In this dissertation I have examined the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab World. Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen all embarked on substantial political reforms in the late 1980s. These political liberalization reforms coincided with a wave of democratization that swept over regimes in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa. However, in the mid-1990s most of the Arab states were able to revoke the bulk of their liberalization reforms, thus frustrating what many observers had viewed as a promising step towards democracy. Unlike other parts of the world, the...