The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective

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…