The tragic events of 9/11 provided the impetus for a fourth wave of democratization in the Arab world. This new phase contains a democratic opportunity that is gathering momentum and, if managed well, will materialize into a genuine transition to democracy across the region. Under this wave, democratization is a matter of security, necessity, and moral imperative. The long-term western policy of “order” at the expense of “change” has proven detrimental to world peace. In this wave, Islamists seem to be leading the way in landslide electoral victories. Dealing with them is unavoidable if democratization is to succeed. Simultaneously, Islamists must reciprocate pragmatically, conducting themselves as reliable partners or else their political demise is imminent.

I examine the post-9/11 predicament of democracy in the Arab world and discuss its strengths, weaknesses, achievements, and failures in comparison with previous attempts. Elections are perceived as necessary – but not necessarily – sufficient, steps for regimes to qualify as democratic. Elections that result in substantive institutional reform certainly enhance the prospects of such a transition. Some intellectual contributions continue within the trend of the third wave’s “exclusionary” thought, thereby creating a sort of “gap” vis-à-vis incorporating the region within the global trends of democratization. This article remedies that deficiency.

Introduction

In 1989, Arabs and Muslims watched the Berlin Wall collapse with joy and envy.While they celebrated the end of the agonizing cold war, they envied the German people’s triumph of uniting their homeland. This event led to a wave of democratization across Eastern and Central Europe. Like dominoes, communist regimes crumbled one by one. Arabs watched this indescribable transformation with cautious optimism, hoping to be part of the “third wave of democratization.” Their hopes were in vain, for Arab regimes resisted change, cracked down on democratic forces, and enhanced their grip on power as never before. Arab-Islamic democratic forces looked to the West for support, but did not find any. External support was not feasible, and the autocratic ruling elites were unwilling to share power or allow any significant political change.

In addition, the West has shown no serious commitment to reform or democracy in the region, as its interests are best served by authoritarianism. At that time, Algeria was the test case. In 1992, the Algerian junta decided to organize elections to secure a dignified exit from power. When the Islamist led democratic opposition won the first round, however, the army canceled the elections and jailed the Islamic Salvation Front’s leaders. The “democratic West” sided with the junta for one reason: the winners were “Islamists.”

The United States went along with France’s opposition to the Islamists’ political participation, while France maintained its tradition of opposing freedom in the region. Once again France destroyed a promising Arab experiment, just as it had done in 1920 with the Syrian Arab Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy established by the “Free Arabs.” Algeria soon plunged into the darkest chapter of its modern history. The tragic confrontation between the Algerian military and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in particular resulted in a decade of civil war leading to more than 150,000 civilian deaths, most of whom were literally slaughtered by murderers from both sides using axes, daggers, knives, and all forms of brutality. They showed no reverence for anything sacred in Algerian culture and tradition.

Among the Islamists, theAlgerian case enhanced the belief that bullets, rather than ballot boxes, make the difference. Within the discourse of a lack of interest in the cause of freedom in the region, the “democratic West” supported – and still vehemently supports – Tunisia’s autocratic regime that has held power since the 1987 coup. Egypt pursued its brutal treatment of the opposition, both Islamic and secular. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a secular modernist, was jailed, tortured, and accused of being a CIA agent because he once received some American funding for the Ibn Khaldoun Center. Suffice it to say that the state targets Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood. Its repeated attacks on Islamists radicalized a segment of the movement, as happened in the Algerian case. The tragic outcome of the regime’s rejection of political accommodation produced a generation of extremists who went to Afghanistan, received weapons training, and was turned loose on Muslims and non-Muslims, in many cases indiscriminately.

Syria maintained its brutal extermination of the opposition, regardless of ideological tendencies. Its secret police tortured, murdered, or disappeared thousands of opponents. Jordan, which has had the region’s most hopeful democratic experience, found its democratic march curbed when the army crushed the popular uprising in the south in the summer of 1989 onward. Morocco also reversed a promising democratization trend, while Mauritania continued to experience frequent military coups. Libya had showed no sign of change as regards its disastrous policies since 1969. In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwait underwent remarkable socio-economic, political, and demographic changes. Saudi Arabia allowed no sort of dissent, while Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) showed no serious change in their governance practices. Yemen went through a brutal civil war until unity was restored, Lebanon was recovering from a vicious sixteen-year civil war, and the Palestinian National Authority failed to build a functional government despite enjoying unprecedented worldwide support throughout the 1990s. Iraq continued to live under stringent international economic sanctions until the American invasion of March 2003.

On the intellectual scene, two schools of thought dominated the debate. The “exceptionalist” discourse stated that the Middle East is an exceptional case and immune to democracy due to the alleged incompatibility of its political culture with modern norms of democracy. Samuel Huntington (1991, 1993), Yehuda Mirsky (1993), Bernard Lewis (1993), Glen Dealy (1992), Howard Wiarda et al. al (1992), Larry Diamond et al. (1989), Diamond and Marc Plattner (1993), Jonathan Paris (1993), and Manus Midlarsky (1998) holdArab political culture and Islam responsible for the democracy gap.1 On the foreign policy level, “Ambassador Richard Haass acknowledged in a speech on December 4, 2002, that for decades the American government has practiced ‘democratic exceptionalism’ in the Muslim world as it did in other regions and countries after the fall of the Soviet Union.”2 Other western democracies never deviated from this rule.

On the other side, the “compatibility” school of thought advocated that Islam andArab political culture are no less compatible with democracy than other cultures and religions. Michael Hudson (1991, 1994), John Esposito (1994), Richard Norton (1993), Alan Richards (1993, 1994), Saad Eddin Ibrahim (1993), and other scholars and area specialists represent this trend.3 However, the most noticeable aspect of the third wave literature, as Tim Niblock neatly puts it, is that it has extensively researched the “why” aspect of democracy rather than the “how.”4 In other words, it has researched “why” the region is undemocratic instead of investigating “how” to bring about a successful process of transition to democracy in the Middle East and the Islamic world. This very element distinguishes the fourth wave from the third wave.

The fourth wave’s literature is more hopeful and relatively optimistic about democracy’s status and future in the region in comparison with the third wave’s intellectual discourse. Several trends can be identified within its framework:

• The literature questioned the very nature of the third wave’s assumption and rationale for exclusionary thought. Saad Eddin Ibrahim (2003), Steven Fish (2002), Sandrof Lakoff (2004), Alfred Stepan and Graeme Robertson (2003, 2004), Daniela Donno (2004), Mark Tessler and Eleanor Gao (2005), and Andrew Enterline and Michael Greig (2005), as well as others, provide a more in-depth analysis of the process of democracy, one free from the dogmatic constraints of the “clash of civilizations” thesis and those of the third wave.5

• An active Islamist-intellectual involvement in the global debate over the universality of democratic values and Islam’s compatibility with democracy and modernity.Anwar Ibrahim (2006), Tassaduq H. Jillani (2006),6 and others represent this trend. In particular, Turkey’s Islamists have implemented the Islamists’ political discourse into governance, and Islamists across the Islamic world have scored stunning electoral gains.

• Examining the impact of external factors on democratization in the region andAmerican involvement in transitioning to democracy in particular. Jon Pevehouse (2002), Lorne Craner (2006), Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way (2005), Andrew Enterline and Michael Greig (2005), the Congressional Quarterly’s policy oriented paper (2005), and Barry Rubin (2006) represent this trend.7

• Quantitatively measuring the region’s advancement toward democratization. Several polling centers frequently measure public opinion, while such scholars as Saliba Sarsar (2006), Abdeslam Maghraoui (2002), Michael Herb (2002), Jillian Schwedler (2002), Jean-Françoise Seznec (2002) and others provide an in-depth quantitative analysis of democracy in the region.8

• Questioning the impact of the Arab-Israeli conflict on political reform. Over the past fifty years or so,Arab ruling elites have postponed reform on the grounds of the existing state of war between Israel and the Arab world. James Lebovic and William Thompson (2006), David Unger (2002), Seznec (2002), and others question the rationale and validity of such a postponement.9

• Examining the linkage between democracy and terrorism. Within this framework, the United States and the West have viewed democratization in the region as a matter of national security. The Bush Doctrine and the Mediterranean Partnership represent this trend, as do George Gause (2005), Frank Gardner (2006), KarlMeyer (2004), Sherle Schwenninger (2003), and others.10

• Devoting special attention to the role of indigenous democratic arrangements and their impact on democratization. Charles Boix and Susan Strokes (2003), Valerie Bunce, (2003), Herb (2002), Seznec (2002), Rubin (2006), and others represent this trend.11

• Investigating the impact of the American invasion of Iraq and the consequences of the American setbacks in Iraq on democratization. Adeed Dawisha (2004, 2005), KananMakiya (2003), Eric Davis (2005), Jamal Benomer (2004), Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2006), and others represent this trend.12