Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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An addictive recourse to the same political class and governance scheme suggests Kuwait’s new government, like its predecessors, will prove unable to effectively confront the country’s many challenges.
Kuwait's political struggles more closely resemble those of 19th century Europe than the Arab Spring taking place in Cairo or Tunis.
Kuwaitis have missed the drama and the elation of a democratic breakthrough. Their country today is not fully democratic; their transition has already taken more than a generation; and the outcome is still very much in doubt.
A U.S. withdrawal plan for Iraq that creates a political vacuum will invite Iraq's neighbors to shape the nation's internal evolution in accordance with their own security considerations. The U.S.-Iraq deal for combat troop withdrawal by 2011 lacks a much needed political strategy for neutralizing the influence of Iraq’s neighbors.
A major shift is taking place in the way decision-makers in the U.S. and major European countries view the political role of Islamic movements in the Arab world and also in the way they regard the perils such movements pose for Western interests.
At a time when Islamist movements across the Arab world have chosen to participate in official political processes, grave concerns have arisen over the nature and repercussions of this participation and over whether the Islamists are equipped to rule should they rise to power through democratic means.
The problem of using democracy as a tool for taming Islamists is not that it fails but that it works far more slowly and uncertainly than policymakers can tolerate. As a long-term solution, however, there is probably no sounder approach than using democracy to incorporate Islamist movements as normal political actors.
When the polls open in Kuwait on Thursday, Kuwaiti women will be able to cast their votes for national candidates for the first time in the country's history. This election has huge implications for the role of women in Kuwaiti society, the future of Kuwaiti politics and democratic reform in the region at large.
Despite predictions that the American march into Baghdad would unleash either a wave of democratization or a plague of repression throughout the region, in reality most Middle Eastern states are too preoccupied with domestic problems to be moved profoundly by events in Iraq. Iraq will have a political impact on the region, but changes are likely to come in smaller steps than commonly predicted.