The dynamics of civic activism in the Arab world | 14

ABSTRACT

The empirical evidence provided by the country studies sheds some light on the dynamics of civil society in the Arab world and gives us a clearer picture of the trends that characterize civic activism under authoritarian constraints, particularly in terms of the frequently made claims regarding the relationship between civil society activism and democratization. In addition, it sheds light on what distinguishes civil society activism in one national context from another, as domestic political and legal conditions signiﬁcantly aﬀect the dynamics of civil society. Thus, we ﬁnd a number of common trends across the cases examined as well as a number of speciﬁc national trends. Both deserve the attention of scholars and practitioners, especially at a time when the development of civil society is identiﬁed as a policy priority by the international donor community. This study, rather than subscribing to the liberal normative deﬁnition of

civil society that characterizes much of academic literature, has preferred to rely on a neutral deﬁnition of civil society. This has proved useful because it has allowed for an examination of civil society without ideological or political prejudice. Deﬁnitional struggles often characterize the debate on civil society. This is more so the case in relation to the Arab world where strong Islamist movements operate alongside secular ones. If one adopts a neutral deﬁnition of civil society that forgoes the normative assumptions that are usually attached to the term and refuses to accept that Islamist organizations are, by deﬁnition, uncivil, it emerges that civil society activism in the Arab world is strong. This contradicts much of the scholarly literature and policy-making perceptions. However, the empirical evidence demonstrates that even in highly authoritarian countries, such as Algeria, or in very poor ones, such as Yemen, we ﬁnd thousands of charitable associations, human rights groups, cultural associations and sporting clubs. Thus, the claim that Arab societies do not have an active civil society needs to be debunked. Civil society activism is not a peculiar trait of Western societies and associational life is very important in Arab polities as well, as Norton (1995/1996) has already demonstrated. The level of activism that is present in the Arab world, however, does not correlate with democratization, and this is quite signiﬁcant. Recent scholarship on the necessary linkage between an active civil society and democratization had

already questioned the validity of this theoretical claim. The current empirical study conﬁrms that the activism of civil society does not correlate to prospects of democratization. Civil society activism in the Arab world has been on the increase since the late 1980s and early 1990s, but it has achieved very little, if anything, in terms of the opening of political systems. The ﬁndings here conﬁrm what Jamal (2007) highlighted in her study on civil society in Palestine, namely that the dynamics generated by an authoritarian political system have diﬀerent eﬀects on civil society than those in established democracies. This is not because of the ethos or objectives of the associations of civil society, but because institutional constraints force them to operate diﬀerently from their counterparts in established democracies. When one analyses the relationship of formally autonomous pro-democracy and pro-human rights groups in detail, the dynamics that emerge are in sharp conﬂict with the conventional wisdom about civil society. The degree of legislative and institutional independence that Arab countries

guarantee to civil society groups is limited. All the countries examined protect freedom of association, at least in theory, to the extent of enshrining it as a constitutional right in some cases. However, practice is very diﬀerent. There are, for example, a number of exceptions to freedom of association, usually linked to the necessity of protecting national security. While such exceptions might not, per se, be overly problematic (and they exist in the legislation of established democracies), it is the vague and invariably extensive character of these exceptions that undermine freedom of association. In Algeria, for instance, emergency legislation overrides the provisions of the law on freedom of association and expression, limiting the opportunities for civil society activists to express themselves within the law. Administrative limitations on freedom of association also recur, whereby the provisions of the law are disregarded by the very authorities supposedly in charge of upholding them. This is the case in Morocco where liberal legislation is emptied of signiﬁcance, because of the refusal of state authorities to comply with it. The absence of judicial appeal further limits what civil society organizations can do in the face of state interference. When legislative and administrative obstacles are insuﬃcient, open interference by the security services occurs. Particularly problematic associations are treated as ‘enemies of the state’ and the security services disrupt their activities by harassing members, closing down oﬃces or preventing demonstrations through violence. However, all of this does not suﬃce to explain the absence of meaningful liberalization and democratization as a result of civil society activism. In many other authoritarian contexts, such as Eastern Europe, the legislative framework providing for freedom of association was equally, if not more, repressive and administrative interference on a much larger scale was practised. This did not prevent a number of organizations from being formed, taking advantage of the liberalizing trends of the late 1980s to push for further democratic reforms. While their role has certainly been over-emphasized (Tempest, 1997), groups like Charter 77 in the former Czechoslovakia and Solidarnosc in Poland had a strong inﬂuence on

the outcome of regime change. The hope of many local activists (Kubba, 2000) and the international community is that similar developments might occur in the Arab world. While the authoritarian nature of the political systems under examination means regimes are likely to interfere with all potential opposition voices, especially, associations involved in democratization and human rights, the very existence of such organizations is interpreted as a positive sign of changing times. As in other contexts, the controlling dynamics of regimes force politicized associations to ‘compromise’ on what they can or cannot say or do because otherwise they would face dissolution. This compromise is accepted because the belief prevalent among civil society activists is that it is better to have a limited autonomouus space rather than none. The idea is that to safeguard a small autonomous space so that it can eventually be expanded in time so that demands become bolder and government’s accountability stronger. This, however, is far from taking place because cases examined yield trends and dynamics that point in precisely the opposite direction, namely to a restructuring of political authority which remains profoundly authoritarian, but with a façade of democratic institutions that include a plural civil society. The constraints that regimes put in place coupled with the ideological divisions that exist within the realm of civil society (Cavatorta, 2009b) not only prevent further liberalization, but strengthen authoritarian rulers. There are a number of general observations that can be made from our empirical investigation. First of all, interacting with, and even promoting, civil society activism has

been a priority of Arab regimes for more than a decade. While there was a signiﬁcant degree of suspicion among ruling elites about the nature and role of an autonomous associational sector, international and domestic imperatives demanded that controls over society should be reduced in order to avoid facing more widespread and popular revolts. ‘Letting society breathe’, as one Moroccan activist put it, did not mean losing control over the opposition and permitting unchecked criticism of the regime. By harnessing their past experiences in mobilizing civil society in favour of the post-independence modernization process (Pratt, 2007), current rulers have been able to present a pluralist image while maintaining a degree of control over society without resorting to the crass methods of the past. In a much more reﬁned manner, they have instituted ‘plural authoritarianism’ through a series of careful legislative and administrative reforms that place authoritarian practices at the centre while giving the impression of progressive liberalization. This is possible because, ultimately, repression and the coercive apparatus (Bellin, 2004) can be mobilized as a means of last resort in case of the failure of other strategies. One of the principal problems that civil society organizations of all sectors face, particularly those involved in the sensitive issues of human rights and democratization, is how to fulﬁl their mandate and satisfy the ‘needs’ of members and activists. Given the constraints that regimes have put in place, directly and indirectly, access to policy-makers and state oﬃcials is required to get things done. As both Clark (2004) and Jamal (2007) have pointed out,

access is, however, poorly institutionalized because of objective diﬃculties (the state bureaucracy is mostly ineﬃcient) as well as purposeful decisionmaking. A system with no democratic accountability at any level institutionalizes practices that privilege patronage. Therefore, the regimes analysed in this study can be ‘accessed’ by society and social actors only through informal networks of patronage, usually linked to tribal, clan or familial ties. This is true in Algeria, where a bunker-regime (Clement and Springborg, 2001) requires submission to the intelligence services and the military, in Jordan and Yemen where tribal politics is crucial, in Morocco, where links with the Makhzen are necessary, and in Lebanon, where citizens are dependent on sectarian ties. Accordingly, it means that members, activists and employees of civil society associations rely on their personal contacts and links to deliver beneﬁts for the association both in terms of achievement of objectives and resources. These can be tangible, such as money for activities, or more intangible such as the delivery of a permit to carry out a speciﬁc project or permission to open a bank account in the name of the organization so as to be able to receive funds from abroad. Associations aware of this issue have to make a decision whether they want to utilize such patronage networks. The choice is quite stark, they can either play the game or refuse to engage. Most of the associations covered in this study play the game in one form or another. The problem is that, instead of weakening the authoritarian system, authoritarian and arbitrary practices are reinforced in the process, due to the way access to state oﬃcials is structured. This does not neccessarily mean that such associations are willing accomplices of the regime. This might be true in some cases, speciﬁcally when the organizations themselves are a creation of those connected to the regime, but the vast majority are aware of the contradiction that exists between principles and concrete necessities of survival. The issue of access has repercussions on the degree of cooperation that

exists among associations operating in the same sector and involved in similar issues. There are umbrella organizations and networks, but the degree of eﬀective and sustained cooperation is not as substantial as it should be because there is a ‘bicycle’s spoke’ eﬀect at play whereby the centre, that is the authoritarian regime through its departments and structures, deals individually with associations and groups. This diminishes the opportunities for cooperation among diﬀerent groups, as one association will inevitably attempt to gain more advantages through its ‘higher’ personal linkages with decisionmakers, particularly when resources are scarce. The formation of umbrella organizations that could be representative of all groups, in order to negotiate basic demands on more political openness and accountability, is diﬃcult also because of ideological diﬀerences. These are particularly stark between Islamist organizations and secular/liberal ones. While the division of civil society into these two neat sectors is somewhat problematic and does not truly represent the diﬀerent ideological gradations that exist in the countries examined, it is, nonetheless, quite useful to illustrate how regimes exploit the fundamental opposition between secular and Islamist political visions of

the future. There is very little doubt that both the self-perception and perception of others that secular human rights and democracy-advocacy groups have regarding political Islam and its social expressions is extremely important. It should be highlighted that the opposite is also true. The main diﬃculty relates to the general weakness of the secular/liberal sector. The division of civil society into two camps highlights a very speciﬁc issue that exists in the Arab world, namely the presence and role of religion-based political and social groups that are perceived to be inherently opposed to the values of liberal democracy. This has important implications for how secular groups operate and on the degree of cooperation that might be engendered. The study has identiﬁed two trends. The ﬁrst pattern of interaction is one that can be labelled ‘co-operative’. On a number of local and limited issues, or on a case-by-case basis or on a set time scale, there is a degree of convergence and, both formal and informal, cooperation between secular and religious NGOs. If the issue at stake can be considered to a certain extent to be selfcontained, and one with which the regime can reasonably comfortably deal, religious and secular NGOs are capable of ﬁnding a common strategy of action. In every country we examined we were able to ﬁnd such a cooperative trend. In Morocco for example, despite initial diﬃculties and suspicions, Islamists and secular leftists are ﬁghting together in defence of basic human rights. From the experience of the Forum Verité et Justice, when former prisoners of all ideological persuasions lobbied the regime to institute a commission to investigate past crimes, to the current support that the Islamist organization Ennansir receives from some of the largest human rights groups, the issue of human rights has united sectors of society that are otherwise very much at odds with each other. In Algeria, the fate of the disappeared, during the civil war that Algerians endured for over a decade, has become an issue of cross-ideological cooperation rather than division. A signiﬁcant number of people from both sides, or from no side at all, disappeared during the ﬁghting, leaving thousands of families without any news regarding the whereabouts of their loved ones. With the civil war all but over and the launch of a process of ‘national reconciliation’ by President Bouteﬂika, these families have been able to air their grievances more openly and have been organizing themselves in diﬀerent groups to pressurize the government to release the details of what happened to the disappeared. This is a matter that has united families whose disappeared members were indeed Islamist activists, if not necessarily ﬁghters, with families whose disappeared members are thought to have been taken by the security forces. In addition, some families are engaged in ﬁnding out what happened to loved ones taken by Islamist insurgents. Djazairouna, a secular association set up to ﬁnd out the truth about the disappearance of people at the hands of Islamist groups, has cooperated with Nacera Dutour, whose son disappeared a number of years ago when he was taken by the security forces, and who represents an organization (SOSDisparus) that is ‘vaguely’ Islamist and the objective of which is to ﬁnd out the truth about those who disappeared at the hands of the state. This pattern

of cooperation usually leads to some positive outcomes as the regime recognizes the validity of the stance taken by civil society. However, this unity of intent between Islamists and secular liberal groups does not tend to spill over to other more signiﬁcant and potentially more disruptive issues for the regime. Moreover, this momentum is never carried forward for any sustained period of time. Thus, the second pattern of interaction that we ﬁnd is ‘competitive’, whereby groups actually compete with each other for inﬂuence at the societal level, presenting a radically opposing vision of what ‘change’ should look like. On major issues such as the regulation of social relationships and political reforms that would genuinely aﬀect the current domestic balance of power, secular and religious groups ﬁnd themselves on opposing sides. In Morocco, the controversial reform of the family code is a clear illustration of the profound divisions that aﬀect civil society, as secular liberal groups and Islamist ones found themselves on opposite fronts. In Lebanon, sectarian divisions play a similar role, particularly when post-conﬂict issues are brought up. Of course, such ideological divisions are present in civil societies across the world and aﬀect democratic systems as well, but in democracies there exist mechanisms of accountability and access for the resolution of such ideological disputes. This is not the case in authoritarian systems where, arguably, the primary preoccupation should be to open up political space and claim basic political rights. In the cases examined, however, the religious-secular divide trumps this necessity. This was not the case in authoritarian settings in Eastern Europe where politics was categorical rather than multidimensional. In Poland, for instance, the Solidarity opposition deﬁned politics as ‘them and us’; other dimensions were not salient enough for the regime to exploit although divisions were present within Solidarity (Garton Ash 1991). In the countries examined in this study the religious dimension is very much at the centre of divide and rule strategies that regimes put in place. The inevitable outcome of such profound diﬀerences is that the regime can play on these ideological diﬀerences and pit one sector of civil society against the other. In the Lebanese context, both sectarian and secular/Islamist dividing lines are at issue, making it particularly diﬃcult for civil society to move away from entrenched patronage and ideological allegiances. It follows that facing down the regime under these conditions becomes very diﬃcult. These divide and rule strategies utilized by regimes to subdue associational

life are compounded by another novel phenomenon. Deterred by the international costs of simply shutting down problematic associations and neutering civil society activism, regimes examined have successfully hijacked the very concept of civil space by setting up what amounts to government-sponsored associations. This is very much the case in Jordan and Morocco for example, but also, to a certain extent, in Algeria and Yemen. In Morocco and Jordan there are a number of organizations that are sponsored by the palace. While they deal for the most part with socio-economic issues, they also perform political functions. On the one hand, they compete with Islamist charities in the provision of services in order to further the legitimacy of the monarchy,

prompted by the belief that Islamists gain political kudos through their charity work. On the other, they are very active in the ﬁeld of women’s rights to demonstrate, not only the modernity of the current political system, which therefore is deserving of external support, but also to garner the support of the Westernized elites afraid of an Islamist take-over. In addition to this, the creation ex nihilo of human rights and pro-democracy groups, which are run by government oﬃcials and members of the ruling family or elites, crowds out legitimate independent associations, while providing the impression of a growing civil society and increased pluralism, which is necessary for international legitimization and for attracting foreign funding. Financial issues are in fact also a crucial aspect of the dynamics of activism

in the cases examined. The vast majority of civil society actors complain quite strongly that they lack funding to carry out many of their activities. This is not a surprise, as all bureaucratic organizations tend to put forth such a complaint in order to see their funding increased, but, in the countries examined here there is indeed a paucity of domestic resources for associational life outside the Islamist camp. This has two main consequences. First of all, some organizations become even more dependent on the regime because they are then forced to seek public funding, which obviously comes with signiﬁcant political constraints. Those groups that accept domestic public funding then become controversial actors, in so far as those groups that decline public funding, or have no access to it, perceive them as mere agents of the government, potentially delegitimizing their activities. Second and more important, given that civil society organizations do not have the resources necessary for operational autonomy, or civil society ‘self-suﬃciency’ (Wang, 2006), most groups involved in democratization and human rights issues seek foreign funding. Such funding is generally available because of the belief held in the international policy-making community that strengthened civil society activism contributes to democratization. Foreign funding is, however, very problematic and merits a more detailed discussion. In developing countries, civil society groups tend to be highly dependent on external resources. This means foreign funding carries signiﬁcant weight in shaping associational life. The eﬀect of the lack of operational autonomy combined with this, ‘mean[s] that exporting the idea of participation in civic associations to promote democracy in non-democratic states is … problematic’ (Jamal, 2007: 6). Supporting the activism of civil society is, however, precisely one of the pillars of Western democracy-promotion eﬀorts in the global south and numerous organizations in the countries under study take advantage of the availability of funds, which has increased signiﬁcantly since September 11, 2001. Funding for the promotion of democracy in the region comes from a variety of sources: governments through their development aid budget, international organizations, and an ever-increasing number of large non-governmental organizations that are keen to expand their activities in the Arab world and proﬁt from the relaxation of legislation regarding freedom of association. All these actors work with diﬀerent partners and operate through diﬀerent channels to promote

their agenda, but all have an impact on the way resources are utilized in the domestic political context. The resources they make available enter a domestic scene where there are already signiﬁcant institutional constraints on associational life, both explicit and implicit and where ideological divisions among civil society actors are usually entrenched. This ﬂow of resources to the region has been analyzed in great detail by Sheila Carapico (2002: 391), who argues that ‘foreign funding in the name of things like human rights, civil society and women’s issues sparked controversies, competition, and legal complications almost everywhere,’ without succeeding in bringing about change. From the perspective of this study, the role of foreign funding is even more detrimental to democratization than Carapico contends, because it signiﬁcantly contributes to the reinforcement of the very divisions within opposition groups that such funding was meant to help bridge, in order to create a viable alternative to the regimes in power. The main obstacle to the success of foreign funding in creating a momentum for associational life towards the achievement of increased liberal reforms is ideological bias. External donors, much like many domestic secular and liberal organizations, have a deeply preconceived idea of what kind of democracy they wish to see implemented in the Arab world. This vision does not accommodate what can be termed an ‘Islamic democracy’, which would be a combination of the mechanical procedures of democracy and a restrictive interpretation of liberal rights. In addition to this philosophical conﬂict on the meaning of democracy, there are also realpolitik issues to be taken into account, whereby the strategic interests of the West in the region might be challenged if popular will were truly to determine policy-making outcomes. It follows that Islamist movements and organizations are excluded from both funding and, more crucially, from the political legitimacy that would derive from their being partners with Western donors on human rights or democratization or even developmental projects. The absence of equal legitimacy for all civil society groups means that Western actors privilege associations that are ideologically closer to their position over those that might have the greatest impact on regime change. Islamist associations, whether engaged in controversial political issues or mainstream developmental ones, are discriminated against because of their perceived antidemocratic ethos. While this reﬂects the normative position of the donors, it has the consequence of making coalition-building between the Islamist and secular sectors more diﬃcult. On the one hand, secular-liberal groups might beneﬁt from ﬁnancial independence in order to distance themselves from the regime, but this increases the risk that the regime would retaliate through administrative procedures to stop organizations from receiving funds or spending them. This in turn might lead external donors to rely mostly on non-controversial organizations that have good relations with state oﬃcials. In any case, ﬁnancial independence can lead to isolation and insulation. The outcome is that the eﬀectiveness of such groups remains limited if the objective is to make the regime accede to demands of genuine political change. On the other hand, increasing the operational autonomy of the secular-liberal

sector strengthens the Islamists’ argument that it has sold out to the West. This is a powerful argument at a time when Western foreign policies in the region are condemned by the vast majority of the population. It also implicitly justiﬁes Islamist associations receiving funds from charities based in the Gulf or in Iran, as the case of Hizbullah demonstrates (Millard Burr and Collins, 2006). In addition, due to their weak position, such secular-liberal groups ‘have proven too willing to cooperate with local non-democratic regimes’ (Cook 2005: 94). These actions further distance them from groups with which they share an obvious distaste for current political practices. There is also a catch 22 situation for those associations receiving funds from Western donors. Some of them have, on occasion, cut links with Western partners in response to particularly controversial foreign policy decisions. Refusing to accept money from the US or the UK, for example, makes associations seem more legitimate in the eyes of ordinary citizens, and of other organizations that do not depend on such funding. But, the downside is that what they gain in autonomy and legitimacy, they lose in visibility. There is no doubt that Western policies in the region are extremely controversial and largely unpopular and so therefore is funding for civil society activism and promotion of democracy. From the Arab-Israeli conﬂict to the occupation of Iraq, from the boycott of Hamas and Hizbullah to support for authoritarian rulers in the region, Western policies taint their interventions in the region in support of democracy and human rights, which are commonly perceived as hypocritical and insincere. It is therefore no surprise that the promotion of civil society activism, despite its well-meaning intentions, also suﬀers from a problem of legitimacy. This has three consequences. One, as mentioned earlier, is that the funding provided to human rights and democracy groups is the subject of contestation because of the perceived illegitimacy of the source of funding. Thus, both regimes that are notionally pro-Western, and Islamists can argue that groups in receipt of such funding are subject to foreign inﬂuences and therefore somewhat illegitimate in what they do. The second consequence is that the values of human rights and democracy are associated with unpopular policies, which further undermine their appeal. Finally, the conditions placed on such foreign funding are such that they turn many local NGOs into professional fund-raisers rather than helping them to become better activists. The case of Lebanon is particularly telling in terms of the dynamics that foreign funding generates. Instead of promoting a set of reforms that would see Lebanon move progressively away from sectarian politics towards the blurring of sectarian lines, funding from abroad reinforces existing cleavages, even if this is plainly not the intended goal. This occurs also because there is the tendency – possibly inevitable – on the part of donors to look for organizations that ﬁt the cultural mould of the West. The targets of funding therefore are a set of professional local activists, likely to have been trained in Western institutions, speaking the jargon of aid and development, and belonging to the wealthier strata of society. In Lebanon, this results in what one activist called a Christian bias. It is true that following the 2006 war, some organizations

declined funding from the United States. This then prevented them from carrying out activities that beneﬁtted their members and when the political climate changed, they resumed previous practices, as an oﬃcial with the US-funded Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) conﬁrmed (interview with author). As Cavatorta and Elananza (2010) observe,

foreign funding enhances the separation between Islamist and secularliberal groups within civil society through the exclusion of the former from any engagement and the perceived inclusion of the latter in a supposedly imperialist camp, which is then reduced through domestic institutional constraints to become either irrelevant or too close to the regime.