*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Civil Society Assistance Fails: U.S. Foreign Policy Undermines Credibility with Civil Society in Mideast
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Civil Society Assistance Fails: U.S. Foreign Policy Undermines Credibility with Civil Society in MideastUNPOPULAR U.S. POLICIES IN THE MIDEAST UNDERMINE EFFECTIVENESS OF US CIVIL SOCIETY ASSISTANCE Amy Hawthorne, Carnegie Endowment, 2005, Unchartered Journey: promoting democracy in the middle east, eds. T. Carothers & M. Ottaway, p. 107-8 Effective civil society assistance requires a sense of genuine partnership and a vision for change that is shared by donors and civil society organizations. In this regard, the Middle East poses a profound challenge in that civil society assistance cannot be separated from the broader context of U.S. relations with the Arab world. Such relations, though never close, have only grown more volatile since Washington launched the new policy of promoting democracy in the region. Widespread opposition to U.S. policy in Iraq and Palestinian territories may be fostering a solidarity previously lacking among polarized sectors of civil society. It remains to be seen whether this will spill over into the realm of domestic politics and lead to the forging of new coalitions for democratic change. In the meantime, the anti-American tone of Arab political discourse and the security concerns across the region make it difficult for U.S. officials to reach out to new parts of civil society. This tension is also leading civil society groups—especially those with the most credibility—to steer clear of U.S. assistance for fear that accepting it will taint them irrevocably. Exacerbating this situation are U.S. counterterrorism measures, which require extensive vetting of all NGOs that are potential recipients of U.S. funding. Thus until U.S.-Arab relations improve, U.S. attempts to reach out meaningfully to Arab civil society are likely to be complicated by the realities of regional politics as much as by the challenges of democracy promotion.
Imco Brouwer, Mediterranean Program Coordinator-European University Institute, 2000, Funding Virtue: civil society aid and democracy promotion, eds. M. Ottaway & T. Carothers, p. 37 NGOs that monitor, document, and investigate the effect of government policies on their societies, as well as denounce inefficiencies and violations of human rights, have become the major focus of foreign donors in both Palestine and Egypt. Donor-funded organizations are characterized by a well-educated, professional staff; minimal or no membership; financial dependence on foreign donors; and no formal links to political parties. In other words, they are similar to those in established Western democracies, although they operate in an authoritarian context. Western donors support these NGOs because they seem to offer a technical, nonpolitical way to promote democratization, or at least to prepare personnel and organizations to play a useful role once more overtly political groups push the regime into democratizing. The NGOs can also help make the existing regimes less authoritarian and, especially, more efficient, even if the upshot still falls short of democracy. Finally, they are easy to assist: such NGOs understand what donors want and speak the same language, literally (their officials usually speak English) and figuratively. U.S. CIVIL SOCIETY ASSISTANCE TO MIDEAST FAILS: TOO BROAD AND NARROW IN ITS CONCEPTION AND EXPECTATIONS OF CIVIL SOCIETY Amy Hawthorne, Carnegie Endowment, 2005, Unchartered Journey: promoting democracy in the middle east, eds. T. Carothers & M. Ottaway, p. 97-8 American democracy promoters, along with their European counterparts, tend to have an understanding of civil society that is simultaneously too broad and too narrow. On the one hand, they frequently vest unrealistic hopes in civil society as a democratic and democratizing force. They envision that, bolstered by outside assistance, virtuous civil societies of democratic-minded, nonpartisan, peaceful citizens will erode authoritarian regimes. They often also expect these civil society groups to operate as they are thought to in the United States or Europe—that is, to act as a counterweight to state power and to “check” or otherwise influence government behavior—and they provide assistance to help them do so. On the other hand, donors conceive of civil society quite narrowly, as comprising the organizations—nonprofit organizations and public interest groups—that seem to resemble those with which they are most familiar in their own countries and whose leaders speak English and are comfortable in international circles. Donors often downplay or ignore religious organizations, social movements, and other unfamiliar, non-NGO forms of associative life. They also fail to take into account the relationship of the different parts of civil society to citizens, governments, and one another. This double-edged tendency has existed in U.S. democracy promotion efforts in the Arab world as well, even thought until recently the United States paid scant attention to the question of democracy there. In the early 1990s, near the end of the George H. W. Bush administration, the United States launched small-scale programs to aid democracy in the Middle East, adding to this assistance occasional rhetorical support for political reform at the diplomatic level. This approach continued during the administration of Bill Clinton, which increased democracy aid to the region largely to avoid being seen as excluding the Middle East from its global democracy-promotion agenda. “Aiding civil society” was the leading element of U.S. efforts. The majority of democracy aid for the Middle East from 1991 through 2001 – about 150 million—went to projects classified as “civil society strengthening.” At the same time, these projects were targeted almost exclusively toward service NGOs and prodemocracy NGOs. US CIVIL SOCIETY ASSISTANCE TARGETS THE WRONG GROUPS AND INSTITUTIONS Marina Ottaway & Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment, 2000, Funding Virtue: civil society aid and democracy promotion, eds. M. Ottaway & T. Carothers, p. 295-6 Donor’s tendency to think of NGOs as the heart of civil society is part and parcel of their ahistorical approach in this domain. When Western democracy promoters embraced the notion of civil society aid in the early 1990s, they often assumed that since the countries in which they were working had few organizations of the type donors designate “civil society organizations” – that is, Westernized advocacy NGOs—they had little civil society of any kind. In fact, as the chapters in the volume highlight, in all the regions under study (with the exception of some Eastern European countries coming out of communism), civil society was already very much present when donors launched their aid efforts for it. Programs have been built on top or alongside existing civil society, which includes localistic, politically disengaged groups; traditionalistic, often religion-oriented, associations; politicized populist organizations; and extensive citizen networks dealing with socioeconomic issues. Correspondingly, the course and eventual success of the programs for civil society have had much to do with the extent to which programs have constructively melded with existing forms of civil society. In the future, it is essential that providers of civil society aid abandon their notion that civil society is mostly about NGOs and instead strive to understand how civil society is already structured in each recipient country and assist it accordingly. DONORS TARGET ASSISTANCE TO CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS THEY SUPPORT OECD, 2009, Better Aid: Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness, Findings, Recommendations and Good Practice, p. 30 A vibrant democracy requires space for alternative points of view. When CSOs are invited to engage in policy dialogue by governments or donors, the latter are inclined to invite CSOs that they consider like-minded. However, this comes at a cost if it means that different perspectives are stifled or that marginalized populations are excluded. CSOs involved in AG-CS consultations suggested the need for mechanisms that ensure a range of viewpoints, including those of women’s organizations, of rural-based organizations and of other CSOs representing the disenfranchised. CSOs ARE NOT POLITICALLY NEUTRAL – ASSISTANCE MUST RECOGNIZE THEIR POLITICAL NATURE Massimo Tommasoli, UN Observer for IDEA, 2010, Engaging Civil Society: Emerging Trends in Democratic Governance, eds. G. Cheema & V. Popovski, p. 142-3 As we have observed at the beginning of this analysis, CSOs are not neutral, in either an electoral process or a parliamentary process, because they are embedded in structures of power that link them to the supposedly separate spheres of the state, the political society and the market. As for the electoral process, CSO’s engagement in the parliamentary process cannot escape the fundamentally political nature of the agency of civil society. The concept of civil society is about power, namely the power to influence decision-making. The discussion of the relationship between weak and strong publics is crucial to reveal the hidden tensions that characterize such engagement. In another sense, ultimately “the tensions that we observe in the relations between the state/parliament and civil society stem from the ‘Western’ conceptualization of civil society as a buffer zone between the state and citizens.” Effective democracy assistance should be aware of such tensions and of its own role in exacerbating or even creating them, and act on the basis of sound comparative, non-prescriptive knowledge in both the field of democracy assistance and the realm of democratic governance.
Benoit Challand, Research Fellow-European Institute in Florence, 2009, Palestinian Civil Society: foreign donors and the power to promote and exclude, p. 82 Providing funding, from whatever sources, is never a politically neutral act. As Curmi states, “the question of funding to Palestinian NGOs remains intimately political and must be read according to this yardstick to understand the nuances of the debates.” The previous sections on the historical and institutional changes both of local civil society and of the increased presence of international donors gave lots of food-for-thought on this link between politics and aid. Directory: assets assets -> Northern territory of australia assets -> Number: caveat in the [Will/Will and Codicil/Estate of] assets -> Invitation for Bid Calact/mbta for Standard Floor and Low Floor Rural Duty Vehicles ifb no. 12-03 November 14, 2012 assets -> 12 Step Retreats For Everyone in Twelve Step Recovery Ratner Fellowship assets -> 12 Step Retreats For Everyone in Twelve Step Recovery Ratner Fellowship assets -> Sigaccess annual Report assets -> Central Government is expected to ask the seventh pay commission to consider merging 50% dearness allowance assets -> List of accessible executive records assets -> Emergency telephone numbers Call toll-free from anywhere in France Download 2.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
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