Regimes and Political Institutions in the Arab World

本论文项目探讨了为什么在几个阿拉伯国家的专制政权放弃决策权，保守的国家机构有着截然不同的偏好比自己的。此外，该项目还试图解释为什么有些政权实行这种权力分享，而另一些政权则不实行。研究人员认为，这种定义松散的“授权”形式是阿拉伯独裁者用来系统地压制、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放弃权力给这些保守的代理人，该项目还试图确定这种类型的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，采取这种战略，而其他政权，如叙利亚、利比亚、苏丹和萨达姆·侯赛因领导下的伊拉克，则不采取这种战略。通过纳入对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，将在多个时间点对埃及和叙利亚两个国家进行深入研究，将加强该项目的解释性贡献。研究人员选择叙利亚作为正在讨论的现象的“负面”案例，尽管它在许多重要方面与“积极”案例埃及相似。长期以来，专门研究比较政治学的政治学家一直对中东地区持续存在的威权主义以及该地区国家未能向民主政府过渡感到困惑。更广泛的影响：该项目将推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军事和军事上与这些政权打交道的西方和其他国家产生深远的政策影响。阿拉伯独裁者是世界上最长寿的独裁者之一，统治政权可以存活30年，40年或更长时间。这个研究项目提供了一个部分的答案，这一现象的基础上越来越多的文献专制制度主义，自20世纪90年代以来出现在比较政治。

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.