PSU Magazine Winter 2003

of political institutions in the Arab world. " Tammen says the level of economic success of any country in the region is mostly a function of its system of gov– ernment. Thriving countries, he points out, allow free enterprise, encourage economic growth and creativity, and generate enough Lax revenue Lo provide services to its people. "Most of the countries in the Middle East suppress individual initiative and penalize people for taking risks, " he says. "ln lraq, you have a totalitarian system with a high degree of internal People took to the streets in Baghdad, including this armed Iraqi man, after the results of the referen– dum that reelected President Saddam Hussein with a perfect 100 percent of the votes. © Reuters NewMedia Inc./Corbin corruption and a high risk of losing your life if you are too adventurous , too outspoken , or too identified with the West. You could say the same thing about Syria , lran, and Pakistan." Lack of educational opportunity is another disempowering factor that 8 PSU MAGAZINE WINTER 2003 stands in the way of democratic change. Although Middle Eastern countries have a professional class of educated people, professionals are part of a select minority. "A lack of universal education is holding the Middle East back," says Tammen. "An educated person in the Middle East is pan of the elite. Here, that person would be considered average nother foundation for democracy that is absent in the Middle East is what Tammen calls "shared preferences." It's the idea that different interest groups can work together toward common goals within the context of a strong centralized government. Look at the United States: although it has 50 indi– vidual states, nearly 290 million peo– ple and countless interest groups, it tends to function well as a cohesive whole. The same can be said for Europe. The continent is strong not just because of the governments within its individual countries, but because those countries-even ones as culturally divergent as Sweden and Italy-have shared preferences. "When democracies are created, they enter economic agreements and alliances They lock themselves into a web of relationships," Tammen says. European countries and the U.S. also have free , secular judicial systems and bodies of law that protect individ– uals and institutions. Taken together, all these elements create the best possi– ble breeding ground for prosperity, advancement, and a general sense of satisfaction among people. "When you look at Europe, it's hard to imagine the thousands of layers of exchanges that happen on a daily basis-the free movemem of money, people, resources, and ideas. And you have nothing but barriers to those things in the Middle East," Tammen says. He sees the Middle East as a region of dissatisfaction where a number of nations dislike the status quo , whether it's religion, economics, politics, or cul– ture. They don't like the presence of Israel and its power. They are jealous of other nations. They have burgeon– ing populations they can't satisfy. Rather than having the strong cernral– ized governmems common Lo democ– racies, their institutions are based on the family or the village. It's a region, according to Tammen, of local fief– doms , warlords , power vacuums, and too many factions for everyone to pull together Lo become truly democratic. Moreover, it's an environment that perpetuates itself. Without democracy, countries are less likely to have free economies and are more likely Lo be sLUck in the same status quo they're unhappy about. They can be danger– ous places for foreign countries Lo invest in. "All of these countries are tribal," Tammen says. "Americans find this hard to understand, but tribal alle– giances and loyalties run deep in the region , and they're often more impor– tant than nationhood. By 'tribe' I mean extended family, often from the same geographic region. " ometimes they are dysfunc– tional families . Consider the Kurds. They are an Islamic ethnic group of some 20 million to 30 million people living throughout Turkey, Iran, Iraq, somhern Russia, and Syria. They are themselves divided into tribes that don't get along with one another. "They're still fighting Saddam and each other," Tammen says. The Kurds, which have never had a country of their own, will be a major ally with the United States if it goes to war in Iraq, he adds, even though they have a long and biller history with the U.S. Their hatred of Saddam is palpable, con– tributed Lo, in no small part, by his poison gas attack on them in the late 1980s. But once Saddam is out of power, then what? The Kurds, among others, will scramble for al least some of the power in Iraq, but few are holding out hope that it will result in anything like a Western-style democracy. "Democracy in the Middle East is not this auractive model that is so important Lo the people that they're willing to sacrifice to attain it. It's way