This book provides a new theory for how democracy can materialize in the Middle East, and the broader Muslim world. It shows that one pathway to democratization lays not in resolving important, but often irreconcilable, debates about the role of religion in politics. Rather, it requires that Islamists and their secular opponents focus on the concerns of pragmatic survival—that is, compromise through pacting, rather than battling through difficult philosophical issues about faith. This is the only book-length treatment of this topic, and one that aims to redefine the boundaries of an urgent problem that continues to haunt struggles for democracy in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

Except for Israel, the Middle East remains largely untouched by the democratic revolution that swept across Eastern Europe and the former USSR. This book aims to explain and analyze the reasons why despotism or religious fundamentalism continue to control the Middle Eastern countries.

The main aim of the book is to provide a forum for opinions held by Arabs who are neither Western puppets nor fanatical nationalists or Islamists, but rather academics with a vast knowledge of the Middle East as well as of the West. The authors all support the building of a democratic secular Middle East, but their writings also show that although there is no easy way to achieve this goal, neither is there any excuse for not making the attempt. Contributors: Nader Fergany author of the Arab Human Development Reports; Raymond Hinnebusch professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics, University of St. Andrews; Yezid Sayigh consultant to the international donor community in Palestine; Samir Aita Syrian scholar and dissident; Graham Usher British journalist; Hanan Rabbani Palestinian consultant for Amnesty International; Mai Yamani (Saudi Arabia) research fellow with the Middle East Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House; Fowziyah Abu-Khalid Saudi sociologist; Amal Shlash Iraq; Huda Al-Nu'aimi Iraq; Jgen S. Nielsen Professor, director of the Danish Institute in Damascus.

Popular uprisings and revolts across the Arab Middle East have often resulted in a democratic faragh or void in power. How society seeks to fill that void, regardless of whether the regime falls or survives, is the common trajectory followed by the seven empirical case studies published here for the first time. This edited volume seeks to unpack the state of the democratic void in three interrelated fields: democracy, legitimacy and social relations. In doing so, the conventional treatment of democratization as a linear, formal, systemic and systematic process is challenged and the power politics of democratic transition reassessed. Through a close examination of case studies focusing on Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, this collection introduces the reader to indigenous narratives on how power is wrested and negotiated from the bottom up. It will be of interest to those seeking a fresh perspective on democratization models as well as those seeking to understand the reshaping of the Arab Middle East in the lead-up to the Arab Spring.

The Only Democracy in the Middle East is a compelling narrative non-fiction that offers a glimpse into Israel’s backstage, behind the tinseled tourism hype and worn Zionist clichés. Centered on the life of a former IDF staff captain and Israeli electoral candidate named Shaul Elkeslasi, the book is a scathing exposé that documents his confrontation with the grim realities of Israeli political deception and abuse. In punishing detail it exposes the inner workings of a state very different from the enlightened republic Israel is thought to be—a ruthless rogue regime whose bloody machinations with the Jewish people since Zionism’s inception have been kept airtight thanks to the axiomatic claim that Israel is a democracy. In the utopia envisioned by Israeli Deep State, every citizen would be born with the knowledge that Israel’s designation as a democracy is euphemistic. However the idiosyncrasies of human nature such as they are, there will always be Israelis who believe what they are taught and entertain the offensive notion that every private citizen has the right to run for office; that government was created to serve the people; that freedom of speech is an elementary right; that freedom of religion is mandated by the rule of law. That law and rights and freedoms exist. As stride confidently into the public square, they have no idea that they’re trespassing on the private property of a mafia compound. And by the time they know, it’s too late—even to warn someone else. The present chronicle has one purpose: to expose the anarchy and moral decadence that define Israeli government today, so that the next time an Israeli citizen chooses to exercise the fundamental liberties guaranteed in a democracy, he won’t find himself in the grave with a bullet in his head.

Many residents of the Middle East - and more recently, Western powers - have placed great hope in democratization in the region. Bringing together a number of experts on the region to provide a broad ranging survey of individual countries, this book examines the experiences of activists, parties, religious groups and governments, the influences exerted on them and the difficulties involved in bringing democracy to the Middle East.

This book provides in five essays background information on some of the most current problems affecting the modern Middle East.