‘Time is running out’ for Tunisia
The United States and Europe must engage in a joint transatlantic approach to support Tunisia’s democratization, says a new report. They should work to avoid duplication of assistance efforts… Read more »
Category: Middle East/North Africa
Hard-liners rebound: no more nonsense about ‘moderation’ in Iran
Backers of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, who has pledged to improve the economy and relations with the West, won a sizeable minority in a parliament that has been under the… Read more »
Why public opinion matters for movement organizing
Although public opinion research can make a valuable contribution to movement organizing, it is a relatively untested technique in many new and emerging democracies, notes Lauren Kitz, a Program Officer… Read more »
How to reverse the extremist tide
Something great is afoot in Tunisia. Last weekend, the once-Islamist Ennahda party officially declared that it will separate its religious activities from its political ones, notes Maajid Nawaz, co-founder and chairman… Read more »
West and allies neglecting threat of Salafi jihadism
The war against Islamist extremism is a war against a triumphalist religious ideology that cloaks itself in the sanctity of the sacred and the history of “authentic” Islam, argues Robert… Read more »
Muslim Democrats? How to explain shift in Tunisia’s Ennahda
In a move widely reported as a landmark separation of mosque and state, Ennahda announced it was separating politics from preaching, notes Oxford University researcher Monica Marks. It also unveiled… Read more »
Violence against Morocco’s women poses constitutional test
After more than three decades of advocacy, the women’s movement in Morocco, supported by a large segment of civil society, has had high expectations that the long awaited Combating Violence… Read more »
Why Tunisia’s Ennahda rejected Islamist ‘ideology of failure’
How to explain the shift in Tunisia’s Ennahda movement, which has formally stepped away from the radical Islamism of its past to divide itself into a civil political party and… Read more »
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 »
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 »