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We need your help!
In order to continue to expand our work, POMED needs your support. Please consider making a donation through our secure, online donation site.
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Dear Friends,
As 2008 draws to a close and a new administration prepares to move into the White House, December marks a good time to look back at the work POMED has accomplished this year with your support, and also to look forward toward the very important year ahead.
Such a review is particularly important because donors like you provide the bulk of POMED’s funding. As you make your year-end gifts, please consider supporting POMED’s work through a donation of $25, $50, $100, or $500. Your financial support drives our efforts.
Most importantly, we want to hear your feedback. Let us know what issues and programming areas you think POMED should focus on in the coming year. You can write me at andrew.albertson@pomed.org.
In 2008, POMED was active on three fronts:
1) Fostering intercontinental dialogue about U.S. policies: A first step toward enhancing U.S. policies in the Middle East is to do a better job of listening to Middle Easterners. In an effort to foster dialogue about U.S. policies in the region and their impact on political reform, POMED:
- Hosted Young Global Leaders Forums in Cairo, Amman, and Rabat, bringing together top young American leaders and their Middle Eastern counterparts to discuss and determine policy recommendations for the U.S. and host governments.
2) Bridging the gap between theory and practice: The second step toward bringing about positive changes in U.S. policy is to ensure that policymakers have access to high quality research and analysis. To meet this need, POMED:
- Launched a set of content-rich country pages, each of which serves as a one-stop shop on political reform dynamics in a given country, including among other resources a regularly updated news blog and an analytical background paper.
3) Supporting informed, principled advocacy: Finally, changing policy means enhancing the effectiveness of those who share POMED’s principles and advocate for change. In an effort to support the broad constituency for peaceful U.S. policies in support of democracy in the Middle East, POMED:
- Hosts a monthly off-the-record study group for Congressional staffmembers on “Rethinking Democracy Promotion,” featuring such experts as Tamara Cofman Wittes, Gerald Hyman, and Ted Piccone.
- Publishes the Weekly Wire, a round-up of congressional developments and policy debates that reaches policymakers every Monday morning.
- Reacted to events in the Middle East with timely briefings and discussions for policymakers, helping drive the debates on Capitol Hill in response to developments in Egypt, Turkey, and elsewhere.
In 2009, POMED is well-positioned to play an even more active role in shaping policy debates and supporting lawmakers in what will be a critically important year. Look for the following initiatives early next year:
- A short publication examining, “What should President Obama say to the Middle East at the outset of his administration?” with answers from noted researchers, writers, and activists.
- An analysis of the difficulties inherent in encouraging reform in Egypt and offering potential policy options for the incoming administration.
- A study offering recommendations for how to reform existing foreign aid structures in order to more effectively encourage democratic reform and development.
- Dialogue events and related publications on ways the U.S. can restore its record on human rights and re-start a dialogue with European allies as two crucial steps toward rebuilding U.S. capacity to support democratic progress in the Middle East.
- Our second annual analysis of the president’s budget request.
Again, I want to thank you for your support in the past, and we look forward to hearing from you soon. To make a donation to our efforts today, please visit our donation page.
Best wishes for a happy holidays,
Andrew
Andrew Albertson
Executive Director
Project on Middle East Democracy
andrew.albertson@pomed.org
(202) 422-6804
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POMED Updates
Release of Conference Representatives Report
From July 28-30, POMED was honored to host six representatives elected by the participants in our spring 2008 conferences in Rabat, Cairo and Amman. These representatives came to Washington to present their policy recommendations to government officials, Capitol Hill staffers, and development organization leaders.
The representatives delivered an important message: The U.S. has a positive role to play in supporting democratic reform in the Middle East, but the U.S. must sharply reform its policies in the region and reconceptualize its approach to supporting democracy.
We have now released a full report on the representatives’ visit, including the representatives’ full statement and five timely policy recommendations, biographies of the representatives, overviews of the representatives’ public events in Washington, and more. A webpage with additional information on the representatives’ visit can be accessed here.
What Should Obama Say to the Middle East?
As we look toward the Middle East policy of the incoming Obama administration, POMED has asked a variety of respected voices from the community of Middle East policy experts, democracy promotion practitioners, pollsters, academics, and human rights advocates to answer the following question in 300 words or less:
At the outset of the new American administration, what should President Obama say to the people of the Middle East?
Last week, we began to publish responses to this question on our website, with entries from James Traub and Neil Hicks, followed by Michele Dunne and Dalia Mogahed. We will continue to post responses on our website each Tuesday and Thursday throughout the rest of the month, and we will compile all of the responses in a publication to be released in January.
POMED in Print
The Century Foundation has published a report by POMED’s Director of Research Shadi Hamid entitled “Resolving America’s Islamist Dilemma: Lessons from South and Southeast Asia.” In it, Hamid notes that the U.S. has no clear and consistent policy for dealing with moderate Islamist groups in the Arab world, and draws on Islamist political development and participation in Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Turkey to draw a series of conclusions and recommendations for U.S. policy.
The most recent issue of the Arab Reform Bulletin features an article by POMED Research Associate James Liddell entitled “Modern Politics or the Politics of Modernity?“, which examines the newly formed Party for Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) in Morocco. He notes that despite its rhetoric of modernity, the PAM has fallen into patterns of traditional clientelism and leveraging relations with traditional elites. The piece was also reprinted in Arabic on the front page of Attajdid, the leading Moroccan Islamist daily newspaper.
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Amid Heightened Concerns for Stability in Yemen, Don’t Forget About Democracy
By Shadi Hamid, Director of Research, and Stephen McInerney, Director of Advocacy, POMED
Yemen is widely, and not entirely unfairly, thought to be on the brink of serious political instability. Such warnings about Yemen, common for years, have peaked in recent months. The global economic downturn is expected to hit Yemen particularly hard. As the poorest country in the Middle East with unemployment as high as 35%, it has little room to absorb economic shocks. Its economic indicators are universally dismal, and getting worse. The prospect of increased political chaos has begun to attract international attention, heightened by the continuing presence of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups coupled with recent upsurge in piracy off the Yemeni coast.
Many fear that an unstable Yemen could jeopardize international shipping and commerce through the Suez Canal and Red Sea. While such fears are not unwarranted, it should not be forgotten that Yemen has seen some real movement on political reform over the past decade. Those gains, however tentative and uneven, should not be ignored or abandoned in the rush to maintain security and stability.
To be sure, Yemen is by no means a democracy. However, it does have a relatively competitive multi-party system, and elections that are considerably less rigged than those of its neighbors. It was one of the first Arab nations to more or less effectively integrate an Islamist opposition party (the Islah Party). Islah, in turn, has formed alliances with both the ruling General People’s Congress party, as well as leftist and secular parties, as evidenced by the Joint Meeting Party (JMP), a coalition of five parties, including Islah, which fielded a single presidential candidate in 2006. As a result of these developments, Yemen shifted in 2003 from “Not Free” to “Party Free” in the Freedom House index and has maintained that status since.
But, as has often been the case elsewhere, these gains have not been institutionalized and Yemen remains at risk for an authoritarian reversal similar to what has occurred in Egypt and Jordan over the last several years. In 2008 there have been numerous signs of rollback on freedoms and reform in Yemen. This summer saw a crackdown on prominent journalists critical of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Most recently, the heavy-handed cancellation of municipal elections scheduled for the spring have sparked widespread protests and accusations of corruption and systemic election-rigging, culminating in clashes between protestors and police in which dozens of injuries and arrests were reported. Opposition groups have also called for the boycott of upcoming April 2009 parliamentary elections, arguing that Saleh’s ruling party controls the electoral body overseeing the polls, making free elections impossible.
As international attention has begun to focus on the dangers of Yemeni instability, one main solution offered has been to work with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – especially Saudi Arabia – to strengthen the Yemeni state and bolster it against economic shocks. The Saudi regime has in recent months increased support to Yemen, announcing a series of grants including $47 million for Yemen’s electricity grid and a loan in excess of $100 million for the development of the highway system. In October, Saudi Arabia led international relief efforts with $100 million in aid following severe flooding in Southern Yemen.
While such aid is badly needed, there is a danger that democratic gains in Yemen may be cast aside in the process. Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian regimes of the GCC, while having a legitimate interest in preserving stability in Yemen, also have an interest in seeing substantive democratic reforms there squelched. The treatment of the Islah party as a legitimate political actor may raise expectations in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere for the participation of Islamist parties, the main source of actual and potential opposition to the current ruling regimes.
The United States and the European Union should not rely on the authoritarian regimes of the Gulf alone to prop up Yemen. Western democracies should provide assistance to Yemen that not only helps avert economic crisis, but that prevents serious backsliding on political reform.
U.S. efforts to spur economic and rule of law reform and support anti-corruption efforts through the granting and suspension of aid by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) have been admirable, but these ought to be complemented by increased U.S. bilateral assistance specifically designated to support democratization. Furthermore, political reform and human rights concerns should play a more prominent role in multilateral efforts to strengthen the Yemeni state, such as the London donor process, where numerous countries pledged $4.7 billion in financial assistance.
Too often – and Yemen has been no exception – stability and democracy have been seen as two discrete policy objectives. In reality, they are closely linked. If the political situation in Yemen continues to deteriorate, violence – in a country with more than 6 million guns – is not merely a theoretical concern. Yemen has long been plagued by civil war, localized insurgencies, and other low-intensity conflicts. The perception that the ruling party is shutting out key players could have a destructive effect, with a long list of unintended consequences.
As one of Yemen’s main Western supporters, the United States is well-positioned to play a constructive role. Yemen is too important to be ignored, as it so often has. And its future is too important to be left to the authoritarian rulers of the GCC. The U.S. should closely watch developments in Yemen, and it should play an active role in supporting not only stability, but also Yemeni democracy. In fact, the best way to guarantee the former would be to encourage the latter.
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