Islam and Democracy: The Failure of Dialogue in Algeria - Hardcover

Volpi, Frederic

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745319777 ISBN 13: 9780745319773

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2003

Synopsis

During the late twentieth century, many authoritarian Islamic states underwent a dramatic transition to democracy. This book examines the process of democratic reform in Islamic countries, the problems it throws up and the cultural ideas and practices that prevail. Concentrating in particular on Algeria, and based on extensive on-the-ground research, Volpi offers a unique insight into the political history of the Algerian conflict and raises serious questions about the relationship between Islam and democracy on an international level. Addressing the problem of the radicalisation of political Islam in the region, he suggests possible solutions to the security and foreign policy dilemmas linked to international terrorism.

A bitter battle has been faught between the civil state and the Islamic fundamentalists in Algeria since the 1980s. It's a paradigmatic ‘clash of civilisations’ for some, whilst for others it's a distorted and local crisis in which ‘democratisation’ was introduced in a deeply authoritarian context. Looking in particular at the role of oil resources, which give Algeria great international geo-strategic and economic importance, Volpi explores Algeria's political transition -- a story which continues to have immense potential significance for other non-democratic Muslim countries.

About this title

About the Author:

Frederic Volpi is based at the University of St Andrews.

Review:

"There could hardly be a more inflammatory political topic at present. Volpi [has produced] a really valuable work on the subject." -- Professor John Dunn, Cambridge University"Fridiric Volpi s account of Algerian politics masterfully situates the obstacles to democratization in the local negative understandings of elite responsibilities and citizen rights. Military hardliners and Islamic radicals emerge as both the products and agents of an autocratic civic culture, with pragmatic Islamists like FIS caught in between...This work takes us well beyond the case of Algeria and persuasively highlights the no less uncertain predicament of Muslim societies elsewhere." -- James Piscatori, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies"Volpi helps readers to understand the real mechanisms of the failur of the dialogue between the military elite and athe Islamists, while not ignoring the development of civil society in Algeria and its role in the interaction between Islam and Democracy." -- MultiCultural Review"Volpi (Univ. of Bristol, UK) has published his doctoral dissertation (Univ. of Cambridge) on democratic transition problems in Algeria since 1988. His unit of analysis is agency (Algerian decision makers, elites, and groups), his independent variable is culture and ideology, and his dependent variable is regime type (authoritarianism/pluralism). Volpi posits that the transition to democracy, if successful, will be achieved not by the mere elimination of foreign dependency and domestic structural obstacles, but by learning 'on the job, ' as it were--or, citing O'Donnell and Schmitter's comments about this transition in Latin America, 'part of the process of transition was precisely the [agent-centered]collective learning of an appropriately democratic way of solving the polities' predicaments.' Everything depends on knowledge of how to make consociational bargains work. Algeria's failure, so far, in its experiment with democratic transition results from institutional weaknesses in relation to the development of political consciousness by the citizenry. This is a welcome contribution to the debate on democratic transitions among developing countries, specifically, in the Muslim world. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." -- S. Akhavi, University of South Carolina in CHOICE

About this edition

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0745319777
• ISBN 13: 9780745319773
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 184