Shia-centric State-Building and Sunni Rejection in Post-2003 Iraq

Both Shia-centric state building and Sunni rejection of the post-2003 order are the result of cumulative processes that have unfolded over the course of the twentieth century. These developments ranged from the homogenizing nation building propagated by successive Iraqi regimes to the rise of a sect-centric Shia opposition in exile. The sectarianization of Iraq was not inevitable, but regime change in 2003 accelerated the empowerment of new and preexisting sect-centric actors. The necessary will, vision, and political skill to avert the sectarianization of Iraq were absent among Iraqi and U.S. decisionmakers at the time. The failure of the occupation forces and the new political classes to construct a functioning state that could deliver basic services exacerbated the problem. Sunni opponents of the post-2003 order became as sect-centric as the system they once derided for its Shia-centricity. Sectarianization will continue to define Iraqi politics. The spread of the self-proclaimed Islamic State across much of Iraq in 2014 represents the most extreme form of Sunni rejection,while the state-sanctioned Hashd al-Shaabi, the term given to the mass mobilization of volunteers to repel the Islamic State, embodies the most serious defense of Shia-centric state building as of late 2015.

The Sectarianization of the Syrian War

Initially, the uprising in Syria was not fueled by sectarianism, but rather by unifying political and social grievances, largely stemming from the failed economic reforms of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Sectarian divisions that were established over five decades of dispersed, authoritarian rule and reinforced by a legacy of violence quickly changed the narrative of the conflict. The Syrian uprising’s transformation to civil war is a result of the Assads’ ruling practices, which embedded sectarianism in social relations. A system of dispersed, authoritarian rule allowed successive regimes to wield power through local intermediates to either co-opt or marginalize groups from all sectarian backgrounds according to political expediency. Political violence, which peaked in the 1980s, infused social relations with fear. The anticipation of sectarian violence in 2011—which the regime contributed to with active fearmongering—helped trigger sectarian reactions that unleashed cycles of further violence. Postconflict Syria is unlikely to be genuinely pluralistic, let alone democratic. Sectarian representation will likely substitute for genuine reform, facilitating the integration of militia leaderships into the postwar order.

Religious Sectarianism and Political Pragmatism

The Salafi movement in Egypt illustrates that the dynamics of sectarianism are fluid and sometimes contradictory. Over the last five years, the Salafi party, Hizb al-Nour, has taken a pragmatic, flexible approach to politics, but maintained its intransigent religious stances. While the party has made several political concessions and decisions that go against the Salafi doctrine, it considered them necessary to protect the “interest of the Da‘wa” and hold its position of influence among society—justifications that the Salafi Da‘wa, the religious organization behind Hizb al-Nour, has largely accepted despite some internal conflict. Arguably, in contrast to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb al-Nour does not behave like an Islamist party, at least in its current form; for Salafis, politics is just a means to an end. The party’s recent stances, especially during the military takeover in July 2013 and in its aftermath, can best be explained by analyzing Hizb al-Nour not as an Islamist party, but as the lobbying arm of a religious organization. The paradox of the party’s extreme political pragmatism and its rigidity and sectarianism at the doctrinal level seems sustainable and likely to remain.

Beyond Sectarianism in the Middle East?

The concept of sectarianism is often problematic because it leads to simplistic analysis and fails to take into account a range of other factors such as power politics in understanding conflict. The term itself carries derogatory connotations and is often used expansively to denote a range of in-group/out-group associations. Primordialist, Ethnonationalist and Instrumentalist explanations for sectarianism posit grand narratives that are often generalized and too deterministic. A useful lens, therefore, is Constructivist Realism that focuses on processes whereby particular identities, such as sect, become more or less salient. Constructivist Realism strikes the appropriate balance between structure and agency, acknowledging that actors make their own history but not in circumstances of their making.

The Political Economy of Sectarianism

Arab Gulf rulers face incentives to develop non-economic sources of legitimacy to maintain popular support while maximizing scarce resource revenues. By sowing communal distrust, highlighting threats, and emphasizing their ability to guarantee security, regimes can reinforce domestic backing and dampen pressure for reform more cheaply than by distributing welfare benefits. Survey data from four Gulf states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar) demonstrate that governments can effectively cow populations into political inaction even as the economic benefits citizens receive are dwindling. Gulf regimes establish electoral and legislative rules that institutionalize cleavages based on identity politics. Official national narratives in the Gulf are frequently exclusive, highlighting differences among citizens and privileging certain population segments over others. Gulf regimes thus have economic and political incentives to embellish or manufacture domestic and external threats, in order to heighten popular concerns over security and so lower the cost of accruing political support. Gulf rulers are often unable to manage social tensions once unleashed, and some have ended up stoking the very dissent they wished to suppress. This is a precarious strategy that carries serious risks to citizen welfare and the long-term survival of regimes.

Twitter Wars

Amid mounting death tolls in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, sectarian discourse is on the rise across the Arab world—particularly in the online sphere, where extremist voices are amplified and violent imagery and rhetoric spreads rapidly. Despite this, social media also provides a space for cross-sectarian discourse and activism. Analysis of over 7 million Arabic tweets from February to August 2015 suggests that violent events and social network structures play key roles in the transmission of this sectarian and countersectarian rhetoric on Twitter. The vast majority of tweets containing anti-Shia, anti-Sunni, or countersectarian rhetoric were sent from the Gulf and were especially concentrated in Saudi Arabia, mirroring Twitter’s demographic distribution across the Arab world, as well as rising tensions and regime crackdowns on the Saudi Shia population. Anti-Shia rhetoric is much more common online than anti-Sunni or countersectarian rhetoric, reflecting the minority status of Shia throughout the region and the manner in which anti-Shia rhetoric is amplified by influential Twitter users with millions of followers. While social media has facilitated Sunni-Shia interaction online, including the coordination of joint political protest movements, today countersectarian rhetoric is often dismissed or decried as pro-Shia propaganda.

Introduction

Analysis of the modern Middle East using a sectarian lens is widespread, in academia, the media and in policy circles. A common approach is primordialism, which ascribes conflict in the region to “age-old” tensions within Islam, specifically between Sunnis and Shias. At the other end of the spectrum are the so-called “instrumentalists” who see religious identity as essentially malleable and driven by elite agency and geopolitics. This volume aims for a middle ground: acknowledging the salience of faith and belief while also emphasizing how religious tensions are inflamed through wordly factors like government policies, state collapse, geopolitics, media, and identity entrepreneurs. Furthermore, it situates the ebb and flow of sectarianism within several periods or waves: the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution; the Iraq War of 2003 to 2010 and the period following the 2011 Arab uprisings to the present.

The Roots of Sectarian Law and Order in the Gulf

Criminal justice and policing institutions are the dominant carriers of social order, often drawing upon and reinforcing existing social norms—especially discriminatory norms. In Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia, policing and public security institutions have been operating in a sectarian discursive framework for over two hundred years. While much of this is a product of regime policies aimed at royal family survival, it also has transnational dimensions and, especially, historical roots tracing back to British colonial influence. In Bahrain in particular contemporary policing bears a strong similarity to policing in the 1920s. Efforts to eliminate sectarian inequality in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province must therefore overcome the weight of this historically embedded influence in public security institutions, through security sector reform, a lustration process, and truth and reconciliation commissions.

The Unraveling of Taif

The Lebanese political system is based on a sectarian division of constitutional powers and administrative positions, guaranteeing the representation of certain groups while also contributing to decisionmaking paralysis. The flaws of the sect-based governance system in part led Lebanon into civil war. The 1989 Taif Agreement, which put an end to the war, reshuffled the system. Syria was made the postwar power broker and given guardianship over Lebanon. After Taif, a divisive tension arose between Lebanon’s two main Muslim communities, the Sunnis and Shia. Syria managed the divisions while also exacerbating them. Sunni-Shia frictions sharpened after the assassination of Lebanon’s prime minister and Syria’s 2005 withdrawal from the country. They further intensified with the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian civil war. Today, the Lebanese state is deadlocked. Lebanon has no president, and parliament has been paralyzed since 2013. Many Lebanese seem to believe their system is the least bad option compared with neighbors, but the state’s dysfunction raises doubts about implementing the Lebanese model elsewhere. Time and historical experience have largely rendered sectarianism commonplace in Lebanon, and it is now deeply entrenched in the collective ethos and national behavior. Other Arab countries lack this characteristic. Models of centralized states that rely on a unifying definition of national identity for state building are the rule across the region, and the idea of pan-Arabism has traditionally been more attractive than that of states constructed around subnational identities.

Religious Authority and Sectarianism in Lebanon

Lebanese religious leaders are often treated as authentic representatives of their sects and are given broad powers over religious affairs. However, their leadership is not organic, nor are they necessarily popular, as these individuals are trained and selected by elite institutions. Lebanon’s political system institutionalizes the representation of various religious sects and grants their leaders broad powers over religious affairs, including personal-status courts, wealthy endowments, places of worship, education, and the centralized employment of clerics. Lebanese religious leaders do not incite sectarian hatred. They are invested in coexisting within and preserving the political system that confers their power. In some respects, religious representatives are well-placed to defuse sectarian tension. They tend to publically oppose the politicization of sectarian divisions, and can be instrumental in deradicalization. But the way Lebanon recognizes and empowers exclusivist religious leaders also exacerbates the country’s difficulty in faithfully representing its religious diversity. These leaders promote narrow orthodoxies that marginalize and at times radicalize nonconformists such as Islamists or secularists. Religious leaders help perpetuate a sectarian system that inhibits social integration and has suppressed the representation of diversity rather than improved it. Their monopoly over religious affairs maintains divisions between citizens and confines them to communally bound lives.