To assess how well the region’s political orders might deal with the socioeconomic problems outlined in the previous section, we take stock of the nature of authoritarian governance in the Middle East, the direction of its development and the quality of governance that these orders produce. To begin, the majority of the Middle East’s political orders (11 out of 15) are authoritarian in nature, with the remaining four displaying either characteristics of authoritarianism (Israel beyond Israeli Jews; Iraq and Lebanon through elite cartels) or a slide towards authoritarianism (Turkey) (see Table 1).[34] While it is hard to assess the level of popular satisfaction with rule across the region due to the absence of reliable nationwide surveys, two hypotheses can be advanced.

On the nature of political order

On the one hand, there is substantial tolerance, perhaps even support, for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, as indicated by the lack of protest in many countries in 2011 and by the durability of their regimes. This may be due to many factors, including the benefits of relative stability, a lack of choice, fear and repression, the dominance of traditional forms of legitimacy and external legitimation. On the other hand, there is also substantial dissatisfaction with the performance of ruling elites across the region in terms of the mix of rights and duties, as well as the level of collective goods and services they produce for their citizens. The 2011 Arab uprisings, protests across Turkey in 2013 and the wave of protests in 2019–2020 in Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Iraq (as well as Sudan, Tunisia and Algeria) testify to this.[35] The Gulf states represent a partial exception as their wealth enables financial largesse to keep (small) populations content more easily and allows for the provision of public goods and services that are of higher quality. Combined with effective repression, this has largely prevented large-scale protests.[36]

Either way, all three regional powers – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran – are deepening their level of authoritarianism. Freedom House notes that Turkey continues its now 10-year long decline in freedom while Saudi Arabia continues to linger at the bottom of the Freedom House index in terms of political rights and civil liberties. Iran also finds itself consistently scoring a low 16 to 17 (on a scale of 0–100). Its new government under President Ebrahim Raisi is widely seen as more conservative and more authoritarian.[37] V-DEM notes low and unchanged levels of accountability and civil liberties for most countries in the region between 2010 and 2020, except for deteriorations in Turkey similar to those noted by Freedom House (see Figures 5 and 6 below).

Moreover, Saudi and Emirati support for a return to the pre-2011 status quo has enabled weaker states across the region to remain authoritarian regardless of the Arab uprisings. Consider Bahrain and Jordan, and also Egypt.[38] Iran’s expansion across the region has similarly had the effect of maintaining either authoritarian regimes (Syria) or authoritarian groups at the substate level (Lebanon and Iraq) that block accommodation of popular demands for political reform to protect Tehran’s own interests. Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Tehran have, each in their own way, enabled a wave of ‘counter-revolutions’ in the form of authoritarian re-entrenchment. They have also all engaged in transnational campaigns to repress dissidence and resistance through a mix of spyware, social media monitoring, renditions, mobility restrictions, Interpol notifications (especially Turkey) and assassinations (especially Iran).

Source: V-DEM online graphing at link.

The basic challenge for authoritarian political orders in addressing poverty, unemployment, corruption and inequality is the interwovenness of their political elites, business tycoons and security commanders. It is difficult to reform at scale or in a radical manner without touching directly on the interests of those elites whose support is necessary to maintain power. It also makes it expensive – even risky – to engage in political modernisation that creates meaningful opportunities for new voices to influence how public authority is exercised and how public funds are allocated.[39] After all, such modernisation amounts to expanding the number of principals in a limited liability company, diluting existing levels of influence. If one adds that authoritarian systems are also good at combining co-optation with repression, it follows that they have no inclination to engage in political reform in terms of restructuring power unless, perhaps, under severe pressure.

Quality of governance

In addition to the intent of political orders to govern well and for whom, one must also examine their ability to address poverty, inequality, unemployment and corruption in the face of Covid-19, energy transitions, population growth and climate risks.[40] We use governance indicators across the region as a broad gauge of bureaucratic capability. At first glance, Figure 7 suggests only a modest decrease for 5 out of the 6 governance indicators that the World Bank tracks across the MENA. Similar to the aggregate data on poverty and inequality presented in the previous section, this is surprising given the turmoil across the Middle East over the past decade.

Source: World Bank, link

Figure 8 resolves the mystery by breaking the data down by country. On the one hand, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Palestine show clear reductions in the quality of their governance indicators. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia and the UAE show clear increases. Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Israel show marginal changes but at very different levels of governance, with Iraq especially featuring low scores compared with the average. In brief, a relatively stable regional average is, again, the sum of a set of countries with poor governance scores and a set of countries with decent to good governance scores. The countries that do well on governance are either less authoritarian (Israel) or resource-rich (most Gulf countries). It is also noteworthy that countries that are home to both internal conflict and to sub-state actors linked with Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’[41] (see next section) have seen significant reductions in their governance indicators over the period 2011–2019. Furthermore, Turkey’s progress in improving the quality of its governance during the first decade of AKP rule (2002–2011) has to some extent been undone. Finally, Syria and Iraq will likely remain ‘black holes’ in terms of the quality of their governance for the foreseeable future, with Lebanon being in the process of joining them – mirroring the fact that these three countries form the primary zone of regional geopolitical contestation at present (see next section).

Note: The thin black lines are error bars. These are graphical representations of data variability. They indicate the error or uncertainty in a reported measurement.

Source: World Bank, link (data retrieved in November 2021).

Outlook

The region’s political orders are unlikely to address growing poverty, unemployment, corruption and inequality due to their growing authoritarianism, even though the ability of ruling elites to maintain the status quo and repress any unrest varies considerably. On balance, it is likely that the risk of unrest, crisis or even violence will increase in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Yemen, and perhaps even Iran in the short term. But a growing long-term risk of unrest and crisis in the Arab Gulf states must also be anticipated.