Stephen McInerney, POMED's Director of Advocacy, published an essay in the Arab Reform Bulletin about budding concerns among democracy activists for the Obama administration's approach to political reform and human rights in the Middle East, and specifically, in Egypt. Using Obama's budget request for fiscal year 2011 as an indicator, McInerney notes that bilateral funding for democracy and governance programming has dropped significantly from the previous year. The one noticeable area for ...

Michael Allen at Democracy Digest cites Tara McKelvey, who argues the Obama administration is pursuing a more "culturally sensitive" method of democracy promotion, compared to the Bush administration's "cowboy" style. Allen observes many democracy advocates are pleased with the new approach "given the apparent absence of likely candidates for democratization," but he also warns that "a developmental approach should not become an excuse for political timidity or conflate incrementalism with ...

POMED Research Associate Alex Taurel and our Director of Research Shadi Hamid write an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor about the implications for democracy in the Middle East if Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is shut down by the Constitutional Court. They assert that it would send a troubling message to Islamists in the region that no matter how much they moderate, they will not ...