ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the conditions for democracy in the Muslim world. The acceptance of democratic rules and values in Latin America, in South East Asia and in the former USSR and East Europe has been so quick that one no longer speaks of transition to democracy but instead of democratic consolidation. Habermas divides the countries of the Third World into two worlds: on the one hand weak states who are governed by mafia forces, often threatened by fundamentalism, and on the other hand strong or authoritarian states, to which he counts the Gulf states. The great Islamic philosophers adhering to the Plato position rejected ancient democracy according to the city-state model. However, the universal acceptance of human rights in the twentieth century puts Islam in the position that it must re-evaluate its stand on rule of law and democracy.
