The Role of Political Actors in the Shaping of Authoritarian Regimes - Essay Example

The Role of Various Political Actors in the Shaping and Transformation of 21st Century itarian Regimes. The Role of Various Political Actors in the Shaping and Transformation of 21st Century Authoritarian Regimes. Introduction Over the past three decades of the 21st century, as a result of globalization, there has merged a wide range of various economic, social and political changes that have served to radically transform the availability of transformed progress opportunities in the developing world. Some of the more common changes that are seen to be associated with globalization are seen to include, the emergence of new sources of precariousness and insecurity and social exclusion. Perhaps the gradual transformation of the manner in which political power is authorized and subsequently organized can be regarded to be the most significant impact of globalization (Heller, 2013). Most of the world’s nation states can be seen to gradually be losing some of the nearly authoritarian regulatory control that they have previously been enjoying over their country’s economy as well as the mostly sovereign authority that been afforded to them and had been traditionally wielded over all the their citizens. Most of the conceptions of social integration and nationhood are increasingly facing a challenge from the modern developments of information and identities as well as the transnational flow of ideas. Habermas (2001), postulates that the post national constellation helps in the posing of a number of fundamental questions surrounding aspects such as popular sovereignty, economic regulation, national integration and social protection. While most attempts at democratization at the national level have been mainly concentrated on attempts by the various governments to try and directly engage their country’s citizenry in a raft of developmental projects and some relatively large-scale essentially state-driven reform projects designed to help in the trying to build up participation in the newly emerging governance institutions; it should be noted that the wider global level, the role of causing political reforms in most of authoritarian governmental systems has mainly been speared by the global civil society and social movements. The role played by the two players has been crucial in the overall promotion of political openings in most of world’s authoritarian societies as well as in the driving of the perpetual spread of human rights globally. Some of these political openings and human rights drives can be seen to have taken the form of a number of indigenous movements in Latin America and the Arab Spring across parts of the Arab Muslim world. These have served as important examples as to how popular contention can aid in the transformation of political systems and development. The role of Social Movements in Transforming Authoritarian Regimes in the 21st Century Civil society can fundamentally be seen to refer to the zone of voluntary and associative life that is designed to be beyond both clan and family association but separate from not only the market, but also the state. The defining of civil society and its innate role of serving as a pro-democratic force is widely regarded as being a matter that is open for extensive scholarly debate. A number of key institutions such as Nonprofit organizations, clubs, labor unions, research institutions, advocacy and interest groups and business associations are all regarded as forming the civil society. If nurtured under the right conditions, the civil society can aid in greatly contributing towards the eventual democratization of most of the world’s authoritarian regimes, this is in addition to their helping in sustaining a legitimate democratic system established in place of the authoritarian regime. The civil society has been able to achieve these objectives in different countries across the world ranging from South Africa, the Phillipines, Serbia and some Eastern European countries. Civil societies that essentially represent a country’s citizen interests can serve to help in the shaping of both the social attitudes as well as the governmental policies in use. Civil societies are essentially seen to be able to do this by their acting and constituting as a separate sphere of interest that is essentially beyond the actual direct control of a given government. It is this aspect of civil societies that helps them form and act as a counterweight to state power (Hawthorne, 2004). The Arab Spring is considered to be one of the best examples as to how the civil society can spearhead the transformation of a primarily authoritarian regime in the 21st century into a mainly democratic form of government. The genesis of the Arab Spring is traced as having its roots by the actions of Mohamed Bouazizi who was a street vendor who ignited himself as a form of protest against the government after his fruit cart had been confiscated by officials of the then President Zine Abidine Ben Ali. This ignited a protest that in a matter of weeks had quickly spread to become a series of protest against most of the authoritarian governments in the Middle East region (Rosiny, 2012). The civil society in Tunisia was seen to serve as an essential guide in the outing and adaptation to change after the ousting of an authoritarian government. Although civil society organizations (CSOs) in the country had been systematically repressed in by the state security, some of the CSOs acted beyond the relatively more strict parameters demarcating the corporatist society and mobilized together by forming a number of bonding groups that helped in bridging the gaps between diverse groups and focusing the aims of these emerging groups towards the opposing of the authoritarian regime as well as the demanding for their innate rights of exercising the rights of citizens (Deane, 2013). The active role that the civil society can play in helping drive the adoption of change after transformation of an authoritarian regime is seen to be exemplified by the access provided to the civil societies to help in informing the key government decision makers, this was seen to greatly aid in the development of a framework that would allow both the state institutions and the civil society to co-evolve in the country. After the revolution, a number of new laws of association were developed that allowed the CSOs in Tunisia to fundamentally be free from any form of obstructive registration requirements or oppressive state control. The CSO are also now encouraged to comment on, testify as well as influence any pending government legislation and policy (Deane, 2013). The rise of the Arab Spring and the resultant reformatory changes that helped transform the authoritarian Tunisian government serve as a vital example of the role played by the civil society in this capacity. The Role of networking social Media in the Transformation of Authoritarian Regimes in the 21st Century The series of Arab Spring revolutions facilitated the fostering of a budding dialog pertaining to the actual role played by the development of networking as a prime tool for use in political mobilization towards the transformation of authoritarian regimes, pro-democracy movements and regime change. A statement by an Egyptian Google executive is perhaps the best indicator of the overall magnitude and potential benefits of networking and social media. In the statement the executive stated that if one wanted to effectively liberate a society, the individual should simply provide the internet to this society (Pollack et al., 2011). While the internet and social media have widely been touted as being an effective weapon that can be used by the weakened citizenry of a country against superior authoritarian leaders, the situation has been equated as primarily being a somewhat quintessential conflict in the 21st century that is seen to effectively pit bullets firing government thugs on one side against numerous young protestors who are relentlessly firing tweets (Kristof, 2009). The use of social media in the transformation of authoritarian governments can be seen to have been perceived in the revolutions in Moldova and Iran that the global media was quick to label as the twitter revolutions. A recent Arab Social Media Report indicated that about 88% of Egyptians obtained their news from using various social media tools as do an estimated 94% of Tunisians, the citizenry of this two countries was also seen to least rely on state-sponsored media for obtaining information (Ghannam, 2011). The transformation of the Egyptian authoritarian regime is seen to best illustrate the role played by social media in the facilitation of this transformation. The Egyptian protestors were seen to heavily rely on a number of social media outlets such as Twitter an Facebook in the facilitation and organization of most of the initial protests (Al-Jazeera, 2011). As the January 26 protests became progressively more heated, the government was seen to block the internet in what was to become the first act of a policy that would eventually evolve to become a full internet blockade blocking access not only to Facebook but also to Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and yFrog in the country by the 28th of January. However, the activists who had organized these protests had already anticipated these government actions and were able to continue using the already established structures to organize these demonstrations. This is illustrated by a Facebook event that already been set up a number of several days in advance and had subsequently received relatively tens of thousands of attendance confirmations. A Google document had been posted and had subsequently collected the e-mail details of the group’s members. It is these details that were used in the mobilization of protesters (Chebib & Sohail, 2010). The effective use of social media infrastructure in the Egyptian uprising helped the protestors in successfully ousting the authoritarian regime in a matter of only 18 days as compared to the 9 months it took in Libya and the 28 days it took in Tunisia (Beydoun and Baum, 2012). Conclusion Social media and the Civil Society are seen to display a somewhat symbiotic relationship that causes them to become quite effective in the transformation of authoritarian governments across the globe. The role that the Civil society and social media can be able to play in the transformation of authoritarian political systems is seen to be particularly appealing in the in the Arab World where it is widely regarded as being the best solution to the inherent challenge of attempting to promote democracy in the entire Arab world. It is line in this that it becomes of importance to support efforts by most of the European democracies as well as the United States that have seen them developed a raft of policies that are designed to help in the strengthening civil societies across the world to enable them to act as a promotion tool kit (Birch, 2009). References Beydoun, N. and Baum, J. 2012. The glass palace : illusions of freedom and democracy in Qatar. New York : Algora Pub. Birch, B. 2009. The English Language Teacher in Global Civil Society. Routledge. Deane, S. 2013. Transforming Tunisia The role of Civil society in Tunisia’s Transition. International Alert. Accessed on September 1, 2013 from http://www.international -alert.org/sites/default/files/publications/Tunisia2013EN.pdf. Ghannam, J. “Social Media in the Arab World,” Center for International Media Assistance, 3 February 2011, 12. Habermas, J.. 2001. The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Hawthorne, A. 2004.Middle East Series MIDDLE EASTERN DEMOCRACY Is Civil Society the Answer?. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. Heller, P. 2013. Civil Society and Social Movements in a Globalizing World.Human Development Report Office OCCASIONAL PAPER. September 1, 2013 Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2013/occasional -papers/04_Heller.docx.pdf Kristof, D. N. (2009). “Tear Down This Cyberwall!” The New York Times, 17 June, 2009. Accessed September 1, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/opinion/18kristof.html. Pollack, K. et al., 2011. The Arab awakening : America and the transformation of the Middle East. Washington, DC : Brookings Institution. Rosiny, S. 2012. The Arab Spring: Triggers, Dynamics and Prospects. German Institute of Global and Area Studies. Retrieved on September 1, 2013 from http://www.giga hamburg.de/dl/download.php?d=/content/publikationen/pdf/gf_international_1201.p df. Timeline: Egypt’s Revolution, Al-Jazeera, Accessed September 1, 2013 from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112515334871490.ht ml Read More