January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
A decade ago, Arab peoples stood up and sought to replace their rulers with a more democratic political project. But Arab autocrats have a project of their own. Can the people gain ground in the struggle for self-government, or will their rulers bear it away?
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
A domestic pact may be needed to end a dictatorship, but what happens when that pact itself becomes one of the chief obstacles to deeper democratization?
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
In 2011–13, the undemocratic political outlook of both secular and Islamist actors helped to ensure the failure of democracy in Egypt. Today, the populace appears to have backed away from democratic demands, yet pockets of resilient activism offer a basis for hope.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
The military-backed regime of President al-Sisi seems secure, but study of the Egyptian internet reveals that the regime has failed to win over the young.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
A review of Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly by Safwan M. Masri.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
Tunisia is now one of the Arab world’s most democratic countries, but it has also been producing worrisome numbers of recruits for groups such as ISIS. How can this paradox be explained?
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
Two of the Arab world’s more liberal regimes, the kingdoms of Jordan and Morocco, are sometimes said to be evolving toward democracy. Is this true, and what are the longer-term prospects for these two monarchies?
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
We are still struggling to understand the mostly bitter harvest of the Arab Spring, but there are a few lessons that can be drawn.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
Data from the Arab Barometer suggest that Arabs have not rejected democracy. In fact, they still by and large believe in it and want it.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
The Arab experience shows that the same media that facilitate the toppling of dictators can make it harder to build democracy.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
Islamic political parties were not especially popular with voters in Muslim-majority countries before the Arab Spring. Has that changed?
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
How did a potent Islamist movement come to accept a non-Islamist constitution? The answer lies in that movement’s self-protective reflexes.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
A close look at secular parties in the Middle East today raises doubts about whether they are ready for prime time.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Saudi Arabia’s vast oil wealth sustains the antidemocratic policies that a nervous royal regime uses to defend against the threats and problems that confront it.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, democracy in the Arab world seems farther away today than at any point in the last 25 years. If it is to ever arrive, it will likely be through a more evolutionary and elite-driven process.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
The hegemonic-party systems of Taiwan and Mexico began to loosen in the 1980s, eventually yielding to democracy. Malaysia’s ruling party, by contrast, has tightened the reins of power in the face of increasing opposition.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Four leading experts on democracy discuss the relevance of the “transition paradigm” in light of the “Arab Spring” and other developments in the world today.
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
Popular uprisings have occurred only in some Arab states and in even fewer have authoritarian rulers been overthrown. What factors allow us to predict whether an authoritarian regime will be vulnerable?
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
The July 2013 military takeover has squashed democratic hopes in Egypt, at least for now. How did things go so wrong, and what lessons are to be drawn from this lamentable episode? Listen to the podcast with Author Nathan Brown [mp3]
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
The Assad regime has been adapting to the new challenges posed by mass uprisings through a process of “authoritarian learning,” and at least some of its methods are being applied elsewhere in the region. Watch an interview with the author.
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
A long-ruling strongman president has been unseated by popular unrest and a negotiated transition is under way, but to many Yemenis this all appears to be a change more of appearance than of substance.
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
Qadhafi is gone after subjecting his country to a brutal dictatorship for more than four decades, but the devastated institutional landscape that he left behind bodes ill for Libya’s democratic prospects.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The Arab world’s old autocracies survived by manipulating the sharp identity conflicts in their societies. The division and distrust that this style of rule generated is now making it especially difficult to carry out the kind of pact-making often crucial to successful democratic transitions.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
Not only did the Algerian regime survive the “Arab Spring,” it hardly deviated from its normal methods of authoritarian governance—patronage, pseudodemocratization, and effective use of the security apparatus.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
When this small island kingdom in the Gulf joined the wider Arab world’s political upheavals in March 2011, it was a reaction to regional events, but also a reflection of internal problems that had been festering for a decade.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The Hashemite monarchy still fails to understand the challenges that threaten Jordan’s political order. The old playbook of limited, manipulated reform is no longer enough, but key players fail to realize it.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
It is easy for Islamists to accept the democratic principle of majority rule when it results in their being elected to power. But the experience of Pakistan warns us that efforts to “Islamize” laws and public life may be hard to reverse even if Islamists are voted out of office.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
In light of the “Arab Spring,” how should students of democratic transition rethink the relation between religion and democracy; the nature of regimes that mix democratic and authoritarian features; and the impact of “sultanism” on prospects for democracy?
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Although Olivier Roy and others argue that current circumstances will push ascendant Islamist parties in a democratic direction, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood remains committed to the revolutionary goals that have animated it since its beginnings.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
The “Arab Spring” has been very hard on autocratic presidents but so far has left the Arab world’s monarchies intact. How and why have Arab royals been able to resist the tide of protest?
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
The second wave of the Arab Barometer reveals strong and steady support for democracy in the Arab World but a deficit in democratic culture.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
The electoral triumph of Islamist parties has dampened the enthusiasm of democrats for the “Arab Spring.”
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
The upheavals that have been shaking the Arab-Muslim world are revolutions in discourse as well as in the streets. Arabs are using not only traditional and religious vocabularies, but also a new set of expressions that are modern and represent popular aspirations.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Although in 2011 declines in freedom exceeded gains for the sixth straight year, the uprisings in the Arab world represent the most significant challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Although the Arab revolts have a long way to go before they can be counted as gains for democracy, they do underline what is perhaps democracy’s greatest source of strength worldwide—its superior legitimacy.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
The Arab events of 2011 may have some similarities to the wave of popular upheavals against authoritarianism that swept the Soviet bloc starting in 1989, but the differences are much more fundamental.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Across the Arab world, militaries have played a key role in determining whether revolts against dictatorship succeed or fail. What factors determine how and why “the guys with guns” line up the way they do?
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Methods of electing legislatures are fraught with consequences for the shape and quality of democracy, and must balance a number of competing goals. Amid the current political ferment of the Arab world, what kinds of electoral systems are emerging and what will they mean for democratic hopes there?
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Saudi Arabia looked for a time in early 2011 as if it too would become swept up in the Arab uprising. Yet it never quite happened—why?
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
The wave of unrest that swept through the Arab world at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 originated in Tunisia. What happened— and what are the prospects that Tunisia will make a successful transition to democracy?
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Egyptians threw off the thirty-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, but now find themselves under essentially the same military tutelage that they had hoped to escape.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Widely reported as “Facebook revolutions,” the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt show that social media not only can ignite protests but also can help to determine their political consequences.
The uprisings that swept the Arab world beginning in 2010 toppled four entrenched rulers and seemed to create a political opening in a region long impervious to democratization.
