From Vox: The unsexy truth about why the Arab Spring failed

In 2305 - and to a lesser extent 2306 - were discussing democracy. In passing I mention that we seem to be going through an occasional period where democratic governments are scaling back. A leading researcher of democratization calls this a period of democratic recession. You democracies are reverting into oligarchies.

- Click here for: Facing up to the Democratic Recession.

Vox attempts to explain this recession by looking at the fate of some of the government establ;oshed in the Arab Spring. The author argues that the lack of established and functioning institutions is one of the key reasons this is occurring. It helps illustrate a point we make in class about the governmental system established in the U.S Constitution. It is built up on institutions that were developed over British history. This allowed for a degree of stability, meaning they were able to survive. The countries in the middle east do not have institutions with such a history, which helps explain why they slid back into authoritarian military systems.

- Click here for the article:

In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak began preparing for revolution long before it came. In the three decades of his rule, he systematically ensured that no opposition party or civil society institution grew strong enough to challenge him. But in ensuring that no institutions were powerful or independent enough to threaten his rule, Mubarak also ensured that they were too weak to support a transition to democracy after he fell.

Mubarak stuffed the interior ministry with political loyalists rather than effective public servants, which allowed corruption and brutality to corrode public security. He turned the judiciary into a pro-regime puppet, which gave him a tool to persecute political opponents but left judges dependent and the rule of law weak. He undermined liberal opposition parties and tolerated the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood only enough to let him credibly claim to the world, "It’s me or the Islamists," using frequent crackdowns and careful electoral rules to ensure that they never got real governing experience.

The one institution that gathered strength was the military. Its role in politics expanded under Mubarak far beyond what his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, had permitted, with Mubarak using patronage to buy the military's loyalty as it grew more powerful.

. . . the conditions that Mubarak deliberately engineered to elongate his rule — an excessively powerful military, a weak opposition without governing experience, corrupt security services, hollowed-out civil society, and no effective democratic institutions — have all remained after his fall, and have undermined successive governments as much as they eventually undermined his own.

When you see that, it becomes clear that the real problem was never the degree to which individual protesters did or did not understand grassroots political organizing. That democratic transition isn't merely the absence of a dictator. Rather, it is the presence of democratic rule.

And democratic rule requires something a lot more important, if less obviously visible, than having a good-guy democrat at the top of the government. It requires the institutions of democracy: political parties capable of winning elections, politicians capable of governing, a bureaucracy capable of implementing that governance, and civil society groups able to provide support and stability to those institutions

R.I.P. Lee Kuan Yew

The 91 year old ruler of Singapore was regarded as being responsible for transforming it from a poor corrupt country into an economic powerhouse, but he did so by restricting speech and jailing political opponents.

He was an autocrat - the pros and cons of which we cover in the early lectures in 2305 - which may have allowed him to direct the nation in the direction he choose, but apparently now raises concerns about what comes next. A nation based on one person's personality does not necessarily have the institutional structure that allows for ongoing stability.

For background:

- Wikipedia: Lee Kuan Yew.
- Lee Kuan Yew, Founding Father and First Premier of Singapore, Dies at 91.
- A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew.
- Lee Kuan Yew Created The World's Least-Hated Authoritarian State.
- Singapore tries to imagine a future without its founder, Lee Kuan Yew.

From the Observer: From autocracy to democracy, to ‘mobocracy’

Some of the terms we've come to grips with in this class are all over this recent piece of commentary.

The author analyzes the results of recent revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Ukraine and Thailand and wonders if what had been a from autocracy to democracy is now becoming a shift from democracy to "mobocracy."

The ideals of democracy - where the people rule in a manner which benefits the general public - are often thwarted by the practical realities of how people in fact behave. Groups define their well being in terms of whatever groups they identify with and do whatever is necessary to obtain those benefits.

A well constructed constitution is meant to minimize the ability of a faction to undermine a democratic republic in large measure by establishing institutions that contain their actions, but the democratic masses in these nations see little reason to uphold those institutions - assuming that they even exist.

As the factors that existed to prevent democracy from slipping into mobocracy disappear, instability increases in each nation.

. . . while these ‘mobocrats’ tear down civilisations of centuries, they have no mechanism, means or ways to manage democracy, and propel themselves into peace, unity, security and prosperity.

To that effect, Libya after Col Gaddafi is neither a democracy nor an autocracy. National oil wells are being scrambled for by tribal militias and diplomats. In neighbouring Egypt, the former ‘democratic’ masses and their governors have now been labelled ‘terrorists’, as they continue to destroy what may need a new martial plan to reconstruct.

In Ukraine, the masses started off somewhat civilized, but sooner degenerated into destructive mobs against their “commonwealth”, as they demanded to belong to their maternal Europe, while the governors preferred to remain with their paternal Russia.

In Thailand, the masses demanded the stepping down of their elected lady prime minister. When she called for elections, to give them an opportunity to elect whoever they thought was a better choice, they did not want them.

These are the mobs and masses.

He is also critical of the leadership in other nations that have seen changes in their governing systems where elites have taken charge - Iraq, Juba, and Lebanon among them. In these cases democracy cannot take hold since no institutions exist to restrain the ambitions of the leadership (Egypt fits here as well).

This supports the argument we make in class that while it is true that democracies are difficult systems to establish, they are even more difficult to maintain. It was a chief concern of the Constitution's framers, and one of the points the authors of the Federalist Papers tried to make - that the Constitutional system they were able to develop would be able to restrain both the elites and the masses.  

Does a strong military suppress democratization?

I think the following comparison between prospects in Egypt and Tunisia suggest that it does.

W]hatever dangers Tunisia now faces, there is virtually no possibility of a military coup followed by a state-sponsored war on the Muslim Brotherhood, as in Egypt. And this is so because of what may be the most salient difference between the two countries, at least in regard to their political trajectory: Egypt has an overwhelmingly politicized and intrusive army, and Tunisia does not. “None of the generals want a coup d’état,” says Adnen Hasneoui, an activist close to the ruling Ennahda party. “The only group which could carry out a coup would be the national police, and Ben Ali” — the former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — “designed the organization chart so that the police don’t have the power.” Indeed, Ben Ali’s inadvertent gift to Tunisia was to keep the military weak — Tunisia has only 27,000 very poorly equipped troops — and to exercise firm control over the Interior Ministry police.

From the vaults: Dictatorships and Double Standards

I stumbled across this 1979 article from Jeane Kirkpatrick - an early neo-conservative who would work in the Reagan Administration.

In it she criticizes the foreign policy of the Carter Administration, but does so by making some interesting comments about what types of nations are more likely to turn democratic and why (leftist or rightist) as well as what preconditions are necessary for democracy to be sustained.

Her principle criticism seems to be that we over-estimate our ability to establish democratic governments:

Although most governments in the world are, as they always have been, autocracies of one kind or another, no idea holds greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances. This notion is belied by an enormous body of evidence based on the experience of dozens of countries which have attempted with more or less (usually less) success to move from autocratic to democratic government. Many of the wisest political scientists of this and previous centuries agree that democratic institutions are especially difficult to establish and maintain-because they make heavy demands on all portions of a population and because they depend on complex social, cultural, and economic conditions.

Here's some text relevant to this inquiry, I think its worth a read.

Although most governments in the world are, as they always have been, autocracies of one kind or another, no idea holds greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances. This notion is belied by an enormous body of evidence based on the experience of dozens of countries which have attempted with more or less (usually less) success to move from autocratic to democratic government. Many of the wisest political scientists of this and previous centuries agree that democratic institutions are especially difficult to establish and maintain-because they make heavy demands on all portions of a population and because they depend on complex social, cultural, and economic conditions.

Fulfilling the duties and discharging the functions of representative government make heavy demands on leaders and citizens, demands for participation and restraint, for consensus and compromise. It is not necessary for all citizens to be avidly interested in politics or well-informed about public affairs–although far more widespread interest and mobilization are needed than in autocracies. What is necessary is that a substantial number of citizens think of themselves as participants in society’s decision-making and not simply as subjects bound by its laws. Moreover, leaders of all major sectors of the society must agree to pursue power only by legal means, must eschew (at least in principle) violence, theft, and fraud, and must accept defeat when necessary. They must also be skilled at finding and creating common ground among diverse points of view and interests, and correlatively willing to compromise on all but the most basic values.

In addition to an appropriate political culture, democratic government requires institutions strong enough to channel and contain conflict. Voluntary, non-official institutions are needed to articulate and aggregate diverse interests and opinions present in the society. Otherwise, the formal governmental institutions will not be able to translate popular demands into public policy. 

In the relatively few places where they exist, democratic governments have come into being slowly, after extended prior experience with more limited forms of participation during which leaders have reluctantly grown accustomed to tolerating dissent and opposition, opponents have accepted the notion that they may defeat but not destroy incumbents, and people have become aware of government’s effects on their lives and of their own possible effects on government. Decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits. In Britain, the road from the Magna Carta to the Act of Settlement, to the great Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, and 1885, took seven centuries to traverse. American history gives no better grounds for believing that democracy comes easily, quickly, or for the asking. A war of independence, an unsuccessful constitution, a civil war, a long process of gradual enfranchisement marked our progress toward constitutional democratic government. The French path was still more difficult. Terror, dictatorship, monarchy, instability, and incompetence followed on the revolution that was to usher in a millennium of brotherhood. Only in the 20th century did the democratic principle finally gain wide acceptance in France and not until after World War II were the principles of order and democracy, popular sovereignty and authority, finally reconciled in institutions strong enough to contain conflicting currents of public opinion.

She goes on to scold the Carter Administration for over stating their ability to promote democracy and suggests we tamper our expectations about what we can accomplish. I like the story she tells for self interested reason since I adopt a gradualist approach to the development of governments in general, especially what we have in the US. 

Will democracy take root in the Middle East?

The Dish flags a few studies that suggest it will not.

Both 2305 and 2306 begins with a look at why these introductory classes are required and I try to make the point that it has a lot to do with the notion that an educated and engaged population is more likely to sustain a democratic republic than one that is not. Keeping a republic is one thing, establishing one is another, and it is much more difficult to accomplish.

A special discipline within political science focuses on the factors that allow for nations to democratize. Writing in Reason (a libertarian magazine that some of you might find worth a look, at least since we will be discussing libertarianism soon enough) Robert Bailey digests the research and sees four principle factors that help determine whether a specific country may be a proper candidate for democratization.

The lack of these factors leads the authors to predict that the countries that recently went through the Arab Spring will likely slip back into autocracy.

Youth, or more precisely, fertility rates: The younger the population, the less likely a nation might transition into a democracy. The older the population, the lower the fertility rate. Why does this matter? Because fertility rates are taken to be an indication of the amount of control people have over their lives. Older people are better able to challenger autocratic structures and support their replacement with democratic ones. The median ages in the middle east are far lower than those in the US and Western Europe.

This thought sticks out. Gender matter as well: Democratic countries with large populations of young males are more likely to become dictatorships than those with smaller populations.

History: None of the middle eastern nations at issue has experience as democracies. Since the 1960s, the middle east has become more autocratic. There is no experience of self rule nor memory of working within institutions that allow for representation.

Income: The wealthier the nation, the more likely they will become democratic, and then sustain that democratic system. Studies suggest that $6,000 per capita income is the threshold. Above that line democracies take hold and are sustained, beneath it they do not and are not. None of the nations at issue have incomes above that level.

Complexity: This is a fancy term that refers to the "range of social, political, and economic interests" that exist in a nation. The fewer the interests, the easier it is for one person and his supporters to impose their will on a population by establishing an autocratic government. Complex societies are more difficult to control.

The author also suggest that this is related to the level of violence that occurred in a revolution against an autocracy. The greater level of violence, the greater chance that social institutions have been destroyed, which creates an easier opportunity for an autocratic system to develop. Opposing forces have been eliminated.

This might be worth a class discussion - you call.

Egyptian Parliament is dissoved by the nation's Supreme Constitutional Court

Backsliding towards tyranny? A military coup? This seems unusual to me since its ususally the executive that dissolves the legislature, but in this case tis the judiciary. Of course they may be controlled by the military, which controls the executive as well, so the distinction may mark no real difference.

Story in the NYT:

“From a democratic perspective, this is the worst possible outcome imaginable,” said Shadi Hamid, research director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “This is an all-out power grab by the military.”

The timing of the ruling seems like a transparent attempt to undermine the Islamists just two days before Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood is set to compete in the runoff against Ahmed Shafik, a former air force general and Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister.

If the ruling is carried out, whoever wins the presidential race would take power without the check of a sitting Parliament and could exercise significant influence over the elections to form a new one. The new president will also take office without a permanent constitution to define his powers or duties. A 100-member constitutional assembly appointed by Parliament and including dozens of lawmakers may also be dissolved. And in any event, the ruling generals are expected to issue their own interim charter during the drafting.

Electing a president without either a constitution or a parliament is like “electing an ‘emperor’ with more power than the deposed dictator. A travesty,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat and former presidential candidate, said in a comment online.
I hope students can place this event in historical context and understand the precise problem this event poses for Egypt's attempt to transition into democracy.

Will the new democracies in the Middle East survive?

A researcher sticks his neck out and makes predictions for three countries:

Tunisia: 82%

Egypt: 48%
Libya: 89%

The key is expected economic growth. If new democracies experience economic growth innitially, the democracy is likely to survive, if not it won't.

A year after the start of the Arab Spring, now what?

Something for 2301:

Revolutions, including the American revolution, tend to have two distinct part. The first is the fight for either independence, or to overthrow an existing regime, and it generally includes a broad coalition of groups that have a shared grievance against the existing leadership. The second is the fight over what is to replace the now defunct regime and it usually outs those coalitions that had been allies, in conflict with each other.

The first step in the American Revolution was the war of independence, and the roughly 2/3rds of the colonial population that were not loyalists cooperated more or less to achieve independence. After the Treaty of Paris was signed, the battle in the United States pitted the commercial classes against the agrarians over whose interests were going to be protected in the new republic. The ratification of the Constitution was a victory for the commercial classes.

That seems to be a useful way to frame the state of the Arab Spring. A series of nations threw off autocratic rule, but none have as yet determined exactly what will replace them. Each nation had a different history and the institutions in each are at different level of development. Some. like Libya, have to build them from scratch. Others, like Egypt, have established institutions, but there is no indication yet which forces in society will control them.

This will be monitored for years, if not decades.

Might Russia become a democracy after all?

A point I briefly make in the introductory slides in 2301 is that democracies tend to develop in places where a strong middle class has evolved and pushes for political power. The Moscow Times argues that despite setbacks in recent years, including apparent attempts by Vladimir Putin to consolidate control of the nation, a Russian middle class is asserting itself.

People who study democratization often argue that economic freedom - market reforms - have to preceed political freedom. Increased per capita wealth - especially is it is spread somewhat equitably - give people the autonomy and strength to participate politically and to effectively make demands on government. The authors argues that the basis for a transformation to democracy has already been laid in Russia, but the market transformation has to be supported by the vigorous political class. Increased per-capita income seems to be allowing for the necessary political support:

While market reforms brought substantial prosperity — average annual per capita GDP at purchasing power parity is now $17,000 — a large middle class, based mostly in small and medium-sized companies and the service sector, all developed beyond the reach of the state-owned behemoths. Most of this middle class also lives in large cities, where the battle for the country's future is now taking place.

The demands of this middle class have become crucial. Its representatives understand that they must win the battle against corruption or leave the country, as they would, otherwise, have no future in Russia. That is why they have rallied around the young blogger Alexei Navalny, whose WikiLeaks-like anti-corruption campaign has brought forth evidence of billions of dollars stolen from state-owned companies, luxury limousines bought by officials and spectacular business careers by the ruling elite's "wunderkinder" sons and daughters.
[note: the need for a press to distribute information to a population ready to consume it and to work on it. This includes the ability to engage in sedition - accusing government of corruption. Legal freedoms have to be established and enforced]

The evidence of corruption produced by Navalny and the nickname he gave to Putin's political party, United Russia — "the party of crooks and thieves" — were perhaps the single most important factors behind United Russia's large losses in December's State Duma elections. Moreover, massive electoral fraud galvanized middle-class grievances, driving tens of thousands of protesters into the streets.
[note here the right to assemble]

Ironically, the wave of protests since then is consistent with the "modernization hypothesis" that Putin's government has always used to justify the rollback of democracy in Russia: Democracy is sustainable only if society is sufficiently well-off and has a solid middle class; until then, centralized rule is needed.

Now, it seems, sufficient prosperity has arrived, calling forth a middle class solid enough to demand government accountability, the rule of law and a genuine fight against corruption. Whatever happens in the March presidential election, the political mobilization of the middle class will eventually lead to democratization.

This is worth a class discussion. We might also wonder whether democracies once established can descend into a more tyrannical or autocratic form if the middle class checks out, or if freedoms to speak, assemble and use the press are curtailed.

Adaptive Authoritarianism in China

The New York Review of Books has an analysis of how China's authoritative system has adapted in order to more effectively calm local rebellions.

. . . “adaptive authoritarianism.” As Peter L. Lorentzen of the University of California, Berkeley, has written, officials view protests as way to gauge popular discontent. Small-scale protests function as a feedback mechanism for the government of a country without an active civil society or elections. Far from being a harbinger of regime change, Lorentzen argues that, in China at least, they can stabilize the regime.
So while the regime overall remains repressive, it is taking a more nuanced approach to dealing with discontent. Bending, not breaking -- if that's an appropriate analogy. Limits still exist on what peopel can protest however:

. . . the government only allows the discussion to go so far. It’s okay to say that local officials are corrupt or that the real estate deal in question was wrong. But it is not acceptable to have protesters link up with each other in a national network. And it is certainly not acceptable to criticize the root cause of Wukan’s problems—China’s lack of checks and balances that allow local officials to rule like warlords for decades before local finally explode and the problems are finally addressed. These deep-structure issues are still taboo.
The greater degree of economic freedom allowed in China over the past two decades has led many to wonder when - not it - calls for political freedom will be heard throughout the nation. Western political theorists have always held that economic freedom precedes political freedom and that the latter inevitable follows the former. Perhaps this is a way for the regime to delay that transition, if not prevent it altogether.

As Chinese have become wealthier and better educated, they are demanding more control over their lives. In a more mature political system, civil society—the press, courts, non-governmental organizations, and civic associations—could help address situations like a village protest before they require the direct intervention of one of the country’s most powerful politicians.
It’s no coincidence either that the Wukan uprising was spurred by another growing worry in China: the country’s mounting economic challenges. China’s real estate bubble is deflating, inflation remains stubborn, and exports are facing new competition. These can only add to tensions in society, forcing leaders to stick more and more of their fingers in the political system’s holes. But given the élan of China’s millennia-old bureaucracy, the system itself does not seem at risk, at least in the absence of some far larger precipitating event. In the meantime, the lessons of Wukan may be that the country’s leaders can leap from wall to wall, plugging leaks and keeping the system working far longer than westerners can imagine.

The regime may be more solid than we think.

Elections in Tunisia

While Qadaffi's killing has raised questions about the political future of Libya, Tunisia - where the Arab Spring began - recently held elections.

- Democracy Wins in Tunisia.

- Trust Tunisia.

Yasheng Huang: Does democracy stifle economic growth?

A talk with a counter-intuitive message, at least for our purposes.

Is China outpacing India because India is democratic and China is autocratic? This seems to argue against the point made by Niall Ferguson below. Perhaops an intrepid student could write up a comparison between the two.

From Reason: Does Disease Cause Autocracy?

New studies say reducing infection rates promotes liberalization:

Greater wealth strongly correlates with property rights, the rule of law, education, the liberation of women, a free press, and social tolerance. The enduring puzzle for political scientists is how the social processes that produce freedom and wealth get started in the first place.

Many political theorists have linked liberal democracy to the rise of wealth and the establishment of a large middle class. “Growing resources are conducive to the rise of emancipative values that emphasize self-expression,” write political scientists Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan and Christian Welzel of Jacobs University in their contribution to the 2009 book Democratization, “and these values are conducive to the collective actions that lead to democratization.”

That same year, a group of researchers led by the Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs noted in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that a billion people live on less than a dollar per day and “are roughly as poor today as their ancestors were thousands of years ago.” Sachs and his colleagues suggest that heavy disease burdens create persistent poverty traps from which poor people cannot extricate themselves. High disease rates lower their economic productivity so they can’t afford to improve sanitation and medical care, which in turn leaves them vulnerable to more disease.

In a 2008 article for Biological Reviews, two University of New Mexico biologists buttressed the disease thesis with their “parasite hypothesis of democratization.” The researchers, Randy Thornhill and Corey Fincher, argue that disease not only keeps people poor but makes them illiberal. Thornhill and Fincher tested this hypothesis “using publicly available data measuring democratization, collectivism, individualism, gender egalitarianism, property rights, sexual restrictiveness, and parasite prevalence across many countries of the world.” The lower the disease burden, they found, the more likely a society is to be liberal.

How stable is Israel's democracy?

Not very according to this commentator:

Laws have been passed curtailing civil liberties:

In the last two years the Knesset has proposed and passed laws that seriously endanger Israel’s identity as a liberal democracy.

It began with a law forbidding public commemoration of the Palestinian refugee crisis of 1948, known as the Nakba; it continued with the demand for all new Israeli citizens to swear a loyalty oath to a Jewish and democratic country, and recently culminated in a bill outlawing calls to boycott any Israeli group or product — including those from the occupied territories.

And some members of the ruling coalition explicitly would like ot see a theocracy replace the democracy:

The national-religious parties in the governing coalition, meanwhile, are based on the belief that the Jewish people have a God-given right to what they call the Greater Land of Israel. In the long run, they want Israel to be a theocracy based on biblical law. Their participation in the democratic game is based on the prediction that Israel’s demography will inevitably lead to an Orthodox Jewish majority, and that they simply need to make sure that Israel doesn’t give up the West Bank before they rule the country.

The ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and Yahadut Hatorah, also want Israel to become a theocracy in the long run. Until a decade ago, they did not necessarily claim that Israel should hold on to the occupied territories, but they realized that their electorate is right-leaning, and they need space for the rapidly expanding families of their constituency. They see liberal elites as their primary enemies.

Underlying this shift is an ongoing fear of terrorist violence, and as we've covered in class, people are willing to give up civil liberties - which leads to more authoritarian government - in order to be secure. Democracies - correctly or incorrectly - have been judges to be too weak to provide security.

Israel, Russia, and Democracy

Here a couple stories touching on Russia's continued difficulty in transforming to democracy, and problems Israel faces in continuing its own.

Regarding Russia: Journalists, notably those who try to dig into allegation of corruption, are being killed and the justice system is not allowing their killers to be prosecuted successfully. The story touches on the killing of one such journalist: "At the time of her murder, Vladimir Putin, who is now the prime minister but was the president then, dismissed her journalism as “insignificant” and said that nobody “currently in office” could possibly have organized a crime that, he said, was committed “to create a wave of anti-Russian feeling.” To many Russians, that sounded like orders from the top that police or judges or prosecutors should take care not to accuse anyone in power."

Regarding Israel: The author wonders if Israel's multiple transformations since its founding are making it less democratic.

More than 50 years ago, Israel’s leaders, headed by David Ben-Gurion, believed and hoped that they were creating a social democracy, with all the requisite egalitarian accoutrements (socialized national health care, progressive income tax, child benefits, subsidized cheap housing). Ben-Gurion, who owned almost nothing and retired to a primitive hut in the Negev Desert, typified the austere lifestyle, and greatness, of the state’s founders.

This is no longer Israel. A profound, internal, existential crisis has arrived. It stems in part from the changing nature of the country, more right wing, more restrictive, far less liberal, and far less egalitarian. Many moderate Israelis fear the country is heading for ruin. Indeed, the country’s ruling class, including Benjamin Netanyahu and his predecessors Ehud Olmert (now on trial for corruption) and Ehud Barak (a former head of the Labor Party and current defense minister), live in opulence, and the feeling is that they are out of touch with reality. In Tel Aviv, where some 350,000 gathered in protest, a widespread chant, set to a popular children’s ditty, was “Bibi has three apartments, which is why we have none.

Islam and Democracy

Here's more background for 2301's written assignment. There are some who argue that one problem facing Middle Eastern countries that try to become democratic is the there is tension between Islam and democracy. Not that many Islamic countries are currently democratic - some are, its just not common.

Its worth noting that the same argument was made about Catholicism at one point as well. The Catholic church has a hierarchical structure that has a monarchic feel to it. Protestants - especially Puritans - in 17th Century Britain and early America argued that Catholics were far more likely, as a result,  to favor monarchies rather than republics. Many - though not all - Protestant churches were congregational in structure, which meant that church decisions were decided by a process that leaned towards democracy.

This lead commentators to suggest, as with Islam today, that Catholicism was incompatible with democracy. Protestant countries were more likely to become democratic. Actually until recent decades, there was evidence that Catholic countries were more likely to be monarchic or run by an authoritarian. That was used to support the thesis, but times have changed and many Catholic countries, Italy and Spain for example, have become democratic.

So things change.

Here are links that touch on the tension between Islam and democracy as things stand now:

- Islam and Democracy.
- MIDDLE EAST: Islam and Democracy.
- Can Islam and Democracy Coexist?
- The practice—and the theory
- CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY

From the NYT: If the Arab Spring Turns Ugly

A cautionary note about what might happen in the wake of rebellion. The author is concerned that thoughts will turn to violence and revenge. There is precedence for this sort of thing.

Some links regarding democratization

For the 2301 assignment on the potential for democracy in the Middle East, you may want to read through the a few items related to democratization (the action of making something democratic). These should cue you in on the factors commonly considered indicators of which countries are and are not likely to successfully become democratic - which is the point of the exercise.

- Wikipedia: Democratization.
- An Essay - RJ Rummel: Democratization.
- Theories of Democratization.
- Starting in Egypt: The Fourth Wave of Democratization?

I'd also suggest looking at some of these sites. They contain data that should help you determine whether a specific country you are looking at - or the region in general -  is likely to turn democratic.

- The CIA World Factbook.
- Freedom House.
- Wikipedia: List of freedom indices.

In the Middle East: Two Models for Democratic Change

A report from the Brookings Institution:

We may very well be entering an Arab democratic moment. This is not about individual countries and their particular economic and political conditions, although those certainly matter. Something bigger is going on here. Arabs are discovering a power they weren’t aware they had. Arab regimes gave the impression of being stable, strong, and secure, backed by overwhelming coercive capacity. Facing such odds, fighting for democratic change seemed a losing battle.

Tunisia, then, was decisive. It showed that the long vaunted stability of authoritarian governments was illusory. They, too, could fall. All you needed was a good dose of people power. There is, after all, strength – and safety – in numbers.

read on....

The National Journal provides a map of the area, and speculation about which nations might next fall -- or not.