Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, December 21, 2007

Theocratic democracy

I read about the following new book and thought it might be something we, who teach about Iranian government and politics, should read. It's been released in the UK, but is still pending in the US.


Islamic Democracy and Its Limits
The Iranian Experience Since 1979
by Tawfik Al-Saif.

The publisher describes the book this way:

"What is the difference between a democracy imposed by foreign powers and one developed locally, albeit within a political system dominated by religion? Tawfiq al-Saif explores Iran's ever-bumpy road to democracy, by analysing the political ideologies of both the conservative and reformist trends in Iranian politics and their distance from the traditional model of liberal democracy. The religion versus democracy debate has been remarkably enriched in Iran by new approaches of reformist thinkers to questions of rationality, secularism, constitutional rights and the state-religion relation. Iran's experiences provide readers with a better understanding of the potentials, difficulties, motives and limits pertaining to the process of democratisation in the modern Middle East."


If anyone has a review or knows more about the author, add a comment below.

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