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Barriers to Democracy: The Other Side of Social Capital in Palestine and the Arab World. By Amaney A. Jamal

A strong, independent civil sector enables democratic transition by giving citizens the chance to learn about, practice, and demand democratic freedoms. Such has been the conventional wisdom among democratization experts. Ever since the Cold War, international donors have poured billions of dollars into civil society programs meant to promote democratic governance in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. The success of these programs is open to question, however. At least until recently, the regimes in power across the Middle East have proven impervious to change. In Barriers to Democracy, Amaney A. Jamal explains why: ‘‘civic associations . . . reproduce elements of the political context in which they exist’’ (3). Thus, reinforcing civil associations alone will not necessarily result in democracy; in fact, it could actually strengthen support for authoritarianism. To demonstrate her point, Jamal analyzes survey and interview data gathered from her field research in the West Bank in 1998–99. This period witnessed mounting frustration among Palestinians with the pace of the peace process; it also saw the institution of authoritarian rule by Yasser Arafat even as millions of foreign dollars flowed into civil society initiatives in the Palestinian-administered areas. Jamal observes rightly (chaps. 2 and 3) that the peace process itself created the conditions for authoritarianism. Even as money poured in to buttress the Palestinian civil sector, Israel and the United States demanded that Arafat quash dissent. To do this while also retaining popular support, Arafat resorted to the patrimonialism that defined his leadership in exile. Within the resulting authoritarian political culture, internationally funded initiatives not only failed to support democracy but actually reinforced Arafat’s authoritarianism. International funds flowed through Arafat’s ministries. Associations supporting the peace process—and Arafat—received licenses, loans, and grants. Dissenters encountered exclusion and repression. Ironically, activists in associations supporting Arafat expressed high levels of trust for public institutions but low demand for democracy; by contrast, those opposing Arafat had high levels of distrust but also high demand for democracy (chap. 4). This inverse correlation between trust and democratic demand, the opposite of what studies have found for trust and associational participation in democratic societies, bears out across the Middle East as Jamal shows through a comparative study of Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco (chap. 5). Yet, as the recent Middle East uprisings have shown, authoritarianism is vulnerable to change through mass action. Such moments emerge from within oppositional formations, which though repressed nevertheless nurture distrust of the regime and a demand for democracy. With Facebook and Twitter, these networks are now global. Jamal observes that ‘‘globalization, rather than civic ties to their own governing polities, nurtures . . . democratic attitudes for many in the developing world. . . . These democrats have little faith in their ruling regimes: their allegiance instead rests with a common ideal’’ (133). Yet, as the old regimes fall, the question remains whether the entrenched patrimonialism will give way to democracy or whether, aided by Western powers seeking ‘‘strategic needs,’’ the tragedy of authoritarianism will return to perpetuate a new farce of national or religious ‘‘salvation.’’