The Johns Hopkins University Press has recently released Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World, edited by Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner. In Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World, leading scholars – including several POMEPS Steering Committee members and contributors – address questions posed by the wave of political uprisings in the Arab world that began in December 2010. “This volume includes chapters examining several broad themes: the region’s shifting political culture, the relationship between democracy and political Islam, the legacy of authoritarian ruling arrangements, the strengths and vulnerabilities of remaining autocracies, and the lessons learned from transitions to democracy in other parts of the world. It also features chapters analyzing the political development of individual countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and the monarchies of the Gulf.”
This volume features several frequent POMEPS contributors, including Jason Brownlee, Michele Dunne, Philip N. Howard, Muzammil M. Hussain, Stéphane Lacroix, Tarek Masoud, Michael Robbins, Frederic Wehrey, and Sean L. Yom. A number of POMEPS Steering Committee members have contributed works to this volume as well: Nathan J. Brown, F. Gregory Gause III, Steven Heydemann, Amaney Jamal, and Mark Tessler. — C.K.