Democratic transition in the Middle East: unmaking power

1. The void of power and the power of the void : Arab societies' negotiation of democratic faragh / Larbi Sadiki -- 2. Citizens of the void : power-sharing and civic political action in Lebanon / Heiko Wimmen -- 3. Trans-sectarian moral protest against occupation : a case study of Iraq / Khalil Osman -- 4. The fragmentation of Shaykh-murid relationships : power voids and democratization of religious Sufi authority in Bahrain / Muhammad al-Zekri and Britta Rudolff -- 5. Cyberspace and the changing face of protest and public culture in Egypt / Mona Abaza -- 6. "These are liberated territories" : everyday resistance in Egypt : dismantling state power, experimenting with alternatives and the growing movement from 2000 to 2010 / Alia Mossallam -- 7. Void vs. presence : the 'in-between-ness' of state and society in Yemen / Ahmed A. Saif -- 8. Economic transformation and diffusion of authoritarian power in Syria / Samer N. Abboud.

Popular uprisings and revolts across the Arab Middle East have often resulted in a democratic faragh or void in power. How society seeks to fill that void, regardless of whether the regime falls or survives, is the common trajectory followed by the seven empirical case studies published here for the first time. This edited volume seeks to unpack the state of the democratic void in three interrelated fields: democracy, legitimacy and social relations. In doing so, the conventional treatment of democratization as a linear, formal, systemic and systematic process is challenged and the power polit