{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01822238750464857, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0029750836742283376, 'mean_word_length': 5.226851851851852, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516–1918: A Social and Cultural History by Bruce Masters (review)

and anthropology to explore the meanings behind democracy promotion. To investigate how this aid has worked in the region, she does extensive participant observation coupled with analysis of reports, evaluations, and commentaries produced by experts, academics, and practitioners with first-hand knowledge and experience working on aid projects. Aid projects were directed primarily to nine Arab countries, many of which she notes are often thought of as moderate, Western-leaning states. Her analysis focuses on these countries but also encompasses aid spent on transnational conferences and networks to promote democracy in the region. Carapico acknowledges the difficulty inherent in navigating the volume and range of reports to make sense of the mechanics of aid in the region. She manages to handle the task with admirable dexterity, with analysis structured into four chapters that reflect key subfields within the field of democracy assistance: aid for promoting the rule of law, elections, gender, and civil society. Each chapter builds nicely on those that precede it and balances broad analysis and discussion of dynamics across the region with specific case studies of projects within states. The result is a richly detailed, nuanced, and thoughtful examination of the politics that underlie and shape transnational aid projects in the Middle East. Her chapters on civic activism and election monitoring in particular provide insightful discussion on the production of knowledge by donors in reinforcing specific modes of aid that often run counter to or ignore local context and actors engaged in activism. This disconnection between international concerns and localized struggle resonates throughout the text, underscoring the contradictions of this form of aid. Rather than support activism in the region, aid projects may actually suppress it, or be irrelevant altogether. This point comes across clearly through Carapico’s analysis and is one that calls for greater engagement by scholars studying democracy aid and foreign aid more broadly. Scholars of foreign aid and those of the Middle East will appreciate Carapico’s complex exploration of the ideas and interests shaping political aid in the region. In the wake of uprisings in the Arab world, her findings are also timely. Advocates for extending more democracy aid to the region would be well advised to read Carapico’s work. As she notes, democracy aid can function, “as a mode of empowerment and a modality of power” — a critical point of reflection for those interested in supporting reform in the Middle East.