My own further and more recent analysis uncovers the following additional points. First, if we ask whether regimes meet the minimum test of electoral democracy (free and fair elections to determine who rules), then there are eight non-Arab Muslim-majority states rated by Freedom House as democracies today, and zero Arab ones.4 Second, there is a big “freedom gap” between the Arab and non-Arab Muslim-majority states. At the end of 2008, the sixteen Arab states of the Middle East had an average score across the two Freedom House scales of 5.53 (the worst-possible score is a 7, signaling “least free”). The other thirty Muslim-majority states had an average freedom score of 4.7.5 A difference between two such groups of nearly a full point on a seven-point scale
95Larry Diamond
is substantial. Moreover, while eleven of the non-Arab countries (about a third) are at the midpoint (4) or better on the average freedom scale, among the Arab states only Kuwait rates that well.
My own further and more recent analysis uncovers the following additional points. First, if we ask whether regimes meet the minimum test of electoral democracy (free and fair elections to determine who rules), then there are eight non-Arab Muslim-majority states rated by Freedom House as democracies today, and zero Arab ones.4 Second, there is a big “freedom gap” between the Arab and non-Arab Muslim-majority states. At the end of 2008, the sixteen Arab states of the Middle East had an average score across the two Freedom House scales of 5.53 (the worst-possible score is a 7, signaling “least free”). The other thirty Muslim-majority states had an average freedom score of 4.7.5 A difference between two such groups of nearly a full point on a seven-point scale 95Larry Diamondis substantial. Moreover, while eleven of the non-Arab countries (about a third) are at the midpoint (4) or better on the average freedom scale, among the Arab states only Kuwait rates that well.
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