Brookings: Topics - Polling and Public Opinion

Why the Current Syria Policy Doesn't Make Sense

Shadi Hamid — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

President Obama's decision to arm Syrian rebels -- after resisting such a course for nearly two years -- has come under some withering criticism. Marc Lynch, who has long opposed military intervention in Syria, calls it "probably his worst foreign policy decision since taking office," while Daniel Larison casts it as "certainly one of the two or three worst [decisions]." Despite being on the opposite side of the debate -- I began writing in favor of military intervention nearly a year and a half ago -- it is hard to disagree with their assessment that providing "small arms" to the rebels is unlikely to make much difference.

What makes Obama's decision so unsatisfying -- and even infuriating -- to both sides is that even he seems to acknowledge this. As the New York Times reports, "Mr. Obama expressed no confidence it would change the outcome, but privately expressed hope it might buy time to bring about a negotiated settlement."

To some extent like the 2010 Afghanistan "surge," this is a tactical move that seems almost entirely detached from any clear, long-term strategy. A source of constant and sometimes Kafkaesque debate among interpreters of Obama's Syria policy is figuring out what exactly the policy is in the first place. Secretary of State John Kerry has been promoting the Geneva II peace conference, but his explanations of U.S. goals have tended to confuse. For example, there is this: "The goal of Geneva II is to implement Geneva I." But no one is quite sure what the goals of Geneva I were, except perhaps to "lay the groundwork" for Geneva II.

If the goal is to help rebels regain the military advantage and, second, to diminish the regime's ability to kill, then the proposed means fall well short (for a detailed discussion of why small arms are likely to be ineffective, see C.J. Chivers' explanation here). The fact that nearly everyone seems to agree on the ineffectiveness of such a course -- including even Obama himself -- suggests the president did this because he needed to "do something." It was, after all, getting embarrassing, with open mockery of Obama's fecklessness, in general, and a rather squiggly "red line" that insisted on shifting in odd directions, in particular. But that Obama has done something he clearly didn't want to do for precisely the wrong reasons does not inspire confidence. Rarely has a major policy change been announced so circumspectly with so little conviction.

The fact of the matter, and one the administration seems intent on eliding, is that the only way to help the rebels regain the advantage and force the Assad regime to make real concessions is with a credible threat of military intervention through airstrikes against regime assets and the establishment of no-fly and no-drive zones. This will mean taking additional steps and slowly deepening our involvement, a result which some now fear is inevitable. Of course, the other argument -- eloquently advanced by Larison over the past year -- is that no vital interests are at stake and that the United States would be better staying out altogether. This latter argument, despite defining U.S. "interests" in extremely narrow terms, at least has the virtue of some internal consistency.

For those who supported the NATO operation in Libya -- perhaps the epitome of a non-interests-based intervention -- and past interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, the continued reluctance to entertain direct military action is more difficult to explain, although it no doubt has to do with the legacy of Iraq. Iraq is often mentioned by the administration as offering lessons for the present, although why Syria should be so analogous to Iraq, rather than say Libya or Bosnia, is rarely specified in any detail (Syria shares some of Iraq's sectarian features, but, to my knowledge, this was not the reason that so many felt the war was illegal, unnecessary, and based on false pretenses). Misplaced support for the Iraq war has led to an overcorrection in the opposite direction.

"To my mind," Andrew Sullivan writes for instance, "the key components of a successful Obama presidency -- an actual change we can believe in -- is the ability to resist war in Syria or with Iran under almost any circumstance." Why intervene again in a messy, uncertain region when previous interventions have turned out so bad? Sullivan's position has little to do with understanding Syria and how the situation on the ground has changed, but is based, rather, on an ideological aversion to intervention under, as he puts it, "almost any circumstance." The problem with the Iraq war wasn't that it was an intervention, but that it was a bad intervention. It was the result of conscious policy decisions -- guided by a neo-conservative worldview - just as non-intervention in Syria has been a very conscious and deliberate choice on the part of an Obama administration guided by a philosophical and even ideological aversion to intervention or even pro-active involvement in the Middle East.

The question for Syria anti-interventionists builds on Sullivan's perhaps inadvertent admission: under what circumstances, if any, do they believe military intervention would be warranted, a question which has broad relevance for the future of the "Responsibility to Protect"? In Syria, at least 93,000 have been killed, one of the highest totals of any recent world conflict. Beyond unspeakable mass slaughter, rape, and torture, two other key conditions have been met. First, there have been consistent requests from the Syrian political and military opposition, as well as the broader protest movement, for foreign direct intervention, particularly the imposition of a no-fly zone. Second, there is broad regional and international legitimacy, with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and France backing various degrees of military action.

In an ideal world, these considerations would have been enough to intervene long ago -- the point of the Responsibility to Protect, after all, is to intervene on behalf of the living, rather than the dead -- but that is not the world we live in. I have always hesitated to emphasize the strategic rationale for military action, due to my concern that what should be about protecting the Syrian people and supporting their struggle against a brutal regime becomes much more a matter of setting scores with Iran, Hezbollah, or other unsavory actors. That caveat aside, the strategic arguments are compelling in a way they never were in Libya (or for that matter Kosovo). Unlike most Arab autocratic regimes, Syria has long been an enemy of the United States. The Syrian regime is such a vital lifeline and point of entry for Iran and Hezbollah that both parties are doing everything in their power to keep Assad in power. And so on. It is difficult to think of a comparable case where the moral and strategic rationales for military intervention were this strong.

If, despite all of these reasons, liberal internationalists are still loathe to consider intervention, then this calls into question the broader applicability and relevance of the very concept of "humanitarian intervention" and the Responsibility to Protect. If the exceptionally dire circumstances of Syria -- of mass slaughter and the resulting destabilization of an entire region (including Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq) -- are not enough to trigger intervention, then what would?

Authors

Shadi Hamid

Publication: The Atlantic

Image Source: © Stringer . / Reuters

The New Politics of Marijuana Legalization: Why Opinion is Changing

William A. Galston and E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Wed, 29 May 2013 12:00:00 -0400

In less than a decade, public opinion has shifted dramatically toward support for the legalization of marijuana: A recent national survey showed a narrow national majority in favor of legalization, and its supporters translated this sentiment into ballot initiative victories in Colorado and Washington State in 2012, report E.J. Dionne, Jr. and William A. Galston.

The temptation is to conclude that the trend in favor of marijuana legalization is similar to the flow of opinion in favor of same-sex marriage, but not all hot-button social issues are created equal, Dionne and Galston write. It is much less clear that opinion on marijuana will follow the exact evolution of social issues such as marriage equality, the authors assert.

Surveying a wealth of new data on public attitudes toward marijuana legalization, this paper explains the forces and limits behind the trend toward legalization. The authors seek to answer the following: Which trajectory, that of gay marriage or abortion (if either), is more likely to augur the path that opinion on marijuana may take? And will the country see the emergence of a broad pro-legalization consensus, or rather of a durably divisive cultural disagreement?

Dionne and Galston arrive at the following conclusions:

In a number of respects, the structure of public opinion regarding marijuana legalization is distinctive, at least in today’s political context. Among today’s divisive issues, support for marijuana legalization is unusual in cutting across party lines. Generally, broad shifts in cultural attitudes—notably the rise of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture, and then the backlash against it in the 1980s—can trump the influence of party. Gender plays a role, but not necessarily the role one might expect: women are to the “right” of men, more likely to oppose legalization. Becoming parents appeared to have moved baby boomers toward a more conservative stance on legalization, but more recent findings suggest that parenthood may not be as strong a factor in determining one’s position as previously thought. However, married parents are more likely to oppose legalization than unmarried parents.
Attitudes toward legalization are marked by ambivalence, especially on the conservative side. Many of those who favor legalization do so despite believing that marijuana is harmful or reporting that they feel uncomfortable with its use. Among conservatives, many who believe marijuana should be illegal nonetheless support states’ right to legalize it and take a dim view of government’s ability to enforce a ban.
Support for legalization, though growing markedly, is not as intense as opposition, and is likely to remain relatively shallow so long as marijuana itself is not seen as a positive good. Whether opinion swings toward more robust support for legalization will depend heavily on the perceived success of the state legalization experiments now under way—which will hinge in part on the federal response to those experiments.
That said, demographic change and widespread public experience using marijuana imply that opposition to legalization will never again return to the levels seen in the 1980s. The strong consensus that formed the foundation for many of today’s stringent marijuana laws has crumbled.

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How Arab Public Opinion Is Reshaping the Middle East

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:00:00 -0400

Event Information

May 21, 2013
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

The Arab awakening that began in 2011 is transforming the Middle East in ways that continue to surprise seasoned observers. As new political leaders and movements struggle for power and work to shape the region’s future, one thing is clear: public opinion is more consequential now than it has arguably ever been. How Arabs view themselves and the world around them will have enormous consequences for the region and the larger international community in the years ahead. How are changes in Arab public opinion shaping the changes occurring across the region? Have the U.S. and its allies done enough to understand and support the voices of Arabs seeking greater representation and opportunity?

On May 21, the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, as part of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, hosted the launch of The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East (Basic Books, 2013), the latest book by Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami. Kim Ghattas, BBC’s State Department correspondent, engaged Dr. Telhami in a discussion of the book and the issues it raises. Martin Indyk, vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, provided introductory remarks.

Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Management: Keeping a Proper Balance

Jibum Chung — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:16:00 -0400

Counter-terrorism strategies and tactics are rightly in the consciousness of officials and civilians in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing. While preventing future attacks should be a leading priority for government at all levels, officials must take care not to focus only on the threat of terrorist attacks. Doing so could diminish the resources, preparation, and skills needed for management of other disasters, and therefore result in greater risk to the population.

Psychology of terrorism

The major characteristic of contemporary terrorism is its unexpectedness. The time and manner of attacks are unpredictable and catch targeted communities – normally innocent civilians – by surprise. In the past, targets of were often political and symbolic figures, not the general public, and the perpetrators proudly notified who they were and why they had acted. The purposes and targets of contemporary terrorism, on the other hand, are often very unclear. Terrorists attack innocent civilians indiscriminately without prior notification, making attacks more difficult to prevent.

Even though the physical damage from terror attacks is normally smaller than that from large natural disasters, the psychological damage of such terror attacks is significant. Early research performed by Paul Slovic and others in 1980s delved into this concept of psychological damage. Using psychometric methodologies, they defined several important characteristics of many different forms of risk. At that time, in the wake of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant accident in 1979, their main research target was nuclear power plants. Slovic underlined the importance of psychological effects of risk stating that “despite the fact that not a single person died (in the TMI accident), … no other accident in our history has produced such costly societal impacts.”[1] Reminiscent of today’s terror attacks, they concluded that the nuclear risk is unknown, dread, uncontrollable, involuntary, and likely to affect future generations, so it has a very critical impact on the minds of the general public. Contemporary terrorism shares many of these characteristics: it is usually unknown, frightening, uncontrollable, involuntary, and also indiscriminately fatal to even children (future generations). It surely has significant psychological effects on people’s minds.

Terrorism and media

For the news media, terrorism is a very strong “product” which easily attracts a lot of viewers. Most media aggressively sell the product, terrorism, and help sow fear as people enthusiastically consume the product. In a seminal work on the “social amplification of risk,” Roger Kasperson and colleagues[2] described how the public perception of risk interacts with social and cultural systems (such as the media) and can be amplified during the information delivery process, sometimes resulting in “institutionalized fear.” This amplification process can eventually generate certain public behaviors, some negative and some positive, and may result in disruptions in society. Obviously, some risks are more likely to be amplified than others. Terrorism, because of its special characteristics, is easily amplified. Also, today’s social network communication technologies, such as Facebook and Twitter, can accelerate and strengthen the amplification process.

Thus, the media focus and public concerns create political pressure, and national emergency management policymakers prioritize counter–terrorism, or “civil defense,” over other forms of risk management, such as “civil protection” against all hazards including natural disasters.

Civil defense again?

Culturally and historically, “civil defense” is quite different from “civil protection.” Civil defense, “born out of wartime efforts to organize air-raid precautions, sheltering arrangements and alarms for non-combatants,” has military origins and focuses on protection against foreign military attacks.[3] Civil protection, on the other hand, has disaster origins and focuses on many forms of natural and man-made disasters and other public safety issues. In the Cold War era, civil defense against nuclear attack was the main objective of national emergency management in the United States. At that time, nuclear attack was an “institutionalized fear” made by media and government authorities. Many American homes and public buildings prepared nuclear fallout shelters, illustrating this fear very clearly.

Following the end of Cold War and recognition of the increasing trend of large man-made and natural disasters, “civil protection” gradually replaced the term “civil defense” in most countries. Civil protection focuses more on generic disasters than on the armed aggression, and administratively it is more decentralized than civil defense. In the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was established in 1979. It was mainly a civil defense organization during the Cold War, but in the last two decades has worked to redirect some resources toward the management of various disasters (civil protection). James Witt, director of FEMA under President Clinton, clarified this change of direction. As the FEMA website explains, “the end of the Cold War also allowed Witt to redirect more of FEMA's limited resources from civil defense into disaster relief, recovery and mitigation programs.”[4] FEMA also introduced an “all hazards approach,” recognizing the many different kinds of disasters that may require mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

The September 11, 2001 terror attack dramatically changed the direction of emergency management in the United States. After the attack, the United States hastily constructed the Department of Homeland Security and downgraded FEMA, whose main duty was civil protection. This attracted criticism from some public administration experts that the U.S. government concentrated too much on terrorism, perhaps because of the “social amplification” of the risk in the wake of the attack, despite the many other critical risks facing U.S. citizens. Basically, the critics charged, the United States changed the direction of its emergency management from civil protection back to Cold War-style civil defense.

Balance collapsed in emergency management

The cost of that shift in priorities was on full display when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, easily destroying the weak levee system and submerging much of New Orleans under water. Federal and local governments’ mitigation, response and recovery to the Hurricane Katrina were mostly inadequate – resulting in the most severe disaster damage in U.S. history at that time. Due to budget cuts, the Army Corps of Engineers had been unable to strengthen the levee system protecting New Orleans. After the flooding and other damage occurred, the governments’ disaster situation awareness was poor. Communication among authorities and between authorities and civilians was broken. Assistance from the federal government was delayed and insufficient, and people died while awaiting rescue or other assistance. Critics also charged that too many government officials were not familiar with the “National Response Plan” which was implemented in December 2004 after 9/11 terrorist attack. Planning and training for large natural disasters were insufficient after the implementation of the plan. In short, too great a focus on counter-terrorism undermined capacities for natural disaster mitigation, response, and recovery in the post-9/11 United States.

This not only the case in the United States, however. The United Kingdom experienced a similar transition after the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, in which suicide attacks by four home-grown terrorists killed 55 civilians. In response, the U.K. government introduced several measures such as the Prevention of Terrorism Bill. Critics said that some responses to the attacks were anti-liberal, militarizing, and centralizing, and were in the wrong direction from the viewpoint of an all hazards approach. The problem, as one observer wrote, was that “too great a focus on one type of threat and on institutional preparedness can divert attention away from other problematic areas and distance the public.”[5]

In South Korea, the provocations of North Korea can divert the direction of national emergency management. South Korea had been under a thorough civil defense-oriented culture since the end of the Korean War in 1953. All citizens, for example, must participate in compulsory civil defense training preparing for military attacks from North Korea, and there is a military service requirement for men.

The mood of reconciliation that developed on the Korean Peninsula during the post-Cold War Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations (1998-2008) changed the direction of Korean emergency management policies, highlighted by the 2004 establishment of the South Korean National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) by the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Large disasters such as Typhoon Rusa in 2002 and the Daegu subway accident in 2004 demanded a comprehensive emergency management system that can manage the all types of hazards, not only a military attack by North Korea. South Korea is gradually replacing its civil defense culture with one of civil protection. The Lee Myung-bak administration (2008-2013) established the Ministry of Public Administration and Security (MOPAS) in 2008. MOPAS enlarged the scope of disaster management to include fostering a safety culture and anticipating future disasters induced by climate change. The Ministry has proposed civil protection strategies such as promoting public safety awareness, strengthening leadership of local governments, and promoting participation of private companies in disaster preparation and mitigation. Also, MOPAS pushed ahead several projects like the “Safe City” initiative that tries to enhance the safety level of local communities by encouraging the participation of various local stakeholders in preparation, mitigation, and response planning an activities. This means that the civil protection ideals and an all hazards approach were widely adopted as a government policy direction at that time.

However, the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island by North Korean forces in November 2010, which was unexpected and resulted in four deaths, changed this trend back again. After the Yeonpyeong Island bombardment, most projects for disaster and safety management were canceled and delayed because the highest priority was placed on national defense against North Korea. To some extent, this mirrors the experiences of the United States after 2001 and the United Kingdom after 2005. Although the deaths by Yeonpyeong Island bombardment were relatively few compared 209 deaths in Typhoon Rusa and 192 deaths in the Daegu subway accident, the political impact on the Korean government was huge.

Keeping a balance in emergency management

Civil protection and an all hazards approach are vital to maintaining preparation and the best possible response to major natural and man-made disaster. But they can be weakened if governments focus too heavily on national security (including civil defense against terrorism). And that can result in the other large disasters. Keeping balance in emergency management planning, and implementing an all hazards approach are crucial to effect public administration in this area.

The United States is at risk from a diverse range of natural and man-made disasters. Climate change will produce historically strong hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy more and more frequently. There is a high possibility of large earthquakes and outbreaks of new pandemic diseases. As indicated by the recent Texas fertilizer plant explosion, man-made disasters can also have big impacts. To cite another area where civil protection should not be neglected, the number of road fatalities per one million inhabitants was 111 per million inhabitants – or, well over 30,000 individuals – in the United States in 2009. This rate is almost three times Japan’s rate of 45 fatalities per one million inhabitants, and higher than the European Union average of 70 fatalities per one million inhabitants.

How do we keep balance in emergency management? Though officials in democratic countries such as South Korea and the United States must respond to public opinion, approaches to emergency management should be decided neither by public opinion, which can be easily agitated by shocking incidents, nor by the news media which tend to follow sensational events. Although the number of casualties in the Boston terror attack was much smaller than Texas explosion, the psychological impact and news attractiveness of Boston were much higher. Indeed, the news of the Texas fertilizer plant explosion was almost swept away in an ocean of news about Boston. Instead, priorities in emergency management should be decided based on the scientific evidence, accurate statistics, and rational policy planning.

Counter-terrorism is necessary and obviously very important. Governments must take policy measures to prevent terrorism, but they should resist contributing to institutionalized fear. They must also remember that human beings are surrounded by a plethora of risks, many of which cause more physical damage than terrorism. Governments should prepare policy measures for mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery for all hazards we can encounter, and should keep a balance based on sciences and accurate statistical data.

For this purpose, a number policy measures are appropriate. First, we need a clear cost-benefit analyses of the current policies in emergency management. According to research conducted by John Mueller and Mark G Stewart and published in 2011,[6] the United States has spent over $1.1 trillion on homeland security after 9/11; Mueller and Stewart evaluate the effectiveness of this massive spending as very low. If this money, or some of it, had been applied to other public safety areas, such as climate change mitigation or industrial safety management where the cost effectiveness is high, the United States could be a safer place.

Second, people should know what the real risks are. The well known risks such as traffic accidents, industrial accidents, and floods kill far more people in America than terrorism does. According to several psychological research studies, familiarity can reduce the level of the public’s risk perception. So, there is a much smaller sense of urgency about many of the risks that surround us every day. Science and statistics on risks, and governmental efforts to provide information and education about risks, can help individuals and local communities effectively increase their overall safety level.

[1] Slovic, P. “Perception of Risk,” Science, Vol. 236, No. 4799 (1987): 283.

[2] Kasperson, R., Renn, O., Slovic, P., Brown, H. and Emel, J. “Social Amplification of Risk: a Conceptual Framework,” Risk Analysis, 8(2), (1988): 177-187.

[3] Alexander, D. “From Civil Defense to Civil Protection--and Back Again,” Disaster Prevention Management, 11(3), (2002): 209.

[4] FEMA, about the agency, http://www.fema.gov/about-agency.

[5] O'Brien, G. “UK Emergency Preparedness: A Step in the Right Direction?” Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 59, No. 2 (2006): 79.

[6] Mueller, J. and Stewart, M.G., Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Authors

Jibum Chung

Image Source: © Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters

Chinese National Security Decision-making: Processes and Challenges

Yun Sun — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:03:00 -0400

In studies of contemporary China, information about the national security decision-making process is largely absent, despite the abundance of information and analysis on leadership politics and domestic policy-making. A proliferation of foreign policy actors in China has attracted much attention from researchers, leading to a booming number of investigations into the governmental and non-governmental players involved. The processes themselves―in which these players operate and interact to produce the eventual policy decisions―have eluded academic scrutiny, mostly due to the scarcity of available information. The topic, however, is critically important in achieving an accurate understanding of China’s national security policies which often seem unclear and plagued by conflicting messages.

In the Chinese context, the definition of “national security” is significantly different from that in the United States. For the American policy community, the term “national security” usually refers to the country’s external national security interests and threats. The responsibility for coordinating national security affairs lies primarily with the National Security Council. In China’s case, the term “national security” encompasses both domestic/internal and foreign/external security and, therefore, has a much broader connotation. This paper is primarily focused on the external dimensions of China’s national security. There are many overlapping aspects between China’s national security policy and its foreign policy, as the latter also serves to protect China’s national security interests. However, because national security also covers military security, national defense, economic security and other non-traditional security challenges, the framework and coverage is broader than with foreign policy.

This paper examines three processes of China’s national security decision-making: the decision-making at the top level, the policy-coordination process conducted through the National Security Leading Small Group (NSLSG), and the informational process for national security decision-making. Generally speaking, the supreme decision-making authority in China is monopolized and exercised through the collective leadership of the Politburo Standing Committee; this is especially true with regard to “strategically important” issues, such as Sino-U.S. relations. However, the paramount leader at the time of this writing, President Hu Jintao (the Politburo’s designated person for national security affairs) commanded large authority and privilege in determining regular national security policies. His primary advisor on national security (at the time of this writing State Councilor Dai Bingguo) played a central role in informing and advising him on key policy decisions. As the Director of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group (the same organization as NSLSG),[1] Dai also carried responsibility for inter-agency policy consultation and coordination through the NSLSG/FALSG. Information for national security decision-making is produced primarily by participating agencies and think tanks, but there is a standard process of screening, organizing, and disseminating that allows information to flow to the top.

A fundamental challenge for China’s national security decision-making system lies in the conflict between the need for centralization and the diffusion of power (collective leadership) at the top level. Decisions on strategically important issues must be based on consensus, which is created through time-consuming debates; consensus-building proves especially problematic when a timely response is required. As an informal and ad-hoc committee, the NSLSG does not operate as the core national security team designated to follow, analyze, and coordinate daily national security affairs, nor does it have the adequate human resources and professional capacity to play that role. In reality, its role is more or less confined to the organizer of research and coordinator of policies. Its authority on national security affairs is further undermined by unbalanced civil-military relations and the lack of civilian oversight over daily military operational activities. In the informational processes, the players in the Chinese system are extremely risk-averse. Confined by agency perspectives and career advancement interests, they are reluctant to report new findings that are not in line with established conventional wisdom.

Understanding that most of the challenges in the Chinese national security system have deep historical, political and structural roots, any attempt to address them must be bold and might seem politically unrealistic. Nevertheless, the recommendations offered in this paper are aimed at addressing the fundamental deficiencies of the current system. Their feasibility depends on the future of political reform, which although widely agreed as inevitable, has thus far been successfully avoided.

[1] The general understanding of the relationship between FALSG and NSLSG in China is that it is literally the same organization with two different titles (一个机构两块牌子). However, several government analysts pointed out that within the same organization there is a distribution of labor on national security and foreign policy between two different bureaus.

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Yun Sun

Image Source: © Jason Lee / Reuters

Which Military Opinions To Listen To

Paul R. Pillar — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

A recent study by Jim Golby, Kyle Dropp and Peter Feaver published by the Center for New American Security examines the effects that public statements by senior military officers have on public opinion about the use of force. The study is based on survey research in which respondents were presented with real and hypothetical questions about whether the United States should apply military force to certain situations overseas. Some respondents were told that U.S. military leaders favored the contemplated action, others were told that the same military leaders opposed the action, and still others were given no cues about what the military thinks. The main finding of the research is that publicly expressed military views do make a difference on public opinion, especially when such views oppose a military action. Military opposition reduced public support for the use of military force abroad by an average of seven percentage points, while military support increased public support by three percentage points. The surveyed sample was large enough that these were significant differences.

The authors discuss some concerns suggested by these findings, especially the hazard of what they call “a problematic politicization of the military.” Their concerns are legitimate, but the study fails to make an important distinction between the sort of military opinions that ought to worry us (worry us, that is, because they are being expressed publicly) and the sort that ought not.

The public (and policymakers in the executive branch and Congress) ought to pay careful attention to what senior military officers say on questions that are contained within the military's area of expertise. That is where military officers can offer opinions that are more firmly grounded than what anyone else can offer. Such questions would include the costs and time required to accomplish a military mission, risks incurred in accomplishing it such as collateral damage to civilians, and the likelihood of being able to accomplish it at all.

A military officer's opinion ought not to be considered worth more than anyone else's when it goes beyond the area of specifically military expertise. Outside that area would be questions such as political and diplomatic costs of an action, national priorities in the allocation of limited resources, and how important attainment of the military objective would be to the national interest. Because these sorts of questions are just as important in any decision to apply armed force overseas as are the ones on which military officers are specially qualified to speak, an overall judgment on whether any given application of force ought to be undertaken also goes beyond the area of military expertise. Thoughtful and intelligent military officers are going to have opinions about these things and are entitled to have them, but that is not the same as having a special claim on the public's attention.

If there is a norm to be cultivated here, it is that active-duty military officers ought to insist on being heard on military questions (which is not the same as the question of whether a particular military action ought to be undertaken), while being mindful of the politicization hazard that Golby, Dropp and Feaver mention and thereby not taking advantage of their prestige, their uniform and their credibility to offer publicly their opinions on other things.

Unfortunately, too often military opinion gets handled in exactly the opposite way. On one hand, armchair generals sometimes do not defer to the military on military questions. A well known and egregious example is the public disparagement by civilian Pentagon leaders of the army chief of staff's judgment about the U.S. troop presence that would be required in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, military officers' opinions on questions that go beyond strictly military judgments sometimes are given excessive prominence, usually because politicians either want to shirk the responsibility for making a decision by pretending that a military opinion can be treated as a surrogate for a policy judgment, or want to use military officers as supporting props for promoting their own point of view.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

Falling Out of Love With China

David Shambaugh — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Now that China is becoming a world power, it is beginning to recognize the importance of its global image and the need to enhance its “soft power.” It is tracking public opinion polls worldwide and investing huge amounts into expanding its global cultural footprint, “external propaganda work” and public diplomacy. Unfortunately for China, that’s not enough.

While pockets of positive views regarding China can be found around the world, public opinion surveys from the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project and the BBC reveal that China’s image ranges between mixed and poor. And the negative view is expanding: for almost a decade, European public opinion toward China has been the most negative in the world, but that is now matched in America and Asia.

Read the full article in The New York Times »

Authors

David Shambaugh

Publication: The New York Times

Egypt's 'Spoilers' Threaten Democracy

Omar Ashour — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

“The street wars will continue to extreme levels. … We will force this regime to renounce power and succumb to the will of the Egyptian people,” said the man who was voted out by a majority of Egyptians, and earlier removed by popular revolutionary forces. Mubarak’s prime minister and chief henchman Ahmad Shafiq made these statements last December from Abu Dhabi. The statement proved to be true. Politically motivated violence on the streets of Cairo continued, including attacks on city councils, police stations, prisons, headquarters of political parties, and multiple attempts to shut down Egypt’s largest governmental complex in Tahrir Square. This is in addition to almost weekly attacks and arson attempts on the Presidential Palace, where Shafiq’s main rival, President Mohammed Morsi, resides.

The scene in Egypt is quite intricate. There are definitely more than two parties in the power struggle. In a July 2011BBC article, I expected a usual post-revolution power struggle between Islamist and non-Islamist forces to unfold, with the losing side reneging on democratization process and attempting to spoil it. I showed that the exclusionary behavior among Egypt’s political elite has been a historic trend since Nasser’s coup of 1952, and even before it. What I underestimated is the level of violence associated with the reneging process.

The political scene is not fully captured by the simple “Islamist versus secular” explanation. After all, not only the ultraconservative Salafi Nour Party supported the demands of the “secular” National Salvation Front, but also it altered an earlier fatwa (religious edict) forbidding alliances with non-Islamist parties. In political contexts, opportunism checks belief; and political Salafis are not always an exception.

Three factors may help explain major parts of the complex Egyptian political scene. High expectations of the Egyptian people in the aftermath of the popular revolution is one of those factors. With a shaky economy, limited security, conflicting interests, scarce resources, and chaos on the streets, the current conditions hardly meet any of the revolution’s slogans: “bread, freedom, social justice, and human dignity.”

Add to that another factor: the limited capacity and inexperience of the new political elite, whether the ones chosen by Egyptians in elections, or the ones who weren’t but were part of the revolution against Mubarak. Incompetence of the government and the opposition is a second factor. The ones who were victorious in the elections, the Muslim Brotherhood and their Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), were so far unsuccessful in containing polarization, in fulfilling some of their pre-election promises, and even in appeasing some of their political allies. Still, they managed to be on the winning side every time Egyptians got a chance to cast a ballot; that is four historic national elections/referendums in less than two years. And here lies the third factor.

In 1997, Stanford’s political scientist Stephen Stedman authored a seminal study entitled “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes.” He argued that when civil war ends, various “losers” from the peace process emerge. The “losers” are groups of leaders and parties who believe that the new transition will threaten their interests. And as a result, they will do their best to “spoil” the peace. His theory applies to various forms of transition, including democratic ones. In the latter, former elites who lost their positions of power and have limited chance for a quick comeback via elections are more interested in “spoiling” the democratic game, and coming back via alternative routes. Additionally, some of the groups and parties that took part in the revolution, but consistently lose in every electoral exercise, can have a similar behaviour.

The spoiler problem and its implications are extremely dangerous for democratic transitions; equally dangerous for both national and human security. If successful, usually the country in question either descends into a vicious civil war or the process ends in a brutal military coup. In other words, spoiler behavior can turn a democratic dream into a bloody nightmare.

But the spoiler problem is not without a solution. Key in the solution is to properly identify the spoilers, their types/goals, actual weights on the ground, actual capacity to spoil, and the appropriate strategy to deal with them. Stedman identified spoilers based on their intentions/goals: limited, greedy, and total. He advised a range of strategies for managing or ending political violence, the key feature of spoiler behaviour.

Limited spoilers are those who seek a share of power within a constitutional framework, seek basic security and protection of themselves or their followers, or suffer from specific economic- or justice-related grievances. For those an inducement-based strategy to abandon political violence is advised. Greedy spoilers are the ones who expand or contract their goals based on calculations of cost and risk. Those may commit to democratic institutions and non-violent politics, but renege on it whenever faced with low costs and risks. A socialization-based strategy is advised to deal with those, including the establishment of a set of norms for acceptable behavior. These norms then become the basis for judging the demands of the parties (are they legitimate or not?) and the behaviours of the parties (are they acceptable in the normative framework or not?). Finally, total spoilers are usually led by individuals who see the world in all-or-nothing terms and often suffer from pathological tendencies that prevent the pragmatism necessary for compromise settlements. For those, a coercion strategy is advised by Stedman; a strategy that relies on the use or the threat of punishment to deter or alter unacceptable spoiler behavior or reduce the capability of the spoiler to disrupt democratic transition.

All three types of spoilers exist and operate currently in Egypt. The categories are never set in stone, though. In Egypt, the reliance on street violence to attain political goals is on the rise, and proved to be effective and useful. Whereas those tactics were justified by revolutionary forces and political groups operating under brutal dictatorships, they cannot be justified in a nascent democratization process where alternation of power is guaranteed by ballots, not bullets.

Authors

Omar Ashour

Publication: Al Monitor

Arab Perspectives on Iran’s Role in a Changing Middle East

Shibley Telhami — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: In this contribution to The Changing Security Architecture in the Middle East series, a joint project of the Wilson Center and the United States Institute of Peace, Shibley Telhami examines Arab perspectives on Iran's role in the region. Read an except below or download a PDF of the full paper at wilsoncenter.org.

Since the start of the Arab uprisings, there has been much discussion about how the new strategic environment in the Arab world will affect both Iran’s role in regional politics and, more broadly, Arab attitudes toward Tehran. It was clear from the outset that the picture for Iran was mixed: on the one hand, there was the loss of key opponents, like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and the empowerment of the Shi’a communities in neighboring Arab states, especially Bahrain; on the other hand, there were the troubles of Iran’s key allies in Damascus and the consequent pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Overall, there was a sense that the Arab uprisings presented more costs than benefits for Iran. Add to this a prevalent assumption that a democratic Egypt that could regain its popularity in the Arab world would ultimately erode non-Arab Iran’s influence—which is in good part a function of the vacuum of popular leadership in the Arab world—and Iran’s prospects look even weaker.

Worries among Gulf states, particularly Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, about the expansion of the Arab uprisings to their own Shi’a populations have also increased these countries’ incentives to highlight a perceived Iranian threat. But this picture masks a far more complex reality in Arab attitudes toward Iran before and after the start of the Arab uprisings. This complexity is reflected not only in the gap of perception between the Arab people on the one hand and Arab governments on the other, but also in important differences on Iran across Arab governments. And even among Arab governments most threatened by Iran and most inclined to see it weakened, including militarily, their sense of threat and how to address it differs substantially from Israel’s sense of threat.

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Authors

Shibley Telhami

Publication: The Wilson Center and the United States Insitutes of Peace

Image Source: © Caren Firouz / Reuters

Class Size Tradeoffs in the Court of Public Opinion

Matthew M. Chingos — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Budget cuts have caused increases in class size in states across the nation in recent years. Between 2009 and 2010, the pupil-teacher ratio in the U.S. increased by more than half a student for the first time since the Great Depression. The nationwide increase is quite small, but some states have experienced larger changes than others. A notable outlier is California, where the pupil-teacher ratio increased by more than 4 students between 2009 and 2010, an increase of more than 20 percent.

Times of fiscal austerity renew debates about the best way to spend limited educational resources. Class size is at the center of these debates because the size of the classes in which students are educated is one of the most important drivers of educational costs. Smaller classes mean that more teachers must be hired and more classrooms built. Conversely, allowing class sizes to increase can be a way to absorb budget cuts without cutting other programs such as athletics and the arts.

Research on the effects of class size is mixed. Most studies find at least some evidence that smaller classes have positive effects, but the size of these benefits is inconsistent across studies and often small. The substantial costs of reducing class size coupled with these modest benefits implies that many school systems in the U.S. have overinvested in class-size reduction and that increasing class size in some situations may represent a budget-cutting strategy that minimizes harm to students.

Allowing modest increases in class size may make good policy, but it is treacherous politics. Parents want smaller classes for their children and teachers prefer fewer students in their classes. A 2007 survey of the American public found that 77 percent of respondents, and 81 percent of public school employees, preferred spending educational dollars on decreasing class size rather than increasing teacher salaries.

The direct tradeoff between class size and teacher salary comes directly from the rules of arithmetic.[1] For any given level of funding, schools can either hire more teachers at lower salaries to teach smaller classes or fewer teachers at higher salaries to teach larger salaries. For example, a school with 100 fourth-grade students and a $250,000 budget for salaries could pay five teachers $50,000 each to lead classes of 20 students or four teachers $62,500 each to instruct classes of 25 students.

Parents, teachers, and the general public may not understand how significant these tradeoffs are. In the abstract, decreasing class size may seem more desirable than increasing teacher salaries, but what about comparing specific class size and salary changes that have the same cost? Two recent surveys asked exactly that question. A 2006 survey of Washington teachers found that 83 percent preferred a $5,000 raise to a two-student reduction in class size.

More recently, the journal Education Next and Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) asked a nationally representative group of Americans whether they thought it was better to increase teacher salaries by $10,000 or decrease class size by three students. Forty-four percent of respondents said they preferred the reduction in class size, 28 percent preferred the salary increase, and the remaining 29 percent had no opinion either way. Class size was still the preferred policy, but by a much narrower margin than in the 2007 survey that didn’t word the question in terms of equally costly alternatives. Parents expressed similar preferences to the general public, but teachers were about evenly split between the salary increase and the class size decrease.

Source: 2011 Education Next-PEPG Survey.

These data indicate that almost half of teachers do not think smaller classes are worth the cost (relative to the alternative of a salary increase), and a substantial minority of parents hold the same view. For teachers and the unions that represent them in the political process, it may well be the case that increases in class size are preferable to an alternative of reductions in salary or benefits. The class-size reduction policies that were popular in recent decades were enacted in a time of steadily increasing educational spending. Smaller classes were likely a way to marshal popular support for increased spending when the dollars were available.

For parents, class size still holds a decisive edge over teacher salaries, even when the relative costs are made clear. But this isn’t the only tradeoff that schools are facing. Allowing class size to increase may be the only way for some schools to avoid cuts to other popular programs such as music, art, athletics, and other extracurricular activities. More parents might choose these programs over class size in a head-to-head comparison.

In the coming years, states will continue to face hard choices about how to spend limited educational dollars. Accepting modestly larger classes may be the best way to absorb budget cuts in some contexts, especially in states that already have quite small classes. The politics of increasing class size would seem to be challenging given the popularity of small classes with teachers and parents. But survey data suggest that attitudes change dramatically when the tradeoffs are put in terms anyone can understand: dollars and cents.

[1] A notable exception to this rule occurs in secondary schools, where teaching load—the number of classes assigned to a teacher—is an important third variable (I discuss this issue further here).

Authors

Matthew M. Chingos

Image Source: © Radovan Stoklasa / Reuters

Egypt’s Transition Two Years Later: A Turkish Perspective

Ahmet T. Kuru — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

I was probably the only one wearing a tie in the Tahrir Square on January 25, 2013—the anniversary of the revolution. Different groups were gathering in the late afternoon while I was giving an interview to TRT (Turkey’s public TV) about my observations of post-revolution Egypt during my 11-day stay in Cairo. I had the opportunity to conduct interviews with 20 Egyptian politicians, activists, and scholars. I asked them questions around three main subjects: 1) How do you explain the revolution, why 2011 and why not before? 2) Are you satisfied with the aftermath of the revolution? and 3) What do you think about the future alliance between Egypt and Turkey in terms of having a shared policy toward the Middle East?

There was a near consensus on the first question. My interviewees emphasized similar clusters of reasons: the Tunisian revolution set an example; the Mubarak regime was 30 years old (or in fact the “regime” was 60 years old) and the Egyptian people (who are normally very patient) were fed up with corruption and failed policies; Mubarak alienated not only the wider public but also the military by preparing his son Gamal as his successor; social media equipped young people with new opportunities to get organized (by the way, I do not know the cost during the revolution but cell phone services are now quite cheap in Egypt); the demonstrations in Tahrir Square were at first led by diffuse groups with no hierarchy, but three days later the Muslim Brotherhood joined and substantially increased the number of protesters; and Al-Jazeera played a major role by its nearly nonstop broadcasting of the demonstrations.

As someone who had heard some Turkish leftists depict the Arab Spring as an “American conspiracy,” it was surprising how the role of the United States was so negligible and inconsistent during the Egyptian revolution, according to my interviewees.

The answers to the second question (on the aftermath of the revolution) were much more diverse. It would be wrong to categorize them into two groups—the opposition to and supporters of President Mohamed Morsi. Many of my interviewees were critical of Morsi but their reasons diverged considerably. For some, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood constitute an Islamist threat to Egypt. A professor warned me that “the Muslim Brothers are not like the AKP [Turkey’s pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party]” but “they are like Erbakan’s parties.” He also reminded me how Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan was welcomed in Egypt as a hero in his September 2011 visit, but after he asked Egypt to embrace a secular state, his popularity among Islamists quickly dissipated.

Beyond the issue of Islamism, some who had positions in the old regime criticized the Brotherhood for being radical in terms of the speed of change (e.g., pushing the Constitution too quickly without even consulting with the Vice President). Others, however, criticized the Brotherhood for being too slow and compromising toward the old regime, having secret agreements with the military, and letting the old regime survive financially.

The role of the military figured prominently in my conversations. A formerly senior member of the Brotherhood told me with pride: “It took you [Turks] twenty years to solve the problem of civil-military relations, but we did it in two years.” By contrast, many opposition figures noted that this would be a naïve claim; the military still has the power to interfere in politics and continues to play a substantial role in the Egyptian economy.

Besides these specific criticisms, one major argument of the opposition was that Morsi lacked projects and initiatives for solving Egypt’s social and economic problems. They also point out that the Muslim Brotherhood is full of medical doctors and engineers; but includes very few lawyers and social scientists. Yet even the critics admit that the opposition parties do not have such projects or initiatives either.

Even on the issue of democracy, it was unclear to me whether some opposition figures were all that much better than the Brotherhood politicians. For me, the dissolution of an elected parliament by a politicized court decision is nothing but a “judicial coup d’état.” Turkey was saved from such a coup in 2008 and Egypt experienced it in 2012. Yet some opposition members seem to whole-heartedly support the court decision.

In debates about Egypt’s domestic politics, Salafis appear to have a puzzling position. On the one hand, they are blamed for pushing the Brotherhood to be more radical (e.g., inserting Al-Azhar into the constitution as a consultative body on the matter of Sharia and rejecting a female quota in parliamentary elections). On the other hand, they are perceived to be divided and changeable. Several interviewees stressed that it was good to see Salafis in Egyptian party politics for the sake of normalization, in comparison to Tunisian Salafis who largely remain outside of the political system and prone to violence.

My third and last question was on foreign relations, especially those with Turkey. In general, the Egyptian elite seems to be focusing on internal problems and willing to restrain its regional ambitions. Regarding Turkey, nearly everyone I spoke to expressed a desire to have better relations with Turkey than during the time of Mubarak. They would like Turkey to support Egypt domestically, in the economic realm for instance, rather than pursuing joint initiatives in the broader region. This is one reason why the Egyptian elite seems hesitant to take a more pro-active stand against the Assad regime in Syria. Another reason is that there is still a tendency to put Israel at the center of foreign policy issues and they regard Assad as, at least historically, part of the anti-Israel bloc.

I also realized the extent to which Egyptian elites continues to have some misperceptions about Turkey. As an example, several of them tried to convince me in vain that Erdoğan is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Turkey branch.

Authors

Ahmet T. Kuru

Egypt's Draft Constitution: How Democratic Is It?

Omar Ashour — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

On the positive side, this is Egypt’s first-ever constitution-crafting process whose assembly was elected by parliament and not appointed by a dictator, whether in the form of a monarch, as in 1923 and 1930, or in the form of a military junta, as in 1956 and 1971. Unfortunately, this fact partly explains the current instability. Add to that the rise of a new political elite, mostly from the religious lower-middle classes, who have no ruling experience. Will this new elite turn Egypt into a theocracy via the constitution, as many in the upper-middle and upper classes who reject it claim? Or is this just a myth propagated by conflicting groups whose only commonality is being losers, either in the democratic game or in the revolutionary process?

As always with Egypt, there is no straight answer. It is true that the “no-to-anything” camp is composed of losers, in either the elections or the revolution. But it is also true that this camp include figures who could have done well under the Morsi presidency, including quite a few secular activists and intellectuals. It is also a fact that the constitution has a strong religious flavor, either in a straightforward way like in Articles 2, 4, 10, 44 and 219, or less so, as in Articles 11 and 12.

But to make things more complex, here is another fact: Compared to the 1923, 1930, 1956, 1958, 1964 and 1971 constitutions, the 2012 draft is the least authoritarian that Egypt has ever had. Whereas all the other constitutions guaranteed, on paper, a minimum of basic freedoms and elements of social justice, the 2012 draft limits presidential authorities and divides powers between the state institutions. In other words, high politics were touched.

In the 1923 constitution, celebrated as Egypt’s mythical "most liberal" constitution, Article 33 stresses the sanctity and the untouchablity of the king. Article 38 gives him the power to dissolve the parliament at will, without any restrictions. In the 1971 constitution, the president had powers almost equal to those of the monarch. For example, Article 77 allows the president to run for unlimited six-year terms. Article 73 gives him extraordinary sweeping powers to fight vague threats such as a “danger to the safety of the nation.” Article 76 is a constitutional farce, a 709-word article whose sole objective was to tailor an electoral victory for Mubarak’s son. Article 136 allows the president to dissolve the parliament when “necessary.”

Indeed, the previous Egyptian constitutions set the bar too low when it came to crafting democratic institutions. The only exception is the 1954 draft constitution, whose first article stated that “Egypt is a parliamentary-representative republic” and outlawed the prosecution of civilians by military tribunals under any circumstances. Of course, it was never ratified. Nasser and his junta wanted a dictatorship built around a cult of personality, not a state with functioning democratic institutions. Historian Salah Issa found the only copy of the 1954 draft in 1999, in the basement of the think tank affiliated with the Arab League. He wrote a book entitled A Constitution in a Trash Bin to reflect the sad story of constitutional democracy in Egypt.

So what are the problems of the 2012 constitution? Most of them can be wrapped up into three categories: the role of religion in the new system, civil-military relations and constitutional liberalism. Article 4 (proposed by Amr Moussa, a secular politician who served as Mubarak’s foreign minister and currently heads the Conference Party) states that the “opinion” of Egypt’s most prominent religious institution, al-Azhar, is to be considered in matters related to Islamic law. Article 2 states that the main source of legislation is to be the principles of Islamic law.

The keywords here are “opinion” and “principles.” The first is non-binding and the second is concerned with abstract positive values, such as justice or freedom. But Article 219 states that the principles of Islamic law include “its comprehensive evidence, its jurisprudential and fundamental bases and its recognised sources in Sunni sects.” For most of Egypt’s secular public, this language is incomprehensible, and — to be honest — quite scary. This controversial article was the brainchild of the Salafi members of the Constituent Assembly, mainly from the Nour Party. They wanted more than abstract principles and a clear article to reflect the “peculiarities” of Islamic law, as they understand it. The argument of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) of the Muslim Brotherhood is that any potential violations of freedoms or human rights based on an interpretation of this article will be outlawed by others such Articles 6, 8 and 9, which stress protection of freedoms, respect of rights and non-discrimination on any gender, religious or racial basis. Yet, Article 44 prohibits insults or “implied” insults of prophets and messengers of God. For many Egyptian secularists, this is a direct restriction on the freedom of speech.

Another major issue is the civil-military relations. Not only will the defense minister have to be a military officer (Article 195), but the National Defence Council (NDC) will also have a majority of military commanders (Article 197). This will effectively give the military a veto over any national-security or sensitive foreign-policy issue.

“If you put one of yours, I will put one of mine,” yelled General Mamdouh Shahin, the army representative in the Constituent Assembly, at an FJP member. The latter had suggested an additional civilian in the NDC: the head of the treasury committee in the parliament. His suggestion was rejected. And it was all caught on camera.

In addition, Article 198 allows military tribunals for civilians “when a crime harms the armed forces.” A list of specific crimes will be put forth by lawmakers in the next session of the Egyptian parliament. This law will probably be another tug-of-war between civilian representatives and army generals over the ultimate test of democratization: security-sector reform. But certainly Article 198 of 2012 is a downgrade from Article 20 of the 1954 draft constitution, which strictly prohibited the prosecution of civilians in military tribunals.

A third major concern is about upholding constitutional liberalism and its implications, which takes us back to religion. On one hand, the constitution prohibits parties that discriminate on the basis of religion, gender or race (Article 6) and is quite explicit on the equality of all citizens and the prohibition of discrimination between them (Articles 6, 8 and 9). It is also explicit on assisting women in their duties to “their family and their public work” (Article 10) and that the state provides “free motherhood and childhood services.”

“We wanted to help mothers in their two ‘full-time’ jobs: the family and their career,” Constituent Assembly member Essam Sultan told me. Amnesty International, however, claims that the constitution “blocks the path to equality between men and women [...]. It is appalling that virtually the only references to women relate to the home and family.” However, that last sentence is inaccurate, to say the least.

The Egyptian constitution is far from perfect at the moment. Certainly, if compared to the 1954 unratified draft or to constitutions in newly consolidated democracies such as Brazil or Poland, it will look worse. However, the alternative route of an elected constitutional assembly or the flat rejection without an alternative route (which is exactly where the opposition stands at the moment) do not guarantee a better product. So for Egyptians, the hard question is whether to accept an imperfect constitution now and then attempt to amend it later (only 20% of MPs are needed to request an amendment, and two-thirds for approval) or to continue on in the streets until something happens. And that something may or may not be better than democratic institutionalization with an imperfect constitution.

Authors

Omar Ashour

Publication: Al Monitor

Is There an Egyptian Nation?

Shadi Hamid — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In the latest round of Egypt's current crisis -- once again pitting Islamists against non-Islamists -- demonstrators gathered at the presidential palace in Cairo to protest President Mohamed Morsi's stunning decision to claim authoritarian, albeit temporary powers and his subsequent moves to rush through a controversial constitution. In a grim reminder of the country's precarious state, police clashed with protesters and fired tear gas -- only this time, it was to protect a legitimately elected president, not a dictator of 30 years.

But this isn't really about Morsi and his surprise decree -- though to be sure, parts of the decree employ language straight out of Orwell and seem almost designed to provoke and polarize. But neither the decree nor the draft constitution is quite as bad as Morsi's opponents insisted. The opposition's sometimes bizarre comparisons to Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, the 1933 Enabling Act, and the French Revolution suggest a legitimate fury (and an intriguing fascination with fascism), but make little sense as historic analogies.

Morsi could have read his Friday shopping list on national television, and it might have made little difference. The decree, after all, was only the latest in what Morsi's opponents see as a long list of abuses. Egypt's "original" revolutionaries are one such group that blast the Brotherhood's compromises small and large with the old state bureaucracy, lamenting how their revolution was sacrificed on the altar of expediency and gradualism. And it is true that the Brotherhood-appointed leaders of the Ministry of the Interior, the military, and the intelligence apparatus include men who were complicit in some of the worst human rights abuses of the Hosni Mubarak era -- and have gone unpunished to this day.

But these mostly younger revolutionaries, whose critiques have been admirably consistent, are a small minority. The rest of the opposition is an odd assortment of liberals, socialists, old regime nostalgists, and ordinary, angry Egyptians, each whom have their own disparate grievances and objectives. The liberals and leftists in the equation, led by figures such as Mohamed ElBaradei, Hamdeen Sabbahi, and Amr Moussa, have little in common with each other -- besides a fear that their country is being taken over, and taken away, by Islamists. While they may be "liberal," in the sense of opposing state interference in private morality, their attachment to democracy is mercurial at best. Many of them welcomed the dissolution of Egypt's first democratically elected parliament, called on the military to intervene and "safeguard" the civil state, and even cast their presidential ballot for Ahmed Shafiq, Morsi's opponent and Mubarak's last prime minister.

Liberals' problem with Morsi's decree is not so much its authoritarian overtones, but that its authoritarianism is (or could be) in the service of an ideology -- Islamism -- that they view as an existential threat to Egypt. While Morsi has been extremely polarizing in power, the Muslim Brotherhood insists, so far correctly, that it has not actually overseen the imposition of any "Islamic" laws on the population.

But the Brotherhood too is missing the point here. Liberals, and so many others, fear Morsi and the Brotherhood not for what it has done, but for what it might do. Such fears, based on worst-case projections well into the future, are difficult to engage and impossible to disprove. To assuage them, trust is required -- and the heart of the problem is that there is little to go around Egypt these days.

Islamist distrust of the other side, justified or not, is what led Morsi to issue his Nov. 22 decree, people close to him insist. The Brotherhood saw an existential threat on the horizon: Looming in the near future were court rulings that would dissolve both the Constituent Assembly and the upper house of parliament. Brotherhood and FJP officials told me that they knew from sympathetic judges that rulings revoking Morsi's Aug. 12 decree, which established civilian control of the military, and even possibly annulling the presidential election law, were in the cards. Another prominent Brotherhood member, who has privately been critical of Morsi's presidency, went so far as to suggest to me that, if the president didn't act preemptively now, the closing of Brotherhood offices could be next in a new campaign of repression, followed by the dissolution of the group itself.

At the same time, the Brotherhood was well aware just how bad Morsi's decree looked. As one senior FJP official admitted: "Yes, the decree isn't democratic and it's not what you would expect after a revolution," but he claimed there was simply no other choice. The message was clear: The Brotherhood is in an existential fight and, as a result, the normal rules of politics would be suspended. One Brotherhood member I spoke to likened it to "shock therapy that runs the risk of leaving the patient dead."

In short, the Brotherhood sees its opponents -- whether liberals, the judiciary, elements of the military and state bureaucracy -- as fundamentally anti-democratic. Among other things, it points to the failure of someone as prominent as Mohamed ElBaradei -- a "liberal dictator" in the words of one Brotherhood official -- to stand up against the judiciary's dissolution of parliament, and blasts his recent warnings that the military may need to intervene "to restore law and order."

The irony of non-Islamists' antipathy toward the Muslim Brotherhood is that the current version of the organization happens to be the moderate, reconstructed version. For all its considerable faults, the Brotherhood of today is not the Brotherhood of the early 1980s, when calls for tatbiq al-sharia ("application of Islamic law") were its core demand. This was not just rhetorical: As the Islamic revival intensified, the formal effort to synchronize Egyptian law with sharia won the support of Egypt's most powerful men, such as Sufi Abu Talib, the speaker of parliament and a close associate of President Anwar Sadat. By 1982, Abu Talib's committees had painstakingly produced hundreds of pages of draft legislation (which were for the most part never implemented), including 513 articles on tort reform, 443 on the maritime code, and 635 articles on criminal punishments.

Back then, the Muslim Brotherhood was more a sharia lobby than a political party, with a seemingly obsessive focus on Islamic law. The 1987 electoral program of the "Islamic alliance" -- a coalition of the Brotherhood and two smaller parties -- allowed little room for dissent on such a fundamental matter: "Implementation of sharia is a religious obligation and a necessity for the nation. This is not something that is up for discussion; it is incumbent upon every Muslim to fulfill God's commandments by governing by his law." The push for sharia would be, the program says, "a massive national undertaking that will require experts to devise how to apply Islamic law in a variety of realms."

The Brotherhood took steps to smooth over the hard edges of its political program during the next two decades, culminating in its 2005 electoral platform -- the centerpiece of the group's effort to rebrand itself and offer a vision for political and institutional reform. Democracy, rather than sharia, was the new call-to-arms. Much of the program focused on how to establish a workable system of check and balances and ensure the independence of local government from the central executive. Interestingly, one of the program's longest sections is on "financial and administrative decentralization," where the Brotherhood calls for "transferring powers and the authorities of the ministries to the governorates," including the ability to impose and collect taxes. Indeed, if there is a dominant theme that runs throughout the 2005 platform, it is the notion that the executive branch has too much power, which it abuses at will. (It makes for dispiriting reading in light of today's top-heavy constitution, which enshrines a too powerful presidency.)

After the revolution, the Brotherhood and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), made a major flip-flop -- they are now apparently believers in a strong president, at the expense of parliament and local government. But they still seem to genuinely think that they are democrats, and their rhetoric, perhaps today more than ever, is replete with references to electoral legitimacy and the will of popular majorities. As for the constitution, they insist it is a moderate, consensus-driven document. From the Brotherhood's perspective, the constitution's Islamic content is minimal: In a stark contrast to the 1980s, the Brotherhood actually pushed back against Salafi demands that the "rulings" rather than the "principles" of Islamic law be the primary source of legislation.

Liberals would tell an almost completely different story, and their disagreements are based on process as much as substance. Recently, at the Brookings Doha Center, we held our third "Transitions Dialogue," where we brought together Islamists and liberal representatives along with U.S. officials to seek out areas of consensus. Depending how you looked at it, the participants were either very far apart or surprisingly close together. It was hard to tell, since they seemed to have different interpretations of reality and often couldn't even agree on what they disagreed on. Some of the differences were on procedure -- including the decision to appoint 50 Islamists and 50 non-Islamists to the Constituent Assembly, which one human rights activist called the "birth defect" of the process.

From the very beginning, liberals have complained of an assembly "dominated" by Islamists, where each camp became entrenched in its position and voted as a bloc. And they were right: Islamists set the assembly's agenda and led and oversaw the constitution-drafting process. Brotherhood and Salafi representatives, however, felt that the 50/50 agreement was, in fact, a major concession on their part. If the assembly was elected, rather than appointed, Islamists pointed out that they would likely have taken at least 70 percent of the seats. As for content, they were only calling for the "principles" of sharia, rather than its "rulings," as the Salafis had wanted, to be the main source of legislation. The constitution has a few Islamically flavored articles, but for the most part it is a mediocre -- and somewhat boring -- document, based as it was on the similarly mediocre 1971 constitution. This, too, Islamists treat as a concession to their opponents, arguing they could have had stronger Islamic clauses but instead compromised with liberals -- angering many Salafis in the process.

Indeed, it sometimes seems that Brotherhood and Salafi representatives viewed the very presence of "liberals" on the assembly as a gesture of goodwill and magnanimity. The Brotherhood's disdain for liberals is nothing new and is, at least in part, a product of the Mubarak years, when many liberals tolerated the Mubarak regime as the lesser of two evils. But it runs deeper than that: Islamists generally don't see liberals as having any natural constituency in Egypt. Moreover, they represent an ideology that is foreign to Egypt and, worse, morally subversive. To the extent that Egyptians ever support "liberals," it's only because they don't want to vote for the Brotherhood, not because they're liberal or even know what "liberalism" means. In my interviews with Brotherhood leaders both before and after the revolution, I usually got the sense that, despite occasionally trying, they simply couldn't bring themselves to take liberals seriously. They were almost always more concerned about those on their right flank, the Salafis.

Lack of respect aside, when you look at what each side says they believe, there seems to be room for consensus. After all, the major liberal parties say they support a role for sharia in public life (Egypt's most "liberal" party has been known to campaign with banners saying "The Quran is Our Constitution"), while the Muslim Brotherhood says all the right things, calling for a "civil state." Even the Nour Party, the political arm of the largest Salafi organization, says that "the state should be far from the theocratic model."

But these groups are acting more moderate than they actually are. Liberals are trying to be more responsive to the popular mood, which is both conservative and religious. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood and Salafis are eager to portray themselves as "responsible" actors, particularly in the eyes of Western governments, whose support is necessary for Egypt's economic recovery. But such ostensibly conciliatory gestures have also led each group to believe that the others are acting insincerely. It is understandable that liberals, being the weaker party, fear that the Brotherhood will use its increasing powers to undermine and exclude them. But the Brotherhood, too, fears its opponents are out to destroy it, using any tools at their disposal to reverse the group's electoral victories.

As Brookings Institution scholar Khaled Elgindy astutely observed, "a persecution complex is the backbone of authoritarianism." He may be right, but that doesn't make the Brotherhood's persecution complex any less real. The memory of 1954 looms large, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser banned the Brotherhood, rounded up its members en masse, and executed many of its leaders. More recently, the Algerian tragedy of 1991 -- where the staunchly secular military aborted an election Islamists were poised to win, plunging the country into civil war -- remains a defining moment in the Islamist narrative.

For the Muslim Brotherhood, another Algeria is always around the corner. Winning one election after another is no guarantee of political survival, just like it wasn't in 1991. For the Brotherhood, the dissolution of parliament last June offered yet more evidence that the liberal opposition and international community would not stand up for democracy when it was Islamists who suffered.

These betrayals -- and each side has their own long list -- are now etched in memory, making reasoned dialogue a challenging task. To be sure, the mistrust is amplified by a terribly mismanaged transition, but it also draws from something real and deep, if often unstated. Behind all the accusations and the seemingly minor procedural objections lies something more basic: Egyptians simply may not agree on the fundamental attributes of the modern nation state. Should the state be ideologically neutral, or should it be an enforcer of morality, intent on creating virtuous families and virtuous individuals? Egyptians, and most of the Arab world for that matter, haven't really had this conversation until now.

In the short term, there can and will be at least some consensus. The Brotherhood is constrained not only by an increasingly vocal opposition, but also by external actors. The economy is teetering on the brink and stabilization will only come through the economic support of the United States and Europe. There is only so far Morsi and the Brotherhood can go -- for now. Their focus is on stability, security, and the economy, not on applying Islamic law or creating the mythical Islamic state.

That said, Islamists are Islamists for a reason. They have a distinct ideological project, even if they themselves struggle to articulate what it actually entails. The Brotherhood has already been developing something called the "Nahda Project," a sort of dream for Islamist would-be technocrats. While some of the project's ideas on institutional reform, economic development, and urban renewal are impressive, they shouldn't be taken as the end point of what Islamists are trying to do.

Islamists have a core constituency that, naturally, wants to see sharia implemented. Democracy does not necessarily moderate such ambitions: According to most polls, the Egyptian public wants to see more Islam and Islamic law in their politics, not less. And then there are the Salafis, the second-largest electoral bloc in the country, who are likely to do whatever they can to drag the Brotherhood -- and everyone else, if possible -- further to the right.

A manufactured consensus may, in fact, be easier to forge now, in this early stage of Egypt's democratic transition. "Islamists" and "non-Islamists" may hate each other, but, on substance, the gap isn't currently as large as it might be. In the longer run, however, the consensus that so many seem to be searching and hoping for may not actually exist.

Authors

Shadi Hamid

Publication: Foreign Policy

Israeli Public Opinion after the November 2012 Gaza War

Shibley Telhami — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Read about the poll release event »

In a new poll of Israelis conducted by Shibley Telhami, Brookings Non-Resident Senior Fellow and Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, 60 percent of Israelis have a favorable view of President Obama – up 6 points from last year. In addition, Israeli Jews now cite Obama as the most admired world leader, and more Israelis think American support for their security interests has increased. Overall there has been an increase in Israeli optimism regarding U.S.-Israeli relations in Obama’s second term.

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2012 Israeli Public Opinion Poll

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2012 Israeli Public Opinion Poll

A public opinion poll conducted November 21-26, 2012.

The poll, conducted in late November, also highlights perceptions on the Israel-Gaza conflict. Forty-five percent of respondents felt neither Israel or Hamas emerged victorious from the recent conflict. Thirty-eight percent of respondents think Israel isn’t any better or worse off than before the escalation in Gaza. Forty percent of respondents believe the fighting in Gaza will not end; 29 percent believe fighting will end when there is a political final status with the Palestinians.

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Authors

Shibley Telhami

Publication: University of Maryland and the Program on International Policy Attitudes

Attitudes Toward a Middle East in Crisis: Surveys of Arab and Jewish Opinion in Israel

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Event Information

November 30, 2012
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

Now that the Israeli-Palestinian standoff has once again spiraled into violence, how do Arab and Jewish Israelis view the conflict with Hamas and other important issues in the region? What is their opinion of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt? How do Israelis feel about the prospect of war with Iran and the deteriorating situation in Syria? Has the reelection of Barack Obama changed the Israeli public’s view of the United States?

Slideshow

2012 Israeli Public Opinion Poll

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2012 Israeli Public Opinion Poll

A public opinion poll conducted November 21-26, 2012.

On November 30, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings will host Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami for the release of his annual survey of Arab and Jewish Israeli public opinion. Telhami, the poll’s principal investigator and the Anwar Sadat professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, will present his research and key findings followed by a discussion with Dana Weiss, moderator of Channel 2 News’ “Meet the Press” in Israel. Senior Fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, will provide introductory remarks and moderate the discussion.

After the program, panelists will take audience questions.

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Attitudes Toward a Middle East in Crisis: Surveys of Arab and Jewish Opinion in Israel

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Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

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2012 Post-Election American Values Survey: Analyzing the Election and Looking ahead to the Budget Showdown

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Event Information

November 16, 2012
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EST

Fourth Estate Room
The National Press Club
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045

In October, the Public Religion Research Institute, in cooperation with Brookings, released PRRI’s 2012 American Values Survey (AVS). The survey showed that the coalitions making up the two major political parties are composed of distinctive religious subgroups with starkly different views on the economy, social issues, and the role of government. But what values and issues ultimately influenced voters’ choices, and what do these mean for the upcoming debates over budget priorities? Immediately after Americans cast their ballots, the Public Religion Research Institute returned to the field to ask how they felt about the election and what their priorities are for the future.

On November 16, the religion, policy and politics project at Brookings and PRRI will host a forum to release PRRI’s post-election research, including a call-back national post-election survey, a new post-election survey of Ohio voters and focus groups among white working-class voters in Ohio and Hispanic voters in North Carolina. The surveys will be conducted in the days following the election and will cover attitudes toward the candidates, reactions to the results, and the factors that most influenced voters’ choices. The surveys will also look ahead to the upcoming showdown over budget priorities, exploring values and attitudes on promoting economic growth and reducing the deficit. PRRI founder and CEO Robert P. Jones will present the survey results, and Brookings Senior Fellow E.J. Dionne, Jr. will discuss their implications. Melissa Deckman, Washington College, and John Sides, George Washington University, will offer their reactions to the survey and focus group findings as well.

After the program, panelists will take audience questions.

Transcript

Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20121116_american_values_transcript