Engaging Moderate Islamists: Democratic Promise or Political Peril?
Public Event
Date and Time
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location
U.S. Institute of Peace
2nd Floor Conference Room
1200 17th St, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Directions
"U.S. engagement with Islamist parties has had a positive effect on their evolution toward moderation and their development as democratic actors."
--
Mona Yacoubian
While U.S. engagement of moderate Islamists remains a hotly debated question, American democracy promoters have been busy working with legal Islamist parties and their leaders over the past decade. Far from the exception, engagement has become the rule in Morocco, Yemen, and Jordan. What have been the benefits and costs of engagement? Has it strengthened moderate Islamists? Or have Islamists used the tools and strategies promoted by U.S. democracy advocates to advance anti-democratic agendas?
Mona Yacoubian, special advisor to USIP's Muslim World Initiative, addresses these and other complex questions in a recently published Special Report Engaging Islamists and Promoting Democracy: A Preliminary Assessment. Funded by USAID's Democracy and Global Governance Office, this first-of-a-kind report assesses the efforts of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute to include Arab Islamists in their democracy promotion programming.
"Our role is to be there and be supportive when the openings for positive change come."
--Les Campbell on U.S. involvement in working with regional political parties
To outline the major findings of the report and comment on its implications for U.S. policy, Yacoubian was joined by a group of distinguished democracy promoters.
Speakers
- Mona Yacoubian
U.S. Institute of Peace
- Les Campbell
National Democratic Institute
- Tom Garrett
International Republican Institute
- Josh Kaufman
U.S. Agency for International Development
- Dan Brumberg, Moderator
U.S. Institute of Peace
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