Many observers regarded 1999 as a year of progress for democracy in the Arab world. There is reason to doubt, however, whether any meaningful change has really occurred.
About the Author
Emmanuel Sivan is professor of history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous works, including Radical Islam (1990) and Mythes politiques arabes (1995), and the editor of War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (1999).
The most important aspects of Morocco's September 2007 parliamentary election may have been things that did not happen: The Islamists did not win, and many citizens either did not vote…
How well-founded are Western concerns that the nascent parliaments of Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain will be captured by antidemocratic Islamists and lead to the ‘Talibanization’ of the Gulf?
Israel began directly electing its prime minister in 1992, only to abandon this change less than ten years later. What came between was a series of hard lessons in the…
