Rashid Khalidi: The Crisis of Arab Democracy and Palestine

Starting in the 1970s, many autocratic regimes in the world suffered mounting crises, inaugurating democratic transitions across Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The Middle East and North Africa remained a regional anomaly, however, despite promising experiments in constitutional reform in the early twentieth century and parliamentary government in several countries after WWII. The mass protests and political revolutions unleashed a decade ago by the Arab Spring, forcing several dictatorships to fall, suggested its democratic moment had finally arrived. Yet the hopes remain largely unrealized. And Palestinian demands for self-determination, although supported by public opinion across the region, appear more elusive than ever.

Unrepresentative regimes in the Arab world, often dependent on foreign patrons, continue to frustrate popular aspirations. But we cannot understand their resilience without grasping the long history of colonialism, great power interventions during the Cold War and the follies of the post-9/11 War on Terror.

The critically acclaimed historian and political commentator, Rashid Khalidi, examines these struggles for democracy in conversation with Sanjay Ruparelia.