Congrès Mondial des Études sur le Moyen-Orient et l'Afrique du Nord

Barcelone du 19 au 24 Juillet 2010

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Clientelism, informal institutions, and local democracy in the MENA region (162) - NOT_DEFINED activity_field_Panel
 

· NOT_DEFINED institution: International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands)

· NOT_DEFINED organizer: Sylvia I. Bergh

· NOT_DEFINED language: English

· NOT_DEFINED description:

This panel on “Clientelism, informal institutions, and local democracy in the MENA region” continues a discussion that was initiated at the workshop entitled “Spaces for Change- Decentralization, participation, and local governance in MENA”, at the Tenth Mediterranean Research Meeting in Florence in March 2009. The workshop demonstrated that the issue of local governance in the MENA region is under-researched and established a network of scholars. WOCMES is an excellent occasion to bring some members of the network together again and continue the discussion. There is quite an extensive body of literature on clientelism relating to Latin America, but sparse recent works about the Middle East (an earlier generation of scholars of the Middle East produced important studies of clientelism; e.g. Ernest Gellner and John Waterbury, eds., Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies, London: Duckworth, 1974, among others). We believe that there is a substantial contribution to be made from the MENA perspective in considering the role of clientelism and other informal institutions in shaping local democracy (proximity vs. clientelism, clientelism as an informal institution that is encouraged by the regimes, role of tribal structures for monitoring, socio-economic factors, etc.).

Chair: Sylvia I. Bergh (International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Paper presenter: Dr. Cemal Altan (University of Mersin, Turkey) “Representation and Participation in Turkish Local Party Organizations: From Subjection to Omission”
The paper by Altan develops this point further by focusing on the metamorphosis of central-local relationships within the Turkish political party system that had been identified with a highly centralised structure as well as the lack of internal democracy. In this traditional scheme, local party offices are subjected to the pressures exercised by central bodies of political parties; their composition, decisions and actions are highly influenced, if not directly determined by senior cadres of the party centre. Yet, the electoral period of 2009 as observed at least in Mersin suggests a new form of centre-local relationship in which local offices are by-passed through alternative individual initiatives and/or collective bondings. In this new scheme, local branches are eclipsed by the direct intervention of actors who enjoy direct links with the party centre through personal or collective channels. In other words, we argue that the traditionally subjected status of local party branches have been further weakened due to the emergence of parallel spheres of interaction that introduce new channels of political influence, participation and representation capable of by-passing the traditional party offices.

Paper presenter: Malika Bouziane (Centre for Middle Eastern and North African Politics, Free University Berlin, Germany), “Strengthening clientelist structures through formal participation? Municipality Elections in Jordan”
In Jordan, preliminary internal elections in the frame of tribal gatherings are a necessarily prerequisite for electoral participation. They constitute a regular and recurrent process which guarantees the approval and thus the backup of the tribe. Starting from this observation, this paper looks at the conceptual literature on clientelism and the adequacy of ‘patron-client-relations’ as a micro-level term. The vast amount of research on patron-client relationships uses ‘political clientelism’ to explore macro political structure. In contrast, this paper applies the concept to describe ties in a micro setting by taking the last Jordanian municipality elections as an empirical example. The paper argues that the concept can be useful to highlight some aspects of local politics, but it should not be taken as a self-explanatory and all-encompassing framework. Considering the weaknesses of the concept, the paper tries to reformulate and apply Ibn Khaldun’s concept of ‘assabiya to understand and explore the hidden rationalizations that lie behind the actual functioning of micro-level solidarities in the frame of electoral processes, generally referred to as patron-client ties.

Paper presenter: Dr. Sammas Salur, Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey, “Administrative Reforms in Turkey in 2000s: From a Centralized Bureaucratic Government to a Decentralized Participatory Governance”
The final will further develop these themes and focus on ‘Administrative Reforms in Turkey in 2000s: From a Centralized Bureaucratic Government to a Decentralized Participatory Governance’.
Given a special analysis of the administrative reforms done in 2004, this paper will discuss the transition from the traditional rigid administrative structure to a relatively decentralized one in Turkey. Turkey has realized a path breaking reforms under the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government in local governments in 2004. The AKP government enacted a series of regulations serving the transition of power from central administrative offices to the local governments, motivating the development of civil society and developing principles of transparency and accountability in ruling. One can say that two important renewals have come as the result of reforms. One is about the transition of power from the central bureaucratic institutions to the local governments. In traditional administrative structure all authorities had been accumulated in the hand of center, leaving a very limited area of activities and services to the local governments. This paper will discuss how the reforms have reversed this traditional picture. The second renewal comes up with the reforms seems to be the establishment of the “urban councils”. Being composed of elected members from different political parties these councils are open to the civil societal organizations as well as to the professional chambers and businessman associations in the local level. This paper will secondly discuss how a ground for local democracy has been created in Turkey, and to what extend it works successfully.