Paul Salem Presents Experiences of Democratic Transition
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The BA Center for Peace and Democracy Studies (CPDS) held on Tuesday, 13 September 2011, a lecture by Dr. Paul Salem, Director of Carnegie Middle East Center, entitled “Transitions from Authoritarianism to Democracy: Global Experiences and the Arab Challenge”.
Salem presented the waves of democratic transition, starting from the French Revolution until the fall of the Berlin Wall, that spread over different parts of the world but only reached the Arab World early this year with the Arab Spring that not only took the autocratic systems by surprise but also renewed waves of democracy in the world.
He said that there are no set models in democratic transition, but we can definitely derive lessons from the experiences of 120 different countries. He maintained that overthrowing a dictatorship does not necessarily mean having a democratic system; in some countries, that was followed by a civil war, or even paved the way to another dictatorship.
Paul stressed that a democracy rests on a network of institutions; active social players; a constitution and legal system; civil society; free media and market; independent juridical apparatus; and accountability.
He highlighted that sustaining a democracy is the work of a generation or two; for democracy is not just another phase but a complete process.
The lecture was held within the CPDS Distinguished Lectures Series.