For more than three years, USIP’s former Muslim World Initiative focused on problems of political reform and power sharing in the Arab world through an innovative Arab Political Oppositions Project.  The project highlighted the ways that leaders of political parties, nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, and official bodies in the Arab world have --or have not -- mobilized support for a common vision of political reform.

As the Muslim World Initiative yielded important findings and conclusions for both academics and activists, the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention's Project on Conflict, Democracy and Security, expands the reach of its predecessor to consider wider problems of political reform, conflict resolution, and security that are applicable to regions facing ongoing internal conflicts where problems of identity conflict and reform are not limited by or defined by Islam or Muslim identity.

Often, when political reforms make it possible for one socio-economic and/or ethno-religious group to use the ballot as a means of excluding or disenfranchising rivals, elections become a source of instability and even civil war. Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Kenya, Kosovo, Thailand and Malaysia are just some examples of countries where the effort to advance political reforms have been exacerbated by—or have exacerbated—these ethno-religious and ideological conflicts.  

The Project on Conflict, Democracy and Security focuses on the challenge facing political leaders in divided societies in negotiating constitutional arrangements that provide for political inclusion in ways that facilitate rather than obstruct democratic reforms, and how, in these states, peacemaking and political reform can be calibrated to serve all sectors of society equally.