Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring

316 Pages·2016·2.93 MB·English

by  Holger Albrecht

Armies and Insurgencies
in the Arab Spring
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ARMIES AND INSURGENCIES
IN THE ARAB SPRING
Edited by
Holger Albrecht, Aurel Croissant,
and Fred H. Lawson
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2016 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used
for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this
book may be reproduced in any form by any means without
written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-8122-4854-8
CONTENTS
Introduction: Military Engagement in Mobilizing Societies:
The Research Agenda 1
Holger Albrecht, Aurel Croissant, and Fred H. Lawson
PART I. MILITARY POLITICS AND REGIME DYNAMICS
Chapter 1. Military Relations in Comparative Perspective 7
David Pion-Berlin
Chapter 2. Officers and Regimes: The Historical Origins
of Political-Military Relations in Middle Eastern Republics 34
Kevin Koehler
Chapter 3. Armed Forces, Internal Security Services, and Popular
Contention in the Middle East and North Africa 54
Fred H. Lawson
Chapter 4. A Shifting Role of the Military in Arab Politics?
Cross-Regional Perspectives and Implications for the Future
of Civil-Military Relations in the Region 71
Robert Springborg
PART II. MILITARY ENGAGEMENT IN THE ARAB UPRISINGS
Chapter 5. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Comparing Military
(Non-)Cooperation During Authoritarian Regime Crises
in the Arab World and Asia 97
Aurel Croissant and Tobias Selge
vi Contents
Chapter 6. Cain and Abel in the Land of Sheba: Elite Conflict
and the Military in Yemen 125
Holger Albrecht
Chapter 7. Bahrain’s “Cohesive” Military and Regime Stability
amid Unrest 145
Dorothy Ohl
Chapter 8. The Syrian Military and the 2011 Uprising 168
Philippe Droz-Vincent
PART III. TRAJECTORIES OF POLITICAL-MILITARY RELATIONS:
BEYOND THE ARAB SPRING
Chapter 9. Egypt: From Military Reform to Military Sanctuarization 185
Chérine Chams El-Dine
Chapter 10. The Tunisian Military and Democratic Control
of the Armed Forces 203
Risa A. Brooks
Chapter 11. Building an Army to Build the State?
The Challenge of Building Security Institutions
in Post-Qaddafi Libya 225
Virginie Collombier
Chapter 12. Military Prestige, Defense-Industrial Production,
and the Rise of Gulf Military Activism 241
Shana Marshall
References 265
List of Contributors 293
Index 297
Armies and Insurgencies
in the Arab Spring
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INTRODUCTION
Military Engagement in Mobilizing Societies:
The Research Agenda
Holger Albrecht, Aurel Croissant, and Fred H. Lawson
Politics in any society involves the management of coercive power. Therefore,
the interactions between the armed forces and other actors, organizations,
and institutions of the political system have important consequences for the
stability and survival of all forms of political regimes (Croissant and Kuehn
2015). In authoritarian regimes, the “civil-military problematique” (Feaver
1996) is particularly pertinent: autocracies tend to maintain a much larger
coercive apparatus than democracies do, of which the military is the largest
and most powerful. While most dictators rely on the police and specialized
internal security agencies for everyday repression, the military is the final
guarantor of regime security against vertical threats that arise from the cit-
izenry (Svolik 2012). However, a strong military is a double-edged sword
for authoritarian leaders. A more powerful military is more effective in
repressing political conflicts between the ruling elite and the masses but at the
same time may create threats to regime survival that emerge from within the
regime coalition, as is demonstrated by the high frequency of coups in auto-
cratic regimes (Frantz and Ezrow 2011; Croissant 2013a). Moreover, a strong
military is in a better position to demand substantial political and economic
concessions in exchange for its role in maintaining the regime (Acemoglu
and Robinson 2006:219; Bhave and Kingston 2010).
Therefore, no authoritarian government can hold on to the reins of
power without the expressed consent of military leaders. This is especially