Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?

F. Gregory Gause III

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005

Summary:  The Bush administration contends that the push for democracy in the Muslim world will improve U.S. security. But this premise is faulty: there is no evidence that democracy reduces terrorism. Indeed, a democratic Middle East would probably result in Islamist governments unwilling to cooperate with Washington.

F. GREGORY GAUSE III is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont and Director of its Middle East Studies Program.

These pro-democracy views are borne out by behavior on the ground. Voter turnout in Arab states for legitimate elections is regularly very high. Some 53 percent of registered Iraqis voted in the January 2005 parliamentary election, despite threats of violence and the boycott by most Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population. Algerians turned out at a rate of 58 percent for their presidential election in April 2004. Official figures put Palestinian turnout for the January 2005 presidential election at 73 percent, despite Hamas' refusal to participate. Turnout in Kuwaiti parliamentary elections is regularly more than 70 percent. And 76 percent of eligible Yemeni voters cast their ballots in the 2003 legislative election. Although there certainly are antidemocratic forces in the Arab world, and some Arab elections have been characterized by low turnout or low voter registration, Arabs are generally enthusiastic about voting and elections. Arguments that Arab "culture" bars democracy simply do not stand up to scrutiny.

The problem with promoting democracy in the Arab world is not that Arabs do not like democracy; it is that Washington probably would not like the governments Arab democracy would produce. Assuming that democratic Arab governments would better represent the opinions of their people than do the current Arab regimes, democratization of the Arab world should produce more anti-U.S. foreign policies. In a February-March 2003 poll conducted in six Arab countries by Zogby International and the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, overwhelming majorities of those surveyed held either a very unfavorable or a somewhat unfavorable attitude toward the United States. The Lebanese viewed the United States most favorably, with 32 percent of respondents holding a very favorable or a somewhat favorable view of the United States. Only 4 percent of Saudi respondents said the same.

The war in Iraq -- which was imminent or ongoing as the poll was conducted -- surely affected these numbers. But these statistics are not that different from those gathered by less comprehensive polls conducted both before and after the war. In a Gallup poll in early 2002, strong majorities of those surveyed in Jordan (62 percent) and Saudi Arabia (64 percent) rated the United States unfavorably. Only in Lebanon did positive views of the United States roughly balance negative views. In a Zogby International poll conducted in seven Arab countries at about the same time, unfavorable ratings of the United States ranged from 48 percent in Kuwait to 61 percent in Jordan, 76 percent in Egypt, and 87 percent in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. One year after the war began, a Pew Global Attitudes poll showed that 93 percent of Jordanians and 68 percent of Moroccans had a negative attitude toward the United States.

Although it is not possible to pinpoint from poll data the precise reasons for anti-Americanism in the Arab world, there are indications that it is U.S. policy in the region, not a rejection of American ideals, that drives the sentiment. In the Zogby International-Sadat Chair poll of February-March 2003, respondents in five of six Arab countries said that their attitudes toward the United States were based more on U.S. policy than on U.S. values. Forty-six percent of Egyptians polled identified U.S. policy as the source of their feelings, compared with 43 percent who stressed American values. No fewer than 58 percent of respondents in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia also emphasized their opposition to U.S. policy.

In 2004, Arab publics were particularly cynical about Washington's policy of democracy promotion in the Middle East. In a May 2004 Zogby International-Sadat Chair poll, only in Lebanon did a substantial segment of the population surveyed (44 percent) believe that promoting democracy was an important motive for the Iraq war -- compared with 25 percent of Jordanians and less than 10 percent of those in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE. The majority of people polled in most of the countries thought the war was motivated by Washington's desire to control oil, protect Israel, and weaken the Muslim world. And in a less extensive Pew Global Attitudes survey, also conducted in 2004, only 17 percent of Moroccans and 11 percent of Jordanians thought that the U.S. war on terrorism was a sincere effort, rather than a cover for other goals. And no poll is needed to show that U.S. policy on Arab-Israeli questions is very unpopular in the Arab world.

There is no doubt that public opinion can be a fickle thing. Anti-U.S. feelings in the Arab world could change markedly with events. But although it is possible that Arab anti-Americanism would decline if Washington no longer supported authoritarian Arab governments, there is little data to test the assertion, and anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. Syrians, for example, do not hold strongly positive views of the United States, even though the Bush administration opposes the government in Damascus. Apparently, the United States is unpopular in the Arab world because of the full range of its policies, not simply because it supports authoritarian governments.

Even if democratization could reduce anti-Americanism, there is no guarantee that such a reduction would yield pro-American governments. Anecdotal evidence certainly seems to indicate, for example, that the public in non-Arab Iran has a better impression of the United States than does the Iranian government. The Iranian public's more pro-American stance did not, however, translate into votes for the candidate favoring rapprochement with the United States in the second round of the recent presidential election.

History also indicates that legitimate democratic elections in Arab states would most likely benefit Islamists. In all recent Arab elections, they have emerged as the government's leading political opposition, and in many of them they have done very well. In Morocco, the new Justice and Development Party, an overtly Islamist party, took 42 of the 325 seats in the parliamentary elections of 2002, its first contest. (Only two long-established parties, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces and the Independence Party, won more seats: 50 and 48, respectively.) The same year, in Bahrain, Islamist candidates took between 19 and 21 of the 40 seats in parliament (depending on how observers classified some independent candidates). This success came even though the major Shia political group boycotted the elections, protesting changes in the constitution.

In the 2003 parliamentary election in Yemen, the Yemeni Reform Group (Islah), a combination of Islamist and tribal elements, won 46 of the 301 seats and now forms the opposition. That year, Islamists combined to win 17 of the 50 seats in the Kuwaiti parliament, where they form the dominant ideological bloc. In the 2003 parliamentary election in Jordan, held after three postponements and a change in the electoral laws to benefit independent candidates, the Muslim Brotherhood's political party won 17 of 110 seats and independent Islamists took another 3 seats, forming the major opposition bloc.

So far this year, the pattern has repeated itself. In the Saudi municipal elections, informal Islamist tickets won 6 of the 7 seats in Riyadh and swept the elections in Jidda and Mecca. Candidates backed by Sunni Islamists also won control of the municipal councils in a number of towns in the Eastern Province. In the Iraqi parliamentary elections, the list backed by Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani won 140 of the 275 seats, compared with 45 seats for the two more-secular Arab lists, headed by then Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and then President Ghazi al-Yawar, and 75 seats for the unified Kurdish list, which is not particularly Islamist.