Souq level of municipal administration. The Muhtasib was responsible for supervising business practices and collecting taxes for a given souq while the Arif are the overseers for a specific trade. Shopping at a souq or market place is part of daily life throughout much of the Middle East. Prices are commonly set by bargaining, also known as haggling, between buyers and sellers. In the 18th and 19th centuries, as Europeans began to conquer parts of North Africa and the Levant, an interest in Middle Eastern culture and architecture began to flourish. This interest spawned a genre of literary works and paintings
American democracy promotion in the Middle East and North Africa funding." The emergence of a focus on governance as a means of promoting open markets had reverberations in the Middle East and North Africa. Critics of aid aimed at stimulating free market enterprise and thereby creating a middle class which would push for democracy assert that it can result in transforming local NGOs into a business sector framed as an example of entrepreneurship but dependent on aid from the West. According to "The Huffington Post", "The 45 nations and territories with little or no democratic rule represent more than half of the roughly 80 countries now hosting U.S. bases. ...