Why Has Democracy Failed to Develop in the Middle East - Dissertation Example

Significant intellectual energy has been used up on exploring the dynamics of democratization in the Middle East, with a number of scholars pledging a forthcoming growth of democracy in the region; simultaneously, others attempt to dispute that Middle Eastern democratic introductions have by now begun taking place (Chirot 1994).However, in this dissertation, I will argue that possibilities for democratization and the successful enforcement of democratic regime in the Middle East are far from definite, especially in the face of numerous social, cultural and economic forces that challenge democratic introductions in the region.

My argument is founded not merely on the presence of observed, anti-democratic conditions in the Middle East, or at any rate across mainly of the region, but as well on a more significant theoretical issue in the investigation of democracy itself.I will also explore in this study the theoretical underpinnings relating to the occurrence of democracy and democratization and maintain that ceteris paribus, social and cultural factors are just as essential in influencing and helping to keep the democratic rule as are flourishing political manoeuvring and institutional crafting.

This is not to exclude political and institutional factors from the bigger picture, but forces within society and culture are also as fundamental in successfully achieving sustained democratic polities. Such democratically encouraging social and cultural patterns, this study claims, are not at present existent in the Middle East, or if indeed existent, they are mainly restrained under the heavier influences of economic and political factors. Democracy is not impossible, but currently, the region does not provide the needed social and cultural provisions to foster and then to perpetuate it as being seen somewhere else in the world.