The Middle East is made of a few countries that can be organized from democratic such as Turkey, Morocco, Israel, Kuwait, and Lebanon and may be easily compared to authoritarian countries such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia (Saliba 2016). These countries have seemed to stray away from a democracy, and are heavily influenced by a system where state has a heavy influence and connection to theology. The main source of economy is textiles, automotive and oil, which have made some significant impacts to economy. The history of the Middle East can be most described as extremely influenced since as a whole territory has been subject to many empires, motives, and experiments. The Middle East has recently expanded economy but only as much as the strict set of religion based laws and economic instability allows. When it comes to the discussion on the Middle East it is easy to associate these group of countries with a lack of prosperity, mass internal violence, government corruption in authoritarian regimes and other negative distinctions. It is hard to repudiate the fact that there are many countries in the Middle East that suffer lower standard living conditions especially coming from a perspective of a first world country such as America. In America we seem to pride our country with patriotism, our system of developed democracy, a balance between freedom and equality, diversity and economic prosperity due to post-industrialism (Bennett Jones 2015). Countries that rely more heavily on a system of traditional values or any set of particular and somewhat ancient ideologies that do not compare with the almighty Americas seem to have a similar stigma and a similar negative overall connotation depicted in textbooks and mass media. I would like to analyze the extent to which political culture and economic development are related.
Developed Democracies today seem to have a high standard of ideals that focus heavily on the progression towards secular ideals such as participation, competition and liberty of technology, individual freedom, and rationality. One may take notice to the fact that aspects of a prospering state only reflect those that are similar to the most powerful forces to exist. Developed democracies focus on the economy first to create a strong foundation in defense to combat against attacks, funding for education and healthcare and jobs to allow everybody to contribute to society and irrigation. It is important to focus on economics first because without money to flourish around the state for the succession of the state, then the people who live in the state will have no drive to stay there. In the middle east, they seem to focus more on trying to build on an ancient system and staying true to older values instead of doing things that would enhance the living in the Middle East and would keep the state flourishing.
In the Middle East, there is high inequality in the amount of power the government has against the power of the constituents, as well as the relation between men and women and this can be best explained in a traditional patriarchal society that most countries hold in general. The only difference is in the Middle East inequality is justified by the fact that the government paints this image that everybody in the country is better off having one ideology that is closely related to religion. The ties to religion are a reason that I feel contribute to the lack of progression because if people are forced to practice religion strictly, are stripped of their citizenship powers like voting then how will there ever be change. There is also the riba, which is an unjust gain in business and zakat, which is similar to a tithe that causes a relation between religion and economic development. This causes a factor in financial hardships since these expenses are not regulated or fair. The people are feared of causing any sort of rebellion and questioning any unjust law because they are so closely related to religion that then people will be looked at as outcast and threats to their already established roles in society. To really advance as a country I think that economy needs to be built first and this was the initial problem. There was too much initiative in focusing on political system and how controlled that would be that hey forgot to focus on building things to keep the state regenerating such as business, education, health care, military, which all create jobs and revenue like many other democratic countries have. Consequently, these actions that have taken place for so long to where a weak government with all the power felt like they could do as they pleased have caused uproars in terrorist groups that inflict pain on the masses and cannot be stopped. This is not to say that in order to be a successful state you must follow in the steps of different countries but you do have t find a way to ensure the safety of the people and the capacity of the state to have success. There are far too many refugees from the Middle East as well as U.S. involvement but a way to eliminate this is by eliminating the need for it. There will always be groups that don’t agree but most times the reason why they start rising up and killing everybody is because they feel at some time the government could have stopped a large impacting injustice and chose not to. Developing a country and democracy should be practiced in the middle east and creating a stable economy because then the fluctuation of oil prices wouldn’t matter because there would still be room for bigger investments to lead the country into succession.
It is also important to highlight the fact that The Middle East is in the midst of demographic transition. Mortality rates have fallen, and life expectancy has been on the rise, but fertility has been pretty stagnant. This has resulted in, population growth will surge, and the age profile of the population will flatten. There will be a sharp increase in children and young people will outnumber older adults by a very large margin, causing fertility to decline, and population growth to slow down, but the interim period of transition generates a large “demographic bulge†that slowly works its way through the population age-profile life expectancy in the region increased by more than eight years from 1980 to 2000, and infant mortality was cut in half. (Noland 2004)
Using the governments of Algeria and Saudi Arabia we can see the allocation efficiently of the decline in oil revenues was decisive in those countries. “In others, the combination of aid, strategic rents, and remittances may have provided a financial cushion that allowed state-dominated economies to get by†(Noland 2004). There was never really any pressure for significant changes in infrastructure, these events are repetitive and can be compared to eastern economies that collapsed as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. All of these factors agree with proving that there have been many political distractions that stemmed from political culture causing an undeveloped economy.
Another factor to examine is fifty percent of the population is illiterate. Some of the concerns are on how the family will eat until the next day comes, basic education and medicine. There are no concerns about education, because education is often seen as a luxury for the rich. There have been many attempts to unify the Middle East and provide new plans for succession dating back from Jimmy Carters administration to Obamas administration. The difference between these two administrations is Obamas position that "Societies based upon democracy and openness and the dignity of the individual will ultimately be more stable, more prosperous, and more peaceful.†(Armanious 2013) Seems to be a little more pessimistic in nature but pessimistic attitudes seems to be the more common outlook on Middle Eastern affairs even internally.
The second explanation for an undeveloped economy is societal change. Max Weber reinforced the writings of Ibn Khaldun, an Islamic thinker. Interesting enough he emphasizes an even deeper more relatable division of economy and most importantly revenue within social classes and how close they cam to finding a balance. He speaks on the nomadic warriors whose bands were characterized by intense group loyalty founded Muslim societies. This caused a cultural blend that would change social value and cohesion of different classes. (Noland 2004)
The next reason can be classified as a bit more institutional. For example, when it come to inheritance it is said that the inhibition of the development of commercial institutions is similar to those developed during the Renaissance in the West, and this is a result to misfortunate Islamic merchants who are in constant competition with the merchants in the west (Noland 2004). This begins to decode the extent to which minority groups such as Muslims have increased the most revenue and innovation.
The lack of full democracy in the Middle East is a valid explanation to why separation of church and state are necessary for a state to prosper, not just democracy. A state must provide opportunities for the people to feel like citizens and have an active role in society decreasing the role of poverty and government corruption. When The Middle East lets go of strong and strict traditional values then they will have economic success since the success of the state is correlated with the level of the democratic institution.