Jump to content

Subscribe

Regular email updates. What’s new on the subjects you are interested in.

More

Welcome to Eldis

Civil society and democratization in the Arab world: annual report 2007

Democracy a concept rather than reality in the Arab world



Authors: M. Zaki
Publisher: Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies, 2007

Full text of document

All Arab leaders advocate democracy and claim that they are committed to democratic reforms. Tangible results, however, are hard to find. Arab countries are still ruled by authoritarian regimes and rulers are more concerned with retaining power than sharing it. Nonetheless, modest improvements have occurred in most Arab countries.

This report provides an excellent country-by-country survey of political rights and civil liberties across the Arab world, breaking this down into the following areas:

  • The Executive, political parties and elections
  • The Judiciary, trials and detentions
  • Civil society and the freedom of association
  • Freedom of speech and the media
  • Freedom of religion
  • Women and the marginalised.

The report also looks at the experiences of minorities such as the Copts of Egypt, the Berbers of North Africa, the Kurds and the Sudanese of Southern Sudan.