In The New Missionaries, Adam Garfinkle compares modern democratizers to 19th-century missionaries and explains the hurdles to democratizing Arab nations:
In different degrees, Arab societies lack three prerequisites for democracy: the belief that the source of political authority is intrinsic to society; a concept of majority rule; and the acceptance of all citizens’ equality before the law. Without the first, the idea of pluralism — and the legitimacy of a “loyal opposition” — cannot exist. Without the second, the idea of elections as a means to form a government is incomprehensible. Without the third, a polity can be neither free nor liberal as those terms are understood in the west.