Democratic Change in the Arab World, Past and Present

Abstract

Will the Arab Spring lead to long-lasting democratic change? To explore this question, I examine the determinants of the Arab world's democratic deficit in 2010. I find that the percentage of a country's landmass that was conquered by Arab armies following the death of the prophet Muhammad statistically accounts for this deficit. Using history as a guide, I hypothesize that this pattern reflects the long-run influence of control structures developed under Islamic empires in the premodern era and find that the available evidence is consistent with this interpretation. I also investigate the determinants of the recent uprisings. Taken in unison, the results cast doubt on claims that the Arab-Israeli conflict or Arab culture or Muslim theology is a systematic obstacle to democratic change in the region and point instead to the legacy of the region's historical institutional framework.

Liberty, Equality, Democracy? The supposed relationship between democratic institutions and income inequality

“…As institutions tend to persist (see e.g. Chaney, 2012, or Acemoglu et al, 2001, one can argue that extractive political institutions today were inherited from the past. Thus, we expect incidence of malaria to be relatively highly correlated with democratic institutions, but much less with income inequality -as it is supposed to affect income inequality only through its impact on the level of democracy.…”

Growth Performance of Mena and African Countries: Impacts of the Variations in Land and Natural Resource Ownership

“…Some of these, for instance Chaney et al (2012) analyze the impact of the historical institutional and religious evolution on growth variations and recent social unrest in the region. Other studies examine the general economic outlook of the region and its relative development performance compared to other regions in the world (Nugent and Pesaran, 2007).…”

Combining Economic and Political Development

“…do not permit me to go into a review of this literature here.1 I would simply like to refer to two factors that seem to be of primary importance in explaining the persistence of what has been termed the Arab democracy deficit, at least until 1 The following references are but a very small sample of writings starting with the early 1980s and representing differing viewpoints on this question: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 1983;Sharabi, 1988;Hudson, 1991;Kedourie, 1994;Salameh, 1994;Waterbury, 1994;Al Naqeeb, 1996;Harik, 2006;Bichara, 2006;Noland, 2008;Diamond, 2010;Chaney, 2012;Haseeb, 2013;Elbadawi and Makdisi., 2011;Aldashev et al, 2013. The eiu index is a weighted average of 60 indicators grouped into five different categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture.…”