Abstract
The paper deals with the structural roots of political instability in the Middle East that has manifested itself since the so-called Arab Spring. The roots of the instability are seen in the highly uneven modernization process: (1) rapid social and demographic changes, (2) slower and unstable economic development, and (3) rigid political subsystem. The Middle Eastern uneven modernization is also underway in the specific (4) cultural and (5) international context. A growing instability is seen as a consequence of multiple and highly complex interactions among these various dimensions of the uneven modernization process, pre-modern cultural substrate (including tribal affiliations and Islamic political imagination), and the unfavorable international context. The Middle Eastern uneven modernization pattern is systematically documented throughout the paper by empirical macro-indicators and is compared with the modernization process in other post-colonial world macro-regions. The second part of the paper deals with selected causal mechanisms of political destabilization, which is the analytical step from structures to actors, from macro-level to micro-level, and from the independent to dependent variables. As such, it identifies the many interactions among the independent structural variables on the macro-level. And tracks the impact of those interactions that have got its politically destabilizing consequences on the micro-level.