Civil Society, Liberalism and the Corporatist Alternative in the Middle East

Abstract

Democracy has returned to the center stage of American political science. Before World War I, political science assumed the universality of democracy in America. Its educational mission was to inform American citizens of this, its research mission to identify the imperfections of this democracy in order to reform it and to provide academic expertise to strengthen the American state administratively in its democratic mission.’ Post-behavioral political scientists in the 1990s also assume the universality of democracy, now on an international and cross-cultural basis. They also wish to inform the American public of this, and when they uncover it they also wish to reform it through their writings and through the support of indigenous intellectuals and scholars. The incentives, coercion and pressure of the US government assist them in their efforts. They are also engaged in the strengthening of the capabilities of the American state in spreading the democratic message abroad. This collaboration of government and scholar from the 1986 announcement of the Reagan Doctrine and the founding of the National Endowment for Democracy until today has been termed “Operation Democracy.”