Are all, or only some, of the world’s religious systems politically compatible with democracy?
About the Author
Alfred Stepan is the founding director of Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), and author (with Juan J. Linz) of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe.
Strategies based on transition pacts that reduce rulers' risks and cushion their retreat from total power may be the most promising route to democracy in the Arab world.
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?
