Economic and/or political liberalisation became a symbol of Arab authoritarian regimes since the initial phase of the third wave of democratisation in the early 1990s. Arab rulers found out that liberalisation could help strengthening their authoritarian rule; it diminishes both internal and external pressure and increases their legitimacy. While the regimes soon figured out that the West finally preferred stability and the containment of Islamic militancy to uncertainty caused by democratic experiments, 9/11 proved the failure of this unwritten agreement. Based on the experience that...