7 - 3 - 6.3 evidence from the arab world [21 min]

7/30/2019 7 - 3 - 6.3 Evidence From the Arab World [21 Min]

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The region of the world that has mostrecently experienced widespreadmobilization for democraftic changes isof course, the Arab world.And the Arab world, until the Arab springerupted, at the end of 2010, was alaggard among all the regions of theworld.The only region of the world that did nothave even a single democracy.And the region of the world that had someof the lowest levels of freedom of of anyof the major regions.Why was there this gap?What, what explained it?Well there is a tradition among studiesof the region that political culture hadsomething to do with it.Now we go back to natio-, nationalcharacter almost, in terms of argumentsthat Arabs or possibly even peoplebrought up in Islamic traditions don'tvalue democracy, don't understand it.

And the most powerful statement, or oneof the most powerful we have, is by thethe great British scholar of the region,originally from Iraq, Elie Kedourie.Who wrote some few decades ago, thefollowing observation.There is nothing in the traditions of theArab worlds, which are the politicaltraditions of Islam.Which might make familiar or indeedintelligible the organizing ideas ofconstitutional and representativegovernment.

The notion of popular sovereignty, theidea of representation of elections ofpopular suffrage.Of political institutions being regulatedby laws, laid down by a parliamentaryassembly, these laws being guarded by anindependent judiciary.All these, in other words ideas andprinciples of democracy are profoundlyalien to the Muslim political tradition.So that Elie Kedourie aduced was thereason why the Arab world was so farbehind the rest of the world.

In terms of movement toward democracy andfreedom.Is the Arab democracy deficit or has itbeen until the Arab Spring.although so far very few democracies haveemerged even since the Arab Spring.Has the Arab democracy deficit been afeature of Arab countries, or of Islam asa political tradition?There is a way to begin to test



Kendorie's thesis.And that is to compare the levels offreedom of Arab states who are Muslimmajority countries in all cases, withnon-Arab Muslim majority states.So, this is what, Alfred Stepan andGraham Robertson did in an article in theJournal of democracy some yeas ago.And I organize and slightly revised theirdata in this slide here.And we are looking here at 43 Muslimmajority states, about half of whom areArab League members, and half of whom arenon-Arab states.And we can compute the average level offreedom on the freedom house scale ofpolitical rights and the other one ofcivil liberties.Average the two, and then take theaverage of that average, for these twosets of countries.Arab Muslim majority states, non-ArabMuslim majority states, and in this slidewe do it for two years, 2006 and 2008.

We see here that in both 2006 and 2008,it doesn't change very much.Arab majority muslim majority states hadabout a score of about five and a half onthe freedom house scale.A pretty opressive score because seven isthe worst score the least free.Where as the non- Arab Muslim majoritystates had a, level of freedom, that wassignificantly better, almost a pointbetter in the scale, about four and ahalf.Moreover, as Stepan and Robertson argued,

there has been quite significanceexperience with democracy among Non-ArabMuslim majority states.States like Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh,Indonesia, Senegal, Mali, Niger andAfrica.Whereas up until the democratization ofTunisia in 2011, the only Arab stategoing back to the 1970's that had everbeen a democracy, during this modern era,was Lebanon.Now of course, most of these Muslimmajority states have had breakdowns of

democracy, and there's been erosion ofdemocracy in Turkey.Pakistan lost democracy and still hasn'trecovered it.Bangladesh suffered a suspesnion asreturn to dmeocracy.Indonesia is a democracy but not withoutproblems in terms of rule of law andpolitical stability.and so there's movement back and forth,



Mali has suffered a military coup.Niger had one, and is returned tocivilian constitutional rule.But the point is, we can't say thatthere's no tradition of democracy in theMuslim world, when we have so many casesof significant experiences withdemocracy.Now we can reorganize the culturalargument and say well, the problem withArab culture maybe isn't that they haveno appreciation with democracy.But perhaps its patrimonial relations ofpower, deference to a strong leader whoalmost owns the political system.And can decide who gets what in thedistribution of power and resources andwho cannot be challenged or heldaccountable.is the problem then, deference toauthority, hierarchical social relationsemanating deep from within tribalcultures.It's unlikely that this is the case, when

we consider that the social relations ofthe Arab world, certainly could not beunfavorable in their traditional aspectsof social hiearchy than we find insub-Saharan Africa or parts of Asia.And if we consider that many Arab statesare divided along ethnic or identitylines, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain and Jordan.And we think that's the reason for theabsence of democracy.Well certainly historically, you had morehomogeneous countries like Egypt andTunisia that were also, authoritarian.

at the same time we can remark that oneof the more ethnically homogeneousstates, Tunisia, was the first among theArab Spring states to have a breakthroughto democracy.It's most useful in evaluating the thesisthat there's something different aboutArab culture, to look at public opinionsurvey evidence.And fortunately, there has been a launchof an Arab barometer.in the first decade of the 21st century,led by among others the US based

political scientist, Amaney Jamal andMark Tessler.And they've asked in the Arab world, anumber of the kinds of questions thathave been asked in other surveys, ofattitudes and values towards democracy inemerging market countries.So, for example, during the period 2003to 2006, they asked this question.Would you agree or disagree that, despite



drawbacks, democracy is the best systemof government?And they find that in each of fivecountries they surveyed during thisperiod, Jordan, Palestine, Algeria,Morocco and Kuwait.Over 80% of the public said yes I agree,despite drawbacks, democracy is the bestsystem of government.And then they asked, would you agree ordisagree that having a democratic systemwould be good for our country.And in virtually every one of thecountries surveyed, an even higherpercentage said yes, I want democracy formy country.over 90 percent said so in Jordan,Morrocco, and Kuwait.The lowest figure was in Algeria, andthat might have something to do with thefact that elections in Algeria in theearly 1990s.Which were won by the islamist politicalparty produced a kind of polical crisis,

military intervention and then a decentinto civil war.But even in Algeria during this period,over 80% said democracy woudl be good forour country.Now, let's look at the average for thesefive countries in terms of a number ofother political behaviours and beliefs wecould associate with democracy.For example, did they vote in the lastelection?Do they follow news about politics often?What do they think about political

reform.Do they think it should be introducedgradually.And again would they favor theauthoritarian option of having a strongleader who wouldn't have to mess withelections and parliament?Let's look at each of these measures andof course, they vary across the fivecountries.But let's focus on the average level ofdemocratic orientation or support foreach of these four measures.

So first of all did they vote in the lastelection?52% of those surveyed did.And it would have been higher except forthe fact that only a quarter in Kuwaitsaid yes, they voted in the lastelection.Of course, that might have something todo with the fact that they didn'tperceive that the elected parliament in



Kuwait would be allowed to have muchauthority visa vie the emir of Kuwait.and the monarchical rules of a country.Next they asked, do you follow news aboutpolitics often?And 56% on average said that.Now when they asked do you thinkpolitical reform should be introducedrapidly or gradually, 88% on average saidgradually.So indicating they want reform, but theyare concerned about instability.Finally, what about well, forgettingabout elections and parliament, justhaving a strong leader decide things,only 17% on average embraced thatauthoritarian option.And nowhere in these five countries, didthe percentage rise significantly above aquarter of those surveyed.One of the ways, that the Arab Barometerhas sought to unlock the puzzle ofattitudes and values toward democracy inthe Arab world is to correlate attitudes

about democracy.Whether people say democracy is alwaysthe best form of governor, government ornot with another question that, tapstheir attitude toward political Islam.Do they think that men of religion shouldhave influence over government andpolitics?And here we see the pattern in fourcountries that were surveyed morerecently in the case of Tunisia wellafter the Arab Spring broke out.In fact, shortly after their Parlimentary

elections.And in Egypt after the fall of Mubarak.In Jordan before the outbreak of the ArabSpring and Algeria shortly after the ArabSpring.We have four categories here combiningthe two questions.If people said that what they want isdemocracy, they preferred democracy butmen of religion should not have influenceover government.They're counted as secular democrats.If they prefer democracy but want

Islamist authorities to have someinfluence over laws and governmentdecisions.Then they're favored as wanting somedegree of combination of democracy andIslamic rule.and then of course we can have a secularautocracy as the preference, or anauthoritarian theocracy as thepreference.



And we see here that the patterns arequite different across these fourpatterns.Jordan, where 80% want democracy, there'sa more even division between those whowant secular democracy, 44% of the wholesample.And those who want possibly an Islamisttinged or simply Islamic democracy.Maybe it's not really democracy we want,they want, we can't really know, that's36%.But in Algeria, among the 85% who saythat they want democracy, 65% want asecular democracy, only 20% democracywith Islam.That balance is very similar as you cansee in Tunisia.And in Egypt, shortly after Mubarak fell,the balance was 51% for seculardemocracy, 27% for democracy with Islam.So another way we can get at this puzzleis to look specifically at those who,whatever their preference in terms of the

political system are devout Muslims.We can ask whether they pray every day.Do they read the Quran every day?how pious and devout do they seem to bein their their personal lives?So here is what Amaney Jamal and MarkTessler and their colleagues in the ArabBarometer have found.First of all, those who read the Koranevery day, who seem to be personally veryreligious, are about as likely to supportdemocracy strongly as those who are lessdevout.

So, if you break people into groups, theyread the Koran every day, they read itseveral times.Sometimes they read it, or rarely, ornever.There doesn't seem to be much correlationbetween that measure and the likelihoodof support for democracy.in fact, the Arab Barometer,scholars findthat at least 85% of the Arab public ineach of those categories of religiositysays, that despite drawbacks, democracyis the best system of government.

So if you look at these five countriesthat we have reviewed.When you control for other factors,personal religiosity appears to have noeffect on support for democracy by thismeasure, which is a pretty good measureof belief in the legitimacy of democracy.They conclude, Jamal and Tessler in their2008 article, democratic values arepresent to a significant degree among



government in their own country.

7 - 3 - 6.3 evidence from the arab world [21 min]

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