Democratization Of The Middle East : A Case Study Of Tunisia And Egypt Essay

In the article “Democracy in Decline: How Washington Can Reverse the Tide,” the author, Larry Diamond, details the declination of democracy across the world as a global issue. Diamond explains that, following the Cold War, democracy became vibrant across the world. However, it slowly began to decline, which was seen in Kenya, Russia, Thailand, and Turkey. Additionally, other non-democratic states, particularly authoritarian regimes, are drifting further away from democracy, becoming less responsive to their people. Diamond explains that these authoritarian states are becoming less open because they are increasing their censorships and are arresting those who resist. Furthermore, these governments are also restricting organizations from outside communications and operations. Nearly a hundred laws have been enacted in the past four years restricting freedom of assembly in governments across the world.

Democracy and the challenges it is facing has been the main topic in the field of international politics since some Authoritarian regimes have raised again as a great power after a long time of absence. In this essay, we will look at some of the challenges facing the international democracy based on the work of Azar Gat “ The Return Of Authoritarian Great Powers”. The article is presenting the author view on the rise of authoritarian regimes as the main challenge of liberal democracy. The main part of my essay will be an illustration and reflection on a number of arguments that have been brought by the author. Additionally and before concluding my piece I will establish my own argument as a critical response to the article or more specifically to the Economic efficiency argument brought by Azar Gat.

His first explanation implicates that there must be something within the Islam or Arab culture or religion, that prevents the formation of a democratic society. Because as Alfred Stepan and Graeme Robertson stated, the “democracy gap” among states in the world is an Arab gap much more than a “Muslim” gap as there are eight, non-Arab Muslim-majority states that have democratic

In the midst of the prevalence of democratic transitions, a number of developing countries are seeking to achieve the successful consolidation of civil order in modern days. Among those participants, Mexico and Nigeria has been spotlighted for the completely contrastive endings at the end of their long-adventures towards democratization since their independence; Mexico, from its independence, has maintained the political stability despite the authoritarian single-party regime and even accomplished the solid democratization at the time of the 2000 election whereas Nigerian regime has been deteriorated by a series of military cues d’états and

Every country differs in their preference of political system to govern their countries. For democratic countries, two possible choices of governing are the presidential system and the parliamentary system. Since both the presidential and the parliamentary systems have their own strengths and weaknesses, many scholars have examined these two forms of government, and debate on which political system is more successful in governance. In this paper, I will first provide a detailed analysis of both the parliamentary and the presidential system. I will also evaluate each system’s strengths and weaknesses, addressing any differences as well as any commonalities. Finally, I will conclude by using historical examples to analyze and support the

A revolution has begun by the people in the Middle East against their long time dictators. The domino effect began first with Tunisia then Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya. Thousands of protestors were gathered on the streets with posters, shouting for change and democracy. Why would there be protests unless the people are unsatisfied with the way the country is governed. Why would they go against their dictator unless they feel they have no rights and that they have no voice. Unlimited power should never be given to one person; the chances of corruption are very high because power can change even the most virtuous individual. That is why the path of a dictatorial country is a path of strife, oppression and economical downfall.

We have seen waves of democratization continue to come and go and the most recent one that was successful in many countries was in the 70’s and the 80’s. Democratization was occurring all over Latin America, in Asia-Pacific countries such as Taiwan, the Philippines, Korea, and in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, we did see an attempt to democratize the Middle East and North Africa through the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring has affected countless countries including Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and even Saudi Arabia, however, there have been different effects and outcomes in these countries with only one becoming a constitutional democracy and others having been thrown into a civil war that continues to

The term “Arab Spring” has emerged in academic literature as well as in the general media from about early 2011. It refers to the “awakening” of some Arab nations and the movements to replace authoritarian regimes with democratic ones. The theme of “spring” and “awakening” seems to have been borrowed from the 1989 reform movements in the former Eastern-block nations, such as in the former German Democratic Republic or Hungary. However, this comparison has been criticised by some analysts since both the circumstances which have led to these movements as well as the outcome of these reform efforts seem to differ quite a lot. Yet, the Arab Spring term seems to be still widely used and even found an extension in the creation of the term Arab Winter which refers to events that happened in 2012 in some Arab countries during which these reform movements seemed to have “cooled-off” and particular nations, such as Egypt, attempted to go back to the status-quo of the pre-2011 era.

Democracy has become the most widespread political form of government during the past decade, after the fall of all its alternatives. During the second part of the 20th century, the 3 main enemies of democracy, namely communism, fascism and Nazism, lost most of their power and influence. However, democracy is still only to be found in less than half of this world's countries. China with a fifth of the total population "had never experienced a democratic government" and Russia still doesn't have a well established democracy. By adopting a democratic perspective, 3 types of governments emerge, non-democratic, new democracies, and old democracies, and all have a different challenge to overcome: either to become democratic, to "consolidate"

President Bourguiba, Ben Ali’s predecessor, marked his reign—which lasted 30 years—with imposed “modernization” and complete disregard of Islamic principles like Ramadan and the hijab (Danahar, 2013, p. 44). Despite his title as president, Bourguiba failed to uphold democracy with the Tunisian one-party system. According to Paul Danahar in his book The New Middle East (2013), “when he [Bourguiba] was asked during the early years of independence about the country’s political system, he replied: ‘The system? What system? I am the system!’” (p. 44). After Ben Ali took Bourguiba’s place as president following his apparent (and formally declared) disintegration in 1987, he spoke of democratic reforms and the opening of the political system to other parties (Cavatorta & Haugbølle, 2012, p. 187; Danahar, 2013, p. 45). However, during his reign from 1987 up to the early protests following the Bouazizi’s act of desperation and ultimate death, Ben Ali failed to live up to his promises. Slow progress was made at the beginning, but democratic reforms halted quickly followed by excuses. First, Ben Ali claimed he could not implement excessive change too quickly “in order to avoid the problems that Algeria encountered in the same period” (Cavatorta & Haugbølle, 2012, p. 188). Later, his regime brushed aside postponements of more reforms with the excuse of the attack on September 11, 2001, asserting the issue of extremism infiltrating Tunisia and the democratic system if democratic reforms are implemented at the time (Cavatorta & Haugbølle, 2012, p. 188). Ben Ali’s failed to uphold his initial promises, and it was apparent. As a form of corruption, this failure resonated with the people of Tunisia, realizing that their president ran their country as a

With the development of human society, civilization is incessantly progressive. One aspect of human civilization’s progress is political civilization. Democratic politics can be considered to be the representatives of political civilization. When people refer to the history of human progress, they find that human beings struggle to achieve this great goal and no one can stop the human desire for political freedom. In 2011, one more country took a step towards democracy. Egypt is in the ancient, sacred and conservative Middle East. Egyptians are cheering for their own political aspirations as they overthrew Mubarak’s dictatorship, and are gradually making efforts to establish a democratic and peaceful country.

In late 2010, a tidal wave of uprisings and protests in various parts of the Arab world emerged. It began with the Tunisian revolution when the martyr Mahmoud Bouazizi set fire to himself as a result of the deteriorating economic and social. This led to protests and demonstrations that ended with the fall of the ruling regime. In Tunisia which sparked the beginning of revolutions in many Arab countries, this is known as an Arab Spring. The question remains what are the real reasons that led to the Arab Spring and its effects? the causes of the Arabic spring May be varied, depending on the places, however the reasons can be a corruption in economic policies and demand social justice as the key motives and protests in the Arab world. This essay will discuss the most important reasons, and the effects of what is known as the Arab Spring.

Conflict Mapping the Tunisian Revolution from the perspective of the main advocates that took over this revolution, the youth of Tunisia through their participation in crucial events, reflected on the problems their country face in the transition to democracy. First the revolution was initiated by disillusioned youth who succeeded in bringing together a broad coalition of social and political forces against the Ben Ali’s regime. Second the coalition was able to bring down the regime due to longstanding and widespread discontent in the country that stemmed from factors such as: massive unemployment especially among the youth, unequal regional development and lack of equitable distribution of

On the other hand, the article “Islam and Democracy” has a couple of weaknesses when it comes to explaining its arguments about the “key” relationship between Islam and democracy. The first weak argument in this article is that the authors suggest, “democracy is a foreign concept that has been imposed by Westernizers and secular reformers upon Muslim societies” (Esposito and Voll 2001, 1). The argument here suggested by Esposito and Voll is weak because it starts of discussing the topic of democracy is foreign and imposed by Western societies, however the concept is not fully developed as the authors completely omit the idea without adding any significant proof as to the reasoning of how and why democracy was an ideal imposed by the Westerners. Furthermore, the article lacks a certain sense of direction, as Esposito and Voll start off their article with a great hook, however as the article goes on it starts to get very confusing as to the main arguments that the article is trying to convey and as a result the main arguments of the article are only presented near the end. The last weakness of the arguments presented in the “Islam and Democracy” is that the readers are provided with detailed information about the history of Islam, possible past democratic attempts and political institutions, however the main arguments of the article could be improved by not only adding the things mentioned before but also by adding predictions about what could happen in the future. Thus,

By the end of 2005 Freedom House had recorded strong improvements in the political and civil rights of countries like Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Over a year later, the democratic prospects in the Middle East did not look as prosperous as before. Struggles between the regimes, the United States, and Europe started to diminish the democratic reform. People in the Middle East wanted a change because what they had before did not serve for their best interests. Elections began in many of these Middle Eastern nations like Palestine where Hammas won, in Lebanon where Hezbollah won, in Iraq where the Islamists got the majority, and in Egypt where many members of the Muslim Brotherhood won seats in parliament. Although the electoral process began in some of these Middle Eastern states, it was not the greatest thing in the world since people were not voting based off the political platforms on which these parties stand on but rather the personalities of the leaders. There was also a lot of corruption in these elections that swayed votes to these Islamist parties.