FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 18, 2004
CONTACT: Maura Keaney, mkeaney@CarnegieEndowment.org, 202/939-2372

Arab Reform: Separating Rhetoric from Reality
A Hard Look at Political Reform in the Arab World

Since September 11, 2001, a new reform ferment is apparent in the Middle East. Debate about political reform in the region's media, declarations about democracy issued by civil society activists, and promises of change by Arab governments have convinced some that democratization is finally underway in the region.  A new paper by Carnegie Endowment scholar Amy Hawthorne reaches a different conclusion: “The issue of political reform has so far generated far more debate than actual democratizing change in the Arab world.”

In Political Reform in the Arab World: A New Ferment?  Hawthorne describes the internal and external pressures, including the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, that have spurred the current reform debate. She analyses the three main perspectives on reform: the liberal democratic agenda, the moderate Islamists perspective, and the modernization approach favored by Arab regimes. Hawthorne finds that a consensus is forming among the region’s political elite that reform is necessary, but there is no shared understanding of what reform means. Reformers, however, are unanimous in their “rejection of, or at best a very grudging attitude toward, the role of outsiders, especially the United States, in promoting reform.” 

Most important, "the lively, often quite far-reaching debates about reform are only palely reflected in the actual changes that have been introduced to date by Arab states," Hawthorne observes.  Arab regimes still control the agenda.  They are willing to take measures that benefit their image abroad and buy them time domestically, as long as such steps do not infringe on their own power.  The future of political reform will be determined by the ability of liberal reformers to attract popular support, by the role of moderates in Islamist movements, and by the willingness of the United States and other Western countries to press for democratic reform. 

The latest in a series by the Middle East Political Reform Initiative of the Endowment, this paper is available online at www.CarnegieEndowment.org/democracy.

Amy Hawthorne is an associate with The Middle East Political Reform Initiative (MEPRI) of the Carnegie Endowment’s Democracy and Rule of Law Project.  MEPRI offers analysis and practical experience on whether and how political reform could occur in the Arab world and what the United States and other external actors can do to encourage such change. She is also the editor of the Arab Reform Bulletin.
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