The Arab spring. Is democratic transformation in the arab world possible?
The Arab spring. Is democratic transformation in the arab world possible?

Summary/Abstract: The demonstrations in the Arab countries, which started in early 2011, carried the Middle East and the legitimacy of its regimes into the world agenda once again. Within that context, this study discusses the problems in their socio-economic and political structures of the Arab regimes. In so doing, the study especially emphasizes the Arab states’ authoritarian structures, the bases on which they establish their legitimacy, and how economic and some democratic applications and institutions allowed such structures to persist. After discussing these basic problems of the Arab regimes, the study questions and investigates the capacity of these regimes to resist change, the desire and capacity of people to transform them, and finally the interplay between the Arab political culture and possibility of a change. The main conclusion of this article is that a profound regime change is only possible in conjunction with a change both in socio-economic conditions and in the political culture that feeds them.

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