Transplants and also deceased kidney transplants. So, you know, theyre learning from us. Now the question is will we learn from them . Time. Okay. Thank you all for coming. Ill be over here signing books. [applause] if you would like one. [applause] on behalf of the public library, thank you again for coming, and thank you to all of you for coming and for your great questions. For more information on this system, please visit the d. C. Public library web site. Have great night. [applause] [inaudible conversations] wed like to hear from you. Tweet us your feedback, twitter. Com booktv. Larry diamond and marc plattner, the editors of democratization and authoritarianism in the arab world, along with book contributors talk about the promise of democratization in the middle east after the arab spring and the eventual backlash that took place in egypt and elsewhere. This is about an hour and 45 minutes. Good afternoon. Im marc plattner, the editor of journal of democracy and the Vice President for research and studies here at the National Endowment for democracy. Its my great pleasure to welcome all of you to todays panel is celebrating the publication of democratization and authoritarianism in the arab world, a new book edited by Larry Diamond and me and published by the Johns Hopkins university press. If im not mistaken, this is the 30th journal of democracy book that Johns Hopkins has published since the series began in 1993. These volumes, which mostly but not ebbs trucive exclusively draw upon articles that previously appeared in the journal, have addressed a very wide range of thematic and regional issues related to democratization around the world. For in hi of you who any of you who may not be familiar with the journal of democracy, its a quarterly publication sponsored by the National Endowment for democracy that has become a leading global forum for serious analysis of the problems and prospects of democracy around the world. Larry diamond, whos my also my coed to have at the editor at the journal, will serve as the moderator of todays discussion, and ill limit myself here to just a few brief remarks, mostly about the book itself. Today given the intense worldwide focus on the shattering events in ukraine, the arab world for the first time in several years is no longer at the center of attention for those who follow Global Politics or democracy. And some might even say that socalled arab spring that began early in 2011 has proven to be merely a brief eruption that left behind a great deal of violence and very little democracy. Yet it would be premature to discount the impact of the arab uprisings of recent years. Not only have they made possible the stillpromising democratic transition in tunisia and frail but still not yet aborted transition in yemen and libya, they also have changed the face of arab politics and given many arab citizens a taste of freedom that will not soon be forgotten. Regardless of how one evaluates the events of 20112013, they must be considered a critical juncture in the struggle to bring democracy to arab lands. This their regional in their regional sweep, they are rivaled only by the wave of transformations in Eastern Europe and eurasia in 198991. The journal of democracy monitored the arab uprisings and their aftermath intensively, and our book reflects the range and variety of our cover an. Its not easy, of course, for a quarterly to stay on top of rapidlyunfolding events, and we could not expect our authors unfailingly to hit a moving target. So along with some impressively prescient and accurate assessments, the book no doubt contains some judgments that now seem outdated or perhaps belied by events. In fact, one thing weve asked our panelists to do today is to reflect on how they might have altered the analyses that they contributed to book if they were rewriting their article today. But we also believe theres real value in bringing together essays that show how Key Developments in the evolution of the arab spring werer sued at the time perceived at the time they occurred. Democratization and authoritarianism in the arab world is quite large for a volume containing 29 chapters along with an introductory essay. Sixteen of these chapters consist of broad thematic essays with regionwide application that address such questions as the relation between islam and democracy, the role of islamist parties and forces, arab culture and Public Opinion and the reasons why Different Countries pursued very different paths during the arab spring. The remaining 13 chapters are devoted to case studies of individual countries with multiple chapters on egypt and tunisia and individual chapters on yemen, libya, syria, bahrain, algeria, morocco, jordan and saudi arabia. At the conclusion of todays panel, well have copies of the book available for sale at the back of the room for those who might wish to purchase one. Ill leave to larry the privilege of introducing our panelists, all of whom have contributed at least one chapter to the book. But let me say a word about larry himself. Hes one of worlds most eminent scholars of democracy. Hes senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at Stanford Universitys friedmans Foley Institute for International Studies where he directs Stanfords Center on Democracy Development and the rule of law. And he also serves with me as cochairman of the Research Council of the National Endowment for Democrats International forum for democratic studies. Before we begin, i want to call attention to the superb job that was done by the journal of democracy staff. First in editing these articles when they initially appeared in the journal, and then in preparing the book for publication. All the essays were edited east by our executive either by our executive editor, phil, whos in the back, or our senior editor, tracy brown, who im sure is here somewhere. Also in the back. And and our managing editor, brent calmer whos not here today handled the production and design of the subsequent book with his customary assurance and efficiency. And our assistant editor nate grubman played an extremely valuable role in helping to draft the introduction. So much so that larry and i agreed that he should be listed along with us as a can coauthor of that as a coauthor in of that introduction. I also want to thank melissa, jessica and dean jackson of the International Forum for democratic studies for their help this organizing todays presentation. And i also want to note the president s here today of susanne [inaudible] our book editor at Johns Hopkins university press. And those of you who are on twitter, im told, can follow this Panel Discussion and contribute to the conversation by using the hashtag ned events or by following the forum at think democracy and the endowment me democracy. And now please join he in silencing your cell phones, and im very pleased to turn the floor over to Larry Diamond. Larry . Okay. Thank you so much, marc, and thank you again to everyone who has acknowledged who was acknowledged and thanked by marc. Were very grateful to three of our authors who are agreeing to participate in this reflection on the book and where the arab world is now in the wake of this publication and in the wake of all of the developments of the last threeplus years. Im going to briefly introduce our speakers, theyll speak each for about ten minutes, and the order that ill introduce them, i may ask them a few more questions and try and get them to fight with one another intellectually, and then well have plenty of time for you to pose your questions or challenges to them and to all of us. Dan brumberg is one of our oldest in terms of longest serving [laughter] been around if more a while. In the journal of democracy. In fact, he joined our Editorial Board at a very early stage of his career and has been very influential in shaping our coverage of the Political Developments related to the arab world and to the the islamic world more broadly. Hes an associate professor of government and codirector of the ma program in democracy and governance at georgetown university. He also serves as a special adviser at the u. S. Institute of peace to isthmus limb world to its muslim world initiative. Also a longtime partner and interlocutor with the journal of democracy in our studies center here at n. E. D. Hes a senior fellow at the hudson institute. Hes a founder and coeditor of the centers Current Trends in islamist ideology, and hes taught at chicago, columbia, yale and georgetown. And bridges the worlds of intellectual life and policy and practice. Weve gotten to know this gentleman more recently, but were very excited about the work that hes doing and that hes also contributed to the journal of democracy. Hes an associate professor of Public Policy at Kennedy School of government at harvard where he teaches courses on comparative Political Institutions, democratization and middle eastern politics. His new book is just about out, right . With Cambridge University press, counting islam religion, class and elections in egypt, and hes also the author of a very widelyacclaimed book, order of conflict and violence with Cambridge University press. So ill ask you each, beginning with you, dan, to reflect on what you wrote and on the challenges of democratization and authoritarianism at this moment in the arab world. Well, there you go, larry, thank you. First i want to say i very much appreciate the opportunity to be with my old comrades and friends at this meeting and to have contributed to this volume. The list of contributors is extraordinary. h and a test toc the widening ara of scholars who are doing serious work on the arab world in the wider middle east. When we started this venture, the notion that we were going to work on the arab world seemed to be fantastic to a lot of people. And i recall back in the day 88, 89 where we had to hold meetings just to put this on the agenda and to convince people this was a credible thing that needed to be studied. And the journal was way ahead of the curve. I mean that. I mean, it really was prepared to start asking important questions long before some folk out there both in the policy and the academic world were ready to think about them seriously. So i think its a credit to the journal that is devoted so much time, attention and space. And, larry, youve done such a good job with marc in making that happen, so i really think i appreciate it, and im sure that many people in this audience who have also contributed to that effort recognize how important it was that the journal and n. E. Devaluate were so much ahead of the curve on this matter. My reputation is on the line. [laughter] and low and behold even a week before the constitution was finally agreed on submit patent. This may sound somewhat selfserving, but the analytical from marquette tried to set out in that article is of remark that i think i am more convinced than ever, i have to say, is a useful way to think about the challenges of moving from what i call authoritarian, wreckage, protection rackets. Democratic governments. And the paradigm itself focuses on the than amoco conflict and identity in our political systems. That paradigm is by no means limited to. Does this look at ukraine remember i think the issues of identity conflict are especially pressing in the arab world for a variety of reasons and is not solved and that we expected in the sense that when we both started in tunisia in the rural area, not part of the metropolitan capital but the rural areas, it was about a revolt searching for social and economic equality and dignity. And so many of the initial slogans in the rebellion not only in todays economic prefer the notion of arab political rebellions, as well as egypt and elsewhere, these were in part or in large measure initially about issues of economic and social injustice and dignity in things like that. A long piece some months ago about the intersection and syria between the issue of water and scarcity and the environment and the rest of it and have that played a Critical Role in the revolt in syria. People were sort of caught on aware by the extent to which the issue of identity and politics has loomed so large. I used the term deliberately because i do not think the issue, as i have written in the past, a piece from two or three years ago, maybe more called islam is not the solution the problem and argue that the issue is much more about how different segments of these communities with different identity perris can learn to live to greater activity of a democratically as opposed to having a peaceful coexistence are not so peaceful coexistence and out toward teheran system and that think therefore that the identity issue looms large but many people were surprised by it. Remember that there was a piece written about six months ago when he said, he was shocked at the issue of secular islamist conflict in egypt loomed so large. My gosh, this is a man who knows the job well. But, you know, sometimes it is not easy to sort of stand back and see the terrain which was very much organized. The reason why it was not so surprising, the fact that things shifted so quickly from right focus on social and Economic Justice and dignity to a struggle over identity is that the political systems had, in large part, been organized around what i call protection racket systems in which the government regimes backed by Strong Military in many cases provided social and economic protection to vulnerable mile minorities are communities in return for their acquiescence to power. And that sort of relationship, which i would call a long time ago in a ruling bargain, that kind of relationship meant that in many respects the dynamics of identity conflict was institutionalized deeply before political roles exploded on to the arena and deeply embedded them on contesting political leaks to do the did not necessarily have linkages to other social groups. So when the lead politics shifted it shifted from the context of that protection rackets system. Did not necessarily at all transcend command that think that is in the sense you know, in retrospect nothing is surprising. When you look back, that is for sure. But i have been thinking about this stuff for a long time. While i was hoping it was a shift to the pragmatic of social and economic struggle, it did not. And we think about transitions i think that we think about the transition. I still think it is in many respects still an important intellectual and theoretical contribution, but the paradigm assumes that democratization would emerge not because people were committed to democracy of elections but using democratic bulls as a mac mechanism of conflict resolution. But that proposed that there was no basic identity. It really did. And so to the extent to which here is the paradox. The authors were correct. You need some sort of political bargain or pact to make a transition. It is politically difficult. Much more difficult than dealing with the radar, and rates of relation, so long. Resilience or not trying to figure out their National Identity. The struggle and egypt was over National Identity in many ways. And the question therefore is out you move from, as i said before, and of their terry and protection racket system. In each case their is a different set of variables. God forbid, about those variables. Even the word variable scares me a little bit. Even dependent variable. I think that the structure of the relationship really helps in retrospect to understand the difficulty as well as the opportunity. In egypt you had a basic struggle between a militaryled regime that as offer protection to different elements of the community, police, business community, secular intellectuals, but the key thing about the protection racket in egypt well, two things. It was maintained by a powerful military. In the end did not only provide protection to secular groups and Business Leaders but islamists who were always negotiating with the regime and continued that came and up they could reach a political pack. Guess who laughed last. That was the egyptian story. Morrison did not reach out to do what a leader has to to move to a democratic system, reassure the losers of basic rights. You cannot project to the losers that you are going to come up with a bargain that protect their rights or you will not get a transition. The struggle over the constitution, he did not release signal to the secular us that they had a place in the system. Many of them back to the islamists. I thought it was a mistake. I think the democratic crisis requires a democratic solution. Look where we are today. A system that is about as close to fascism as we can now find. It is in the technical sense of the term. Tunisia had a very sharp secular islamist designed divide, but they had no military. So they talk of a fight. They fought a lot. I am sure that they will fight a lot, but at the end of the day they appeal to their own sense of selfinterest and also to the are richer role of trade unions and other institutions and resolve the political pack. Their i remain optimistic. It is much more difficult in countries such as bahrain and syria were you have a relatively small minority that sees democratization as an existential threat. An election could mean theyre overwhelmed by the majority. They do not see any democratic outcome that they can live with. The bahrain government does not see a democratic of grouping it can live with. Structurally there are cases that are much more global to a reassertion of the authoritarianism. The kind that we have now is worse than anything we had before, but you have opportunities. That remain