MENA's Resistance to Democracy

The MENA region has been resistant to democratic reform for several reasons. Bellin notes that there are several traditional reasons as to why the MENA region has lagged behind in forming democracies: "the lack of a strong civil society, a market-driven economy, adequate income and literacy levels, democratic neighbors, and democratic culture", but these reasons are invalid because there are numerous other regions in the world that lack these features and still have functioning democracies (23). Bellin instead argues that a coercive apparatus is funded in large part from abundant rent. Furthermore, the West continues to support several non-democratic regimes in the region in the interest of security. Even though other regions in the world have an ineffective popular voice and patrimonialism, nonetheless, these factors also explain why the MENA region has been resistant to democratic reform. 

I think that after the Arab Revolts of 2011, Bellin's argument is still a relevant and strong one. I feel like even though there were several attempts to democratize, they were only slightly successful. The MENA region is still relatively a democratically barren one. The democracies that did emerge are generally still weak. Bellin's argument still appears to mostly hold true, but it might not be quite as accurate to say that civil society is weak. It might be more accurate to say that civil society is strong, because each nation has a strong and expressive culture. However, it is still difficult for civil society to rise up and form a voice, especially in non-democracies with limited freedom of speech. In societies such as those, the only way to dramatically change into a democracy and express voice is to have a revolution instead of an election. This is what was seen in Tunisia and Egypt. Bellin would likely say that the reason that these nations had revolutions was because their civil society had a strong voice and mobilized despite an environment not conducive to legal revolution. Overall, I think that a single argument for an entire region is never going to be 100% accurate. However, Bellin's argument still appears to be relevant today because even though the revolts in the region did occur, the region still appears to be one of the least conducive to democracies in the world.