MENA around the Web

Here are some interesting newly released work on the Middle East out there on the web (which will be a regular feature on Qahwa Sada):

Marina Ottoway and Meredith Riley, Morocco: From Top-Down Reform to Democratization?   Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 2006:

In the case of “reform from the top,” the authors argue that the Morocco example shows the limitations of monarchial reform. Despite significant improvements in free speech, women’s rights, and economic reform, true democratization cannot exist without formal restrictions on the king’s power. Political reform, independent branches of government, and elected institutions are vital components of a democratic society.
Morocco’s main Islamist party, the PJD, may hold the key to democracy in the country. Expected to obtain the largest number of votes in the 2007 parliamentary elections, the party will become a major player in the new government.  The threat to a democratic transition is not that the party is too radical, but that it may allow itself to be co-opted by the monarch as all other parties have done. In a region where Islamists often threaten political reform, Morocco’s main Islamist party could be, paradoxically, its best chance for legitimate democracy.

Carnegie has also just released the October issue of the Arab Reform Bulletin.  Highlights include
Palestine: How Weak is Hamas? by Jarrett Blanc; Egypt: A Leap toward Reform—or Succession? by Joshua Stacher;  U.S. Policy and Yemen: Balancing Realism and Reform on the Arab Periphery Jeremy M. Sharp;  Saudi Arabia: Local Councils Struggling to Produce Results Jafar Muhammad Al Shayib; Iraqi Kurdistan: Time to Get Serious about Governance by Bilal Wahab.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has released a report by David Cook entitled Paradigmatic Jihadi Movements (link to PDF at the home page).   It looks in detail at four movements cited by Abu al-Musab al-Suri as exemplary cases to see what lessons he might have taken from their experience:  Harakat Shabiba (Morocco, 1960s);  Harakat al-Dawla al-Islamiya (Algeria, 1980s); the Afghan Arabs in Lebanon (1990s); Islamic Army of Aden Abyan in Yemen (1990s). 

The International Crisis Group has just released a report on the Sudan:  Getting the UN Into Darfur.  From the executive summary:

The NCP continues to strongly reject the proposed UN deployment. Its primary motive appears to be a fear that improved security would loosen its grip on the region. Officials responsible for orchestrating the conflict since 2003 also appear to fear that a major body of UN troops in Darfur itself might eventually enforce International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments, although it is not obvious why that risk should be decisively greater for them with an extended UNMIS deployment than it is with the present one.
In responding to this rejection, full-scale non-consensual military intervention by the international community is not at this stage a defensible or realistic option. But it may be possible to persuade the NCP to alter its policies and consent to the UN mission in Darfur by moving now to targeted sanctions against regime leaders and their business interests – and immediately planning for the establishment and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Darfur that builds on the ineffective ban on offensive military flights the Security Council imposed in 2005. International support for the role of the ICC should be again clearly expressed, with the Court in turn declaring its intention to focus immediately on any war crimes or crimes against humanity committed during the current government offensive.

MERIP has just released "Illusions of Unilateralism Dispelled in Israel," by Yoav Peled:

Israel’s failures in the Lebanon war signified the divorce of two political objectives -- economic liberalization and war -- that Sharon had managed to wed though they had been believed, historically, to be at odds. Sharon’s ability to defeat the second intifada while pursuing a policy of aggressive economic liberalization made him Israel’s most popular prime minister since the introduction of public opinion polls in the late 1960s (well after Ben-Gurion’s time). But the mechanism for this seemingly historic achievement, the promised unilateral solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was actually sleight of hand. And the Lebanon war, coupled with the summer’s events in Gaza, exposed the trick.

Finally, while it isn't brand new it is very much worth reading:  ""Xenophobia and In-Group Solidarity in Iraq: A Natural Experiment on the Impact of Insecurity", by Mansoor Moaddel,  Mark Tessler and Ronald Inglehart.  In the current issue of Perspectives on Politics,  available for download in PDF format here.

Comments

[Dubaiwalla]

Could a separate RSS feed for Qahwa Sada be set up?

[the aardvark]

There already is one - just use the whole URL: http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/qahwa_sada

It does work for me in Bloglines, at least, in xml

[Batir]

I would have loved it if you took a deeper cut at the Morocco study. I think Morocco is a very promosing lab for experimenting Arab democracy the constitutional monarchy way. I have been there in June and found a cery politically conducive environment. Some newspapers were openly questioning the King and the political spectrum is in full colors. I am confident Morocco will take further steps to be the 3rd democratic country in the Arab World after Lebanon and Algeria.

[The Lounsbury]

Algeria? Are you smoking crack? Algeria?

Algeria is not a democratic state.

Lebanon is hardly a real democracy either, but one can forgive the abuse of the term in its context. Algeria, however....

Morocco is an interesting place in terms of political development, but there are lots of signs the political liberalisation is running out of steam and the Makhzen is reasserting itself.

Still, they have taken many steps forward. A digestion period would be normal.

[Batir]

Lounsbury my definition for democratic countries is very simple: it is a state that has ex-presidents that are still living after being removed from power in a democratic way. Do you have other examples in the Arab World. By the way, Crack is another form of social democracy present in Morocco!

[The Lounsbury]

Your definition is simple bordering on retarded.

Bouteflika and Zeroual were 'elected' under conditions that only a delusional fool would call genuinely democratic, nor does the Algerian state bear any resemblance to a democracy. Quite the contrary, with the shadowy military junta(s) in the background, one can never get straight answers from civil authorities and it is clear that decision making has nothing to do with formal civilian structures as such.

Algeria is a democracy only if your definition includes Left 'People's Democracies' / Dictatorships and Right autocracies dressed up as democracies (as in Mubarek's Egypt).

[alle]

Wouldn't something like this make for a good post here or at Aqoul or other MENA blogs, though? A kind of commented top list of the most/least democratic MENA countries -- or, perhaps easier to qualify, where the press is more/less free?

That is already done at www.freedomhouse.org and www.rsf.org and by other such democracy watchdog groups, but I for one would like to see some input from people who actually live in the region, speak the language/s, read the press on a daily basis, are familiar with the political "red lines" of each country, etc -- that gives a better understanding of the real situation than just counting the number of journalists in jail.