AMERICAN DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AND THE ARAB SPRING

Extracts from Dr Oz Hassan’s paper for the GR:EEN project

Is America too focused on economics when it comes to understanding the many definitions of freedom that have emerged from Egypt? Warwick research fellow Dr Oz Hassan argues that there is a lack of innovation in US Middle East policy and that the Obama administration would do better to support Egypt's positive emerging trends rather than try to impose its own.

As part of the University of Warwick's GR:EEN (Global Reordering: Evolution through European Networks) project, Dr Oz Hassan spent time conducting research among the protesters in Egypt’s Tahrir Square before the police cleared it in August 2011. He asserts that the definition of freedom that the protesters were willing to die for is "human rights, social justice and in some quarters adherence to the Islamic faith". This is in contrast to the Obama adminstration's "economic understanding of freedom born out of the philosophies of Hayek and Freidman".

Here are key extracts from his paper, which Dr Hassan will present in person to former US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, in December 2011.

President Bush's strategy

By the time that President Bush left office hundreds of millions of dollars had been spent on promoting democracy in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa initiative), and the US had declared with the force of law that it would prioritise, along with other foreign policy goals, the promotion of democracy and human rights around the world.

At a superficial level the so-called 'Arab Spring' appears to vindicate President Bush's Freedom Agenda and suggests that President Obama should continue to follow the path laid out by his predecessor. However, upon closer inspection such an assertion is highly problematic. The 2011 revolutions, rather than vindicating the Freedom Agenda, are in fact the ultimate expression of its failure.

The 2011 revolutions, rather than vindicating Bush's Freedom Agenda, are in fact the ultimate expression of its failure.

The Freedom Agenda was designed to gradually reform the region over a period of generations working with 'friends' and 'partners'. The objective was to incrementally transform the region in a stable manner compatible with the pursuit of American interests. These include the free flow of oil and gas, the movement of military and commercial traffic through the Suez Canal, infrastructure construction projects, the security of regional allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, and cooperation on military, counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation issues.

The Arab Spring introduces uncertainty in the pursuit of these interests. It is not clear whether democratic consolidation will take place in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and even if it did, it is not clear that democratisation is compatible with America's other interests in the region. The early days of the 'Spring' have foregrounded these issues, with Egyptian protesters storming the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Egypt allowing two Iranian warships to transit through the Suez Canal, a Shi'ite uprising in Bahrain generating fears that Iran could gain influence affecting neighbouring Saudi Arabia, alarm that Islamists could come to power throughout the region, and increased volatility in the price of oil.

Such regional instability and uncertainty is hardly the hallmark of a successful policy. Yet, as the Obama administration attempts to navigate a policy through the changing Middle East mosaic, it is becoming highly evident that this policy has a remarkable continuity with the predecessors.

Obama's spring time policy

Upon coming into office it was clear that the Obama administration wanted to distance themselves from the Freedom Agenda and its association with the Iraq War. As such, President Obama was eager to suggest that the radical side of the Freedom Agenda would be replaced with a more pragmatic 'open handed' approach. Moreover, many critics argued that the Obama administration seemed to abandon democracy promotion altogether because of its 'toxic' association with President Bush. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was willing to assert the need for a 'comprehensive plan' for 'diplomacy, development and defense' in her senate confirmation hearing, but 'advancing democracy' was only represented as a 'hope'.

America needs to understand Egyptians' vision of the future and support it; not seek to impose a way of life upon others.

Nonetheless, on closer inspection, the Obama administration had expanded the conservative side of the Freedom Agenda through increased Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) funding and appointing Tamara Coffman Wittes as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. Indeed, appointments such as Anne-Marie Slaughter as Director of Policy Planning, Susan Rice as UN Ambassador, and Samantha Power and Michael McFaul to the National Security Council suggest that democracy promotion was far from being removed from the Obama agenda.

Where there was an intellectual shift with their predecessors, it was most prominently demonstrated in the administration's attempts to stress dignity and development as a means of countering Islamist organisations in the region, but also for enabling a stable modernisation process to take place. Thus, the language of 'dignity and development' replaced talk of 'democracy promotion', and the Obama administration initially attempted to replace 'market driven modernisation' with 'development driven modernisation' to underpin a gradualist strategy.

However, in the aftermath of the 2011 revolutions the Obama administration would increasingly come to see the Bush adminstration's approach as the preferred policy agenda.

Conclusion

The US... needs to listen to voices in Tahrir Square that, when questioned about American policies, oppose the oppression caused by US support for Mubarak, but continue to hold America as an exemplar.

Among the signs visible from walking around Tahrir during its protester occupation, there were constant calls for 'freedom' and when you talk to the organisers of movements instrumental to the overthrow of Mubarak, they tell you how they studied the history of non-violent movements and cite amongst others Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Malcom X.

When you hear Egyptians citing King's 'I have a dream' speech yards from Tahrir Square's Kentucky Fried Chicken, which was turned into a makeshift clinic for the injured and sick, it is clear the influence that the US has in the region and the power of the US to continue to inspire the fight for greater freedom from tyranny.

This is not the language of global capital, but of a definition of freedom that is based around indigenous understandings of citizenship, rights and social justice, and articulated in a narrative that draws upon the American story in an effort to write a new Egyptian story. America needs to understand Egyptians’ vision of the future and support it; not seek to define and impose a way of life upon others.

Read the full paper »

Oz Hassan is a research fellow for the EU Framework 7 Programme GR:EEN. His research on GR:EEN examines the apparent tensions between liberty and security in the context of a global reordering of power, with a particular focus on US human security discourses in the Middle East and Africa.

Dr Hassan joined the University of Warwick's Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) in 2009 having completed his doctoral research on US democracy promotion in the Middle East and North Africa at the University of Birmingham. Subsequently, he has conducted ethnographic research in the region, and witnessed first hand the protester struggles in Cairo’s Tahrir Square following the fall of the Mubarak regime. He has also spent considerable time in Washington D.C. as a British Research Council Fellow at the John W. Kluge Center in The United States Library of Congress. His expertise in this area has provided substantial interaction with the policy-making community in the US, Canada and the EU.

He is a co-founding editor of the British International Studies Association’s (BISA) magazine International Studies Today.

By Penelope Jenkins