Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Elsewhere Can Teach Us about the Prospects for Arab Democracy
    Unavailable
    Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Elsewhere Can Teach Us about the Prospects for Arab Democracy
    Unavailable
    Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Elsewhere Can Teach Us about the Prospects for Arab Democracy
    Ebook414 pages6 hours

    Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Elsewhere Can Teach Us about the Prospects for Arab Democracy

    By Stephen R. Grand

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Amid the current turmoil in the Middle East, Understanding Tahrir Square sounds a rare optimistic note. Surveying countries in other parts of the world during their transitions to democracy, author Stephen Grand argues that the long-term prospects in many parts of the Arab world are actually quite positive. If the current polarization and political violence in the region can be overcome, democracy will eventually take root. The key to this change will likely be ordinary citizensforemost among them the young protestors of the Arab Spring who have filled the region's public spacesmost famously, Egypt's Tahrir Square.

    The book puts the Arab Spring in comparative perspective. It reveals how globalization and other changes are upending the expectations of citizens everywhere about the relationship between citizen and state. Separate chapters examine the experiences of countries in the former Eastern bloc, in the Muslim-majority states of Asia, in Latin America, and in Sub-Saharan Africa during the recent Third Wave of democratization. What these cases show is that, at the end of the day, democracy requires democrats.

    Many complex factors go into making a democracy successful, such as the caliber of its political leaders, the quality of its constitution, and the design of its political institutions. But unless there is clear public demand for new institutions to function as intended, political leaders are unlikely to abide by the limits those institutions impose. If American policymakers want to support the brave activists struggling to bring democracy to the Arab world, helping them cultivate an effective political constituency for democracyin essence, growing the Tahrir Square baseshould be the lodestar of U.S. assistance.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrookings Institution Press
    Release dateApr 10, 2014
    ISBN9780815725176
    Unavailable
    Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Elsewhere Can Teach Us about the Prospects for Arab Democracy

    Related to Understanding Tahrir Square

    Related ebooks

    Political Ideologies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How to Make Change, Slowly

      Apr 19, 2022

      How to Make Change, Slowly
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Lost Boys

      Nov 14, 2017

      The Lost Boys
      9 min read

    • Article

      Pankaj Mishra: We Committed Intellectual Suicide After 9/11

      Mar 20, 2017

      Historian and intellectual Pankaj Mishra’s latest book Age of Anger: A History of the Present, published earlier this month, presents what Mishra calls “an emotional history” at a time of “worldwide emergency” when rage fills the global political sph

      6 min read

    • Article

      What Universities Owe to the Liberal Project

      Jan 25, 2023

      We live in an era fraught with challenge. From a global pandemic to rising authoritarianism and a European war, the world is as fundamentally unsettled as it has been in nearly a century. Domestically, Americans face rising levels of polarization and

      14 min read

    • Article

      Who Made You King Of Everything? Angela Saini On The Origins Of Patriarchy

      Mar 4, 2023

      On the day Angela Saini talks to me from her book-lined study in New York, the patriarchy is hard at work all over the world. Anti-abortion protestors are getting ready to march on the Supreme Court in Washington, the Metropolitan police force is cau

      7 min read

    • Article

      Unintended Consequences

      May 29, 2022

      Unintended Consequences
      10 min read

    • Article

      Rediscovering Trans History

      Jun 15, 2023

      Rediscovering Trans History
      9 min read

    • Article

      In Charlottesville, White Nationalists Try To Seize An Elusive Spotlight

      Aug 13, 2017

      This weekend's "Unite The Right" rally in Virginia, which brought together white supremacists and far-right groups, is part of an ongoing campaign to move their cause out of the shadows.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Message Man

      Jun 14, 2023

      The Message Man
      14 min read

    • Article

      Alt-right Finds New Partners In Hate On China’s Internet

      Sep 11, 2021

      In the early days of the 2016 US election campaign, Fang Kecheng, a former journalist at the liberal-leaning Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly and then a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, began fact-checking Donald Trump’s statements on

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Path Forward

      May 11, 2023

      The Path Forward
      5 min read

    Reviews for Understanding Tahrir Square

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words