The continuing absence of even a single democratic regime in the Arab world is a striking anomaly—the principal exception to the globalization of democracy.
Where oil dominates, there is little wealth creation through investment and risk-taking. Oil distorts the state, the class structure, and indeed the entire incentive structure.
It came to an abrupt end, anyway, after the militant anti-Israeli Hamas faction won a victory in the Palestinian elections held in Israel summarily canceled the elections with no pushback from Bush who had urged them in the first place. It is an Arab world ruled by frightened kings and shaky presidents who have turned to increased authoritarianism to stay in power. Calls for more democracy seem certain to fall on deliberately deaf ears. The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not reflect an official position of the Wilson Center.
Read more. Close Search Search. Democratization in Venezuela: Thoughts on a New Path. Part of the Viewpoints Series Article. By David Ottaway on February 19, The Lonesome Arab Spring The uprisings have made conditions for democracy worse rather than better. The Republics Iraq owes its current political woes not to a popular uprising but to the U. Democracy Deserted? This articles was revised at AM on February 22, About the Author.
Explore More. Previous Next. Kennan Fellow Hannah Chapman. In their recent book, Steve Levitsky and Lucan Way provide extensive empirical support to what many have long argued. But it does not explain why, finally, Egyptians and Tunisians, with the odds stacked against them, found a way to defy expectations and even history, bringing about their own remarkable revolutions.
President George W. The Bush administration cited democracy promotion among the reasons for its invading Iraq and toppling dictator Saddam Hussein in The year saw the largest outpouring of pro-democracy activism the region had ever seen up until then. On January 31, , Iraqis braved terrorist threats to cast meaningful ballots for the first time. In Bahrain, fifty thousand Bahrainis—one-eighth of the population—rallied for constitutional reform.
And there was, of course, the Cedar Revolution, which led to a removal of Syrian troops from Lebanese territory. The Iraq war frightened Arab regimes into thinking that President Bush was serious about his democratizing mission. However, after a succession of Islamist election victories in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories, the United States backed off from its aggressive pro-democracy posture.
With a deteriorating security situation in Iraq, a rising Iran, and a smoldering Israeli—Palestinian conflict, Arab democracy came to seem an unaffordable luxury.
This was not a time for unsettling friendly Arab autocrats. Their Islamist competitors, known for their inflammatory anti-Americanism, were, at best, an unknown quantity. American policymakers shared an instinctive distrust of Islamists and made little effort to understand how they had changed.
At worst, Americans feared, the Islamists would use their newfound power to roll back U. Beginning in , Egypt experienced the worst wave of anti-Islamist repression since the s, while Jordan, long considered one of the more open, progressive Arab states, gradually descended into full-blown authoritarianism. Nearly every Arab country in the region experienced a decline in political rights and freedoms. This was the Arab world that the newly elected President Barack Obama had to contend with.
Instead of challenging the authoritarian status quo, Obama reluctantly accepted it. President Obama got one thing right—the centrality of the Israeli—Palestinian conflict to Arab grievance—but he got another wrong: that conflict was not, nor had it ever been, the most important problem facing the region. But pursuing peace seemed a more promising course than trying to refashion American foreign policy into a force for something—Arab democracy—it had actively resisted the previous five decades.
What Obama did, albeit unwittingly, was remove the United States from its central place in the ongoing Arab conversation over democracy. However hated he was, President Bush had injected himself into the regional debate. The struggle for Arab democracy had been internationalized. Under President Obama, the United States increasingly seemed beside the point. The election of Obama—with his evident desire to build bridges with the Arab world, not to mention his Muslim family and middle name—was the best possible outcome that Arabs could have hoped for.
It was difficult to think of an American politician who seemed as sympathetic and thoughtful about the challenges facing the region. The optimism over the Cairo speech quickly subsided. Somehow, in several Arab countries, U. Bush administration. The months leading up to the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions were characterized by a renewed despair. I was in Egypt covering the elections.
One by one, they ran me through all the violations. But while opposition groups were demoralized, they, along with a growing number of Egyptians, began to realize, with much greater clarity, that gradual reform from within the system was impossible.
The old paradigm—of pushing for small openings from within—was roundly discredited. Calls for civil disobedience and mass protest intensified. The ingredients were there—the anger, disillusion, and the loss of faith in a system made for and by ruling elites. All that was missing was a spark. Before Tunisia, there were no successful examples of popular Arab revolutions.
With the tacit, and sometimes not so tacit, support of Europe and the United States, the military annulled the polls, banned the FIS, and sent thousands of Islamists to desert camps. Secretary of State James Baker explained later.
The civil war that soon broke out would claim the lives of an estimated one hundred thousand Algerians. Group Subscription. Premium Digital access, plus: Convenient access for groups of users Integration with third party platforms and CRM systems Usage based pricing and volume discounts for multiple users Subscription management tools and usage reporting SAML-based single sign-on SSO Dedicated account and customer success teams.
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