DE MO C R ATIZ ATIONThis paper proposes that domestic political con˘ict presents opportunities for positive change with long-term eˆects despite the "inherent plausibility" of its harmfulness. This position is tested using examples of Arab bread riots in the context of the wave of Arab democratizations over the past twenty years. Although generally guided and controlled, Arab political liberalizations (especially those of Sudan, Algeria, and Jordan) have their roots in pressure from below. Elsewhere (as in Tunisia and Egypt), similar pressure has helped consolidate-or, at least, place-political reform on the agenda of de-legitimized ruling elites. Democracy and democratization in the Arab Middle East have almost invariably meant a trend toward "parliamentarization" and "electoralization," without yet presaging polyarchal rule. Between 1985 and 1996, the Arab world has experienced more than twenty pluralist or multiparty parliamentary elections, twice the number that took place in the entire preceding period since the early 1960s, when many Arab countries won independence from colonial rule. A focus on the khubz -iste (the quietist bread seeker who abandons quietism as soon as his livelihood is threatened by the state) and the h i t iste (the quietist unemployed who becomes active in bread protests) provides a new perspective on democratization processes in Arab societies. ARAB DEMOCRATIZATIONFaced with outside pressures-the global diˆusion of democracy and human rights as new standards and legitimators in domestic politics-and crises of economic performance and of de-legitimacy from the inside, many Arab ruling elites have embarked on previously unthinkable political reforms, 1 catching students of Arab politics unprepared. Most research into Arab politics has only recently 2 turned its attention to the question of democracy, focusing instead on the behavior of political elites and on the Arab-Israeli con˘ict, to the detriment of other research areas. 3 Indeed, opportunities in the Arab world are slowly unfolding for greater participation and contestation-the two dimensions of Robert Dahl's polyarchy. 4 However, even though Arab political liberalizations have not hitherto led to popularly constituted and accountable government, rule of law, or revitalized intermediary institutions, or put an

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Commitment to unity can hinder democracy, rendering the search for pluralism into an exercise in political singularity. I contest the thesis within the theory of democratic transition that national cohesion and ethnic homogeneity are essential preconditions for democracy. Tunisia is an ethnically homogeneous society, but seems to be unable to seize on the opportunity to transcend the threshold of democracy. The Tunisian example suggests that democracy (that is, an ethos of toleration of difference), should be rethought as one essential precondition for cohesion within democratising polities. The analysis unpacks how ‘fragmented’ politics works in the North African country. Politics becomes ‘fragmented’ when ‘loyalty’ to the state's discourse of ‘citizenship’ and ‘identity’, becomes the one distinguishing feature by which political community is defined and membership within it is determined. National unity is another word for political uniformity. Thus understood the state's imperative of unity and uniformity contradicts political pluralism and demotes rather than promotes democratic development.