Elite Bargains Research Articles

Divided Opposition, Fragmented Statebuilding: Elite Bargaining in Pre- and Post-2003 Iraq

ABSTRACT Elite cohesion structures interethnic bargaining and institutional design in post-conflict divided societies. Although works have explored how interethnic elite bargaining affects institutional design and conflict and cooperation in multiethnic states, less attention has been paid to historical antecedents that precondition bargaining strategies and outcomes in post-conflict spaces. This article explores elite bargaining dynamics among Iraqi dissident and exiled elites prior to 2003 to explain fractionalization and incongruent institutional design following regime change. Treating elite interactions as antecedent conditions for explaining statebuilding outcomes, it situates Iraq’s informal consociational power-sharing institutional design, muhassasa, within preceding patterns of interethnic fragmentation of the anti-Ba‘thist opposition movement prior to 2003. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with dissident elites from Iraq’s pre-2003 opposition and exiled groups and American policymakers, this paper illustrates how ethnic elite competition for control and state capture impeded the adoption and design of consensual and durable power-sharing institutions following regime change. Thus, although collective grievances with Ba‘thist-era exclusion and repression facilitated interethnic mobilization among disparate elite, expedient statebuilding and the reliance on fractionalized opposition groups obstructed the development and evolution of a cohesive, durable, and inclusive conflict mitigating institutional design after 2003.

Looking beyond the constituent power theory: The theory of equitable elite bargaining

AbstractThe constituent power theory, which served critical functions for several years, has outlived its utility as the preeminent yardstick to measure the normative legitimacy of a constitution. As the theory stands, it cannot apply on its own terms to most instances of modern constitution-making. At the same time, it is highly susceptible to being used to legitimize authoritarian outcomes. The scholarly literature that attempts to reimagine or expand the theory is scant and unable to overcome its problems. In response, this article develops an alternative standard: the theory of equitable elite bargaining. This theory provides that a constitution is normatively legitimate if it is the product of an equitable bargain between elites from most major political groups in society at the moment of constitution-making. The theory of equitable elite bargaining is applicable to the realities of modern constitution-making and makes it more difficult to legitimize authoritarian constitutions. Further, both representation-based and consequentialist arguments can justify a constitution drafted in accordance with the theory as normatively legitimate. The theory imposes a standard that can result in arduous constitution-making processes and moderated constitutional content. Additionally, its focus on elites poses challenging questions. However, this article will argue that the net benefits of this theory warrant its consideration as a new standard to assess normative constitutional legitimacy.

Post-Election Elite Bargaining and Coalition Formation in the MENA: Lessons from Iraq and Morocco

Abstract This article analyses the dynamics of post-election elite bargaining and coalition formation in the cases of Iraq and Morocco, demonstrating that, despite widely differing contexts, the outcome is often far removed from the election results. Recent works on political parties in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have alluded to this state of affairs, but, so far, the scholarship is missing in-depth comparative studies of the intricate dynamics of elite bargaining and coalition formation. Beyond not necessarily connecting to the election results, but rather being rooted in competition over access to patronage resources and power, our comparison demonstrates the negative impact that this state of affairs has on the government’s ability to govern.

Rebel oil regimes and economic governance: the case of the Houthis in Yemen

ABSTRACT Most studies on oil and rebellion focus on the physical competition to control sites of resource production such as fields, refineries and export terminals. Issues of ownership are tertiary, even derisory. This paper takes issues of ownership seriously, detailing how rebel groups make legal claims to ownership of state-controlled oil assets. Rebel oil regimes are embedded in broader forms of rebel economic governance and diplomacy. Rebels can assert legal rights to resources even when they lack physical access to it. Using the case of the Houthis (Ansar Allah) in northern Yemen, the paper shows how rebel oil regimes help solidify elite bargains and relationships with outside patrons in ways that affect the course of conflict and conflict resolution. Considering legality alongside physical possession of resources better explains how rebel governance operates in the economic sphere.

Transitional justice from the margins: Collective reparations and Tunisia's Truth and Dignity Commission

The Tunisian revolution of 2011 moved from socio-economic to political concerns, and from the margins and periphery of the South and West of the country to the centre, Tunis, driven by the slogan of “jobs, dignity and freedom”. The goal of this article is to understand the potential of using the spatially informed concept of marginalisation to reimagine transitional justice, using the “victim zone” as a case study. The Truth and Dignity Commission's founding legislation tasked it with identifying victim zones that had “suffered systematic marginalisation or exclusion” and proposing reparation for structural violations suffered. Empirical data collected from two disadvantaged regions of Tunisia are used to provide a bottom-up, victim-centred, look at structural and economic violence. The IVD has largely failed to-date to deliver on its promise in relation to collective reparations, but a combination of theory and empirical data provides a springboard for a discussion of how the margins could unsettle current transitional justice practice, both normatively and practically. The article concludes by outlining an unfinished business agenda for Tunisia and implications for future transitional justice. Specifically, it argues for a transitional justice from the margins that focuses on space as well as time, collectives as well as individuals, a normative plurality rather than a single universalised global framework, decentralised agency rather than centralised institutional primacy, and a new social contract (forms of participation and recognition) rather than the continuity of elite bargains.

Making reform and stability compatible with each other: elite redeployment in Meiji Japan

AbstractNineteenth-century Japan remains a void in the literature on institutions and growth. Developmental institutions evolved in Japan after the Meiji Restoration despite the absence of political participation. Authoritarian change agents usually face a trade-off between reform and stability: they have coercive power to remove underproductive institutions, but at the risk of inviting instability, as politically influential deprivileged elites may engage in counteraction to recover what they perceive as their entitlement. Many authoritarian regimes, thus, coopt elites by allowing them access to rent, but such buying-off inevitably compromises institutional improvement. How did Meiji Japan overcome this dilemma and liberate major fiscal and administrative spaces for productive players who generate wealth and increase the size of the economic pie for society? This article presents a model that it calls ‘elite redeployment’ to answer this puzzle. In lieu of elite bargains in participatory polities in Europe, the revolutionary authoritarian regime in Japan coercively deprivileged traditional elites and redeployed those with financial or human capital among them in productive institutions. By doing so, the Japanese authoritarian change agents dismantled the incumbent institutions in an irreversible manner and swiftly built new institutions such as modern administrative, educational, financial, and commercial sectors, while maintaining stability.

Lebanon’s Parliament System as a Form of Institutionalized Hybridity

Abstract This article presents the Lebanese parliament as a form of institutionalized hybridity that offers a modicum of popular participation through highly regulated and moderated channels. It argues that the procedural nature of Lebanon’s electoral system is one that is largely, if not entirely, underscored by a closed elite bargaining process and is driven by elite preferences. This dynamic is a by-product of a power-sharing arrangement that ostensibly balances sectarian concerns, but in reality creates a disparity between political elites and the individuals within those sects which the consociational arrangement purports to include. However, this system has also created and reinforced challenges to its rule, particularly from below. With that in mind, this article highlights the evolving interactions between the entrenched, elite dominated, political system and popular protest movement and outlines how recent patterns of popular unrest present more fundamental critiques of the parliament and its central role in Lebanese politics.

Ethiopian Federalism: Philosophical and Institutional Design Limitations and a Case for Loose Federalism

Abstract This article attempts to answer the question: is Ethiopian federalism sustainable? Once deemed a thought vanguard of building Ethiopia as a new ‘multi-national’ state, existing philosophical and institutional design limitations are increasingly making its sustainability problematic amidst the revival of its rival alternatives-unitarism and secessionism. This article argues for re-inventing the system in the spirit of loose federalism, ensuring its continued relevance to the fast changing political climate in Ethiopia. To this end, it calls for a robust revisit, re-negotiation and redesign of i) distribution of self-rule and shared rule powers, ii) vertical and horizontal inter-governmental relations, and iii) House of Federation of the system. A central challenge is how to secure sufficient political trust between the federal and regional governments and among the regional governments of the federation. This requires a ‘workable platform and rules of the game’ for running a smooth grand elite bargaining process.

Riding on the power of the masses? How different modes of mass mobilization shape local elite bargaining in China

When local bureaucrats in China disagree with their superiors, official channels for achieving a policy revision are limited and generally ineffective. However, if the stakes involved are high, they may turn to the power of the masses and draw on public pressure to enhance their negotiating position. In such informal inter-bureaucratic bargaining, local officials might intentionally facilitate popular protest and lead to a situation we call ‘mobilized instability.’ More commonly, they borrow power from ‘consent instability,’ that is, they discreetly leak insider information and instruct their police forces to be exceptionally tolerant. In this article, we use the redistricting case in Changxing county, Zhejiang province as well as other incidents to show how local officials can strategically exploit public pressure, in the mode of ‘consent instability,’ to extract policy concessions. We introduce the concept of ‘mobilized instability’ through an examination of jurisdictional restructuring conflict in Daye county, Hubei province. This analysis suggests that reckless intermediaries might over-mobilize and radicalize the masses, thereby undermining intentions and leading to serious consequences for the public officials. The article concludes that the power of the masses may serve as a credible bargaining chip during informal elite bargaining, but it can also be risky for those who handle it poorly.

Navigating gender in elite bargains: Women's movements and the quest for inclusive peace in Colombia

AbstractA growing body of scholarship connects the participation of women and the inclusion of gender provisions to the sustainability of peace settlements. But how do women's groups navigate gender power structures and gendered forms of violence within complex and fragile political bargaining processes aimed at ending large-scale conflict? The 2016 Colombian peace agreement, internationally applauded for its inclusion of strong gender provisions and women's participation as negotiators and peace advocates, is a significant case for examining these questions. Drawing on original case material, including interviews of key actors on different sides of the conflict – this article analyses the political bargaining dynamics within and among women's movements, the Santos government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC). We argue that the inclusion of women was pivotal in transforming the elite bargaining process and power structures of Colombian society enabling a gender-based approach to the substantive peace agenda addressing transitional gender justice for sexual violence survivors and gender-equal redistribution through land and rural reform programmes. The study suggests that deeply situated political bargaining analysis is essential to navigating gender in elite bargains rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to inclusive peace.

Forging Peace in Damascus: On International Aid, Localized Elite Bargaining, and Insider Mediators

Scholarship identified the present and future of war as increasingly characterized by urbanization and political-economic actors that Western international assistance defines as ‘illicit’, ‘illiberal’ or ‘criminal’. This article asks how Western international assistance could and should shape war-to-peace transitions for contributing to the emergence of lasting non-violent ‘peaces’. It combines scholarly insights from ‘pragmatic peacebuilding’ scholarship and practice with interviews and grey literature on masterplanning projects in two neighborhoods in Damascus, Syria, that are prepared for ‘reconstruction’ or ‘redevelopment’, namely Qaboun and Basateen al-Razi. Thereby, it, on the one hand, challenges current approaches that, as in the case of Syria, presume that macropolitical pressure, diplomacy, and sanctions would forge an enduring outcome. It argues that ‘peace’ must be recognized as an order that is particular to a given time, space, and their inherent relations of political-economic actors (political settlements) and is, thus, changeable and expandable to including more people’s interests and subject matters. On the other hand, it promotes an elongation and bridging of the emerging consensuses across the reviewed literatures that supporting local actors who are recognized and respected as mediators by all relevant conflict parties provide for a fruitful avenue to expanding the inclusivity of peaces and their underlying political settlements. This adds to the repertoire of newly emerging sustainable peacebuilding methods and signposts towards further studies of ‘localized elite bargaining’.

‘The Failure of Peacebuilding in Iraq: The Role of Consociationalism and Political Settlements’

ABSTRACT This article argues that an informal consociational elite bargain was placed at the centre of post-invasion attempts at transition and peacebuilding in Iraq. It is this informal consociationalism that undermined the coherence of the state and delegitimized the political system. The article critically examines the consociational and political settlement literature. It concludes that Pierre Bourdieu's approach to competition in the political field can be used to create an analytical framework that identifies the weaknesses in both tranches of literature and explain how the application of a consociational political settlement destabilized Iraq.

Does political settlements analysis capture the unsettling politics of oil in Africa?

SUMMARY Analysis of political settlements has emerged from the shadows of new institutionalism and moved to the epicentre of political economy analysis across Africa. This debate takes on the framework by scrutinising its applicability to the politics of oil through the combined lens of critical political economy and contentious politics. It argues that contrary to the postulations of strategic elite bargains by political settlement researchers, Africa's oil landscape is marked by pluralistic politics and contestations at multiple scales.

Elite bargains and policy priorities in authoritarian regimes: Agenda setting in China under Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao

AbstractWhat explains agenda outcomes in authoritarian regimes? Existing research attributes policy priorities to either the autocrat's survival needs or the co‐optation of external interests. The former leaves out policy choices beyond the calculus of regime survival; and the latter elite power play that bears more immediately on government priorities than activities at the fringe. We hypothesize that officials working under autocrats who seek co‐optative elite bargains are more likely to prioritize domain‐specific concerns and less inclined to disrupt the status quo than those under leaders who rule with coercion. Our comparison of the Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping administrations of China reveals patterns consistent with these hypotheses: Hu's “steward” leadership is associated with increased agenda inertia and diversity, whereas policy priorities change in greater frequency and converge to a stronger focus under Xi's “strongman” rule. These contrasts are also clearer in policy venues closer to the central leader's direct control.

Elite Bargains and External Influence: Security Assistance and Civil-Military Relations in Post-War Liberia and Sierra Leone

ABSTRACT This article explores how elite bargains affect external influence over civil-military relations. It argues that opportunities for security assistance arise from fragmented post-war coalitions and negotiations among rival factions. In post-civil war Liberia and Sierra Leone, the role of security assistance reflected bargains struck by ruling elites to consolidate their authority. Politicians used external backing to maintain fragmented coalitions while neutralising threats from factionalised armed forces. Reliance on security assistance enabled external influence through conditioning aid, delegated control, and day-to-day interaction. These cases highlight the importance of examining internal politics to explain the effects of security assistance.

More Than Anti-Communism: The Cold War and the Meanings of Democracy in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Governments across anti-communist Asia, with US backing or tacit consent, devised institutions and practices for marginalising popular forces. Such internalisation of the Cold War involved measures ranging from violence and ideological mobilisation to disciplinary modes of control. With democratisation, Cold War devices for domestic control could remain entrenched or be rolled back. Examining the relationship between democratic transformation and the unwinding of Cold War practices in Taiwan can shed new light on democratic change in the region. While the Kuomintang regime of the martial law period had abundant resources for suppression, electoral politics was left relatively undisciplined by anti-communist meanings of democracy. The limited elections produced a new group within the political elite, who negotiated for a more open electoral landscape. The rules governing electoral politics in Taiwan today reflect the principles of pluralism and inclusiveness that were at the heart of that elite bargain. As far as control over electoral politics is concerned, and in so far as the electoral sphere’s growth is taken as significant, democratisation moved Taiwan out of the shadow of the Cold War’s internalisation. Comparison with South Korea clarifies an alternative form of change.

The Successes and Failures of Economic Reform in Nigeria’s Post-Military Political Settlement

ABSTRACT There are limitations in the explanatory power of prevailing theories on the political economy of Africa’s growth without industrialization that emphasize the resource-curse, ethnicity, neopatrimonialism, and the developmental state. This article uses a political settlements approach to explain the institutional underpinnings of Nigeria’s economic transition. It shows how external constraints on ruling elites interact with the distribution of power and institutions to stimulate episodic reforms in an ‘intermediate’ Nigerian state. Rather than a ‘developmental’ state presiding over industrial upgrading or a ‘predatory’ state operating solely on neopatrimonial basis, this intermediate state presides over selective reforms and bursts of economic growth and diversification. Thus, specific constraints in Nigeria’s post-military political settlement from 1999 generated the initial impetus for successful telecoms liberalization, while inhibiting growth in the oil sector. This article contributes to advancing the political settlements framework in applying it to resource-rich countries, by outlining the four dimensions of the distribution of power and the constraints for institutional persistence or change, and their varying economic implications. It also reclaims the concept of ‘elite bargains’ as a defining feature of the horizontal distribution of power and demonstrates its centrality to the durability or fragility of institutions, especially at critical junctures of resource booms and busts.

Before Reagan: The Development of Abortion’s Partisan Divide

What explains the alignment of antiabortion positions within the Republican party? I explore this development among voters, activists, and elites before 1980. By 1970, antiabortion attitudes among ordinary voters correlated with conservative views on a range of noneconomic issues including civil rights, Vietnam, feminism and, by 1972, with Republican presidential vote choice. These attitudes predated the parties taking divergent abortion positions. I argue that because racial conservatives and military hawks entered the Republican coalition before abortion became politically activated, issue overlap among ordinary voters incentivized Republicans to oppose abortion rights once the issue gained salience. Likewise, because proabortion voters generally supported civil rights, once the GOP adopted a Southern strategy, this predisposed pro-choice groups to align with the Democratic party. A core argument is that preexisting public opinion enabled activist leaders to embed the anti (pro) abortion movement in a web of conservative (liberal) causes. A key finding is that the white evangelical laity’s support for conservative abortion policies preceded the political mobilization of evangelical leaders into the pro-life movement. I contend the pro-life movement’s alignment with conservatism and the Republican party was less contingent on elite bargaining, and more rooted in the mass public, than existing scholarship suggests.

The Interaction between Local and International Peacebuilding Actors: Partners for PeaceHellmüller, SaraLondon, Palgrave Macmillan (2018), 233p., ISBN 978‐3‐319‐65300‐6

The Interaction between Local and International Peacebuilding Actors: Partners for PeaceHellmüller, SaraLondon, Palgrave Macmillan (2018), 233<i>p., ISBN 978‐3‐319‐65300‐6</i>

‘Not my government!’ The role of norms and populist attitudes on voter preferences for government formation after the election

Processes of coalition government formation have recently become subject to increasing delay across Europe. There also appears to be a concurrent surge in the success of ‘populist’ challengers, who tend to reject key features intrinsic to pluralism such as elite bargaining and compromise. Against this background, this article investigates for the first time citizen preferences for which party should get the mandate to form the government and which parties should definitely be excluded from government formation. We focus specifically on the effect that political knowledge and populist attitudes have on citizen preferences for government formation. We find that both political knowledge and populist attitudes are essential in explaining voters’ willingness or unwillingness to accept the fundamental prerequisite of coalition bargaining and political compromise. These findings have important implications for our understanding of citizens’ attitudes and political representation.