Islam and Democracy in the Middle East

by Larry Diamond (Editor)

Islam and Democracy in the Middle East provides a comprehensive assessment of the origins and staying power of Middle East autocracies, as well as a sober account of the struggles of state reformers and opposition forces to promote civil liberties, competitive elections, and a pluralistic vision of Islam. Drawing on the insights of some twenty-five leading Western and Middle Eastern scholars, the book highlights the dualistic and often contradictory nature of political liberalization. As the case studies of Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and Yemen suggest, political liberalization―as managed by the state―not only opens new spaces for debate and criticism, but is also used as a deliberate tactic to avoid genuine democratization. In several chapters on Iran, the authors analyze the benefits and costs of limited reform. There, the electoral successes of President Mohammad Khatami and his reformist allies inspired a new generation but have not as yet undermined the clerical establishment's power. By contrast, in Turkey a party with Islamist roots is moving a discredited system beyond decades of conflict and paralysis, following a stunning election victory in 2002. Turkey's experience highlights the critical role of political Islam as a force for change. While acknowledging the enduring attraction of radical Islam throughout the Arab world, the concluding chapters carefully assess the recent efforts of Muslim civil society activists and intellectuals to promote a liberal Islamic alternative. Their struggles to affirm the compatibility of Islam and pluralistic democracy face daunting challenges, not least of which is the persistent efforts of many Arab rulers to limit the influence of all advocates of democracy, secular or religious. Contributors: Shaul Bakhash, George Mason University; Ladan Boroumand, Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran; Roya Boroumand, Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation; Jason Brownlee, Princeton University; Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University; Abdelwahab El-Affendi, University of Westminster; Haleh Esfandiari, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Abdou Filali-Ansary, editor of Prologues: revue maghrébine du livre ; Michael Herb, Georgia State University; Ramin Jahanbegloo, Aga Khan University, London; Mehrangiz Kar, lawyer, writer, and human rights activist; E. Fuat Keyman, Koç University, Istanbul; Laith Kubba, National Endowment for Democracy; Vickie Langohr, College of the Holy Cross; Bernard Lewis, Princeton University; Russell Lucas, Wake Forest University; Abdeslam Maghraoui, Princeton University; Radwan Masmoudi, Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, Washington, D.C.; Ziya Önis; Koç University; Soli Ozel, Bilgi University, Istanbul; William Quandt, University of Virginia; Jillian Schwedler, University of Maryland, College Park; Jean-François Seznec, Columbia University and Georgetown University; Emmanuel Sivan, Hebrew University; Mohamed Talbi, independent scholar; Robin Wright, Los Angeles Times .

Genres: Middle East

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Larry Jay Diamond (born October 2, 1951) is a political sociologist and leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies. He is a professor of Sociology and Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative policy think tank. At Stanford he teaches courses on democratic development and supervises the democracy program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. He has published extensively in the fields of foreign policy, foreign aid, and democracy.

Diamond is also a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, which is Stanford University’s main center for research on international issues. At the Institute Diamond serves as the director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The CDDRL’s most recent accomplishment came in the spring of 2011 by building a technological community between Tahrir Square (Cairo, Egypt) and Silicon Valley (California Bay Area). This community was fully focused on helping mobilize protesters in Egypt who eventually helped in the downfall of autocratic president Hosni Mubarak.

Diamond has served as an advisor to numerous governmental and international organizations at various points in his life, including the United States Department of State, United Nations, World Bank, and U.S. Agency for International Development. He is a founding co-editor of the National Endowment for Democracy's Journal of Democracy. He is also a coordinator of the Hoover Institution's Iran Democracy Project, along with Abbas Milani and Michael McFaul.