In January, the Clinton School will welcome new assistant professor Dr. Warigia Bowman, who is currently a visiting assistant professor at American University in Cairo, Egypt. During her time in Cairo, Bowman has closely followed the democratic revolution, and she co-authored an editorial this week about the recent Egyptian parliamentary elections for the Daily News Egypt. Below is an exerpt:
The first round of Egyptian parliamentary elections is drawing to a close, but in another sense, Egyptian multi-party politics is just beginning. After a partially successful revolution, Egypt is now on a crash course to multi-party democracy. Other countries that have gone through major political transitions from dictatorship to democracy generally have had decades to make the transition. The question many Western observers are asking now is what shape will Egypt’s nascent democracy take? Will it more closely resemble the secular Turkey, or the more theocratic Iran?