Different Paths to Democracy in the MENA Region: A Configurational Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Democratization is one of the main political challenges in the Middle East. The resistance to democracy and the prevail of non-democratic regimes, remain a fertile land for academics and professionals to examine it as it continues to be an unsolved puzzle. The purpose of this paper is to find out what factors and combinations of conditions explain the level of (non-) democratization in the MENA region. It examines whether there are different paths or specific factors that can influence the democratization process in the region. In order to examine the question a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) method is used to find out the combinations of sufficient and necessary conditions for a particular outcome. The findings show that democratization is a multi-causal process. It shows that different factors (e.g. economic, societal, cultural diversity) have different impacts on the breakdown of democracy, democratic stability and democratic transition. QCA results highlight that the impact of various factors depends on their different combination within a country or groups of countries; showing that the Muslim population, oil export, regime type, political globalization, religious fractionalization and political parties as key factors in different configurations.