Should the U.S. promote (illiberal) democracy in the Middle East?

Chin, John J

doi:10.3389/fpos.2025.1513807

REVIEW article

Front. Polit. Sci.

Sec. Peace and Democracy

Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpos.2025.1513807

This article is part of the Research Topic Review Symposium: The Problem of Democracy View all 6 articles

Should the U.S. promote (illiberal) democracy in the Middle East?

Provisionally accepted

John J Chin ^*

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

This article reviews Shadi Hamid’s book The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea. It interrogates three key assumptions behind the author’s call for abandoning a “stability first” strategy for a “democracy first” strategy in the Middle East. These include the claim that (1) liberalism and democracy are diverging, (2) Arab dictatorships are brittle, and (3) there is a stark tradeoff between prioritizing Arab-Israeli peace and Arab democracy.

Keywords: democracy promotion, illiberal democracy, democratic minimalism, Middle East, Arab Spring

Received: 19 Oct 2024; Accepted: 11 Mar 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Chin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: John J Chin, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, United States

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