And now a few words on the nature of democracy. Its strength is not in providing a magic bullet for fixing every type of economic malaise. Rather, its primary utility is creating an institutional framework for government transition that crucially has legitimacy in the eyes of the people. The institutions that allow for stable governance and a stable transfer of power, institutions like a legislative, executive, and judiciary branch of government, these cannot be built up and secured in an extremely short period of time. It is the intended functioning of these institutions that allows for a democratic country to maintain stability and thrive over the long term.

Now back to the wave of people power spreading through the Middle East and Africa. In Egypt and Tunisia, popular movements have toppled longstanding autocratic regimes and the likely result will be a protracted power vacuum where various sectors of society try to maximize gains in whatever new framework is created. In short, the protests were the easy part. It’s far harder to create a workable institutional framework that will allow for people to exercise democratic choice over the long term. This process will be complicated by the inevitability of the protest movement splintering. Eventually, it’s likely that more protests will break out when certain sectors of society start to feel that they’re being elbowed out of the new order. In other words, the example of mass protests toppling governments may be somewhat dangerous insofar that protests might once again be used as a way to topple interim or weak democratic governments.

In the end, it’s worth bearing in mind that the wave of protests sweeping the Middle East and Africa, though an admirable example of courage in the face of tyranny, is not synonymous with democracy. It’s What come’s next that will determine whether or not we see a democratic wave sweep through the region, or whether or not the negative example of instability and economic stagnation from an endless cycle of political instability will simply serve to smear democracy’s reputation as a functional system of governance in the region.