Democratic Transition and its Problematics: A Theoretical and Applied Comparative Study

Authors

  • Author

  • Sena Khateeb

Keywords:

Democratic Transition, Arab Spring, Arab Region

Abstract

AZMI BISHARA, Democratic Transition and its Problematics: A Theoretical and Applied Comparative Study (Doha and Beirut: ACRPS, 2020). Pp. 624.

References

  1. Democratic transition took place in Tunisia and Egypt, in addition to an early unstable transition in Libya. The former was the only Arab country to consolidate democracy.
  2. See, for example, Lisa Anderson's discussion on the state of democracy studies in the Arab world: Lisa Anderson, "Searching Where the Light Shines: Studying Democratization in the Middle East," Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 9, no. 1 (June 2006), pp. 189-214.
  3. The term "Arab Spring" is used to refer to the revolutions and protests that started in late 2010 across the Arab region.
  4. Lisa Anderson, "Arab Democracy: Dismal Prospects," World Policy Journal, vol. 18, no. 3 (Fall 2001), p. 54.
  5. Anderson, "Searching Where the Light Shines," p. 205.
  6. Larry Diamond, "Why Are There No Arab Democracies?," Journal of Democracy, vol. 21, no. 1 (January 2010), pp. 93-104; Ibrahim El Badawi & Samir Makdisi, "Explaining the Democracy Deficit in the Arab World," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, vol. 46, no. 5 (February 2007), pp. 813-831; Eva Bellin, "The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective," Comparative Politics, vol. 36, no. 2 (January 2004), p. 139.
  7. Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk, "The Arab Spring: A Fourth Wave of Democratization?: The Arab Spring …," Digest of Middle East Studies, vol. 25, no. 1 (March 2016), pp. 52-69; Philip N. Howard & Muzammil M. Hussain, Democracy's Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring , Oxford Studies in Digital Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Ali Sarihan, "Is the Arab Spring in the Third Wave of Democratization?," Turkish Journal of Politics, vol. 3, no. 1 (Summer 2012), pp. 67-85.
  8. The term "waves of democracy" was popularized by Samuel P. Huntington to describe the major surges of democracy which occurred in history. Huntington expanded on the concept in his book, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Bishara disagrees with the notion of "global waves of democracy", explaining how this notion implies that democratic transition is a phenomenon that some countries accept while others fail to do so. In his opinion, "global" waves are "regional" waves.
  9. Seymour Martin Lipset, "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review, vol. 53, no. 1 (March 1959), p. 75.
  10. Mainly in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Ibid., pp. 210-211.
  11. Ibid., pp. 222-241.
  12. Azmi Bishara, On the Arab Question: An Introduction to an Arab Democratic Manifesto , 4 th ed. (Doha and Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 2018).
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Published

2023-09-01

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Issue

Vol. 6 No. 012 (2023): Issue 012

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Book Reviews

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