Palestinian anocracy

Before I can write about Palestinian pathology (next post), I’d like to introduce scientist and author Steven Pinker’s description of a state ruled as an anocracy. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is such an administration.

Pinker writes that anocracy is

a form of rule that is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. Anocracies are also known among political scientist as semidemocracies, praetorian regimes, and (my favorite, overheard at a conference) crappy governments. These are administrations that don’t do anything well. (310)

Unlike autocratic police states, they don’t intimidate their populations into quiescence, but nor do they have the more-or-less fair systems of law enforcement of a decent democracy. Instead they often respond to local crime with indiscriminate retaliation on entire communities. [This is not a feature of the PA.] (310)

They retain the kleptocratic habits of the autocracies from which they evolved, doling out tax revenues and patronage jobs to their clansmen, who then extort bribes for police protection, favorable verdicts in court, or access to the endless permits needed to get anything done. A government job is the only ticket out of squalor, and having a clansman in power is the only ticket to a government job.
When control of government is periodically up for grabs in a “democratic election,” the stakes are as high as in any contest over precious and indivisible spoils. (310)

Foreign aid, so beloved of crusading celebrities, can be another poison chalice, because it can enrich and empower the leaders through whom it is funneled rather than building a sustaining economic infrastructure. (311)

All these are characteristics of the Palestinian Authority, albeit with some local nuance.

The last election in the PA, in 2006, saw the Hamas faction win the majority vote. The opposing political party Fatah refused to join a proposed coalition. The Palestinian Authority instituted a non-Hamas government in the West Bank while Hamas formed a government on its own in Gaza. The West Bank and Gaza have virtually remained two separate entities since 2007.

To repeat Pinker,

When control of government is periodically up for grabs in a “democratic election,” the stakes are as high as in any contest over precious and indivisible spoils.

The PA evolved from the autocratic administration of the West Bank by the Kingdom of Jordan. Jordan is still an autocracy with a component of a police state.

While the PA’s rule in the West Bank is an anocracy, Hamas’s rule in Gaza is that of a police state.

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Reference: Pinker, Steven. 2011. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. New York: Viking.