66 Hein de Haas
‘[...] provided that the emigration country is growing fast and offering hope
and opportunity’. Turkey certainly meets the ‘growing fast’ condition, and
this might also be the case for Morocco, albeit to a much lower extent.
The second ‘offering hope and opportunity’ condition extends beyond the
economic realm, and also includes economic and political freedom. This
f its well into a freedom and capabilities understanding of development as
devised by Sen (1999). Although capabilities have an important intrinsic
value in enhancing people’s freedom, they also tend to be positively cor-
related to economic performance (Easterly 2006; Sen 1999).
In order to compare the level of democratic values across countries,
Figure 1.19 depicts country scores on the POLITY 2 Index developed by the
Polity IV Project of the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University.
The data clearly indicate that, over the past twenty years, after a period of
political instability and coups d’état, Turkey has consolidated its position as
a country with strong democratic institutions and freedom for its citizens.
The contrast with Morocco and Egypt is stark. Although Morocco has
recently witnessed substantial increases in civic freedom, it is classif ied at
similar levels as Spain under Franco. According to this index, Egypt made
very little progress until the mid-2000s.
Obviously the ‘Arab Spring’ has quite drastically changed the outlook for
Arab countries, although the extent to which the uprisings have led to real
democratisation and increased civil liberties varies across countries. While
Tunisia has turned from one of the most repressive regimes to a nascent
democracy and one of the freest societies in a very short period, progress has
Figure 1.19 Level of democracy and autocracy (Polity 2 Index)
-10-50510151956196019641968197219761980198419881992199620002004Strongly autocratic ̶ strongly democracticMorocco
Egypt
Turkey
SpainSource: Polity IV Project