POLS 157 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Protection Racket, Authoritarianism, Essentialism
20 Mar 2020
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Document Summary
It wasn"t always this bad, there were periods of improvement after wwii. Undemocratic nature leads to charges of exceptionalism, that there is just something different about the region: relates to essentialism. This difference leads to differences in politics and social issues. Essentialism is often used to explain the lack of democracy. Islam rejects democracy and secularism, making it hard for democracy to emerge and human law to be rejected. There"s a lack of demand for democracy because of weak civil society: demand usually comes from business class and intellectuals comma the middle east they are bought off, disjointed, exiled or destroyed. Many regimes repressed and disrupted liberal groups, leaving islamists as the only viable organizing force (1) many people fear islamist rule. Not everyone in and out of the region think that democracy would be a good thing for the. Some say the definition of democracy arises from the western tradition and doesn"t fit the region.
