1. “Persistent” Authoritarianism in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA)
Feb. 28 & March 1, 2012
Prof. M. Cammett

2. RECAP: The Middle East in Global Perspective
Source: Freedom House (2012)

3. Why the “Democracy Deficit” in the MENA? Hypothesis 1: Culture
Culture as religion: Islam
Samuel Huntington (1984): “Islam has not been hospitable to democracy In Islam, no distinction exists between religion and politics or between the spiritual and the secular, and political participation was historically an alien concept.”

4. Why the “Democracy Deficit”? Hypothesis 1: Culture (cont.)
Culture as ethnicity and customs: Arab society a) Tribal culture: - Kinship ties - Resistance to authority - Violence b) Patriarchal culture

5. Critiques of Simple Culture-Based Explanations
Islam and democracy: Empirical anomalies
Religions are multifaceted
Culture changes
Little or no empirical evidence

6. Why the “Democracy Deficit”? Hypothesis 2: The Rentier State
Thomas Friedman’s "First Law of Petropolitics“ (2006):
“The price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in
opposite directions in petro-ist states.”
What is the “rentier state”?
- State dependence on rents (i.e., oil)
Rentierism = ______Rent Revenue_________
Rent revenue + all other revenues
- Rents accrue to state

7. Economies in the Middle East
Oil
Non-Oil
(or minimal oil)
Low GDP/cap.
Algeria
Egypt
Iran
Iraq
Syria (declining)
Sudan
Yemen
Jordan
Lebanon
Morocco
Tunisia
Turkey
High GDP/cap.
Kuwait
Libya
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Israel

8. Why the “Democracy Deficit”? Hypothesis 2: The Rentier State (cont.)
Rentier earnings  Absence of or limited democracy
Logic?
- Taxation effect: “No representation without taxation”
- Repression effect (Bellin’s “coercive state”)
- Modernization effect

9. Critiques of the Rentier State Argument
Is the rentier state thesis sufficient to explain authoritarianism in the Middle East?
It’s not inevitable
- i.e., Indonesia, Malaysia, Chile, Botswana, etc.
The mediating role of institutions:
- Strength of pre-boom state institutions
- i.e., Norway v. Saudi Arabia
Variation in political openness among oil-dependent countries
- i.e., Iran v. Kuwait v. Saudi Arabia

10. Hypothesis 3: Political Institutions
Executive design: Monarchies v. single party republics, etc.
Electoral systems
Remember Jordan’s electoral system change?

11. What, if anything, is “exceptional” about the Middle East
What, if anything, is “exceptional” about the Middle East? The “Coercive State” Military Expenditures/GDP by Region (2005)

12. What Sustains the “Coercive State”?
Rentier state
Weak opposition
3) Patrimonial military
International aid and support

13. U.S. Dept. of State Budget Request for “International Affairs” (FY2007) Military and Economic Support by Region (millions of US$)

14. Is the “Coercive State” Argument Convincing?

15. Promoting Democracy in the MENA
Are/were democracy promotion efforts advisable?
Then v. now: Should the U.S. support democracy in the Middle East?