Liberal democracy

'The Puzzle of Non-Western Democracy' by Richard Youngs (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 213 pages, $20)

About 2.5 years ago, I wrote a piece titled, "Turkey: Fears of Illiberal Democracy." I argued that with the subordination of the Kemalist military-bureaucratic establishment by elected politicians, Turkey had finally consolidated its electoral democracy. However, this did not guarantee these elected politicians would act in liberal ways.

When the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved, a new era of democratic expansionism was heralded, as Francis Fukuyama declared the end of history, optimistically assuming human ideological evolution had ended and liberal democracy ultimately triumphed over the authoritarianism of communism and fascism as the final form of human government.

The presidents of both the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeals have changed.

If you would like to read a book these days that would help you grasp the political dynamics of post-Arab Spring societies, I would wholeheartedly recommend a new title: “Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East.” Penned by Shadi Hamid, an American scholar of Arab origin, the book shows how the tension in the Muslim world is not only between dictatorship