Ciao!

Kuwaiti blue

03.30.2005

Ten years from now we'll reminisce about the 2005 "Arab spring". Let's hope. I'm just happily fascinated by the whole development. There's a Washington Post story on the democracy movement in Kuwait, primarily demanding women's right to vote (BBC). What makes the whole thing more intriguing is the role technology plays, especially blogs, text messaging, and satellite television. Who said globalization was bad?

(Interestingly, there's moves by the UN to regulate cyberspace, w/ a focus on filtering & identification software to "meet national privacy regimes".)

Notice that Kuwait's protest seems to support the Babe Theory of Political Movements.

Here's a nifty (if too brief) site on "How democratic is the Middle East?" by the BBC. Also, Freedom House puts out annual country rankings, the 2005 report is here. And the Journal of Democracy has recently published many articles (a few available online), including entire issues devoted to the subject of Arab/Muslim democracy.

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UPDATE: More on an emerging "fourth wave" of democracy & the "arch of tyranny".

Posted by Miguel at 01:05 PM

Comments

Posted by: Will Franklin at March 30, 2005 05:05 PM