Category: Jordan

Arab Spring: Unfinished business or tragic legacy?

     

The uprisings of the Arab Spring seemed to represent a dramatic turning point in history, the sudden collapse of regimes and political systems few expected to be so fragile. But… Read more »

Ten years after the Arab Spring: Why democracy failed

     

A majority in nine countries across the Arab world feel they are living in significantly more unequal societies today than before the Arab spring, an era of uprisings, civil wars… Read more »

Another Arab Spring? Not if, but when

     

The social history of the MENA region is a history of social mobilization and the emergence of civil society. Across the Arab world, ordinary citizens have collectively engaged in resistance,… Read more »

Is liberal democracy resilient enough to confront current challenges?

     

Democracy is “not a one-way street,” and democratic nations can fall back into authoritarianism, according to Mike Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, and Sanford School Dean Judith Kelley. They joined moderator… Read more »

The big factor at the heart of Middle East protests

     

In the spring, major protests swept through Jordan over economic grievances and subsidy reforms. In July, protesters took to the streets in the south of Iraq, demanding that the government address persistent unemployment, underdevelopment and corruption, say… Read more »

Morocco’s ‘political earthquake’ from the people not the palace

     

Moroccans, fed up with the slow pace of social and economic progress, have been boycotting three major national companies, demonstrating that the public is increasingly taking an alternative approach to… Read more »

Middle East has ‘too much democracy’?

     

  Tunisians are aware of their country as the only one in the Arab world trying to make the Islamist–non-Islamist divide work in a genuinely democratic way, notes Thomas Carothers,… Read more »

Political Islam After the Arab Spring: Between Jihad and Democracy?

     

  Around 1,000 Indonesians, led by hardline Islamist groups, protested outside parliament on Tuesday as lawmakers approved a presidential decree banning civil organizations deemed to go against the country’s secular… Read more »

Schools of democracy: labor unions mobilize against authoritarian regimes, for basic rights

     

Reports that the Philippines’ labor movement is beginning to mobilize against President Rodrigo Duterte’s authoritarian regime are a timely reminder that unions are often in the forefront of actions to… Read more »