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American Democracy and Governance (D&G) Promotion in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) Region

Background: American D&G promotion in the MENA region must be seen in the context of international development.

D&G as an Element of Development

Scholarly Conceptions

What is D&G?

(Diamond, Larry. “Foreign Aid in the National Interest: The Importance of Democracy and Governance.” Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy : Lessons for the Next Half-Century. Ed. Picard, Louis A.; Groelsema, Robert; Buss, Terry F. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2007.)

Context: increasing recognition in development circles of poverty and development challenges as related to governance. [Consistent with the shift from “sustainable development” to “development as security” trend identified on page 44 in: Martinussen, John. “Society, State, and Market: A Guide to Competing Theories of Development.” Zed Books 1997.]

Characteristics of “democracy” and “governance”

Hirst, Paul. “Democracy and Governance.” Debating Governance: Authority, Steering, and Democracy. Ed. Jon Pierre. London: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Carothers, Thomas. “Democracy Assistance: Political v. Developmental?” Journal of Democracy, Jan2009, Vol. 20 Issue 1, p5-19, 15p

Who implements D&G? (Powley, E., and S. N. Anderlini. 2004. "Democracy and Governance," p. 38. Pp. 36-47 in: Inclusive Security, Sustainable Peace: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Action, by International Alert and Women Waging Peace. 2004.)

UN; Regional Associations; Donor Countries

“Donor countries and their bilateral development agencies (e.g. US Agency for International Development, United Kingdom Department for International Development, Canadian International Development Agency), often through their surrogates (international NGOs), have a role in designing programmes to support national-level democracy and governance efforts. They work in partnership with a variety of international and local groups, including NGOs, relief and development agencies. Their priorities are determined by the donor country’s interests as well as by local needs” (43)

International Conception: United Nations’ broad objectives

“A Guide to UNDP Democratic Governance Practice” (2010)

D&G is essential to achieving overall UN development goals (as elaborated on in the Millennium Development Goals): “For UNDP the ‘D’ represents Development, but as expressed in the Millennium Declaration from 2000, democracy and democratic governance [DG] are critical requirements if the MDGs are to be achieved in an equitable and sustainable manner. This has also been part of UNDP think- ing ever since the publication of the first Human Development Report in 1990, emphasizing that human development is about expanding capabili- ties and enlarging the choices people have of fulfilling their lives.” (5)

Three overall approaches to D&G: RFostering inclusive participation; RStrengthening responsive governing institutions; RBasing democratic governance on international principles. (3)

American Conception: Promote democratic transition and good governance in accordance with U.S. interests

USAID “User’s Guide to DG Programming”

D&G serves U.S. strategic interests: “USAID Missions and the Washington-based Office of Democracy and Governance (DG) cadre have a noble and challenging mandate captured in US AID’ s Vision Statement: To accelerate the advance of democracy, prosperity and human well-being in developing countries. The Office of Democracy and Governance has a further defined mission statement to ‘advance the effectiveness of global USG efforts to promote the transition to, and consolidation of, democratic institutions, civic values and good governance, and directly impact broader USG stabilization and development objectives.’ ”

Obama Speech to UN General Assembly September 2010 stressing an American policy concerned with D&G but in a limited capacity (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/23/remarks-president-united-nations-general-assembly)

“Civil society is the conscience of our communities and America will always extend our engagement abroad with citizens beyond the halls of government”

“The ultimate success of democracy in the world won’t come because the United States dictates it; it will come because individual citizens demand a say in how they are governed”

D&G in the MENA Context

International Approach to D&G in MENA

UN Arab Human Development Report 2004 “Towards Freedom in the Arab World”:

Broad conception of freedom/governance as essential to development/renaissance in Arab countries: “No Arab thinker today doubts that freedom is a vital and necessary condition, though not the only one, for a new Arab renaissance, or that the Arab world’s capacity to face up to its internal and external challenges, depends on ending tyranny and securing fundamental rights and freedoms.” (8)

Role of the international community in strengthening internal-driven reform: “The UN’s credibility, which would be en- hanced through its development, can enable it to play a crucial role in the process of transfor- mation towards good governance and freedom in Arab countries. The organization can ensure the completion of initial legal reforms assuring civil society organizations the freedom to exist and operate; and guarantee that conditions are met for holding free and fair elections.” (22)

American D&G Priorities in MENA

Three primary goals: build accountable government institutions; promote the rule of law; expand political competition [1]

History

Post-WWII

Essentially up until the George W. Bush Administration, there has been little real U.S. consideration or care in the 20th century for human rights and democratization in the Arab World, given the prevailing interest of maintaining positive relationships with various authoritarian regimes. (Wittes, Tamara Cofman. Freedom's Unsteady March : America's Role in Building Arab Democracy. Washington, DC, USA: Brookings Institution Press, 2008. p 17.)

Post-Soviet

Increased pressure on regimes from foreign-funded international NGOs in the 1990s led regimes to resist (Carapico, Sheila. “Foreign Aid for Promoting Democracy in the Arab World.” Middle East Journal, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Summer, 2002), pp. 379-395)

Post-9/11

Bush Administration

After 9/11 USAID pursued several large-scale D&G initiatives, including MEPI and BMENA, based in part on the UN’s Arab Human Development Report and aiming to tackle poverty and prevent terror (Dalacoura, Katerina. “US democracy promotion in the Arab Middle East since 11 September 2001: a critique.” International Affairs 81, 5 (2001), 963-979)

The Bush administration’s approach was to fund initiatives like MEPI and “bottom-up” civil society/political party training, despite grander rhetoric to the contrary and efforts of regimes to resist reform (12). (Brumberg, Daniel. “Democratization versus Liberalization in the Arab World: Dilemmas and Challenges for U.S. Foreign Policy.” Strategic Studies Institute. July 2005)

Wittes, Tamara and Sarah Yerkes. “What Price Freedom?: Assessing the Bush Administration’s Freedom agenda.” Analysis Paper 10. Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. September 2006.

Obama Administration

Transition from Bush to Obama (Ottaway, Marina. “Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: Restoring Credibility.” Policy Brief 60. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. May 2008)

To help realize Arab democracy, the U.S. should more earnestly push for rights and democratic reforms and re-engage with civil society, including the Islamists thereby drawing upon this important sector (102) (Diamond, Larry. “Why Are There No Arab Democracies?” Journal of Democracy Volume 21, Number 1 January 2010)

Intransigence of Arab regimes has reached an astounding low, one that the U.S. cannot necessarily overcome without re-evaluating long-held positions. (Ottaway, Marina. “Middle East Promotion is Not a One-Way Street.” Policy Brief 82. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. November 2009.)

Major American D&G Organizations Active in MENA

Government

USAID

Department of State – Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Government-Funded Private Granting Institutions

National Endowment for Democracy

Middle East Partnership Initiative

AMIDEAST

U.S. Institute of Peace

International Non-Governmental Organizations

Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS)

International Republican Institute (IRI)

National Democratic Institute (NDI)

International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)

Democracy International (DI)

Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE)

International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)

Chemonics

American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative

IREX

International Crisis Group

Human Rights NGOs

Freedom House

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights First

Amnesty International

International Center for Transitional Justice

Think Tanks/Academic Institutions

Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Carnegie Endowment – Middle East

Brookings Saban Center

East-West Institute

American Enterprise Institute

Other

Carter Center

Ford Foundation

Financing

Figures

“Deepening Our Understanding of the Effects of US Foreign Assistance on Democracy Building Final Report.” Steven E. Finkel, University of Pittsburgh and Hertie School of Governance (Berlin) Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, University of Pittsburgh Mitchell A. Seligson, Vanderbilt University C. Neal Tate, Vanderbilt University. January 28, 2008. (http://www.pitt.edu/~politics/democracy/democracy.html)

From 1990 to 2004: Algeria ($3.7 million in 8 years), Bahrain ($1.3 million in 2 years), Egypt ($334.3 million in 14 years), Iraq ($523.6 million in 3 years), Jordan ($28.3 million in 5 years), Lebanon ($28.5 million in 11 years), Morocco ($3.6 million in 7 years), Oman ($0.6 million in 2 years), Qatar ($0.8 million in 1 year), Saudi Arabia ($0.4 million in 1 year), Tunisia ($11.2 million in 5 years), Turkey ($0.9 million in 4 years), West Bank and Gaza ($155.4 million in 11 years), Yemen ($6.6 million in 8 years). (PAGE 70)

Criticism

Effectiveness

[GAO reports on various funded programs, including MEPI]

Molutsi, Patrick. “Tracking progress in Democracy and Governance Around the World: Lessons and Methods.” International IDEA.

Huber, Daniela. “Democracy Assistance in the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparison of US and EU Policies.” Mediterranean Politics, 13:1, 43-62.

Although the Bush administration heightened the defenses of governments all over the world where international NGOs were working by using rhetoric that led the regimes to equate “democracy promotion” with regime change, even when some progress is achieved, the praise heaped on these international NGOs tends to be exaggerated (64) (Carothers, Thomas. “The Backlash Against Democracy Promotion.” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 2006), pp. 55-68).

Objectivity

Massive Public Funding disguised under the guise of “international NGOs”

Fusing of Academia and Politics

e.g.) Journal of Democracy published by National Endowment for Democracy (http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/)

D&G Work can provide international cover for Regimes actually unwilling to permit real political reform.

Doubting American intentions

Abu-Khalid, Fowziyah. “American and Western Political Initiatives in the Middle East: Challenges of Democratisation in the Middle East – Case Study of Saudi Arabia.” Democratisation in the Middle East: Dilemmas and Perspectives. Ed. Birgitte Rahbek. Oakville, CT: Aarhus University Press, 2005.

Sayigh, Yezid. “US and European Support to Democratic Reform: The Intentions and Practices as Seen from the Middle East.” Democratisation in the Middle East: Dilemmas and Perspectives. Ed. Birgitte Rahbek. Oakville, CT: Aarhus University Press, 2005.

Power and Discourse

Bayat, Asef. “Transforming the Arab World: The Arab Human Development Report and the Politics of Change.” Development and Change, vol. 36, no. 6, Forum 2005 (The Hague).

Asef Bayat questions the assumption in the AHDR that freedom and democracy as goals of development can be achieved through a top-down approach involving gradual, Western-backed political reforms carried out by incumbent governments in consultation with experts. D&G in the MENA region typically operates on the idea that proper counsel can guide governments that are either “benign but irrational” or “rational but ignorant,” viewing the state as a “neutral apparatus representing public interests” as opposed to authoritarian regimes resistant to relinquishing power (1234). While he does not entirely dismiss the work of international NGOs and international solidarity for reform, he stresses that international actors should place a priority on working with grassroots, indigenous democratic movements – an element ignored in the UN report, whose wording suggests a bureaucratic fear of offending Arab governments.

Adely, Fida J. “Educating Women for Development: The Arab Human Development Report 2005 and the Problem with Women’s Choices.” International Journal of Middle East Studies. 41 (2009). 105-122.

Fida Adely suggests that development discourse is “rooted in a colonial discourse about native backwardness” (118). Thus the Arab Human Development Reports, while representative of a neo-liberal articulation of “development as freedom” as defined by Amartya Sen and largely adopted in UN reports and discourse, nevertheless present essentialized images of Arab culture and ignore the coercive power of Western-dominated global institutions. Additionally, development discourse has a tendency “to construct problems and to fit these problems into predefined categories” (118).

Mitchell, Timothy. “The Object of Development.” Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002.

Indeed, development discourse and the categories it creates can have severe power-implications in the view of some scholars. In his analysis of the American urge to offer technical aid to develop Egypt’s largely agrarian economy after World War II, Timothy Mitchell analyzes USAID rhetoric, pointing to the “model answers” that supposedly objective “experts” bring to Egypt. What is often ignored in the discussion of a development scheme based on providing technical knowledge, Mitchell argues, is that an organization like USAID is hardly “a rational consciousness standing outside the country” as it imagines itself to be, but “is in fact a central element in configurations of power within the country” (223). According to Mitchell, the projects USAID pursues are built on a discourse subservient to American political and economic interests and can often do more harm than good for Egyptians. He maintains that democracy rhetoric is also employed according to American-defined categories such as capitalism, citing a 1989 USAID report’s calls for political decentralization and encouraging “democracy and pluralism” as a means of empowering rural landlords who would support “the market” and free economy (227).