Magda Borgarelli

Structured Response #1

One might have thought of many reasons as to why the MENA region had been so resistant to democratic reform before the Arab Revolts.  However, as the events in the Middle East and North Africa unfolded in 2011, some of them became invalid.  Take Bellin’s argument that the region’s civil society is too weak to be a champion for democratic change.  Can this assertion still stand after the social mobilization we witnessed in Egypt?  People were able to organize and protest against a government which they believed did not hold their best interest in mind.  They voiced their discontent in the streets and pushed president Mubarak out of power.  This demonstrates the fact that civil society in Egypt was not that fragile after all, otherwise it wouldn’t have accomplished what it did.  Same goes for Tunisia.  The democratic transition that occurred there wouldn’t have been possible if not for the will of its citizens to change the status quo.  However, though some of the reasons offered to why so much resistance to democracy was encountered in the MENA region were discredited during the Arab Spring, others became more evident instead.  Bellin, for example, would have justified the revolts in both Egypt and Tunisia by making the argument that they took place because of the failure of the coercive apparatus to provide for the economic and social need of its citizens.  In fact, unemployment was becoming widespread in Egypt as well as in Tunisia before the rebellions took place, therefore supporting Bellin’s assertion.  The government in the MENA region is capable of exerting almost an absolute control over its citizens as long as it takes on the responsibility to provide for them from “cradle to grave” as well.  However, as soon as it ceases to do so, we see the drive for democratic change increasing, like during the Arab Revolts in 2011, which indicates that authoritarian regimes’ fiscal health does play an important part in whether of not a country will embrace democratic reform.  Despite Bellin’s argument about the weakness of civil society in the MENA region, I do agree with her when she claims that what dictates why a certain country might be more prone to a democratic transition greatly relies on the overall “robustness of the coercive apparatus” (Bellin 2005:  27).  As we observed the general unrest in the MENA region these past two years, it could be easily noted that rebellions took place when the governments began to deteriorate and gave their citizens doubts about their efficacy.