This article asks whether there are lessons that can be drawn from the democratization of Iraq for the possible democratization of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the wake of the 2010–2011 Arab uprisings. The paper draws on the democratization program in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 to demonstrate that focusing on the promotion of a liberal democratic model in Iraq translated into a lack of operational flexibility, which let democracy assistance unable to cope with socio-economic demands, local realities and reactions to democratization. Taking into account a variation in the intensity of interventionism between Iraq and MENA, the article argues that there is sufficient similarities between both cases to point Western democracy promoters in the direction of models of democracy that offer a more comprehensive response to the current political transition in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya than the traditional focus on the promotion of liberal democracy does.

This article considers how Arab intellectuals represent the United States and American foreign policy in their editorial contributions to Arabic newspapers. As a case study, it examines Arab intellectuals’ reactions to the George W. Bush Administration’s campaign to effect democratic change in the Middle East, as articulated in the Administration’s 2004 Greater Middle East Initiative (hereafter GMEI or Initiative). I argue that the predominantly hostile reactions to the GMEI stemmed mainly from a closed and negative image of the United States permeating Arab intellectual circles. This negative image is the product of the history of American policy towards the region and, equally important, of the beliefs, values, and formative experiences of Arab intellectuals. The article concludes by addressing ways to ameliorate this image.

Western and international democratization projects in the Arab world, as elsewhere, have been controversial mainly because, unlike traditional foreign aid through government-to-government channels that strengthened executive institutions, projects in the fields of elections, rule of law, and civil society are funded and executed principally through extra-governmental channels. While foreign democracy brokers successfully cultivated relationships with some liberal think-tanks and other institutions during the 1990s, there was also a political backlash as Arab governments attempted to restore their monopolies over foreign funding and the production of political information.

The Western world’s response to the Arab Spring revolutions has varied. The uprising in Egypt was relatively bloodless; Libya is being thrown into a civil war. Europe has seen the opportunity to re-exert its military might, lest the world forget they too have a military that can be depended upon. Israel has remained relatively quiet, glad that attention has shifted away from Palestine. Among all this, the US is trying to figure out where its foreign policy should focus. The question of what kind of relationship the US will, and should, have with the Middle East, is at the top of discussions domestically. And despite all the international media coverage, the multitudes of academic articles and a plethora of material and expertise available to policymakers, no concrete strategy has emerged from the Obama administration.

Media plays a fundamental role in the formation of national identity, most famously detailed in Benedict Anderson’s theory of the imagined community. In the Arab world, a media revolution is contributing to the emergence of a reawakened regional Arab consciousness. A comparison of data from the first major regional survey of Arab journalists and the results of various public opinion polls in the region indicate that Arab journalists stand on the borderlands of Arab identity, shaping an emerging “imagined” watan [nation] that, in some ways, transcends the traditional lines in the sand that define the nation-state.

Turkey’s ruling party, AKP, has used foreign policy as one of its primary instruments for consolidating domestic political support and monopolizing power in the hands of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Defiance of Western hegemony and references to the imperial Ottoman past have helped to replace Kemalist narratives and to override growing social divides within the country. As a result, Erdoğan’s hold on power is strengthened, since the AKP’s political contestation has been almost exclusively limited to elections.

Starting from an analysis of the main features of the EU’s existing Mediterranean policies and specifically of the European Neighborhood Policy and the problems concerning its implementation, this article analyses the proposals for the revision of the ENP and the launch of a Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean countries. It argues that while it is too early to judge whether the EU and its member states will be able to help the Southern Mediterranean countries change their political and economic systems and consolidate their democracies, two outcomes of the new approach already seem well defined: first, the unequal balance between the Eastern and the Southern dimension of the ENP seems to be have been redressed. Second, the pendulum of the EU’s Mediterranean policy has again swung towards bilateralism at the expense of multilateralism, and this approach is likely to continue if one considers the increasing heterogeneity of the countries in the region and the difficulty of conceiving of the Southern Mediterranean as an integrated space.

Authoritarian regimes learned to fear the rise of the internet because it spurred an online community who encouraged information sharing relatively free from government oversight. However, the West—the creator of the internet—is retreating from openness in cyberspace because of strong arguments made by defense specialists about cyber vulnerabilities and because of cyber meddling by foreign actors, most clearly the Russian Government. This article argues that combatting the rise of authoritarianism, particularly in Russia, requires embracing the strategic advantages openness provides for democracy. The article outlines the ordeal of “cyber rebellions” across the globe and closes with a discussion about the dangers of bowing to pressure to create borders in cyberspace, pointing out that inspiring a retreat from openness is precisely the intent of the authoritarian regimes who most fear it.