Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the current waves of democratic transitions in Middle East, which is dominantly comprised of Muslim societies. As a reality, Democracy is remained elusive in the Middle Eastern Islamic World throughout the Cold War and even post-Cold War period. As the entire region is seen as an infertile space for western conceptions of civil society, freedom and a governance model that seeks to give universal franchise. However, the Islamic concept, like “Shura”. The current political systems in the Middle Eastern-Islamic world portrays a political reality, which is rooted in history as the region was largely ruled by authoritarian regimes for much of the post-war era, from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, to the Asad in Syria, to the assortment of Kingdoms in the Arabian Peninsula. This view however is now being challenged due to eruption of a series of events unfolding at a lightning speed yet ironically long unforeseen and quite unexpected. The emergence of a widespread set of protests primarily against economic injustices and social exclusion, what is called the Arab Spring, sweeping through the countries of the Middle East is a testament to a democratic transition where a youth-led social transformation movement fueled by the middle class is transforming the nature of Middle East politics. The altered political reality has forced many of the established dictators to abandon their thrones and the new regimes are now supplanted by contested democratic dispensations. This paper then concludes that United States (US), while a key arbiter of the Middle Eastern-Islamic World scene for much of the last several decades, has adopted a policy aiming at expansion and deepening of this democratic transition and movement, but with a hesitant mood in a fear of losing its allies in the region.