The Arab Region

Larry Diamond's presentation explores the question of why there are no Arab democracies in the Middle East and North Africa. He shows us the relatively stagnant levels of democratic freedoms that have been the norm in the region for the past several decades. Diamond gives us a multitude of potential explanations for the absence of a sustainable democracy.

Algeria is a republic, having won independence from France on July 5, 1962 (U.S. Department of State).

The Middle East is a region centered on Western Asia and Egypt the region has generally been a major center of world affairs as the major religions of Islam and Christianity and Judaism were also established within the region. The region is made up of 18 countries and has vast reserves of crude oil. In modern times the Middle East remains a strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously sensitive region.

The United States was the first successful democracy in modern. Why democracy has worked well in the United States. Why Iraq cannot become a democracy? Why Judaism is not compatible with democracy? What true democracy requires a time commitment? Proponents of democracy believe it is the best political system, although opponents believe it is more complicated, particularly in Mid-East nations.

In the Middle East, each country has it’s own form of government. These forms of governments have been consistently changing throughout time. Throughout all the revolutions and overthrows, the national identity of the Middle East has slowly changed, some parts more than others. Over many years, overthrows in countries such as Egypt and Libya have led to a more democratic government. However, many other countries such as Iran and Iraq have remained more oppressive. The Middle East is still changing to this day. For example, Egypt recently overthrew their president Hosni Mubarak. There are also many protests currently going on in Libya.

     It is a tragedy of global proportions that the world’s Arab peoples, practically without exception, live under dictatorships which have systematically impoverished their sociopolitical, cultural and economic development. A report by 30 Arab researchers on behalf of the UN Development Fund in 2002 looked at 22 Arab countries with over 280 million citizens. It found that more than 50% of Arab women are illiterate; spending on scientific research was a pitiful 0.4% of GDP; 0.5% of Arabs had access to the internet; there are more books translated into Spanish each year than into Arabic in the last ten centuries; economic growth over the past decade averaged just 0.5% per annum due to lack of investment. The

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.

Hi, Hakim, Having a large family is challenging and rewarding at the same time. Teaching and living in the Middle East must be exciting as well. I especially understand your statement about African American being depressed for centuries. I feel that no race, gender or beliefs should be obliterated because we all have something to contribute to society. The best of luck in obtaining your Bachelor degree in Education.

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.

The cover page of this TIME magazine, an issue of 1979 invoked purely the orientalist idea of the Middle East. It represented the faulty equation of Islam= Muslim= Arab= terrorist or religious fanatics.

Since the initiation of the Third Wave of Democracy, several countries have attempted to form a democratic system of governs. We take note that not all have succeeded. At the dawn of this era, democracy was being applied to countries with no prior history of a governing body that was place by the people for the people hence success of such a system could not be guaranteed because of the innumerous variables that existed in each country. People being the highlighted factor of variance, it may become easier to understand how countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, both countries prior to the Wave had no local governing machinery. Pakistan further endured a partition from India which resulted in not only an instant religious and

Second largest country in Africa, tenth largest country in the world, diverse culture extending from the Mediterranean coast to the dunes of the Sahara Desert...Algeria. Even with its massive size the current status of Algeria’s economy is quivering in the lofty winds of the Tell Atlas Mountains. The economy tends to remain dominated by the state, which is accordingly a legacy of the country’s socialist post-independence development model. Hydrocarbons are the backbone for Algeria, accounting for 60% of budget revenues, 30% GDP, and 95% of export earnings. Reviewing the last five years we see the government halting privatization of state-owned industries, and increasing the restrictions of imports and foreign involvement. Algeria’s

Algeria is a North African Mediterranean Country, dominantly populated by Sunni Muslims. Multiple Arabic and Berber dialects are spoken throughout the land. The majority of North African countries have defined cultural identifies, however Algeria lacks a firm cultural foundation and has become somewhat of a piecemeal (Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, 2011).

The Arab Spring has been a life changing phenomena, not only for the people who are attempting to overthrow their governments but for political scientists everywhere. The events originating in the North African country of Tunisia have led to the snowballing of several other Middle Eastern, predominantly Muslim, nation states. The figurative breaking point might have finally been reached as the oppressed peoples of the Middle East have risen up to overthrow long-standing dictatorial governments in hopes of revolutionary change; change that is subject to the will of the people.

Over the last century, the Middle East has been the location of ethnic rivalry, political and economic instability, religious conflict, territorial dispute and war. Much of this tension in the Middle East comes from the various interpretations of Islam and how the religion should be applied to politics and society. Over the last ten years, the United States and their allies have pushed to promote democracy in the Middle East. However, they too have many obstacles they must overcome. They face problems such as the compatibility of Islamic law and democracy, the issue of women’s rights, and there is always the problem of how to go about implementing a democratic reform in these countries. Many initially would assume that it is only the