POLI 340 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, Pearl Roundabout, Ruhollah Khomeini
Document Summary
Although the middle east tends to be thought of as unstable between 1970 and 2010 it was one of the most stable regions in the developing world. With the notable exception of the iranian revolution (ayatollah khomeini) in 1979 and. Us intervention in iraq (saddam hussein) in 2003, few regimes changed. This stability was highly authoritarian in character, and remarkably resistant to the so called third wave of democratization in the 1970s 80s and 90s. Gaddafi was the longest ruling leader at the time. The egyptian regime was a direct descendant of nasser"s military revolution. During the period of third wave democratization, there was a large increase in democratization starting with the transformation of right wing dictatorships in places like greece and spain, then there was the transformation of military regimes in latin. America and finally the fall of communism in eastern europe. This change however left the middle east widely untouched.