Category Archives: Democracy
Democracy and the Defeat of Radical Islam
When groups or political parties form in society along religious lines they organize themselves into difficult political cleavages. And this is particularly true when the political party is radicalized and immovable with respect to consensual decision-making and tolerance for other points of view. These groups are a problem and difficult to contain but ultimately must be controlled and defeated.
The United States has often taken the military and security approach but this only goes so far. You can’t kill them all. So what is a political culture like the United States to do if it is going to address these problems politically? Political Islam stresses international grievances and includes their own anger, frustration, and humiliation. Surely broad scale international relations are part of the answer: American drone attacks, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, and genuine engagement with Iran are all part of the equation that might lead to dignity and moderation.
But this is not enough. These rigid authoritarian political systems, that produce frustration and violence, must be more directly confronted. In essence, these Muslim countries characterized by extremist religious parties are failing to provide economic development, political voice, and human rights. Something more direct must be done but that something must be moral and politically viable. Members of these authoritarian cultures typically report feeling humiliated and hopeless. In places like Algeria, Egypt, and Pakistan large segments of the population are young and in need of jobs as well as a sense of self-worth that comes from something other than confrontation with the West.
Our military efforts in Iraq might be characterized as noble attempts to begin the process of regime change and redress of injustices heaped on the people by corrupt and authoritarian leaders. But American military presence just exacerbates the claims of imperialism and humiliation. That’s why political solutions are more important than military ones. And although no single approach or strategy will solve the problem the best way to achieve lasting change is through good democracies that protect freedom, control corruption, and have effective systems of checks and balances. These democracies cannot be what are called “illiberal” democracies; that is, democracies in name only but really have unfair elections, authoritarian leaders, and laws that limit personal freedom.
Democracy promotion in these countries is not easy. It is slow and risky and fraught with dangers. But here are some steps in the right direction:
1. There is much distrust of the United States and we must restore trust by not promising more than we can deliver.
2. We have to find better ways of stabilizing political cultures than supporting authoritarian figures such as Mubarak and Egypt. Support for Mubarak was of course practical but costly in terms of trust.
3. Our knowledge of other cultures must improve. As diverse and multicultural as the United States is, we still have shallow understanding of many cultures, and Muslim cultures in particular.
4. There must be a way to talk to Islamist political parties. This is not naïve. There are some Islamist parties who do not envision a new caliphate but would prefer to accommodate others. Moreover in the era of new technology there must be more creative ways to make contact.
5. Some people, and I include myself, consider the basic tenets of democracy to be universal values. We need to use new media to broadcast these values.
6. Most of the world is highly sensitive to basic human rights and the rights of women. The argument that women should be liberated and have increased freedoms should be pressed such that cultural and legal repression is challenged wherever it occurs.
Wherever possible the United States must push for transition to democracy. There are a variety of paths to democracy and different countries must move at different speeds. But principles such as the rule of law, an independent judiciary, constraints on corruption, and protection of human rights are easy enough to defend. The United States is an important player on the international scene and is in a position to intelligently and seriously push for Democratic reforms. This takes skill and nuance but it’s possible with some rethinking of how to promote democratic principles.
Obama’s Anti-Democratic Assassinations: His Robot Killers Will Get You!
If Bush and Cheney had commissioned the white paper and used its justifications there would’ve been an outcry about Darth Vader and his minion perpetrating evil throughout the land. But Obama can have a “kill list” and no one says much. Nevertheless, the document is about as anti-democratic as you can get.
Here is the White paper on drones. It is used as a justification for targeted assassinations. I must say this issue taxes one’s ability to support broader political concepts, important as they may be, over a gut reaction. What I mean is that killing Al Qaeda operatives who are racist, sexist, anti-democratic, and potential threats to the United States doesn’t bother me much. But a couple of chief White House officials sitting in a room making the decision by themselves – essentially being judge, jury, and executioner – with no political or democratic oversight does bother me. The white paper focuses mainly on when lethal operations against a US citizen are justified. The paper makes for interesting reading because it seeks to clarify the issues but actually underscores their ambiguity and problems. Let’s take a look at a few of the issues of interest.
1. It is assumed that the President of the United States can respond to Al Qaeda on the basis of his constitutional responsibility to protect the country. The president can act quickly and on his own regard even in the case of an American citizen if that citizen is deemed to pose a threat or considered a member of an armed force challenging the safety of the United States. The legal question becomes whether or not a lethal operation against the US citizen is protected by the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.
The issue includes the matter of where the US citizen is located such as on a battlefield or in another country and if he or she is afforded any special constitutional protection. The paper concludes that killing a US citizen can be justified even if it is outside the United States.
2. The strongest defense of immediate violent action is the concept of “imminence.” Imminence is a well understood concept in the literature on politically protected speech. That is, one has many freedoms of speech available but cannot create a clear and present danger, cannot create danger that is imminent or about to happen immediately. The old tried-and-true example of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is applicable here. I can advocate aggressive action against the collective group (e.g. the police) in the political theory or hypothetical sense but I can’t tell someone to go get a gun and kill the person next to them. I cannot create with my speech or my symbolic behavior imminent danger.
This issue of imminence has been a conundrum for the government and the white paper solves the problem by redefining imminence because it is too difficult a standard to meet. It is just too difficult to show that an Al Qaeda operative whether he or she is a citizen or not is posing an immediate and imminent danger to the United States. Thus the white paper argues that the president or high-level official only needs to decide that the person of interest is a “continuing” threat to the US. This is a much easier standard to reach. In fact it is extremely vague and means that the target of interest does not have to be posing any genuine immediate threat, perhaps has never been charged with a crime, and may not even be in the United States or nearby. But they are a “continuing” threat if they are simply known to be an associate of Al Qaeda.
3. The absolute worst thing about the white paper is its claim that the government need not ask anyone’s permission, is required to make its case to no court, before carrying out a targeted assassination of US citizen. Again, a couple of governmental officials can make this decision on their own, can create a kill list, without acknowledging any additional authority. They can kill American citizens and don’t have to answer to anyone. This is dangerous business and clearly a direction contrary to the history and development of the United States.
In one opinion (see http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/justice-departments-white-paper- targeted- killing) court cases are clearly cited that require the government to afford a citizen due process before depriving him or her of life or liberty. This due process seems to evaporate even when explaining that some sort of due process might reduce the errors and mistakes that result in taking innocent lives. The white paper argues that it is not subject to judicial review, and even argues that review “after the fact” is not legally required. Hence, one cannot question the government’s decision about targeting a citizen even after the fact. One can at least imagine the security problems associated with getting a priori permission but these did not describe the importance of at least after-the-fact judicial review.
These justifications for targeted killing seem extravagant and potentially dangerous. Moreover, some sort of a priori judicial or congressional oversight is not difficult to establish.
Top 10 Anti-Semitic Slurs: Anti-Semitism or Legitimate Criticism of Israel
Below is the list of top 10 anti-Semitic slurs for 2012 from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. All but one of these contributions for the year concerns me. I always look at the statements and spend a moment chagrined and admittedly a little shaken that such discourse actually characterizes the consciousness of certain individuals and groups. But that aside, the slurs bring up the tension between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. This is a fine interpretive line that speaks to the issue of Israel as a legitimate target of political criticism, and the use of such criticism as an anti-Semitic tool. Moreover, it’s an excellent example of the distinction I like to make for students between perspective and bias. Top 10 Anti-Semitic Slurs.
Look at #9 by Jakob Augstein who is a contributor to Spiegel online. There is currently a bit of a fury in Germany over the decision by the Wiesenthal Center to list Augstein here. Augstein is a respected journalist and surely doesn’t belong in the same categories as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Golden Path, and Farrakhan. Moreover the issues of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, powerful political lobbying, and conservative trends in the society are legitimate issues worthy of discussion and argumentation.
One can be a respected journalist raising legitimate issues and still be quite misleading, exaggerated, and uninformed. I do not think these comments by Augstein rise to the level of anti-Semitism and do not think he should have been lumped in with the likes of the other 9 contributors. His words and style are inflammatory and certainly lacked nuance. Comparing traditional observant Jews to the sort of “Islamism” that is triumphalist in nature and promotes violence is a silly comparison based more on exaggerated rhetorical strategies rather than fact. An unfair and unjustified moral equivalency is typically the rhetorical strategy used by those characterized more by bias than perspective. The same sort of exaggeration applies to the claims about the undue influence of the Jewish lobby. It is true that the Jewish lobby in the United States is effective and strong but it does little more than successfully defend its interests in a democratic manner. There is a Saudi lobby and a Pakistani lobby and on and on. The Jewish lobby engages in the democratic process and does so successfully. But the argument that Jewish influence distorts foreign-policy is based on the assumption that there is a “correct” foreign-policy that is being subverted. If a group wants to counter the influences of the Jewish lobby then organize and come up with better arguments.
Again, I think Mr. Augstein is critical of Israel and does not do a particularly good job of defending such a position – and there is plenty to disagree with – but the charge that the statement in #9 is anti-Semitic is unjustified. Jews and Israelis who are overly sensitive to the potentialities of anti-Semitism must also work to make the distinction between a perspective based on legitimate issues critical of Israel and anti-Semitism. Staining someone with the charge of anti-Semitism, when it is only a knee-jerk response and not clearly justified, shuts down legitimate debate about Israel as a political entity and strangles the communication process.
We have to do the hard work and make the distinction between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel on the basis of argument and substantive issues. Sure, some critics of Israel are blatant anti-Semites. Showing movies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is clearly anti-Semitic; the vacant eyed whack job surrounded by guns holed up in a mountain cabin somewhere who blames the Jews for the world’s problems is anti-Semitic; comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is anti-Semitic. Even the apartheid comparison is problematic. A careful and considerate comparison between Israel and South Africa, on the basis of the best political theory and history, does not justify in any way such a comparison even though there are issues of difficult population concentration.
But making civil rights and political arguments about occupancy of the land, the status of Palestinians after their dispersal in 1948, refugees, borders, settlements, and security considerations is not anti-Semitic. These issues are not treated seriously when they are viewed as manifestations of racism and anti-Semitism. And sometimes anti-Semites attach themselves, like barnacles on the bottom of the boat, to those making legitimate criticisms of Israel. They attempt to move the discussion from quality argumentative confrontation to “delegitimization” of Isreal. Sometimes the difference between anti-Semitic intentions and fair criticism is difficult but it is a difficulty we must continue to grapple with.
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“Political Friendship” A New Kind of Weak Tie Deliberative Relationship
Solving ethnopolitical conflicts involves initiating the two conflicting groups into the larger cultural conversation, where the understanding is that the conversation is about the relationship between the two groups. This involves creating a relationship where members of each group understand that they must engage in reasonable discourse, accept the burdens of justification, and reject illiberal attitudes and behaviors. Another way to think about it is as a network of weak ties. Weak ties are important forms of relationships that are more casual friendships or work relationships (e.g., acquaintance or coworkers) and engage in less intimate exchanges and share fewer types of information and support than those who report stronger relationships. Strong ties include in their exchanges a higher level of intimacy, more self disclosure, emotional as well as instrumental exchanges, reciprocity in exchanges, and more frequent interaction. We have fewer strong ties and they are more important to our personal lives. Facebook and electronic contacts create numerous weak ties that serve important functions.
What Danielle Allen (2004), in her book “Talking to Strangers”, describes as “political friendship” is a sort of important weak tie. This is the sort of friendship that goes beyond the close relationships we have with family members and intimates. Political friendship is a set of practices and habits used to solve problems and bridge difficult differences. Emotional attachment to the other is less important than the realization of interdependence and the need for practical problem resolution. This form of a communicative relationship serves as a useful outlet for conflict resolution, and allows minority groups in multicultural societies to establish mature relationships with the dominant group. The polarization described by Sunstein that currently characterizes the American political environment is a consequence of the degeneration of political friendships. Allen’s political friendships treat opponents as respectful adversaries that have common interests in problem resolution as much as anything else. The issue sophistication that comes with political friendship is quite compatible with the ability to sustain “reasonable disagreement.”
The concept of political friendship is important and deserving of some elaboration. It is necessary to develop a healthy path to the resolution and reconciliation of group conflicts in order to provide either citizens or members of competing groups with political and interpersonal agency. The idea of political friendship is particularly associated with citizenship which is not necessarily a matter of civic duties but a communicative role that values negotiation and reciprocity. It is an excellent relationship to cultivate between members of different cultural and political groups because it is based more on trust than self-interest. Political friendship recognizes self-interest but develops a relationship that rests on equitable self-interest; that is, a relationship where each attends to the utilitarian needs of the other. As Allen (2004) writes, “Equity entails, above all else and as in friendship a habit of attention by which citizens are attuned to the balances and imbalances in what citizens are giving up for each other.” (p. 134). Political friendship is less concerned with intimacy because intimacy is reserved for relatively few relationships that are more absorbing and based on sacrifice and strong identity with the other. But utilitarian political relationships can apply to large numbers of people and is focused on the pragmatics of problem solving or resource gratification. Parent-child, ruler and ruled, or superior- subordinate relationships are not political relationships because they limit the autonomy and agency of one person (the child, ruled, or subordinate) and are based on maximization of differences. In short, the political friendship relationship is central to the problems associated with multicultural contact and the ability of groups to develop their capacities for trust and communication. As Allen (2004) points out, we have to teach people how to “talk to strangers.”
It is necessary to identify some conditions of political friendship. These are habits of communication that facilitate the relationship. They include recognizing and publicly acknowledging groups and their differences as well as promoting deliberative environments and intelligent judgment. Many of these communication behaviors require exceptional sensitivity and tolerance. Recognizing a group, for example, that is less talkative or more remote from Western habits of thinking and either accepting the differences or trying to meld cultural norms is difficult. So minority groups simply need to learn communication skills most associated with success depending on the nature of the dominant culture. Diverse groups must understand their problems as “public” problems. Under the best conditions different groups will have secure knowledge of each other and a similar level of understanding about what is occurring between them.
New Media and Political Conflict
Claims that new media such as Facebook, Twitter, and the Internet have significant impacts on political activity and protest continue to swirl around in the academic world in particular. It takes little more than a local citizen to be interviewed and report his use of Facebook for the world believe that these fancy new media are responsible for protest and the outbreak of Jeffersonian democracy. Consequently, there is contentious debate about the role of social media in crystallizing events in certain countries. The long-term research on these matters is sparse but we can introduce a scholarly perspective and at least “sum up” our current state of knowledge. There is a review article pertaining to the Internet and politics here. Below I will intertwine some commentary with a statement of the general direction of this research.
It is true that social media play a role in political protest and organization. But it is important not to overstate the role. The riots and eventual overthrow of Mubarak were influenced by social media but not caused by them. This is especially true as a protest spreads because it becomes more difficult to contain information. If the social upheaval gains traction, if it refuses to fade away and the size of the crowds swell, then many participants will begin documenting and sharing images. This becomes a self reinforcing cycle as it becomes apparent that more people are participating and thus encouraging others to participate.
The opportunity for what is termed “user generated content” is a special feature of new media. This means that information and stories about political activity are removed from the sole hands of the official journalist community. Bloggers and users of Facebook and Twitter begin to produce content, write stories, and take pictures and essentially become citizen journalists. A so-called “citizen journalist” will have a different perspective than the professional journalist. He or she will have a more subjective and “on the ground” view with a more hard hitting human impact. That is one reason why social media are better at coordinating leaderless challenges to authority than they are at organizing democratic processes. Dramatic photographs that come to characterize a political movement (burning flags, violent police or security people, dead innocents) are increasingly likely to be taken by citizens with new media capabilities. The amount and quality of user generated content is also dependent on the richness of the media system of the country. Egypt, for example, had greater use of Twitter with more tweets from organizations and activists then did Tunisia. It is not surprising that Egypt and Tunisia, which have more new media users than any country in the region, experienced greater social upheaval and pressure toward change. An interesting future research question will be to explain why some countries have experienced unsuccessful protests (Algeria, Bahrain) or no protest at all (Saudi Arabia) even though these are cultures with access to new media.
New media lowers the cost of collective action. It makes organization cheaper and available to more people. A key challenge in all social organization is to take networks of people with weak ties and coordinate and motivate them. The quick, inexpensive, and pervasive contacts available through Twitter or Facebook make this easier. But the downside is that the ease of contact and organization made possible by new media makes it more difficult to build permanent and durable social structures. This is related to the term “slacktavist” or the tendency for new media to be an easy way to contribute, a way that does not require much effort, but make people feel like they are doing more than they actually are.
This tendency to make dramatic claims for the effects of new media continues: Jay Carney, a spokesman for the White House, claimed that the video offensive to Islam caused the riots in Libya. We know now of course that the video had no such potency. Still, because the Internet is not confined by physical boundaries it provides political actors with a number of opportunities. It becomes easier to destabilize social systems from afar. There are now electronic diasporas that enable ethnic or religious communities to stay in touch with their home countries and maintain identities rather than assimilate into a host country. Muslim communities that ring the city of Paris are one example. Lack of cohesion, difficulty with language and employment, and regular cultural tensions are consequences of failing to assimilate and maintaining an identity within ethnic homeland. It is also important not to forget that the Internet is more vulnerable to censorship than you might think. There is an association between Internet use and democratic processes in a country, but this is probably more likely the result of democracies allowing widespread Internet use.
In the future it will be impossible to study social protest or conflicts without including the Internet and the tools that it makes available. New technologies are increasingly integrated into our political consciousness and more than anything else are influencing the information process. In other words, it will affect what news becomes available to different cultures, how fast it reaches various subgroups, and as exemplified by Wikileaks it will make new information available. In the end, social movements are increasingly dependent on new media but it remains the case that such movements have ethnopolitical explanations and that politics and history come first.
Your Muslim Neighbor
There are about 1 billion Muslims and they are probably here to stay. Historically, Muslims cared little about others and kept to themselves. Christians and Jews were strange sects that were deserving of a certain amount of condescending respect as people of the book and part of the Abrahamic religious tradition, but were assumed to be misguided and lost. Even as transportation and new technology made the world smaller, and Islam fell behind on measures of progress, Muslims stayed within the confines of their religion and allowed themselves to become subjects of European rulers.
Muslims are now our neighbors both locally and globally and, like it or not, we are required to live with them. But the relationship is not very neighborly. Our Muslim neighbors have formed a block party in which they regularly claim they are disrespected. The easiest way to do this is to assert that Mohammed and their holy book have been insulted. That’s why the silly and amateurish film “The Innocence of Muslims” was so easily effective. Neighborhood watch leaders have to do little more than claim disrespect in order to stoke the fires that burn in their followers. We Western neighbors are particular targets and have always been the subject of Muslim criticism. The defining leaders of modern Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood such as al-Banna and Qutb saw America as the palatial neighborhood whorehouse that was libidinous and unkempt.
Our new global neighbors have obliterated boundaries so there are unclear distinctions between groups and each believes in its own foundational truths. We in the western portion of the neighborhood have “free speech” and “democratic rights” and our Muslim friends hold dear to the belief that Allah is the God of everyone. Therefore both neighborhood groups feel authorized and permitted to force their values on the other. The distasteful Internet video was insensitive but still protected by freedom of expression according to the Western neighbors; on the other hand, our Muslim friends in the East hold the same foundational belief about insulting Islam – it’s not protected symbolic expression. The clash of these “universal” values is powerful and the streets are aflame in riots and protests.
Egyptians have a difficult future ahead of them as more extreme fundamentalists fight pragmatic politicians. Difficult as it may be to understand, and as conservative as the Muslim Brotherhood might be, they are no match for the Salafists and their desire to purge Islam and Muslim lands of all Western influences. The Salafist leaders, if they get their way, will destroy tourism because they do not want to see people in bathing suits; they will stunt the growth of business and the economy by refusing to conduct transactions with certain cultures; half of the population (women) will be denied basic human rights and prevented from contributing productively to the economy.
During the Egyptian “revolution” when Mubarak was removed there was a glimmer of hope that the key political and intellectual battle would be between the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s secular nationalists and developing liberals. But it looks like the closer relationship (Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist) will contend for the soul of Egypt. And as events play out in the news the same might be true of Libya and Syria. So the neighborhood is reorganizing itself such that more difficult groups will be contending for leadership. This does not bode well for future problems with respect to weapons accumulation. It’s likely that proud and conservative governments, with traditions of demands for dignity and respect, like the one emerging in Egypt may want to follow in the footsteps of Iran and amass weapons thereby consolidating their demands for respect but making the neighborhood an even more dangerous place to live.
Trouble with my neighbor can be handled in one of two ways – arm and isolate my household to protect myself, or carry over fresh baked goods and chat. Neither alternative will do all by itself but we should stand firm on our demands that our neighbors learn from us and trust us. And, of course, we have to engage them. Yes, protected symbolic expression is important and one does not behave violently or riotously just because they were insulted. But it’s also true that “holding one’s tongue” and cultural adaptability remain part of the democratic governance we want to encourage.
Julian Assange and Information Rights: Part 2
As I stated in the previous post, Julian Assange is clinging to free speech rights and access to information rights to defend his release of government documents. He’s being held criminally for releasing such information and violating presumed security rights of the state.
All speech is free speech except for that which is justifiably constrained. The nature of this constraint and meaning of “justifiably constrained” is what we will explore here for the moment. We begin with the entering assumption that freedom of expression is a basic human right and if we are going to error than we will error on the side of free expression. So, we take the most well-known example of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire, people rush to the exits and hundreds are trampled to death, and then “free speech” is your defense of what you did. You do not of course have the right to freedom of expression when it endangers so many people. You obviously cannot be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of moviegoers and stroll away comfortably on the basis of freedom of speech.
Moreover, the most specific constraint on freedom of expression is “imminence.” This means that you cannot cause imminent or immediate danger as a result of your expressive behavior. So the Nazis and skinheads have a right to express their political opinions (noxious as they might be) but they do not have the right to express those opinions while marching through a Jewish neighborhood creating imminent danger and clearly provoking violence. One of the legal arguments against Assange is that he retrieved government documents that had been classified and were not available to the public. But it is easy to “classify” something. And even though we cannot have individuals making their own decisions about what justifies being classified and what does not, the principle of available access to information and free expression does require justification if your rights are going to be constrained. Last February on this blog I wrote about bloggers and new media with respect to their contribution to the Arab Spring. I retrieved from Wikileaks a copy of a briefing (reference ID 09CAIRO544) about bloggers broadening their discourse. The briefing from 2009 warned that Egypt’s bloggers were playing an increasingly important role in broadening the scope of the acceptable political communication. Bloggers’ discussion of sensitive issues such as the military and politics represented a significant change from the previous five years and had influenced society.
As recently as 2009 the cable noted that a more open atmosphere had been created. Bloggers were influencing independent media to break important news and cover previously ignored or forbidden topics. One personal rights activist in Egypt stated that the youth were able to express their views about social and political issues in ways they never could before. Free speech tends to produce free speech, and the accumulation of effects from blogs in Egypt is apparent.
This post about blogs was an effort to explain how more information was circulating in Egypt and that was at least partially responsible for political uprising demanding even more freedoms. Was the release of a cable that reported on the general state of bloggers in Egypt a security matter? Surely such a cable does not rise to the level of significance of military secrets or something that can directly affect the safety of the state. In fact, if a government is tracking bloggers and writing reports about blogging in an effort to thwart access to certain information then this should be known to the public. It does not threaten the security of the state.
It does hold, and is imperative, that if citizens of a state are going to monitor the conduct of their government and engage fully democratically then they have to have access to state information – at least certain types of state information. Moreover, government should not be allowed to impose limitations on the citizenry under the pretext of national security and their rights to “classify” information.
The burden, if you will, must be not on access to information but on the government’s decisions to constrain that access by classifying information; that is, freedom of information and symbolic expression is the default political condition and the burden of proof that communicative rights must be limited is on the state. Below are a few more specific principles:
- As much as possible any restrictions on freedom of information must be prescribed by law beforehand. Restriction conditions should be drawn as precisely as possible.
- There must be opportunities for independent courts to judge the quality of safeguards for freedom of information.
- To restrict freedom of expression or information there must be a compelling explanation for the protection of national security. Some examples are in cases of war or military threat, internal sources of discord, or incitement to overthrow the government. This explanation must not only be compelling but able to show specific harm.
I’m not defending Julian Assange per se. His methods are of course illegal and of all the thousands of documents he gained access to and released there are probably more than a few that could have been classified as genuine security threats. But it becomes a little easy to accept government restrictions on freedom of information rather than honor the rights of a democratic society. A good way to keep the proper balance between democratic rights and security is to remember the principles below:
- People have the right to information about public officials in the workings of the state. Limitations on those rights must be clearly and strongly justified. A security justification designed to deny information must be unequivocal with respect to protecting national security interests.
- The public’s right to know is the most foundational assumption.
- There should be a clear system in place which provides independent review and credible oversight of situations where information rights are limited.
- If a person discloses information that is not harmful and is found not to pass the test of legitimate constraints, then that person should not be criminally charged.
- It should be possible for the public’s right to know to outweigh the importance of disclosed information.
- Confidential sources should be protected.
- New technology should make information as available as possible and open to scrutiny by the public.
Assange is not the newest hero for freedom of information. He not only has a grandiose ego and sees himself as the great liberator of information, but Assange goes at the problem with a machete rather than a scalpel. He captured access to thousands of documents with no concern for the nuances of their importance. Still, he has infused new energy into a tired but important democratic principle.
WikiLeaks and Freedom of Expression Versus Security: Part 1
Julian Assange is currently seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Assange is an interesting character with some quirky and brilliant personality traits, but these are not my main concern. Assange is considered a criminal in the United States because he gained access to secret documents by way of an American soldier named Bradley Manning. Manning is imprisoned in the US for leaking documents to Assange.
Assange manages the website Wikileaks which organizes and makes available thousands of government and diplomatic documents once classified as “secret.” Assange makes the argument that his work is centered in the long tradition of open expression and the importance of citizens keeping an eye on their government. Wikileaks publishes information from whistleblowers and seeks to make political governance a far more open process. Assange is no fringe character. He considers himself a revolutionary democratic leader devoted to freedom and has been the recipient of awards from Amnesty International, Time Magazine, and other journalistic outlets. The governments from which he took documents do not quite see it that way. They see Assange as challenging the security rights of the United States and violating laws designed to protect the nation. The US wants to charge Assange with jeopardizing national security, a charge that could result in life imprisonment. Hence we have the tension between freedom of information and security.
In what has been described as an Evita moment, Assange gave a speech from the Ecuadorian Embassy balcony which you can see here: Wikileaks
There was a large crowd and he spoke of freedom of the press. There have been other cases where journalists have reported from what is considered to be improper access to government documents. The Pentagon papers in the United States, albeit under quite different political and military conditions, were also considered a potential threat to national security. Israel has more than a few examples of journalists writing stories based on classified documents.
Opinions differ on this matter. Some see Assange, Bradley Manning, and journalists who report from secret government documents as traitors who reveal government secrets and expose the nation to damages that result from security breaches. On the other hand, they can be seen as advocates for free speech and transparent information for exposing the public to a full critical analysis of issues facing them. Some people take a third position by parsing the issues into justified and unjustified release of information. Thus, they criticize hacking into American government sites but support the release of documents from authoritarian governments such as those in Syria, Zimbabwe, or Saudi Arabia.
Because Assange is an interesting and charismatic figure, and because he has been accused of sex crimes (always a matter of interest), he has been able to use his celebrity status to rally thousands of people around the world and perhaps delay his arrest and generate interest in his cause. But it remains the case that all governments support their own security interests. And they will all in the end oppose improper access and leaking of classified material. Moreover, they will continue to sing songs of media freedom but maintain a common refrain about their own security rights. The tension between freedom of the press and security will continue because many documents marked “secret” are not really very important. It is easy to classify a document as secret but much less easy to justify the content of the document as truly requiring a “secret” classification.
There is no easy answer to these issues but the following are necessary in a democratic society, which is where we must begin. Openness to information is a far less threat to the general body politic than excessive secrecy or security. From the Johannesburg Principles on National Security and Freedom of Expression (http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/standards/joburgprinciples.pdf) we can quickly pose the following requirements for a democratic society that wants to limit freedom of expression:
To establish a restriction on freedom of expression or information it is necessary to protect a legitimate national security interest, a government must demonstrate that: (a) the expression or information at issue poses a serious threat to a legitimate national security interest; (b) the restriction imposed is the least restrictive means possible for protecting that interest; and (c) the restriction is compatible with democratic principles.
In the next post I will turn our attention more specifically to the legal and philosophical issues that we must grapple with in order to balance the freedom of expression versus security scale.
Egypt’s Inverted Pyramids
We will see what the future holds for Egypt, but I have trouble shaking the feeling that not much will change. The election of Mohammed Morsi has been hailed as the first democratically elected president of Egypt in its history, but after the dissolution of Parliament and the reemergence of the Egyptian military it remains unclear just how democratic Morsi’s election was. The political situation in Egypt remains precarious because of its assertive military, questionable legitimacy, political shenanigans, not to mention the “wait-and-see” attitude the world is taking with respect to the behavior of the Muslim Brotherhood. When the parliament was dissolved the votes of about 30 million people were simply ignored. This is no way to run a democracy.
Morsi’s election was mishandled and the results were reliant on military arrests, a special constitutional declaration that gives the military greater power and increases their potential influence on any new Constitution. Clearly most good liberal Democrats around the world shudder at this sort of military power, but of course in Egypt it is the military that will keep the Muslim Brotherhood in check and that is probably more important.
The divisions in the Egyptian society are really quite deep. The military (essentially SCAF the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) spills over into executive power; there is no constitution so there is confusion about foundational principles; there is lack of clarity about the role of religion in government; and then there are the normal divisions of religious versus secular, modern and traditional, liberal versus conservative. The Egyptians must make progress toward consolidating their democracy and the transition to new leadership. Below are some issues relevant to this consolidation and directed towards stabilizing the Egyptian polity.
- Morsi is a well-known Muslim who clearly will not abandon his religious principles. This is why the selection of a Vice President who represents constituencies other than the Muslim Brotherhood would provide some welcome balance and an alternative voice. One of the lessons of democracy is that it relies on contestatory discourse not cohesion. The government of Egypt must continue to develop its skills, shall we say, with respect to incorporating and managing differences. It is also crucial that the work of writing a constitution be completed. The reorganization and redefinition of various governmental institutions can only take place within the context of constitutional political legitimacy.
- Along these lines, the Muslim brotherhood must support legal experts and those with contemporary interpretations of Islam with an eye toward greater inclusiveness and integration of contemporary issues into Islamic sensibilities. And Islamic political and religious organizations such as the brotherhood certainly have their own agenda which they seek to advance. But if the brotherhood is more interested in ideological purity than political pragmatism it will be a problem.
- The military has far too much power and this is always a dangerous situation, even though in the case of Egypt the military is holding Muslim Brotherhood in check as well as keeping the peace. The military is currently empowered to arrest and detain people without a warrant. This is not acceptable in a democracy. Moreover, the SCAF in particular must withdraw from public political activity. They currently justify their behavior because there is no constitution but this must change immediately upon completion of the constitution.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the military are the two most powerful Egyptian institutions and they must lead the way toward learning the habits of managing differences rather than imposing agendas. The international community will support Egyptian democratic transition in the form of foreign aid and support as long as Egypt can achieve the proper balance is between religion and democracy – difficult as that is. Egypt has a long and noble history that has prepared it more than others to accept the new democratic climate brought about by the Arab spring. They should be commended for the relatively peaceful protest and their engagement in the debates surrounding their own cultural change. At the moment the Egyptian pyramids have been turned on their pointed sides and are teetering: important changes are necessary so the strong and broad foundation that has sustained these pyramids for centuries can return to its rightful place.
Explaining the “Democracy Deficit” in the Arab World
Those of you who follow this blog at all know that I’ve been interested in democracy in the Arab world. Democratization and Islam pose undeveloped and interesting future theoretical issues. A new report was just published by the Brookings Institute and authored by Eric Chaney. It is a methodologically and empirically sophisticated document that poses an interesting explanation for the democracy deficit in the Arab world. The document can be retrieved here: http://www.brookings.edu/economics/bpea/Latest-Conference/chaney.aspx
At first glance, it looks as though the Middle East is holding more elections than usual –Tunisia,Morocco,Libya, and Egypt. Is this unusual? The Middle East andNorth Africaare not known for competitive elections and have been criticized historically for failing basic democratic principles. There has been debate for some time about why the Middle East has resisted democracy and explanations run the gamut from too much oil, too much religion, too much military, too much conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis (of course, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to be the blame for something, even deep historical patterns in Muslim culture), and too much centralized power.
Eric Chaney and his report on “Democratic Change in the Muslim World” noticed something striking. He noticed a concentration of non-democracies in areas of the world invaded by Muslims. But it was religion and the control structures put in place that prevented democracy from developing. And it is control structures that pacify and control a population that were most important. Some Muslim countries like Albania, Chad, and Sierra Leonedo not share the democratic deficit because they were not subject to Muslim state political control. Some non-Arab countries conquered by Arabs still have the democracy deficit. So it is not Arab culture or Islam per se that is the reason for democracy deficit, but the political control structures put in place.
The best explanation according to Chaney is the “institutional persistence” that has held strong to a consistent pattern of autocracy. Dating back generations, Islamic countries have put into place control structures that included close relationships with the military and religious strictures that prevented the evolution of a strong civil society or any centers of power that might compete with the state.
In the last century a number of structural changes have provided the basis for current uprisings. Chaney noted that more recent reports of well-being have been diminishing in countries like Egypt and Tunisia and this is associated with general theories of revolutionary change. Interestingly, democracy is not likely to evolve in cultures that are divided between the military and religious organizations (Egypt), but will be more successful in cultures with a greater civic balance of influence (Tunisia). Egypt started out on the world stage as a model of change and demand for greater freedom and democratic processes, but much of Chaney’s analysis does not bode well for Egypt’s future as power simply shifts in Egypt from the military to the Muslim Brotherhood. The military-religious alliance that undermined democracy for centuries is still very much present in places likeYemen and Egypt.
Still, the Arab world is more ripe for democratization than ever before. Changes in the last 60 years have established more fertile conditions promising to unhinge rigid structures. In the absence of competition for power, any group will likely establish autocratic rule. Unless Islamists in countries like Egypt become more receptive to civil society power groups such as labor unions and commercial interests, then it is highly likely that autocracy will continue. The ramblings of democratic change in the Arab world are encouraging, but it’s too soon to be hopeful.
Peace and Conflict Politics 