A successful democratic Egypt threatened the legitimacy of Saudi monarchy

Evidence

Erdoğan had both ideological and geopolitical incentives to pull for Islamist movements in North Africa, and he did. The Turkish president supported Ennahda in Tunisia and was close to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood after the victory of Mohamed Morsi. These were the movements that might re-create the “Turkish Model”—in other words, the pro-Western, neoliberalized, moderately Islamist—mode of governmentality he had developed over the previous two decades. But this isolated him in the region. Saudi Arabia did not like the Muslim Brotherhood government one bit. And putting the pro-Western Turkish Model aside, it was obvious that any successful democratic or social revolution in the most populous and influential Arab country would call into question the point of the Kingdom—why would anyone need a repressive, murderous monarchy if the Arab world can come together behind a prospering, progressive Egypt, or a new version of Nasserism or Pan-Arabism, or even a relatively stable Islamist democracy? — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 340

Categorization

• XREF: Geopolitical rivalry where one state’s democratic success delegitimizes another’s monarchy echoes arguments about Soviet success threatening Western capitalism’s legitimacy. — connects to: Middle Eastern democratic forms mask the region’s real monarchical politics — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1194; Protecting Saudi oil monarchy, not democracy, has driven US regional policy since WWII — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 381

Broader Connections

• Protecting Saudi oil monarchy, not democracy, has driven US regional policy since WWII #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 381
• Middle Eastern democratic forms mask the region’s real monarchical politics #complicates (0.72) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1194