Why Some Muslim Countries Are Democracies and Some Are Not

The transitions to democracy in Tunisia and Egypt shortly after the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring, and subsequently in Libya, provide an opportunity to test the empirical validity of the conventional wisdom that democracy cannot be established and sustained in Muslim countries. This article undertakes this task through a systematic comparative analysis of 56 countries classified as Muslim countries by virtue of their membership in the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). It first maps variations in the incidence of democracy among the 56 Muslim countries based on the widely used Freedom House Rating (FHR, www.freedomhouse.org) of countries into “Free,” “Partly Free” and “Not Free.” It then presents the results of regression analyses to illustrate the importance of cross-national variations in (1) religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity, and (2) the political institutionalization of religion to explain why some Muslim countries are democracies and some are not

After Desert Storm...Desert Dilemmas?

The “desert storm” has passed, but the Middle East remains suspended in the vortex of turbulent changes engendered by global and regional pressures. Stemming from the region\u27s historical geopolitical significance, global pressures in the form of Western involvement have stimulated rapid economic development, irreversible social changes and unstable political modernization, transforming the Middle East in uneven and unpredictable ways. Even while attempting to advance the prosperity of their peoples, Middle Eastern nations have sought to preserve their individual cultural identities in the face of relentless external pressures and the fundamental changes they have wrought. In the process, their social fabric and body politic have been riven with deep-seated tensions

How context mediates the effects of electoral institutions on the structure of party systems in Africa's emerging democracies

Do electoral institutions in Africa’s emerging democracies impact the strategic coordination among voters, candidates and parties and shape the structure of party systems independently or are their effects mediated by contextual variables? The paper attempts to answer this question through analysis of systematic data on 99 national legislative elections held under 55 electoral systems in 37 countries. Specifically, it examines how two contextual variables – (1) institutional variables related to presidential elections and (2) patterns of ethnopolitical fragmentation and concentration – mediate the direct effects of electoral institutions on the structure (degree of fragmentation or concentration) of party systems. Regression analysis shows that electoral institutions have negligible independent effects, while contextual variables independently and interactively with each other and with electoral institutions account for the largest amount of variance on the degree of fragmentation or concentration of party systems. The conclusion discusses the implications of the results for the consolidation of Africa’s emerging democracies in the context of ethnopolitical diversit

How context mediates the effects of electoral institutions on the structure of party systems in Africa\u27s emerging democracies

Do electoral institutions in Africa’s emerging democracies impact the strategic coordination among voters, candidates and parties and shape the structure of party systems independently or are their effects mediated by contextual variables? The paper attempts to answer this question through analysis of systematic data on 99 national legislative elections held under 55 electoral systems in 37 countries. Specifically, it examines how two contextual variables – (1) institutional variables related to presidential elections and (2) patterns of ethnopolitical fragmentation and concentration – mediate the direct effects of electoral institutions on the structure (degree of fragmentation or concentration) of party systems. Regression analysis shows that electoral institutions have negligible independent effects, while contextual variables independently and interactively with each other and with electoral institutions account for the largest amount of variance on the degree of fragmentation or concentration of party systems. The conclusion discusses the implications of the results for the consolidation of Africa’s emerging democracies in the context of ethnopolitical diversity

A research strategy for analyzing the colonial state in Africa

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 128This paper presents a research strategy which can usefully be employed to advance the systematic analysis and understanding of the colonial state in Africa. The proposed research strategy is guided by the analytical concerns of comparative social science, especially those contained in the recent scholarship on the state and its role in society. These concerns are described in the first section of the paper. The research strategy also builds upon the paradigms and approaches to the state and state-society relations contained in the extant literature. These are critically reviewed in the next section of the paper. The substantive elements of the research strategy are then elucidated in the rest of the paper