Anti-Corruption Views - Middle East turmoil shows risks of ignoring civil society

By Carla Koppell, Institute for Inclusive Security | Fri., February 18, 4:24 PM | Comments ( 0 )

Women gesture during a demonstration in downtown Tunis, Jan. 19, 2011. REUTERS/ Finbarr O'Reilly

Carla Koppell directs the Institute for Inclusive Security and the Washington office of Hunt Alternatives Fund.

For too long, the vast majority of foreign policy analyses have focused myopically on the positions and actions of government leaders. But as the popular call for change continues in the Middle East, the international community must recognise how centrally important non-governmental actors can be in shaping world affairs. Until that happens, the United Nations and countries around the world will continue to be caught flat-footed when civil society flexes it muscles.

It is not actually news that civil society can have enormous influence and impact. Today we're reading about the Middle East where civil society has, thus far, pushed the longtime leaders of Tunisia and Egypt from power, forced a hasty cabinet reshuffling in Jordan, extracted a promise from the President of Yemen not to run again, received commitments to political reform from several states, and ushered in a Palestinian agreement to hold local elections.

In the 1980s and 1990s popular, nonviolent uprisings swept across Eastern Europe - transforming the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, and Bulgaria, among others.

Myriad lesser known examples exist too. In Liberia in 2003, for example, a popular movement of women leaders was critical in ensuring an end to that country's brutal civil war; sit-ins, marches and rallies reached their apex when, in frustration, women blocked the entrance to peace talks, and successfully demanded that negotiators reach an accord. Building on that victory, the women focused on getting Ellen Johnson Sirleaf elected president, bringing a capable leader to the helm of what was once considered a hopeless failed state.

Despite all of this evidence - and technological advances that continue facilitating grassroots mobilisation at lightning speed - there remains a stubborn reluctance within the mainstream foreign policy community to recognise and work with non-governmental organisations. The resultant problem is twofold.

EXPERT WARNINGS UNHEEDED

First, governments often listen to a narrow range of stakeholders, undervaluing those outside government, overvaluing those within. For example, while governments around the world were taken by surprise when the waves of protest began rippling across the Middle East, many non-governmental experts were nonplussed.

Some in fact had foreshadowed the instability. In last Wednesday's Washington Post, Jackson Diehl highlighted the prescient warnings of one non-governmental entity, the Working Group on Egypt, a bipartisan group of eminent experts, many of whom, incidentally, served in government. Their predictions, though spot-on, were never reflected in policy making.

Second, and in part due to their tunnel vision, officials consistently fail to comprehend the potential impact of non-state actors. Accordingly, government analyses are often incomplete and, as a result, incorrect. Policymakers regularly don't know, or even know of, critical non-governmental players on the ground. And civil society is left on the sidelines, under-utilised as a potent force for good.

As director of The Institute for Inclusive Security, I have witnessed firsthand the resistance to taking seriously anyone who isn't in government or doesn't carry a gun. The Institute is dedicated to widening the range of players involved in peace processes, particularly by including women and civil society.

Yet every week, despite compelling evidence that women and civil society can play a dramatic role in preventing, resolving, and rebuilding following conflict, I am met with incredulity when I suggest that officials work with non-governmental organisations and individual female and male leaders outside government or armed movements.

INCLUDING WOMEN

When recently in the Middle East I heard three responses most often. "I would love to involve them but I cannot find them"; to which I would reply "Look in the streets of Cairo, they aren't hiding." "Women are very important to me; I love my wife and daughters." No comment. Or, "We will involve women and civil society as soon as it is safe to involve them." To which I would say, "Safer to involve them, given the events of 2011."

It's a terrible shame, because the result is an approach to foreign policy that leaves key players unrecognised, undervalued and insufficiently nurtured to maximum effect.

The fix, luckily, is obvious. But it will require a profound transformation in the way "the establishment" thinks about power and policymaking. Analysts around the world must begin to look as seriously at non-state actors as they do government representatives.

Officials need to meet regularly with leaders outside government. Strategy discussions must systematically involve a wider range of players. Policy planners need to more creatively move their agendas forward, be it for peace or for democracy, with a wider range of allies.

The broader message from the Middle East is that the foreign policy establishment needs to do business differently. The result will be better policy and an approach more in line with realities on the ground.