Stalling Democracy in the Middle East : Failure of US Foreign Policy or Absence of Democratic Culture?

Abstract: The objective of this essay is to investigate whether the repeated failures to democratize in the Middle East depends on the United States' unsuccessful foreign policy or if it is caused by an absence of democratic culture, focusing primarily on Afghanistan whilst also including Iraq and Libya based on the criteria of having been the subject of US military incursion(s). The research made for this paper is based upon the case study method combined with a quantitative dataset from the Arab Barometer in order to measure democratic culture. In this study it is found that US foreign policy has played a major role in the current state of the aforementioned countries with democratic culture being an important, albeit not essential aspect.