Forms of Domination during Authoritarian Rule and Modes of Transition: A Comparative Analysis of Egypt, Iran, Tunisia and Turkey

The goal of this paper is to identify underlying conditions which have influenced the modes of regime change from authoritarian rule in Egypt, Iran, Tunisia and Turkey. Earlier studies on democratization have focused especially on the study of the effects of different modes of regime change on democratic consolidation. This article, instead, aims at explaining why in some cases incumbents and opposition are able to cooperate during transitions, whilst in other actors’ interactions are extremely adversarial and grounded on mutual distrust. The basic assumption of this paper is that central actors of democratization do not come into being overnight, most of them emerge during the previous regime and they interact with each other well before the collapse of authoritarian rule. I maintain that patterns of cooperation and conflict during the transition processes in these states are at least partially the result of long term struggles between state institutions and social forces. Bringing together the two academic debates on state-society relations and on democratization, I explain how different forms of domination may influence the modes of regime change. Drawing on Migdal’s state-in-society model (2004), I distinguish between integrated domination, which is achieved when the state is able to impose a certain degree of cultural and ideological consensus over society, and dispersed domination, that occurs when domination of particular social force takes place within one or multiple arenas but never encompasses the whole society. My hypothesis is that if the state is able to establish an integrated form of domination, a regime change imposed from above (Turkey in early 1980s) or the emergence of pacts during the transition process (Tunisia in 2011) are more likely outcomes. Conversely, when a dispersed form of domination is in place, an imposition of regime change from below is more likely to occur (Iran in1979, Egypt 2011).