2004/01/01 by Eva Bellin · 1,009 citations
Social Sciences · #Artificial intelligence #Authoritarianism #Computer science #Democracy #Exceptionalism #International Development and Aid #Law #Middle East #Perspective (graphical) #Political Conflict and Governance #Political science #Politics #Religion and Society Interactions #Robustness (evolution)
paper · doi:10.2307/4150140
published in Comparative Politics 36(2), 139 (City University of New York)
openalex publication_date 2004/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
Why have the Middle East and North Africa remained so singularly resistant to democratization? While the number of electoral democracies has nearly doubled since 1972, the number in this region has registered an absolute decline.1 Today, only two out of twenty-one countries qualify as electoral democracies, down from three observed in 1972.2 Stagnation is also evident in the guarantee of political rights and civil liberties. While the number of countries designated free by Freedom House has doubled in the Americas and in the Asia-Pacific region, increased tenfold in Africa, and risen exponentially in Central and East Europe over the past thirty years, there has been no overall improvement in the Middle East and North Africa.3 Aggregate scores in 2002 differ little from 1972. Fifteen countries are designated not free, five partly free, and only one free (see Table 1). While a few countries, notably Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, and Yemen, have registered noteworthy progress toward political liberalization in the past decade, overall the vast majority of countries has failed to catch the wave of democratization that has swept nearly every other part of the world.