Islam and Democracy in the Middle East

Abstract

This collection of essays edited by Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Daniel Brumberg, is one that everyone interested in future of the Middle East should read carefully. All of the essays here, in one way or another, seek to address that most perplexing of questions: Why has the Middle East so stubbornly resisted the sweeping reach of democracy? The answers presented are sometimes illuminating and, even in the weaker sections, almost always thought provoking. All of the authors in this volume come from the basic and – I hope – fairly self-evident assumption that sustained democratic change is now an imperative of the highest order. What is so interesting about this collection is the diversity of viewpoints and the alternating currents of pessimism and optimism that run through it. For the most part, the authors rarely delve into the kind of neo-conservative posturing that obscures a nuanced understanding of the interplay between political Islam and democratization. There are some unfortunate exceptions, such as Ladan and Roya Boroumand’s embarrassing assertion that Hassan al-Banna “borrowed the idea of heroic death as a political art form,” while Emmanuel Sivan commits a surprising factual error when he posits that the Sudanese Islamist regime is an example of “one man, one vote, one time.” ...