BUZZONI Sara

CHOTHIA Nazia

Group 1

COURSE POINT

“Segmentary States”

This paper tries to present the concept of segmentary paradigm in political analysis, especially in the Arab world.

Defining what Max Weber’s [1] general assertion of a political government detaining sovereignty on a territory and which pretends to have a monopoly of physical and justified violence. In this definition, we have a clean distinction between the executive and the rest of society.

Considering Arab countries, political scientists underline the need to study other relations of power. Indeed, in those states primary links-kinship mostly- are merely important to structure and shape the political life.

Consequently, the analysis abandons here the executive’s world to focus on traditional groups and relationships.

We can at this stage define “segmentary states” [2] as states where family groups or clans linked by consanguinity have a main importance. Those primary elements- such as tradition, culture, religion or language- are inherited. Family and groups of interdependence are of paramount importance in the Arab world, and they must be taken into account for a relevant political study.

Let’s now consider the question of the links between the modern state and traditional relations still at stake in these countries.

Nowadays, political scientists are observing real national building in the Arab states. The interrogation is to what extent tribalism- which is a specific aspect of kinship- interferes in the building of modern states. The analysis here focalises on how the elements of solidarity are working inside modern Arab states. In these states a really vigorous movement of identification to the national State can be observed. There is currently a general tendency towards loyalty to the national State. The executive are purposely using the modern means of the State- such as a national feeling, nationalism- to ensure their power on the young States.

We can identify several cases to exemplify this idea:

Ø First, we can briefly depict the Jordanian situation. The former King used to lean upon primary groups to build loyalty around him and his family. One should notice that the “Hashemite” dynasty can’t appeal any link to the Jordanian territory. Indeed the dynasty was settled by the British colonists. So the link to the dynasty embodies the link to the nation. We can speak about a “segmentary politics” by the executive Jordan. For instance there always are several seats at the Parliament held for the various tribes which are consequently indebted to the monarchy. In the same way they have favoured situations in the army-which is a way to bind them to the ruling monarchy. Some authors tend to speak about “genealogical nationalism”.

Ø Another relevant example can be the case of Oman. Oman is a sultanate situated in the Arabic Gulf made up with various groups of different identities-among which non-Muslims with Indian or African roots. The sultan chose to modernize the political institutions forming a Parliament, whose members are elected. Referring to a religious or ethnic belonging during the political campaign is completely forbidden. However, kinships and interdependences are working and the different groups cast their ballots for people of their own clans.

We can therefore conclude from these two instances that primary links are still working- sometimes even pore- in the building of political identities.

Two main theories rose from those observations:

v On the one hand, some authors consider that states in Arab world are weakened due to their lack of legitimacy. They explain that the social gap prevents the states from developing [3] . This lack of legitimacy is the result of a society too segmented. From this point of view, the segmentary paradigm is used in a “negative” aspect to explain a lack of well-grounded recognition of the rulers.

v On the other hand, other specialists argue that the absence of democratization in the Arab world comes from the absence of a significant place of the groups in the political life or institutions. Indeed, they think that the best way towards democratisation and modernisation of the institutions is to recognise and organise the specific identities of a society [4] .

Eventually, we should notice that democratisation, in the liberal theory, means the respect of each citizen in their complex identity. Therefore it must enable them to move socially without freezing them in an identity confines and above all it should enable them to have a more activ role in the ruling process.

In general, we can say that in the Arab world, politics is perceived as based on primordial ties. For this reason, genealogy plays a fundamental role, even if it is a false one. To be part of a genealogy means that one has his place in the society and therefore in some political connections. This concept can be expressed in practice by referring to a dynasty that has itself a relation with the Prophet’s family: this is the case of the ruling Moroccan ‘Alawi family, or of the “sa’da” in the shi’a context or of the “sherif” (the nobles) in the sunni one. In 1990 and in 2003, Saddam Hussein too based his legitimacy on the fact of being a descendant of the Prophet’s family. Even if his ba’thist ideology was non religious, he had recourse to this motivation because he had no more source of legitimacy.

The system of alliances is also important. For example, in Lebanon, many political personalities are married with other politicians or in general with persons whose kinship could be useful as an istrument to reach a higher position.

The idea of kinship, as described above, recalls the two ideas of “patriarchy” and “rentier State”, as both of them have the same root, which is “pater”. The first concept describes a social structure and the second one, a system of ruling a country. Anyway, there is an affinity in societies where both family structures and the father’s position in particular are strong. In this case, a regime is likely to be a patriarchy, with all its typical aspects, that is : men’s dominant position on women and elders’ domination on cadets.

A patriarchy is a regime where there is confusion about sovereign’s patrimony and the State’s one. This was the case of the Ottoman Empire where the land belonged to the emperor and nowadays it is the reality of Gulf States.

The same confusion has appeared since the 40’s and the 50’s, when former colonised states decided to take the control of their respective economies, nationalising industries, companies and in particular their primary resources. They see development as a mission to be reached through distribution of wealth from above. This policy generated the citizens’ submission and dependence to the State and it became more evident especially after the first “petroleum crisis” (1973) and during the 80’s. In these kind of States, the relationship “citizen-State” has been replaced by a sort of familiar one, where the State incarnate the father and organize his regime as if all the citizens were members of an enlarged family, completely dependent from his concessions.

As we can see, both the concepts of “patriarchy” and “rentier State” nourish authoritarianism in the AMW where the continuous reference to the idea of family serves as an archetype to the society. For example, Ataturk Turkey was called “devlet baba” (the father State) and king Husayn of Jordan always used portraits of his family to show its interior solidarity to Jordanian society.

As far as Jordan is concerned, another source of the State legitimacy is the symbolic reference to tribalism. Tribes consist of a system of loyalties linking together all members on an egalitarian base but at the same time producing a different relationship towards the chief, who, once again is a personification of the father. The tribal system exists only in rural contexts but, as shown by Michel Seurat studies’s [5] it can function also in cities, as the case of an area of Tripoli in Lebanon. In this case, the structure of a group was cohesive because of the common loyalty of its members to their leader, Khalil Akkawi. This example is particularly meaningful because it proves that the group solidarity didn’t modify despite the political choices made by Akkawi before and during the Lebanese civil war.

We have also the opposite case of clans who, following a general urbanisation process moved to the city and re-organised themselves around a new communitarian “kinship” and a new leadership. For example, Shiite people from southern Lebanon started to identify themselves primarily as Shiite since their arrival to Beyrouth suburbs [6] . Thus, this new communitarian identity is based on an “organic solidarity” [7] that stressed the fact that the different members of the community are complementary, as they behave like the body’s organs and not as member of a family. In Ibn Khaldoun theory too, the primary ties play a fundamental role. He analysed the opposition between urban culture, the Madara, and the nomadic one, the Badawa, and identified three themes: ‘asabiyya (kinship), mulk (whealth), and da’wa (legitimacy strategy). He identifies the ‘asabiyya with the nomadic tribes saying that in a cyclic process, the tribes conquer the wealth and the power owned by the Madara through a strategy of legitimacy that in the case of the Arabic peninsula appears as Islam.

The Syrian Ba’th, quoting M. Seurat, “is a gang which is at the head of the State”. Nevertheless Syria is recognised s an international actor even it functions in an extremely personalised way and the aim of the rulers (better to say “the ruling family”) is to maintain the power. So, once again, we can see the link between tribalism and the nation-building. In fact, the Asad family used the army as an instrument of social escalation and then built up his authority through the ideology on an Arab state without diostinction among their members. Thanks to this army-party symbiosis, stressed by I. Rabinovitch in his omonimuous book, the Asad family and their allies, mainly ‘alawis fellows, could reach all the power positions both in the army and in the Ba’th party, which became their legitimacy instrument. As a result, the pluralism of the Syrian society is annihilated in favour of an national costruction imposed from above.

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[1] Max WEBER, Economy and Society. Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. New York: Bedminister Press, 1968.

[2] Clifford GEERTZ, The Interpretation of Cultures, Fontana Press, 1977, p 329.

[3] J. MIGDAL, Strong societies and weak states, Princeton, 1988.

[4] I.HARIK, « Individualism, Communalism, and the quest for democracy », in H .Saghie (ed.), The predicament of the individual in the Middle East, Londres, Saqi books, 2001.

[5] « Le quartier de Bab el Tebbane : une ‘asabiya urbaine », dans L’Etat de barbarie.

[6] F. Khouri

[7] See Durkheim theory on mechanic and organic solidarity. The first one applies in primitive and segmentary societies where the basic principle is the similarity of the members. The latter, on the contrary, characterise modern societies and is based on members’differentiation. In this case, everyone feels more free to act or to take decisions depending on his/her personal choice. See G. Ferréol et J-P. Noreck: Introduction à la sociologie, Armand Colin, 2000.