“After the events of 11
September, the US and the EU both looked at methods of promoting democracy in
the region, but…only if it did not challenge their interests…The free flow of
oil and gas, the movement of military/commercial traffic through the Suez Canal,
commercial infrastructure construction contracts, the security of regional
allies such as Israel, and cooperation on immigration, military,
counter-terrorism…the expansion of free markets and free trade in a neoliberal
modality…reduced democracy promotion to little more than a technology of US and
EU external governance…The Obama administration initially attempted to replace
“market driven modernisation” with “development driven modernisation”…in the
aftermath of the 2011 revolutions, however, the Obama administration would
increasingly come to see the Bush administration’s approach as the preferred
policy agenda”.
(Ruth Santini and Oz Hassan 2012:
66-75)
At uni last week we looked at democratisation,
specifically, the movement of individual states toward democracy from autocracy. We touched on the role of external powers [Western
democracies] in supporting/imposing democracy on developing countries. It isn’t
until recently that there are more democracies than autocratic regimes. We also
looked at different forms of democracy and academic debates about whether
democracy is good for development.
We also briefly discussed a range
of other issues that challenge popular ideas about democracy (and led to
significant insight into why autocratic regimes have persisted in many
countries). The formation of many
developing states is largely born out of the borders imposed on areas, often
under colonial rule, not natural formation, fails to address ethno/religious
difference. Significantly, modern
Western democracies took 100s of years to be formed in their current
state. Movements toward democracy were
often violent, and were often built on the exploitation of the rights of others within and between States (i.e. slavery, exploitative labour practices imposed on women). Some authors acknowledge that the formation of the democratic
modern nation-states (and their neo-liberal -philosophies, -policies, -institutions) exemplify
deep structural inequality, both within and between countries [See Nicholas (2012:
213) : “We can observe the formation of such institutionalized patterns of
hierarchy not just among preexisting sovereign states but actually in the
historical process of state formation.
Many contemporary European nation-states, most notably Britain and
Spain, emerged out of struggles among adjacent kingdoms to impose authority
over one another in conflicts uncategorizable as either domestic or
international. Outside Europe, many
societies were inserted into the international system through the imposition of
colonial authority and, on decolonization, inherited a set of state
institutions designed to enable colonial administration. Hierarchy amongst polities has often preceded
and shaped the genesis of modern states”].
In the examination of
democratisation, we briefly discussed that, throughout the twentieth century,
Western liberal democracies have supported autocracies in the Middle East. This has been for political, economic,
security reasons. Gilley (2013: 659)
acknowledges the United States (U.S.) and European powers have a history of
supporting authoritarian regimes. A 2006-2008
Arab public opinion poll indicated that 65% did not believe the US was sincere
about promoting democracy (Gilley 2013: 674).
In, 2010 another Arab opinion poll suggested that the majority of public
(across Arab states) believed that of U.S. Foreign policy was to preserve
regional and global dominance. Only 3% of
respondents believed that U.S. foreign policy was to promote democracy (Gilley
2013: 680). Curiously, while Gilley
acknowledges that other theorists, like Baroudi (in Gilley 2013: 676) believe
that “democratization of the Arab world is far more likely to hinder the American
agenda than to serve it”, Gilley (2013: 659) continues to conceptualise Bush’s
“Freedom Agenda’ (659) as sincere in its objective of promoting in the Middle
East.
While Gilley emphasises that
democracy would have been more successful if it had been democracy in the hands
of domestic actors (683), Santini and Hassan (2012) are more critical of the
notion that Western powers support democratisation of the Middle East. Of U.S. policy and its influence on
international institutions, Santini and Hassan (2012: 75) argue that Obama
initially attempted to replace market driven modernisation with development
driven modernisation. However, they
argue that Obama increasingly applied Bush’s approach arguing that “the problem
with the region was its “close economies” and that the region needed “trade”
and “not just aid”; “investment” and “not just assistance” ; and that
“protectionism must give way to openness”.
(Santini and Hassan 2012: 75). Santini and Hassan (2012) argue that
European Union’s (EU) concept of democratisation is embodied in regional
institutions and processes (e.g. the Barcelona Process, 2000 EU Common Strategy
on the Mediterranean Region and 2004 Strategic Partnership with the
Mediterranean and the Middle East. While,
they acknowledge that the EU has been less prescriptive in tying economic
liberalization with democracy, they conclude that both the U.S. and the EU need
to learn to engage and support civil society more effectively, rather than
defining freedom for the region in neoliberal economic terms (Santini and
Hassan 2012: 79)
Strasheim and Fjelde (2012) look
more closely at the role of interim governments in changes from autocratic rule
to democracy. These authors specifically
look at the problems with intervention from Western powers (Strasheim and
Fjelde 339-341). With their analysis in
mind, I think it would be interesting to examine the extent to which interim
governments were installed in Afghanistan, examining the extent to which
Western powers undermined peace and security in Afghanistan. I think a lot of other interesting questions
emerge from the readings:
By supporting movements toward
democracy for late 'developing' countries, are Western democracies supporting
democracy or neoliberalism?
To what extent do modern liberal
democracies function as democracies?
Discuss the role of the media, treatment of minorities and informed
citizenship as key elements of a democracy.
To what extent should Western
states intervene (particularly unilaterally), in the Middle East?
To what extent are interventions
in the Middle East genuine interest in the rights of women or minority groups,
or are human/women’s rights discourses used to justify interventions with more
sinister motives?
To what extent are international
institutions a product of the powerful States that formed and reform them?
References
Gilley, B. (2013) ‘Did Bush Democratize the Middle
East? The Effects of External-Internal
Linkages’, Political Science Quarterly, 34(8): 1323-1338.
Lees, N. (2012) ‘The dimensions of the divide: vertical differentiation, international
inequality and North-South stratification in international relations theory’,
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 25(2): 209-230.
Santini, R. & Hassan, O. (2012) ‘Transatlantic
democracy promotion and the Arab Spring’, The International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs,
47(3): 65-82.
Strasheim, J. & Fjelde, H. (2014) ‘Pre-designing
democracy: institutional design of interim governments and democratization in
15 post-conflict societies’, Democratization, 21(2): 335-358.