Bad Moon Risiing, A Chronicle of the Middle East Today
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000127 |
| Author | Martin Bunton |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
that"
[i]f great numbers
of
Muslims today invoke religion rather than
democracy itself," it is because
of
"particular historical circumstances"
relating to "Muslim confrontations
with
European powers in the
nineteenth century [that] gave birth to some great and lasting misun-
derstandings" (205).
The
result, in Sivan's words, is an "impasse" in
which Islamist movements are neither capable
of
taking power by
force nor
of
transforming their attitudes towards democracy so as to
be able to bring about the reform
of
the state and society" (27).
However, this volume stresses that the real democratic blockages lie
within the regimes themselves. Brumberg, for example, argues that
"liberalized autocracies" have become a more durable type
of
political
system whose institutions, rules,
and
logic create an "interdepen-
dent," "weblike," and "adaptable ecology
of
repression, control, and
partial openness" (36). Rather than representing the starting point for
aMiddle Eastern "wave
of
democratization," these measures seemed
to have paradoxically served to consolidate authoritarian power and
even facilitate a more recent trend towards "deliberalization" in the
region, especially in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen. Indeed, so
entrenched have these regimes become that many
of
the authors in
this volume point towards sustained external pressure as being crucial
in breaking an "unvirtuous circle"
of
political change, a particularly
interesting set
of
recommendations, written, as they were, before the
us
invasion
of
Iraq and the unveiling
of
its new more interventionist
approach to the Middle East. Where the recommendations
of
these
scholars differ, however, is in their call for the promotion
of
gradual
change from within rather than the coercive imposition
of
political
change from outside.
Paul Kingston/University
of
Toronto
BAD
MOON
RISIING
AChronicle
of
the Middle East Today
Gilles Kepel, trans. PascaleGhazaleh
London: Saqi Books, 2003. 139pp, US$13.95 paper
(ISBN
0-86356-
303-1)
Gilles Kepel is chair
of
the Middle East studies program at the
Institute
of
Political Studies in Paris, and author
of
the highly
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Wintet2004-2005
297
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