Levitsky and Way and Competitive Authoritarianism: Leverage, Linkage and Organisational Power

This chapter charts and explains Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way’s celebrated model for explaining regime transition. It is divided into four sections. The first provides an overview of the dimensions of leverage, linkage and organisational power focusing, in particular, on the inter-play between them; how the strength of one renders the others more or less important. The second section examines the dimension of leverage – the principal ways in which it is exercised and how it is quantified – and defines a Black Knight patron (what a state or regime must do to qualify as one). The third section examines the dimension of linkage; the main forms it takes and how its strength is measured and categorised. And the fourth section examines organisational power; the state and other structures on which it is based.

Mauritania

Drawing on Levitsky and Way’s model, this chapter advances a nuanced explanation of the survival of Mauritania’s competitive authoritarian order. Just a few years before the protests began, the country seemed to offer a near textbook example of their thesis as, under coordinated pressure from the West, its dictatorial regime introduced democratic reforms (only to relapse into authoritarianism shortly thereafter). Yet during the Arab Spring itself, no such liberalisation took place. While the EU and US have only medium linkage to and leverage over Nouakchott, its reduced organisational power means that they still have the ability to put decisive democratising pressure on it (just as they did before). Their failure to do so confirms one of Levitsky and Way’s vital caveats: that the West often allows important strategic considerations to take precedence over democracy promotion.

Algeria

Drawing on Levitsky and Way’s model, this chapter advances an innovative explanation for the endurance of Algeria’s competitive authoritarian order. Like its Moroccan and Mauritanian counterparts (two of the volume’s other case studies), the Algerian regime emerged from the Arab Spring largely unchanged. Levitsky and Way offer a compelling account of its survival. The European Union’s and United States’s medium links to and low leverage over of the country prevent them from putting decisive democratising pressure on it. While the scope, cohesion and experience of its security apparatus give it sufficient organisational strength to withstand any domestic challenges. Nevertheless, the West could have pressed Algiers to liberalise harder and with greater consistency. And, in a departure from Levitsky and Way’s theory, President Bouteflika did not create and rely on a single ruling party.

Conclusions

The past few years have been a period of unprecedented political upheaval for the Maghreb. While each country had, of course, experienced dramatic moments before – Ben Ali’s ousting of Bourguiba, Algeria’s Black October riots, the Casablanca bombings and Mauritania’s 2005 and 2008 coups d’état to name but some – nothing of the breadth, depth or duration of the Arab Spring, a protest that began in a provincial city in one of North Africa’s quieter corners and quickly engulfed the entire region. Presidents of decades’ standing – latter-day imperators – were swept from office on waves of public discontent while their counterparts elsewhere nervously and hurriedly tried to calm the mob....

Introduction

The Maghreb’s political development continues to confound expectations. Few specialists anticipated the start of the Arab Spring. Fewer still thought it would begin in Tunisia, long regarded as one of the region’s most stable and prosperous countries.1 Then, when the demonstrations did break out, most assumed Ben Ali would easily deal with them. Not only had he overcome similar challenges in the past, but he had the support of a large, well-funded and experienced security apparatus. Their shock at his downfall less than a month later was compounded by the simultaneous outbreak of copycat protests elsewhere and Libya’s descent into civil war. Many now issued millennial predictions about what would happen next. Unrest would sweep the region. None of its leaders would be spared. Algeria was especially vulnerable....

Morocco

Drawing on Levitsky and Way’s model, this chapter provides an original explanation of the endurance of Morocco’s competitive authoritarian order. Levitsky and Way argue that the country is an unsuitable case study because it has an unelected executive (the monarch). The chapter challenges this assertion before demonstrating that the regime’s survival is mainly due to the West’s low leverage over it and its high organisational power. The chapter goes on to show that, like its Algerian counterpart, the regime draws strength from not relying on any single party. Rather, by courting several, either simultaneously or consecutively, it is able to preserve its independence and freedom of manoeuver.

Tunisia

Drawing on Levitsky and Way’s model, this chapter offers a sophisticated assessment of Tunisia’s political liberalisation. Of all the region’s countries, it alone emerged from the Arab Spring significantly more democratic than when the protests began. Ostensibly, Levitsky and Way’s model can account for this outcome. Not only did does Tunisia have high linkage to the EU and US, but the West has high leverage over it. In such circumstances, the Ben Ali regime’s high organisational power is of secondary importance. Yet this being the case, why did he remain in office for so long? The chapter argues that the EU and US consistently failed to put as much democratising pressure on him as they could have done, and that the regime’s organisational strength was not as great as it seemed owing to the persistent alienation of the country’s armed forces.