| This comparative study assesses the state of democracy and examines the process of democratization in the Arab World between the years 1980-1993. It addresses shortcomings in the mainstream democracy literature that excluded the Arab World from the global democratic revolution on political cultural grounds.;In order to investigate the hypothesized relationships, the following data sets have been used: Gastil's Freedom House Data set, "Repression and Freedom in the 1980s" data set, the Vanhanen's 1990 data set.;The findings of this study support the aforementioned hypothesized relationships. I find that Arab countries, in general have made modest progress toward democracy, making the Arab World part of the global revolution.;To fulfil the objectives of this study, I employ both the qualitative and quantitative research approaches to test a number of hypothesized relationships. I hypothesize that transition to democracy is negatively associated with economic development, militarism, U.S. foreign policy, the political economy of oil, and dependency. I contend that emerging civil society institutions so far have had no significant effect on democratization in the Arab World. Finally, I hypothesize that the level of democracy in the Arab World is influenced greatly by the issue of civil rights. |
