Why do Middle Eastern and North African countries?

Joseph Waweru Why do Middle Eastern and North African countries lack parliamentary governments? Is it the Arabic talking to or the Muslim faith? Columbia University scholars, Alfred Stephan and Graeme B. Robertson, seem to have the answers. In regards to Arabism and Islam, the duo classifies nations associated with the former as democratic underachievers and the latter as overachievers. A nations classification as an overachiever/underachiever is based upon their Gross Domestic Product Per Capita (GDPpc).In addition, they observe governmental rights on a scale to help them secure which states exhibit electoral competitoryness. They structure their argument into three phases quantitative, qualitative, and implications of the prior phases results. Finally, Stephan and Robertson offer possible solutions and scenarios that must take place in order for the political atmosphere in Arab countries to transform. The data used comes from the Freedom in the World The Annual Survey of P olitical Rights and Civil Liberties by Freedom House and Ted Gurrs enactment Project.The year 1972 is chosen as the suitable year to comp atomic number 18 the data from both sources. Freedom in the World ranks nations on a scale of 1-7 whereas 1 is the highest and 7 is the lowest. Nations that are rank 3 (and above) are considered electoral competitive. The Polity Project ranks nations from strong autocratic (-10) to strong democratic (+10). Nations that are ranked at least (+4) are classified as electoral competitive. What constitutes as electoral competitive? According to the duo, government positions must be fill through fair elections.Governments like Egypt can non bar individuals and parties from participating in elections. Secondly, high government positions should be filled with individuals who are elected though fair means, contrary Lebanon, whose executive and parliamentary government is authoritarian. In addition, a nation must meet these criteria for at least three ye ars to be considered electorally competitive. They also stress that electoral competitiveness is not democracy but a prerequisite for it. The use of Arabic and Muslim interchangeably reflect the common misconception that the two words mean the same they do not.The former represents regions that speak Arabic and the latter represents regions that practice Islam. Using this template, Stephan and Robertson group their findings into Arab Muslim, Arab non-Muslim, and non-Arab Muslim- volume. From the onset, we notice that Arab countries have relatively weak political and electoral rights. Only Lebanon, one of the sixteen Arab countries and coincidentally the only Muslim-majority state in this group, had three years of consecutive strong electoral rights. No Arab rude had five years of consecutive strong political rights (32).On the contrary, 38% of the thirty non-Arab Muslim countries examined had strong political and electoral rights for three consecutive years plot of ground 27% of the same group went for five consecutive years. The likelihood of a non-Arab Muslim country to be electoral competitive was 2000% higher than an Arab Muslim state. This all-inclusive gap reiterates the authors claim that Arab states are associated with the lack of democratic zeal. In the quantitative phase, Stephan and Robertson examine GDPpc. They search for a link between levels of income and political rights.They characterize them as follows Non-Arab Muslim states whose GDPpc is under $1500 are great electoral overachievers, those that are under $3500 are electorally non-competitive and those that are over $5500 are electorally competitive. There are no electoral underachievers within this group. For Arab Muslim states, there is not a country whose GDPpc is below $3500. In addition, there are neither great electoral achievers nor electoral competitive states. In fact, 44% of the countries in this group are electoral underachievers and their GDPpc is over $5500.They assert that there is no Muslim gap in regards to political rights. The qualitative phase deals with the nature of government. They state that in non-Arab Muslim countries, like Senegal, Turkey, and Niger, powerful incumbents have been voted out of office by constituents. Niger is an interesting case since its GDPpc is equal to that of Yemen, an Arab majority state, yet its ranked (+4) and Yemen ranked (-2) on the Polity Project scale. In addition, Arab countries are classified into three groups complete autocratic states, liberalizing, and those that once showed call off to be democratic.The authors suggest that election bans, coercion, fraud, civil war, and military coups are to blame for the lack of democratic governments in Arab countries. The findings of Stephan and Robertson also seem to counter prior arguments make by other scholars. For example, it is thought that economic development leads to democracy because development correlates with greater political participation. The authors di sagree with this notion. They compare political participation between India and the coupled States and conclude that the poor members of the former are more politically involved than those of the latter.They also disagree with the theory that differences in languages and ethnicities within a society are detrimental to democracy. They claim that electoral competitive states actually began with the high levels of ethnolinguistic fragmentation while electoral non-competitive states had low levels. In conclusion, Stephan and Robertson believe the electoral gap is an Arab one, not Muslim. Factors such as their heritage to the Ottoman Empire and their failure to transition from authoritarian government explain the gap.In addition, they believe that if the Arab world recognized each other as legitimate and sovereign nations and if military spending was reduced in favor for domestic improvement, then democracy should form in the region. They believe democracy will be achieved through inter nal means rather than external. And they are right. Eight years after this essay was written, Arab countries like Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco are becoming democratic mainly due to internal pressures.