Regimes and Political Institutions in the Arab World

本论文项目探讨了为什么几个阿拉伯国家的独裁政权将决策权交给保守的国家机构，这些机构的偏好与他们自己的截然不同。此外，该项目试图解释为什么一些政权参与这种类型的权力分享，而另一些则没有。研究人员认为，这种松散定义的“授权”形式是阿拉伯独裁者用来系统地中和（在某些情况下诋毁）他们基于宗教的反对派的主要工具。除了建立一个理论来解释为什么独裁者会把权力交给这些保守派代理人之外，该项目还试图确定这种政治权力分享发生的条件。研究人员解释了为什么一些中东政权，如埃及、摩洛哥、阿尔及利亚、科威特和约旦的政权采取了这种战略，而另一些政权，如萨达姆·侯赛因统治下的叙利亚、利比亚、苏丹和伊拉克的政权却没有采取这种战略。该项目的解释性贡献将通过结合对18个阿拉伯国家的跨国、跨时间统计研究以及纵向比较维度来增强，其中埃及和叙利亚两个国家将在多个时间点进行深入研究。研究人员选择叙利亚作为正在讨论的这种现象的“反面”案例，尽管它在许多重要方面与“正面”案例埃及相似。长期以来，研究比较政治学的政治学家一直对中东地区威权主义的持续存在以及该地区国家向民主政府过渡的失败感到困惑。更广泛的影响：这个项目将促进我们对阿拉伯世界独裁政权如何运作的集体理解，对目前生活在独裁政府阴影下的2.8亿阿拉伯人以及在外交和军事上与这些政权打交道的西方和其他国家具有深远的政策影响。阿拉伯独裁者是世界上最长寿的独裁者之一，他们的统治政权可以存活30年、40年甚至更长时间。本研究项目为这一现象提供了部分答案，该现象建立在20世纪90年代以来比较政治学中出现的越来越多的专制制度主义文献的基础上。

This dissertation project examines why authoritarian regimes in several Arab countries relinquish policymaking authority to conservative state institutions with vastly different preferences than their own. Further, the project seeks to explain why some regimes engage in this type of powersharing and others do not. The researchers argue that this loosely defined form of `delegation' is a primary tool used by Arab authoritarians to systematically neutralize, and in some cases discredit, their religious-based opposition. In addition to building a theory that explains why autocrats relinquish power to these conservative agents, the project also seeks to identify the conditions under which this type of political powersharing occurs. The researchers explain why some Middle Eastern regimes, like the regimes in Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Kuwait, and Jordan, engage in such a strategy and others, like the regimes in Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, do not. The project's explanatory contribution will be enhanced through the incorporation of both a cross-national, cross-time statistical study of 18 Arab states as well as a longitudinal comparative dimension where two countries, Egypt and Syria, will be examined in-depth at multiple points over time. The researchers have selected Syria as a "negative" case of the phenomenon under discussion, though it is similar to the "positive" case, Egypt, in a number of significant ways. Political scientists specializing in comparative politics have long been puzzled by the persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle East as well as the failure of countries in the region to make the transition to democratic government. Broader impact: This project will forward our collective understanding of how authoritarian regimes in the Arab world operate with profound policy implications for the 280 million Arabs currently living in the shadow of authoritarian government as well as for the Western and other nations that deal with these regimes both diplomatically and militarily. Arab autocrats are among the most long-lived in the world with ruling regimes surviving for thirty, forty years or more. This research project provides a partial answer for this phenomenon building on a growing literature on authoritarian institutionalism that has emerged in comparative politics since the 1990s.