* From the given non-Democratic Countries in the World at present write about
any one country’s Political, Social and Economic Conditions.
(Saudi Arabia, China, United Kingdom, North Korea, Iraq)
Answers
According to the Democracy Index 2016 study, Israel (#29 worldwide) is the only democracy in the Middle East, while Tunisia (#69 worldwide) is the only democracy in North Africa.[1] The measure of the level of democracy in nations throughout the world published by Freedom House and various other freedom indices, the Middle Eastern and North African countries with the highest scores are Israel, Tunisia, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan and Kuwait. Countries that are occasionally classified as partly democratic are Egypt and Iraq. The remaining countries of the Middle East are categorized as authoritarian regimes, with the lowest scores held by Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Freedom House categorizes Israel and Tunisia as "Free".[2] As a result, Tunisia is the only country in North Africa classified as "Free" by the Freedom House organization.[3] Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait and Morocco "Partly Free", and the remaining states as "Not Free" (including Western Sahara, which is largely controlled by Morocco). Events of the "Arab Spring" such as the Tunisian Revolution may indicate a move towards democracy in some countries which may not be fully captured in the democracy index. In 2015, Tunisia became the first Arab country classified as free since the beginning of Lebanon's civil war 40 years ago.[4] Theories are diverse on the subject. "Revisionist theories" argue that democracy is slightly incompatible with Middle Eastern values.[5] On the other hand, "post-colonial" theories (such as those put forth by Edward Said) for the relative absence of liberal democracy in the Middle East are diverse, from the long history of imperial rule by the Ottoman Empire, United Kingdom and France and the contemporary political and military intervention by the United States, all of which have been blamed for preferring authoritarian regimes because this ostensibly simplifies the business environment, while enriching the governing elite and the companies of the imperial countries. Other explanations include the problem that most of the states in the region are rentier states, which experience the theorized resource curse.
This article follows sources that place Cyprus in Europe,[6][7] not the Middle East.
Contents
1 History
2 Measures of democracy
2.1 Annual assessment
3 Current state
3.1 Presidential republics
3.2 Absolute monarchy
3.3 Constitutional monarchy
3.4 Islamic governments
3.5 Iran
3.5.1 History of political systems
3.5.2 Issues with the current political system
3.5.3 Public opinion of Iranians regarding the political system of 2011–2012
3.6 Lebanon
3.7 Israel
4 Arab Spring
5 Secularism
6 The state, democratization and the Middle East
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
History
After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, many of the empire's former territories fell under the rule of European countries under League of Nations mandates. Thus, European powers were instrumental in establishing the first independent governments that emerged from the Ottoman Empire. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for allies in the region and the U.S. has been accused of supporting dictatorships contrary to its stated democratic principles. The 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine was the beginning of a policy of American democracy promotion in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), leading, for example, to American intervention on behalf of the democratically elected government in the 1958 Lebanon crisis.
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Iraq War were a significant turning point for the U.S.'s shift, from political rhetoric, to the real cause of democratisation in the region, as the invasions of those countries were partly for purposes of organising democratic governments.[8]
Opponents of the act have, however, criticised that democracy cannot be imposed from outside. The two countries have since had relatively successful elections, but have also experienced serious security and development problems.
Some believe that democracy can be established "only through force" and the help of the United States.[9] Writers such as Michele Dunne, when writing for the Carnegie Paper[10] concurs with the rhetoric of the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (at that time, referring to peace and terrorism) that the foreign policy position of the US should be to 'pursue peace as though there were no democratization, and pursue democratization as though there were no peace. In other words, the U.S. government should pursue reform and democratization as policy goals in the first instance without worrying excessively about tradeoffs with other goals."[11] The U.S. pressure behind the calling of the 2006 Palestinian legislative election backfired, resulting in the democratically sound victory of Hamas, rather than the US supported Fatah.[12] Drawing upon the ideas of Middle East scholar Nicola Pratt it can be argued that: