Political scholarship would have us believe that currently democracy is impossible without a change to the formal governmental structure and civil society. This has obfuscated the democratic actions that have been enacted by the people of Yemen in the absence of a liberal democracy.
Wedeen 08 (Lisa, is a professor in and chair of the department of political science at the university of Chicago and specializes in comparative politics, the Middle East, political theory, feminist theory, and qualitative methods.” , Peripheral Visions Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen, p. 2-4, Sydnor)
Yemen is ideal for a scholarly analysis … so and how we know when they do.
This is a function of white supremacy which in policy debates demarcates democracy as liberal in that it is atomistic, stressing natural rights and duties to a strong state, in expense of social welfare. Left unacknowledged, political theory will continue to perpetuate a parasitic, racial liberalism.
Mills 08 (Charles W., John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University, “Racial Liberalism,” PMLA, 123.5, http://www.havenscenter.org/files/Mills-Racial%20Liberalism.pdf, Sydnor)
Liberalism is globally triumphant … and calls for radical rectification.
The international order is structured by this understanding of the nation-state, proliferating domination and subordination as the social ontology structuring politics.
Mills 08 (Charles W., John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University, “Racial Liberalism,” PMLA, 123.5, http://www.havenscenter.org/files/Mills-Racial%20Liberalism.pdf, Sydnor)
For the reality is, as … conceptual and theoretical levels.
Scholarly and political thought in America has confused liberalism with order, revealing a commitment to a strong, liberal state in which citizens roles are individual, passive consumers of politics.
Wedeen 08 (Lisa Wedeen 08, is a professor in and chair of the department of political science at the university of Chicago and specializes in comparative politics, the Middle East, political theory, feminist theory, and qualitative methods.” ,”Peripheral Visions Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen”, book, pg. 220 MCJ)
In the particular circumstances … only temporarily suspended.6
This understanding of citizenship is a function of whiteness that continues through depicting Yemen as dangerous and its people oppressed. In order for them to become accepted internationally, they must pass into the structures of democracy established by the White, Western order.
Feldman 06 (Keith, is an Assistant Professor in Ethnic Studies Department, Ethnic Studies Ph.D., University of Washington, 2008 (with honors), M.A., The George Washington University, 2003, B.A., Brown University, 2000 (cum laude) “The (Il)legible Arab Body and the Fantasy of National Democracy”, MELUS, Vol. 31, No. 4, Arab American Literature (Winter, 2006), pp. 33-53, Carter )
Like other ideological formations, whiteness … peculiarities of Arab illegibility (Naber 50).
Scholars and policymakers have forged America as a white democratic messiah – one who filters events through whiteness to render Arabness irrational that must be violently controlled. Only global catastrophe can emanate from this logic.
Martinot 03 ( [Steve, lecturer at San Francisco State University in the Center for Interdisciplinary Programs, “The Cultural Roots of Interventionism in the US,” Social Justice Vol. 30, No. 1 (2003), pp. 19-20)
In summary, U.S. interventionism has … good by white nationalism.
Even the most seemingly benign policies assisting in liberal democracy make racialized violence inevitable.
Volpi 11 (Frederic, Ph.D Professor at University of St. Andrews on Middle Eastern Studies, “Framing Civility in the Middle East: Alternative Perspectives on the State and Civil Society,” Third World Quarterly, Vol 32, Iss 5, Sydnor)
Norbert Elias's classic account … that underpin the community.21
We advocate affirming the democratic subject already existing in Yemen.
We believe that debate on this year’s resolution should be about how we come to understand democracy and its potential in various countries. Voting aff signifies a break from the status quo in that we challenge dominant conceptions of Yemen as lacking democracy so prevalent in political and scholarly circles.
Goker 11 (Zeynep Gulru, , Social Movements, Mobilizations, and Contestations in the Middle East and North Africa, “Presence in Silence: Feminist and Democratic Implications of the Saturday Vigils in Turkey,” p. 107-8, Sydnor)
The literature on democratic theory … absence of a democratic regime!'
An aff ballot contests the necessity of liberalism for the production of the democratic subject. This break in scholarship reveals the docility of white modes of citizenship.
Wedeen 08 (Lisa, is a professor in and chair of the department of political science at the university of Chicago and specializes in comparative politics, the Middle East, political theory, feminist theory, and qualitative methods.” ,”Peripheral Visions Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen”, book, page 99-100, MCJ)
The Yemeni example, by contrast, suggests …l participation in its own right.
Confronting how whiteness shapes our understanding of liberalism is a prerequisite to comprehending the framing and trajectory of policy debates on this resolution.
Mills 08 (Charles W., John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University,
“Racial Liberalism,” PMLA, 123.5, http://www.havenscenter.org/files/Mills-Racial%20Liberalism.pdf, Sydnor)
Finally, since contemporary … social contract can ever be fulfilled.
Debates about democracy assistance must be expanded beyond an obsessive focus on the state to include the recognition of democratic contestation in various communities. Excluding these approaches ensures the continuation of whiteness, civilizing missions against Arabness, and the elimination of difference.
Volpi 11 (Frederic, Ph.D Professor at University of St. Andrews on Middle Eastern Studies, “Framing Civility in the Middle East: Alternative Perspectives on the State and Civil Society,” Third World Quarterly, Vol 32, Iss 5, Sydnor)
A useful starting point for considering … frameworks unduly restrict the field of inquiry.
