ABSTRACT
The acceptance of democratic rules and values in Latin America, South East Asia and the former USSR and Eastern Europe has been so quick that one no longer speaks of the transition to democracy but instead of democratic consolidation (O’Donnel, 1996; Özbudun, 1996). In contrast to this, the transition to democracy in the Muslim world and the Arab countries is like a blind alley in a region that is unprepared (Cantori and Bianchi, 1991), where the prospects for democratic transition appear very meagre with a few exceptions (Huntington, 1984; Diamond et al., 1990). Except for a small number of countries (Korany, 1994), the situation in the Arab world has been described as an immobile transition (Lopez, 1992), democracy in eclipse (Salamé, 1992) or scattered development (Leca et al., 2001). One may ask if there are any Arab countries that can claim that they have taken definitive and certain steps towards the rule of law and human rights.
