Civil Society in the Middle East
From a game theory perspective
Civil society is a buffer between the rulers and the ruled. Although
every civil society is a buffer, not every buffer is a civil society.
Clientelistic networks provide a buffer but not a civic buffer. In all
societies, save primitive pre-historic ones, there is some mechanism of
authority; all societies are ruled one way or another. In modern societies,
the rulers are not persons
but are the cold, rational, predictable instruments of law and
administrative regulation. In traditional societies, where the rulers are
living souls, the scent of arbitrary actions is always in the air. The
ruled, therefore, strive for connections to the ruler in order to obtain
exemptions from arbitrary actions, and will use those connections to
initiate favourable arbitrary actions (e.g. rent-seekers). Those vertical
connections are known as wasta in Arabic (for more see Wasta: the hidden
force in Middle Eastern society. / Cunningham, Robert, 1937- ). On the other
hand, the instruments that rule a modern society, being lifeless, eliminate
the payoff for vertical connections since arbitrary actions are not possible.
Of course those two cases are idealized. In reality, all rulers are a
mixture of human arbitrariness (I will refer to it as h) and instrumental
regularity ( i ). Let the sum of h and i be equal to 1, and hence as h
approaches 1 then i approaches 0 and the reverse is true (i-->1, then
h-->0). This means that in the idealized modern society which is ruled
completely instrumentally, i=1 and h=0. In the traditional society h=1 and
i=0. In real life, we can say that the instrumental component is higher in
northern Italy than it is in southern Italy, which in turn is higher than in
Egypt, say, or Jordan. what is the point of all this 'h and i' ? I am
setting the problem up for the application of game theory.
The following SHORT-TERM payoff matrices for a simple 2-player game
show why people associate vertically in societies where h is predominant
(h>>i) and horizontally where i is predominant (i>>h). Each of the players
can choose between two strategies: persue vertical 'wasta' association or
horizontal civic association. The payoffs for each player are listed as x,y
where x is the payoff for player 1 and y for player 2. Player 1 is the rows
and player 2 is the columns. The equilibrium is is (vertical, vertical)
yielding (2,2).
(Middle East?!)
Game#1:h>>i
-----vertical|civic
vertical 2,2 4,0
civic 0,4 0,0
(Northern Italy?!)
Game#2: i>>h
-----vertical|civic
vertical 0,0 0,3
civic 3,0 4,4
The equilibrium in Game#1 is (vertical ,vertical) meaning that vertical
association will be dominant in such a society. The equilibrium in Game#2 is
(civic, civic) meaning that horizontal association will be dominant. As I
said earlier, the rulers in a society are a combination of human
arbitrariness (h) and instrumental regularity (i), where h+i=1. The general
rule is: as h-->1, equilibrium -->(vertical, vertical) and the corollary: as
i-->1, equilibrium -->(civic, civic).
The meaning of all this is that civil society will not exist in a
situation where it is manifestly irrational to be civic. In Egypt,
clientelism and rent-seeking are rational while civicness is not. Advocates
of civil society within and without Egypt are ploughing the sea, because it
is currently irrational for an individual in the Middle East to be civic
rather than clientelistic. Associating horizontally has a minuscule payoff
whereas associating vertically brings great rewards (jobs,government
contracts, promotions, admission to certain colleges and faculties and above
all exemption from arbitrary government actions). When someone is
arbitrarily arrested, the very civic Human Rights Organization yaps and
effects little, but if one is vertically connected ( protected or has a
'back' in Arab slang) a phone call from the patron will bring a speedy
release and maybe an apology. Perhaps this picture is too bleak, perhaps
not. Civil society cannot flourish; it cannot persist anywhere that h ( h
stands for the arbitrary human component of the rulers as opposed to
lifeless instrumental regularity) is predominant as it is in the
contemporary Middle East.
The US government should not invest its resources in attempts to make
the ruled more civic but instead should try to make the rulers less
arbitrary. Instead of spending its money on setting up horizontal
associations and on evaluating their progress, it should reduce its support
to the old rotten arbitrary regimes that make civicness irrational and make
clientelism and rent-seeking rational. No amount of American funding for
civic association is
going to change this reality.
The obvious question that comes to mind is how do the proportions of h
and i come about? why is h much higher in the Middle East than it is in the
West? So far, my depiction has been static; Game#1 only capture a snapshot
of a society where the values of h and i are constant and so does Game#2. In
reality, h and i fluctuate over time; there are outbursts of personal
arbitrariness and there are flows of instrumental regularity. Whenever an
outburst of personal arbitrariness abates and i increases, many members of
the society realize that as i increases the payoff for vertical association
diminishes and the payoff for
civic association grows. As we know the payoff for both players in a civic
equilibrium is much higher than their payoff in a vertical equilibrium.
Thus, with a small increase in i, their payoff in a civic equilibrium
quickly exceeds their payoff in a vertical equilibrium. Then, the
equilibrium shifts from (vertical, vertical) to (civic, civic).
Furthermore, members of one society can realize the superiority of the
civic equilibrium if they see it in another society. With the increased flow
of information, the following years are going to be a period of sustained
downward pressure on h and boost for i . As i increases the payoffs of
vertical association diminish and the old rotten order of patronage and
arbitrariness is supplanted by one of instrumental regularity; it is a
virtuous cycle.
It is important that one does not become prematurely pessimistic when
instances of arbitrariness continue to occur for decades, because this
virtuous cycle depends on human cognition: a broad diffusion of perceptions
and attitudes that may require 60- 100 years. It is already happening in
Southern Italy where a newfound will on the part of southerners to testify
against their patrons in courts of law (thus boosting i and diminishing h )
promises a new beginning for the South.
Best regards
Hazem Ghobarah
Department of Government (A1800)
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1087
ghobarah@jeeves.la.utexas.edu
phone: (512) 471 5121 fax: (512) 471 1061