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Twilight of the State Bourgeoisie?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

John Waterbury
John Waterbury
Affiliation:
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International AffairsPrinceton university
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Abstract

For many years the class category of the state bourgeoisie has had considerable currency in the analysis of states and societies in the Middle East and in the developing world in general. In part, resort to this category has been driven by the remarkable expansion of the economic roles of these states, an expansion that has required that we try to understand the managers of the process. In that respect what is undertaken here fits into a broader and older effort to make sense, in class terms, of the owners of intellectual or technical capital—white-collar workers, civil servants, public-sector managers, and those in the service sector. These are awkward strata in that they neither own (much) capital nor do they provide labor to the owners of capital in the same manner as peasants and the proletariat. They are frequently portrayed as “intermediate” and “in transition.” They are situated between capital and labor, and, in Marxist analysis, are seen as the witting or unwitting agents of the dominant class as it emerges or as it consolidates its grip on the economy and the state apparatus.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

NOTES

Author's note: This paper was originally presented at the SSRC/ACLS Joint Committee for the Near and Middle East meeting on “Retreating States,” Aix-en-Provence, March 25–27, 1988. I acknowledge the sometimes acerbic comments of the participants in that conference as well as those, no less penetrating, of my colleagues Atul Kohli, Ben Schneider, Guilain Denoeux, and Henry Bienen. Two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments. All the normal disinculpations apply.

1 By way of example, see Raymond, Vernon, ed., The Promise of Privatization (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988), p. 7;Google ScholarEdouard, Balladur, Je crois en l'homme plus qu'en l'Etat (Paris, 1987), pp. 48–52;Google ScholarBertil, Walstedt, State Manufacturing Enterprise in a Mixed Economy: the Turkish Case (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), p. 187;Google ScholarAliyshina, I. F. et al. , The Developing Countries in the Modern World: Unity and Diversity (Moscow, 1983),Google Scholar as cited in Tāhā, ⊂Abd al-⊂Alīm Tāhā, Tatawwur al-Binya al-Ijtimā⊂iyya lil-Buldān al-Nāmiyya fī Daw⊂ al-Istishrāq al-Sūfyāti wa-al Māddiyya al- Tārīkhiyya (The Evolution of the Social Structure in Developing Countries in Light of Soviet Orientalism and Historical Materialism) (Cairo: National Centre for Sociological and Criminological Research, 1988), pp. 146–55.Google Scholar

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8 Hélène, Carrère d'Encausse, La Politique Soviétique au Moyen-Orient 1955–1975 (Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1975), p. 163.Google Scholar On the general issue of Soviet understanding of the state bourgeoisie in developing countries, see Jerry, Hough, The Struggle for the Third World: Soviet Debates and American Options (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1985).Google ScholarElizabeth, Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World (New York: Praeger, 1983);Google ScholarGeorgii, Mirsky, “Changes in Class Forces and Ideas on Socialism,” Mizan 6, 10(1964).Google Scholar

9 Manfred, Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 52.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., p. 60.

11 Ellen, Kay Trimberger, Revolution from Above (New York: Transaction Books, 1978).Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 174.

13 Hough, The Struggle for the Third World, throughout.

14 Tīhā, The Evolution of the Social Structure, throughout.

15 Georgii, Mirsky, “The Future of Capitalism in the Developing World: A Round Table Discussion,” Peoples of Asia and Africa 1(1985),Google Scholar as cited in Tāhā, , The Evolution of the Social Structure, pp. 85–99.Google Scholar

16 Trimberger, Revolution from Above, throughout.

17 Samuel, P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 334–43.Google Scholar

18 Hough, , Struggle for the Third World, p. 134.Google Scholar

19 Pollock, , “State Capitalism,” p. 91.Google Scholar

20 John, Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regions (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 233–62. Note also Lal, “The Political Economy of Economic Liberalization,” throughout.Google Scholar

21 Neo-Marxists have come close to this position as well. On Algeria, see Marc, Raffinot and Pierre, Jacquemot, Le capitalisme d'etat algérien, esp. p. 49.Google Scholar

22 Mahmoud, Hussein, La lutte de classes en Egypte: 1945–70 (Paris: Maspéro, 1971), pp. 338–40.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 109.

24 Ibid., p. 281.

25 Ibid., p. 188.

26 Ibid., p. 191. In this respect Hussein stands the argument of Fu⊂ād Mursī Hādhā al-Infitāh al-Iqtisādī (This is the Economic Open-Door) (Cairo: Dār al-Thaqāfa al-Jadīda, 1976) on its head. Mursī contended that Egypt's economic liberalization in the early 1970s (infitāh) came as the result of the new strength of private interests that needed profitable avenues by which to invest their accumulated savings, and called upon the state bourgeoisie to provide them. In this view, the state bourgeoisie did the bidding of the private sector.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., throughout.

28 Romdhane, M. Ben, L'accurnulation du capital et les classes sociales en Tunisie depuis l'indépendance, Doctorate d'Etat de Science Economique, Université de Tunis, 1982, pp. 224.Google Scholar

29 Both ⊂Isām al-Khafājī and Hanna Batatu, Old Social Classes, note the prominence in the private construction sector of clients of the ruling group which is drawn disproportionately from the area of Takrit.

30 Al-Khafājī, , The State, pp. 42, 177.Google Scholar

31 Batatu, , Old Social Classes, p. 110.Google Scholar

32 Halpern, , Politics of Social Change, pp. 51–78.Google Scholar

33 Jean, Hannoyer and Michel, Seurat, Etat et secteur public industriel en Syrie (Beirut: CERMOC, 1979), p. 127.Google Scholar

34 Michal, Kalecki “Social and Economic Aspects of Intermediate Regimes,” Selected Essays on the Economic Growth of the Socialist and Mixed Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ”1972), pp. 162–69.Google Scholar

35 Waterbury, , Egypt of Nasser and Sadat, pp. 232–61. I am in the process of writing up my more recent research.Google Scholar

36 Alan, Richards and John, Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East: State, Class and Economic Development (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990),Google Scholar chap. 7; Nazīh, al-Ayyūbī, “Centralized State,” pp. 194–96.Google Scholar

37 Samir, Amin, La nation arabe (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1976), p. 8.Google Scholar

38 Tāhā, , Evolution of the Social Structure, p. 134.Google Scholar Note also Elisabeth, Longuenesse, “Bourgeoisie, Petite-Bourgeoisie et Couches Moyennes en Syrie,” Peuples Méditerranéens 4 (07–09, 1978): 21–43;Google Scholar “The Class Nature of the State in Syria,” MERIP Report 9, 4 (05 3–11, 1979): 3–10;Google ScholarJean, Leca, “Social Structure and Political Stability: Comparative Evidence from the Algerian, Syrian and Iraqi Cases,” in Adeed, Dawisha and Zartman, I. W., eds., Beyond Coercion: The Durability of the Arab State (London: Croom Helm, 1988), pp. 169–202;Google ScholarSami, Zubaida, Islam, the People and the State (London: Routledge, 1989), esp. pp. 70–79.Google Scholar

39 Interalia, , Leonard, Binder, Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988), pp. 16, 17, 353.Google Scholar

40 Longuenesse, , Class Nature of the State, p. 41.Google Scholar

41 Some exceptions are Clement Moore on engineers in Egypt, , Images of Development (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980);Google ScholarBinder, L. on Egypt's rural “Second Stratum,” In a Moment of Enthusiasm (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1978);Google ScholarNazīh, al-Ayyūbī on the Egyptian bureaucracy, “The Administrative Apparatus and Its Leadership,” in Sa⊂d, al-Dīn Ibrāhīm, ed., Misr fī Rub⊂ Qarn 1952–1977 (Beirut, 1981), pp. 86–119; Raymond Hinnebusch on the rural petty bourgeoisie in the Syrian Ba⊂th, Party and Peasant in Syria 3 (Cairo Papers in Social Science, 11 1979); Ahmad Ashraf on the composition of Iranian parliaments, “State and Class: the Pahlavids and the Ulama in the Making of Modern Iran,“ unpublished manuscript; Batatu, The Old Social Classes; al-Khafājī on the origins of the ruling groups in Iraq, The State.Google Scholar

42 John, R. Nellis, “Maladministratoin: Cause or Result of Underdevelopment? The Algerian Example,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 13, 3(1980): 506.Google Scholar

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44 Nancy, Bermeo, “The Politics of Public Enterprise in Portugal, Spain, and Greece,” in Ezra, Suleiman and John, Waterbury, eds., The Political Economy of Public Sector Reform and Privatization (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

45 Marc, Nerfin, Entretiens avec Ahmed Ben Salah (Paris: Maspéro, 1974), p. 63.Google Scholar

46 See Michael, Fischer, “Islam and the Revolt of the Petite Bourgeoisie,” Daedalus 3, 1(1982): 101–25. The difficulty of defining the petìte bourgeoisie and its relation to the state comes out clearly in Binder's recent work. On the one hand, he sees the legitimacy of what he calls the national state as hinging on its ability to create jobs for the petite bourgeoisie. He also sees the petite bourgeoisie drawn to Muslim movements partially because they are anti- (the national) state. How both propositions can be true is solved by Binder's assertion that the petite bourgeoisie may simultaneously want to limit and expand the state, or at least get more Out of it for themselves (“Islamic Liberalism,” p. 17).Google Scholar

47 Ali, El Kenz reproduced large parts of an interview with a senior manager in the national steel company of Algeria: “Many of the first generation of the Société Nationale de Siderurgie are like that; a kind of industrial militancy, a boy-scout side that we have. We're bitten by the SNS” (Le Complèxe Sidèrurgique d'El-Hadjar [Paris: Edition CNRS, 1987], p. 321). Interviews conducted by this author with senior Egyptian managers produced the same kind of self-characterizations.Google Scholar

48 Janet, K. Escobar, “Comparing State Enterprises Across International Boundaries,” in Leroy, Jones, ed., Public Enterprise in Less Developed Countries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 108;Google Scholar see also Ellen, Comisso and Paul, Marer, “The Economics and Politics of Reform in Hungary,” in Ellen, Commisso and Laura, Tyson, eds., Power, Purpose and Collective Choice: Economic Strategy in Socialist States (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 245–78.Google Scholar

49 Tayeb, Said-Amer, l'Industrialisation en Algérie (Paris: Edition Anthropos, 1978).Google Scholar

50 Elisabeth, Picard, “Clivages et consensus au sein du commandement militaire Ba⊂thiste syrien (1970–79),” in Alain, Rouquié, La Politique du Mars (Paris: Le Sycamore, 1981), pp. 198–219.Google Scholar

51 The most common defense may be the sabotage of hostile policies and reforms, but it is virtually impossible to know when sabotage is sabotage, when it is willed, and when it is undertaken as a class action. Overt forms of resistance are rare; Mahfoud Bennoune claims that the managers of Algerian public enterprises openly confronted the comprador bourgeoisie ruling group of President Ben Jadid, although they failed to deter him from breaking up the large public conglomerates; Bennoune, , The Making of Contemporary Algeria, 1930–1987(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p.277.Google Scholar

52 James, Scott, Weapons of the Weak (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 297.Google Scholar