Introduction
In broaching the leitmotifs
of democracy and authoritarianism particularly in the Middle East Region of the
globe, the endemic nature of various forms of unrest and upheavals raging from
boarder/territory disputes, the politics of water, violence within the
parameters of religion inter alia cannot
be overemphasized and this can be partly attributed to the authoritarian
regimes which has manned the helms of affairs of the region, thereby making the
discourse of democracy look like a mirage; with the various instances of cases
of human rights violation, issues of gender inequality and so on, which are the
consequences of the region not being democratic.
The argument here is that, since various mechanisms and
systems has been tried and tested to see if democracy could work in the region
and has failed, ipso facto it can be
best described as an unfertile ground which resists the spread of democracy and
rather upholds authoritarianism. probing the academic literature for a
unanimously accepted meaning of democracy, if any, is far from simple or
straightforward. It seems, nevertheless, that there is a consensus that
democracy principally is ‘a system of governance in which rulers are held
accountable for their actions’ (Schmitter and Karl, 1991: 114) and that a
society can choose and reinstate those rulers through ‘open, free, and fair’
elections (Huntington, 1991: 9). Democracy is not the ultimate (Touraine, 1997:
28), yet it remains the most valued and proficient forms of government in the
world.
conversely, this system of rule still failed to find a grip
in the Middle East, a region that has traditionally been a democracy-free zone.
This paper seeks to highlight the hurdles that render the Middle East an
unfruitful soil for democracy. Therefore, it will be argued that the Middle
East lacks many of the democratization prerequisites, such as the adequate
political culture and socio-economic grounds. Yet, this could not serve as the
main reason why the Middle East is adamant to the spread of democray, as many
other countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia succeeded to initiate
democratic change even though these prerequisites were absent. The true wonder
of the Middle East, this paper argues, lies in ‘The will and capacity of the
Arab state’s coercive apparatus to curb democratic initiative’ (Bellin, 2004:
143).
This paper, thus, is structured into three main sections.
Firstly, it presents a theoretical overview of authoritarianism in the region,
and explores certain salient concepts which are imbedded in this regime; the
second section explores the role of the coercive apparatus as a democratization inhibitor
will be analysed. In the last section which precedes the conclusion, some democratization obstacles
that thwart the consolidation of democracy will be discussed. The conclusion
then summarises the argument of the paper.
Authoritarianism
in the Middle East – A Theoretical Overview
The question is often asked, why does the Middle East remain largely
authoritarian? Or, as it is sometimes posed, why does it continue to experience
a democratic deficit (notwithstanding the ongoing developments in the region)?
Various scholars have put forward several competing theories and arguments
regarding this topic. These tend to fall under four main categories: culture,
institutions, the history of international relations and actors in the Middle
East, and oil/rentier state.
Scholars such as Samuel Huntington and Ellie Kedourie (1993: 22-49),
contend that the lack of democracy in the region stems from the belief that
Middle Eastern culture, which they equate with Islam (the reasons for this are
discussed in further detail below), is incompatible with democracy. Huntington (1984: 61) asserts that “Islam has
not been hospitable to democracy.” Huntington and other proponents of this view
generally argue that Islam’s incompatibility with democracy stems from its
system of law, known as Shari’a.
Shari’a law lays out the rules and regulations by which Muslims ought to live
and links religion and daily life together. Thus, the argument contends,
Islamic traditions and values are antithetical to democratic notions of
liberty, human rights, and the separation of church and state. According to
Elie Kedourie (2000), whereas democracy in the West is based on Western
political traditions of constitutions and representational governments, as well
as the notion of a sovereign nation state, no equivalent traditions exist
within Islam. As a result, Kedourie (2000: 9) asserts, democracy is “quite
alien to the mindset of Islam.” Bernard Lewis (2002) discusses the culture
argument further. Although he does not specifically address the issue of the persistence
of authoritarianism, Lewis (2002) holds essentially the same conclusion.
He argues that the roots of Western dominance (or, more bluntly, Middle
Eastern failure to counter it) are found within Islam. Historically speaking,
particularly during the last century or so of the Ottoman Empire, Lewis (2002:
21) contends, Islamic beliefs hindered Muslims from fully adopting and
assimilating Western cultural norms and values, political practices, and
science. Consequently, for a long time the Middle East was slow to “modernize”
or “Westernize” and match the progress made by the West; large gaps between the
Middle East and the West existed in terms of scientific knowledge, social norms
like the status of women, and the separation of religion and the state. When
attempts at nationalism and socialism in the 20th century failed to bring about
a significant resurgence of Middle Eastern “civilization,” Middle Easterners
placed the blame for this elsewhere, particularly towards Western
“imperialism.” Instead, Lewis 2002: 23) states that people of the Middle East
need to “abandon grievance and victimhood” in order for the region to return
its former glory. All of these arguments are rooted in what Edward Said (1979:
6) called “Orientalism.” According to Said (1979: 13), Orientalism is the name
for the discourse employed by Europeans and later, Americans, to describe,
study, and dominate the Middle East. There is not sufficient space nor is it
appropriate for this paper to discuss Orientalism in its entirety. However, one
important aspect of it pertains to the culture argument which will be discussed
in this paper; it will be based on the notion of the “other.” The “other” is as an imagined, collective
group of people who ought to be feared and considered fundamentally different
from another group. In the Orientalist discourse, the West has historically
viewed the Orient[1]
as the collective “other;” the Orient was a place of exoticism, romance and
antiquity, whereas Europe was the place of enlightened, advanced and sophisticated
civilization.
In its construction of the notion of the “other,” the discourse regarded
the entire Middle East as one unchanging entity, retaining an essential
“essence.” Orientalists regarded the religion of Islam as having such an
immutable essence and subsequently equated Middle Eastern culture with Islam.
When it became clear to scholars that democracy would not spread to the Middle
East after the Cold War as it did in other parts of the world, they began to
look towards Middle Eastern culture, and hence Islam, as the primary reason for
the lack of democracy in the region. Huntington’s (1993: 22) “clash of
civilizations” thesis reinforced the notion that culture, rather than nation
states, ought to be the main focus of study in the field of international
studies.
Other scholars have presented factual data to support the notion of the
Islam/democracy divide. Steven Fish (2002) argues through statistical analysis
that a strong link exists between Islam and authoritarianism. Specifically, he
contends, the subordination of women in Muslim societies is a central factor
that accounts for the democratic deficit. According to Fish, variables, such as
low female literacy rates, high population sex ratios (a high number of males
per 100 females), the lower number of women in government, and weak gender
empowerment measures (a variable used by the United Nations Development Program
studies to measure the overall status of women in a given society), indicate an
overall inferior status of women in Muslim societies. Thus, women’s social
standing serves as an important factor that links authoritarianism and Islam.
However, most Middle East political scientists and scholars rejected the
idea that culture had anything to do with the persistence of authoritarianism in
the region. As Lisa Anderson (2012: 197) states, scholars asserted that Islam
was not a monolithic entity; its history demonstrated it to be as tolerant and
accommodating like Judaism and Christianity. She points out that followers of
Islam and other religions in general have interpreted them in different ways.
Furthermore, according to John L. Esposito (2002), all religions, including
Islam, have had various relations with different kinds of governments, such as
sultanates, democracy, republicanism and monarchy. This evidence indicates that
Islam is much like other faiths in that it is capable of existing alongside
different kinds of governments at different times. Therefore, it is inaccurate
to argue that Islam is incompatible with democracy or any other form of
government. The cultural explanation ultimately fails to see the complexity of
Middle East, which is as diverse as every other region in the world, and Islam,
which is equally varied.
Alternatively, some scholars such as Bellin (2010: 139) have directed
their attention to the Middle Eastern institutions instead of culture. Some
have argued that the region’s lack of “democratic prerequisites” such as strong
civil societies, market driven economies, high literacy rates and
representational government institutions accounts for the persistence of
authoritarianism in the Middle East. However, the fact that countries in the
region possess a number of these so called prerequisites challenges this idea.
For example, several countries in the region have democratic institutions such
as parliaments, political parties, judiciaries and elections.
According to Marsha P. Posusney (2005: 7), there are two general types of
institutions: formal organizations and informal rules and procedures that
structure political conduct. These include political parties, government
military/security agencies, different branches of government, and elections and
the rules that govern them. Stephen Cook (2005) argues that it is not a lack of
institutions in the region prevent democratic reform and development, rather,
it is the flawed “nature” of the institutions themselves that “tend to restrict
political participation, limit individual freedom, and vest overwhelming power
in the executive branch of government.”
For example, Cook states that in 2004 citizens of Qatar received greater
freedoms in the new constitution, but the royal family consolidated its
absolute rule. State manipulation of elections is perhaps the most apparent
(and well documented in the literature) means for authoritarian governments in
the Middle East to maintain their positions in power. Posusney (2005)
illustrates this by describing contested, albeit largely controlled,
parliamentary elections throughout Middle East during the early 1960s to 2000.
The preferred electoral structure used in the region is a “winner takes all”
system, where the party that wins the majority of seats also gains the most
power.35 In Egypt, party contested parliamentary elections began under late
president Anwar Sadat in 1976. However, according to Posusney, Sadat ensured
that the government-backed party would win the majority of the seats, which is
what occurred. In 1984, president Hosni Mubarak led a new round of an election
but the outcome remained the same: the ruling party, which came to be known as
the National Democratic Party, won the majority of the seats, while only
garnering 73% of the popular vote.
According to Holger Albrecht and Oliver Schlumberger (2004: 371), in
addition to parliaments and elections, authoritarian regimes in the region have
also established other institutions such as new government ministries and
institutions that arbitrate economic disputes. They have also allowed the
establishment of NGOs, parliaments to enact antitrust legislation, and a more
open and freer press. The effect of all of these, according to the authors, is
the creation of the appearance of democracy for both domestic and foreign
audiences. For example, the authors argue, allowing NGOs to operate creates the
semblance of autonomous societal organization, and allowing political parties
to form creates the appearance of true political contestation. In short, the
establishment of institutions is a means and a strategy for authoritarian
regimes in the Middle East to claim to have enacted democratic reform when in
reality it is more likely the projection of an appearance of democracy. The
third set of explanations for the persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle
East is the history of international relations with which the region is
predominantly about the legacy of foreign, primarily Western, interventionism
in to the region during the 20th century and it is directly related to the
oil/rentier state theory which this paper will explore.
Middle Eastern oil was (and continues to be) of great geopolitical and
economic importance for the entire world. British businessman William Knox
D’Arcy first discovered oil in modern day Iran in 1908, but it was not until
after World War II that oil would have a significant and long-lasting impact in
terms of the potential for democratic prospects in the Middle East.
The oil/rentier state theory is another category of explanations for the
persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle East. The theory in this category
explores the possible linkages between natural resources and regime type. In
other words, scholars within this category examine whether natural resources
(such as oil or minerals) determine either democratic or authoritarian
political outcomes. Many of these scholars argue the latter. According to Terry
Lynn Karl (2008: 7), commodity-led growth causes institutional change within
the state; natural resource revenue, more so than any other factors, triggers
these kinds of structural alterations. States that undergo such changes are
called rentier states.
According to the theory, rent is income that is not
generated by the “productive” processes of a country, that is the wealth
generated by a country’s everyday economic activities such as consumption
(people’s wages spent on consumer goods), industrial output (manufactured goods
to be sold and the profits earned), and taxation. Instead, rent is income
derived from “unproductive” sources: the monopoly ownership of land (by the
state or foreign companies) and the extraction and selling of natural
resources, strategic rents (such as land leased for military bases), foreign
worker remittances, foreign aid, and others. Thus the majority of rent comes
from external sources.
Karl (2002) defines A rentier-state
as a state in which its monopoly ownership of a resource determines
the nature of its politics. The rent revenue generated from monopoly ownership
determines a state’s political structures. According to the theory, rent income
concentrates wealth towards the state, which is the primary recipient and
distributor of rent revenues. The state becomes dependent on these revenues and
this dependence fundamentally shifts its decision-making process towards
maintaining the extraction of rent income in the future. More to the point, the
infusion of rents, which are typically very large, allows the state to become
relatively autonomous from society. Therefore, the state leaders do not need to
(or very minimally so) extract income from society through taxation, and thus
be held accountable by society. Their economic independence and the reliance
upon official largesse by entire segments of society fosters the concentration
of political power in the state.
This, then, gets to the core of the theory’s argument. The theory asserts
that states can only “democratize” when the ruler and his subjects bargain over
taxes. This happens when the state does not have any source of income to fund
its operations other than the taxes it imposes on its subjects. As a result,
the state becomes reliant on its citizens and therefore must accommodate their
demands, which they express in representative, legislative bodies such as
parliaments. In other words, citizens accept taxation in exchange for
representation in the state and in this way society is able to hold the
government accountable. This relationship is summed up in the phrase “no
representation without taxation.”
The state-society relationship is the opposite in rentier states. Society
is not involved with the production of national wealth and taxed very little or
not at all. Therefore, society has little or no say in state decision-making.
However, to offset any opposition or dissent towards the state, rentier states
create an apolitical and acquiescent society by providing free or affordable
social services in areas such as health care and education. Thus a rentier
state bases its authority and legitimacy on the redistribution rent wealth
rather than taxation. In sum, according to the theory, rent income is therefore
deterministic: it shapes the politics of the state by giving the state the
financial autonomy to possess and wield political and economic power. The state
becomes powerful, authoritarian, and undemocratic as a result of all of these
factors.
Agent of Democratization
The coercive apparatus, including but not limited to the military
and security forces, of the authoritarian regime is the most tenacious obstacle
in the way of democratization in the Middle East. This apparatus is the
instrument whereby the state pursues its monopoly of physical violence within
its sovereign territory. This essay suggests that this repressive apparatus has
to be at least neutralised first before a democratic transition can start. That
is because the security apparatus’ terror and compulsion are the primary tools
of subjugating its people (Linz, 2000) and crushing democratic initiatives.
Indeed, it acts as the dictator’s shield. Without the loyalty
and support of this stronghold it would be ‘virtually impossible’ for an
authoritarian regime to survive (Kassem, 2004: 7). Ensuring this apparatus
loyalty ‘entails the constant flow of state patronage’ as well as social and
economic incentives (Ibid). Thus, it is not surprising that the Middle Eastern
states’ expenditure on security is among the highest in the world (Bellin,
2004: 147). For instance, in 2000, the average spending of Middle Eastern
countries on security expenditure was 6.7 percent of their GNP, compared to an
international average of 3.8 percent in the same year (Ibid).
In Egypt, for example, since the 1970s, with President
Sadat’s political changes in the country, the army’s subordinate role in
politics was acceptable in exchange of safeguarding the institution and its
leaders’ interests (Harb, 2003). The Egyptian military enjoys increasing
economic investing in almost everything. From companies of production of pasta,
mineral water, butane gas cylinders, military-gear and gas station services to
housing, farming and tourism enterprises (Abul-Magd, 2011; Barany, 2011: 32).
‘The revenue from these enterprises goes straight to the military’s coffers and
is disbursed without state oversight’ (Ibid).
Furthermore, it is often difficult to identify the
distinction between the despotic regime and the coercive apparatus. As in most
cases, the ‘civilian’ ruler, like in Egypt, Algeria or Sudan, is a former
military officer. This conflation, along with patrimonial, symbiotic or ethnic
linkages between them, makes the coercive apparatus’ elites very hostile
towards any gesture of regime change, as they believe that they will be ‘ruined
by reform’ (Bermeo, 1997). An unequivocal example is Syria, in which the
Alawites, the religious sect of Bashar al-Assad, ‘hold key military positions’
(Pipes, 1989: 429). The army atrociously fights the anti-Assad movement because
of the belief that ‘Political opening and popular accountability would deprive
the Alawi officer in Syria of his special perquisites, if not his life’
(Bellin, 2004: 149)
During the 2011 Arab uprisings[2],
the Arab armies have fiercely quelled the democratic movements in Bahrain,
Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Barany (2011: 30) contends that in Tunisia and Egypt,
the soldiers ‘backed’ the revolution. However, for various reasons it was only
in the Tunisian case that the military did not oppose the democratic change.
First, in the heydays of the Egyptian uprising, the military’s top brass did
everything in their power to save their supreme commander-in-chief, Hosni
Mubarak. They endorsed Mubarak’s plan to transfer some powers to Vice President
Omar Suleiman and urged ‘the return of normal life’ (The Huffington Post,
2011), whereas their troops on the ground ‘were actually detaining and abusing
protesters’ (Barany, 2011: 31-32). Second, permitting the pro-Mubarak and
security elements to attack the peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square, in 2
February, put the military institutional integrity and its domestic legitimacy
in jeopardy. Therefore, it was crucial for them to behave as if they were
neutral. Third, the army’s abandonment of Mubarak was merely a ‘good strategy
to secure the long-term interest of the military elite’ (Franzén, 2012).
Finally, on 3 July 2013, because the coercive apparatus remained ‘intact and
opposed to political reform’, the military was able to extinguish the hope of
political change (Bellin, 2004: 143). Not only has the military ousted Morsi,
Egypt’s first democratically elected president, in essence ‘It has ousted
democracy’ as well (Gerges, 2013a).
Apart from the coercive apparatus’ role in inhibition of
democracy, some Middle East analysts usually forget the complicated evolution
of democracy in Europe. It has passed many reformations in the past, and it is
unsurprisingly expected to undergo further changes in the future (Maghsoudi and
Khorshidi, 2011: 16). Democratization is a complex process, in which no single
variable will prove imperative or enough to it (Diamond et al., 1999).
Therefore, the subsequent section will review some aspects of the cultural,
economic, societal and international factors, which are believed to hinder the
consolidation of democracy in the Middle East.
Creed/Faith Playing a Factor
For some historians and political theorists, Islam is
perceived to be incompatible with democracy (Huntington: 1991: 298-307;
Vatikiotis, 1987). For instance, Bernard Lewis (1958) contends that Islam is
inclined to authoritarianism, also Eli Kedourie (1992: 1) views that ‘the idea
of democracy is alien to the mind set of Islam’.
Conversely, it is a fallacy, for different reasons, to
attribute the lack of democracy in the Middle East to Islam. First, there are
other Islamic nations in the likes
of Indonesia, Turkey and Bangladesh have
functioning democratic systems (Chaney in Zakaria, 2012). Second, given the
opportunity to play by democratic rules, people in the region enthusiastically
participate in the democratic process (BBC, 2011). Third, ‘Catholicism and
Confucianism have been accused of incompatibility with democracy, yet these
cultural endowments have not prevented countries in Latin America, southern
Europe, and East Asia from democratizing.’ (Bellin, 2004: 141).
On the other hand, some analysts contend that it is an ‘Arab’
rather than ‘Muslim’ democracy gap (Stepan and Robertson, 2003). Albeit, the
2011 Arab uprisings and the fact that ‘for decades’ people in the region have
been resisting and protesting against unrepresentative and oppressive regimes’
Franzén (2012), disprove this claim.
Yet, all religions, including Islam, ‘require some level of hermeneutics
to give them meaning in specific contexts’ (Bromley, 1997: 333). Thus, the
problem is that ‘some interpretations such as those favoured by radical
Islamists conflict with democratic ideals’ (Otterman, 2003). Some of them are
hostile to democracy because they believe that only God’s laws, al-Shari’a,
must be implemented (Ibid). Another problem, given the weight of Islamist
opposition movements in the Arab world, is the fear that ‘Islamists would only
participate in elections to win power and put an end to democracy immediately’
(Ottaway and Carothers, 2004). Some could argue that, this is what Egypt’s deposed
president, Morsi, has done shortly after his first few months in office, when
he granted himself sweeping powers and ‘immunity from legal oversight’
(Beaumont, 2012). On the other hand, as considerable portions of the region’s
peoples support the Islamist movements, it seems that without their inclusion,
democracy is impossible in the Middle East (Ottaway and Carothers, 2004).
Nevertheless, with respect to Islam, and in order to help
democracy settle in the Middle East, there are some efforts need to be done.
For instance, the Islamic scholars should resume the endeavours of ‘Islamic
modernism and revivalism’ that were nurtured by ideas of prominent religious
leaders like that of the Islamic jurist Mohammed ‘Abdu (Dawn, 1991: 8). They
should scrutinize the Islamic heritage, history and literature in order to
provide the people with clear answers to questions about the relation between
Islam and democracy.
In addition, for the Islamist parties, they need to revamp
their views, and offer real guarantees to the public and non-Islamists parties
to emphasize their adherence to the rules of the democratic game. Conversely,
it is still early to gauge the Islamists’ experiment in post-revolutionary
Tunisia, it could be useful to contrast their success in supporting the
democratic transition and cooperating with other factions in Tunisia, the
trajectory of the Muslim Brothers in post-Mubarak Egypt.
Cultural, Societal and Historical Factors
Democracy, to Ayubi (2001: 397), is not merely a system of
governance, ‘it is also a cultural and intellectual tradition’. By culture,
sociology defines it as the way a group of people live; this may include the
food they eat, the clothe they wear, where they profess their creed (religion)
and so on. Consequently, it could be argued that, in the Middle East, the high
levels of illiteracy and widespread autocratic, patriarchal and masculine
traditions in both family and society impose a serious problem to acknowledging
the democratic values (Crystal, 2001).
Not only the poor illiterate portions of the community that
make the boulevard of democratization bumpy, but also the disc of the business,
religious, academic, public servants and military elites who choose to ally
with the authoritarian government, in exchange for incentives, benefits and the
state’s patronage. In the region, ‘Missing until now are elites committed to
serious rather than cosmetic reform’ in the economic and social structures in
their states (Norton, 2009: 146).
Norton (2009: 130) opines that ‘the region’s governments are
not simply undemocratic but anti-democratic’ which implies that they are
resistant to the spread of democracy. This disdain for democracy date back to
the founding of the Arab republics, in the 1950s and 1960s, when openly
military dictatorships replaced the partial democracies of the colonial period
in Egypt, Iraq and Syria (Bromley, 1997: 327). In that era, democracy was
portrayed as ‘nationally divisive’ and a Western tool (Ibid). President Nasser
viewed the partial parliamentary democracy in Egypt, during the period 1923 to
1952, as nothing more than ‘an easy tool for the reimbursements of the feudal
system’ (BBC in Owen, 2004: 133).
In consistency with the anti-democracy legacy of the Arab
systems, there was no ‘fairly strong institutional separation of the realm of
politics from the overall system in society’ (Rueschemeyer et al., 1992:
41-58). Moreover, absent were the checks and balances within the state system,
which is overwhelmingly controlled by the authoritarian leader. Furthermore,
the civil society that could have played ‘an intermediary’ role between
the individual and the state, as well as ‘a constitutive role by redefining the
political game along democratic lines’ (White, 2004: 14-15), has been
undermined and fizzled out as a result of the regimes’ containment and
repressive policies (Kassem, 2004: 126-7).
Socio-economic and Development Factors
If we follow the international financial institutions’
doctrine that the path to democracy starts from liberalised economy (Norton,
2009: 137), it might be argued that the Middle Eastern countries have a
democracy problem, in part, because of the lack of the adequate economic
preconditions. Generally, there are some common socio-economic features in the
region. For instance, the public sector remains the major employer in the
state. In addition, in most cases, the state is rentier, which means
that the state depends mainly on the rents rather than taxation. According to
Beblawi (1987: 383), the rent is generally ‘a reward for ownership of all natural
sources’, like the oil wealth in Gulf countries. To put it another way, it is
‘the income derived from the gift of the nature’ (Marshall, 1920).
While Huntington (1991: 65) argues that ‘broad-based economic
development involving significant industrialization may contribute to
democratization’, he suggests that oil-based economies do not. In Huntington’s
opinion, the oil revenues accrue to the state, and this helps to fortify the
state bureaucracy and, lessen the need for taxation. Consequently, the absence
of taxation disengages the citizens and separates the state from the society.
Just as if the state pays in exchange for silence and obedience of its
citizens. Luciani (1994: 132) asserts that ‘The roots of democratic
institutions are in the state’s need to tax in order to support its
activities’.
In 2011, in the awake of the Arab uprisings, the Saudi King’s
plan to save his throne was spending ‘an unprecedented amount of money, more
than £60bn ($100bn) and counting’ on raising salaries, helping people to buy
houses, and benefits for the unemployed citizens (Buchanan, 2011). Therefore,
in a sense, oil could be a curse, when it becomes ‘a factor perpetuating
authoritarian government’ (Luciani, 1994: 131). In keeping with this view, Ross
(2011) suggests that citizens of the Arab countries with little or no oil
generally had more freedom than those of lots of it.
Similarly, foreign aid is one of the sources of the rents.
For instance, the United States provides Egypt with $1.55 billion as annual aid
package. This aid, in part, does help the government reduce its dependence on
the conventional taxation (Norton, 2009: 136). Egypt, the second largest
recipient of US aid (Sharp, 2010), and some other Middle East countries are
among the most dependent and vulnerable countries in the world (Ayubi, 2001:
401). This vulnerability and dependence is closely linked to the discussion of
international obstacles in the following part.
International Interference
The international patronage, occasionally, plays a key role
in sustaining and stabilizing the authoritarian regime and its coercive
apparatus. This notion was proven in Latin America and Europe by the end of the
Cold War, as the withdrawal of American patronage of the Latin American
dictatorships and the cease of Brezhnev doctrine to support Eastern European communist
systems quicken the pace of the fall of these regimes (Janos, 2000).
Contrarily, in the Middle East, the patronage continued as the authoritarian
regimes secured the Western interests in the region, which revolve around the
security of Israel, the access to oil, and containing the Islamist threat
(Bellin, 2004).
Despite the American rhetoric of supporting democracy and
human rights in the region, the truth is that the USA has long been and remains
a key ally of tyrannical Arab regimes. In the time was President Clinton, in
the 1990s, talking about promoting democracy all over the world, his prominent
aid, Martin Indyk (2002), viewed democracy in the Middle East as a
chaos-inducer, and detrimental to Israel. Indyk’s perspective reflects the
long-standing tradition of the US foreign policy in the region; upholding the
status quo, as working with the dictators is better than dealing with what
might democracy produce. The fact that ‘American policy in the Middle East has
never been historically pro-democratic’ (Ayubi, 2001: 402) was emphasized in
the words of Madeleine Albright (2003), the former Secretary of State; ‘we did
not make democracy a priority. Arab public opinion, after all, can be rather
scary’.
Even in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when the Bush
administration decided to break the conventional American foreign policy and
adopt a unilateral, interventionist agenda in the Middle East where the US
enjoyed an intimate relationship with despots, promoting democracy was merely
rhetorical. In July 2003, with the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the British
Prime Minister Tony Blair stated before the US Congress, ‘We promised Iraq
democratic government. We will deliver it’ (CNN, 2003). In August
2003, Condoleezza Rice declared ‘a generational commitment to helping the
people of the Middle East transform their region’ into a democratic zone
(Milbank, 2004). Furthermore, in November 2003, President Bush reiterated the
commitment of the USA to the goal of promoting liberal democracy and
market-driven economy throughout the entire Middle East (Bush, 2003).
On the contrary, there was a mismatch between this
pro-democracy discourse and actions in reality. The Bush administration turned
a blind eye to human rights violations and authoritarianism in Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere in the Muslim world (Abootalebi, 2007: 427).
Freedman suggests that ‘emancipation was not the reason why the Bush
administration went to Iraq war. For Rumsfeld and Cheney, the war was about
solving the Saddam problem rather than the Iraq problem, about bringing
security rather than justice’ (2006: 134).
Distancing itself from Bush’s interventionist and tarnished
legacy, the Obama administration returned to the traditional realist line of
Middle Eastern policy. During the Arab uprisings, Obama stayed reluctant to
side with the democratic uprising of Egypt until it became obvious that Mubarak
could not continue (Gerges, 2013b). Also, his administration was ‘reticent to
support the Bahraini uprising because the Bahraini monarchy best serves U.S.
regional interests’ (Hughes, 2011). Likewise, during the Tunisian uprising,
France supported Ben Ali ‘right up to the moment he fled’ (Chrisafis, 2011).
Not only was America pro-tyrants, but occasionally it moved
against democratically elected regimes. For instance, in Iran, in 1953, the CIA
was involved in a clandestine operation, codenamed Operation Ajax, to
overthrow the elected prime minister of Iran and return the pro-America shah to
his throne (Bill, 1988: 86-94). Also, when the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas
won the Palestinian elections in 2006, the ‘US plotted to overthrow Hamas’
government (Goldenberg, 2008).
A fair assessment of the Western role in Middle East might
bring us back to Thomas Jefferson’s observation on the world of his days: ‘We
believe no more in Bonaparte’s fighting merely for the liberties of the seas
than in Great Britain’s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is
the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of
other nations’ (Chomsky, 2003).
Concluding Remarks
Explaining the paradigm of democratisation in the Middle East
is ‘a complex business’ (Bromley, 1997: 340). Throughout this essay, the main
accounts for the region’s democracy deficit have been classified into three
main categories. Firstly, the theoretical overview of authoritarianism which
has densely influenced the entire system in the region. Secondly, the Arab
state’s coercive apparatus which acts as a democratisation agent. The existence
of this apparatus intact and opposed to political change means that a
democratic transition cannot be initiated at all, and herein lies the
singularity, if any, of the Middle East. Thirdly, this paper has refuted some
fallacies and erroneous conclusions
regarding the incompatibility of Islamic or Arabic culture with
democracy. In addition, it was argued that democratisation obstacles such as an
inadequate literacy rate and socio-economic arrangements, the weakness of civil
society and the Western support for the region’s dictatorships rendered the
region an infertile soil for democracy. Finally, despite the Arab Spring’
disappointing consequence, and the democratisation problems in the region,
there is still hope. This hope is incarnated in the revolutionary Tunisian
march for a better hope, in which Tunisia is stepping forward ‘on its path to
democracy, shattering stereotypes and setting an example for others to follow.’
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