Category: Middle East/North Africa

Countering violent extremism, authoritarians and identity

     

In February 2015, the Obama administration hosted a summit on countering violent extremism, analysts Colum Lynch and John Hudson write for Foreign Policy. But the phrase remains an “elusive concept,” even within… Read more »

EU’s flawed approach to Southern neighborhood

     

  Since January 2016, Carnegie Europe has asked authors from Europe’s Southern neighborhood to give candid assessments of the EU’s foreign policy toward their countries. In all but two cases—Palestine and Libya,… Read more »

Dilemmas of Reform in Arab Transitions

     

  Arab states in transition are confronted with a seemingly intractable task: rebuilding state institutions and social contracts in an era of global change, notes analyst Yezid Sayigh. Conventional approaches… Read more »

The case for negotiating with Iran

     

Under the right conditions, which must include a hard-headed approach and tough actions to check Iran’s ambitions, Washington can benefit from bringing Iran into multilateral forums where the United States… Read more »

Why it’s wrong to say the Arab Spring failed

     

  Simply dismissing the uprisings [of the Arab Spring] as a failure does not capture how fully they have transformed every dimension of the region’s politics, argues Marc Lynch, a… Read more »

Authoritarianism Goes Global

     

A new global competition in “soft power” is underway between democracy and autocracy, but only one side seems to be competing seriously, according to Christopher Walker, Marc F. Plattner and Larry Diamond,… Read more »

Engage civil society in party-building to consolidate democracy

     

Criticizing U.S. missteps in promoting democracy is certainly reasonable—particularly in light of the debacles in Iraq and Libya—but elevating these criticisms into high doctrine and principled critiques of democracy promotion… Read more »