), Jordan (countries), Kuwait (countries)

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Dekmejian, Hrair Richard (committee chair), Lewis, Jack (committee member), Renteln, Alison Dundes (committee member)

Creator Email dekmejia@usc.edu,zeyadat2@yahoo.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2520

Unique identifier UC11286708

Identifier etd-EyadatZaid.pdf (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c3-424666 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2520 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-EyadatZaid-0.pdf

Dmrecord 424666

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Eyadat, Zaid

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California