Towards a democratisation of the Middle-East?

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Towards a democratisation of the Middle-East?

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Abstract

The Middle East has traditionally been a region where democracy has never really managed to break through. The times of the caliphs had been replaced by a more or less violent period of colonisation. When the time for decolonisation finally came, most of the states –some more or less artificially created by the Western states and authorities- if not returned back to their old mode of performance, simply embraced authoritarian forms, that still remain nowadays, even if many pressures from the outside but also from the inside tended to make a certain dose of reforms and changes necessary. We could even say that the Middle-East belongs to this group of regions of the world which are the most retarded as far as democratization is concerned. Indeed, we could, when taking a closer look fail to find, a really consolidated democracy in the area, a democracy consolidated for a time long enough to be considered as a real democracy.

Introduction.
The explanation of Middle-East.
Problems and questions to be answered.
1. Regional features that can have a direct or indirect influence on the democratisation of the region.
2. The factors leading towards democracy.
Theoretical framework for analysis.
1. Middle-East and the wave of democratization.
2. Huntington's view.
3. The three theories of democratization.
The beginning of a transition.
1. Regular elections in the Middle-East.
2. Example of Saudi Arabia.
3. The Iraqi legislative elections of 2005.
4. The reluctance to democratization.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.

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[...] It would be premature to demand the sharp overnight introduction of political parties and of a clear political system in a country that doesn't have a clear democratic tradition; but the fact that only individuals could candidate for the election doesn't enhance the creation of political parties, or of other associations of people. In other words, the eagerness of the elites for democratic reforms in this case has to be balanced with an evident lack of willingness to form sufficient conditions that would enable the organizations and the mass to have democratic views. [...]

[...] Huntington (Huntington p15-16) puts this definition of wave of democratization forward: wave of democratisation is a group of transition from non democratic to democratic regimes that occurs within a specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite direction during that period of time. A wave also involves liberalization or partial democratization in political systems that do not become fully democratic. Each of the two first waves of democratisation was followed by a reverse wave in which some but not all of the countries that had previously made the transition to democracy”. [...]

[...] Milton Edwards then describes some of the Jordanian elections as a pure façade, being totally instrumentalized by the Muslim Brotherhood that openly had goals far from democratization. In Jordan as well, Quintan Wiktorowicz (Wiktorowicz, 2002) underlines all the obstacles put on the creation and viability of many NGOs, which are one of the basis of the civil society. In other words, the civil society has been in this country more or less repressed and prevented from developing. Another hindrance to the development of democracy in the region comes from the highly strategic situation of it, and the redundant presence of international forces, which can be seen as a mark of aggression from those who come and preach democracy. [...]

[...] She then links democratization with a development of the capitalism, and even as Lip set (1959, quoted by Gruel p48) put it labels capitalism as a source of democracy. I think those theories were elaborated while having a close emphasis on how older Western countries such as France or Great Britain did to democratize. Even if they are also relevant for second and third wave countries, I don't really feel like this could be applied to the Middle-East countries, given the poor level of development of what we could call liberalized capitalism that characterizes generally those countries. [...]

[...] Diamond (Diamond, 1999) put forward that the emergence of a middle class was necessary to give birth to the civil society, as it is one of its main fund raiser. One of the main hints of a possible beginning of democratization would then be the emergence of a middle-class, even if there is no direct link of causality between the appearance of a middle class and the democratization. Diamond also states further that the consolidation of a democracy can be observed when looking at three levels that are the elites, the organization and the mass and within two dimension, that is to say the norms on the first hand and the believes and attitudes on the other hand. [...]

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