Democratization in Gulf Monarchies: A New Challenge to the GCC

Dr. Kéchichian is the author of Succession in Saudi Arabia (Palgrave, 2001; Beirut and London: Dar Al Saqi, 2003 [in Arabic]); Oman and the World: The Emergence of an Independent Foreign Policy (RAND, 1995); and coauthor, with R. Hrair Dekmejian, of The Just Prince: A Manual of Leadership (London: Saqi Books, 2003). His most recent study, Succession in Arab Monarchies , written under a Smith Richardson Foundation grant, is forthcoming in 2005.     

Islamism,Pluralism and the Palestine Question: The Case of Hizbullah

The political vocabulary of the Lebanese Islamist party and militia Hizbullah in relation to pluralism exhibits an important self-contradiction. In Lebanon, Hizbullah has adapted to a process of national integration after 15 years of civil war, and appears as much more positive towards pluralism now than in 1985, when it made itself known officially. However, the Palestinian resistance struggle constitutes an ever more important part of the party's political and religious identity, and in this area the party relies on a vocabulary of absolute and religiously motivated conflict. Hizbullah has made the Palestine Question into a religious absolute at the same time as it connects this question to the issue of national unity in Lebanon, questioning the patriotic credibility of every Lebanese who disagrees with it on this issue. Consequently, a conflict-oriented vocabulary ‘colonizes’ Hizbullah's more tolerant and pluralist vocabulary within Lebanon, thus hindering a further development of pluralist attitudes.     

Islam,Islamism, and Post‐Islamism: Rediscovering Politics after the War on Terror

Over the past twenty years, an influential body of conservative scholarship has focused on the alleged conflict between Islam and the West. Following widespread criticism of this scholarship, a number of commentators have revived its core assumptions to claim that the real conflict is between liberal democracy within Muslim societies and the political ideology of Islamism. In this article we trace the evolution of this scholarship, and suggest that recent empirical developments in the Muslim world suggest the potential for post‐Islamist parties to successfully adapt to the demands of democratic competition within Muslim societies. In this context, the emerging conflict is not between Islam and the West, or Islamism and the West, but between two very different discursive practices within the Muslim world that invoke Islam for radically different purposes. A traveler enters the world into which he travels, but a tourist brings his own world with him and never sees the one he's in. ¹      

The Indian crisis: Muslim viewpoints

English Expansion in Iran 1914–1920. By L. I. Miroshnikov. Moscow, Academy of Sciences, 1962.     

Exclusion-moderation in the gulf context: tracing the development of pragmatic Islamism in Kuwait

While considerable existing scholarship examines the degree to which Muslim Brotherhood affiliates have toned down their religious rhetoric to compete in electoral politics, very little of that discussion centres on how Brotherhood movements react when political space narrows. Even fewer studies have examined the recent behaviour of the Brotherhood affiliate in Kuwait. In this article, we demonstrate how the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood has, in the face of increased government surveillance and restriction of political space, moderated its Islamist agenda to become part of the broader opposition agitating for structural political reforms, often at the expense of the traditional agenda of Islamizing society.     

Malaysia's Foreign Policy: The First Fifty Years: Alignment,Neutralism, Islamism

Abstract

What is the role of new media in driving political change in China? How do we understand the interaction of rapid increases in connectivity, regime censorship and democratic outcomes? This article seeks to assess the democratic implications of new media in China through the lens of three key and nested criteria derived from general theories of deliberative democracy: information access, rational-critical deliberation and mechanisms of vertical accountability. The key finding is that connectivity expands political opportunity. How this opportunity is exploited is up to users, who often vary widely in their political preferences, values, and norms of behaviour. The results are multiple mechanisms of change taking place simultaneously and the development of a more interactive and pluralistic public sphere. While China obviously still has to develop far more formalised and institutionalised mechanisms for managing state-society relations, political pluralism in the form of online deliberation might be considered a foundational condition for a more interactive and liberalised political order rooted in greater public deliberation and societal feedback. Moderate forms of discourse and societal feedback are tenuous and increasingly exist in a chaotic and diversified online discourse defined equally as much by new methods of authoritarian propaganda and virulent nationalist ideas.     

Security in the Gulf: The View from Oman

For a long time, analysts of the Middle East have justifiably focused their attention on Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, three Gulf states holding massive hydrocarbon deposits and financial resources. Their leaders are the main “movers and shakers” of regional affairs and enjoy tremendous influence on the international scene. Still, other Gulf states play significant roles in shaping the Middle East's economic and strategic landscape. Such is the case with Oman, which has been a major US ally in most regional crises and has played a crucial role in mediating Gulf conflicts. This article, based on several visits to the sultanate and interviews with senior officials, analyzes the domestic, regional, and international dynamics being navigated by Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, who succeeded Sultan Qaboos bin Said in January 2020. The argument is that the new Omani leader is likely to follow the domestic and foreign policies of his predecessor, with minor adjustments. Oman may witness major changes when Crown Prince Theyazin succeeds his father. For now, given the crucial role Muscat plays in mediating regional conflicts, the sultanate expects more attention from its counterparts in Washington.