Path dependence and democracy: Case of Arab spring Countries

Abstract

After the revolutions of 2011, Tunisia and countries of the Arab Spring (Egypt, Libya) had been governed by Islamic parties that came to power. However, these governments were not stable because of the political, economic and social revendications of their societies. We propose to show that democracy is not the appropriate mode of governance for these countries, in particular Tunisia. Indeed, the institutions that the Islamic government wants to build belong to the “Islamic” path dependence which is not in favor of the alternation of power and which explains the instability of these governments. To this end, we show through an analytical approach which is based on game theory that institutions that belong to this path dependence do not allow a cooperative coordination among the key political actors who cannot reach a higher equilibrium.

Keywords: Institution, path dependence, democracy, game theory, non cooperative coordination, superior equilibrium, lower equilibrium.