*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
NGOs Not Independent of the State
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- No Democratic Transition in Egypt
NGOs Not Independent of the StateNGOs ARE TOOLS OF THE STATE – NOT AUTONOMOUS ACTORS Dirk-Jan Koch, Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2009, Aid from International NGOs: blind spots on the aid allocation map, p. 23 Nevertheless, the allocation of NGO aid is likely to be shaped by the geographical choices of official donors in the country in which the NGO is based. Recent literature increasingly questions the autonomy of NGOs, especially for those NGOs that strongly depend on government financing. Critics argue that NGOs are in fact subcontractors of the state (Kalb 2005) and see them as:
Other critics of the supposed autonomy of NGOs are more moderate in their views and claim that: “While the moniker ‘non-government organization’ suggests autonomy from government organizations, NGOs are often intimately connected with their home governments in relationships that are both ambivalent as dynamic, sometimes cooperative, sometimes contentious, sometimes both simultaneously.” (Fisher 1998, p. 451) Edwards and Hulme (1996), for example, characterize the dependence of development NGOs on official donors as potentially “too close for comfort.” As a consequence, NGOs might rather be expected to follow their back donors than to decide autonomously on where to locate their activities. Various critics suspect that government funding may have as a result that NGOs become “the implementer of the policy agendas’ of governments” (Edwards and Hulme 1996, p. 970). *Egypt*Democratic Transition Inevitable Without US RoleEGYPTIAN DEMOCRATIC REFORM INEVITABLE – BUT MUST BE DRIVEN INTERNALLY Robert Bowker, Center for Arab & Islamic Studies, Australian National University, 2013, American Democracy Promotion in the Changing Middle East: From Bush to Obama, eds. Akbarzadeh, MacQueen, Piscattori & Saikal, p. 115 Egypt’s political system will probably, over time, evolve in ways which manage to achieve a reasonable balance between progress and stability. However, like those within Egypt anxious to see far-reaching reforms introduced in the near future, outsiders hoping to see democratization in Egypt will have no choice but to work within a system which will also, for the most part, remain highly resistant to externally driven pressure to change. EGYPTIAN REFORM IS INEVITABLE – BUT IT WILL TAKE TIME AND MUST BE INTERNALLY DRIVEN Robert Bowker, Center for Arab & Islamic Studies, Australian National University, 2013, American Democracy Promotion in the Changing Middle East: From Bush to Obama, eds. Akbarzadeh, MacQueen, Piscattori & Saikal, p. 124-5 Either way, Egypt faces the prospect of growing, and irreversible, pressures for change. The drivers of reform—demographic pressures (the youth bulge, to be joined after a decade by an ageing population problem); rising literacy and education; declining infant mortality; enhanced communications technology; wage-based employment of women; environmental pressures and other factors – are not going to disappear. Significant improvements in male and female literacy have been accompanied by growing graduate unemployment: Egyptians with a post-secondary education currently comprise 42 percent of the labor force, but 80 percent of the unemployed. Rising graduate unemployment rates translate directly into frustrated demands not only for jobs, but for housing, marriage and a dignified family life. No government can choose to ignore those pressures.
Robert Bowker, Center for Arab & Islamic Studies, Australian National University, 2013, American Democracy Promotion in the Changing Middle East: From Bush to Obama, eds. Akbarzadeh, MacQueen, Piscattori & Saikal, p. 121-2 During the next few years, if political reform in Egypt based on the rise of a better-informed and empowered Egyptian political audience is to serve US interests, the Obama Administration will have to hope for an improved performance among reformist-minded political elements, be they secular or Islamist, engaged in competition with more traditionally inclined Islamist and secular political forces. There is little reason for optimism on that score. Neo-traditional Islamists presently enjoy superior popular reach, internal party discipline, coherence of vision and other political skills that outstrip those of the secular political parties. They are operating, moreover, in a society where conservative Islamist political views an pietist Salafist sentiment have considerable inherent appeal, where xenophobic tendencies are never far below the surface of Egyptian political life, and in a regional context in which perceptions of the United States will continue to be shaped primarily by US performance in regard to the Palestinian issue and Israel. And whether the dominant political force in Egypt for the next few years proves to be Islamist or secular, the period ahead promises to be characterized by heightened nationalist sensitivities and a strong focus on domestic political and populist economic agendas.
Robert Bowker, Center for Arab & Islamic Studies, Australian National University, 2013, American Democracy Promotion in the Changing Middle East: From Bush to Obama, eds. Akbarzadeh, MacQueen, Piscattori & Saikal, p. 123 The abundant evidence of popular boredom and frustration with Egyptian political life under Mubarak does not obviate the fact that there is no significant body of organized political opinion in Egypt pressing for systemic political reform, nor is such a body likely to emerge in the next few years. Apart from small groups of committed, globally aware middle-class revolutionists taking a more systemic view and strategic approach to change, the revolution in Egypt was directed at a single goal—the removal of President Mubarak and his regime from power. Though its methods were a demonstration of how much has changed in Egypt in the past few decades, the revolution did not reflect a common or more inclusive vision for the country’s future. Its mass following was not committed in any coherent sense, or even primarily, to securing wider social and economic reforms.
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