“Protection Rackets” support Arab autocratic regimes

Four years after the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa, the Arab Spring seems to be fizzling out. With few exceptions the revolutions have failed and several countries are locked in violent conflicts.

The trajectories of change vary from one country in the region to another: In Egypt the military has reinstated itself in power, and crackdowns on both the Muslim Brotherhood and secular activists are frequent. Revolts in Libya, Syria and Yemen have turned into violent conflicts, which have de facto dissolved the states. Tunisia stands out as the only (partial) democratic success.

A common denominator in the countries affected by The Arab Spring in 2011 is so-called ‘protection rackets’, named by Daniel Brumberg, associate professor in democracy and governance at Georgetown University. He was the key speaker at the seminar ‘The Fate of the Arab Uprisings’ held at DIIS on 6 February 2015.

Autocratism as the only protector
Brumberg explains that protection rackets are deeply-rooted in the mechanics of authoritarian governance: By protecting different political and religious groups and playing them off against each other, the regime can remain the one and only protector, especially for the middle class. This way, revolutionary groups were left in a dilemma in the countries they had overturned in 2011:

- Change would require that those who had the protection of the state could get guarantees that the transition to democracy would not lead to their political or physical demise. In many cases they did not get these guarantees, and there was no incentive for change, says Daniel Brumberg.

He argues that the developments leading to the old regimes regaining power cannot be attributed to any particular economic, social or cultural dimension.

- A combination of factors created systems of authoritarianism even more important than the state. These systems of governance have reasserted themselves in an even worse form than we could ever imagine. Egypt, for instance, is far more autocratic now than it was during Mubarak.

Tunisia to work out new protection racket
The protection racket systems have made change even more difficult, because they are not only based on economic and social incentives to so-called protected groups, but also on manipulating the fears of the most vulnerable minority groups. Brumberg argues that protection racket politics in the Middle East and North Africa is organized around the manipulation, magnification and exploitation of divides within the state.

- In Egypt the secular-islamist divide is profound, and the Mubarak regime had integrated the fears of the two groups towards one another into the mechanics of both the party system and the constitution. The saviour was the military: It provided the protection racket and is deeply embedded in the economy and all institutions of the state, Brumberg says.

Even though the secular-islamist divide is also fundamental in Tunisia, the two groups are cooperating, which has ensured a peaceful transition to democracy after the rule of ousted autocrat Ben Ali.

- The Tunisian story is very different, in part because the security apparatus was basically organized around the protection of the regime, and the military was not involved in the economy or politics. The result was that the parties had to work out a whole new protection racket, and that is why we are seeing a certain level of consensus in Tunisia, Brumberg argues.

- Wherever these protection racket schemes exist, those who fear they have most to lose by competitive political game should get some guarantees during the negotiating process. If you do not make some concessions and structure the rules, those who hold the guns have every incentive to stop the transition in its tracks. Any pacted democracy will – at least in its initial stages – be somewhat compromised, he says.