Författarbild
12 verk 59 medlemmar 2 recensioner

Om författaren

Nathan J. Brown is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. He is the author of "Constitutions in a Nonconstitutional World: Arab Basic Laws and the Prospects for Accountable Government "(2001), "The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts in Egypt visa mer and the Gulf "(1997), and "Peasant Politics in Modern Egypt: The Struggle against the State "(1990). He received his BA from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. (Bowker Author Biography) visa färre

Verk av Nathan J. Brown

Taggad

Allmänna fakta

Det finns inga Allmänna fakta än om den här författaren. Du kan lägga till några.

Medlemmar

Recensioner

The author begins this book by noting that the scholarly study of constitutions has declined in recent decades as political scientists have realized that constitutions don't much reflect or affect political realities. His purpose in this book is to show that constitutional study is not always naive. I don't know about that, but I certainly find it hard to believe that anyone's interest will be kindled by this tedious work. The author has assembled a lot of detailed material on the origins, uses and ultimate fates of various Arab constitutions, but he fails to draw any interesting general conclusions from his case studies. Readers expecting to learn about the prospects of accountable government in Arab countries will be disappointed.

The author loses sight of accountability by going into far too much detail, so the book isn't very readable. He uses quite a lot of specialized terminology which is probably transparent only to a small group of specialists. Even his final conclusions are formulated in opaque and confusing phrases such as "the analysis presented here demonstrates that the path to constitutionalism in the Arab world lies in insulating potentially autonomous state structures from the nominally democratic procedures effectively dominated by the executive" (p. 198). Even though I had read the preceding analysis I could not put a finger on what "potentially autonomous state structures" the author refers to, nor could I recall democratic procedures, nominal or not, receiving any attention in this book. In conclusion I think this book is suitable only for specialists in Arab politics, who might learn something from its case studies.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
thcson | Aug 13, 2014 |
Brown laments analogy mongers but this is basic to analyzing complex situations. Then, he wants to point out parallels to Christian Democratic movements in 19th Century Europe as operating in quasi-authoritarian situations, true enough, but no one, Brown included, necessarily views Islamist Middle Eastern countries as eventually developing into mostly stable democracies as Western Europe did. Thus, I am not sure the models will help him or advance his analysis to as great an extent as he would like.

Brown does better address why democracy is so acceptable for Islamists, but as such, it works against his central thesis explaining the intricacies of a focused vanguard of religionists in elections. The very lack of commitment to liberal, democratic ideals, so characteristic of Christian Democracy, is what distinguishes the facade of Islamists in democratic elections. He perceptively points out how Islamists can not agree to liberal, Republican ideals and therefore are not working towards a functional, liberal democracy in any of the countries in question, most notably Egypt following the election of Muslim Brotherhood leaders Mohammed Morsi. The only constitution that counts is the Koran.

Most helpfully, he does point out that discussions of a constitution, individual liberty, the role of women, and the treatment of other religions, and minorities is governed by sharia law and thus any Islamist government is not likely to evolve as a liberal, Western-style system.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
gmicksmith | Oct 30, 2012 |

Listor

Statistik

Verk
12
Medlemmar
59
Popularitet
#280,813
Betyg
3.0
Recensioner
2
ISBN
32

Tabeller & diagram