The year 2001 saw modest gains in the strengthening and consolidation of democracy worldwide, but in predominantly Muslim countries—especially the Arab states—the status of freedom and democracy lags far behind the rest of the world.
About the Author
Adrian Karatnycky is counselor and senior scholar at Freedom House and serves as the senior analyst of its annual survey.
Middle Eastern autocracies rely ever more on repression of both their Islamist and secular critics, and therefore increasingly fear that any opening will be uncontrollable. Is there a way out?
After almost ten years of complex and costly efforts to build democracy in these two countries, where do things stand? What lay behind the critical choices that shaped events in…
