7. Conclusion

In this study I have addressed the scientific puzzle that, in contrast to 90 other countries around the globe formerly ruled by authoritarian regimes, none of the 18 making up the MENA (with the exceptions of Israel, Lebanon and short periods of Syrian and Iraqi history) would achieve the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule in the period from their political independence up until the year 2011. This enigma has haunted political and academic observers of the MENA region for more than 30 years. What makes this observation even more confounding is the fact that the countries of the MENA region were subjected to the same forces of economic globalization as their democratizing counterparts in other world regions—forces that brought economic liberalization onto the policy agenda of developing countries worldwide.