The Carnegie Foundation for International Peace recently sponsored a series of papers that frame key issues relating to democracy promotion policies and programs in the Middle East. The fourth one in this thought-provoking series was authored by Marina Ottaway and offers a critical appraisal of the relationship between women's rights and democracy in the Arab world, and about what an outside intervenor (such as the United States) can rightly hope to accomplish in this arena. Within the report's 12 pages, Ottaway offers a brief overview of the various rights of women in the Arab world, discusses the policy impacts of including women within the democratic process, and concludes with a brief section on the prospects offered by the intervention of the United States government in this process. As Ottaway notes in her conclusion, "There is great need for the United States government not only to rethink the nexus of democracy and the promotion of women, but also to become more sensitive to the great gap that separates what U.S. officials say and what different Arab constituencies hear."
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