Can democracy take root in the Arab world? asks Michael Wahid Hanna. How long will it take? Ten years, 20…50?  The ultimate success of the Arab uprisings will depend heavily on the development of seven core areas, he writes for the Democracy journal: economic growth and equality; education policy; security-sector reform; transitional justice; decentralization; the development of regional norms on democratization; and—in many ways, the linchpin for everything—the flourishing of a more pluralistic politics.

In an important sense, all the preceding factors depend to varying degrees on these societies becoming more pluralistic—allowing more democracy, more dissent, more breathing room for secularism. The ongoing transitions, however, have made clear that the future of open, pluralistic politics is far from assured.

In fact, key political actors in the region have made it their goal to support notions of religious supremacy and to restrict rights and freedoms based on regressive interpretations of Islam and Islamic law. Coupled with the region’s zero-sum politics, the challenge of pluralism can be seen in terms of preserving space for dissenting political opinions and protecting equal citizenship for religious and ethnic minorities.

At root, much of this discussion is grounded in the approach of Islamist political parties to constitutional construction and ideas of citizenship.

The slow glide toward repression is a key concern, as the region’s Islamist parties have a highly majoritarian definition of democratic politics. This emphasis on the mandate of the ballot box at the expense of rights protection is further aggravated by the rightward pull of more rigid Salafi parties.

In both Tunisia and Egypt, Ennahdha and the Muslim Brotherhood have been loath to alienate these actors, seeing them as both allies against non-Islamists and rivals in the electoral setting. The region’s mainline Islamists would also have to make clear that violence has no place in democratic politics. While these groups have long abandoned violence as a tool, cynically allowing other actors to intimidate and coerce political opponents will fuel cycles of violence.

The region’s lack of experience with practical politics, inclusion, and democratic discourse has led to a zero-sum understanding of political power and an abiding allergy to direct criticism. The difficult art of compromise is not a self-evident practice and will be dependent on robust representation of non-Islamists in elected positions, the rise of effective civil-society groups, and the slow acculturation to a more dynamic political life.

Lessons for U.S. Policy: Conditional Engagement

The uneven performance of the region’s democratically elected Islamist leaders also suggests a policy approach toward states that have suppressed the forces for change—namely, encouragement of bottom-up democratization. Doing this would include taking steps such as pressing for municipal and provincial elections as a precursor to broader reforms. In pushing such a course on countries that have avoided regime change, the United States can explore anew the feasibility of more gradual reform, which has often been employed rhetorically by authoritarians to avoid actual reform. Further, an approach that seeks to impart governing responsibilities upon opposition groups will ease their potential transition to national leadership.

Michael Wahid Hanna is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where he focuses on international security, human rights, and U.S. foreign policy in the broader Middle East and South Asia.

This extract is taken from a longer article for Democracy. RTWT

Despite efforts on the part of the Jordanian government to favorably portray its commitment to reform, a perception gap regarding the process and pace of transition to a constitutional monarchy persists, writes Curtis Ryan, in a new report from the Project for Middle East Democracy.

Recent parliamentary elections, heralded by the monarchy as a significant step in a broader reform initiative have been cast by the Kingdom’s critics as an insignificant response to popular demand for greater participation in the democratic process. That response has included certain efforts to combat electoral fraud – foremost among which was the creation of an Independent Electoral Commission – but the extremely unequal distribution of seats, combined with boycotts by major opposition parties, has meant that the new parliament largely resembles its predecessors, with similar loyalties and little authority.

On January 23, 2013, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan held its latest round of parliamentary elections. Expectations among many in the opposition were low, and indeed the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated party, the Islamic Action Front (above), boycotted the elections entirely. These elections, they argued, would be no better than the last few, which had been marred by widespread allegations of fraud.

Besides the Islamist movement, Jordan has seen a rise in opposition in locally-based Hirak or popular movements, often rooted in East Jordanian communities previously regarded as core elements of regime support. Like the Islamists, and some leftist parties, most of these newer Hirak opposition movements also boycotted the elections.

Other highlights of the brief:

-Despite efforts on the part of the Jordanian government to favorably portray its commitment to reform, a perception gap on the process and pace of transition to a constitutional monarchy persists.

-Recent parliamentary elections, heralded by the monarchy as a significant step in a broader reform initiative have been cast by the Kingdom’s critics as an insignificant response to popular demand for greater participation in the democratic process.

-That response has included certain efforts to combat electoral fraud – foremost among which was the creation of an Independent Electoral Commission – but the extremely unequal distribution of seats, combined with boycotts by major opposition parties, has meant that the new parliament largely resembles its predecessors, with similar loyalties and little authority.

“In every aspect of its engagement with Jordan,” Ryan concludes, “the U.S. government should increase its focus on domestic political reform, articulating in clear and consistent terms the importance of empowering parliament, rectifying imbalances in the electoral system, fostering free speech and ensuring that political representation more accurately reflects Jordan’s electorate.”

Curtis Ryan, associate professor of political science at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, wrote POMED’s latest policy brief, Jordan’s Unfinished Journey: Parliamentary Elections and the State of Reform.

The Project on Middle East Democracy is a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.

Credit: Washington Institute

“The Egyptian revolt is trapped in a balance of weakness. None of the key actors has the power to consolidate a new regime, or even to resurrect the old one,” says a prominent analyst.

“Alliances are necessary, but nobody knows which will last. Every combination seems equally plausible, but each would lead the country in a very different direction,” writes Cambridge University’s Hazem Kandil:

Egypt’s old regime depended on a ‘power triangle’: an uneasy partnership between the military (primarily the army), the security services (the police and secret police under the control of the Interior Ministry), and the political establishment. The uprising in January 2011 disrupted this delicate balance. It inadvertently enhanced the leverage of the military, left the security services largely untouched and created a political vacancy which Islamists, secular revolutionaries and old regime loyalists all scrambled to fill. The three political rivals would find themselves playing a game of musical chairs under the fretful gaze of the military and the security services, and it isn’t yet clear who is the winner.

The military eventually backed the Muslim Brotherhood, but “the Islamists’ demonstrable incompetence over the past six months has tested their patience,” he notes, while the secular opposition the National Salvation Front – “never has such a grand name been assumed by such a mediocre body” – lacks credibility.

Nevertheless, the Brotherhood is set to prevail despite its policy failures, says Eric Trager, the Next Generation Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“Indeed, the group is already deep in electioneering mode,” he notes:

In late January, it launched the “We Are Building Our Country” campaign, through which it is distributing social services as a mechanism for winning — and perhaps buying — voter support. It is also in the process of selecting candidates: in February, it held internal elections in each governorate to choose its next batch of candidates, and the finalists are now being reviewed by the executive committee of its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

To organize its campaign activities, the Brotherhood has reshaped the FJP to mirror its own pyramidal chain of command (above). This new FJP structure can be used to quickly mobilize thousands of cadres as needed. The Brotherhood has also maintained direct control over the FJP’s actions by shifting governorate-level leaders from Brotherhood administrative offices to the FJP’s corresponding provincial headquarters.

While most secular activists remain hostile to Brotherhood overtures, one prominent opposition figure has called on the parties to respond to Morsi’s call for national dialogue.

“Responsibility requires us to attend the open dialogue session the presidency has called for in order to present the president with our demands for the benefit of the nation,” said Amr Hamzawy, a political analyst and former parliamentarian. “National engagement is the only way out of the current crisis.”

Given the current instability, a military coup can’t be ruled out, “but the armed forces can’t hope to impose military rule, and any coup will be carried out in collaboration with whichever political faction seems most likely to be able to restore stability,” Kandil writes in the London Review of Books:

Shoring up the Muslim Brotherhood is one option. Recasting old regime members as reformed and repentant politicians is also tempting, given their experience in running the state machine. The best hope for the revolution is an alliance between the organisationally strong military and members of the extremely disorganised revolutionary camp. An alliance of that sort would compel the revolutionaries to give up many of their demands, but it would also place the country on a quite different path – which is why the security apparatus will do everything it can to prevent it.

A recent court decision to cancel the legislative polls scheduled for April 22 was a further blow to Islamist President Morsi.

“It is a bad decision for the president and bolsters the feeling that his decisions are never thought out and that his advisers are not competent,” said Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyed, a Cairo University professor of political science. He said the electoral law was “tailored for the Muslim Brotherhood,” he told AFP:

Independent analyst Hisham Kassem was even harsher in his assessment of Morsi’s presidency.

“Morsi didn’t need more proof to show that he has failed as a president,” said Kassem, a leading member of the World Movement for Democracy.

Kassem said the court’s decision to cancel the new polls was a positive step because it prevents a repetition of the previous election and the later decision to abolish the lower house. But he warned that delaying the election does not mean a lifeline for Morsi.

“The situation is very bad, politically and economically, and there will be trouble again,” he said.

Brotherhood hasn’t hijacked revolution – yet

“To avoid being outflanked, the Muslim Brotherhood has to find a way of driving a wedge between the old regime and the revolutionaries,” says Kandil, author of Soldiers, Spies and Statesmen: Egypt’s Road to Revolt:

Having failed to purge state institutions of loyalist elements without provoking a popular outcry against Islamist conspiracies, and having learned that the Brotherhood’s boy scouts were no match for the revolution’s seasoned street fighters, Morsi has come to realise that his only choice is to cement an alliance with one of his opponents. But each possibility carries a hefty price tag. Compromise with the secular revolutionaries would discredit the Brotherhood ideologically, costing them the conservative vote and losing them the backing of their fundamentalist political partners. The largest Salafi party, al-Nour, has already formed a breakaway faction, with dissidents demanding a tougher stance against secularism.

“Claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has hijacked the revolution and is consolidating its hegemony haven’t much substance. The reality is that there is still political fluidity,” argues Kandil, a fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge:

It seems that none of the players quite realises the gravity of the challenges ahead. Those reduced by the Mubarak years to a hand to mouth existence won’t listen to any party that doesn’t promise immediate relief. And those enthralled by two years of popular revolt have little patience for the paternalistic pretensions of any ruler, civilian or military. As the emboldened citizenry perfect the art of permanent subversion the governability of a country with Egypt’s huge problems and meagre resources is open to question.

RTWT

President Thein Sein’s government top-down reform process has pushed through important initiatives at a rapid pace to open unprecedented political space in Burma, says a leading rights advocate.

“But open political space will not bring meaningful change unless more people throughout the country and in all segments of the society move into this space and start to use it,” said Michael H. Posner (right), Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. The veteran rights advocate will shortly leave the administration to join a new center for business and human rights at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

“Making Burma a home for all of its people will require broad, grassroots engagement by the widest possible range of its citizens, from ethnic leaders and bloggers, to lawyers and lawmakers, to factory workers and human rights advocates,” he told the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission today:

I’ve just returned from my fourth and final trip there, where I followed up on the President’s visit and on the first-ever bilateral human rights dialogue, held in October in Naypyitaw. That discussion, which covered everything from legal reform to responsible investment to the protection of civilian populations in war zones, featured a Burmese interagency delegation including three ministers, members of the military, opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (left), as well as our own delegation including representatives from the White House, the Pentagon, and several other agencies.

I. Political Prisoners

The official “Political Prisoner Review Committee has the potential to achieve three objectives critical to the country’s democratic transition. First, it can accurately determine the number of remaining political prisoners in detention and prompt their unconditional release. ….Second, the Committee’s consideration of specific cases should give it an opportunity to identify laws that need to be reformed going forward and to make recommendations to that end…..Finally, the Committee has the potential to help advance efforts to provide care and facilitate the reintegration of released prisoners.….

II. Legal Reform

Revision and repeal of flawed laws and regulations is another key area to which the government – both executive and legislative branches – should pay attention in the coming years. In the last two years the parliament has drafted, and the executive has signed, a series of new laws that constitute the first important phase of legal reform. During this period the government has passed laws criminalizing forced labor, legalizing labor unions, and allowing the opposition to run in the April by-elections.

However, a number of other laws remain in place, many are hold-overs from the colonial administration that are inconsistent with international human rights standards. The government has begun to review and revise these laws, for example by repealing two problematic laws last month, one banning public gatherings of more than five people and another banning daily newspapers.

Broadly speaking, these remaining laws fall into three categories: 1) media and “electronics” laws that restrict freedom of expression and the press; 2) laws that are inconsistent with the freedom of association by restricting membership in associations of which the government does not approve; and 3) vaguely defined national security laws that give the government overly broad authority to arbitrarily arrest citizens. While the government has mostly ceased enforcing these laws, reforming outdated legal statutes should be a high priority for the parliament and the executive.

III. Kachin State and Rakhine State Updates

The government has signed ten ceasefire agreements with armed ethnic groups in the past year, including with the Karen National Union with which it had previously been at war for over 60 years. Still, the government’s previously longest running and most stable ceasefire with the Kachin broke down 18 months ago and fighting has intensified in recent months. ……………

We remain concerned about the situation in Rakhine State, which has resulted in more than 100,000 IDPs since violence erupted in June and October. This violence broke out quickly and included attacks on non-Rohingya Muslim communities such as the Kaman, one of the country’s 135 officially- recognized national races. …..

On the religious freedom front we are deeply concerned about reports of continuing human rights and religious freedom violations in the ethnic nationality regions, including reports of sexual violence, the use of churches as military bases by the Burmese army in Kachin State, and coerced religious conversions in Chin state. ……

IV. The Political Economy of a Rights-Respecting Democracy and U.S. Sanctions Policy

….. The military-business nexus is still strong despite recent political reforms. There is still insufficient transparency relating to revenues from natural resource or into where these revenues end up. Some critics allege that the country’s natural wealth, auctioned off to highest bidder, continues to be siphoned to offshore accounts rather than flowing into the national budget. Investment in many natural resources are still controlled and financed by military controlled enterprises, such as the Myanmar Economic Corporation and the Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited or their sub-entities.

Our sanctions remain in place on these entities for this reason. If Burma is to develop the political economy of a modern, rights-respecting democratic state, the government will have to tackle this nexus with the tools of transparency—auditing, public disclosure, and full accountability for corruption. The Government of Burma has committed to join both the Open Government Partnership and the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative, both of which will provide opportunities to enhance transparency and ensure broad based development……….

We also instituted the Reporting Requirements for Responsible Investment, which require U.S. persons making investments over $500,000 to report on their human rights, environmental, labor, and anti-corruption due diligence procedures. Companies without such due diligence procedures in place may nevertheless invest in Burma, provided they report that they do not have these policies in place. Our expectation is that companies that report a lack of adequate human rights policies will face pressure from civil society actors here and in Burma to develop them, and our hope is that companies will develop policies in collaboration with these groups.

Some have argued that these reporting requirements are too onerous and discourage investment, while others argue that they are too permissive and do not providing adequate human rights safeguards. But we’ve also heard from large American companies and members of Burmese and U.S. civil society who strongly support them. Our intention is to strike a balance, guarding against an economic free-for-all that would funnel investment to the military and its companies while still incentivizing responsible investment that contributes to Burma’s economic modernization, job creation, and widely-shared prosperity.

This is an edited extract from today’s testimony.

RTWT

The Islamic Republic of Iran isn’t the only state seeking to nationalize the Internet.

“Information has always been power, and governments have long sought to control it. So for countries where power is a tightly controlled narrative, parsed by state television and radio stations, the Internet has been catastrophic,” says Katherine Maher, director of strategy and engagement at the digital rights organization Access and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project:

Its global, decentralized networks of information-sharing have routed around censorship. It gives people an outlet to publish what the media cannot, organize where organizing is forbidden, and revolt where protest is unknown. In response, governments around the world have begun to assert control, seeking to carve up the global Internet, manage it within national borders, and impose Westphalian sovereignty on the wild World Wide Web.

“It’s not entirely a new trend. The Great Firewall of China is almost as old as the Internet itself. But it is spreading, and taking new shapes,” she writes for Foreign Policy:

Some of these efforts are explicitly about political control, imposing strict limits on what users within individual countries’ borders can access. Iran’s proposed halal Internet seeks to impose Islamic virtue on the browsing masses. In Russia, the state agency Roskomnadzor enforces an Internet block list that hasf iltered the blogs of government critics. And in Pakistan, a recently revived proposal for a national firewall targets “blasphemy” as a proxy for ideas unpopular with the government.

“[At Westphalia] nearly 365 years ago, those hundred-plus princes and diplomats came together to end war — and in the process, created borders,’” Maher concludes:

The Internet broke those borders down, advancing the cause of fundamental rights, free expression, and shared humanity in all its messy glory. Now, to stifle political dissent and in the name of defending national security, governments are putting those borders back up — and in doing so, they’re dragging the Internet into ancient history.

RTWT

China’s Communist authorities are using Soviet-style passport restrictions and de facto travel bans to penalize up to 14 million ethnic Uighurs and Tibetans, and hundreds of dissidents.

“Lawyers and human rights advocates say the number of those affected has soared in recent years, with Tibetans and Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking minority from China’s far west, increasingly ineligible for overseas fellowships, speaking engagements or the organized sightseeing groups that have ferried planeloads of Chinese to foreign capitals,” the New York Times reports:

The seemingly arbitrary restrictions, not unlike those long employed by the former Soviet Union, also affect overseas Chinese who had grown accustomed to frequent visits home. Scores of Chinese expatriates have been denied new passports by Chinese Embassies when their old ones expire, while others say they are simply turned away after landing in Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong.  Returnees whose names show up on a blacklist are escorted by border control officers to the next outbound flight. Even if seldom given explanations for their expulsions, many of those turned away suspect it is punishment for their antigovernment activism abroad.

“Compared to other forms of political persecution, the denial of the right to return home seems like a small evil,” said Hu Ping, the editor of a pro-democracy journal in New York who has not been allowed to see family members in China since 1987. “But it’s a blatant violation of human rights.”

Hu, the editor of Beijing Spring, has been outspoken on minority rights in China, in the pages of his journal and in forums such as a recent conference at the National Endowment for Democracy.

“On Feb. 6, Wang Zhongxia, 28, a Chinese activist who had planned to meet the Burmese opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was barred from boarding a Myanmar-bound flight from the southern city of Guangzhou,” the Times continues:

Four days earlier, Ilham Tohti [above], an academic and vocal advocate for China’s ethnic Uighurs, was prevented from leaving for the United States. Mr. Tohti, who was set to begin a yearlong fellowship at Indiana University, said he was interrogated at Beijing International Airport for nearly 12 hours by officers who refused to explain his detention. Speaking from his apartment in the capital, Mr. Tohti says that Uighurs have long faced difficulties in obtaining passports but that the authorities have made it nearly impossible in recent years.

“We feel like second-class citizens in our own country,” he said.

While many non-minority dissidents have been impacted by the travel curbs, “the rules are more arduous for Tibetans and Uighurs, who must win approvals from several layers of bureaucracy — including provincial authorities; the applicant’s hometown public security bureau; and for students, university administrators,” the Times notes:

Tsering Woeser [left], a Tibetan writer who has tried and failed to get a passport since 2005 [and whose blog Invisible Tibet, was recently recognized by Reporters Without Borders], says the denials are driven by fears that once abroad, minorities will speak out about China’s repressive ethnic policies or link up with exile groups.

“For the Han, getting a passport is as easy as buying a bus ticket,” she said. “But for Tibetans it’s harder than climbing to the sky.”  

RTWT

“The governments that rose to power in Egypt and Tunisia in the wake of the Arab Spring are increasingly relying on the oppressive security apparatuses crafted by their predecessors,” notes a regional analyst.

“Whole-scale reform of the security services in both countries, where police were viewed as predatory foot soldiers for the regime, was a central catalyst for the uprisings two years ago,” writes the Global Post’s Erin Cunningham:

But as the two North African nations now grapple with heightened and sometimes violent unrest — the result of stalled political and economic progress — the government of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt and Tunisia’s Ennahda leadership are embracing the unreformed police forces as necessary tools to quell opposition to their rule, activists say.

Morsi attracted criticism from rights activists and appeared to confirm his authoritarian instincts last month when he replaced the minister of interior not with an outsider but a former occupant of the post and veteran Mubarak apparatchik accused of rights violations.

“Tunisians say the Ennahda-led Interior Ministry, meanwhile, continues to torture and turns a blind eye to attacks by extreme Islamists on liberal opposition groups — including the assassination of vocal government critic and human rights advocate, Chokri Belaid, earlier this month,” Cunningham observes.

That’s one reason why Ennahda Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem insisted on the Islamist group retaining control of the Interior Ministry rather than accept a government of neutral technocrats, one analyst notes.

Similar tensions are arising in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood appears content to utilize rather than reform the repressive apparatus inherited from the Mubarak regime.

“The police are returning to their ways in the time of [former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak,” said Hafez Abu Seada, the president of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. “They are a tool of oppression in the same way that they were. They are working for the Muslim Brotherhood now, and it should not be this way.”

Civil society groups had high hopes for reform in the country, where, according to the United States Institute for Peace — a nonpartisan group — educational standards are high for entrance into the police force, security infrastructure is solid and rules of engagement are clearly established…..But divisive political climates and ailing economies frustrated aspirations for reform.

“As political and social protests continue on the one hand, and on the other hand, the government is less able to provide — the only thing they can do as a government is repress,” said Karim Medhat Ennarah, security sector researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

Pro-democracy activists and rights groups in Tunisia say police abuses like protester beatings and sporadic torture continue, including against government opponents. The police force under the Ennahda government has failed to investigate or prosecute perpetrators of mostly religious-based attacks against liberal establishments like bars, art galleries and cinemas.

“Before the revolution, the ministry was very much an opponent of Ennahda,” said Ali Zeddini, vice president of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights. “Now the tables have turned, and the ministry is working in Ennahda’s interests.”

But even Egypt’s prosecutor-general, appointed by Morsi, is now spearheading an effort to protect security forces under the new government, Ennarah of the EIPR said.

The public prosecutor is renewing the detention of prisoners without evidence — sometimes without even a basic police report — EIPR said. Ennarah, who has worked with the president’s advisory team on proposals for security sector reform, said, “the role of the prosecution” in aiding police impunity is new.

According to rights groups, they proposed the immediate implementation of simple reforms to the presidential office like the creation of an independent commission to investigate the illegal use of firearms by security forces, or small monitoring teams to make visits to detainees in prison. …They were rebuffed. 

“They want a compliant police force, rather than a reformed one,” Ennarah said of the Morsi administration.

“In the absence of any will or interest of any kind in reforming the security services, the government is going to constantly be at loggerheads with the population,” he said.

“Russia’s central bank governor has lifted the lid on $49 billion in illegal capital flight – more than half of which, he says, is controlled ‘by one well-organized group of individuals’ that he declined to name,” the FT’s Charles Clover reports:

Sergei Ignatiev…..unburdened himself in an interview with the Moscow newspaper Vedomosti about money leaving the country through the back door, which he said equaled 2.5 percent of gross domestic product last year. “This might be payment for supplies of narcotics…illegal imports…bribes and kickbacks for bureaucrats…and avoiding taxes,” he told the daily, which is part-owned by the Financial Times:

A Moscow-based economist, who asked not to be identified, said the schemes described by Mr. Ignatiev were exactly those being investigated now in several jurisdictions in connection with the case of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky (above) who died in police custody in 2009 after he attempted to track a fraudulent tax refund that appeared to benefit a group of bankers and law enforcement officers.

“What Magnitsky was looking into – that was the tip of the iceberg,” the economist said.

Igor Yurgens, a former adviser to Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, said that if what Mr. Ignatiev said about a “single organized group” was true, “such an operation would not be possible without serious support from law enforcement”.

The revelation follows news that Vladimir Pekhtin, a vehemently anti-American member of the United Russia ruling party, resigned from the Duma this week following revelations that he failed to disclose properties he owns in Florida.

“Is corruption in Russia’s DNA?”, the subject of an exhibition by photographer Misha Friedman, appears to be a legitimate question to ask.

But analysts caution against indulging in stereotypes.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush famously asked “whether or not it’s possible to reprogram the kind of basic Russian DNA, which is a centralized authority.”

But Adam Michnik, a leading founder of the Solidarity movement, dismissed the notion of  authoritarian DNA . Russia has a variety of traditions, including a liberal democratic tradition going back at least to Alexander Herzen, he said, rejecting the “point of view among Western and American cynics and opportunists that we don’t need to do anything, because Russians like dictatorship.”

Two things are striking about Russia’s regression to authoritarianism under President Vladimir Putin, writes Jeff Gedmin of the London-based Legatum Institute:

First is how Putinism so frequently gets a pass in the West. The United States has pursued the last four years a policy intended to ‘re-set’ relations with Moscow, a kind of constructive engagement with the Kremlin. That policy has failed. The EU’s Moscow strategy has been equally feeble. Putin’s apologists in the West often insist that Russian culture is not conducive to Western democracy; so why fuss and fret? Of course, culture matters. After 70 years of Soviet Communism, no one thought this transition would be easy.

But we’ve been here before. Democracy was once said to be impossible in places like Spain and Portugal (and Latin America) because of Catholic authoritarian traditions. …. If Russians don’t care about democracy, why does Putin spend so much time and energy curbing and quelling dissent?

The second striking thing about developments in Russia is how much Putin and his allies have learned about the art of repression. ….. There are softer, more sophisticated forms of intimidation and misdirection these days. Take media. Martha Bayles of Boston College writes of the “manipulations of cynical 21st-century authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, who use a free flow of infotainment to keep the masses amused and distracted, while crushing any political speech that might threaten his power.” RTWT

But some commentators appear willing to sacrifice Russians’ democratic aspirations on the altar of Realpolitik in the interests of engagement.

Engaging an authoritarian regime like Putin’s “raises a classic foreign-policy dilemma, where U.S. interests and values are in conflict,” writes the Washington Post’s David Ignatius.

Nevertheless, he concludes, “the benefits of a more cooperative U.S.-Russian relationship — on Syria, Iran, North Korea, arms control and other issues — are so substantial that they are worth the cost. That’s a heavy burden, especially since it’s likely to be borne by Russian human-rights activists.”

If the US and Russia are to reset the reset, says the Carnegie Endowment’s Matthew Rojansky, engagement should at least be extended beyond the intergovernmental sphere to civil society.

“Above all, ordinary Russians and Americans need more opportunities for engagement, not fewer,” he contends:

After a decade of strong economic growth, Russians themselves can now afford to engage as never before. But the Kremlin must resist the temptation to monitor and control every interaction. Rather than imposing visa bans, Russia should offer streamlined visa-free entry to US and EU citizens, even if western governments are too stodgy to return the favor. Ordinary people – students, tourists, and entrepreneurs – could come in droves, and while Russia would enjoy huge economic benefits, the exponential growth in international dialogue would have an even more transformative effect on political relations.

But that’s easier said than done when the Kremlin is not only manifestly hostile to pluralism and independent civil society, but also cultivating the most virulent anti-American sentiment seen since the height of the Cold War.

Russian democrats aren’t advocating isolation, an end to trade or a stop to negotiating nuclear weapons, writes Lilia Shevtsova, Rojansky’s Carnegie colleague.

“The opposition and the liberal critics of the West do not expect Western governments to fight for Russian democracy and freedom; this is an agenda for Russians,” she wrote this week in a must-read analysis. “But in pursuing trade or security relations, nothing is forcing Western governments to play the game ‘Let’s Pretend’ with regard to the path the Kremlin has taken.”

Writing on Open Democracy Russia yesterday, Almut Rochowonski argued that Kremlin’s repression of NGOs could work in their favour by encouraging domestic giving. Her mistake was assuming Russian NGOs are able and free to replicate Western membership-based fundraising models, which they are not.

It is no accident – as the Marxists used to say – that the Kremlin’s offensive against civil society followed the most extensive, sustained and dramatic protest movement in post-Soviet Russia. Authoritarian regimes in general look to harass activists, impose restrictions, and seek to de-legitimise indigenous actors as foreign agents when they want to stop activists from engaging with the wider public (an engagement which, by the way, might generate much membership-based funding). It is precisely in such states, where providing support for civil society is a potentially hazardous political act, that international donors can step in to address the domestic donor deficit.

RFE/RL

Already fragile and underdeveloped as a consequence of the repressive Soviet legacy, Russian civil society is facing an intimidating array of legal and financial challenges. With the active cooperation of the State Duma, the Putin administration has employed several legislative measures to undermine the country’s civil society organizations……………

The response to these challenges has varied, with most NGOs adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude, citing specific wording in the Yakovlev Law as evidence of the government’s plans to target only a select few national-level groups. Well-established NGOs are pursuing more proactive measures, including taking domestic and international legal action against the government. In early February, eleven leading NGOs lodged a formal complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, asserting that the ‘Foreign Agent’ Law violates Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect freedom of association and expression. ………..

Against this backdrop of growing authoritarianism, the funding environment for civil society organisations, which was never healthy, has deteriorated rapidly. The Kremlin’s expulsion of USAID last September left a large number of civil society organisations with constricted budgets, necessitating programmatic and staff cuts to remain active. Meanwhile, USAID’s exit has had a chilling effect on the international donor community, with many US and European donors revisiting funding strategies in the hope of avoiding a similar fate.

‘USAID’s exit has had a chilling effect on the international donor community, with many US and European donors revisiting funding strategies in the hope of avoiding a similar fate.’

The donor community obviously needs to adjust to new challenges by exploring new funding models and showing greater flexibility in managing grantee finances. In particular, donors should reconsider the traditional ‘call for proposals’ model of grant-making, which not only lends credence to government claims of undue donor influence on NGO activities, but may also lead to mission creep. The alternative, a demand-driven model of grant-making, incentivises highly-adaptable, grassroots projects that avoid many of these programmatic and financial issues.

This is the model that informs National Endowment for Democracy’s approach in supporting Russian civil society projects. From regional human rights initiatives to national-level transparency programs, our work homes in on popular local issues or pursuing the protection of fundamental freedoms and norms that may have yet to gain traction in the wider society. ……….

Of course, genuine donor pluralism would be hugely beneficial to Russian civil society: if only the country’s beleaguered non-governmental groups were able to draw on a diverse range of funding sources, from individual members and indigenous philanthropic foundations to corporate and even government funding, international funders would not need to compensate for the domestic donor deficit.

But the Putin regime is manifestly hostile to pluralism of any stripe, as demonstrated by the authorities’ current efforts to stifle the donor community ……….. The most sensible response to this overt effort to choke off resources for dedicated individuals and groups working against the odds in Russia to bring greater justice and accountability is not to acquiesce but rather to let a thousand flowers bloom and to enable open and transparent funding from domestic and international sources alike.

This an extract from a longer article on Open Democracy. RTWT

Saleh is ‘a provocative presence’

As Yemen’s key political actors  gear up for the forthcoming dialogue, envisaged as the first step towards a democratic transition, Les Campbell, Middle East director for the National Democratic Institute, finds a surprising degree of consensus. But former President Ali Abdullah Saleh (right) remains a “fly in the ointment” that could yet disrupt the fragile truce between rival factions.  

An important hurdle in the lead-up to Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference was passed on Wednesday as the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) – which had missed the first deadline – submitted the names of their delegates for the gathering which is slated to begin on March 18.  

The National Dialogue is an integral part of the Gulf Cooperation Council Agreement signed in late 2011 which saw the departure from office of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the creation of a government of national unity including the former ruling party, the General People’s Congress (GPC), and opposition JMP.  Part of a larger comprehensive dialogue program that will include a series of working groups and committees, 565 delegates will convene in Sana’a to begin discussion on topics including decentralization, election systems, forms of government, resolution of regional grievances in the north and south, restructuring of the security services and armed forces, economic development and a host of other issues. 

Still to come are the names of delegates representing the Southern Movement or Hirak, although officials of the Technical Committee for National Dialogue (TCND) remain confident that there will be significant southern representation. The Houthis – another key constituency in the dialogue process – have submitted their participants and reconfirmed that they will join the gathering. The Houthi clan, adherents of a form of Shi’a Islam, exerts control over parts of northern Yemen and have been involved in a number of limited wars with the Sana’a-based government. 

While there are sure to be last minute jitters, and political drama will likely surge prior to the start of the long anticipated summit, Yemen is currently enjoying an uncommon state of political harmony.  

Meetings in Sana’a over the past few days with officials of the former ruling party, opposition leaders, tribal sheikhs, youth activists and government ministers found a surprising state of consensus – national dialogue is the only solution to Yemen’s deep-rooted fissures and fault lines, most say, and security and economic prosperity will come only when compromise becomes preferable to conflict.  

The fly in the ointment is former President Saleh who continues to hold court with supporters and issue pronouncements through the media outlets controlled by his son, Ali Ahmed.  While not overtly disruptive, his presence is a provocation that, over time, could threaten to derail the fragile political truce currently holding sway. 

Even his defenders have come to believe that he must withdraw completely from politics – if not leave the country.  Saleh retains the chairmanship of the GPC – an inconvenient and somewhat embarrassing fact for current President Abd Rabo Mansur Hadi (left) whose picture is featured in GPC posters alongside that of Saleh. The not-so-subtle message is that Saleh remains the senior to his former Vice President. While it pains them, Saleh’s opponents outside the GPC are trying to mute criticism of the former president in the hopes that he will fade away and not dig in just to spite his enemies. Moderates within the GPC hope the same as many are anxious to rebuild the GPC as a modern party of pragmatic technocrats and to shed the Saleh albatross. 

Saleh distraction aside, Hadi continues to enjoy political approval ratings any politician would envy. Hadi’s personal prestige and credibility help maintain hope among Yemeni citizens that their security and economic concerns will soon be addressed – even in the face of limited progress. While many wish Hadi could inherit some of Saleh’s charisma and develop stronger networks of support, his solid performance has won respect.  

A significant challenge for Hadi lies in managing expectations on the pace and scope of change. While he has been able to restore some basic services to tolerable levels, many Yemenis are waiting for wholesale military re-structuring and movement on key grievances of the south related to land ownership and lost jobs following the 1994 civil war. These issues are among the core recommendations issued last August by the TCND, which called at the time for immediate action in an effort to promote participation in the dialogue process. 

The TCND’s sense of urgency on these matters may fail to acknowledge the complexities of the issues. President Hadi has initiated action on military reform and southern grievances, but has not secured closure on any. A National Democratic Institute meeting with President Hadi on Wednesday shed some light on his strategy. For him to act conclusively now on any one dialogue item could be seen as preempting the mandate of the delegates and discourage citizens from contributing to the debate.

The model for dialogue is respectful consultation, citizen engagement and the development of shared solutions. Unilateral action, according to Hadi, could ruin the opportunity for consensus policies which are likely more sustainable over the long run than presidential decrees. 

Perhaps Hadi will be proven right and his sentiments are certainly laudable but, in the meantime, lack of tangible change may give the former president a soapbox and could threaten the rare political timeout currently in place in Yemen’s capital. 

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“A year after President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in a deal brokered by the United States and Yemen’s Arab neighbors, the country’s three most influential families continue to cast a large shadow over the political transition,” The Washington Post’s Sudarsan Raghavan reports:

Unlike leaders of other nations altered by the Arab Spring revolutions, Yemen’s elites were neither jailed nor exiled, and they have remained inside the country, free to operate as they will.

Women Journalists Without Chains is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group. NDI is one of the NED’s core institutes.