Democratization and Its Discontents

Shortly after 9/11, President George W. Bush declared that the best hope for peace and security in the Middle East lay in the expansion of democracy and freedom there. The stroke of a speechwriter's pen had collapsed the divide between U.S. ideals and U.S. interests in the region. But soon enough, democratization began to collide with core U.S. interests after all. U.S. pressure for political reform proved distracting (and potentially destabilizing) to regional allies whose assistance was crucial in the drive to stabilize Iraq and restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. And when democratic elections were held, they often delivered outcomes at odds with Washington's hopes and intentions. Hamas' victory in Palestinian elections, the onset of political paralysis in Lebanon, the deepening sectarian divide in Iraq -- all raised significant doubts about the wisdom of a U.S. strategy built around promoting democracy.

Is it time to reconsider the democratization agenda in the Arab world? For many observers, this seems a foregone conclusion. Promoting democracy from the outside is a challenging task anywhere. Democratization is a long and uncertain process, one prone to stalls and setbacks, one that is often chaotic and sometimes violent. In the Middle East, the difficulties are even more daunting: despite the Bush administration's claims, nowhere else do U.S. ideals and U.S. interests seem so starkly counterposed.

Two excellent new books -- Freedom's Unsteady March, by Tamara Cofman Wittes, and Beyond the Façade, edited by Marina Ottaway and Julia Choucair-Vizoso -- help negotiate this terrain in an informed way. Although they vary significantly in their tone and enthusiasm for democracy promotion in the Arab world, their policy recommendations are surprisingly congruent. Washington must narrow its efforts to the protection of political freedoms (in the hope of building "people power" on the ground), press reluctant regimes to include Islamists in the political process, and make aid and trade conditional on performance on these more limited goals.

INSTRUMENTAL IDEALISM

Freedom's Unsteady March is billed as a "realist's guidebook for democracy promotion." Wittes does not shrink from acknowledging the failures of the Bush administration in this area. But she attributes these failures to a halfhearted effort rather than the inherent unachievability or inadvisability of the objective. "Interest requires us to embrace democracy," she argues unabashedly. Historically, the United States has had three core interests in the Middle East: preserving the free flow of oil and gas, securing the movement of maritime traffic through the Suez Canal, and guaranteeing the safety of key allies, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. (More recently, a fourth objective has joined the list: gaining assistance in counterterrorism efforts.) For much of the post-World War II era, these interests spelled a devil's bargain: ally with reliable autocrats and forgo pressuring them to pursue democratic reform. Consequently, even when the United States was enthusiastically embracing the "third wave" of democratization that swept southern and eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa in the late twentieth century, its endorsement of a democratic agenda in the Middle East was halfhearted and inconsistent, marred by a "deep-seated ambivalence."

This has remained true even during the Bush administration, notwithstanding its soaring rhetoric about the importance of democracy and freedom. Wittes offers a trenchant analysis of the Bush administration's policies. Democracy promotion was too "small bore," focusing on financial support and technical assistance to civil-society associations, political parties, and legislative institutions and ignoring the fact that absent true freedom (to speak, to organize) in society, these technical improvements would do little to reapportion political power or force popular accountability. In addition, many in the Bush administration were persuaded that the first priority of the United States should be the promotion of economic development and economic reform "in the hope ... that democratization [would] follow as a natural consequence of economic freedom." An "economics first" approach was doomed to failure: economic irrationality was an essential part of the political survival strategy of many regimes in the region, and political interests in the economic status quo made economic reform as challenging as outright political reform.

The administration also made the mistake of focusing much of its democratizing energy on places where governance was severely challenged (Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine). The promotion of democracy in weak states (or nonstates) was bound to fail. Where government institutions cannot deliver basic security or welfare to society, people tend to fall back on kith and kin to secure these basic needs. In this primordially charged context, the introduction of democratic elections often serves to reinforce sectarian and ethnic cleavages and undermine social peace -- not a promising environment for democracy's success.

To do better, Wittes argues, Washington must make a more concerted effort and develop the backbone to confront recalcitrant autocrats (even those who are U.S. allies). As a prior condition to both, however, the United States must overcome its ambivalence about the entire democratization enterprise. Americans, as Wittes sees it, must recognize that whatever the flaws in his administration's approach, Bush was right when he argued that U.S. interests and U.S. ideals are not in conflict when it comes to democracy promotion in the Arab world.