Tunisia’s Ennahda ditches political Islam
In the days after the fall of the regime of Tunisia‘s President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, the long-exiled founder of the Ennahda movement Rached Ghannouchi (left) made a… Read more »
Category: Arab Spring
A Strategy for Democratic Renewal
Democracy is being challenged today as never before since the end of Cold War, notes Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy. Freedom House has recorded ten consecutive… Read more »
Politics precedes victory in Libya?
Eliminating the Islamic State’s (IS) presence in Libya is just one of many goals that Libyans share with the international community and which could be the building block for a… Read more »
Democracy Promotion: A Distinctive European Approach?
The fact of different European states’ priorities on democracy and human rights reflecting different historical experiences may be illustrated by the initiative taken by Poland during its presidency for a… Read more »
Funding Mideast democracy in the face of authoritarian pushback
The U.S. Congress has taken note of the dexterity and flexibility of non-governmental democracy assistance groups in responding to the more challenging environment in the Middle East, says a report… Read more »
Islam and democracy after the Arab Spring
The authoritarian backlash in the Middle East, with the Arab Winter following the Arab Spring, is part of the… Read more »
Egypt’s hollowed-out civil society
Authoritarian regimes are, in general, averse to a strong civil society. Egypt is no exception, notes Gamal Eid (left), an Egyptian lawyer and the director of the Arabic Network for… Read more »
How to halt Tunisia’s descent
Although the revolution upgraded Tunisia’s regime hardware from an authoritarian to a democratic government, its operating system — its state institutions, laws, bureaucracies, courts and police — remained largely… Read more »
Dictators don’t stabilize the Middle East
A number of American politicians have suggested that the Arab Spring was a disaster and that the region needs strongmen to stabilize it, but while working on Middle East policy at the… Read more »
Young Arabs reject ISIS, favor stability over democracy
Overwhelming majorities of Arab teens and young adults now strongly oppose the Islamic State terrorist group, a new survey suggests, with nearly 80 percent ruling out any possibility of supporting… Read more »