The

The Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman.

If you're hearing this, then you're on the public feed,

which means you'll get episodes a week after they come out out and you'll hear advertisements. You can get access to the

subscriber feed by going to colemanhuees.org and becoming a supporter. This means you'll have

access to episodes a week early, you'll never hear ads, and you'll get access to bonus Q&A

episodes. You can also support me by liking and subscribing on YouTube

and sharing the show with friends and family. As always, thank you so much for your support.

My guest today is Shadi Hamid. Shadi is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

and a contributing writer at the Atlantic. He was named

one of the world's top 50 thinkers in 2019 by Prospect Magazine. And he's the author of three books,

Temptations of Power, Islamic Exceptionalism, and the subject of today's conversation, the problem

of democracy. In this episode, we discussed the difference between liberal democracy

and democracy full stop. We discussed Shadi's concept of democratic minimalism, which is the

idea that we should promote democracy in the Middle East, even when it leads to illiberal outcomes.

We discuss the state of public opinion in Arab countries. We talk about the difference

between Islamist and secular parties. We talk about

the Israel-Palestine conflict and how it might be affected by the prospect of more democracy

in the Middle East. We discuss the lessons learned from the Arab Spring. We talk about the new

popularity of isolationist foreign policy in America. We talk about so-called benign dictatorships and much more. So without further

ado, Shadi Hamid. All right, Shadi Hamid. Thanks so much for coming on my show.

Hi, Coleman. Thanks for having me. So we were just reminiscing about the time we met a couple of years

...