A Plurality Atlas

Plurality in the Arabic-speaking world

In the Arabic-speaking world, no translation of *Plurality* has been found, nor any article dealing with the book or Weyl. In the news, Tang appears as Taiwan's minister. In the book, the UAE and Saudi Arabia appear as examples of authoritarian countries that outperform democracies in e-government.

Government paperwork can be done on a smartphone. Fast internet is available. On the Persian Gulf there are countries that rank near the top of the world for this kind of digital government. The book Plurality by Audrey Tang of Taiwan (أودري تانغ in Arabic) and E. Glen Weyl gives such countries as examples of where democracies are falling behind. On the Arabic-speaking side, meanwhile, how has the book been read?

In short

As of October 2026, no Arabic translation has been found of Plurality or of Weyl's earlier book Radical Markets [1]. Nor did the survey for this article find any Arabic-language article mentioning the book's title or Weyl.

What appears in Arabic-language reporting is Tang as Taiwan's digital minister. From the book's side, meanwhile, come the Gulf states such as the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Saudi Arabia. The book describes these countries as examples of "authoritarian" countries that outperform democracies in e-government and internet speed [2].

For example

An article on the COVID-19 response (May 2020). Al Jazeera (Al Jazeera Net) covered Taiwan's response to COVID-19. After describing the creation of maps showing stocks of face masks, the article reported that Tang, the digital minister, had broadened the uses of AI and big data [3].

The Summit for Democracy (December 2021). Independent Arabia reported that Tang gave a speech at the "Summit for Democracy" held by the United States. According to the article, Tang emphasized Taiwan's transition from martial-law dictatorship to full democracy. The article reported this together with the controversy over Taiwan's participation and China's strong opposition [4].

A column on AI in the Gulf (May 2025). There is a column under Tang's name with "BW Column" in its title. At the end it says "Interview and Compilation by Yu-Tang You". The column writes that the first place to implement "OpenAI for Countries", OpenAI's program for individual countries, may be the UAE. It also says that for Arab countries, aligning AI with their own culture (cultural alignment) is "even more crucial" [5].

In more detail

The book and translations

The book has 160 "forks" on GitHub (copies that others have made in order to work on them) (a provisional count by this site, October 2026). None of them contains an Arabic (arabic) directory. Arabic (ar) is also absent from the list of languages on the book's site, plurality.net [1].

On Open Library, a book catalog site, only the English edition turned up. Arabic-language Google News also returned 0 articles treating "الأسواق الراديكالية" (Radical Markets) as the title of the book (a provisional count by this site, October 2026) [1]. However, the catalogs of national libraries and publishers in Arab countries have not been checked. So it cannot be said that there is "no" translation [1].

The Gulf states in the book

What follows is what chapter 2-0 of the book's English edition, "Information Technology and Democracy: a Widening Gulf", says.

First, a footnote mentions the Arab Spring. The footnote is written in the context that in fragile democracies where the state's capacity is limited, chaos can turn out to be an ally of democracy. Within it, the Arab Spring that swept across North Africa in the early 2010s is given as one example of young, technology-savvy citizens using social media and other technologies to challenge the institutions of authoritarian states [2].

The main text of the same chapter, meanwhile, places the UAE alongside the PRC as "authoritarian regimes" that have laid out and to a large extent successfully deployed ambitious public information technology strategies. Of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, it says that they do well in internet speed (rankings from Speedtest.net) relative to their income levels [2].

The book then argues that many middle-income and wealthy democracies invest less in e-government than authoritarian countries. It writes that in the 2022 edition of the UN E-Government Development Index (EGDI), the UAE ranked 13th and Saudi Arabia 31st, ahead of many democracies such as Canada (32nd) [2].

For the 2024 edition of the same index, Kuwait's Al-Rai reported that Saudi Arabia ranked 6th, the UAE 11th and Bahrain 18th [6]. The index is the same, but the book and Al-Rai treat it differently. The book uses it as evidence that democracies are falling behind; Al-Rai reports it as the rankings of Kuwait and the other Gulf states.

How Tang has been reported

In Arabic-language articles, Tang appears in several contexts.

Within the material collected, few articles mention mechanisms of civic participation. The main one is an essay on AI and democracy in Annabaa. It mentions that Tang, working with the Collective Intelligence Project, held "alignment assemblies" («تجميعات المحاذاة») that ask citizens for their views on how AI should behave [10]. → Alignment Assemblies

Community Notes («ملاحظات المجتمع»)

In January 2025, Meta announced that it would end fact-checking in the United States and move to a system similar to X's Community Notes. Community Notes is a system in which users write notes on misleading posts, and whether a note is shown is decided by other users' ratings. This shift was also reported in Arabic. → Community Notes

Participatory institutions in Tunisia

In several municipalities in Tunisia, participatory budgeting («الميزانية التشاركية»), in which residents decide how part of a budget is spent, has been carried out. → Participatory budgeting

A piece in Nawaat's contributors' section (2016) introduced the participatory budgeting project for fiscal year 2017 in the municipality of Ettadhamen, supported by the Tunisian office of the organization International Alert together with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and local civil society [14].

A 2017 reported article in Nawaat said that the oversight body for decentralization and the loans and support fund for local authorities had, in a notice dated June 9, 2017, objected to municipalities adopting participatory budgeting. In this situation, the municipalities of Ariana and Sidi Bouzid chose to combine the two approaches, according to the article [15].

In a 2025 podcast conversation, Omezzine Khelifa, who served as an adviser to the finance minister in the Tunisian government, told Tang that the social movement of the Tunisian revolution was in the end co-opted by political parties because it did not have a proposal for an alternative system [16].

What is debated

Where it fits in Plurality

In the book's English edition, the Arab world appears in chapter 2-0. One appearance is the Arab Spring in a footnote, as an example of challenging authoritarianism with technology. The other is the Gulf states in the main text, as authoritarian countries that outperform democracies in public investment in technology: the UAE's information technology strategy, the internet speeds of Gulf monarchies such as Saudi Arabia, and Neom, a new smart city being built in the desert [2]. As far as the book's English edition was searched, no civic participation practices from the Arabic-speaking world appear.

Outside the book, Tang has herself touched on the cultural alignment of AI for Arab countries [5]. And Khelifa called the trust between civil society organizations and public servants "a kind of thermometer for the health of a democracy", comparing Tunisia under dictatorship with democratic Taiwan [16].

Articles on other countries and regions:

Further reading

  1. Plurality, 2-0 "Information Technology and Democracy: a Widening Gulf" (English, book, CC0) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-0/eng/
  2. Tang's column "As AI giants gather in the Middle East" (English, column, CC BY 4.0) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/master/2025-05-22-As-AI-giants-gather-in-the-Middle-East.md
  3. Conversation with Khelifa, "How To Save Democracy" (English, podcast transcript, CC0) — https://archive.tw/2025-11-28-how-to-save-democracy
  4. Al Jazeera, "دبلوماسية تايوان الصحية" (Taiwan's health diplomacy) (in Arabic, article, 2020) — https://www.aljazeera.net/politics/2020/5/6/%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%88%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3-%D9%83%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A7
  5. Nawaat's report on participatory budgeting in Tunisia (in Arabic, article, 2017) — https://nawaat.org/2017/10/04/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B2%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A6%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%81-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D9%82%D8%B7%D9%8A%D8%B9/

Sources

  1. List of forks of the book's repository — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/forks ［CC0］
  2. Plurality, 2-0 "Information Technology and Democracy: a Widening Gulf" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-0/eng/ ［CC0］
  3. Al Jazeera, "دبلوماسية تايوان الصحية.. كيف نجحت دولة على حدود الصين في احتواء فيروس كورونا؟" (Taiwan's health diplomacy: how did a country on China's border succeed in containing the coronavirus?) (2020-05-06, in Arabic) — https://www.aljazeera.net/politics/2020/5/6/%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%88%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3-%D9%83%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A7
  4. Independent Arabia, "تايوان نقطة حساسة في الصراع بين واشنطن وبكين" (Taiwan, a sensitive point in the conflict between Washington and Beijing) (2021-12-22, in Arabic) — https://www.independentarabia.com/node/287866/%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A9/%D8%AD%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA/%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B8%D9%89-%D8%A8%D8%AF%D8%B9%D9%85-%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%B2%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%A8%D9%82%D9%89-%D8%AD%D8%B0%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A5%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%8A
  5. BW Column: As AI giants gather in the Middle East (2025-05-22) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/master/2025-05-22-As-AI-giants-gather-in-the-Middle-East.md ［CC BY 4.0］
  6. Al-Rai, "مؤشر الأمم المتحدة للحكومة الإلكترونية 2024: الكويت 66 عالمياً و6 خليجياً و20 آسيوياً" (UN E-Government Index 2024: Kuwait 66th worldwide, 6th in the Gulf and 20th in Asia) (2024-09-19, in Arabic) — https://www.alraimedia.com/article/1701686/%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA/%D8%A3%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9/%D9%85%D8%A4%D8%B4%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-2024-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AA-66-%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D9%886-%D8%AE%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D9%8820-%D8%A2%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%A7
  7. Al-Mashhad Al-Araby, "الصين تستنكر اجتماع وزير الأمن البريطاني مع وزيرة تايوانية" (China condemns the British security minister's meeting with a Taiwanese minister) (2023-06-18, in Arabic) — https://almashhadalaraby.com/news/401654
  8. Al-Sharq, "فنلندا - سنغافورة - تايوان.. كيف نجحت في محو الأمية الإعلامية؟" (Finland, Singapore, Taiwan: how did they succeed in media literacy?) (2026-07-23, in Arabic) — https://al-sharq.com/opinion/23/07/2026/%D9%81%D9%86%D9%84%D9%86%D8%AF%D8%A7-%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%BA%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%83%D9%8A%D9%81-%D9%86%D8%AC%D8%AD%D8%AA-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%88-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9
  9. TRT Arabi, "الخطر الإسرائيلي يطرق أبواب الصين.." (The Israeli danger knocks on China's doors) (2025-10-27, in Arabic) — https://www.trtarabi.com/article/46260b482fed
  10. Annabaa, "كيف يمكن للذكاء الاصطناعي تعزيز الديمقراطية؟" (How can artificial intelligence strengthen democracy?) (2024-04-07, in Arabic) — https://annabaa.org/arabic/authorsarticles/38502
  11. Al Jazeera, "ميتا تدخل منحنى خطرا في مجال مكافحة التضليل الإعلامي" (Meta enters a dangerous curve in the fight against disinformation) (2025-01-11, in Arabic) — https://www.aljazeera.net/tech/2025/1/11/%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AA%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D8%AF%D8%AE%D9%84-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%AD%D9%86%D9%89-%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%84-%D9%85%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9
  12. Oman Daily, "استسلام «ميتا» والسوق الحر للأكاذيب" (Meta's surrender and the free market of lies) (2025-02-04, in Arabic) — https://www.omandaily.om/ampArticle/1172508
  13. Asharq News, ""إكس" تفتح المجال أمام الذكاء الاصطناعي لكتابة "ملاحظات المجتمع"" (X opens the way for AI to write Community Notes) (2025-07-04, in Arabic) — https://asharq.com/technology/141504/%D8%A5%D9%83%D8%B3-%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%AD-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D9%83%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B5%D8%B7%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B9%D9%8A-%D9%84%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D9%85%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD%D8%B8%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%B9/
  14. Nawaat, "تجربة الميزانية التشاركيّة في حيّ التضامن: خطوة هامّة على طريق الديمقراطيّة المحلّية" (The experience of participatory budgeting in Hay Ettadhamen: an important step on the road to local democracy) (2016-09-29, in Arabic) — https://nawaat.org/2016/09/29/%D8%AA%D8%AC%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B2%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%83%D9%8A%D9%91%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%91-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA/
  15. Nawaat, "الميزانية التشاركية: استئناف بعد قطيعة أم ذرّ رماد على الأعين؟" (Participatory budgeting: a resumption after a break, or throwing dust in the eyes?) (2017-10-04, in Arabic) — https://nawaat.org/2017/10/04/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B2%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A6%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%81-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D9%82%D8%B7%D9%8A%D8%B9/
  16. How To Save Democracy (2025-11-28) — https://archive.tw/2025-11-28-how-to-save-democracy ［CC0］
Related: Who is Audrey Tang? ・ What are Community Notes? ・ What are Alignment Assemblies? ・ What is civic tech? ・ Plurality in Taiwan ・ Plurality in the Persian-speaking world ・ Plurality in Israel

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