Corruption Political Stability and Development Comparative Evidence From Egypt to Morocco Research Paper

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Corruption, Political Stability and Development

Development in any country and constant stimulation of the same is based practically on the political stability and the levels of corruption as well in that country. The two are mutually exclusive in that the more a country is corrupt and politically unstable, the lesser the development they achieve at any given stage of the economic revolution or change.

The state of political instability in Morocco and Egypt, abets the corruption therein leading to nations that cannot keep up-to pace with the development trends in the world. The corruption that in turn begets political instability is manifest in the highest offices of the two countries, with the most powerful protecting a ring of corrupt individuals, more often from their close families. The situation in the two countries can be solved by an overhaul of the entire system, not in personalities but in principles and governance systems.

Objectives

The aim of this research paper is to find out the major problems that are ailing the two third world countries to an extent that the economy is also affected.

It also looks at the developmental issues in the country and to what extent they have been achieved and how they benefit the citizens of these countries.

The paper also takes a deep look at the political situation and vision of the two governments for the countries and if these visions are in the right track and implementation of these visions.

Scope

The research will look into the possibility of regaining the two countries from the mess they have become. As a matter of urgency, the two countries need to be stabilized politically in the face of the recent uprisings in the Middle East that saw Egypt in particular as one of the victims of this revolution. The paper looks at the possible panacea to the two countries, the applicability and practicality, and also the relevance of the solutions that will be focused upon.

2.1 Literature review

There has been quite a lot written on all source concerning the Middle East in general and the two countries in particular. The peculiar thing about the Middle East is that they share a lot of common trends in all the spheres of their existence, from the oil fuelled economy to the imperialism in their governance to the close intertwine of governance and religion in all these countries. It would be a fallacy then to discuss a country in isolation hence the need to take a brief look at the region as a whole first.

2.1.1The Middle East

2.1.2 The Middle East Democracy

The Middle East and its democracy has been a subject of long discussions for decades now. The dynamics of its democracy and democratization has taken an almost similar trend and transformation among the countries that make up the Middle East. Foremost, it is important to know the countries that make up the Middle East so one can have a vivid picture of the geographical location of the region as discussion progresses. The Middle East as a region covers Western Asia and North Africa and lots of time the name Near East is used with Middle East interchangeably mainly when taking a historical perspective, which is the opposite of Far East.

The history of this region dates back to early times and has been at the centre of world affair from ancient years. It has immensely contributed to the historical origin and development of main religions like Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Islam and Christianity. The climatic conditions in the middle east is mainly arid and hot for the better part of the year, it has several rivers feeding irrigation that supports agriculture in a few areas. The Persian Gulf holds a considerable amount of crude oil supplying the countries surrounding it with an ample and reliable quantity of the valuable commodity. This steady supply makes the region to be an eminent player economically, religiously, culturally and politically in the world in general. It is due to the oil that the economic growth rate of Middle East is expected to be about 47% by 2014 in some countries like Iran (The Currency Newshound, 2011).

The countries that define Middle East geographically and politically are Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian, Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen among others.

For many decades the U.S.A. has involved itself in the business of trying to help democratize the Middle East and the Muslim world in general with personal interest in the sleeves.

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Ironically there has been an endless inevitable propping up of autocratic regimes that ended up suppressing their own citizens. Taking into account the democracy index according to the Economist (2008), the only country in the Middle East that can be considered an established democracy is Israel with 7.8, and others that are headed there are Lebanon with a score of 5.82 and Turkey with 5.73 which are coded "hybrid regime" together with Pakistan, Iraq, Armenia, and Palestine. The remaining countries are considered authoritarian regimes with below 2 scores.

There have been varying arguments fronted by divergent political scientists on why the democratic levels in the Middle East remain to be that low. Revisionists fronted the argument that democracy is irreconcilable with the Islamic values and cultural beliefs.

Others argue that the lack of a clear cut differentiation between religion and state is what kills democracy since the state always oversteps the line in the name of upholding religious values. In deed Prof. Massoud (2011) says, "The relation between religion and modern state was ad still is the main feature of the all Middle East states that are living in deep crisis."

Still better, the "post colonial" theorists uphold the argument that the long imperial history like in the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France followed by the present-day military and political intervention are to blame for the flawed democracy in the Middle East. They are accused of giving preference to the authoritarian regime since that made easy the business front as they enriched the ruling elite and the companies of the ruling countries.

The other explanation for flawed democracy in the Middle East is its strategic position as hosting Rentier states i.e. states endowed with vast deposits of natural resources. In the Middle East case it is the crude oil. It is argued that many external interests from the U.S.A., Europe and other developed countries has consistently threatened the political stability of the region in a bid to take advantage of the political instability and extract the crude. The political elites engage in grand squander of the public resources under the influence of their power and line their pockets and of allies by engaging in rent-seeking and mega corruption (Rosser, 2006).

One may want to look at the types of governments in the region and the governance system if that could be a contributing factor to the Egypt, Morocco and the Middle East instability in general. Apparently this region has an almost uniform way of governance with slight differences between one and the other as discussed below;

Arab Socialism; does exist in some countries like Syria and Egypt, where regular elections are held but mostly are single-party states or suffer imbalanced dominant party systems hence not complete multi-party systems. It is worth noting that they do not give room for the people to choose their presidential candidates from many contestants. The constitution gives the president monopoly of making decisions.

Absolute monarchy; is more prevalent in the middle east than anywhere else in the world, and even in kingdoms where there are parliaments still can be categorized under this governance system. The kingdoms in the Arabian Peninsula, (but for Yemen) and Saudi Arabia fall under this category, with the governance is characterized by corrupt dictatorship that suppresses any attempt of revolution or democratization. These regions are also characterized by continued contestations and rebellions between the proponents of change and the dictatorial rulers.

Constitutional monarchy; where a monarch acts as the head of state and rules in accordance to the constitution be it written or otherwise. Most of the constitutional monarchs have and established parliamentary system and most of the Middle East subscribes to and can be said to be partly democratic. Countries like Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco and Jordan are part of this system.

Islamic Governments; these are governments that are run with greater part of the rules dependent on the Islamic laws. For instance in Iran (which is an Islamic Republic with a constitution) the Supreme Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts and should rule for life unless the term is truncated by the same assembly. The Supreme Leader will the appoint Guardian Council which in turn vetoes who is to run for elections including election for Assembly of Experts.

2.1.3 The prevailing situation in Egypt and Morocco

Egypt

Egypt has its capital at Cairo and the government that runs this country has been the republic government. Hitherto, there were….....

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