Hassan Nafaa examines the possible engines that might drive Arab integration The Arab League is made up of independent nations whose common bonds are presumably strong enough to form the basis for the creation of a supranational institution. However, the task of building such an institution among independent nations is riddled with problems, some pertaining to the balance of power among the member nations and others to the underlying principles and guarantees for democratic and effective governance. In spite of the vast diversity between Arab countries in size, population, natural wealth and technological progress they all cling to the principle of sovereignty and insist upon an equal say. The UN structure attempts to resolve the problematic of democracy versus practicality by creating plenary and subsidiary limited- membership bodies and according greater authorities, such as the right to issue binding decisions, upon some of the latter. Moreover, in the Security Council, a subsidiary body with extensive powers, the reality of the international balance of power is acknowledged through the creation of "permanent seats", endowed with special voting privileges such as the right to veto. The authors of the Arab League Charter, in contrast, opted for absolute equality among its members and institutionalised this in the simplest possible organisational framework. The Arab League consists of a general council and subsidiary committees for studying technical matters. All member nations are represented on the council and the subsidiary committees. Such a rudimentary structure could not possibly cope with the growing demands of the Arab regional order and consequently was in need of adjustment. A network of specialised agencies established by the Arab League emulated the model set by the UN while the creation of an autonomous agency, the Council for Arab Economic Unity, was the Arab answer to the creation of the European Common Market. The Arab-Israeli conflict would also impact on the structure of the Arab League. The institutions created within the framework of the Arab Joint Defence and Economic Cooperation Pact of 1950, the inter-Arab agencies associated with the use of the Jordan River and its tributaries, and those regional organisations created to regulate certain aspects of inter-Arab relations and Arab relations with other nations were all a direct response to the challenges posed to the Arab world by this conflict. There exists a panoply of specialised Arab organisations modeled on the specialised agencies of the UN. There is a mechanism for collective defence embodied in the Joint Defence Pact, and one for economic integration embodied in the Arab Economic Unity Treaty. Enough, it might appear, to cover all contingencies. But appearances aren't everything. In developing its structures the Arab League adopted form without substance. Our network of specialised agencies, unlike that of the UN, was not founded upon a preconceived theoretical or practical conception and is consequently clumsy and ineffective. The UN Charter envisioned a specific relationship with its specialised agencies: the UN was to be the nucleus of a comprehensive international edifice, not merely a loosely knit umbrella organisation. Thus, it instituted two mechanisms for coordinating with its specialised agencies, one a mutually binding contractual arrangement and the other a steering committee chaired by the secretary-general and comprising the heads of the UN agencies. No such clarity exists in the relationship between the Arab League and its specialised agencies. The result is a lack of coordination and a degree of arbitrariness in the manner in which these agencies are both created and run. The Arab network of specialised agencies lacks the backing of organisations capable of performing executive or operational functions equivalent to those undertaken by the IMF, the World Bank for Construction and Development and the WTO. This lack is not solely the product of hierarchical impediments related to Arab economic structures, their degree of integration and the demands of operating as a subsystem of the global economy but also due to the nature of political systems in the Arab world and their refusal to join associations governed by the principle of majority vote. To be fair, there has been one Arab initiative to create a financial and administrative support organisation, this being the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development approved by the Arab League's economic council on 16 May, 1968. However, its meager capital (100 million Kuwaiti dinars upon founding) and the preference of wealthy Arab governments to donate funds through bilateral arrangements have severely restricted the development of this inter- Arab institution. The Arab approach to collective security betrays similar inconsistencies. When it was signed in 1950 the Joint Defence and Economic Cooperation Treaty appeared likely to trigger a qualitative shift in the institutions of Arab cooperative action. The treaty brought into being new types of agencies and mechanisms: a Permanent Military Committee made up of representatives of the general staffs of member states, a Joint Defence Council comprising ministers of foreign affairs and defence and an Economic Council made up of economic ministers. An additional protocol provided for the creation of a military advisory board consisting of the army chiefs of staff of signatory nations. The treaty introduced a new mechanism for decision-taking in the Joint Defence Council: decisions would be taken on the basis of a two-thirds majority vote and would be binding on all members -- a radical departure from the principle applied in the Arab League. "Decisions adopted by the council unanimously will be binding on all participating nations and those adopted by a majority vote shall be binding upon the assenting parties." It quickly became apparent, however, that the innovation was not as revolutionary as it sounded. Decisions taken by the Joint Defence Council on the basis of a two-thirds majority are not binding until they have been approved by a unanimous vote in the Arab League. So Arab Joint Defence Council resolutions remained no more than ink on paper. One notable example is the resolution creating a United Arab Command, ratified by the 1964 Arab Summit, convened to devise a plan to counter Israeli plans to divert the Jordan River. Even then the lack of organisational ground rules for collective Arab action made it impossible for the United Command to function effectively. The same shortcomings impeded progress towards economic integration. In 1959 the Arab League Council passed a protocol conferring autonomous status on the Economic Council created under the Joint Defence and Economic Cooperation Pact of 1950. In 1977 the league amended Article 2 of the Defence Pact, renaming the Economic Council the Economic and Social Council and giving it the right to "approve the creation of any specialised Arab agency and to monitor the performance of existing agencies". This amendment was not a step towards economic integration on the European model but, rather late in the day, an attempt to establish a proper organisational link with Arab specialised agencies. In a sense it is unfair to compare the Arab experience of economic integration with Europe. Following centuries of bitter inter-European rivalry Western Europe emerged from World War II to find, for the first time in its history, that it faced an external threat larger than it could handle. It was only natural that internal tensions and contradictions would subside in the face of the starker contrasts between it and the Soviet Union. Had the US, following WWII, opted to retreat into its customary isolationism no project for European unity would have got off the ground. Instead the US put itself forward as the leader of the Western camp and readily undertook the costs of this leadership, including the costs needed to keep Europe united under its leadership against the Soviet peril. Under the Marshall Plan Washington paid $129 billion between 1948 and 1952 towards reconstruction. It was similarly energetic in forging NATO to serve as Western Europe's security umbrella. It was the enormous amount of US aid and the security shield that gave the impetus to Europe's drive to economic integration and unity. Propitious circumstances were alone not enough to sustain the drive, however, and significant obstacles had to be overcome, notably the long-standing mutual suspicion between Germany and France. The institutional structure of European economic integration acquired a number of characteristics that gave a unique flavour to its administrative and decision-making processes. The institutions of the EU, each within their particular field, have the right to issue decisions that are fully binding on member nations, which gives these institutions a supranational quality. The EU has further succeeded in striking a balance between the democratic equality of its member nations and the practical exigencies of discrepancies in their respective political and economic weights. There are agencies in which representation is based on one vote per nation and decisions are taken by a large majority and sometimes unanimously. In other bodies, member nations are accorded seats, or voting power, to reflect their relative political and economic power. The European Council has 20 seats, of which Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain each have two seats and other member nations have one. In the European Parliament seats are apportioned according to the size of member nations' population, and blocs range from Germany's 99 seats down to Luxembourg's six. A proportional system is similarly followed in the European ministerial councils, with balloting power ranging from 10 votes for each of the larger nations (Germany, Britain, France and Italy) down to only two votes for the smallest, Luxembourg. Democracy is further institutionalised in the EU through a system of checks and balances between separate and autonomous legislative, executive and judicial authorities. The European Parliament is elected by direct ballot by the citizens of member nations and has the power to withhold confidence from the council. The 15-member European Court of Justice enjoys full autonomy and its rulings are binding on all members, while the European auditing agency is instrumental in monitoring financial revenues and outlays. If balances still favour the executive authority, attempts are currently in progress to address this distortion. More importantly, the European experience has succeeded in allowing the participation of interest groups in the decision making process by according them a major voice on Social and Economic Advisory Committees. The EU has also put into place guarantees to ensure the perpetuity of its democratic system and beliefs. All members of the EU are liberal democratic societies and countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal were not permitted entry until democracy had been firmly reestablished. There are many reasons why Turkey has not been accepted into the EU; one of the most important is the continued primacy of the military in the political system. Clearly, democratic structures and practices have played a vital role in the process of European integration. The process of integration, particularly when it takes a functional approach, is an institutional process and governments that do not take decisions through legitimate democratic institutions will not be able to participate in building cooperative institutions at the regional level, which is a fundamentally democratic process. Moreover, the absence of democracy domestically will potentially be a source of chaos and instability, and, in turn, inevitably hampers the process of integration. Finally, democracy is an important tool for regulating the pace and course of the integration process. It not only helps devise the technical solutions to many political obstacles by ensuring the active participation of diverse interests groups at various phases of the decision making process, it also helps avert excessive haste while ideas are tested, accepted, rejected or fine-tuned to conform with public opinion in the member nations. We note in this regard the many referendums that accompanied the process of European integration. At no point in the Arab experience has there been an international environment that embraced the cause of Arab unity or was conducive to its growth. True, major external challenges were instrumental in keeping the idea of Arab nationalism alive. However, international and regional balances of power conspired to undermine all attempts at promoting Arab unity, the more so because Arab ruling elites failed to conduct their relations with hostile foreign powers in a manner that would safeguard moves to unification. At no phase in its development did the drive to Arab integration find an international power to sponsor it and assist it towards its goal. While Britain capitalised on the energies of the nascent pan-Arab movement in its liberal phase to debilitate the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the Soviet Union similarly capitalised on these energies, in a more revolutionary or radical form, to offset Western influence in the Arab world, neither liberal nor revolutionary Arab nationalism was capable of exploiting its relations with Britain or the Soviet Union to further unification. Nor did the Arabs produce a pragmatic leadership, epitomised by Jean Monnet -- mastermind of the European Coal and Steel Community, the embryo of the EU -- capable of devising practical and innovative formulas for reconciling political and economic differences. At the same time many Arab societies have not reached the degree of maturity to sufficiently buffer the social and economic interplay between Arab countries from the political squabbles between Arab regimes, many of which are closer to tribal fiefdoms or limited companies than to the concept of a modern state. All lack truly empowered legislatures, autonomous judicial authorities, political parties and accurate and transparent methods of gauging public opinion. While there are many special interest groups and ideological trends, the climate in most, if not all, Arab countries makes it difficult to assess their influence. As a result political change tends to occur suddenly and dramatically in the form of military coups, palace intrigues or, at best, the death of the "leader for life". Such circumstances make it impossible to place a productive or service sector under collective Arab authority, to create supranational Arab institutions whose decisions are binding on all, or to relinquish the principle of absolute equality among member nations in favour of proportional representation or graduated voting power to reflect the realities of demographic, political and economic balance. As the saying goes, if you don't have it you can't give it. Arab societies without durable institutionalised structures for domestic government could not possibly build a durable institutionalised structure on a regional level. When, in 1998, the Arab agreement to create a free trade zone over a 10- year period came into effect it quickly became obvious that this agreement had changed nothing in the way Arab regimes think and work. It was business as usual and inter-Arab political squabbles decimated this initiative, as they have decimated all the others. Even presuming that an Arab free trade zone could be created, there is nothing to guarantee that this will constitute a practical beginning for the process of economic integration. This goal has political prerequisites which are not available, especially following the occupation of Iraq. The first is the existence of a political security umbrella to protect the Arab world from external penetration and to contain internal political tensions. Such an umbrella is essential for fostering and sustaining collective enterprises. Secondly, any collective enterprise in any field requires a collective authority equipped with specific organisational structures and decision-making mechanisms. Arab countries will first have to establish such structures and mechanisms at home before they try them out on a larger, regional scale. Unfortunately the Arab world is under immense pressure. Since 11 September 2001 the US has committed itself to altering the political and cultural makeup of the Arab and Islamic worlds. Following the war in AfghanistanWashington swerved to Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein and it is doubtful that it will stop before it has crushed all organisations and states it has branded as "terrorist" or "renegade", and compelled all others to comply with the US-Israeli agenda for education, culture and the media policies. A segment of political and intellectual opinion in the Arab world believes that current circumstances offer an opportunity to hasten political and cultural reforms that have long been needed but were impossible without outside pressure. However, the problem is that the types of change the Americans and Israelis want conflict with the types of change Arab peoples aspire to, which means that reform in the Arab world will have to proceed on simultaneous tracks, one at the level of individual Arab states and the other at the regional level. At the regional level there is need for an effective leadership to steer the process of reform. No single Arab government is capable of undertaking this burden, nor would it be desirable to have a single country at the helm. So far, it appears that the coordinated efforts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria offer the most hopeful key for the coming phase. In the past, consensus between these three countries has worked to achieve the minimum level of cohesion necessary to realise significant achievements on behalf of the Arab world. In the 1950s their cooperation succeeded in undermining the Baghdad pact. It was because of their cooperation that in 1973 it was possible to wage an effective two-front war against Israel and back this military drive with the oil weapon. And without the consensus between Damascus, Cairo and Riyadh the US would never have been able to obtain the cover of legitimacy necessary to mount the war to liberate Kuwait. It must be stressed that I am not advocating the creation of an Arab "axis". Rather, I suggest that the consensus between a group of focal nations will create a locomotive capable of pulling the dilapidated carriages of the Arab order towards the institutional changes needed to enable this order to face the challenges that threaten its extinction. If these three nations together cannot combine their forces effectively to serve as a model and an engine for a process of comprehensive integration, it is difficult to imagine other efforts to reform the Arab order succeeding. In the European experience it was Franco-German resolve that rescued the process of integration from its many pitfalls and put it back on track. There is no reason why we cannot expect the same from the combined efforts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, so long as they summon the necessary resolve. The writer is head of the department of political science at Cairo University.
