Re-thinking Middle Eastern democracy: lessons from ancient Mesopotamia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Engaging "Primitive Democracy," Mideast Roots of Collective Governance
Middle East Policy, 2007
Many of the works on Middle Eastern democracy, whether from the neo-Orientalist camp or from those who avidly detail and support the region’s democratic developments, are based on a Western conception of democracy. This is the result of a discursive lineage that has its antecedents in the erroneous belief that democracy miraculously sprang out of Greek civilization in the fifth century B.C. This superior system of governance was later utilized by the Roman Empire and arguably gave rise to those great moments in the construction and propagation of Western civilization. Democracy, in its modern, representative form, resurfaced later as a result of the major social upheavals that transformed Europe and America during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, many of the scientific methods, literary motifs and political systems that have formed the major cultural discourses of Western civilization ironically have their origins in the ancient Afro-Asiatic world. By placing the emphasis on the common heritage of both parts of wider Eurasia in the urban revolution of the Bronze Age, these scholars are not only able to undo the longstanding binaries between East and West, but are also able to gain new insights into the origins of some of humankind’s greatest achievements. Specifically, as is detailed below, these achievements include the earliest political mechanisms for human governance, “primitive democracy.”
The Middle East's Democracy Deficit in Comparative Perspective
Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 2007
The Middle East's democracy deficit is a product of the patterns of political and economic development in the region. It is not because the region is predominantly Islamic or is somehow afflicted by purportedly undemocratic cultures. By itself, culture is not an impediment to transition to democracy as it is subject to influences from the larger polity, especially insofar as the economy and the initiatives of the state are concerned. Instead, transition to democracy is determined by the degree of society's autonomy from the state. This autonomy may result from the empowerment of society as a consequence of economic development, or the state elite's devolution of power to social actors and classes, or, more commonly, a combination of both. Assumptions about the inherently undemocratic nature of cultures such as Islamic and Confucian ones are fundamentally invalid. The key to understanding democratic transitions lies instead in the nature of state-society relations rather ...
2010
Essays collected in this volume explores different aspects of democracy in lsrael, Jordan and Turkey. Procedura! democracy may be viewed as consisting of two fundamental dimensions: political participation of citizens and social groups and competitiveness amongst politica I actors. Both of them may be discussed on the level of political institutions and political behavior of certain actors. Two Middle Eastern democracies - lsrael and Turkey as well as pluralized autocracy-Jordan, despite significant differences, share some similar problems concerning limits of political participation and fears of restricted competitiveness. Those dilemmas of democracy in the Middle East have been extensively discussed in this volume.
Democracy in Iraq: History, Politics, Discourse
Routledge, 2012
This book proposes a significant reassessment of the history of Iraq, documenting democratic experiences from ancient Mesopotamia through to the US occupation. Such an analysis takes to task claims that the 'West' has a uniquely democratic history and a responsibility to spread democracy across the world. It also reveals that Iraq has a democratic history all of its own, from ancient Middle Eastern assemblies and classical Islamic theology and philosophy, through to the myriad political parties, newspapers and protest movements of more recent times. This book argues that the democratic history of Iraq could serve as a powerful political and discursive tool where the Iraqi people may come to feel a sense of ownership over democracy and take pride in endorsing it. This could go a long way towards mitigating the current conflicts across the nation and in stabilizing and legitimating its troubled democracy. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and referring to some of the most influential critical theorists to question ideological assumptions about democracy and its history, this book will be useful to those interested in political and legal history, human rights and democracy.Reviews: 'This book is a serious and in-depth reading of Iraqi political history. Isakhan's argument, bolstered by an impressive array of source material, is a direct affront to the use of violence to impose a wholesale American "democracy" on a society that has its own rich history of egalitarian and collective forms of governance.' Muhsin Al-Musawi, Columbia University, USA 'Democracy in Iraq expertly excavates democratic traditions that have long been buried in Western Orientalism and Bathist totalitarianism. In demonstrating that a will towards collective and participatory governance has existed over the centuries, Benjamin Isakhan rescues assessments for Iraqi democratisation from the kind of negative determinism, deracinated from history and local culture, that has dominated scholarly and policy debates.' James Piscatori, Durham University, UK
The Arab World and The Politics of Democracy
The Middle East has become simultaneously the world's most controversial, crisis-ridden, and yet least-understood region. Taking new perspectives on the area that has undergone the most dramatic changes, the Middle East. Following the Arab Spring that struck the Middle East like wire fire starting from Tunisia then Egypt, followed suit by Libya then