“The term Empty Quarter refers to a desolate stretch of land in the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula,” writes Egyptian dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim. “More recently it is aptly used as a metaphor to refer to the quarter of the Muslim world that is still undemocratic.”
Recent elections in Iraq provide just one indicator that Arabs have a “robust participatory political culture”, but their democratic aspirations remain frustrated.
“One year after President Barack Obama’s highly celebrated speech in Cairo supporting Arab democracy, there is a clear and loud expression of disappointment in the region,” he says, because his administration has “clearly opted for a policy favoring regional stability over democratic governance.”
Radwan Masmoudi, president of Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, is more inclined to give the administration credit for promoting dialogue and engaging civil society.
“There was a little bit of a delay, but I think in the last four or five months, we have seen renewed emphasis being put again on improving relations with the Muslim world and dialogue and on implementing the promises of the Cairo speech,” Masmoudi said recently.
In any case, Europe shares culpability for supporting Arab authoritarianism, according to Khaled Hroub, director of Cambridge University’s Arab Media Project, not least in Saudi Arabia:
“The lack of democracy in the Arab world results from an unholy alliance between Western interests and local autocrats, justified by what both sides claim to be the region’s ‘cultural specificity’,” he argues. “The West has wasted decades, missing countless chances to establish regimes that could empower Arab liberal and democratic forces.”
But some analysts believe the obstacles to Arab democracy are at least partly endogenous, with the strength and resilience of the authoritarian state a major factor.
Why Are There No Arab Democracies?, Larry Diamond asked in a recent issue of The Journal of Democracy, suggesting that the internal political structures of Arab regimes were at least a contributory factor.
A curious paradox marks politics in the Middle East, writes Rami Khouri: it is a region of considerable volatility in terms of political violence, terrorism, war, and sectarian conflict, yet remarkably stable in “the continuity of ruling elites and regimes”:
Not a single Arab country can say with any certainty that the configuration of the state, the policies and values of the government, or the perpetuation of the incumbent ruling elite have been validated by the citizenry through any kind of credible, transparent and accountable political process.
There’s a strong case to be made that for all their flaws the recent elections in Iraq provided such a credible, transparent and accountable electoral process. The FT’s Andrew England notes some interesting similarities between the recent polls in Iraq and the UK:
Angry voters complained of not being able to cast their ballots before polling booths closed and when the results were announced they were inconclusive. No party won an outright majority and the group that came a distant third in terms of seats was elevated to the position of kingmaker. So horse-trading began, amid allegations that the incumbent prime minister, whose party was beaten into second, was “squatting” in the highest office.
The key difference, of course, is that the British political process ensured a fairly rapid transition while the Iraqi standoff is generating instability and feeding sectarian tensions. The prospect of violent polarization should only accentuate the urgency of institutionalizing democratic governance. But, as England notes:
Middle East political reform is too often seen as a dirty phrase. Until that changes, most states’ democratic processes will continue to be regarded as facades that leave regimes’ credibility open to question – most importantly among their own people.
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