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Lisa Anderson Reflection
September 4, 2023 | | 1 Comment
Lisa Anderson’s 2006 article highlights prominent issues which have led regions across the Middle East and North Africa to struggle in democratizing. Anderson argues that answering why such phenomena occurs stems from democratization being an “American disciplinary and policy preoccupation, not from regional political dynamics.”. Therefore, major political forces have been neglected by political scientists and their theories of democratization are superficial at best.
Anderson argues that American political scientists have asked the wrong questions at the wrong time. Questions pertaining to Islamist movements and failures to democratize have left analysts with very little information because democratic political participation is low in the region. Often, research can be inaccurate and data can be incorrectly recorded. Additionally, Anderson perceives that democracy is not desirable within MENA because it’s simply an American ideology pushed upon these regions and it isn’t a structure which comes natural to their society. And she also states that American political scientists continue to lack a historical perspective on the region in efforts to fully grasp why democracy has continued to fail. They’ve concluded that because democracy was perceived one way in certain regions like Latin America, then it must also fit for MENA. This as concluded by Anderson isn’t the case. In fact, when it comes to understanding MENA, it must be understood as its own entity therefore fully understanding its history and complex past.
In order to avoid or compensate for these problems it’s important to understand the region itself not through the lens of other regions like Latin America because MENA has its own history and to fully grasp the issues they now face, history must not be avoided. Additionally, democratization is a Western ideology, far from perfect, and our understanding of this region must not be skewed by our Western perceptions. We must not see democratization as something that’s needed because it’s ‘perfect’. But instead this should serve as a basis to create questions which pertain to why democratization doesn’t work and possibly what may work instead.
The 2011 uprising forged the understanding that citizens within these regions aren’t fighting against democracy. The issues aren’t rooted with individuals wanting to keep it out but instead overarching factors such as authoritarianism which haven’t allowed for democracy to flourish. Therefore, this has created new questions and a new perception by which analysts must consider the region in questioning why democracy hasn’t succeeded.
Comments
1 Comment so far
Great job summarizing the article! I like how you are short, precise, and to the point. If I can provide some recommendations for our next blog post, maybe incorporate some of your own personal views in a short paragraph. Also try to summarize the misconceptions that are made by political scientists. For example, explain modernization and how it may or may not affect middle eastern countries. Otherwise, keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing you in class!