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Why is the Arab-Muslim World not Democratic? An Outline of a Historical and ‘Serene’ Approach

The neo-conservative thesis and part of the Western right’s response to this question are straightforward: Islam is the root cause. According to them, Muslim culture constitutes the fundamental reason for a “culture” deemed “unfavorable” to human rights and economic development. This article aims to refute this thesis and explores the social, economic, and geographical factors contributing to the divergence between the Western and Arab-Muslim worlds.

Contrary to attributing the West’s development to a naturally democratic and human rights-oriented culture, the author argues that the West indirectly benefited from “accidents” and contingencies. The article seeks to avoid a mere “apology” for Islam as a religion of “love and tolerance” but rather aims for an understanding of internal causes in the Arab-Muslim world’s relative democratic and economic “delay.” I advocate for a critical approach that goes beyond the convenient explanation of colonization, emphasizing the responsibility of local actors. This, I believe, is a profoundly humanist vision.

The approach presented is “deflationary,” setting aside simplistic explanations involving Islam or colonization in favor of a nuanced study rooted in history and economics.

a) Returning to Basics: The “Unique” Nature of the West’s Development

Before exploring why the Arab world may be in a “delay,” the article emphasizes the “exceptional” and singular character of Europe since the Renaissance. Europe’s dominance over much of the world, including Africa, India, China, and America, is attributed to a series of fortunate accidents and contingent events.

The fierce competition among European states catalyzed political, economic, and cultural advances, fostering innovation and encouraging nations to outperform each other. The legal legacy of Roman law shaped Europe’s institutional foundation, providing a stable base for modern legal systems. The intellectual richness stemming from the fusion of Greek and Christian heritage nurtured the European cultural landscape, fostering creativity, reflection, and knowledge exploration.

This is the case of religious wars, which paradoxically contributed to the consolidation of states in Europe. Violent conflicts often acted as catalysts for the construction of modern states, becoming key actors in ensuring civic peace following religious wars. The influence of Protestantism, promoting Bible reading, literacy, critical thinking, and early forms of democratization, also played a role.

The advent of the Industrial Revolution, symbolized by English coal, propelled Europe into the modern era, triggering significant changes in production, economy, and society.

All these events marked a departure from the ancient and Christian heritage of the Middle Ages. Western “modernity” developed in a context of rupture with its “legacy.”

This article underscores that these “fortunate accidents” were unrelated to any grand plan and challenges the notion of an “Occident” inherently inclined toward human rights and a market economy. There is therefore no inherent Western “essence” favoring democratic and economic progress.

b) Long-term structural factors explaining the relative “delay” of the Muslim world:

Firstly, the Arab world suffered from the shift of global trade centers since the European conquest of America, leading to economic stagnation, especially as oil resources could only be utilized from the 20th century. Additionally, the state-nation is a fundamental basis for modern democracy and a powerful instrument for resource collection and mobilization. Historically, the Arab-Muslim world was often dominated by non-Arab “peoples” like Kurds, Iranians, and Turks. Unlike Europeans who laid the foundations of future states, there was no “proto-state” with a “national” culture in the Arab-Muslim countries during the Middle Ages. The absence of a “national” culture persisted and even strengthened under the Ottoman Empire, posing a hindrance to the emergence of a modern democracy. The Ottoman Empire’s legacy, particularly the unequal management of religious and ethnic groups using the “millet” system, reinforced the fragmentation of Arab-Muslim societies. This fragmentation was exacerbated by differential taxation based on the dhimma concept, leading to strong resentment between Muslims and non-Muslims.

c) In general, one could say that there are two types of trajectories for empires aiming to create a modern citizenship close to the Western model:

  1. Either the maintenance of an “empire” dominated by a specific group (Russian in Russia, Hindu in India, Han in China) that succeeds in creating a modern state with a common culture, although dominated by a specific ethnic group.
  2. Or the fragmentation of these empires into nation-states, as seen in the cases of Austria and the Ottoman Empire after World War I.

However, due to the Ottoman legacy, the Arab-Muslim world did not follow either of these trajectories, which, in different forms, remain the basis for any political and economic development, whether one likes it or not.

d) Structural Factors Since the 1950s:

One factor that could explain the relative lag of the Arab world in political and economic terms is the role of oil. It facilitates state expenditures, particularly military spending, leading to the emergence and maintenance of a militarized state with an arsenal used to suppress internal dissent. This was evident, for example, in Algeria during the “dark decade” when the Algerian military massacred their own population, blaming the responsibility on Islamists. Oil also enables the creation of a powerful elite disconnected from the country, benefiting from oil rents.

Furthermore, oil, often nationalized, contributes to socialism and economic control, subjecting the economy, political life, and daily activities of individuals to the state. Natural resources subtly encourage a trade-off between relative wealth redistribution and the deprivation of political rights. The population gains limited access to national wealth but must accept the loss of political rights. Oil also fosters a rentier economy at the expense of a production-oriented economy. Even in oil-poor countries, other forms of rent exist, such as tourism, the Suez Canal, and immigration, all contributing to an influx of funds from abroad.

Politically, the conflicts between Islamists and authoritarian secular leaders have played a detrimental role. This power struggle has provided a convenient pretext for militaries and authoritarian regimes to restrict any opposition, given the retrogressive and reactionary nature of Islamist programs. While the role of Western powers in the Arab-Muslim predicament is often mentioned, the question is why multi-confessional, multi-ethnic, and stable states did not emerge in most Arab countries. This has been achieved by countries like Switzerland, Germany, and even France, which successfully coexist with different religions and local cultures.

The role of Israel is frequently cited as a convenient pretext to avoid questioning the Arab world’s predicament. The Israel/Palestine conflict since 1948 is said to have contributed to the relative destabilization of Arab countries. However, there has been no war between Israel and an Arab country since the 1970s/1980s, excluding conflicts with Palestine.

It is also common to claim that the West supported authoritarian regimes in Arab-Muslim countries. But, these states historically aligned with the Soviet Union and later with Russia (e.g., Algeria, Syria), and some even sponsored or witnessed parts of their population organizing terrorist attacks in the West like Libya, Algeria, Palestine, and Al-Qaida, a group coming from Saudi Arabia.

Regarding, colonization, which undoubtedly had extremely negative effects, it often lasted barely 50 years like in Libya, Morocco, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, or 70 years in Tunisia and Egypt, and 130 years in Algeria. What’s more, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia have never been colonized. The point here is not to deny the consequences of colonization – which has already been the subject of so many books that I don’t think it’s necessary to return to it – but rather to propose a critical approach to the Muslim world and a vision that gives responsibility to local players.

 

e) Political Factors Since the 1980s/1990s:

Finally, there was a massive wave of democratization in the 1980s/1990s, witnessed in Latin America, Southern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, South Korea, and Taiwan. However, during the same period, Saudi Arabia, with figures like Osama bin Laden, and Egypt, with the Muslim Brotherhood, were promoting Islamism. There was a rejection of the United States and the West in general, not a direct influence of their values, unlike other regions undergoing democratization.

The Arab-Muslim world, in part, entered a phase of divergence from a significant portion of the world, not just the West. Local elites did not engage in a reform process, unlike South America, South Africa, or the USSR, where existing authoritarian governments wanted and organized democratic transitions, aiming to prevent the collapse of their countries and maintain their positions even after the authoritarian phase. Reforms initiated by elites stemmed from the rejection of an ideology and political practice, leading to a shift in mindset, rejecting communism, apartheid, and authoritarianism. The existing elites, whether authoritarian, racist, or socialist, sought to move away from the governing style they despised, at least to some extent.

I propose a subjective hypothesis here: the Arab-Muslim world suffers from a lack of a “bad conscience,” meaning an ability to question the two dominant ideologies since the 1930s: secular Arab socialism and Islamism. Anti-colonialism served as a pretext to legitimize both pan-Arabism and Islamism: if the West is guilty, then there’s no need for us to reform. This serves as a more or less direct legitimation of the authoritarianism of secular and military regimes and Islamists, both presenting themselves as alternatives to the West.

I clearly defend the opinion that Westernization and political and economic liberalism would likely have contributed to progress in the Arab-Muslim world. Yet, this was fundamentally impossible because it would have required a massive internal reform of Islamism and Arab nationalism, potentially leading to their disappearance.

But there might be a subtle form of negative influence from the West here. Part of Western public opinion is obsessed with “anti-colonialist” ideas, inadvertently reinforcing the image of the Arab world as a “victim” of the West. This fundamental error indirectly legitimizes movements that claim anti-colonialism but also reject Western democratic and liberal values.

Thus, the West likely plays an ambivalent, contradictory, and sometimes detrimental role. Despite being a successful model of democracy, stability, economic growth, and gender equality in Europe, it failed to inspire the Arab-Muslim world, even though it undeniably served as an excellent model for many countries worldwide.

Indicative bibliography:

  • Bellin, Eva. « The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective ». Comparative Politics 36, no 2 (janvier 2004): 139.

  • Larry Diamond, Marc Plattner, Daniel Brumberg, editors. Islam and democracy in the Middle East. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2003.

  • Posusney, Marsha Pripstein, et Michele Penner Angrist, éd. Authoritarianism in the Middle East: regimes and resistance. Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc, 2005.

  • Makdisi, Samir A., et Ibrahim Elbadawi, éd. Democracy in the Arab world: explaining the deficit. Routledge studies in Middle Eastern politics 27. London ; New York: Routledge, 2011.

  • Steven Fish (2002) Alfred Stepan and Graeme Robertson (2003)

  • Lust, E. Missing the Third Wave: Islam, Institutions, and Democracy in the Middle East. St Comp Int Dev 46, 163–190 (2011)


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Baudry Pierre (March 2, 2024). Why is the Arab-Muslim World not Democratic? An Outline of a Historical and ‘Serene’ Approach. Deciphering international politics - religion, economics and international affairs. Retrieved March 17, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/ve0f


Baudry Pierre

Ph.D. CNRS/EPHE (Paris), Assistant professor.

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