Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeesisssssssssssssss

The G. W. Bush Administration's Freedom Agenda for the Middle East

I've done it. I'm free. I haven't totally humiliated myself (although, if you read that document, you may be able to work out exactly where I threw my hands in the air and hissed "Fuck it").

Two weeks to go - Still procrastinating

I took the "Women Warriors" quiz on gURL.com
		My woman warrior is... Lakshmibai When Lakshmibai went to battle, she often consulted all types of political strategists, whether they were books or seasoned warriors. She was also very smart and literate in more than three languages.Read more... Which woman warrior are you?

Thesis and eccch

This is great. Today, I wrote 750 words (see post below) on something that will gain me no credit anywhere, and less than 200 words on my thesis. (And nothing on my essay, although I'm less worried about that.) I have a really bad head cold and I'm not really up for writing anything substantial. It's such good timing - I have one week to hand in my essay and I'm a groaning ball of snot.

Economic development comes first

Two similar and very popular arguments are that economic development should precede the promotion of democracy, and that the development of the rule of law and human rights should precede the introduction of elections and parliaments.

Many commentators from the left and right agree that, rather than pushing for elections, the Bush administration/the US/the West should promote alternatives to Islamism, education and literacy, economic opportunity and human rights. Doing so, they believe, will promote the base for a stable transition to electoral democracy as the value of non-violent political transition becomes second nature.

Conservative realist Owen Harries actually puts a dollar price on entry to the democracy club, recommending that Western governments and development institutions concentrate on economic development, only targeting democracy promotion at non-rentier states with incomes of between USD $3000-$6000 per capita. He argues further that liberalism is a precursor to democracy, not the other way around, and laments the thought that the introduction of democracy would result in repressive, anti-Western Islamist theocracies similar to Iran. Conversely, the presence of an educated professional class is necessary to successfully introduce democracy. The possibility that an educated professional class may also be Islamist or sympathetic to Islamism is not entertained.

Thomas Carothers counters the idea that economic development comes first by highlighting the fact that autocracies are perfectly capable of, and desirous of, absorbing and neutralising any democratic tendencies inspired by higher incomes and education. Acknowledging (for instance) Fareed Zakaria's concern about the rise of "illiberal democracies", he points out that autocracy is inherently opposed to a functioning rule of law. The rule of law in a liberal democracy means that no-one is above the law, including the police, intelligence services, army and of course the President, Prime Minister or Brother Leader. As such, when these forces benefit from a situation of lawlessness or corruption, they are in a very powerful position to prevent any reform from happening.

The issue is of one of sequencing - whereas Zakaria would argue that autocrats do a bit of democratic fiddling and stop there, Carothers argues that autocrats do a bit of economic fiddling and stop there.

[This is where I conked out. If anyone has any brilliant ideas on where I can go with this, speak up.]


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TISM - Wham Bam Thank You Imam
TISM - Australia, The World's Suburb (we've had this before, but it's still available so enjoy)
Bing Ji Ling - You Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC cover)

What I've done so far

This is for the thesis. It's short and crap.

Chapter 4

Issues surrounding US democracy promotion to the Arab Middle East

Very few Western commentators have had the sheer nutsack* to come out and say "Democracy promotion is a terrible idea - autocracy is far better". Arguments tend not to be against the promotion of democracy as such, but about its timing, structure and the nature of democracy specifically. Many arguments rest on the specifics of Arab and Islamic society - some openly orientalist, others more structural, but all based on particular characteristics of the Middle East. In turn, Arab opinion ranges from absolute rejection of democracy (al-Qaeda and some of the more hardcore but non-violent Islamists), to qualified acceptance (mainstream Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhoods in different countries), to enthusiasm about democracy itself, tempered by resentment and suspicion about US motives and sincerity in promoting it.

In this section of the thesis, I will look at liberal/progressive critiques of democracy promotion, conservative critiques, and where these critiques overlap. I will then examine the Arab experience and their attitudes to democracy promotion. I will outline some of the programs used to promote democracy in the Arab Middle East and examine their benefits and faults.

Left wing critiques of democracy promotion in general fall into two spaces. The first is to dismiss all democracy promotion as imperialist and only interested in promoting capitalism (and often, not even capitalism, but simply getting access to resources). The second, more centrist position is to accept the virtue of democracy and the desirability of its promotion, but to criticise the methods used to do so as well as the content of the supposed democracy. Of course, an individual writer may vary between these two positions.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne criticised the administration for its handling of the war in Iraq, commenting that "Creating democracy where it has never existed is a long and painstaking process. You can't whip it up by buying a cake mix or holding a single election and declaring victory." [This doesn't go anywhere just yet, I have others]

Juan Cole blasts Bush for confusing elections with democracy, in language echoed by critics on the left and the right:

Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority. Elections in the absence of this key societal context can produce authoritarian regimes and abuses as easily as they can produce genuine people power. Bush is on the whole unwilling to invest sufficiently in these key institutions and practices abroad.

I am not entirely sure what Cole would find "sufficient", but he is not alone in criticising Bush for failing to invest enough money or patience or time in democracy promotion. Interestingly, Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations uses the same reasoning to defend the freedom agenda, stating that

While Hamas and Hezbollah may have embraced the procedures of democracy, there is no evidence that they have embraced the rule of law, the rights of women and minorities, political and religious tolerance, and alternation of power.

Cook is writing in the heat of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, explaining that democracy promotion is not to blame for the current crisis. Whereas Cole blames Bush for being indecisive about whether he really wants elections in the Middle East and for undermining the Palestinian Authority to the point where Hamas looked like an attractive alternative, Cook blames a lack of pre-existing democratic structures for the strong showing of Hamas and Hizballah.

[ENDS]

That's about 500 words. Crap, innit?

*Don't panic, I'm not really going to use the words "sheer nutsack" in a thesis... :) Also the TNI link is just for your interest and to remind myself that I'm going to use it.

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I get more hits on my site when I post an mp3, because of the Hype Machine, so I'm going to combine my mp3 posts with my thesis/essay posts.

In continuation of the Middle Eastern theme I started with Abjeez, I'm pleased to note that Iranian pop band 127 have updated their website, and it looks great. Unlike Abjeez, 127 actually live in Iran, and therefore face certain predictable obstacles. Their frustration seeps out on their media page - "127 has started recording material for another never-to-be-released album..."

Music from "second-world" countries (this term used to refer to Communist countries that were economically, but us Western imperialists would say not politically, developed) has often sounded really painfully dated as the only music bands could listen to in closed societies was smuggled in and not exactly cutting edge. (The first bands Iranians were permitted to listen to when Mohammad Khatami became President were Queen and Elton John. Hmmm, well thought out, homophobes!) Fortunately for 127, we're splat in the middle of an 80s revival, and 127's sound is fresh and enjoyable.

Perfect Esfahan Blues
My Sweet Little Terrorist Song (sounds quite a bit like Bob Dylan... it's good though)

There are songs I haven't heard yet at their revamped music page, so I'm looking forward to hearing them. Also, lead singer Sohrab Mohebbi has many interesting things to say about the music biz in general - this whinge about the state of the industry in Iran sounds eerily familiar to the sort of crap that gets tossed about in any tiny subculture, Western or not. This interested me, though:

Another issue is the state of Iranian bands. It is enough to look at the members of some of the best known (outside pop music) bands and we will find out that most bands don’t have permanent or regular musicians. In truth, several musicians make the rounds in these bands and only the lead singer is fixed. Imagine if {Jimmy Hendrix}, just because he was a good guitar player, had played with some or most of the rock bands of his time.

Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Also check out Zirzamin.se, the Swedish-hosted site for the Iranian music underground, and the Tehran Avenue Music Festival, about which more later.

9000 words in 40 days (including 4000 words in 13 days)

I have stuff to write. Specifically, I have a 6000 word essay about the relationship between democracy and terrorism due in on the 4th of May, and a thesis about the Bush Administration's "freedom agenda" for the Middle East due in on the 1st of June. I don't know that I'm gonna make it, especially since I'm supposed to have a draft of the thesis in to my supervisor at about the same time I hand in my essay.

(By the way, the scare quotes around the words freedom agenda should not indicate to you that I'm doing a predictable liberal hatchet job on Bush, who, as we all know, is a chimp. A chimp with an IQ of 120* who speaks fluent French* and is an inspiring speaker provided you don't let him wander off topic. The point of the thesis is that, initially, the "freedom agenda" did in fact represent a genuine break with US foreign policy history, at least to some extent, until the Administration got spooked by the rise of Hamas and inhibited by the sheer shitfulness of the war in Iraq. If you call yourself a liberal, you should want to support democratic developments in the Middle East, including anyone in the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or whoever, who shows signs of co-operation. The idea is excellent; the execution is appalling, Crack-man.)

*My sources are liberal - Ivo Daalder in America Unbound for the first, New York Times for the second. The NYT article was one of those "What would you ask the President?" things they do around election time, and the head of some US-France friendship society mentioned in her contribution that Bush speaks fluent French. It puts the whole "The French don't even have a word for entrepreneur" thing into perspective.

Anyhoo, it's fairly obvious from the posts below that I've been procrastinating my little (that is, not little) arse off via the pleasures of Blogger, despite the fact that this blog has about two genuine readers a day (out of about 30 hits per day, about two are not search spiders). So what I decided to do was to start writing directly into Blogger. That way, I can copy and paste what I write into my thesis template, and voila! The illusion of procrastination whilst doing real work! The two real readers are most welcome to comment.