Ditching democracy in Egypt?
May 29th, 2009 by MESH
From J. Scott Carpenter
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s meeting yesterday with a group of young Egyptian activists at the State Department was a welcome and long-overdue development. These young people somehow managed to elicit the words “democracy” and “human rights” in the same sentence from the Secretary, something that until yesterday she had managed only once before, on Wednesday in a response to a question from reporters when she was meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit.
Of course, in both instances the words were uttered in a rather casual way. She said yesterday, for instance: “Well, we always raise democracy and human rights. It is a core pillar of American foreign policy.” Not exactly a ringing policy defense.
In fact, over the course of the past few months there have been a number of occasions that have caused democracy and human rights activists to wince. First, there was Clinton’s confirmation testimony in which she made clear that U.S. foreign policy under an Obama administration would center on the so-called three “Ds”: diplomacy, development, defense. For many there was a fourth obvious D missing: democracy. Next, there was the conscious downplaying of human rights by the Secretary during her travels to China, Egypt and elsewhere. Then there was the State Department’s decision to move the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor out of the main State Department headquarters after 32 years. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the administration has failed, until now, to find anyone willing to head that bureau.
So, why is this? The first reason is obvious and understandable. The Obama administration wanted to distance itself from the tone and perceived baggage of the Bush administration’s “Freedom Agenda.” The rhetoric did need to be toned down perhaps, but it did not need to be thrown out altogether. A well-placed source at the State Department recently told me that in his bureau, they were no longer to use the words “freedom and democracy” in speeches. “Those are Bush words,” he was told. No. They are not. They are American words as Secretary Clinton herself makes clear.
The second and more important reason seems to be that this administration believes democracy and development are two entirely different things. When asked at her press availability yesterday about the democratic progress Egypt has made, Secretary Clinton avoided the question by talking instead about what the United States was doing and would do with development assistance in Egypt. Specifically she said: “We are very committed to doing what we can to promote economic opportunity inside Egypt. We consider that a key part of our providing assistance to Egypt.” She then added the following breathtaking sentence: “We’ve spent, as you know, many billions of dollars over the last years promoting NGOs, promoting democracy, good governance, rule of law. And I want to stress economic opportunity because out of economic opportunity comes confidence, comes a recognition that people can chart their own future.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, a variation of this line of argument was first advanced in print yesterday by Steven Cook for the June 1 issue of Newsweek. In his article, he argues for eliminating all democracy promotion programs in Egypt (and by extension all authoritarian regimes) and reprogramming them into agriculture, pre- and post-natal health and disease prevention programs. Doing so, he writes, would better win hearts and minds and, more importantly, “reduce tensions between Washington and Cairo.” (And Beijing, Minsk, Rangoon, Harare, etc., I suppose.) This is pretty disappointing stuff from the drafter of the Council of Foreign Relations task force report, “In Support of Arab Democracy: Why and How.”
What Secretary Clinton—and Steven—seem to be saying is, “Look, the Bush administration spent a boatload on promoting democracy and look where that got us; let’s spend more on economic development. At least we can make some folks happy.” The trouble with this is that it is both factually incorrect and kowtows to the regime-inspired idea that first you help us develop economically and then, if it suits us, we can think about developing institutions of accountability (aka democratic institutions) later.
The fact is the United States has spent many billions of dollars in Egypt on arms, commodities, and Egypt-defined “development” but not on democracy and NGOs. During my time at the State Department we had to wrestle the Egyptian government (and our own!) to the mat to squeeze out a few million dollars to support international organizations like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and Freedom House, among others. The direct grants to local non-governmental organizations were even smaller. Most were below $100,000. Although I don’t have the time now to sum up all that was spent by the Bush administration on non-Egyptian-government approved democracy programs in Egypt, I’d make an educated guess that the entire sum wouldn’t amount to more than $100 million over the seven fiscal years from 2002 to 2008. The entire budget for the Middle East Partnership Initiative during those years averaged only $70 million per year—and that was for the entire region from Morocco to Iran.
But the statement is wrong in another way as well. One of the key innovations of the Bush administration—which created a lot of friction, I can assure you—was to stop working with the Egyptian government on their self-described development programs and instead do something that would really impact the economy: the reform of the financial sector. Working with a talented group of new ministers—not a true democrat among them—we found innovative ways of using “development assistance” to incentivize reforms in the financial sector. In a negotiated Memorandum of Understanding with Egypt, the government committed to, among other things, strong and independent central bank management, developing a functioning government securities market, and implementing a comprehensive program to reform the Egyptian banking sector that included privatization. Against benchmarks in the MOU, the Bush administration committed close to $700 million with an additional $2.3 billion in loan guarantees, also tied to performance benchmarks. The results, as the IMF tells us, have been remarkable. Egypt has been growing at an average annual rate of between 5 and 7 percent per year. This is real “development.”
The main point to make here is that actually doing something important required changing the way things were done. The United States had to risk changing the way it spoke about our economic support funds to Egypt. Egypt treated these funds as theirs; they earned them. They made peace with Israel, the argument went, and deserved this annuity in perpetuity for their amazing sacrifice to the United States. The Bush administration looked at what the funds were producing for the Egyptians and for us, and concluded that they needed to be reviewed and reshaped, whatever the original intent of the funding some 30 years ago. Moving economic and political reform together at the same time was crucial in this.
To take a step backwards now is a mistake, but the Obama administration is taking it. Already they have reversed the hard-fought agreement not to allow Egypt to veto democracy programs and have agreed that from now on all programs will be negotiated with the Egyptian government as part of the bilateral agreement. This sends exactly the wrong signal, and soon other governments in the region will be demanding the same sort of agreement. Moreover, the Egypt desk officer at State calmly explains that this administration is only correcting what the Bush administration screwed up. This is Egyptian money, the explanation goes, and we have to eliminate the cause of the friction in the relationship. Some people at USAID tell me that it is all part and parcel of a broader effort to separate democracy assistance more broadly from what USAID does.
Ironically—and sadly—the program that brought in the activists to meet Secretary Clinton yesterday is an early casualty of this leap backwards. Freedom House’s “New Generation” program has seen its project de-funded since the agreement went into force. They had had a three-year agreement with USAID that was terminated only one year into the agreement after the Egyptian government objected to it. It was good the Secretary met with the young people now; she won’t be able to do so next year.
Perhaps we’ll win more hearts and minds with pre- and post-natal care—if anyone knows we’re providing it—but returning to the status quo ante, eliminating core democracy programs, toning down rhetoric to the point that it is seen as a green light to regimes to repress their people, all guarantee we’ll lose some as well. A recent publication by the Project on Middle East Democracy, “Looking Forward: An Integrated Strategy for Supporting Democracy and Human Rights in Egypt,” proposes a much more thoughtful way forward. The Obama administration would be wise to consider many of its sensible recommendations. In the meantime, as these young Egyptian men and women, bloggers, journalists and activists head for home tomorrow, they leave confused about what the United States stands for. This shouldn’t be. Let’s hope that their meeting with Secretary Clinton was for more than just show. Their young lives will depend on it.
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8 Responses to “Ditching democracy in Egypt?”
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I could not agree more with Scott Carpenter. So far the Obama administration has had a tin ear on the issue of democracy and human rights in the Middle East. Secretary Clinton’s meeting with the Egyptian activists was the first glimmer of light, though the “billions” comment shows distressing ignorance. The Obama administration needs to move beyond reacting to Bush and formulate its own policy on these important matters. The fact is that, whether or not it is justified, many Arabs hold the United States at least indirectly responsible for their inability to choose their governments and express themselves freely. And we will bear the consequences if we do not try to stand on the right side of these issues. I hope that President Obama and Secretary Clinton will be wise enough not to be satisfied with the few economic and women’s rights initiatives that Arab governments are likely to offer. If they take that bait—well, I can just hear the autocrats chuckling.
Michele Dunne is a member of MESH.
I couldn’t disagree more with Steven Cook’s argument that there is a tradeoff between promoting democracy and promoting development, and I disagree also with Scott Carpenter that the Obama administration is headed in Steven’s direction. Both are contradicted by the available evidence.
While Scott correctly notes the unfortunate signals sent by Secretary Clinton’s early statements, I think her words last week, and the upcoming trip to Cairo, suggest a change in course. Clinton’s talk with the democracy activists sent a message that the issue of democratization is by no means off the table. Further, the administration is considering a meeting with Egyptian civil society activists during the trip to Cairo. If the secretary (or even better, the president) does sit down with independent activists this week, that will be a great series of first steps.
Moreover, the Secretary on Thursday announced the formation of a strategic dialogue with the government of Egypt: one overdue to redefine the purpose of a long-adrift partnership, but also necessary to advance democracy and human rights. Bush (between 2003 and 2005) treated democracy as an issue that trumped all others; his predecessors (and Bush after 2006), treated democracy as dispensable in the face of strategic imperatives. Neither policy was particularly effective at squaring the circle of promoting domestic liberalization by an autocratic ally.
Democracy promotion will only be effective and sustainable if it is integrated into the broader framework of bilateral relations, and this is what a successful strategic dialogue will do. Like the strategic dialogue with Saudi Arabia, the U.S.-Egypt talks will include a human rights agenda. If successful, the new dialogue can follow the model of Scott’s 2004 Financial Sector MOU in which Washington and Cairo defined shared objectives for reform, directed U.S. assistance toward those objectives, and then wrote accountability benchmarks into U.S. appropriations laws. The 2004 MOU produced aid conditionality that was accepted by the Egyptian government and produced concrete results in the form of real policy change in Cairo. It didn’t bring democracy to Egypt, but it opened a long-closed door to American engagement with Egypt on domestic reforms.
The 2004 MOU itself enshrined reform goals first discussed in the Clinton-era Gore-Mubarak partnership on economic development. I see a new strategic dialogue as seeking to build on these successes, and I’m surprised Scott doesn’t recognize the continuity between earlier work, his own achievements in office, and the efforts the Obama administration is now launching.
The MOU model and the new strategic dialogue highlight what should be an obvious point, but apparently isn’t, even to experts like Steven Cook: that there is no necessary tradeoff between promoting democracy in Egypt and promoting development (or other strategic goals). Steven’s Newsweek piece argues that there is a zero-sum relationship between democracy aid and development aid, that democracy aid only alienates the Cairo government, and that more spending on basic development would mend fences and open the way to progress on reform. But his argument rests on factual misunderstandings of U.S. aid to Egypt, and the facts prove his argument wrong on all counts.
Steven’s piece claims that an increase in USAID spending on democracy and governance (D&G) projects in Egypt resulted in cuts to core development projects. But throughout the period he discusses, overall U.S. economic aid to Egypt steadily declined, from $815 million in 1998 to under $412 million in 2008. In the context of these significant cuts, aid for some types of human development fell, but spending on education increased dramatically, and spending on democracy and governance held more or less steady. The biggest cut by far during this period was to spending directed at economic growth—because a large portion of this spending was a cash grant to the Egyptian government for budget relief, and this was whittled from $200 million down to about $20 million.
Those overall cuts were agreed to by Cairo, which has sought for many years now to “graduate” from U.S. assistance to an economic relationship based on trade and investment; Egypt does not encourage more U.S. spending on basic health and agriculture. Given that the United States and Egypt agreed on an agenda of financial reforms and education reform to privatize Egypt’s economy and create more jobs, it is very misleading to argue that an overemphasis on democracy led to cuts in money for human development; indeed, this privatization initiative, as well as the education investments, should both contribute substantially to human development. Given Cairo’s stance toward U.S. aid, Steven’s recommendation for more core development projects is as likely to face Egyptian “intransigence” as anything the Bush Administration did with foreign aid to Egypt.
Furthermore, the importance of good governance to progress in development is a matter of wide consensus among scholars and practitioners. If the US were to increase its development spending without attending to the problems of Egypt’s corrupt and unresponsive bureaucracy, it would not likely produce many gains either in development or in long-term liberalization.
The Newsweek article also contains a striking—but inaccurate—claim: that over the period 2004-2007 “the Bush administration increased the share of the economic aid for Egypt it devoted to democracy and governance by 133 percent, from $37 million to $86.5 million—or about a fifth of its entire annual economic-aid package to Cairo.” I’ve been tracking U.S. D&G funding in the Middle East for more than five years now, and this figure is simply not accurate. Here are the figures USAID and the State Department provide for the amount of D&G spending within Egypt’s bilateral aid package in recent years:
FY2004 $37,050,000
FY2005 $35,900,000
FY2006 $50,000,000
FY2007 $50,000,000
FY2008 $54,800,000
FY2009 $22,000,000 (estimate)
Of course, there was other USG spending on democracy in Egypt during this period, such as the MEPI spending Scott noted. But even adding in this modest amount of money would not get you to $86.5 million; and in any event this other spending did not come out of the bilateral aid, and so was not spent “at the expense of” development projects.
Putting the facts together reveals a clear picture: that democracy assistance does not come at the expense of development efforts; that development and good governance go hand in hand, and that Cairo does not necessarily object to U.S. government spending on domestic reforms and has even cooperated in efforts to condition U.S. aid on the performance of those reforms—when they are the result of dialogue and agreement on shared goals. That’s why a strategic dialogue—with democracy and human rights clearly on the table for discussion—is the right starting point for the Obama Administration.
A debate on the nature and efficacy of American aid to Egypt is long overdue. I certainly question the value of some of the programs USAID has funded under the label of “democracy and governance” in Egypt over the years. Some of the projects funded in the past several years, including the Freedom House program Scott cites, are relatively cheap, have been substantive improvements over a previously sorry record, and deserve closer attention in a discussion of how to advance reform and stability in Egypt through the use of American aid money. But bad facts get in the way of a good debate, and I hope we can proceed on a sounder basis.
Tamara Cofman Wittes is a member of MESH.
Scott Carpenter found me out: I hate freedom.
Seriously, I do not understand why Scott is disappointed. It is true that I was the project director for the Council on Foreign Relations independent task force on reform in the Arab world, but that does not obligate me to remain committed to a series of conclusions and recommendations developed four years ago. The world has changed since then. As a political scientist and analyst who takes my training seriously—especially one who has not been a Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) of State responsible for democracy promotion, who is not campaigning to be a DAS, and who has no intention of running for elected office—it is perfectly reasonable for me to alter my views and assumptions about the way the world works as circumstances change and new evidence becomes available. Count me as a proud flip-flopper.
Since Scott referenced “the facts,” let’s review them. After President Bush announced the “forward strategy of freedom” in November 2003, the administration that Scott served poured unprecedented amounts of resources into “democracy and good governance” programs. As the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) reports, funding for these initiatives increased 133 percent between 2004 and 2007. At the same time, funding for other programs within the Economic Support Funds (ESF) account, with the exceptions of education and economic development, fell anywhere from 44 to 100 percent. Yet, what did any of the democracy and good governance programs produce? There were probably some really great meetings in the cool, hush conference rooms of the Four Seasons Nile Plaza, but other than that very little.
To be sure, there was a brief period when the Bush administration’s public support for political change put the Egyptian leadership on the defensive, allowing activists to pursue their agendas in novel ways. Yet, Mubarak and company quickly regained their footing. Democracy promotion initiatives aside, bloggers, journalists and editors were arrested, harassed and, in one instance, raped in custody. Police beat demonstrators protesting anti-democratic changes to the constitution and cracked down on supporters of the rule of law and an independent judiciary, security thugs engaged in widespread voter intimidation and violence during parliamentary elections, and the Ministry of Justice brought charges against two judges who had the temerity to suggest that agents of the regime engaged in electoral fraud. I am thrilled for Saad Eddin Ibrahim—whose courage and honor are inspiring—but civil society capacity-building did not drop the trumped up charges that were keeping him in self-imposed exile; the cynical politics of the Egyptian leadership did.
I would like to focus for a moment on the question of money. Scott recalls that it was not much and it was difficult to grease the bureaucratic wheels to get it flowing for worthy causes. According to AID, by fiscal year 2007, $86 million of the ESF account was devoted to democracy and good governance. Scott’s correct that it is not that much in the grand scheme of things. Although democracy and good governance initiatives represented almost 20 percent of the economic aid, we probably spend $86 million every half hour in Iraq. Yet, how much money does Scott believe is an appropriate level of funding for democracy and good governance? $200 million? $500 million? $1 billion? $10 billion?
The implication that if only these programs were better-funded, democratic development in Egypt would be further along is erroneous. First, I am not aware of any evidence from the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Africa or any other cases that privileging democracy and good governance programs had a dynamic effect on authoritarian political systems. In the broader MENA region, one would be hard-pressed to point to results from, for instance, USAID/MEPI-funded legislative strengthening programs in Morocco, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian areas. Political scientists have agreed upon ways of measuring the operations of legislative institutions (although it can admittedly be difficult to make comparisons across various types of presidential and parliamentary systems) and these include the strength of committees, ability to alter the budget introduced by the executive, the introduction of bills within the parliament, serious oversight of executive agencies/ministries and the ability to represent constituents’ regional concerns in a way that the executive cannot/will not. It is nearly impossible to point to any serious progress in these areas in the Middle East.
Second, I believe Scott and others working on the issue underestimate the interlocking, multi-layered sets of formal and informal political institutions that maintain Egypt’s status quo. The Egyptian political order is not some Middle Eastern analogue to the old East Germany, which, despite outward appearances, was brittle to the core. On the contrary, Egypt’s authoritarian system is strong and surprisingly supple, permitting Mubarak to repress, de-legitimize, and deflect challenges to the regime. Given these circumstances, some of my colleagues might conclude that there is an urgency to fund even more democracy and good governance programs. I respect that, but I think we’re throwing good money after bad.
Scott’s post and Michelle Dunne’s endorsement of it represent the paradigmatic disconnect between those of us engaged in policy debates and those who actually manage and implement democracy and good governance programs. The development people in the field have a far better understanding of how parliamentary strengthening, civil society building, and rule of law programs actually work on the nuts and bolts level, and frankly some of them are quite skeptical. Yet, any discussion of the efficacy of these programs becomes a debate about democracy in the region and whether the United States should promote it. My point in the Newsweek International piece was that our recent experience in Egypt does not seem to have borne fruit despite allocating significant resources to democracy and good governance initiatives. Perhaps there is a better way. I am looking forward to reading POMED’s new publication for some good ideas.
Finally, I laughed when Scott implied that I was a supporter of Mubarak, the military junta in Burma, and China’s communist party leadership. This is a discursive strategy that Scott’s former employers often used against their political opponents. I will not take the bait. That said, if any of Scott’s good governance/democracy promotion programs cause, correlate with, or are even remotely connected to democratic change in any of these places, drinks on me… in Rangoon.
Steven A. Cook is a member of MESH.
I want to add my two cents to this discussion. I too was surprised—and frankly disappointed—by the arguments presented by Steven Cook in his Newsweek piece. An uninformed reader could come away from the article (and his latest response) thinking that the United States (and indeed all non-Egyptians) can do nothing to support a process of peaceful political reform in Egypt, and that all aid for democracy and human rights has been a complete and total waste.
Egypt has certainly never been a model for effective democracy assistance—nor indeed for effective development programs. The “model” of the United States offering a guaranteed amount of assistance that must require approval by a government has led to millions upon millions of dollars in assistance going to waste for three decades in Egypt. That is true in all areas of development assistance, not only democracy assistance.
Over the last three decades, the Egyptian government has been remarkably consistent in rejecting any programs that might impact the distribution of power—social, economic or political power—within Egypt. And the U.S. government, until a few years ago, refused to expend any diplomatic capital to encourage greater political space or reform in the country. As a result, it is certainly agreed that many of the programs considered as democracy assistance have been either window dressing or, most charitably, investments that may pay off only far into the future.
So point taken that many of the programs that the United States has funded under the rubric of democracy assistance (which have, at their peak, only represented 2 percent of the total aid package), including the program mentioned by Cook, have shown few results. But let’s look at the $50 million or so spent in 2008. Of the total amount, approximately $18 million went to rule of law (a criminal justice program, the automation of the Prosecutors General office, and family law reform). Approximately $5 million went to decentralization programs. The remainder, some $30 million, was divided roughly as follows (these numbers are not published anywhere): $5 million went to a media program, most (not all) of which was directed towards state-owned media; some went to NDI and IRI; and the remainder was split between Egyptian-government-approved groups (now indirectly through a new group comprised of appointees by the U.S. and Egyptian governments), non-government groups, and direct or indirect programs to support independent groups.
The decision to support independent groups was an important break from that cycle of failure in Egypt. But let me assure Steven Cook, it was a very small amount.
It is therefore disappointing that the State Department made the decision this year to return to the status quo that had resulted in little gains in the past. It is precisely the Egyptian government-approved democracy assistance programs that have been preserved in the cut of nearly 70 percent of the democracy assistance funds. According to the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, the decision to remove all of the assistance to independent groups out of the bilateral agreement, was to “facilitate” better relations with Egypt.
As a consequence, programs that support independent civic groups and a new generation of leaders—directly or indirectly through international civil society groups—have been terminated. I think this is a terrible mistake. This is not because I used to be a DAS or want to be a DAS, nor even because Freedom House implements such programs, but because the most promising part of Egyptian society today is precisely the new generation of leaders who have emerged outside of the government.
Having just returned from Cairo, what I found most heartening was the diversity of groups and individuals who seek genuine change—who want a government that is accountable to its people and allows its citizens to enjoy fundamental freedoms of expression and association. They are still too fragmented and disorganized, for sure. They still need more local support and in-country networks, absolutely.
But their potential is demonstrated by the fact that the Egyptian security services have asked for a massive increase in funding. They know full well that once the people of Egypt are unified around specific goals and policy changes that will improve their lives, “the genie is out of the bottle.” That is why the Egyptian Ministry of Interior has asked for a 153 million Egyptian pound ($27 million) increase in funds from the People’s Assembly for their annual budget (roughly the same amount that the State Department cut from democracy assistance). They said they want this money for added “street control” in anticipation of “expected demonstrations and strikes” this coming year. Already, the Ministry of Interior budget far exceeds that of the education and health ministries, and it operates virtually without constraints under a state of emergency.
So the advocates for oppression in Egypt will get more funds, and the advocates for freedom get less. I can’t believe that Steven Cook would be in favor of such an outcome.
The security services is where the action is. And they have already heard about the U.S. government action, and have warned activists that they will still be around, long after the international democratic civil society community is gone.
Secretary of State Clinton ‘s statement last week, and her decision to meet with a group of a group of young activists and advocates from Egypt, were encouraging steps to try to send a different message from the Obama administration. We hope that President Obama demonstrates through his words—and actions—that America supports the Egyptian people ‘s aspirations for change, by restoring assistance to those who are on the frontlines of trying to make that change happen.
That doesn’t mean the United States should not do everything possible to help advance the development efforts that Steven Cook praised. But as Amartya Sen has so articulately stated, one should not have to choose between remaining poor and being free. Let’s not make Egypt the exception to that rule.
Jennifer Windsor is executive director of Freedom House.
Last Friday I was on Al-Hurra with Ayman Nour. During the interview he was asked if reports that he had petitioned Egypt’s prosecutor to put him back in jail were true. He was at first surprised that anyone knew of the request, but then admitted that he had done so.
He explained that since he had been let out of prison, he had been prohibited from traveling, prohibited from opening a bank account, prohibited from buying or selling his own property, prohibited from reclaiming his party or political role and, just last weekend, had been attacked by someone on a motorbike who had thrown some sort of chemical at him that burned the side of his face. “I have been let out of a small prison where I was safe,” he said, “into a massive one in which I am not. Why not go back?”
Saad Eddin Ibrahim told a similar story on the same show. How could he return to Egypt where his family and grandchildren are if he has no guarantees that he would be allowed to leave again or would not go back to prison? “I am a 70-year-old man, in poor health, with former injuries from my time of torture. I can’t risk going back to prison.”
The response from the administration to all of this so far has been silence. Until now. Last night, just two days ahead of the President’s trip to the Middle East, the Obama administration announced it had notified Congress it plans to give AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters to Egypt. The deal is worth a reported $820 million.
Others on MESH can answer the questions regarding how these attack helicopters fit into Egypt’s force structure and overall mission but the political message couldn’t be clearer: “Mr. Mubarak, we are returning to the status quo ante. Provide stability and govern as you choose.” White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs confirmed as much during his Friday press call when he said the President’s Cairo speech would be “returning to proven and effective policies and initiatives that have… served the national interest well in the past.”
There were other items in the press conference that could be spun slightly differently, of course, and I would like nothing better to be proven wrong on the administration’s ultimate direction. Tamara Cofman Wittes puts together an excellent alternative narrative from some of signals she’s receiving from the Obama administration that are hopeful. But my experience as a DAS in both DRL and NEA demonstrates we should expect little from strategic dialogues on democracy and human rights. They are typically used to sweep unsightly issues under the carpet—especially when led by senior State Department officials who used to lead the Near East Affairs Bureau. (By the way, who will lead the working group on human rights and democracy in the U.S-Egypt Strategic Dialogue? Without a political heavyweight in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor or a sympathetic Under Secretary for Global Affairs, the working group will quickly become vestigial. DASes matter at the State Department but they need top cover.)
Still, if the president meets with political activists and gives voice to their aspirations; if he challenges Egypt’s leadership to do the same; if he has a plan for going beyond these measures to work assiduously toward real reform, then I will become a cheerleader rather than a critic. Unfortunately, my experience again suggests it’s nearly impossible for an administration to keep more than one or two sets of issues in their heads at a time. They simply don’t have the people or resources to sufficiently staff multiple issues or run interference between them. The situation is made infinitely worse in the Middle East when one of those issues vying for the attention of an administration is the quest to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But again, I hope I’m wrong.
Regarding Steven Cook’s critique, Tamara clearly, concisely and convincingly demonstrates he is wrong about the numbers so I won’t pile on here. Just one quick point: Since there were almost no democracy programs to speak of in Egypt in 2000 to say the Bush administration “poured unprecedented amounts of resources” into D&G programs may be technically correct but it’s also extremely misleading. Also, as everyone knows, when you start from a low base and begin to ramp up spending levels, the percentage increases appear larger even if in comparison with other accounts they remain relatively small. In any case, as Tamara’s correct figures indicate, USAID has tentatively set aside $22 million in democracy and governance programming in Egypt in FY2009, and that likely includes a large program to support Egyptian decentralization. Nonetheless, this represents a 60-percent cut from FY2008, an unprecedented cut, and the total is a mere 2.8 percent of the amount involved in the Apache deal.
But I don’t want to get wrapped around the “amount of money” axle. Budget numbers always convey priorities and in this particular case they send a symbolic message to the Egyptian government that the administration is placing less stress on democracy and good governance. But to answer Steven’s question directly, I have never been especially hung up on the level of democracy assistance. Policy direction matters more. Still, democracy programs are always relatively cheap compared to huge development or military hardware programs and should remain part of the mix.
Supporting women’s rights organizations in Morocco to lobby for and then spread the news about the new personal status law, for example, doesn’t cost much. Supporting Shayfeen.com in Egypt to help develop greater accountability—and air evidence of police torture—costs peanuts. Establishing electoral observer capacity across the region so that Lebanese, Egyptians, Moroccans, Jordanians and Yemeni and others can seek to hold their governments accountable to international standards costs perhaps a bit more. Programs that work closely with independent newspapers—and an occasional broadcaster—across the region can be even more expensive. But unless a free press takes root, few other freedoms can be guaranteed. Bringing the next generation of young leaders to the United States is comparatively cheap but potentially invaluable. There are literally hundreds of other examples of programs, large and small, that are incrementally contributing to and reinforcing what few positive trends exist in the region. They may not change the world tomorrow but they can help change the world—and create alternatives both to Islamists and autocrats in the process. Ultimately, they also improve our national security. Each of these programs was funded by MEPI or USAID. None of them, incidentally, have used the Four Seasons Nile Plaza as a venue.
What I find surprising in Steven’s critique is his willingness after only four years to toss aside a set of policies and programs because they didn’t lead to immediate democratic breakthrough. In the report “In Support of Arab Democracy: Why and How,” which he drafted, the point is made clearly and repeatedly that this must be a long-term effort:
And yet he now writes, “My point in the Newsweek International piece was that our recent experience in Egypt does not seem to have borne fruit…” That recent experience was developed only after 2001 and wasn’t implemented till about 2003 before being sacrificed to other priorities in 2006. Did anyone really think that Egyptian society and politics were going to fundamentally change in five to seven years? Not those of us who are accused of underestimating Egypt. From my point of view, it is too early for him to have become “a proud flip-flopper.”
We saw the fruit of such dilettantism in the past. Following Oslo, the United States and Europe helped to establish and support democratic institutions in Palestine. The Palestinian Legislative Council, for instance, was for a time a strengthening institution that sought to constrain Arafat. When, however, the United States became convinced that it needed Arafat, it turned a blind eye while he crushed it. This, in part, contributed to the series of cascading reactions that created the situation we’re in today in Palestine. Failing to challenge autocrats as a matter of policy, whatever the programs, leads to poor outcomes.
In any case, I want to close out this thread by agreeing with Steven, who may not be entirely sold out to his “flip-flopper” position just yet. Commenting for the Washington Post this past weekend on the President’s upcoming speech in Cairo, Steven wrote:
Let’s hope the President takes the advice.
J. Scott Carpenter is a member of MESH.
This has been a very rich exchange among people whom I respect greatly, but I noticed that some deeper issues relating to the challenges of democracy aid in Egypt haven’t gotten enough attention in the discussion so far.
Tamara Cofman Witttes wrote, “Democracy promotion will only be effective and sustainable if it is integrated into the broader framework of bilateral relations, and this is what a successful strategic dialogue will do.” In fact, though necessary, such policy integration is not what will determine the effectiveness of democracy promotion.
More important are 1) indigenous demand for democracy and for its active promotion by outsiders—internal momentum and absorptive capacity, we could say—and 2) a government/regime that, even if not genuinely committed to democratic reform, does not consistently block meaningful democracy aid—an uninterested or a minimally resistant regime with respect to democracy aid, let’s call it.
First, the weak demand for democratic change and for U.S. democracy aid by major political actors in Egypt (both outside and inside the regime) leads to the dilemma of how to spend all that money wisely. And even at reduced levels, it is still quite a lot of money. By raising the issue of receptivity, I am not suggesting that most Egyptians do not want to live under a much freer, more effective, and more just governing system. I am pointing out that the organized demand for democracy in Egypt is quite weak, and that this makes a very challenging environment in which to promote democracy and spend aid funds well.
On top of that, the most influential opposition political actors and forces in Egypt want little or nothing to do with U.S. democracy aid. Although this desire for very long arm’s length from the United States is not shared by everyone in Egypt and may diminish a bit under the Obama presidency, in the main it’s a pretty constant factor in Egyptian political life, connected as it is to deeply-held ideas of sovereignty, authenticity, and suspicion of Western meddling, in light of Egypt’s colonial experience. (For a brilliant analysis of why many Egyptians are suspicious of outside efforts to aid civil society in their country, and why public campaigns against people like Saad Eddin Ibrahim resonate widely, read Nicola Pratt’s chapter titled “Human Rights NGOs and the ‘Foreign Funding Debate’ in Egypt,” in the 2006 edited volume Human Rights in the Arab World). Others are afraid to accept U.S. support, cannot yet make good use of funds, or are too marginal to have much impact in Egypt anytime soon.
The issue of impact underscores the need for appropriate short-term expectations (and for a long-term and flexible perspective) on the part of funders; some seeds we help plant really do bloom, but only after a long time and a lot of nuturing, and often not the ones we expect. In his second post, Scott Carpenter correctly points to the need for patience in assessing results. But the fact is that most democracy aid projects today (not just in Egypt) are burdened with highly ambitious and often impossible requirements to achieve, measure, and document “tangible” outcomes, results, impact, and even “breakthroughs” in just a year or two (many MEPI recipients would love to have five to seven years!). I doubt this approach, which characterizes our democracy assistance worldwide, will change anytime soon. Seeking impact and being able to measure it is essential for democracy promoters, but read the results framework/outcomes/monitoring and evaluation sections of most proposals or grant agreements, and weep.
Second, with or without an aid “veto,” the Egyptian regime manages to block or neutralize, by formal or informal means, initiatives and programs it does not want, and goes to considerable lengths to do so. Suffice it to say that this is an area where the Cairo regime is highly effective and has a record of accomplishment, and that more than once, it has outsmarted and outlasted the donors. Those who have toiled deep in the trenches in Egypt have some great stories to share on this.
I don’t have any simple answers to these problems. I just wanted to point out that they are real, and pre-date the George W. Bush administration. They do not lead to the conclusion that U.S. democracy aid in Egypt is futile—quite the opposite, it is vitally important, especially now. But they do demand unusually creative strategic thinking by our policymakers and democracy practitioners.
Amy Hawthorne is the executive director of the Hollings Center for International Dialogue.
Steven Cook’s article in Newsweek must come as music to the ears of the Egyptian government. Cook claims that the Bush administration’s attempts to fund democracy, civil society, and human rights in Egypt not only failed, but that American aid should be funneled solely into economic development efforts. Beyond the erroneous assumptions and conclusions, this article simply doesn’t get it. Foreign aid has been buying Egyptians bread for decades, but an autocratic and corrupt regime has squandered economic aid without allowing for the genuine flowering of an open society welcoming to economic development and foreign investment and the kind of citizen engagement that would drive demands for reform that Cook speaks of.
Not only is support for the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people in the strategic interest of the community of democracies, but backtracking now and returning to an aid policy that promotes only economic development simply rewards the regime for its brutal crackdown against secular democracy activists. While the U.S-Egyptian alliance is important and often mutually beneficial, Mubarak has been able to deliver very little in terms of substantive advancement on regional peace with Israel, not to mention the failure to deliver on internal development, and Egypt has witnessed regression on numerous development indicators under Mubarak’s tenure. Obama’s administration should not fall victim to false claims and propaganda of illegitimate authoritarian dictatorships—and to the sense of needing Mubarak at all costs—at the expense of regional U.S. interests. Without seriously re-defining the old paradigm that framed the U.S.-Egypt relationship, Mubarak is unlikely to deliver on his foreign policy commitments, just as he has failed to implement his domestic election promises for 28 years.
Unfortunately, Cook’s article buys into many of the false arguments offered by the Egyptian regime, such as the claim that development versus democracy assistance is a zero-sum game, and that external pressure on the government does not work. The truth is that the regime derives its international legitimacy from a false political dualism that offers the international community only two choices for Egyptian governance: the current regime, or Islamic extremists. In reality, more than 77 percent of Egyptians refused to vote in the last parliamentary election because they were not offered a middle way. The regime has destroyed all secular, liberal political parties that might present a stronger appeal to the population. Meanwhile, U.S.-backed autocrats like Mubarak continue to successfully drive and feed the ideology of extremists not just in Egypt, but across the region.
If the American government wants a credible alternative to the religiously-inspired political movements in Egypt and a stable partner in promoting regional interests, it must support democratic forces in their efforts to organize and carve out political space. Here is where democracy assistance is vital; and here also is where Cook’s numbers are to be questioned. Since 1998, overall economic assistance to Egypt has been steadily declining based on a U.S.-Israeli agreement in 1996 and also the Egyptian government’s request to graduate to a trade based relationship. Cook claims that the United States gave Egypt $450 million in economic assistance since 2005—the majority of which, according to him, was diverted to good governance—when in fact the total budget for economic aid in FY ‘09 was $202 million and in FY ’08 it was $415 million, decreasing by $40 million increments annually from $815 million since 1998. To argue that democracy and governance funds have been increasing, to a whopping $86.5 million (when, first, at no point since 2005 did these funds annually reach this number) at the expense of other programs, is specious and misleading in light of the overall decline across the board in economic assistance.
While change can and is and will continue to come from within, giving up on democracy promotion programs in favor of “technical assistance” would simply consolidate the extremely unpopular status quo of the last twenty eight years. As Egyptians continue to fight and sacrifice—as Cook’s piece correctly points out—for their basic freedoms, the United States cannot remain neutral on these issues; such neutrality amounts to a de facto endorsement of the status quo. External U.S. pressure on Egypt in 2005 did lead to a brief opening of political space and resulted in unprecedented citizen engagement, the opening of independent newspapers, a flood of new bloggers and other signs of a robust emerging polity—forming precisely the constituency Cook discusses that would drive positive change if permitted.
It was not the failure of U.S.-funded governance programs, as Cook asserts, that led to the demise of this so-called “Arab Spring” and the ensuing government backlash that followed. In reality, it was the lack of U.S. consistency in its policies once it got cold feet in the aftermath of the Hamas election in Palestine. The early success and ultimate failure of U.S. pressures on Egypt in 2005 has proven one very important fact: strong verbal support for political reform and for the efforts of activists, coupled with consistent action, is an effective tool for democracy promotion. It should also be noted that at no point during this brief opening was the Egyptian regime itself threatened, nor did Egyptian cooperation on U.S. regional interests stop.
In order to avoid charges of intervention, the United States should not take the side of particular political actors, but instead support reforms that enjoy wide support among the population, including those that Mubarak himself pledged to undertake in his last presidential campaign: repealing emergency law, upholding the rule of law and an independent judiciary, lifting the restrictions on political parties and civil society, supporting a free media, and increasing government accountability. While programs that aid impoverished farmers are essential and should continue, no less critical are governance programs aimed at promoting basic rights and a peaceful transition to democracy in this pivotal country of 80 million.
Cook is no doubt right that many of the democracy support programs under Bush were naïve and poorly designed. That is a weak argument for abandoning them completely, however, especially when many of Egypt’s civil society activists are looking to the west to support them in their efforts to level the playing field. Well-crafted but tough incentives along the lines of the Helsinki Accords, which led to the fall of dictators in Eastern Europe, could make a real difference in the two years now remaining until the next elections in Egypt.
Dina Guirguis is executive director and Maria Dayton is program manager of Voices for a Democratic Egypt.
I am glad that I have had a hand in starting a debate on democracy in Egypt. Three quick comments:
1. The point of the Newsweek piece was merely to raise questions about the efficacy of democracy and governance programs. There is a distinction between democracy promotion programs and the desirability of democracy in Egypt.
2. I concede defeat on the numbers. I confused “requested” and what was actually spent. I take 100 percent responsibility for the error and have requested that Newsweek International print a correction.
3. We should not let our distaste for the Egyptian regime cloud our strategic thinking about what is in the interests of the United States. Egypt is a difficult yet important ally. In the end, I believe the difference between me and my interlocutors is actually quite small. I too revile Egypt’s human rights conditions, the regime’s almost exclusive use of its coercive instruments, the torture and rape of activists, the hounding of sociology professors, the blind hypocrisy of the NDP with its ostensible emphasis on reform, while overseeing the narrowing of political space for activists. I just happen to be skeptical that democracy and governance programs are the best way to get us to a more democratic Egypt.
Steven A. Cook is a member of MESH.
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