Abstract:

With the end of the Cold War, the U.S identified the spread of democracy as one of its foreign policy priorities. Advocates of this view have believed that the installation of democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq will render these countries as a role model for their authoritarian neighbors. This article empirically tests the assumption that increasing democracy level in one country will democratize its neighbors in the post-Cold War period Middle East. Empirical findings in this article show that the increasing level of democracy in a Middle Eastern country does not help democracy spread to its neighbors. Results also suggest that there are two factors that are most likely to help increase democracy level in a country: being more powerful than one’s neighbors and having an economy that does not rely on abundant natural resources.

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