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Is the Road to Democracy Lined with Blogs?
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently unveiled a new US initiative called Civil Society 2.0, a plan to provide grassroots organizations in the Middle East and North Africa with access to new digital technologies. The program will receive an initial budget of $5 million to dispatch digital and communications experts to the region to help civil society organizations blog, text, and build websites.
As Secretary Clinton noted in her remarks about the project, the US' desire to support these international efforts springs from the belief that civil society helps make communities more prosperous and stable. Moreover, she added, "it pushes political institutions to be agile and responsive to the people they serve." Observers noted that Clinton's declaration was intended as a "follow-up" to the June speech delivered by President Obama in Cairo which sought to improve relations between the US and Muslims worldwide.Clinton announced Civil Society 2.0 at "A Forum for the Future" meeting on November 3rd in the Moroccan capital of Marrakesh. The Forum is a joint initiative between the countries of the Middle East and North Africa and the G8 major industrialized economies. Its goal is to provide opportunities for officials from government, civil society and the private sector "to discuss political and economic reforms aimed at promoting greater freedom, democracy and economic growth in the Middle East region." The Forum was actually launched by the former Bush administration in 2004. Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser under Bush, had observed that, "especially in dictatorships, which abound in the region, this kind of project can help overcome censorship and state control of the media, and it's a very good idea."
While the social and political values that underlie the Civil Society 2.0 initiative are certainly commendable, the project faces a number of significant challenges. What will be the dynamic between Arab governments and the US experts dispatched to work with civil society organizations whose agendas may, in some cases, be at odds with the ruling regimes? Can the US openly support grassroots organizations that are calling for democratic political reforms in countries that are clearly undemocratic but which we consider to be among our closest allies in the region? Indeed, the ruling elites in many Middle Eastern and North African states lack a genuine desire to strengthen civil society institutions for fear that such institutions, once empowered, could pose serious challenges to the status quo.
Even if Civil Society 2.0 bears fruit in terms of supporting and encouraging moderate reformists in these countries, it is unlikely that it will accomplish much in the way of improving the image of the US among local populations. Regardless of how much money we pour into such projects, there remains in the region a strong undercurrent of spite toward the US not only for its military activities in the region, but also because of its strong political and economic ties with local authoritarian regimes. A great many Arab observers cannot help but perceive a glaring contradiction between US support for regional dictatorships and US-sponsored projects such as Civil Society 2.0.
The release of additional details about the initiative could help answer many of the underlying questions related to the process by which countries and organizations are selected to receive technology and training, and how US digital and communications experts will engage with local government officials. While the efficacy of such an initiative will no doubt face hurdles, it remains to be seen how the US Department of State will rise to meet these challenges in the interest of supporting home-grown, citizen-led efforts to affect genuine social and political reform in the Arab world.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion or position of Concepts & Strategies, Inc.
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