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The Inclusion Imperative (1996 MESA Presidential Address)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Farhad Kazemi
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Extract

A puzzling issue for those of us who study the modern Middle East is the slow—and in some instances nonexistent—progress toward more open and inclusive political systems. Why does authoritarianism persist in the Middle East? Why have regimes in many parts of the world, from East Europe to Latin America and elsewhere, made successful transitions from authoritarianism while the Middle East has lagged behind? Is the Middle Eastern exceptionalism likely to endure?

What makes these questions more paradoxical is the presence of a number of democrats and reformers in the Middle East, as well as human rights organizations and civic groups, that attempt to provide a check on abuses of power and try to promote political reform. Moreover, there are regimes such as Israel and Turkey where democratic political systems, with limitations, exist and function reasonably successfully. Although in a few other polities (Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Kuwait, and so on) semi-regular competitive elections for high offices are held, exclusionary tactics are used routinely to keep some individuals and groups from becoming active players in the political arena.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , December 1996 , pp. 147 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America 1996

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References

1 This presentation is part of a larger research project on political reform in the Middle East in which Augustus Richard Norton and I are currently engaged. I thank both Dick Norton and Ali Banuazizi for critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

2 Hardin, Russell. One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 73.Google Scholar See also Hardin, Russell, “Norms of Exclusion and Difference,” Working Paper #39, Russell Sage Foundation, May 1993. p. 1.Google Scholar

3 See Hardin, , One For All, pp. 74–77.Google Scholar

4 Kazemi, Farhad & Norton, Augustus Richard, “Civil Society, Political Reform, and Authoritarianism in the Middle East: A Response,” Contention 5 (Winter 1996): 111.Google Scholar See the original argument in Crystal’s, Jill “Authoritarianism and Its Adversaries in the Arab World,” World Politics 46 (January 1994): 262–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Mosca, Gaetano. The Ruling Class. Edited with an Introduction by Livingston, Arthur. Translated by Kahn, Hannah (New York: McGraw Hill, 1939), p. 71.Google Scholar

6 For detailed information on these and following items, see UNDP, Human Development Report 1996 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

7 Dryzek, John S.. “Political Inclusion and the Dynamics of Democratization,” American Political Science Review 90 (September 1996): 482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 For this section on Hizballah, I have borrowed from an unpublished paper by Norton, Augustus Richard, “Hizballah: From Radicalism to Pragmatism?” (1996).Google Scholar

9 Putnam, Robert. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

10 Gaffney, Patrick. The Prophet’s Pulpit: Islamic Preaching in Contemporary Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar