The Meaning and Importance of Democracy

     In order to determine the value of democracy, democracy itself must first be defined. As Salwa Ismail posits, democracy may be understood best via a negative definition (one which shows what democracy is not), particularly one of "nondemocracy." Ismail presents nondemocracy as nonrepresentativeness, nonaccountability, an authoritation style of rule, and repressive practices,¹ which means that it logically follows that democracy is representativeness, accountability, and a lack of repressiveness. The value of this concept is simply that democracy allows the will of the people to provide accountability for the government so as to limit its ability to restrict the people's rights.

     However, in the Arab world, democracy has been markedly absent.² Yet some authors posit that the reason for this is that, despite infitah strategies (plans for how to permanently transfer the goods and services from public bureaucracies to non-governmental organizations such as private corporations³), which would effectively take central power and redistribute it to the people (a core component of democracy), governments often postpone or even ignore such plans due to the economic interest governments possessed by enjoying large revenues while ignoring long-term necessities.⁴ However, some analysts argue that the assumption that capitalism will necessarily cause democracy is overly simplistic and not relevant to the Middle East.⁵ However, if this limitation of democratic development is due to fiscal and monetary policy, it is significant because of the status of many Arab states as rentier states,⁶ which necessarily means that more economic revenue is under government control and therefore economic power is more difficult to distribute to the people in the form of democracy.


References:
1. Ismail, S. "Democracy in Contemporary Arab Intellectual Discourse." Published in "Political Liberalization & Democratization in the Arab World, vol. 1: Theoretical Perspectives," by Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany, and Paul Noble, eds. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers, Inc. 1995. 98.

2. Ibid.

3. Hermassi, A. "Socio-economic Change and Political Implications: the Maghreb." Published in "Democracy without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World," by Ghassan Salame, ed. New York, NY: I. B. Tauris & Co, Ltd. 1994. 231.

4. Ibid. 230.

5. Owen, R. "Socio-economic Change and Political Mobilization: the case of Egypt." Published in "Democracy without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World," by Ghassan Salame, ed. New York, NY: I. B. Tauris & Co, Ltd. 1994. 183.

6. Luciani, G. "Resources, Revenues, and Authoritarianism in the Arab World: Beyond the Rentier State?" Published in "Political Liberalization & Democratization in the Arab World, vol. 1: Theoretical Perspectives," by Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany, and Paul Noble, eds. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers, Inc. 1995. 211-212.


Originally posted elsewhere on November 16, 2010. It was updated on May 20, 2011.