|
INTRODUCTION
The 1963 coup by which rural army officers brought the Ba‘th Party to power in Syria had its roots in a long history of nationalist ferment and social conflict, but it was, above all, the expression of a rural revolt against the great inequalities and agrarian crisis generated by Syria’s traditional agrarian structure. The new political elite forged an authoritarian-“populist” military-party regime and declared its intention to overthrow the “feudal” structure and carry out a revolution in the village. Indeed, subsequently, the state launched an ambitious attempt to transform the countryside. But what has the outcome been for the village and the regime?
This study explores the nature of the Syrian Ba'th state and the political economy of agrarian development over which it has presided. A companion volume, Authoritarian Power and State Formation in Syria: Army, Party, and Peasant, examines the role of the village in the genesis and consolidation of the Ba'th state: the role of rural structure, agrarian crisis, and peasant mobilization in the collapse of the old regime and the rise of the Ba'th, the subsequent formation of an authoritarian state and, in particular, the ways in which distinctive armv-party structures harnessed the countryside in the consolidation of the state. This volume goes the next step, examining policymaking and implementation under this regime and seeking to determine the consequences of the Ba'th’s particular form of authoritarian rule for societal development. More specifically, it uses a case study of agrarian development policy as a tool with which to get at the nature of the Ba'th regime—the state and the “development road” over which it presides.
The study attempts to assess the Ba'th state through an examination of rural development strategy in part because, theoretically speaking, in Third World countries there is no more strategic key to state formation and political economy than the role of the peasant, rural society and agricultural development. Modernization cannot be accomplished without a solution to the peasant problem. Politically, the peasantry must be incorporated into the state; economic modernization and industrialization depend on agricultural development. The particular way that the agrarian problem is solved shapes the whole course of political and economic development in predominately agrarian countries (Moore 1966; Huntington 1968). But many Third World states, particularly in the Arab world, have nevertheless manifestly failed to effectively address this problem. There is no better measure of the power of a regime and the effectiveness of its policies than what it does—-or fails to do—in the villages. The roots, or lack of roots, of a regime in the village; the political instruments it builds or fails to build, linking center and village; and the nature and effectiveness of its rural development policies arc all excellent indicators of the nature of state formation and of the political economy of development in a Third World society.
Traditionally, analyses of Syrian politics have proceeded from the top down, preoccupied with elite ideologies and factionalism in the capital. The meaning of such events for wider society has remained too much a matter of speculation or prejudice, insufficiently grounded in empirical study. This study attempts to link elite politics and their consequences for outcomes in the village in a more systematic and empirical manner.
The study first examines public policymaking. Perhaps because of the peculiar opaqueness of the Syrian regime, little is actually known about core-issues of power—how decisions are made, the stakes and issues involved, and who influences them. Most observers are reduced to speculation over the sectarian composition of elites and the outward manifestations of struggles for power when these become visible. This study will attempt to actually look at the policy process, especially the everyday management of the state and the economy; specifically, it will look at high policymaking, planning, and the politics of patronage, bureaucratic rivalries, and interest groups which help shape higher policy.
Equally important in understanding a regime is the policy-implementation process. Precisely because Third World countries suffer from an inordinate-gap between policy and outcome, how a regime actually works cannot be understood without a study of “policy-implementation-in-action.” This study attempts to marshal evidence in an assessment of what the regime is actually doing as it attempts to carry out agrarian policies. It examines the main instrument of implementation, the bureaucracy—its structure, pathologies, programs, and actual performance, from delivery of agricultural inputs to grand hydraulic projects like the Euphrates Basin scheme.
Finally, policy outcomes, that is, the actual direction that cumulative policy “outputs” give to the development of Syria’s political economy, must be assessed. This study will attempt to measure a wealth of evidence about empirical outcomes in agriculture against alternative models of political economy relevant to the Syrian case.
This type of study has only become possible because of the slow accumulation of empirical studies and evidence over the last decade. The writer made the study of the Ba‘th party’s agrarian apparatus and its political organization in the village a focus of elite interviews, document collection and field work during the seventies, and this study builds on that research. Indispensable government documentation has slowly become available, including the agricultural censuses, various analyses and statistical compilations of the Ministry of Agriculture, a mammoth 1975 study of the whole agricultural sector by the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development (Munathama 1975), a series of policy papers commissioned for a 1977 agricultural symposium, and the periodic reports of the General Federation of Peasants and of the agronomists’ syndicate. There is now a wealth of material published by international organizations, including reports by FAO and UNDP experts working in Syria, the work of ICARDA, a four-volume World Bank (1980) report on the economy, and periodic IMF studies. There is also a valuable and growing corpus of work by Syrian scholars and analysts such as ad-Dahr, Akhras, Khadar, Za'im, Keilany, Arudki, Hilan, Bakhour, Wazzan, Khalif and Shakra. Various European scholars, especially those based at the French Institute in Damascus, have had growing access to the field, resulting in valuable in-depth studies by Mctral, Bianquis, Longuenesse, Hannoyer, Seurat, Deheuvels, Sainsaulieu, and Meyer.
Finally, a USAID (1980) team, in collaboration with Syrian counterparts, was given exceptional access to the agrarian bureaucracy to do an “assessment” of the whole agricultural sector, producing a massive four-volume work. This study builds on all these sources. It pretends to no methodological sophistication: research has been more in the nature of a detective investigation, a ferreting out of bits and pieces of information in a country where this is a scarce commodity. The resulting analysis grew out of attempts to address the major questions about agrarian policy and development raised in theoretical discussions, from a painstaking weighing and comparison of claims and data from various sources for plausibility, and a slow fitting together, mosaic-like, of bits and pieces of evidence, measured against theory. The resulting synthesis obviously relies heavily on the author's judgment and experience with the subject matter. But enough varied sources on a multitude of different regime dimensions are now available to allow for considerable cross-checking of evidence and for the construction of a plausible picture of reality which goes well beyond both regime ideology and the counterclaims of its critics.
The analysis proceeds in the following order. The Syrian case is first situated within the traditions of authoritarian state theory, public policy and bureaucratic analysis and with reference to the literature on alternative models of agrarian development. Next, the formation and orientation of the Ba‘th state, with special emphasis on its rural roots and its ideology as it relates to rural development, is summarized. Agrarian policymaking is then analyzed as a product of elite orientations, the structures of the authoritarian state, and the impact of organized regime constituencies. Next, policy implementation is examined through a look at the structure of the agrarian bureaucracy and the unfolding of policy-implementation-in-action. Land reform and change in the agrarian social structure; the modernizing initiatives of the state bureaucracy; the credit, marketing, and development infrastructures it has created; and the agricultural cooperatives, the building blocks of the Syrian experiment in agrarian socialism, are each studied. The outcome of the state’s efforts to cope with Syria's arid environment through development of animal husbandry and land reclamation and irrigation are examined. Data are then marshaled on the overall effects of regime policies on economic growth and social change in the countryside. The concluding chapter summarizes the meaning of the empirical findings for the conceptual issues discussed in the opening chapter by measuring them against various alternative models. Thus, some conclusions about the political economy of development in Syria are attempted.
I thank the many parties who have helped make this book possible, including many Syrian officials, activists, intellectuals, and friends; the Fulbright program and the Social Science Research Council, which provided financial help for the research; and Mr. and Mrs. T.H. Ohyama and my wife, Nancy, who lent invaluable support in the writing of the work.
Raymond A. Hinnebusch
The Authoritarian State,
Policymaking, Bureaucracy, and
Alternative Roads to Agrarian Modernization
Authoritarian Power
This study seeks to examine the nature of authoritarian power in the Syrian Ba'rh state through a study of public policy and its consequences for agriculture and rural society. It will seek to determine what goals and interests are served by policymaking in this particular state, how effective it is in implementing its policies, and what their consequences have been for socioeconomic development. In short, it seeks to understand the objectives of authoritarian power and how well it serves them.
Authoritarian regimes, as a type, are conventionally distinguished from both “democratic” and “totalitarian” regimes by their lesser level of institutional development, mass-incorporation, and policy implementation capacities. Their typical features are said to be a high concentration of decision making power in elite hands combined with the absence of a strong traditional code governing its use, hence unchecked and frequently arbitrary leadership, a dominant political role for military elites and high bureaucrats, and little tolerance for pluralistic political expression, especially organized opposition. The policy process is thus likely to be confined to a relatively limited elite arena, and the regime more concerned with control than participation. Absent the ideology and organization of totalitarian regimes, they lack a comparable intention and capability to mobilize the masses and transform society. However, there is also a recognition within the literature that, within these general bounds, authoritarian regimes may vary greatly, and the most important major distinction turns on the goals or interests served by authoritarian power. While all authoritarian regimes are typically designed to concentrate power and minimize accountability, the rationale for authoritarianism is normally to incorporate and advantage a favored constituency to which the elite is especially responsive while excluding and disfavoring others. The difference in the composition of this constituency may vary widely from radical or populist regimes which, originating in a coup or rebellion against a dominant class, seek to exclude it from power, mobilize mass support, ...
|
