Major Demographic Changes in the Middle East and North Africa

The main change in the demographic dynamics of the Middle East and North Africa is a substantial increase in the population and the urbanization of many large cities in the area. The reasons are better medicine, greater population migration, urban economic opportunities, and political change. From the late eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, European families moved to the Middle East and North Africa, and many French and other Europeans settled in Algeria from the 1930s.

Since World War II, the demographic background of Europe has changed, immigrants from Europe come in record amounts, and many of the new immigrants in France come from North Africa and the Middle East. Muslim is now the second largest religion in the French Republic after Catholicism and this slow change leads to the current discussion about head scarves.

North Africa resembles the Middle East in a variety of ways, including language, religion, culture, and some people. Some writers using the term "Middle East" include Egypt, Sudan and Libya. The term MENA usually refers to the Middle East / North African culture groups spreading west from Iran and Turkey, such as Morocco and Mauritania. Red Sea State is also included. On the other hand, Central Asia has much in common with the Middle East. Ethnicity and languages ​​are different, but most of religion, food, clothes, and architecture are similar. Iran can be regarded as part of every region; one thing, the majority of Central Asia is part of the Persian Empire.

There are quite a few in Asia, but the majority of the world's authoritarian regime appears in the Middle East and Africa. The lack of democratic regime in the Middle East and North Africa is a well-known phenomenon, and there was much debate about its cause. In the above statistical relationship between democracy and income, the dummy variables in the Middle East and North Africa are negative and statistically very important even when managing oil assets in 167 countries' samples. The level of democratization in North Africa is much lower than the level of democratization inferred from income levels. Similar variables in Asia are statistically low but negative. There is evidence that the average level of democracy in Western Europe is even higher than the level indicated by its high income level.