Regimes Longevity: Can Arab Countries Be Democratized?

The focus of this paper is to examine three questions related to regime longevity in the Arab countries, namely, is democracy in the best interest of the ruling elites?; is democracy in the best interest of the official opposition parties?; and is it in the best interest of external actors to support democracy in the Arab countries? This paper concluded that there is no hope to see democracy as an interest of the ruling elites, or to expect that official opposition parties will lead democratic efforts in the Arab region. To avoid regime collapse under the pressure of mass demonstrations or at the hands of military personnel, or through a foreign invasion, a historical bloc of intellectuals, reformers, moderate Islamists, and human right, protest and unions activists should be developed. The goal of such a bloc is two-fold: to make democracy the first priority for the bloc’s parties, and to push the incumbents to release their control and to negotiate a peaceful transition to democracy.