Arab Democracy/Democratization Study Group
مجموعة بحوث الديمقراطية العربية
The Arab Democracy/Democratization Study Group (ADSG) places high premium on comparative analysis of democratization experiments and attendant thought, with special reference to cross-regional learning and theorizing within the broad field of transitology. To this end, the research interests of participants, practitioners and scholars engage with the diverse contexts of democratic transition, politically, intellectually, institutionally, socially, and culturally. Whilst experience of emancipatory struggles and of transition (North and South) frames the study group’s activities and debates, the relevant literature produced provide additional frames of reference and knowledge to draw on in its activities. Of particular interest of the ADSG participants, researchers and scholars is to inject new life in considerations of how to re-focus or reinterpret democratization as a way to cultivate a dialogue between knowledge-making traditions, trends of thought and practice, histories of democratization, modalities of institution-building, and modes of scholarship across multiple boundaries of time and space.
The presentations, attendant discussions, and publications of the ADSG aim to develop critical thinking through collaborative inquiry, and to sharpen skills through comparisons, reflection and cross-cultural pollination. These activities use evidence from individual and group research to stimulate intellectual curiosity about relevant questions on diverse themes of democratic transition ranging from ‘autocratization’, trust, social capital, free and fair elections, democratic resilience, citizenship, to the reliability of various types of democratic systems.
Among other things, our workshops and discussions aim to brainstorm on:
1. Old and contemporary brands of democratic transition, using examples from the Global North and the Global South, seeking discussions and comparisons of acts, actions and actors involved in the defence of democracy and democratization or, alternatively, the disruption democracy and democratization.
2. Connections between democratic and autocratic orders, and between and within the broad the spectrum of theories and practices of democratization.
3. The interface between diverse intellectual traditions and scholarships of democratization, including the paradigmatic texts and minds of democratic transition and those pushing lines of thought contra to the reigning wisdom of Euro-American transitology.
4. Emerging intellectual and practical directions in the relevant fields of knowledge.
5. Exploration of the enabling ‘stories’ and struggles of democracy in the Global North as well in the Global South. Comparison of models of democratic resilience speaks to a global moment of democratic backsliding, across the board. So-called democratic consolidation calls, in this context, for critical assessment. How civic struggles and civil societies mobilize for and invest in capacity building and anti-authoritarian knowing calls for scholarly attention. Learning about and comparing good practices of democratic resilience in Africa, MENA, Latin America, Asia and consolidated democracies is imperative as democracy and democratization come under increased pressure from national and international structures of power.
6. Interpretations of fledgeling processes of democratization as partly cultural and moral projects inscribing the state and the nation. They are thus voices, discourses and forces aiming to re-ignite the quest for equal citizenship, reimagining emancipatory futures and the overall normative agenda of social justice in formerly colonized communities.
7. Reflections on democratization and migratory movements are complexly interconnected, as political instability from democratic backsliding can cause emigration, while immigration can strain democratic institutions in host countries. Migration can also foster democratization by sending back pro-democratic norms and resources like remittances, though the effects are complex and can be offset by a 'political brain drain'.
8. Exploration of the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI), positive and negative, and democracies such as those in the MENA region raises serious questions about future opportunities and risks. The impact of AI on governmentality and governance, civil and political rights, equal citizenship, privacy, the public sphere in its entirety, and the sphere of power, call for continuous scholarly assessment of the extent to which technology promotes and demotes emancipatory futures and strengthens or weakens democratic resilience.
9. Assessing the ‘dictator’s learning curve’ in MENA polities and examining the extent to which ruling elites adopt sophisticated and technological, subtle methods of control in a bid to ride the new politics of popular protest and resistance politics from below – instead of recourse to old oppressive means of control reminiscent of authoritarian regimes like those ousted in the 2011 wave of Arab Spring uprisings.
10. Analysis of the relationship of established and incipient democracies with the environment.
The complexity of such relationship is a mix of opportunities and challenges. Democratic governance, in theory at least, should foster environmental protection through accountability, civic participation, and access to information. However, in practice the environment under both authoritarian and democratic rule faces problems (these include corruption, policy capture through mechanisms like lobbying, political donations, and the “revolving door” whereby officials move between government and industry) and difficulty addressing long-term issues like climate change.
10. Re-focus the research on the nexus of Islamism and politics within the MENA region and beyond. On the research agenda are variables that go beyond political Islam’s supposed inhospitality to democratization. Variables such as monarchies, military rule, Western-centric political trends of thought and political practice, and overall democratic backsliding may all be more significant obstacles to democratization in Arab states. The extent to which state-led democratization opens spaces for limited inclusiveness of select Islamists whilst using the very process as a tactic to exclude other actors, Islamist and secularist is an interesting question.
Comparative study of case studies from MENA and regions (e.g. Africa and Asia) can widen the research canvass, zooming on the importance of rule-based institutions and established democratic rules in encouraging Islamist groups to moderate their politics and become habituated democratically into systemic stakeholders. Political Islam and democratization are not single or fixed; interpretation and critical assessment of the complex relationship between Islamist movements and democratic transitions are lines of analysis worthy of nuanced study in the face of realities such as the staying power of authoritarian tactics vis-à-vis the popular mobilization of the past 15 years or more. Another question worth pursuing is whether there is an alignment between activism, political Islam, and democratic resilience.
11. Examination of 'democratization by default', in those instances when major powers and even regional hegemons invest in resources other than overt democracy promotion policies to cause regime change through domestic collapse. Often this type of change occurs through covert support of opposition groups, use of economic pressure such as sanctions, or manipulation of local political dynamics to destabilize a government. Powerful global actors may also work with internal actors, like the military, to facilitate a coup, though these methods remain largely stealth and are thus difficult to prove. In this regard, 'democratization from without' has wide consequences for people-led reform and can potentially exacerbate democratic backsliding.
12. Consideration of the political economy of democratization is equally on the radar of students of transitions. The aim here is to examine the interplay between economic structures and political transitions toward good government. The analytical agenda here is two-fold. One line of investigation zooms on the extent to which economic development, or lack thereof, can impact a state's ability to complete democratic transition and sustain it. How democratic governance can influence economic outcomes like growth, development, social justice, welfare distribution and public resource allocation, for example, matters. A second line of inquiry looks at how economic systems can be reshaped to align with democratic principles, thus moving beyond issues of political structures to questions of participatory citizenry and equitable society.