The media is portraying the “wave” of revolution in the Middle East as the beginning of freedom and stabilization in the region. But contrary to what everyone is contemplating, this “wave” is merely a seed of democracy that may be forced into a “step back” in ten years when the real demands for democracy are no met.
Democracy is a nurtured trait, and cannot be imposed on people; in order for democracy to be sustained, the elites and the masses will have to coexist. People’s desires for “freedoms” economic prosperity depend principally on the compromises, and adherence to civic culture that come after the revolution is over. And this is a indispensable trues and “prerequisites” for democracy, as Seymour Martin Lipset argued.
Unfortunately, the only recognized writer that has touched on this unlikely fulfillment of democracy in the Middle East is STRATFOR’s president George Friedman. While journalists talk about the romanticized feel-good version of democracy, Mr. Friedman acknowledges that “ if victory comes, and democracy is declared, do not assume that what follows will in any way please the West – democracy and pro-Western political culture do not mean the same thing… and a revolution that overthrew no regime even temporarily and left some cultural remnants of minimal historical importance” His historical analysis indeed wants to discus the reality and nastiness of democracy, especially in a region that are not used to it. But while he posits that this revolution may fail to transform the Muslim world or even just the Arab world, he neglects to mentions that, there will be a regression to authoritarian regime in some Islamic states;so essentially, they all fails to point out that we may in fact that will disappointed when we are faced we democratic “step-backs” because Muslim societies do not have the “prerequisites” to sustained democracy,
Samuel Huntington developed the notion that democracies tend to
come in “waves”. Moreover, he emphasizes both positive waves that move countries into accountable institutions or the negative waves that bring them back to autocracy and negative forms of government. In his classic, The third Wave of Democratization, Huntington argues that there are basic “prerequisites” that need to be consider to democracy to flourish: culture, economics, region. and religion. Huntington recognizes that democratic transitions, consolidations, and collapses can all result from a variety of dynamics, and while he explores several of them both analytically and historically, he is well aware and concerned with developing a post hoc explanation than an all-embracing model or predictive theory.
Huntington identified five changes in the world that paved the way for the latest wave of transitions to democracy: 1) the deepening legitimacy problems of authoritarian governments unable to cope with military defeat and economic failure; 2) the burgeoning economies of many countries, which have raised living standards, levels of education, and urbanization, while also raising civic expectations and the ability to express them; 3) changes in religious institutions which have made them more prone to oppose governmental authoritarianism than defend the status quo; 4) the push to promote human rights and democracy by external actors such as non-governmental organizations and the European Community; and 5) the “snowballing” or demonstration effects, enhanced by new international communications, of democratization in other countries.
But he is especially pessimistic about the prospects for democracy in regions of the world that have not entered democratization, especially homegrown Marxist-Leninist regimes linked to nationalist appeals like in Latin American—Venezuela or Bolivia Cuba . He is also doubtful of the democratic promise of Islamic Islamic religious doctrines. And although Huntington believed the the Catholic Church was anti-democratic and archaic, he did give credit to the Vatican for promoting civil participation as the means to repel communism in Latin American, Spain and Portugal in the 60s and 70s.
His premise is empirically based on historical events, which can forward democracy or cause regression into authoritarianism. The most important political distinction among countries concerns is not the forms of government, but their degree of government: how people govern themselves is the pillar for a self -sustaining democracy; democracy is good and has positive consequence. However, if leaders fail to fulfill economical promises and do not implement necessary political reforms to sustain democracy, democracy suffers a “step back, which has negative effects for individuals, freedom, domestic stability, international peace.”
Further, freely elected decision makers can be circumscribe in their actions by unelected military or civilian oligarchy. For example, the mere fact that Mexico had been regularly scheduled election for 70 decades does not merits its qualification as a democracy, just as persistent intervention by the military or civil officials seems to have deprived Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Romania, Bulgaria, and Mexico from democracy.
The chief arguments is that each wave is follow by reversions, either to the status quo or to some other form of autocracy. Too, high per-capita and democracy are related: of t27 out these 31 of the countries analyzed have correlation between high per-capita and democratization; high per-capita led to high literacy levels. But Huntington recognizes that that the transition from wealthy authoritarian rule does not ensures the consolidation of democracy. Thus, a reversion from democracy is not only possible, but likely, unless specific actions are taken to consolidate and maintain democratic reforms, such as living conditions, purge or retire military officer from the previous regime, and punish those who may rebel against the infant democracy. Moreover, he stresses that rapid economic growth may have destabilized some authoritarian regimes but did not necessary lead to democracy, especially oil-rich countries.
In Huntington argument, natural resources like oil create dependent societies and high level of authoritarian paternalistic leaders. Too much revenue collected from the sell of natural resources means that people are less likely to pay taxes. Hence, when people do not pay taxes while receiving social services, people never demands democratic changes and become trapped in a vicious circle of dependency.
The book was finished in 1990. Unfortunately, some of Huntington positive and negatives presumption came through. The consolidation of fully participatory democracy in places like Chile, Brazil, and Mexico where democracy has becomes more open and competitive, However, some of Huntington fears have also being fulfilled. For example, oil-rich Venezuela, Russian, and Bolivia all have gone back to authoritarian pseudo – socialist leaders. Moreover, when Huntington just finished this book in 1990; Marxist-Leninist Daniels Ortega lost the first real democratic elections in Nicaragua and was removed from power through democratic and open election.
But, in 2007 Daniel Ortega was back in power through democratic means and Palestinians democratically elected a Fattah terrorist faction as their formal government. These events only confirm Huntington’s thesis that unless real efforts are made to consolidate democracy, people will always regress to paternalistic authoritarian regimes.
Therefore, unless religious leaders encourage civic participation, and Arab elites are willing to share powers and oil-profits, of and invest in education—literacy—democracy in the Arab world may be still in its first baby-step. As a result, the media and people are avoiding the real question of democracy, it is a slow process, but we ought to be mindful that many of the regime changes happening in the Middle East will soon suffer a “step back” to authoritarian democratic paternalistic regimes.