The Myth of the Democratizing Monarchy Shadi Hamid Chapter to appear in The Struggle Over Democracy in the Middle East, edited by Nathan Brown and Emad Shahin (New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2009) It has been argued, in both policy circles and academic venues, that Arab monarchies are more conducive to liberalization and democratization than their republican counterparts. 1 Michael Herb, who conveys this view most cogently, posits that “not only have many Middle Eastern monarchies survived, but some have even opened parliaments, suggesting that these regimes, once thought irredeemably anachronistic, might redeem themselves by making better progress toward democracy than the bulk of the region’s ostensibly more politically advanced republics.” 2 The argument is an intuitive one. Monarchs who enjoyed popular legitimacy and political security would be more willing to take risks, gradually letting go of power and embarking on potentially destabilizing reforms. Daniel Brumberg notes that “Arab monarchs have more institutional and symbolic room to improvise reforms than do Arab presidents, who are invariably trapped by ruling parties and their constituencies.” 3 Kings are above the fray – umpires rather than partisans. As King Hassan II famously said, “I will never be put into an equation.” Since monarchies do not depend on elections to maintain power, they have less to fear from holding them. On the other hand, republican rulers, such as those in Egypt and Syria, do not “dispose of an inherent legitimacy, based on the hereditary transmission of the power to rule. As a consequence, [they remain] much more subject to contestation, at least from within ruling circles.” 4 This fear of direct contestation has made them unwilling to take even minor steps toward substantive political reform. For these reasons,