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Why Did the Cairene Cross the Road?To help Americans understand how democracy works in the Middle East.

By Steven A. CookPosted Tuesday, July 17, 2007, at 12:55 PM ET

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In his Cairo "Diary," Lee Smith wrote about hanging out with actor Omar Sharif. Smith also wrote about Arabic, Naguib Mahfouz, and Middle Eastern pop music. In 2005, Steven A. Cook examined the state of democracy in the Middle East in light of Egyptian street protests.

Second, and in many ways more important, is the way in which informal institutions can limit what is possible in the political arena. Think about the question of presidential succession in Egypt, where historically a base of support within the military has been an informal requirement of the presidency. Egypt's various constitutions have all specified in detail the procedures for selecting a new president should the incumbent retire, resign, become incapacitated, or die. In practice, though, Egypt's heads of state have been selected through the military—the backbone and defender of Egypt's political order. When Anwar Sadat chose air force Gen. Mohamed Hosni Mubarak to be his vice president in 1976, the move was widely regarded as both Sadat's effort to further undermine his opponents among the cadre of officers who were involved in the 1952 coup and an acknowledgement that the commanders who took part in the 1973 war with Israel would become politically influential. Although constitutionally the speaker of the People's Assembly, rather than the vice president, is next in line to the presidency, there was never any question that Mubarak would succeed Sadat after the latter's assassination in October 1981. As the prospect of a leadership transition in Egypt becomes more urgent given Mubarak's age (he turned 79 in May), there is considerable speculation that his son Gamal will succeed him. Since the younger Mubarak never served in the armed forces, he will need strong ties to the military establishment to secure his position. Indeed, in keeping with the informal institutions that shape Egyptian politics, Gamal is reported to be cultivating connections to the senior command.

Or consider the case of Saudi Arabia, where informal institutions are at work in a somewhat different way. In Washington, the standard narrative often criticizes Riyadh for foot-dragging. The Saudis claim that they have been moving forward with once-unthinkable political and social change. Why the disconnect? Primarily because U.S. officials have very little insight into informal institutions and the effect they have on Saudi politics. King Abdallah is not a king in the absolutist Louis XIV sense. To be sure, Abdallah rules by decree, and he has the final word on all aspects of Saudi domestic and foreign policy, but informal institutions shape the process. Abdallah must engage in protracted consensus-building negotiations among members of the Saudi royal family, heed the concerns of major tribal leaders, and pay attention to the sensitivities of religious constituencies on policy issues of major importance. It's hard for outsiders—even those who live in Saudi Arabia—to see how this process works, because it is rooted in past practices around which certain norms and uncodified rules have developed. The unwritten exigency of consultation with the king's disparate, and at times implicitly hostile, constituencies tends to constrain Abdallah's policy options. Nevertheless, this is a tradeoff that Abdallah and other Saudi leaders are willing to make. According to Saudis, without this consultation, the cohesion and stability of the kingdom would be in jeopardy, raising the specter of a return to tribal conflict in the Arabian Peninsula. From this perspective, Saudi foot-dragging looks more like a measure of pragmatism.

When you think about how informal institutions shape politics, a much different picture of political change in the Middle East emerges. Suddenly, Washington's recipe for democracy promotion—whipping up some civil society, mixing in some economic reform, and adding elections, as well as a dash of external pressure—seems out of touch with reality. Even if Washington manages to build civil society in the Arab world and generate economic reform, the power of informal institutions will make the job of even the most ardent Middle East democracy-promoters more uncertain and difficult. All is not lost, however. Just as I now feel perfectly safe wandering into Cairo traffic, awareness of the unwritten rules and norms of politics should provide a more accurate reflection of politics in the Middle East and, as a result, a better understanding of how and when change will take place.

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Steven A. Cook is the Douglas Dillon fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey.

Illustration by Robert Neubecker.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

Here is the rub: there is always a balance between formal and informal, de jure and de facto. Usually in a conflict one side holds one kind of power, the other the other kind.

Take Jim Crow, in which de facto informal power was favoring segregation and the outsiders were trying to enforce de jure desegregation.

Do we want a 'realist policy' that says "blacks will get treated like servants" and does nothing about it? That is, in fact, the equivalent of what the author seems to be suggesting.

No, we find what de jure leverage we can and try to change the situation.

Similarly, there are conservative causes in which there is an attempt to find de facto or de jure leverage to encourage abstinence before marriage and lower abortion rates, or lower divorce rates, or responsible drinking practices.

Perhaps the only handle we have in the middle east is de jure, so that's what we try, despite de facto informal resistance. It's not naive, and its not futile. In fact, acting like laws matter is part of what makes them matter. Sometimes, pretending is the first step to being.

--BenK

(To reply, click here.)

I agree that it's very important to understand how these informal systems shape, and will continue to shape, the state of Middle Eastern Politics.

But lets just take a moment and remember that we didn't exactly heed to the letter of our own constitution when we first wrote it. I believe the first modern Egyptian Constitution was ratified in 1956. That's not exceptionally young, but I should hope that a century or so from now, we can look back at these Middle-eastern documents and agree that they are more closely adhered to than they are in 2007.

Our own system of government had a great deal of informality in its beginnings, and it took generations to form a more perfect union. Heck, there's still a good deal of informal political meandering in any western democracy, and there probably always will be. But what matters is that when we take something to the courts, we demand that they uphold the letter of the written law of the land, as Formal and lifeless as it may seem. This trend has only grown stronger in western nations as time has gone by (our current administrations constitutional origami notwithstanding).

We should expect all countries to be in a relatively constant process of critical reform aimed at strengthening the rule of law, and the equitable distribution of justice. This may not always play well in informal circles, but it is foundation of any nation's stability, and a core principle of modernity.

--jwschmidt

(To reply, click here.)

Following up on the article, here is an interesting question (I am Cairene): Does a consensus-building approach to running society have to be codified into a document in order to make it legitimate?

Traditional societies, almost all have window-dressing constitutions and laws, usually relying on the "unwritten" laws and informal institutions. But I claim that these unwritten laws (a la English law), are or could be as democratic as any other so long as it makes sense to the people who play by its rules and as long as it is fair.

I claim that both existed in Egyptian society since Mohammed Ali's time (1805) up until may be the 1950s/60s, when grotesque corruption started to creep in. Hence, I also claim that Egyptians, along with their Middle Eastern Arab and Muslim peers, are very prone to democratic forms of governance, though not necessarily in the same form as it is understood, practiced, and implemented in the West.

If GWB or any US government wishes to spread democracy in the ME, it has to be according to the Middle Eastern understanding, historical practice, and means of implementation. Clearly, the first two rely heavily on Islamic code. Is that a problem? For whom is it a problem? If it is a problem for the West, why should the West resist this form of informal democracy? If it chooses to do so, does it have any *right* to do so?

--BigSky

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(7/19)

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