- 著者
-
泉 淳
- 出版者
- 一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会
- 雑誌
- 国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.2014, no.178, pp.178_15-178_27, 2014-11-10 (Released:2015-11-30)
- 参考文献数
- 32
The recent peoples’ movements seeking democracy throughout the Middle East, often referred to as “The Arab Spring”, are a direct form of public protest against the authoritarian regimes in the region. Although the contexts of the movements differ among the countries, their spillover nature strongly implies that the protests are essentially challenging to the regional order, in which authoritarianism has been so prevalent for decades.
The U.S., since the inception of the Cold War, has been deeply involved in regional politics by establishing patron-client relationships with local authoritarians to safeguard its own security and strategic interests in the region. This policy has often been conducted at the expense of democratic ideals and caused an accumulation of frustration among local people to this day. This conflict between America’s security norm and its democratic norm lies deep in the U.S. Middle East policy and has been the subject of academic debates.
This paper, along with the most of the preceding analyses, supports the argument that the U.S. has prioritized the security norm in its Middle East policy, but pays legitimate attention to how the U.S. has been shaped by the democratic norm. A general preference for democracy could not be easily abandoned in U.S. political discourse, as it tries to maintain legitimacy and integrity in its policy towards the region. Employing a simple matrix chart, this paper presents a macro view of the relationship between U.S. policy preferences and the past regime transformation in the region, with particular reference to the U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes. Provided here is an assumption and its fulfillment that the U.S. has been unwilling to take strong measures to democratize friendly authoritarian regimes, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, for fear that the regimes might lose their pro-U.S. orientation and the regional stability might be put at risk. At the same time, the U.S., mindful of sacrificing its democratic norm and the peoples’ aspiration for freedom, devised a policy of applying gradual reforms to friendly authoritarian regimes. This policy has two apparently opposing features with respect to the same friendly authoritarian clients: on one hand calling for reforms with new institutions (such as MEPI) and increased funding, and on the other, providing substantial military and economic aid or selling arms in huge quantities. This policy mix is effective in maintaining the security interests provided by the friendly authoritarians and, at the same time, satisfying the democratic ideal of the U.S. and the local people to a certain extent, thus giving the U.S. Middle East policy more legitimacy and integrity.
This trend of U.S. policy is also noticeable in Obama administration, which is trying to avoid rapid revolution, especially in the pro-U.S. Gulf states. As a result, the democratic movements in the Middle East could not expect much support from the U.S. for transforming the current regional order in the foreseeable future.