Democracy in the Middle East

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Proposed reasons for the relative absence of liberal democracy in the Middle East are diverse, from the long history of imperial rule by the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France and the contemporary political and military intervention by the United States, all of which have been blamed for preferring authoritarian regimes because this simplifies the business environment, while enriching the governing elite and the companies of the imperial countries. This is a social and economic justice explanation.[citation needed] Other explanations include the problem that most of the states in the region are rentier states, which experience the theorized resource curse.

Several orientalist scholars have attempted to explain the absence of democracy in the region. While some orientalists argue that democracy is incompatible with Islamic culture and values,[1] others put forward the development in the conceptualization of political practices. This mainstream advances the innovative approach adopted by political actors in interpreting religious texts which underpinnes that a gradual political opening is more efficient to reach democracy. As claims about the impact of civil society in the democratization process was put forward by the political economy approaches, the post-positivist interpretation stresses the importance to consider the interplay between culture, identity and discourse in framing Middle East politics.[2]

Accordingly, this article traces the history and assesses the current state and future prospects of democracy, democratic tendencies, and democratic movements in all countries in the broadly-defined Middle East region.

Contents

[edit] Current state

In light of resistance to democracy in much of the Arab world, observers such as Samuel Huntington have advocated the notion of a "clash" between Arab and Western civilisations[3]. This resistance even led to arguments such as "Arab exceptionalism," a phase that prescribes that Arab nations are immune to economic modernization and democratization, or that these concepts form part of the "clash".

Nevertheless, there are a number of pro-democracy movements in the Middle East. A prominent figure in this movement is Saad Eddin Ibrahim who advocates and campaigns for democracy in Egypt and the wider region, working with the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Development Studies[4]. When asked about his thoughts regarding the current state of democracy in the region he said:

“People's memories... have become tuned or conditioned to thinking that the problems in the Middle East must be a chronic condition, not that they are only 30 years old, and not realizing that the reason for the current state of the Middle East was first, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and two, the Cold War.

The Cold War made the United States and other western democracies look the other way when it came to political oppression and allowed them to deal with tyrants and dictators”. [5]

The Middle East Forum, a pro-Israel think tank based in Philadelphia, recently published their table for measurement of democracy within Middle Eastern states[6]. Their contention is that little has changed, post-September 11, 2001, and if anything the "War on Terror" has enabled many regimes to stifle democratic progress. The results showed very little progress from 1999-2005. The report even states that this pattern may be counter-productive to US interests, with Islamism being the only viable opposition to regimes in many Middle Eastern countries. As an additional measure of US attitudes towards the issue of Middle Eastern democratization, on 14 December 2006, the US Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice[7]stated that democracy in the Middle East was “non-negotiable.” The reaction to this statement was positive from some; it was considered a warning by others[weasel words].

Middle East scholar Louise Fawcett notes how the United Nations Development Programme's Arab Human Development Report 2002, drafted by Western-educated Arab intellectuals, is modelled "on universal democratic principles."[8] In addition, Fawcett argues that "Constitutional democracy is viewed not only as an intrinsic good by the putative globalisers who drafted this Report; it is also an instrumental necessity if the region is to stop stagnating and begin to catch up with the rest of the world."[9]

The level of democratic process varies widely from country to country. A few countries, such as Saudi Arabia, do not claim to be democracies; however, most of the larger states claim to be democracies[citation needed], although this claim is in most cases disputed[citation needed].

[edit] Arab Socialism

A number of republics embracing Arab Socialism, such as Syria and Egypt, regularly hold elections, but critics assert that these are single-party states or unfair dominant-party systems and not full multi-party systems. Most importantly they do not allow citizens to choose between different candidates for presidency election[10][11]. Yemen, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, while also partly accepting this ideology, are generally considered more democratic than other states that do so, but the power of institutions in the latter two are limited by the domination of Syria and Israel, respectively.

[edit] Absolute monarchy

Absolute monarchy is more common in the Middle East than elsewhere, and even a number of kingdoms with parliaments have been claimed to fall broadly under this category. Saudi Arabia and most other kingdoms on the Arabian Peninsula are usually considered absolute monarchies.

[edit] Constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy can be said to be at least partly embraced in some countries that are generally considered more democratic. Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain are examples of this category.

[edit] Islamic governments

Establishment of Islamic laws in Iran following the Iranian Revolution of 1979 has produced an electoral system that is limited by the vetoing power of a religious leader. However some elections in Iran, as the election of city councils satisfies democratic criteria. In other countries, the ideology (usually out of power) has fostered both pro-democratic and anti-democratic sentiments. The Justice and Development Party is a moderate democratic Islamist party that has come to power in traditionally secular Turkey. Its moderate ideology has been compared to Christian Democracy in Europe. The United Iraqi Alliance, the winner of the recent elections in Iraq, is a coalition including many religious parties.

[edit] Israel/Palestine

Israel is represented by a very large number of parties where small parties have a disproportionate strong influence. According to Uzi Benziman of Haaretz, Israel is often considered to be a democracy within its 1948 borders, though this contention does not go unquestioned[12] due to issues such as institutional segregation [13][14] and its military occupation of disputed territories and Palestinian territories.

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises only limited sovereignty, has generally been considered to be more open than most Arab governments, particularly in light of the election of President Mahmoud Abbas. Factionalism has increased recently, particularly in the Legislature, and has caused severe tension over the issue of democracy. This does, however, indicate that democracy is a salient issue in Palestinian society.

[edit] Mauritania

Mauritania has recently undergone a democratic transition, an example of democratization without foreign intervention. Although Mauritania is not always counted as a Middle Eastern country, due to its peripheral location[citation needed], it is a member of the Arab League and has traditionally been under an Arab ruling class. The refusal by other Arab leaders to attend the 2007 inauguration of Mauritania's newly elected president has been viewed as a sign that the country's example has made authoritarian rulers in the region nervous[citation needed].

[edit] Lebanon

Lebanon traditionally enjoyed a confessional democratic system. the Lebanese constitution that was written in 1926 was based on the French constitution and it secured equality and freedom among all its citizens. A large number of political parties, with very different ideologies, are active in Lebanon, but most of them form political alliances with other groups of similar interests. Even though certain high profile positions in the government and the seats in the parliament are reserved to specified sects, very strong competition between different party and independent candidates is expected in the elections.

[edit] Secularism

Main article: Secularism in the Middle East

Secularism in the region was pioneered by Kemal Atatürk, who, though he himself had some authoritarian tendencies, helped establish the first modern Middle Eastern democracy in Turkey. Arab Socialism has also fostered secularism, though sometimes in what has been seen as a less democratic context. Secularism is not the same as freedom of religion, and secular governments have at times denied the rights of Islamists and other religious parties. A trend of a more liberal secularism supporting broader freedom of religion has developed recently in Turkey, while some Arab Socialist states have moved away from secularism to some extent, increasingly embracing religion, though many say without really increasing the rights of religious parties.

[edit] 2007 Democracy Index

According to a study of The Economist, 167 countries were classified according to five broad concepts : free and fair election process, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture. In the middle east only Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, and Israel were considered democracies to the extent that all but authoritarian regimes were considered democracies.

[edit] Western intervention

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, many of the empire's former territories fell under the rule of European countries under League of Nations mandates. Thus, European powers were instrumental in establishing the first independent governments that emerged out of the Ottoman Empire. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for allies in the region and the U.S. has been accused of supporting dictatorships contrary to its stated democratic principles. The 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine provided a justified rhetoric for U.S. foreign policy to actively promote democracy in the Middle East. The U.S., with some allies, has in recent years invaded Afghanistan and Iraq with a partially stated purpose of establishing democracies there, to the opposition of those who say that democracy cannot be imposed from outside. The two countries have since had relatively successful elections, but have also experienced serious security and development problems.

Some believe that democracy can be established "only through force" and the help of the United States.[15] Writers such as Michele Dunne, when writing for the Carnegie Paper[16] concurs with the rhetoric of the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (at that time, referring to peace and terrorism) that the foreign policy position of the US should be to ‘pursue peace as though there were no democratization, and pursue democratization as though there were no peace. In other words, the U.S. government should pursue reform and democratization as policy goals in the first instance without worrying excessively about tradeoffs with other goals.”[17] However, the Bush Administration has lost much credibility due to their inability to predict the outcomes of their interventions in the Middle East. The U.S. pressure behind the calling of the 2006 Palestinian legislative election backfired, resulting in the democratically sound victory of Hamas, a "huge blow to Bush's advocacy of democracy in the Middle East".[18] The U.S. seemed not to have anticipated that democratic reform might result in the election of unfriendly governments. Drawing upon the ideas of Middle East scholar Nicola Pratt it can be argued that:

“…the outcome of democratization efforts is [in reality]…contingent upon the degree to which actors’ chosen strategies contribute to either reproducing or challenging the relations of power between civil society and the state.”[19]

[edit] The State, Democratization & The Middle East

Whereas democracy is an end product, democratization is the process leading to it. [20] One of the key questions debated nowadays is why the region of the Middle East and North Africa referred to as MENA has proven extremely resistant to democracy while other regions like Africa, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Central and Eastern Europe have registered significant progress toward democratization. Typical explanations offered by analysts, in general, point to the “prerequisite failure” of MENA. The civil society here is seen as weak and thus unable to develop effective countervailing power in society which would force the state to be accountable to popular preferences. In the same vein, the lack of a market-driven economy undermines the capacity to build individual autonomy and power.[21] The level of equilibrium or disequilibrium in the state-civil society relations is one of the most important indicators of the chances of democratization and the possibility of its evolution. [20]It is a synergistic relation as without the state it may be difficult for civil society to flourish and develop in a productive way. [20] Further on, poverty, inequality and low literacy rates compromise people's commitment to democratic reforms as this is not a priority for them while, at the same time, the countries in the region are geographically remote from the epicentre of democratization. Culture, and specifically MENA’s saturation with Islam is also a powerful argument used to explain the region’s failure to catch the third wave.[21]

Although the explanations above are valid in some cases, they fail in many other instances when particular countries or areas suffering from the same poor endowments succeed in their quest for democratization. In order to understand the rarity of the democratic transition in the MENA region it is necessary to take into account a decisive variable when it comes to democratization: the state.

Inspired by Skopcol’s work on revolution[22], Belin[21] argues that democratic transition can only be carried out when the state’ coercive apparatus lacks the will or capacity to crush it. And, as history reveals, authoritarianism has been exceptionally robust in the MENA because the coercive apparatus in many of the states has proven exceptionally able and wiling to crush reform initiatives. In short, the strength, coherence, and effectiveness of the state’s coercive apparatus discriminate between cases of successful and failed democratization. And here is where the region’s true exceptionalism lies.

Moreover, almost every Arab state has been directly involved in some form of international conflict over the past decades. Unfortunately, evidence from the literature on the effect of wars on domestic political development suggests that conflict involvement has a direct influence on the country's prospects for democratization. [23]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lewis, Bernard. What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East
  2. ^ Pratt,NIdentity,Culture and Democratization:The Case of Egypt
  3. ^ Clash of civilizations Samuel P Huntington, ISBN-10: 074323149X
  4. ^ Ibn Khaldun Centre for Development Studies http://www.eicds.org/
  5. ^ Interview with Saad Eddin Ibrahim. March, 2005. http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.2/ibrahim_interview.htm
  6. ^ The Middle East Forum, http://www.meforum.org/article/970#_ftn23
  7. ^ Rice discusses Middle East Democracy http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/articles/2006/ioi/061219-rice-democracy.html
  8. ^ Fawcett, L. (2005) International Relations in the Middle East Gosport: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-926963-7 p 123
  9. ^ Fawcett, L(2005) International Relations in the Middle East Gosport: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-926963-7 p 123
  10. ^ Egypt
  11. ^ Syria
  12. ^ Benziman, Uzi. "Democracy in Israel," Haaretz. 18 May 2003
  13. ^ "Israeli Law Limits Arab Citizenship," BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3111727.stm
  14. ^ "Arab Ban Proposed in Jewish Areas," BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2115857.stm
  15. ^ Democracy in the Middle East Can Only Be Established by Force
  16. ^ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  17. ^ Michele Dunne, “Integrating Democracy Promotion into U.S. Middle East Policy”,Carnegie Paper No. 50, October 2004. p 8, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1381
  18. ^ Bush Is Conciliatory in Accepting Victory of Hamas
  19. ^ Pratt, N (May 2004) “Bringing politics back in: examining the link between globalization and democratization” Review of International Political Economy 11:2, p 331, DOI:10.1080/0969229042000249831
  20. ^ a b c Korany, Bahgat, Rex Brynen and Paul Noble, eds. (1998). “Political Liberalization & Democratization in the Arab World: Volume 2, Comparative Experiences”. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 3, 8, 274. ISBN 1-55587-599-8. 
  21. ^ a b c Bellin, Eva (2005). “Coercive Institutions and Coercive Leaders” in Posusney, Marsha Pripstein and Michele Penner Angrist, eds., “Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance”. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp. 21-38. ISBN 1-58826-342-8. 
  22. ^ Skocpol, Theda (1979). “States and Social Revolutions”. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 32. ISBN 0-521-29499-1. 
  23. ^ Brynen, Rex, Bahgat Korany and Paul Noble, eds. (1995). “Political Liberalization & Democratization in the Arab World: Volume 1, Theoretical Perspectives”. London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, pp. 285. ISBN 1-55587-579-3. 

[edit] External links