A review of Islam and Democracy, by John L. Esposito and John O. Voll.
About the Author
Ibrahim Karawan is director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah, where he teaches international politics. From 1995 to 1997, he was a senior fellow and directing staff member at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. He is the author of The Islamist Impasse (1997).
How well-founded are Western concerns that the nascent parliaments of Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain will be captured by antidemocratic Islamists and lead to the ‘Talibanization’ of the Gulf?
Basic demographic and socioeconomic factors in Iran are favorable to democratization. The mullahs may hope to stave off democratic change by emulating the Chinese model, but this strategy is doomed…
