How does the government in the Middle East work?

Answer 1

Without specifying the country, this question is almost impossile to answer. There are numerous types of regimes across the Middle East. Note: Since many Arab regimes are undergoing massive internal changes due to the Arab Spring, this answer may become dated very quickly.

1) Illiberal Democracies: Many Arab Nations were Liberal Democracies on paper with guaranteed voting rights, freedoms of speech and religion, constitutions that bind the authority of the Executive. In nearly every Arab regime that this describes (like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Mubarak's Egypt, ben Ali's Tunisia) these paper rights and limitations on paper did not exist. These rulers used an apparent mechanism of democracy to perpetuate a Dictatorship. Iran is also part of this group because although it has an elected parliament, the elections are controlled by the non-elected Supreme Council of Ayatollahs which rule theocratically.

2) Absolute Kingdoms, Sultanates, and Emirates:There is no difference between a Kingdom and Sultanate except that the rulers have different names (King vs. Sultan). An Emirate is similar to a Kingdom, but takes up less space (i.e. Principality). The Arab World has an impressive number of Absolute Monarchs (such as those who rule various Emirates like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar, those who rule Kingdoms like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and those who rule Sultanates like Oman). These monarchs control their people through direct edicts and typically run a nepotistic government.

3) Constitutional Monarchies: There are some Kingdoms (like Jordan and Morocco) where the King is constrained by a Constitution and requires a Parliament to pass laws. However, the strength of these Parliaments is often minimal and the politicians are typically considered untrustworthy (while the King is well-received).

4) Military Juntas: Algeria and Qadhafi's Libya were organized as Military-Run Governments with the leaders officially styling themselves as Presidents but being perceived as Caudillos. As opposed to the leaders of Illiberal Democracies, even the Constitutions of their countries (which are useless) do not legitimate them in the way that Illiberal Democratic Dictators are legitimated on paper.

5) Compromised Government: In Situations with various powerful ethnic groups like Lebanon (with its Maronite, Shiite, and Sunni communities) and Iraq with its (Shiite, Sunni Arab, and Kurd communities) there are democracies which guarantee certain positions in the government to a certain ethnic group so that one group cannot dictate policies for all the other groups. This often results in fights over census taking as that might lessen a particular group's strength and actual group on group violence to intimidate voters of one ethnic group to vote for a candidate that also supports whatever objective would help the perpetrator who are a different ethnicity. This results in very fragile agreements.

6) Parliamentary Democracy: Israel and Turkey both have governments where all citizens over a certain age can vote for political parties that occupy seats in a Parliament and create a ruling coalition. This coalition appoints the Prime Minister and takes over the affairs of governance between the fair and non-fraudulent elections. If current Tunisia continues to behave the way it did in the previous election by the time the next election comes, it too will become a Parliamentary Democracy.