[LCM Articles] What Arab countries think of democracy

[Omar Kanafani]

What Arab countries think of
democracy<http://centreforeuropeanreform.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-arab-countries-think-of-democracy.html>
via Centre for European
Reform<http://centreforeuropeanreform.blogspot.com/>by Centre for
European Reform on 21/05/08

by Clara Marina O'Donnell

Earlier this month, the Arab Reform Initiative (ARI) presented its first
report on the state of democratic reform in the Arab world. ARI is a
consortium of a dozen leading Arab research institutes which try to promote
peaceful democratic reform across the Middle East (CER and a few other
non-Arab think-tanks are associated with the initiative).

The report is a groundbreaking venture. It is the first collective and
coordinated effort by Arab research institutes to evaluate the state of
their political systems. By highlighting the progress towards democracy, or
more to the point, the lack thereof, ARI hopes to pressure Arab governments
into further reforms.

Launched at a conference in Alexandria, the report looks at eight Arab
countries – Jordan, 'Palestine', Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi
Arabia and Yemen from July 2006 to June 2007. The report's 'democracy index'
measures progress towards democracy on the basis of four criteria: strong
public institutions, respect for rights and freedoms, the rule of law, and
equity and social justice. The results will open a few eyes. Jordan ranked
first, ahead of Morocco. And Palestine came third, ahead of Egypt.

Unfortunately, the rankings don't give us the full picture on the ground.
Most such indices are somewhat arbitrary but this one will be particularly
controversial. The choice of criteria and how they are assessed explain the
surprising results. For example military conflict is not taken into account,
which partly explains Palestine's good marks. Wage equality is used as an
indicator for democratic progress, allowing poverty-ridden Yemen to score
top marks in that category and increase its overall performance. For future
ARI reports to make real difference, the authors will need to refine the
methodology (something they recognise).

The Alexandria conference was remarkable as much for the conversations that
took place as for the long-awaited report. Rami Khouri from the American
University of Beirut argued that the push towards democratic reform has
slowed down, and in some places collapsed, over the last few years because
of wars and foreign influence (in particular the US 'war on terror');
ideological conflicts; and the resistance of the ruling regimes. Democratic
rights have become less important compared to security and stability. This
is particularly the case for countries in conflict such as Lebanon, Iraq and
Palestine. But the current situation is also being exploited by some
governments, such as in Syria and Jordan, where authorities justify
postponing reforms by the need to maintain stability.

Khouri also argued that the arrival in politics of Islamic parties, the
strongest opposition movements in most Arab countries, has been a
double-edged sword. On the one hand, it has increased the amount of people
calling for democracy. But at the same time it has reduced the desire for
reform from the governing elites and western powers, who do not want to see
Islamists in government.

Professor Mustapha Kamel Al Sayyid from Egypt lamented the lack of links
between Arab movements for democratic reform and European and American civil
society. Most Arab groups are averse to Western assistance because they
perceive it as neo-colonial. But Kamel argued that European civil society
groups had been a valuable source of support during the transitions to
democracy in Latin America and that Arab movements were losing out.

While taking into acount the many obstacles, the conference and the report
concluded that the Arab region 'showed an initial disposition towards
democratic transformation, albeit a still embryonic one'.

But even the conference itself was full of reminders of how difficult the
current situation is. One ARI member has been inactive for a year because it
is being hassled by its government. And the Lebanese participants could not
get home as Hezbollah had cut off access to Beirut airport.

Clara Marina O'Donnell is a research fellow at the Centre for European
Refom.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/lebanon-articles/attachments/20080521/861ec24a/attachment.htm