The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life

With a New Afterword

Roger Owen

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English

Harvard University Press
24 November 2014

Middle Eastern history; African history; Comparative politics; Political leaders & leadership

"The monarchical presidential regimes that prevailed in the Arab world for so long looked as though they would last indefinitely-until events in Tunisia and Egypt made clear their time was up. The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life exposes for the first time the origins and dynamics of a governmental system that largely defined the Arab Middle East in the twentieth century.

Presidents who rule for life have been a feature of the Arab world since independence. In the 1980s their regimes increasingly resembled monarchies as presidents took up residence in palaces and made every effort to ensure their sons would succeed them. Roger Owen explores the main features of the prototypical Arab monarchical regime: its household; its inner circle of corrupt cronies; and its attempts to create a popular legitimacy based on economic success, a manipulated constitution, managed elections, and information suppression.

Why has the Arab world suffered such a concentration of permanent presidential government? Though post-Soviet Central Asia has also known monarchical presidencies, Owen argues that a significant reason is the ""Arab demonstration effect,"" whereby close ties across the Arab world have enabled ruling families to share management strategies and assistance. But this effect also explains why these presidencies all came under the same pressure to reform or go. Owen discusses the huge popular opposition the presidential systems engendered during the Arab Spring, and the political change that ensued, while also delineating the challenges the Arab revolutions face across the Middle East and North Africa."

By: Roger Owen
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 268g
ISBN: 9780674735378
ISBN 10: 0674735374
Pages: 282
Publication Date: 24 November 2014
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Undergraduate , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Roger Owen was A. J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus, at Harvard University.

Reviews for The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life: With a New Afterword

An accessible yet comprehensive review of the political history of the modern Middle East, made all the more relevant by the convulsions of the past year. Owen's dismantling of the Arab exceptionalism argument, which has formed the basis of so many accounts of authoritarian power in the region, is historically and sociologically persuasive. He successfully explains how countries with very different histories have nonetheless produced political systems with such strong resemblances. Thoughtful, full of nuance, and mercifully free of jargon, Owen's writing carries the reader along at a terrific pace, providing both the grand sweep of history and the focused perspicacity of political analysis.--Charles Tripp, author of The History of Iraq