While U.S. engagement of moderate Islamists remains a hotly debated question, American democracy promoters have been busy working with legal Islamist parties and their leaders over the past decade. Far from the exception, engagement has become the rule in Morocco, Yemen, and Jordan. What have been the benefits and costs of engagement? Has it strengthened moderate Islamists? Or have Islamists used the tools and strategies promoted by U.S. democracy advocates to advance anti-democratic agendas?

Mona Yacoubian, special advisor to USIP's Muslim World Initiative, addresses these and other complex questions in a recently published Special Report Engaging Islamists and Promoting Democracy: A Preliminary Assessment. Funded by USAID's Democracy and Global Governance Office, this first-of-a-kind report assesses the efforts of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute to include Arab Islamists in their democracy promotion programming.

To outline the major findings of the report and comment on its implications for U.S. policy, Yacoubian was joined by a group of distinguished democracy promoters.

Speakers

• Mona Yacoubian
  U.S. Institute of Peace
• Les Campbell
  National Democratic Institute
• Tom Garrett
  International Republican Institute
• Josh Kaufman
  U.S. Agency for International Development
• Dan Brumberg, Moderator
  U.S. Institute of Peace

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