By Augustus Richard Norton--professor of political science at the United States Military Academy.

Democracy's appeal is growing in nearly every corner of the world. Yet there is a tendency to presume that Arab societies are insulated from the global trend toward democratization. The very idea of democracy in Arab countries strikes some as laughable; certainly there is no widespread tradition of democracy in the Arab world. But putting aside the prejudice that underpins some of the commentary, part of the unwillingness to believe in the possibility of democracy in the Arab world is simple ignorance of recent political developments in the Arab states.

In 1984 one of America's leading political scientists wrote that "with a few exceptions, the limits of democratic development in the world may well have been reached." (Samuel P. Huntington, "Will More Countries Become Democratic?" Political Science Quarterly, vol. 99, no. 2 (Summer 1984), p. 218.) Since then democracy has blossomed in Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The democratic changes in these regions should chasten any rush to pronounce on prospects in Arab lands, especially when one considers the historical novelty of the democratic ideal in Eastern Europe, not to mention the Soviet Union, where democracy's roots are neither thick nor deep.

This is not to argue that all the Arab states will metamorphose into democracies overnight, or even that some will. As in Europe, a few autocratic regimes will cling to power while others will experiment with opening up government, permitting free or semi-free elections and sharing or pretending to share power.

As elsewhere, the global revolution in communications has had a striking impact in the Middle East. Governments can no longer hide behind a cloak of secrecy. Through reliable alternative news sources such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Radio Monte Carlo, and sometimes the Cable News Network (CNN), the man and the woman in the street have access to information about their government and the rest of the world. Coupled with education--literacy rates among Arab adults have steadily risen--the communications revolution gives people an unprecedented ability to judge their governments.

Opinions are now being publicly expressed in the Arab world. People are complaining about widespread corruption in government, insisting that leaders address their needs, and demanding a voice in decision making. But the opinions of Arab populations are not monolithic. They embrace diverse ideological perspectives, especially among Islamist groups in countries where a freer political life has encouraged competition rather than solidarity.

No conversion to Jeffersonian democracy is under way in the Arab world, but the pressure to open up political systems is increasingly obvious. For their part, many Arab politicians are pragmatic. In advocating increased political participation they are acknowledging the need to vent some of the public's dissatisfaction and relieve the pressure in their countries.

Faced with restive and increasingly assertive populations, some governments continue to choose repression over concession, but others experiment with democratization. Egypt is the most advanced fledgling democracy in the Arab world. President Hosni Mubarak has pursued a mixed strategy of co-optation, sharing the blame as well as the benefits, and reasonably free elections engineered to ensure victory for the ruling National Democratic party (NDP). Both the secular Wafd party and the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the November 1990 parliamentary elections to protest anticipated vote-rigging and electorial procedures skewed to favor the ruling party. The NDP won an overwhelming but empty victory; not even the appearance of an effective parliamentary opposition was preserved (notwithstanding the six seats won by the left-wing Tagama party). Still, compared to the autocracy of former President Anwar el-Sadat and the intolerance of Gamal Abdel Nasser's presidency, Egypt is freer than it has ever been.

Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, and Yemen are also moving in fits and starts down the path of democratization. The badly battered Lebanese democracy may be regaining its vitality, and incipient political liberalization has even been noted in Libya. Kuwait is an open question. The opposition there has demanded the reconvening of the freely elected parliament and the reestablishment of the 1962 constitution, both of which were suspended in 1986 by Kuwait's emir, Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al Sabah. Before Iraq's August 1990 invasion, the Kuwaiti regime has responded to opposition demands by holding out the possibility of citizen participation in a pliant political structure of its own making; thus in June 1990, the regime created an Advisory National Council rather than reconvene parliament.

As with earlier ventures into pseudo-participation by Nasser and Iran's Mohammed Riza Shah Pahlavi, the effect was simply to call attention to the absence of free political structures. After his return to liberated Kuwait, the emir attempted to dampen enthusiasm for the opposition and increase support for his family's rule by bribing virtually all Kuwaitis: he simply forgave all outstanding commercial loans and mortgages. The emir's many critics were quick to note the ease with which he dipped into the treasury to pay for the scheme. Whether he did more than provide them with ammunition against the regime will only become clear in October 1992, when the long-demanded parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held.

Dwindling Legitimacy

Arab governments are widely viewed with disdain by their own citizens. While Americans routinely refer to "our government," and Arab rarely thinks in these terms. Instead, it is a matter of "us" and "them."

Insecure and marginally legitimate rulers regard any attempt to organize citizens outside the government's authority as a dangerous challenge. They view with utmost suspicion any labor unions, professional organizations, civic clubs, interest groups, and other non-governmental organizations making up civil society that are outside the direct control of the government.

In some settings, among the Palestinians, in Lebanon and Egypt, and in parts of Arab North Africa, civil society is vibrant and varied. In Algeria liberalization has promoted a flourishing civil society with more than 12,000 professional and cultural groups. But in most of the Arab world civil society is weak and fragmented, signifying the absence of freedom. In Iraq the government has aggressively destroyed any vestige of civil society that it cannot dominate, making it hard to imagine any peaceful transfer of power to a group outside the Baathist regime.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has often been exploited to justify the creation of garrison states in which freedom and prosperity are sacrificed in the interest of national security. Can a regime that lacks electoral approval and that roots its legitimacy in the confrontation with Israel, the "unity" of the Arab nation, and a commitment to justice for the Palestinians survive a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict?

This is a particularly relevant question for Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, whose dilemma became transparent in October 1991 at the Madrid Middle East peace conference, which was cosponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union. The Syrian regime bases its legitimacy on its role as the militant standard-bearer of Arabism and self-appointed protector of Palestine. (Symptomatically, when the Syrians received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia for their participation in the anti- Iraq alliance during the Persian Gulf war, they spent most of the money on missiles, despite critical domestic economic problems.)

Even as the Palestinian delegates in Madrid enthusiastically pursued negotiations with Israel, seizing what may be a last opportunity, the Syrians were reluctant to proceed. This was not merely tactical, but reflected their acknowledgment that steps toward normalizing relations with Israel necessarily undermine the regime's formula for legitimacy. Yet the Syrians could not afford to be left at the starting gate, especially given the world dominance held by the United States and the disastrous economic conditions in Syria that make further Saudi largesse essential. If the peace process moves forward, as now seems likely, the regime must try to refashion its claims to legitimacy.

The Algerian Bellwether

One of the most important and promising political experiments under way in the Arab world is in Algeria, where the National Liberation Front (FLN) has ruled since the country's independence from France in 1962. After bloody rioting in October 1988, when discontent stemming from unemployment and a general economic crisis erupted in Algeria's major cities, the constitution was revised to permit the creation of political parties in the formerly one-party republic. Nearly two dozen political parties were spawned, and municipal and provincial parliamentary elections were held in June 1990. Several of the largest new opposition parties boycotted the elections, saying national elections should be held first. The boycott benefited the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which campaigned on the platform "Islam is the solution." The party won control of 32 of 48 provincial assemblies and more than half the 1,541 municipal councils. Even President Chadli Bendjedid's hometown voted for the FIS.

The FIS victory was stunning. The FLN remained in control of the national government, but its grip was tenuous. Bendjedid, who along with the powerful army leadership is apparently convinced that the political system must be opened up to survive, announced parliamentary elections for early 1991, then postponed them until June.

The old order will not go quietly. The present holders of power and privilege are attempting to manipulate the laws to preserve their power, and they may succeed. The Algerian parliament, still an FLN preserve, passed an election law on April 1 that proved gerrymandering is a universal craft. Capitalizing on the FLN's strength in rural districts, the new law created electorial districts that gave disproportionate weight to FLN strongholds. In the most egregious cases, pro-FLN voters in rural areas cast ballots that were effectively weighted to equal 10 FIS votes in the city. In addition, runoff procedures were modified so that only the top vote-winners could compete. This prevented voters from choosing between the FLN and the FIS.

The two leading figures in the FIS have split on some issues: Sheik Ali Abbasi al-Madani has espoused coexistence with other political parties while Ali Belhadj, a firebrand, has been outspoken in his skepticism about pluralism. Both men, however, blasted the new election law and urged their supporters to protest it. Demonstrations in late May prompted a declaration of martial law and the appointment of a new prime minister, Sid Ahmed Ghozali, who met with Madani in early June and promised "free and clean elections" by year's end.

Tension persisted. The army jailed hundreds of FIS members, and by the end of June both Madani and Belhadj had been arrested for plotting against the government. The two leaders remain in custody, though most of their followers have been released. The elections, which had already been postponed once, were eventually rescheduled for December 26. As many as 64 parties will compete in the December elections, if they are held. At least half a dozen of these will pose serious competition for the FIS.

Following the uproar in May and June, the Algerian parliament had a chance to amend the election law but instead made it tougher. For instance, despite a request by Ghozali, procedures for absentee balloting that permit a man to vote for his wife were retained. The prime minister referred the matter to the Constitutional Council, the body empowered to overturn unconstitutional legislation. In early November the Constitutional Council invalidated the section of the election law authorizing absentee balloting; it said the right to vote is necessarily the right to cast a ballot secretly and personally.

Algeria has become a bellwether for the possibility of a genuine political opening in the Arab world, and the results of the proposed elections are likely to inspire imitation elsewhere. Whether the imitation will assume the form of a design for controlling dissent or a step toward pluralism remains to be seen.

Saudi Arabia: A Regressive Case

While Algeria may be moving forward toward pluralism, albeit hesitantly, in other Arab states autocratic rulers are retrenching, tightening social controls after glimpses of a freer political life during the Gulf crisis. The most obvious example is Saudi Arabia.

In what is certainly the most socially conservative Arab state, middle-class professionals have long pressured the regime to allow popular participation in decision making. Since 1962 there have been periodic promises to establish a majlis al-shura, or consultative council; typically, the promise is dusted off during a moment of popular discontent, and then promptly put back on the shelf for a few more years. The latest such occurrence took place in November 1990, in the midst of the Gulf crisis and on the heels of promises by Kuwait's ruling family to restore parliamentary life in the emirate. However, one year later, in November 1991, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd announced that the council would finally be established, along with a written body of laws. Thus, nearly 30 years after it wads first announced, the council may come into existence. But rather than being a precursor to parliamentary representation, as some Saudi liberals hope, the majlis al-shura will be a conservative body more likely to stifle than to instill change.

As the protector of the two holiest cities of Islam, King Fahd is especially sensitive to any charge that he is jeopardizing the sanctity or purity of Mecca and Medina. Although the learned men, or ulema, of the puritanical Wahhabi sect do not rule in Saudi Arabia, they are keenly concerned with the state of public morals and deeply influence the regime and the monarch; a challenge to the regime's Islamic probity is a challenge to its core legitimacy. (For a discussion of the Wahhabi influence on the Saudi regime, see David Long, "Stability in Saudi Arabia," Current History, January 1991, pp. 9-10.). Hence King Fahd had to heed conservative grumbling over his agreement to permit the United States-led, predominantly non-Muslim military alliance against Iraq to deploy in the kingdom during the Gulf crisis.

When presented with an opportunity to emphasize his credentials as upholder of the faith during the Gulf crisis, the king seized it. On November 6, 1990, some four dozen Saudi women in Riyadh audaciously dismissed their drivers and drove their own cars, this violating the informal but well-understood ban on women driving cars. Saudi liberals--who later petitioned the king to create a parliament and an independent judiciary to reduce the power religion now has on society and to review the status of women--were initially heartened by the demonstration.

The regime, however, reacted harshly, ostracizing the participants, firing several from their teaching positions, and exploiting the incident to stress the regime's Wahhabist credentials. A leading Wahhabi deliberative body lent support to the king with a fatwa, or authoritative religious opinion, that found that "women should not be allowed to drive motor vehicles as the sharia [religious law] instructs that things that degrade or harm the dignity of women must be prevented." (See Eleanor Abdella Doumato, "Women and the Stability of Saudi Arabia," Middle East Report, July-August 1991, pp. 34-37.)

Last June, in a move that was widely interpreted as an attempt by the ulema to collect for their wartime sufferance of Western troops in the kingdom while countering the entreaties of Saudi liberals, the ulema presented a memorandum urging King Fahd to undertake a series of conservative reforms. These included the creation of an ulema-dominated parliament, stricter application of Islamic law in the country, and consistent punishments for corruption. Although the conservative reforms have not been implemented, there is little doubt that political life in Saudi Arabia will continue to be the exclusive preserve of the regime, not its citizens.

The Islamist Movements

In recent years, Islamist movements in the Arab world have proliferated dramatically. Enjoying broad popular appeal that crosses economic classes and employing a populist theme--"The answer is Islam"--these movements have been remarkedly successful in winning votes where there are contested elections. In 1989 Islamists captured 34 of 80 seats in the Jordanian parliament and managed to construct a working majority through an alliance with leftist representatives. As noted earlier, the FIS has changed the complexion of Algerian politics, and the venerable Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has competed successfully in two national elections since 1984. In Kuwait the Islamic Constitutional Movement is poised to play a leading role.

Several points need to be made about these movements. First, their vitality stems from the general impoverishment of civil society. Where civil society has been suppressed, Islamist groups have often prospered; in effect, they have the field to themselves. Religious institutions are a part of the cultural landscape of the Arab world, and the fundamentalist Islamic institution, the mosque, is a natural meeting place that is often reasonably free from government control. As civil society is enlivened, it is only natural that the influence of the Islamist groups will be challenged.

Second, the Islamist groups are a symptom of the broad social and economic changes that have swept the region. Many of the people attracted to these groups have college educations but cannot find decent jobs, or have heard politicians' promises but have borne the brunt of government inefficiency. It is no accident that many of the Islamist groups have cemented their group solidarity by providing services that government either has not provided or has provided incompetently. Thus in many settings, such as Egypt and Lebanon, Islamist groups act as quasi-governmental social welfare and medical agencies, filling a vacuum left by government.

Third, in countries where the government has attempted to halt the rise of Islamist groups, there has been a marked solidarity among the various organizations. Where government has treaded more lightly, or at least more selectively, there has been fissuring and competition. Examples of the latter include Algeria and Egypt, where Islamists willing to play by the government's rules have abandoned those unwilling to do so.

Fourth, when Islamist groups move from opposition to positions of public responsibility, they submit themselves to a more prosaic standard of evaluation. For instance, in the Algerian municipalities where they assumed authority, FIS officials often failed to deliver on their promises, and lost some support accordingly. It is one thing to castigate government for its incompetence and corruption, and another to collect the garbage efficiently.

Moreover, playing the game of politics has left the Islamist vulnerable to political exploitation, notably in Jordan. On New Year's Day 1991, Jordan's King Hussein oversaw the appointment of five members of the Muslim Brotherhood and two other Islamists to Cabinet posts, including the portfolios of education, social development, and religious affairs and education. The monarch's motive was to put a lid on the public temper, which was at a boil because of the Gulf crisis and its damaging economical effect on Jordan. Less than six months later, the Islamists had served their purpose, and the king dismissed the government, appointing as prime minister Tahir Masri, a moderate thought to be more congenial to the unfolding Middle East peace process. On June 9, a National Charter that endorsed a multi-party political system, freedom of the press, and equal rights for women was promulgated.

Fifth, although the Islamist groups see themselves as part of the world community of Muslims (the umma), they are willing to voice their demands within states. Some observers believe this is some sort of trick, but the evidence points in another direction--namely, to the Islamists' realistic acceptance of the existence of the state. Obviously, some Islamists reject pluralism and democracy, but many others do not.

Sixth, as during the Gulf crisis, when popular opinion in much of the Arab world often ran strongly against the United States-led alliance, Islamist leaders are forced into the difficult role of balancer between their benefactors (particularly Saudi Arabia) and their followers. In general they have displayed a noteworthy capacity for pragmatism.

As many of the preceding points illustrate, the Islamist movements are basically social reform movements. Yet they retain a keen interest in Jerusalem, the third-holiest city in Islam, and in the fate of Palestine as a part of the dar-al-Islam (roughly, the land of Islam). Of course, the Islamists do not have a corner on the market in dogmatic obstinacy--one need only to look at Israel's secular Likud party to see that. The unfolding Middle East peace process will show how the Islamists respond to the necessity of a larger compromise.

The 1991 Watershed

Commentary about the Gulf war has often noted that the events represented a watershed. In an age of instant news, when history plays out before our eyes, it is understandable that some are impatient to declare that the Middle East is back to business as usual since the Gulf war did not bring instant sweeping reform. But the history of the region teaches that watersheds become apparent over the long run. It is likely that the events of 1990 and 1991 represent a particularly rich watershed, one simultaneously marking important international changes and catalyzing inchoate political trends in the region, especially at the level of state-society relations.

Ironically, the most significant impact of the Persian Gulf war may have been, as one Arab scholar noted recently, the "wall of fear" separating citizens from autocratic rulers has been broken through. If this is true, United States President George Bush and his colleagues in the anti-Iraq coalition may have unleashed whirlwinds of change that will engender profound instability in the Arab world. While the great powers applaud participation and exalt democracy, they loathe instability; yet the achievement of greater participation and democratization without accompanying instability is difficult to imagine. And there is of course no necessary connection between popular (often populist) political voices and Western-style government, the contrary is often the case.

If Arab governments are exhibiting a new tolerance for contested elections, this is no guarantee that the election results will not be manipulated or that the polling will be fully fair. The international community must be willing to supervise elections in the Middle East. Relatively free elections have been conducted under international supervision in Namibia, Nicaragua, and Haiti. International supervision does not render an election result coup-proof, but it does inhibit tampering with the results. Certainly Kuwait and Lebanon would be obvious candidates in the Arab world. In the first instance, international supervision would reduce the regime's temptation to ignore or reverse the results. In the second, supervision would be a means of facilitating the relegitimazation of the Lebanese parliament, which last stood for election in 1972, as well as putting some distance between Lebanon and its overly intrusive neighbors, Israel and Syria.

Liberalization will sometimes exacerbate tensions rather than moderate them. But whatever their transitional excesses, democratizing governments must eventually balance arms budgets against social programs and address the demands of those to whom they are accountable. Aggressive wars are not easily launched in political systems in which leaders must win support for their policies through consultation and consensus-building. Dictators, by contrast, are not subject to these constraints.

One as yet unmeasurable result of the Gulf crisis is that many Arab intellectuals and policymakers now argue that malaise in the Arab world is a product of the lack of freedom there. This may well prove to be the war's most significant revelation. In the short run, loosening the grip of authoritarian regimes will be a messy process, and incrementally minded Western officials will resist encouraging an overly rapid liberalization of Arab politics. But statesmen with a longer view will appreciate that promoting liberalization is the key to preempting the emergence of absolute rulers like Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. And no matter what statesmen decide, the train of political liberalization seems to have left the station.

[Augustus Richard Norton is, with Muhammad Muslih, the coauthor of Rising Tides in the Middle East (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1992); and, with Jerrold Green, the coauthor of Rulers Under Seige: Middle East Politics in the 1990s (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, forthcoming). The views expressed in this article are those of the author and should not be construed to represent the policy or position of the United States government or any of its constituent institutions.]