Authoritarian Monarchies as an Epistemic Community Diffusion, Repression, and Survival during the Arab Spring

Sean L. Yom

《Taiwan Journal of Democracy》 10卷1期 (2014/07) Pp. 43-62

並列摘要

During the Arab Spring, revolutionary insurrections targeted republican dictatorships while largely bypassing the eight ruling monarchies. Popular domestic explanations for such royal exceptionalism, such as cultural legitimacy and economic wealth, not only lack analytic validity but also ignore the most pertinent reason for monarchical persistence-more effective strategies of opposition management. Presidential regimes reacted against protests with mass coercion, which radicalized opposition and mobilized further resistance, while most ruling kingships refrained from systematic violence and neutralized dissent through nonrepressive means, such as co-optation. What accounts for such striking policy convergence? This essay suggests an innovative answer: the royal leaderships atop the Arab monarchical regimes constitute an epistemic community, one predicated on not just a collective perception of threat from regional democratization, but also shared normative beliefs regarding their historical rarity and dynastic superiority. Under this framework, dense communal ties facilitated the diffusion of noncoercive strategies of opposition management, and helped enshrine promises of mutual security within existing institutions such as the Gulf Cooperation Council. Based upon a combination of historical analysis and fieldwork, this essay argues that such transnational circulation of ideas and strategies did not merely aim to prevent democracy, but specifically promoted a special subtype of authoritarianism-ruling monarchism-as a viable type of political order.

並列關鍵字

Middle East ； Arab Spring ； authoritarianism ； democracy ； monarchies ； diffusion ； repression

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