*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Civil Society Assistance Difficult in the Middle East
Download 2.51 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- MUCH MORE DIFFICULT FOR CIVIL SOCIETY TO FLOURISH IN MIDDLE EAST
- CIVIL SOCIETY IN MID EAST COUNTRIES IS VIBRANT BUT DOES NOT PROMOTE DEMOCRATIZATION
- CIVIL SOCIETY HAS YET TO DEVELOP SUFFICIENTLY IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY
- CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EAST NOT ADEPT AT POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
- CIVIL SOCIETY ASSISTANCE LIMITED DUE TO DISCOURSES ABOUT MIDEAST CULTURE
Civil Society Assistance Difficult in the Middle EastCIVIL SOCIETY ASSISTANCE MOST DIFFICULT IN THE MIDDLE EAST Marina Ottaway & Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment, 2000, Funding Virtue: civil society aid and democracy promotion, eds. M. Ottaway & T. Carothers, p. 14-5 The chapters in this volume show that while USAID and other donors basically follows the same approach to civil society assistance everywhere, civil society develops different characteristics in the various regions. History and culture, the characteristics of civil society organizations that existed before donors started their programs, and the presence or absence of civil society organizations other than those assisted by the donors create a context for donor programs that influence their outcome. Writing about Latin America, Michael Shifter refers to this phenomenon as the “civil society puzzle”—the challenge for the donors to reconcile a region’s tradition of civil society, the organizations that have emerged more recently to press for political change, and their own views of an effective, democratic civil society. The puzzle is solved relatively easily in Eastern Europe, where communist governments eliminated independent organizations and almost all civil society groups are new, as Kevin Quigley and Dan Petrescu show. But the puzzle is proving very difficult in other regions: in the Middle East, for example, donor-supported civil society organizations coexist uneasily with a vast array of Islamist organizations that are anathema to donors but enjoy a high level of popular support, as Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid and Imco Brouwer argue.
Imco Brouwer, Mediterranean Program Coordinator-European University Institute, 2000, Funding Virtue: civil society aid and democracy promotion, eds. M. Ottaway & T. Carothers, p. 22 But in other respects, civil society organizations in the Arab world are very different from their counterparts in the West. Governments of Arab nations have often brought civil society organizations—for example, trade unions—under their direct control. In other cases, the state has set up and runs organizations that in the West operate independently of the state—for example, agricultural cooperatives. In addition, legislation regulating civil society organizations in Arab countries is extremely restrictive compared to the West, making it difficult for them to operate. Finally, a certain number of civil society organizations in the Arab world are only minimally “civil” – for instance, in their toleration of identities and opinions that diverge from their own.
Francesco Cavatorta & Vincent Durac, International Relations Lecturers Dublin City University and University College Dublin, 2011, Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World: the dynamics of activism, p. 141-2 This study, rather than subscribing to the liberal normative definition of civil society that characterizes much of academic literature, has preferred to rely on a neutral definition of civil society. This has proved useful because it has allowed for an examination of civil society without ideological or political prejudice. Definitional struggles often characterize the debate on civil society. This is more so the case in relation to the Arab world where strong Islamist movements operate alongside secular ones. If one adopts a neutral definition of civil society that forgoes the normative assumptions that are usually attached to the term and refuses to accept that Islamist organizations are, by definition, uncivil, it emerges that civil society activism in the Arab world is strong. This contradicts much of the scholarly literature and policy-making perceptions. However, the empirical evidence demonstrates that even in highly authoritarian countries, such as Algeria, or in very poor ones, such as Yemen, we find thousands of charitable associations, human rights groups, cultural associations and sporting clubs. Thus, the claim that Arab societies do not have an active civil society needs to be debunked. Civil society activism is not a peculiar trait of Western societies and associational life is very important in Arab polities as well, as Norton (1995/1996) has already demonstrated. The level of activism that is present in the Arab world, however, does not correlate with democratization, and this is quite significant. Recent scholarship on the necessary linkage between an active civil society and democratization had already questioned the validity of this theoretical claim. The current empirical study confirms that the activism of civil society does not correlate to prospects of democratization. Civil society activism in the Arab world has been on the increase since the late 1980s and early 1990s, but it has achieved very little, if anything, in terms of the opening of political systems. The findings here confirm what Jamal (2007) highlighted in her study on civil society in Palestine, namely that the dynamics generated by an authoritarian political system have different effects on civil society than those in established democracies. This is not because of the ethos of objectives of the associations of civil society, but because institutional constraints force them to operate differently from their counterparts in established democracies. When one analyses the relationship of formally autonomous pro-democracy and pro-human rights groups in detail, the dynamics that emerge are in sharp conflict with the conventional wisdom about civil society. CIVIL SOCIETY HAS YET TO DEVELOP SUFFICIENTLY IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY Amy Hawthorne, Carnegie Endowment, 2005, Unchartered Journey: promoting democracy in the middle east, eds. T. Carothers & M. Ottaway, p. 91-2 Another obvious factor is political culture. The level of independent civic participation across the Arab world remains extremely low. Most civil society organizations attract only a very small percentage of the population; truly active membership is even less. For example, the membership of most unions and professional associations, though numbering in the millions because many professions require people to join, is often dormant. Not only have decades of authoritarian rule bred widespread political apathy, but throughout the Arab world social, economic, and political life still revolves to a remarkable degree around the bonds of family, clan or tribe. Thus a critical mass of voluntary citizen activity extending beyond these primary relationships—of the sort that would begin to shift political weight from the realm of state control to that of society and thus contribute to democratization—has yet to develop.
Amy Hawthorne, Carnegie Endowment, 2005, Unchartered Journey: promoting democracy in the middle east, eds. T. Carothers & M. Ottaway, p. 93-4 The fact that a critical mass of civil society organizations has not adopted a clear prodemocracy agenda that can mobilize large numbers of citizens is another important characteristic of civil society in Arab countries. The informal parts of civil society are generally not politically inclined; and their very informality would hinder their ability to organize politically. As for service NGOs, a few have conducted advocacy campaigns to improve government policy on issues on which they work (such as the environment or rural development). But the majority do not engage in broader political activities – especially anything involving direct opposition to incumbent regimes. Beyond the fact that most are financially and administratively linked to the state, their fundamental mission is not to challenge systems and institutions of politics. Rather, it is to provide the services and socioeconomic development necessary to maintain social stability. Indeed, when Arab leaders boast of their countries’ burgeoning civil societies, as they often do, they are referring to service NGOs and similar organizations that are carrying out their own national development agenda. Thus regimes view these groups as “partners,” not adversaries. As Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak explained in a November 2003 speech, “In recognition by the society of the fact that national development requires conscious participation by all members, there emerged a new concept of voluntary work. The number of civil society organizations rose to more than 14,000, operating in a variety of development spheres….They perform their role as an active partner to the sustainable development process.” CIVIL SOCIETY ASSISTANCE LIMITED DUE TO DISCOURSES ABOUT MIDEAST CULTURE Benoit Challand, Research Fellow-European Institute in Florence, 2009, Palestinian Civil Society: foreign donors and the power to promote and exclude, p. 8 In this context, aid can be a double-edged sword: for international actors, civil society promotion is seen as a solution to the lack of democratic life (lack generally portrayed in terms of cultural features of the Arab Middle East), but for local recipients who are longing for a decoupling and for a dissociation of western influence and ideologies, aid can be seen as both an imposition and an attempt to put aside endogenous and domestic resources for activism. In that sense, aid can reinforce the (perceived or not) contraposition of a universalizing concept (e.g. civil society promoted by donors) against local particularisms. It therefore makes sense to look at civil society promotion through the prism of cultures (at least in the first phase), since donors expect to promote a different content to civil society because of perceived cultural differences, while local recipients tend to formulate the message of civil society through different cultural expedients (be they places for civic activism or different wording or symbols). There is in both cases a sort of over-determination by local factors and features (in one case negative, and in the other positive), which potentially renders civil society promotion more difficult in this part of the world. Instead, donors and external actors ought to pay much more care to understand whether the local settings are different, and if so, if they are because of cultural traits, or because of other reasons (be they conjectural, structural, institutional or bureaucratic). This book, will discuss at length some of these “cultural” differences, through a preliminary theoretical chapter, but also through a careful analysis of practices and discourses both by donors and local NGOs. It will be argued that cultural differences tend to be exaggerated and that they tend to limit the capacity of civil society promotion in the region. 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:
|