Institutions of representation have traditionally had difficulty taking root in the Arab world. Many political scientists even believed that there could be no other political systems here in principle, except for authoritarian regimes and imitation democracies. Indeed, the Middle Eastern Arab countries remained untouched by the wave of democratization of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Indeed, this is a group of countries in which, with the exception of Lebanon (which was a representative democracy until the civil war in 1975), democracy did not develop. The unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, which is spreading to other countries in the region, is a tragedy that has come to light, which had gone unnoticed for many years.

The success of Middle Eastern regimes in maintaining stability was explained not only by the ability of the authorities to keep the population under control, but also by the peculiarities of culture: Muslim societies seem to be inclined toward authoritarian rule. But there are many countries in the world where Islamic culture dominates and which have managed to build institutions of representation that play a real role in governing states. These include, in particular, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Senegal, Turkey, Albania. What unites the countries of the Arab world, besides culture? They are united by the presence of an external source of income – rent.

Eleven of the Arab countries are oil and gas powers. States with this kind of income have no need to negotiate with their citizens. “Oil revenues reduce the need for significant taxation, and hence the need to seek public support. The lower the taxes, the less reason the public has to demand representation,” wrote Samuel Huntington in The Third Wave (Huntington, S. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century). In all of these countries, the state is large, centralized, and repressive. Civil society is usually deliberately weakened and kept in subordination. There is very little real entrepreneurship, and the “business community” consists of people making money from resources, government contracts, or serving foreign businesses. Countries in the region, especially Egypt, are world leaders in spending on security services (Larry Diamond. Why Are There No Arab Democracies?).

Natural resources are not the only source of rent. In countries without oil reserves, the main resource is foreign aid: once Soviet, and in recent years American and European. Just like oil, Western money comes to the treasury, bypassing citizens. It is exactly the same “nobody’s money”, creating all the conditions for corruption. These are the means that make it possible to subjugate civil society and suppress political opponents. The amount of aid transferred from the United States to Egypt since 1975 has reached $28 billion, not counting the $50 billion that came to this country as unconditional military aid after the peace agreements at Camp David in 1978. Less well known is that Jordan is also a major recipient of US aid: since 2001, it has received $650 million per year. “Western aid enables the regime to pursue its strategy of maintaining high public works spending without raising taxes” (Sean Yom. Jordan: Ten More Years of Autocracy).

The secret to the longevity of authoritarian leaders in non-oil countries was considered to be the ability to create the appearance of concessions to society. “Liberalized autocracies have proven remarkably stable. The characteristic mixture of managed pluralism, controlled elections, and electoral repression in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Algeria is not just a survival strategy but a type of political system designed to avoid democratization” (Daniel Brumberg. Democratization in the Arab World? The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy. Journal of Democracy 13, October 2002).

Egypt is a particularly telling example of the ruling elite’s attempts to build such a “liberalized” autocracy, to create the appearance of reform without actually implementing it. By the middle of the last decade, Hosni Mubarak was increasingly under pressure from both society and his Western allies. He finally agreed to competitive elections in 2005, but stopped short of making them truly free. Mubarak’s top vote-getter, Ayman Nour, was arrested three months after the election. Muslim Brotherhood candidates running as independents were also arrested and pressured.

All this, as we see, did not help stability. It turned out to be short-lived. What is happening now in the Arab world is evidence that even where all the efforts of the elite from within the country and allies from outside are aimed at maintaining the political status quo, stability is not guaranteed. Attempts to simulate elections and suppress opponents give only temporary results. The presence of rent - as a powerful support for the independence of the elite from society - also, it turns out, does not guarantee eternal stay in power for corrupt politicians.

Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries in the region will pay for many years of imitation politics. The suppression of political competition does achieve one goal: it deprives society of an alternative. This is a kind of revenge of the dictator. It is often easier to achieve his overthrow than to find a new leader and agree on a new political system.

Institutions of representation have traditionally had a hard time taking root in the Arab world