The Economist reviews a new book in its current issue: Eric Chaney, Democratic Change in the Arab World, Past and Present, Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2012.
Excerpts from the review:
“Mr Chaney speculates that conquest altered society, casting an autocratic shadow across the centuries. Rulers came to rely on slave armies, freeing them from dependence on civil institutions. Religious leaders co-operated with the army to design a system that proved enduringly hostile to alternative centres of power. Lands brought to Islam by conversion maintained some civil institutions. In unconquered Europe, meanwhile, monarchs relied on the nobility to raise manpower and money for war. That gave the nobles enough leverage to check absolutism. Across the conquered world civil society remains institutionally impoverished, says Mr Chaney: the share of government in GDP is seven percentage points higher in conquered states than in other Muslim states, for example…
Even if Mr Chaney is right, history is not destiny: the Arab world can escape its autocratic past. Education levels in Arab-conquered countries have nearly converged to those in the non-conquest Muslim world. This may drive popular dissatisfaction with limited economic opportunities and increase pressure for political change. But a long-standing poverty of civil institutions is nonetheless an obstacle to democratic transition. Change may be in the offing, but the past must be uprooted first.”
The Economist, “Free Exchange: Historysis,” April 7, 2012
