Introduction

The Arab world is a unique political system. It is a region of dramatic political contrasts with dynamic forces challenging the structure of the region’s state system and authoritarian governments attempting to contain demands for political change. It is a new system, having achieved independence from foreign rule only in the past 100 years. But it is also a system with a long tradition reaching back to a tribal past and reflecting the revolutionary impact of the Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century AD. It is also the inheritor of a memory of Moslem greatness inspired by the achievements of the Ottoman Empire over hundreds of years.