Who Will Replace Today’s Middle Eastern Rulers?


Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Will the almost spontaneous, largely leaderless, Middle East uprisings now overtaking entrenched autocracies lead to democracy? Or will one group of autocrats simply replace another, once the smoke has cleared and the protesters return to their homes?

The jury is still out on this. But past revolutions in these countries don’t provide us with much hope. With a few exceptions, such as traditionalist Saudi Arabia, almost all of these states have previously experienced revolts and coups in the name of democracy.

Kings were sent packing in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia between the 1950s and 1970s, replaced by rulers promising Economic and political reforms. Revolutionaries gained control in Algeria and Syria.

Slowly but surely, though, the new governments became as autocratic and despotic as their predecessors. Indeed, in places like Iran and Iraq, they proved to be worse.

In the two countries where rulers have already been evicted this year, politics remains in flux. Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak may be gone, but no one knows yet what political system will emerge. In both states, the army, Islamists, and remnants of the old nomenklatura, along with pro-democracy groups, are vying for control.

Left-wing optimists hope “people’s power” will result in genuine democratic political systems, with constitutional safeguards and the rule of law. Conservatives, on the other hand, worry that anarchy will follow.

However, there is a school of political theory that would consider both predictions wrong. Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) and Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), two Italian social scientists, are its main representatives.

Both Mosca and Pareto, who were classical elite theorists, saw rule by elite groups as inevitable (even in democratic societies). Mosca argued that in every society an organized minority would rule over an unorganized majority. Some people always stood out from the masses because of their physical, material, intellectual, or moral qualities. They always sought to legitimize their power by appealing to an abstract principle, be it religious, democratic, or revolutionary.

Pareto saw political power in terms of a “circulation of elite groups.”  Elites come to power because of their superior internal organization, as opposed to the disorganization of the general mass of the population.

While both of them saw the public as being controlled through manipulation and propaganda, Pareto attempted to resolve the problem of political change by asserting that elites, after they achieve power, have a limited life-span. They grow decadent, decay, lose their vigour and, in turn, come to be replaced by other elite groups — hence the idea of circulating elites. This does seem to have been the case in the decay and collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe.

But even if Mosca and Pareto are correct, and one ruling class replaces another, the composition and ideology of those who assume power make all the difference in the world. Let’s hope that the political forces that eventually come out on top in the Middle East are more like those that brought Nelson Mandela to power in South Africa than the ones who gave us Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.