Making the World Safe for Partial Democracy? Questioning the Premises of Democracy Promotion

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur A. Goldsmith

Democracy promotion is a favored strategy to advance the cause of world peace, especially in the Greater Middle East, but undifferentiated democracy promotion has two faulty premises. First, all progress toward the establishment of democratic regimes does not necessarily make the global community safer. Second, regime change is not something external actors have the capacity to direct along desired pathways. The first assumption fails to consider the well-documented security problems caused by partial democracies. The second assumption overstates the ability of powerful outsiders to induce transitions to full democracy. These research findings are grounds for cautious and selective democracy promotion, not a blanket approach that is indifferent to the composition of the regimes designated to be reformed and democratized.

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianni Del Panta

AbstractWhilst much of the contemporary debate on regime change remains concentrated on transitions to and from democracy, this paper focuses on autocracy-to-autocracy transitions, a relatively understudied but particularly relevant phenomenon. Building on an updated typology of non-democratic regimes and through a qualitative case-by-case assessment, the present paper identifies 21 transitions from one dictatorship to another, out of 32 cases of autocratic breakdown during the 2000–15 period. Hence, after the fall of a dictatorship, the installation of a new authoritarian regime was almost twice as likely as democratization. Accordingly, the paper focuses on the 21 recorded autocracy-to-autocracy transitions and examines in which non-democratic regimes a transition from an autocracy to another is more likely to occur, which peculiar forms of authoritarian rule tend to be installed, and the specific ways in which the dismantling of the previous existing authoritarian rule is achieved.


Author(s):  
Herbert S. Klein ◽  
Sergio T. Serrano Hernández

AbstractTraditional historical literature has stressed a generalised crisis throughout the world in the 17th century. First proposed for Europe with its numerous dynastic, religious and state conflicts, it has now been expanded to include Asia and the Middle East as well. It was also assumed that there was a significant crisis in the Americas, a theme which until recently has dominated the traditional literature. The claim that there was such a crisis was based on a series of classic studies by Earl J. Hamilton, Chaunu and Borah, among others. But new research has challenged this hypothesis and we will examine both these new studies as well as offering our own research findings on this subject.


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ged F. Williams ◽  
Wilson Cañón Montañez

<h5><span>As the global community becomes overwhelmed by conflict, threat and scandal in many countries it is heartening to find that many of us can still find opportunity to give generously to the betterment of humanity.</span></h5><div><h5><span>Recently we have both had our share of fun and excitement working and learning in various regions of the world, Ged in the Middle East and Africa and Wilson in the USA, The Netherlands and Brazil.</span></h5><h5><span>We are often asked “how do you develop an international perspective”? The short answer is that it is an insidious accident sometimes, however like many things a deeper analysis reveals a journey that is often planned and other times blessed by unexpected surprises. However a sense of openness, generosity and adventure is always necessary to maximise every opportunity.</span></h5><h5><span>Among other things, Ged allocated time to travel and to visit hospitals and nurses in other parts of Australia and the world, listening to people’s stories, dreams, and aspirations and providing reciprocal encouragement and fellowship, often through interpreters.</span><span style="font-size: 0.83em;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10px;">(Rev Cuid 2013; 4(1):433-6).</span></h5><div><em><br /></em></div></div>


2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Nardin

Fernando Tesón offers two “humanitarian rationales” for the war in Iraq. The first, which he calls the “narrow” rationale, is that the war was fought to overthrow a tyrant. The second, “grand,” rationale is that it was fought as part of a strategy for defending the United States by establishing democratic regimes in the Middle East and throughout the world–peacefully, if possible, but by force if necessary. Both rationales strain the traditional understanding of humanitarian intervention.


2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 1353-1375
Author(s):  
Benjamin Miller

Abstract How did the attempt to make the world more liberal end up making the West less liberal? Following the end of the Cold War the US tried to promote liberalism in various parts of the world. This promotion took place under the liberal belief in its universality. A few of these attempts succeeded, most notably the integration of China into the global economy. Many other liberalizing endeavours failed, notably democracy-promotion in China, Russia and the Middle East. Yet, both the successes and the failures resulted in the rise of illiberal elements in the West as reflected in Brexit and Trumpism. The article shows how the outcomes of the attempts at liberalization—both the failures and the successes—generated these populist forces. The Chinese economic success took place at least partly because of the US-led integration of China into the international order. Yet, this success produced adverse economic effects in the West. Such outcomes led to the rise of economic populism. The American liberal interventions in the Middle East affected the rise of terrorism and of Muslim migration to the West. These developments influenced the rise of cultural populism in the West, which advances resentment of foreigners, migrants and minorities.


Author(s):  
E. Ustinov

The article considers cardinal changes and the new power balance in the Greater Middle East which is one of key regions of the world. Special attention is paid to the role of the external actors, primarily to the USA which substantially influences the processes in the regions. The author proposes an in-depth analysis of modern approaches and instruments used by Washington for benefitting from its political and military presence in the region. In this context the utilization of the ethno-confessional factor is studied in details, in particular the execution of HTS program.


Author(s):  
David J. Neumann

This chapter explores Yogananda’s growing status as a global spiritual authority and a divine figure. The chapter begins by placing Yogananda in the context of religious internationalism, a subset of interwar cultural internationalism driven by concerns for world peace. It details his use of East-West as a vehicle for a cosmopolitan spiritual vision. An extravagant worldwide journey in 1935-36 from California to England, the Continent, the Middle East, and ultimately to his home city of Calcutta solidified his reputation as a “global guru.” The chapter also explores his syncretism, through his lengthy exegesis of New Testament gospel narratives that transformed the story of Jesus and his teachings into a revelation of yogic truth that hinted at Yogananda’s own divine identity. But it was the 1946 Autobiography of a Yogi that firmly established Yogananda’s reputation as a guru to the world. An analysis of this text’s structural features reveals it to be a new scripture, designed to inculcate belief in the spiritual world Yogananda evoked and a hagiography of the yogi who wrote it.


1965 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 749-763
Author(s):  
J. C. Hurewitz

In the first dozen years of the UN's existence Middle East disputes came before the Security Council and appeared on the agenda of the General Assembly with greater frequency than did disputes in any other region of the world. Thereafter the Middle East did not always occupy the center of the UN's peacekeeping stage. Yet as recent developments in the Arab-Israeli area and in Cyprus and Yemen disclose, the Middle East remains a region of deep restiveness that continues to threaten world peace and security. Every regular session of the General Assembly, except the first session in 1946, has considered Middle East items. Two special sessions dealt with the Palestine problem, and two emergency sessions handled the Suez and Lebanese crises. The Security Council has turned to the Palestine problem or its lineal descendant, the Arab-Israeli dispute, at approximately every sixth meeting.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Dadi Herdiansah

One of the information spread about the arrival of the Mahdi priest was that he led the war troops by carrying a black banner from the east. This information comes from several histories in several hadith books. Pro contra has occurred in response to this history. The Muslim groups who believe in the truth of this black banner tradition have flocked from all corners of the world to the Middle East conflict area which is believed and believed there is a group of mujahids carrying black banner as mentioned by the hadith. Even in the conflict area there was mutual claim between the factions that their faction was mentioned by the hadith carrying its black banner, so that even from one another, civil war was not inevitable in some places. But what is the origin of the hadith? This note is the adoptive writer to criticize the hadith by issuing all of his paths with the takhrīj al-hadīth method, Jarh wa ta'dīl and ‘Ilalu al-hadīth.


This book critically reflects on the failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. The book argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq War and denying their connection to contemporary events could mean that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.


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