HISTORY'S IN NO HURRY:

Democracy works - only very slowly (Nathan Brown, July 4, 2007, International Herald Tribune)

[B]efore we rush to abandon democracy, we should turn our attention to a more genteel political crisis that has been occurring in Kuwait. The oil minister, a member of the ruling family, recently provoked harsh parliamentary criticism when he spoke admiringly of one of his predecessors in the post, a relative accused of bilking state coffers of untold millions. But while some have tried to bring the minister down, members of Kuwait's Islamic Constitutional Movement have tried to defuse the crisis by securing an apology from the minister. They are motivated not merely by agreeable sentiments but also by the fact that they currently hold a position in a cabinet that they hardly wish to see collapse.

While Kuwait's Islamic Constitutional Movement, or ICM, is thus acting as a normal political party, Hamas has both been forced and chosen to act outside the rules of the democratic game. But both movements share a common origin - they are local offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization founded in Egypt in 1928. The different paths followed by the ICM and Hamas show what democracy can - and cannot - do to domesticate Islamists.

When Islamist movements are offered democratic openings, they generally take them. And as they operate within democratic systems, they generally moderate their positions. Democracy does affect them. But there are two problems: Democracy works slowly and it is hardly the only factor at work.

Working slowly is hardly a drawback.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 4, 2007 11:17 AM