M. Steven Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy’s Edge (2024).
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.
If Iraq is successfully to democratize and an inclusive democratic culture is to emerge, the Iraqi state must be reconstituted as a federal and strongly liberal system and thoroughly demilitarized.
