Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 8/5/2007
Fighting on Two Fronts: Secular Parties in the Arab World
2007 May
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract
Secular parties in the Arab world—a broad range of political organizations that vary in their political orientation from liberal positions to vaguely socialist programs—are facing a crisis. Caught between regimes that allow little legal space for free political activity on one side and popular Islamist movements that are clearly in the ascendancy throughout the Arab world on the other, they are struggling for influence and relevance, and in some cases even for survival.
