A Middle East Quandary: A Comparative Analysis of State Creation and Political Regime Formation in Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon

Democracy is at a crossroad. At the start of the twenty-first century analysts noted that though in the 1920s only a very small number of sovereign states were led by regimes that had the basic components necessary to qualify as a democracy, by 1990 that number had increased to 69, and by 2012 to 117. Between the years 2005 and 2013, however, political rights and civil liberties underwent substantial setbacks. Of no less significance, hopes that Middle Eastern states would begin their transitions toward democracy as a result of the spring revolts of 2011 experienced a very short lifespan. My study is guided by three interrelated objectives. My immediate goal is to explain why Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon have not been able to create legitimate states and stable democratic regimes. To explain their failures, I conduct two separate analyses for each country. I start with an examination of each state’s history, beginning shortly after the Arab Conquests in AD 632, and ending at present day. After documenting the historical trajectory of each state, I propose that the colonial history, ethnic and religious diversity, population composition, and the presence or absence of natural resources have distinctly undermined the capacity of Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon to create legitimate states and stable democratic regimes. My second and related objective is to evaluate the viability of existing theories of state creation and democratization and to propose alternative arguments through a comparative analysis. The Egyptian case is unique because of the three states examined the presence of a highly homogeneous society should have made it the most likely to create a democratic regime. And yet it did not. I attribute Egypt’s failure to the fact that throughout much of its history it was dominated by a foreign power. This nearly uninterrupted period of foreign domination resulted in the creation of a political culture that continues to value stability in the form of an authoritarian regime over the creation of a democratic regime. The Iraqi case likewise highlights this correlation, but also demonstrates that foreign powers cannot export democracy, nor can democracy be imposed on a divided population without an extensive process of reconciliation. Lebanon’s troubled experience with consociational democracy, in turn, underscores the difficulty of developing a democratic regime that engages the separate factions of society, but does not trend toward political deadlock. My third objective is loftier and not immediately attainable. The comparative analysis of the states mentioned above provides important insights that could ultimately help produce a generalized theory of democracy for the Middle East. These generalizations could help lay the foundation for the examination of other Middle Eastern cases and enable future analysts to determine the extent to which the generalizations drawn in this study are applicable to other cases

Hilma af Klint\u27s Divine Commission, Paintings for the Temple : Modern western esotericism embodied and art historical norms redfined

Swedish occultist, scholar, and artist, Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), produced a series of 193 paintings after receiving a commission in 1906 from a divine spirit who offered complex iconographic insight into human ontology. The resulting series of colorful abstract paintings would not only alter her life, but also redefine contemporary perceptions of the Western art historical canon. Although all works of art are inherently spiritual to a degree, af Klint’s, commission Paintings for the Temple, is an example of Modern Western Esotericism. The commission maintains the six principle characteristics the construct is defined by, including: Role of Mediations and Imagination, Experience of Transmutation, Practice of Concordance, Transmission, the Idea of Living Nature, and Universal Correspondences. Modern Western Esotericism can be utilized as a practical scope when revisiting often bias art historical literature. af Klint’s abstracted paintings supersede the previously purposed first abstractionist’s work, shedding light on other narrow-minded previous claims within the discipline

Discriminating Readers are Critical Thinkers

Critical thinking is usually described as a part of problem solving and of creative thinking. Critical thinking usually implies appraisal in terms of some standard or value. And, according to the reports of research conducted at the University of Buffalo in their Creative Education Foundation, as one gains facility in critical thinking skills there also occur significant gains in personality traits such as confidence, self-reliance, persuasiveness, initiative, and leadership potential