Religious Dimensions of Democratization Processes in Muslim-Majority Nations

The 41st AMSS annual conference, held on 29 September 2012 at Yale DivinitySchool, brought together scholars and activists to address “ReligiousDimensions of Democratization Processes in Muslim-Majority Nations.” Theevent, consisting of four panels and Juan R. I. Cole’s (University of Michigan)very anticipated keynote luncheon address, was co-sponsored by the Yale DivinitySchool and the Council on Middle East Studies at The MacMillian Centerat Yale. Several luminaries in the field, including Ambassador SallamaShaker (conference program chair, Yale Divinity School), also attended. GregoryE. Sterling (dean, Yale Divinity School) opened the conference, and AliA.Mazrui (former AMSS president, State University of New York) made welcomingremarks.The first panel, “The Arab Spring: A Revolution towards Democracy,”was chaired by Narges Erami (Yale University). In his opening paper, “TheArab Spring and Democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Which Is Cause andWhich Is Effect?,” Mazuri examined political processes, recent uprisings, andlonger-term democratic trends in South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, andYemen. He raised questions of chronology and causality, as well as howprocesses of colonialism and decolonization shaped contemporary politicallandscapes. After examining the concept of democratic contagion, he observedhow democratic processes that occurred in many African nations during thetwentieth century could serve as models for how to enshrine human rights andan independent judiciary in new constitutions. His paper ended with a detaileddiscussion of women’s contributions to shaping and buttressing a vibrant publicsphere, the positive effects of which can be seen particularly strongly inTunisia ...