The popular unrest that swept north Africa and the Middle East in 2011 has injected fresh life into an old debate: can democracy come to the Arab world? There is no doubt the region suffers from a democratic deficit. Arab League states account for almost a third of the world's autocracies, according to a democracy index constructed by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist. The challenge is understanding why. Popular theories include those that cite Arab or Islamic culture, the corrosive impact of regional conflict, or the curse of oil wealth.
展开▼
