It is in some ways ironic that Anwar al-Sadat faced fewer identity and state consolidation constraints, enjoyed American support, confronted less intense opposition challenges and is internationally seen as the transformer of Middle Eastern politics despite his assassination. Meanwhile, Hafiz al-Asad overcame Syria’s identity and regional issues while constructing a consolidated state, only to be forced to balance his system against regime-threatening domestic opposition, meddling neighbors, and a lack of U.S. support (and even surviving a heart attack in 1983). Nevertheless, Asad continues to be portrayed as the archetypical authoritarian leader in a region dominated by such governance.
The lack of a consolidated state and regional cleavages left Arab nationalism as the only plausible identity that could bind and organize Syria’s fractious political arena. Asad not only built ruling pillars on which to stabilize his regime but also created politicized, and somewhat autonomous, institutions. Rather than depoliticizing the political arrangements he inherited as Sadat did, Asad consciously politicized institutional bases of support into the regime – namely the B`ath and the military/security services. The B`ath and the military apparatus were essential to regime stability because they offered Asad a possible solution for overcoming Syria’s sectarian heterogeneity.
Conversely, no such centralizing institutions were needed in Egypt, where state authority and penetration has already been established. Given Egypt’s ready-made national identity and consolidated state, Sadat could pursue the path initiated after the 1967 war. In so doing, he uprooted any institutional obstacles to the Egyptian presidency as he reconfigured the institutional order. Yet, Sadat never replaced or inserted similarly politicized capabilities in the newly formed institutions established after reorganizing the military and dismantling the ASU. Mubarak inherited Egypt’s depoliticized institutional arrangements and continued along the path traced by Sadat.
The multiple situational variables that each leader confronted after taking power placed constraints on Asad and created opportunities for Sadat. Just as Anwar al-Sadat could easily break away to pursue his opportunities, Asad had to make something out of what was possible. Paradoxically, although the two leaders were pulled in different directions regarding institution formation strategies, the leaders seemed somewhat one-dimensional in their ruling styles. Sadat seemed to have a natural inclination to depoliticize every institution he could, so as to personally dominate the political system. Without such options at his disposal, Asad politicized each of the institutional pillars of state for the sake of regime stability. Neither of these systems lends themselves to an easy trajectory for more balanced political development.
This points to a tentative conclusion. While institutions can lose their influence at certain times, once they have achieved a certain degree of strength or politicization, their potential to participate in politics remains, unless they are completely subordinated to the president’s centralization of power. If institutions are created but never endowed with political potency, then their ability to organize politically or grow stronger on their own is limited. Hence, the B`ath party and military/security services apparatus can be described as politicized institutions and the NDP and Egyptian military as depoliticized institutions. If given a choice between ruling a politicized or depoliticized institutional order, the latter shows a higher capacity for system adaptation.
The differences in Egypt and Syria’s contemporary capacity to adapt is linked to the character of each system’s institutional arena. Syria is, and has been since 1970, more of an institutionally oligarchic system where competing institutions share power and protect their own interests. This type of political system requires a president to be more actively involved in reaching governing compromises and consensus. It also constrains the ability of the president to dramatically break away from the system’s existing course. Egypt, on the other hand, is an executive-heavy political system where depoliticized institutions do not maintain the ability to act independently outside the president’s purview. While advisors that comprise the Egyptian president’s small kitchen cabinet no doubt constitute a type of informal oligarchy, no institutional oligarchy exists in the system. As a consequence, institutional constraints are not invasive as the president works on more narrow lines in formulating ruling consensus. The Egyptian president is not constrained by leading representatives of what are thought to be the institutions of state. Syria’s president is constrained by such institutions. Egypt is an oligarchy of individuals in comparison to
Syria’s oligarchy of institutions. As I will argue in the next chapter, politics based on individuals is easier to alter than institutional group politics. Hence, Egypt’s greater propensity to incorporate and shed elites and non-elites into and out of the political arena as well as its higher capacity for system adaptation.
Different strategies of institution formation led to a divergence in the character of institutional politics that developed in Egypt and Syria. The politicized institutions that emerged in Syria were capable of political participation outside the institution of the presidency while Egypt’s depoliticized institutions prove incapable of defending themselves, much less independently participating in politics beyond the presidency. Syria’s institutions became repositories of power while Egyptian institutions became servants of presidential power. This, in turn, produced different styles of co-optation of elites and non-elites, which is a fundamental aspect that influences an authoritarian regime’s capacity to adapt. The next chapter examines the varying character of elite co-optation in light of the differences in Egypt and Syria’s institutional types.
Chapter Three
Coalition Change and Management in Varying Authoritarian Systems: Institutions and Elite Co-optation