*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Civil Society Assistance Fails: Empirically Ineffective
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- PALESTINE AND LEBANON DEMONSTRATE INEFFECTIVENESS OF CIVIL SOCIETY
- CIVIL SOCIETY ASSISTANCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST HAS BEEN INEFFECTIVE – LACK ACCURATE ASSESSMENT OF HOW IT FUNCTIONS THERE
- DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE HAS FAILED TO STRENGTHEN CIVIL SOCIETY IN AFRICA
- CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS HAVE NOT MADE ANY PROGRESS TOWARD DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
- U.S. HAS SUPPORTED CIVIL SERVICE ASSISTANCE FOR A WHILE WITH NO POSITIVE RESULTS
Civil Society Assistance Fails: Empirically IneffectiveCIVIL SOCIETY HAS NOT LIVED UP TO EXPECTATIONS IN CONTRIBUTING TO DEMOCRATIC TRANSITIONS Julia Chocair-Vizoso, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 2008, Beyond the Façade: political reform in the Arab world, eds. M. Ottaway & J. Choucair-Vizoso, p. 268-9 The potential role of civil society as a driver of democratization has become an important theme in both scholarly work on democratic transitions and in regional democracy promotion programs. In reality, however, civil society organizations play a limited role. In an earlier Carnegie study, Unchartered Journey: Promoting Democracy in the Middle East, Amy Hawthorne argued that for civil society to play a democratizing role, a critical mass of organizations and movements must develop three key attributes: autonomy from the regime, a postdemocracy agenda, and the ability to build coalitions with other sectors of society (such as political parties) to push for democratic change. Although some civil society associations have acquired these attributes, the case studies discussed here provide no evidence that these associations constitute a critical mass yet. The state of civil society varies across the region, but many countries share similar problems: restrictive legislation; few prodemocracy nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) compared with those focused on development or service functions; vulnerability to cooption by the state; deep fragmentation between different sectors of civil society; lack of a unifying vision for social and political transformation among key civil society actors; dependence on foreign funds; and lack of internal democracy. In Kuwait, for example, many NGOs are dependent on government cooperation or funds or are dominated by members of the statecentric elite. Similarly, proximity to the ruling leadership largely determines the effectiveness of actors in the Yemeni civil sphere. In Jordan, legislation prohibits civic associations from engaging in any political activities and requires them to abide by tedious and complicated administrative and oversight requirements. Furthermore, the government directly interferes with their leadership to remove members it seems threatening to state interests. In Morocco, civil society organizations have done impressive work in human and women’s rights and have fostered debate on other major issues, but they lack the clout to compel the regime to implement reforms it does not want. Ultimately, there is no substitute for political parties in forcing the palace to open the way to a democratic process. PALESTINE AND LEBANON DEMONSTRATE INEFFECTIVENESS OF CIVIL SOCIETY Julia Chocair-Vizoso, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 2008, Beyond the Façade: political reform in the Arab world, eds. M. Ottaway & J. Choucair-Vizoso, p. 269 Even in Palestine and Lebanon, where civil society has thrived historically due to the collapse of state institutions, civil society has been unable to give reform the support it needed. Palestinian civil society was initially a key supporter of the reform movement but its dependence on external donors undermined its ability to deliver organized political support. In Lebanon, vibrant civil society organizations proliferated during the civil war and were crucial in the economy’s survival and in providing services during the collapse of the Lebanese state. Due to the Lebanese state’s persistent weakness and the nature of the confessional system, however, civil society organizations are organized primarily along confessional lines and serve as patronage vehicles for members of their own communities. Some cross-confessional prodemocracy organizations exist, but their capacity to push for change is severely limited.
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. 9 Within democratic theory, the assumption that civil society is per se a positive development leading to democratic governance, or to the strengthening of democratic rule where it already exists, has come under severe criticism. In addition, the experiences of Eastern Europe and has emerged regarding the actual importance of civil society activism in transitions to democracy in both regions. Finally, the explosion of civil society activism in the Arab world itself has met with considerable skepticism from regional experts, who interpret it in the following terms: a creation of the regimes in place in order to display some liberal traits that would satisfy the international community; a depoliticization of important issues; a safe haven for liberal activists who are marginalized by Islamist activism in the wider society and are in need of new channels of communication with the regime. The absence of meaningful democratic changes in the Middle East and North Africa, despite almost two decades of engagement with and support for civil society activism, is a testament to the practical failure of such a policy approach when it comes to macro-political outcomes. Thus, the role of civil society in the potential democratization of the Arab world is highly controversial from a scholarly and policymaking point of largely anchored to the wider literature on democratization and theories of transition. This study, while reliant on many of the insights that the literature on democratization provides, attempts to go beyond its rather narrow confines and, building on the idea of post-democratization, presents, through a number of case-studies, a picture of civil activism and its dynamics as they are, and not of how they should be. When examining the Middle East and North Africa there is often the tendency to look at all phenomena through the prism of democratization, while neglecting the possibility that they might not be linked to it in any meaningful way. It is more productive to analyze existing political dynamics to see how they might inform our understanding of the region without necessarily linking to a normatively-driven vision of what we might wish to see. Specifically, in focusing on civil society activism, it is particularly important to examine critically the normative meaning that is attached to the concept, because it represents an obstacle to amore genuine, and hopefully more neutral, understanding of the dynamics of civil society the Arab world and beyond. DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE HAS FAILED TO STRENGTHEN CIVIL SOCIETY IN AFRICA Goran Hyden, Political Science Professor-University of Florida, 2010, Engaging Civil Society: Emerging Trends in Democratic Governance, eds. G. Cheema & V. Popovski, p. 256-7 Democracy assistance targeted on civil society in the African region has been plagued by two factors that have limited its effectiveness. The first is that support for NGOs has often been extended as a means to enhance the effectiveness of implementing specific policies. Thus support for more democracy has not been the ultimate objective, but a sub-goal in the context of a broader development aid program. This integration of democracy assistance into a wider social or economic development program has been prompted partly by administrative and partly by political considerations. For instance, many donors have wanted to avoid being seen as sponsoring organizations that are in outright opposition to government policy. Another factor is the tendency to “sectorize” civil society support and see it outside the framework of the mainstream programmatic aid given to governments in the form of official development assistance (ODA). For both these reasons, democracy assistance has lost much of its clout and its results in the African context have been rather modest. This is not to imply that it has been a total waste but, with the exception of a few organizations, civil society as a collective entity has not grown in any significant way thanks to the democracy assistance its individual members have received. CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS HAVE NOT MADE ANY PROGRESS TOWARD DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST Amy Hawthorne, Carnegie Endowment, 2005, Unchartered Journey: promoting democracy in the middle east, eds. T. Carothers & M. Ottaway, p. 90-1 Contrary to these optimistic predictions, civil society groups have not made a real deal dent in the Arab world’s surprisingly durable authoritarianism. Many civil society groups manage to survive and sometimes even become rather active within the limited space regimes have granted them. But they have not been able to expand this space much or to affect the political game more broadly. The growth in the number of civil society organizations has not led to democratization. In fact, this proliferation is better understood as a product of top-down liberalization than as a cause of it. U.S. HAS SUPPORTED CIVIL SERVICE ASSISTANCE FOR A WHILE WITH NO POSITIVE RESULTS Marina Ottaway & Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment, 2005, Unchartered Journey: promoting democracy in the middle east, eds. T. Carothers & M. Ottaway, p. 256-7 Support for civil society organizations has been an important part of U.S. democracy promotion everywhere, an approach of choice in favorable situations and a solution of last resort when nothing else seems possible. It was a solution of choice in the early days of democracy promotion, particularly in Eastern European countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the permissive environment created by the disappearance of authoritarian regimes, and with populations lacking recent experience with democracy, encouraging civic activism appeared to be a sensible approach. In less permissive environments, with authoritarianism governments still firmly in place and often barricaded behind a strong security apparatus, support for civil society appeared to be a way of at least keeping hope alive when all other avenues for democracy promotion were closed. In retrospect, the impact of civil society assistance has been limited even in permissive environments, creating a plethora of small organizations but not necessarily having much impact on government policy or even extending political participation much beyond a small cadre of activists. In the difficult environment of Arab countries, civil society organizations of the type Western donors fund have been especially ineffective and politically isolated, unable to establish a strong presence in a field where government-affiliated organizations, Islamic charities, and politicized Islamist groups dominate. 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