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This article problematizes questions of ontology and epistemology in the context of the study of norm-making primarily within academia (with special reference to democratization) and secondarily within media. It showcases this via description of an ongoing QNRF-funded project on democratic learning in seven Muslim countries. Through these examples, it pitches the discussion to elaborate the utility of concepts and ideas drawn from post-structuralism, namely, those having to do with discourse, identity and norms being unstable. It refers to Barthes’s notion of ‘the death of the author’ and Derrida’s ideas about the indeterminacy of linguistic forms, and the chain of signs and signifiers used to record representations and interpretations of shifting realities. This offers a welcome escape from rationalist methods, suggesting that in social constructivism and discourse analysis democratization studies would benefit from a firmer grip on understandings of norm-making via the study of speech acts and discourse. This is presented as a ‘middle ground’ that balances structure and agency with respect to the ‘chain’ of journeys in the travel of democracy.

Civic resilience during conflict: Syria’s local councils
Authors: Layla Saleh 

With the ‘return of the state’ in Syria, Assad’s ‘resilience’ is a puzzle increasingly broached in both media and academic discourses. This article seeks to turn such an approach on its head, examining the resilience not of the state, but of bottom-up Syrian popular mobilization and organization. Persistent if changing Syrian civic modes and practices are thus mediated by conflict, but also part and parcel of ongoing resistance against the authoritarian state. A survey of Syrians’ ‘revolutionary’ media landscape reveals a set of shifting emphases. Appeals soliciting global support for an uprising seeking freedom and dignity give way to lamentations over disappointed yet tenacious Syrian aspirations. The article then explores Syrian ‘democratic learning’ through a mini-case study of opposition-controlled local councils. Drawing on original interview data, it argues that these councils exhibit ‘civic resilience’ as they navigate and adopt international norms discourses to protest and resist not just Assad but also international actors, and gradually take up democratic processes including elections. Despite uncertainty with respect to its institutional dividends in Syria, ‘democratic learning’ is a promising, understudied area for further exploration in the bloody politics of the country’s uprising.

Elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran: A source of democratic learning and moderation
Authors: Naser Ghobadzadeh 

Elections held under Iran’s ruling clergy have always been manipulated and have hardly been free and fair. A simple reference to Iran’s current political situation attests to the fact that these elections have not proven to be a force for democratization of the political system. However, this article suggests that the very existence of electoral procedures in the Islamic Republic effectively split the Islamists, giving their left-wing faction a new chance of survival in Iran’s political milieu. This by extension resulted in behavioural and ideological moderation, and in the formation of a new version of political Islam that accommodates democratic norms within an Islamic framework. Exploring the politico-religious transformation of Iran’s reformist Islamists, this article argues that the inclusion-moderation hypothesis could be effectively utilized to trace and explicate their politico-religious trajectory. Furthermore, the semi-competitive nature of elections in Iran has on more than one occasion generated uncertainty. Not only has this outcome taken the regime to the brink, but it has also opened up spaces in which citizens occasionally, if not permanently, entertain democratic learning. Based on interviews with 80 political activists in Iran, this article argues that the electoral politics has seeded democratic norms in the minds of the believers.

Malaysia’s breakthrough election: Dynamics of democratic learning and coalition building
Authors: Lily Zubaidah Rahim 

Malaysia’s Pakatan Haparan coalition unexpectedly defeated the Barisan National (National Front) coalition government in the May 2018 general election. This electoral breakthrough defied the predictions of seasoned political observers and leading opinion polls, bucked international trends in the direction of authoritarian resilience and political backsliding and overcame the advantages of gerrymandering, malapportionment and entrenched incumbency. The article attempts to make sense of Pakatan Harapan’s startling electoral feat by employing frameworks which centre on elections as a mode of democratic transition and democratic learning. Malaysia’s 2018 electoral breakthrough is placed within the context of earlier competitive elections and the struggle of Pakatan Harapan coalition and democratic civil society to maintain cohesion – between, during and after election campaigns. Also considered are the role of ‘recycled elites’ and civil society in reshaping electoral contests through the processes of democratic learning, narrative construction and the reformulation of nation-building paradigms.

Harakat Mujtama’ al-Silm: Democratic learning in Algeria
Authors: Youcef Bouandel 

The article compares and contrasts the discourses and contexts of democracy in Algeria since the electoral processes of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The aim is to understand how rapidly changing acceptance of democratic norms is managed in media interaction and more formal academic expressions, linking this to new political and religious cultures that accepts democracy. This discussion provides opportunities for the study of moderate political Islam. Thus, the article looks at empirical evidence from Algeria’s Movement for Society and Peace’s (MSP) new forms of interpreting democracy and practicing it within this Islamist party that has had MPs in the National Assembly since the cessation of civil war in the late 1990s. The article argues that Algeria’s moderate Islamists appear to have undergone important transformations at the level of ideas and practices, specifically with respect to civic values. In so doing, this Islamist party has attempted to widen its political appeal to voters, through ideas that view democracy and Islam as compatible.

Media and learning democracy: The face of emerging political activism in Egypt
Authors: Mohammed Moussa 

Popular protests erupted in Egypt at the start of the second decade of the twentyfirst century, inspired by similar uprisings in the Arab world. The formation of political parties following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak allowed a variety of Islamist actors to enter the political field with relative ease. Youth activists and groups employed bottom-up activism in a process that Larbi Sadiki has described to be ‘democratic learning’. In this article, I will explore the process through which Egyptian political actors, from an Islamist background, learnt democracy in a local context. Democracy is understood here in a decentred fashion: it is not necessarily tied to the institutional structures of the modern state. I shall examine Hizb al-Tayyar al-Masry (Egyptian Current Party) between 2011 and 2013 supplemented by other displays of democratic collective agency in the examples of Hizb Misr al-Qawiyya (Strong Egyptian Party) and al-Thawra Mustamirra (The Revolution Continues) alliance. I will explore how the forms of media practices deployed by activists were a key component of a broader revolutionary strategy of civic mobilization. An emerging generation of political activism based on inclusiveness and participation was evident in media practices at the grassroots and party-political levels.

‘She is, after all, a woman’: Uncovering gender bias in the Tunisian women candidates’ radio interviews
Authors: Raoudha Ben Othman 

Tunisia’s parity law promises the empowerment of women politicians and a greater chance for them to play a direct and significant role in Tunisia’s second republic. Testing for ‘democratic learning’ at work in Tunisia’s expanding media space, an analysis of media coverage of women candidates in the last municipal elections indicates that lingering sexism towards women candidates is deep and alive. The examination of 32 interviews of women candidates during the 2018 municipal election campaign reveals the covert bias that affects images of women candidates. The analysis indicates that there was a considerable amount of negative coverage of women candidates and that such coverage aims to cast doubt not only on women’s suitability for office. Further, the analysis suggests a determination by the political elite to retain political knowledge in small circles and not disclose it to open discussion. This study also finds that covert gender bias is buried under an avalanche of polarized discourse – Islamists vs. secularists – that journalists through their gatekeeping roles not only use but also reinforce. Tunisia’s media is not playing a leading role in the country’s ongoing processes of democratic learning.