Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Eastern and Western Perceptions on EU Aid in Light of the Arab Spring

2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17419166.2015.1006397

1741-9166

Beáta Paragi,

European Union Policy and Governance

AbstractThe European Union welcomed the demonstrators' demands wholeheartedly during the Arab Spring, trying to maximize the assistance that it could offer to support genuine democratic transition, at least at a rhetorical level. This article reflects on the changes in the neighborhood policy by focusing on public perceptions measured in Europe and in countries in close proximity to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. European views on solidarity are compared to local public opinion on EU involvement in the region. Recipient views in Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, and Israel are explored by analyzing relevant results of the Arab Barometer and Neighborhood Barometer surveys. Findings indicate that the Middle Eastern public opinion tends to appreciate the EU's gestures with the exception of Egypt, but conditionality is more in line with European public opinion.Keywords: Arab SpringConditionalityConditionsDemocracy-BuildingDevelopmentForeign AidPublic Opinion Notes1. See, for example, "It is now clear that all countries in the region, and all authoritarian regimes elsewhere, have to pay much more attention to the democratic aspirations and well-being of their populations" by Stephan Füle, Speech on the Recent Events in North Africa. Press Release, February 28, 2011 (Brussels: European Commission).2. The term Palestine denotes the territory of the Palestinian National Authority (West Bank and Gaza Strip).3. Israel is neither entitled to, nor in need of, development aid but receives billions of US military aid and, to some extent, is also affected by the development aid channeled to the Palestinian Territories (Palestine).4. The term was invented in January 2011—see, for example, Mark Lynch, "Obama's 'Arab Spring'?" Foreign Policy, January 6, 2011; and Dominique Moisi, "An Arab Spring," Project Syndicate, January 26, 2011.5. Ibid.6. Volker Perthes, "Europe and the Arab Spring," Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 53, no. 6 (2011): 73–84; Ricardo Alcaro and Miguel Haubrich-Seco, eds., "Rethinking Western Policies in Light of the Arab Uprisings," IAI Research Paper (Rome: IAI, 2012); Rosa Balfour, "EU Conditionality after the Arab Spring" IEMed Papers 16 (Barcelona: European Institute of the Mediterranean, 2012); Timo Behr, "The European Union's Mediterranean Policies after the Arab Spring: Can the Leopard Change Its Spots?" Amsterdam Law Forum 4, no. 2 (2012b): 76–88; Sylvia Colombo and Nathalie Tocci, "The EU Response to the Arab Uprising: Old Wine in New Bottles?" in Alcaro and Haubrich-Seco, eds., "Rethinking Western Policies in Light of the Arab Uprisings," 71–96; Andrea Teti, "The EU's First Response to the Arab Spring: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity," Mediterranean Politics 17, no. 3 (2012): 266–283; Ahmed Driss "The EU Response to the Arab Uprising: A Show of Ambivalence"' in Alcaro and Haubrich-Seco, eds., "Rethinking Western Policies in Light of the Arab Uprisings," 97–110; Rosemary Hollis, "No Friend of Democratization: Europe's Role in the Genesis of Arab Spring," International Affairs 88, no. 1 (2012): 81–94; Federica Bicchi and Benedetta Voltolini, "EU Democracy Assistance in the Mediterranean: What Relationship with the Arab Uprisings?" Democracy and Security 9, nos. 1–2 (2013): 80–99; Sally K. Isaac, "Rethinking the New ENP: A Vision for an Enhanced European Role in the Arab Revolutions," Democracy and Security 9, nos. 1–2 (2013): 40–60; Nathalie Tocci, "EU and the Arab Spring," Seminar with Nathalie Tocci from the Istituto Affari Internazionali on the EU's response to the Arab spring, April 11 (Oslo: NUPI, 2013), available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9NMfhU4rdo; Ingeborg Tömmel, "The New Neighborhood Policy of the EU: An Appropriate Response to the Arab Spring?" Democracy and Security 9, nos. 1–2 (2013): 19–39; Andrea Teti, D. Thomson, and C. Noble, C. "EU Democracy Assistance Discourse in its New Response to a Changing Neighborhood," Democracy and Security 9, nos. 1–2 (2013): 61–79; Richard Gillespie, "The European Neighborhood Policy and the Challenge of the Mediterranean Southern Rim," in Mario Telo and Frederik Ponjaert, eds., The EU's Foreign Policy: What Kind of Power and Diplomatic Action? (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 121–133.7. Hollis, "No Friend of Democratization," 81.8. Driss "The EU Response," 100.9. Throughout the text, foreign aid and related conditionality is understood as a lever "to buy and maintain friendship, forge alliances" and to promote objectives being different from the jointly agreed objectives of the (development, humanitarian) cooperation. Its key component is "the use of pressure, by the donor, in terms of threatening to terminate aid, or actually terminating or reducing it" if the conditions are not met by the recipient (Olav Stokke, ed., Aid and Political Conditionality (London: Frank Cass, 1995), 3, 11–12).10. Tömmel, "The New Neighborhood Policy of the EU."11. European Commission and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Joint Communication to the European Council, the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, A Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean. Brussels, March 8, 2011, COM(2011) 200 final; European Commission and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Joint Communication to the European Council, the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, A New Response to a Changing Neighborhood. Brussels, May 25, 2011, COM(2011) 303; Teti, "The EU's First Response"; Teti et al., "EU Democracy Assistance Discourse."12. European Commission and High Representative, "A Partnership," p. 3, 5.13. Balfour, "EU Conditionality after the Arab Spring," 17, 19.14. Colombo and Tocci, "The EU Response to the Arab Uprising"; Behr, "The European Union's Mediterranean Policies after the Arab Spring."15. Alexander Meiklejohn, Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government (New York: Harper Brothers, 1948), 10.16. Cited by Chris Demaske Modern Power and Free Speech: Contemporary Culture and Issues of Equality (Lexington Books, 2011), 11.17. European Commission and High Representative, "A Partnership," p. 3.18. Cf. "the essence of the Wilsonian concept of self-determination consisted of the notion of self-government of peoples" (M. K. Nawaz, "The Meaning and Range of Self-Determination," Duke International Law 14, no. 1 (1965): 82–101, 84, http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol14/iss1/.19. Mary B. Anderson et al., Time to Listen. Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid (Cambridge, MA: CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, 2012).20. Mohamed Elagati, Foreign Funding in Egypt After the Revolution (Madrid, Spain: FRIDE, Arab Forum for Alternatives & HIVOS, 2013). http://fride.org/download/WP_EGYPT.pdf21. Ole, R. Holsti, Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy (University of Michigan Press, 2009).22. Helen V. Milner and Dustin Tingley, "Public Opinion and Foreign Aid: A Review Essay," International Interactions. Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 39, no. 3 (2013): 389–401; Robert A. Zimmerman, "The Determinants of Foreign Aid. An Inquiry into the Consequences of Welfare State Institutions and Public Opinion" (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, Political Science Department, 2007), http://www.oecd.org/dev/40699467.pdf23. Polly, J. Diven and John Constantelos "Explaining Generosity: A Comparison of US and European Public Opinion on Foreign Aid," Journal of Transatlantic Studies 7, no. 2 (2009): 118–132.24. EU Neighborhood barometer (NB) aims to generate an analysis tool for EuropeAid and the EU delegations in the neighboring territories about the population knowledge and perception of the EU, ENP, and its cooperation programs. Since spring (summer) 2012, five waves of opinion polls were conducted (two in each year, one in 2014) in the Eastern and Southern Neighborhood. Details on data collection (date of survey, polling institute, sample size) can be found in the reports called "analytical reports" at http://euneighbourhood.eu/eu-neighbourhood-barometer-data/25. The Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2014. Middle East and North Africa (2014).26. Mark Taylor, "Ich bin ein Araber," Blog post, The Laws of Rule, February 4 (2011), http://www.lawsofrule.net/about/mark-taylor/ich-bin-ein-araber/27. L. Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984); Ghassan Salamé, ed., Democracy without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World (London: I. B. Tauris, 1994; Rex Brynen et al., eds., Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World. Vol. I–II (Boulder, CO: L. Rienner, 1998); Mark Tessler et al., eds., Area Studies and Social Science: Strategies for Understanding Middle East Politics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); Raymond A. Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami, The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (London: Lynne Rienner, 2002); Larry Diamond et al., Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); Shireen T. Hunter, Modernization, Democracy and Islam (London: Praeger, 2005); Fred Halliday, The Middle East in International Relations (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Frederic Volpi and Francesco Cavatorta, eds., Democratization in the Muslim World: Changing Patterns of Authority and Power (London: Routledge, 2007); others.28. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978).29. Malcolm Kerr, "Edward Said and Orientalism," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 12, no. 4 (December 1980): 544–547.30. Rami Khouri, "Drop the Orientalist Term, Arab Spring," Daily Star (Beirut), August 17, 2011.31. Mansoor Moaddel, The Birthplace of the Arab Spring: Values and Perceptions of Tunisians and a Comparative Assessment of Egyptian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Pakistani, Saudi, Tunisian, and Turkish Public. MEVS Report (University of Maryland, 2013), 11, http://mevs.org/files/tmp/Tunisia_FinalReport.pdf32. Rex Brynen et al., ed., Beyond the Arab Spring. Authoritarianism and Democratization in the Arab World (Boulder, CO: L. Rienner, 2012), 3.33. Nadia Molenaers, "The Great Divide? Donor Perceptions of Budget Support, Eligibility and Policy Dialogue," Third World Quarterly 33, no. 5 (2012): 791–806, p. 798.34. Europeans and Development Aid. Special Eurobarometer 280 (Brussels: TNS Opinion & Social and EuropeAid 2007), p. 7; Making a Difference in the world. Europeans and the Future of Development Aid. Special Eurobarometer 375 (Brussels: TNS Opinion & Social and EuropeAid 2011), p. 13.35. It is beyond the scope of this article (due to page limits) to analyze the differences.36. EU Development Aid and the Millennium Development Goals. Special Eurobarometer 405 (Brussels: TNS Opinion & Social and EuropeAid, 2013).37. European Development Aid and the Millennium Development Goals. Special Eurobarometer 352 (Brussels: TNS Opinion & Social and EuropeAid, 2010), 8; EU Development Aid and the Millennium Development Goals. Special Eurobarometer 405.38. Khouri, "Drop the Orientalist Term."39. Dimitris K. Xenakis, "Order and Change in the Euro-Mediterranean System," Mediterranean Quarterly 11, no. 1 (2000): 75–90.40. Tocci, "EU and the Arab Spring."41. Sheila Carapico, "Foreign Aid for Promoting Democracy in the Arab World," Middle East Journal 56, no. 3 (2002): 379–395; Sheila Carapico, Political Aid and Arab Activism: Democracy Promotion, Justice, and Representation (Cambridge University Press, 2013).42. Bicchi and Voltolini, "EU Democracy Assistance in the Mediterranean."43. Samir Karam, "US Priorities in Egypt: Military or Democratic?" Al Monitor, February 7, 2012, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/fr/contents/articles/politics/2012/02/egyptian-us-ties-military-or-dem.html#44. Attitudes towards Development Aid. Special Eurobarometer 222 (Brussels, TNS Opinion & Social and EuropeAid, 2005), 44.45. Making a Difference in the World. Special Eurobarometer 375.46. Ibid., 28–34; 56–57.47. European Commission and High Representative, "A New Response to a Changing Neighborhood."48. Isaac, "Rethinking the New ENP," 48.49. The Council of the European Union, Council Conclusions on Egypt. Foreign Affairs Council meeting (Brussels, August 21, 2013).50. Timo Behr, "Talking about the Revolution: Narratives on the Origin and Future of the Arab Spring," IEMed Papers 9 (Barcelona: European Institute of the Mediterranean, 2012a); Brynen et al., ed., "Beyond the Arab Spring"; Jan Völkel et al., The Arab Spring: One Year After. Transformation Dynamics, Prospects for Democratization and the Future of Arab-European Co-operation (Gutersloh: Bertelsmann, 2012); Francesco Cavatorta and Michelle Pace, "The Arab Uprisings in Theoretical Perspectives," Mediterranean Politics 17, no. 2 (2012): 125–138; El Din, 2013; Moaddel, "The Birthplace of the Arab Spring"; Shibley Telhami, The World through Arab Eyes (New York: Basic Books, 2013), others.51. Telhami, "The World through Arab Eyes."52. Arab Barometer, Wave II. Public Opinion Survey, 2010–2011; Arab Barometer, Wave III. Public Opinion Survey, 2012–2014, Data files available at http://www.arabbarometer.org/53. Neighborhood Barometer. South, Wave 1-2, Spring and Autumn 2012 (Brussels: TNS Opinion); Neighborhood Barometer. South, Wave 3-4, Spring and Autumn 2013 (Brussels: TNS Opinion); Barometre du voisinage de L'UE. Sud de la Méditerranée. Printemps 2014. South, Wave 5, Spring 2014 (Brussels TNS Opinion). Results available at http://euneighbourhood.eu/eu-neighbourhood-barometer-data/. Contrary to the labels (Spring, Autumn), the surveys were carried out during the summer months (between May and August depending on the year and country) and early winter (between November and January, mostly in December).54. As Conclusions of the Council of the European Union (August 2013, February 2014) say, budgetary assistance is not available to those governments that are not ready to cooperate with European norms (cf. the military takeover in summer 2013). The conclusions list at length the democratic values and principles in order to explain that only "assistance in the socio-economic sector and to civil society will continue" to Egypt; see The Council of the European Union, "Council Conclusions on Egypt. Foreign Affairs Council meeting" (Brussels, August 21, 2013; The Council of the European Union, "Council Conclusions on Egypt. Foreign Affairs Council meeting" (Brussels, February 10, 2014).55. MEM (2014) "Egyptian Foreign Ministry Slams EU Council Conclusions" Middle East Monitor, February 11, 2014, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/9690-egyptian-foreign-ministry-slams-eu-council-conclusions56. European Court of Auditors, "European Union Direct Financial Support to the Palestinian Authority," Special Report 14/2013 (Luxembourg: European Court of Auditors, 2013.57. European Court of Auditors, "European Co-operation with Egypt"; The Council of the European Union, "Council Conclusions on Egypt. Foreign Affairs Council Meeting" (Brussels, August 21, 2013).58. The principal aim of the donor community was to support the Oslo Peace Process in line with the spirit of the Declaration of Principles (DOP) signed by Israel and the Palestinian Liberalization Organization (PLO) by adjusting to the background provided by the multilateral regional framework established after the Madrid Conference (1991). As worded in the Co-Sponsors Summary of the first meeting conveyed by international actors in the shadow of the DOP ceremony, the donors officially sought to pursue "twin goals" in terms of immediate and longer-term actions: to have a short-term impact on economic prospects and living standards, to ensure that longer-term assistance lays the basis for launching sustained growth (Conference to Support the Middle East. Co-Sponsors Summary 1993). For more on international support and foreign aid channeled to the PNA, see Brynen (2000), Le More (2008), and Tagdishi-Rad (2011).59. Two legislative elections were held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the beginning of the Oslo Peace Process—the first in 1996, the second in 2006. In the January 2006 parliamentary elections, Hamas (List of Reform and Change) won a decisive majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council (it gained 74 seats of the 132), defeating the PLO-affiliated Fatah party, the main partner for peace with Israel and partner for cooperation with the donor community. Reactions from Israel and the Western (OECD DAC) donor community led to governmental crisis and the split between Hamas (gaining control over the Gaza Strip) and Fatah (keeping its position in the West Bank). In June 2007, Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the government led by Ismail Haniye and appointed Salam Fayyad as a prime minister. This move and the reforms implemented by Fayyad (and financed by the donor community) led to further rifts between the leadership sponsored by the international community and the PLO/Fatah.60. Khalil Nakhleh, The Myth of Palestinian Development. Political Aid and Sustainable Deceit (Jerusalem: PASSIA, 2004); Anne LeMore, Political Guilt, Wasted Money International Assistance to the Palestinians after Oslo (London: Routledge, 2008); Sahar Taghdisi-Rad, The Political Economy of Aid in Palestine: Relief from Conflict or Development Delayed? (London: Routledge, 2010).61. European Court of Auditors: "European Union Direct Financial Support to the Palestinian Authority."62. Nakhleh, "The Myth of Palestinian Development"; Ghada Karmi, "With No Palestinian State in Sight, Aid Becomes an Adjunct to Occupation," Guardian online, December 1, 2005, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/31/comment.israelandthepalestinians; Khalil Nakhleh, Globalized Palestine. The National Sell-out of a Homeland (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 2011).63. To capture and measure local perceptions of Western assistance, 21 in-depth individual and three mini-focus group semistructured interviews were conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in July and August 2010. The respondents were all men between 30 and 60 years old (mean age close to 50). Their places of living (and that of work) were Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Gaza City. All of them had some solid experience with the dynamics of foreign assistance channeled to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. All interviews were semistructured containing a series of open-ended questions concentrating on three main areas: (i) basic concepts and local interpretations of international assistance; (ii) past and present experiences with foreign aid and future expectations regarding its role and impact; and (iii) the perceived priorities of Western foreign assistance with reference to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Interviews were conducted in Arabic; transcripts were translated to English by the two interviewers, both of them local staff. Transcripts of the interviews were processed by the means of manual discourse analysis. Main findings of the research are presented in, Beata Paragi, "First impressions and perceived roles: Palestinian perceptions on foreign aid." Society and Economy 35, no. 1 (2012): 389–410; and Beata Paragi, "The Spiritual Essence: Palestinian Perceptions on Foreign Aid, Conditionality and Reciprocity." International Political Anthropology 5, no. 1 (2012): 3–28.64. Nora Murad, "An Alternative to International Aid." Blog post, March 9, 2014, http://www.noralestermurad.com/65. ADGC 2011: 24; Mohamed Younis and Ahmed Younis, "Egyptian Opposition to US and Other Foreign Aid Increases," Gallup, March 29, 2012, http://www.gallup.com/poll/153512/egyptian-opposition-foreign-aid-increases.aspx66. Marlene Spoerri, "Outrage over Egypt's Arrest of NGO Workers, but US Would Have Done the Same," Christian Science Monitor (February 13, 2014).67. Mohannad Sabry, "How Egypt's Protest Law Brought Down the Revolution," Al-Monitor (September 9, 2014), http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/egypt-protest-law-courts-ruling-abdel-fattah.html#ixzz3Ez9Deg0068. Hanaa Ebeid is quoted by Soha Bayoumi, "The External Image of the European Union. The Report on Egypt," Garnet Report 17/07 (2007), http://www.academia.edu/185475/The_External_Image_of_the_European_Union_Report_on_Egypt: 4.69. The semistructured personal interviews were conducted in December 2012 in Cairo by the Arab Forum for Alternatives: in order to examine the local vision of foreign funds, a sample of 30 people involved in the various fields associated with foreign funding (10 from civil society, five from political parties, five from the media, five from funding organizations, and five from relevant government institutions) were interviewed. The meetings attempted to explore their opinions on funding in general, the extent of their knowledge on the subject, and their opinions on funding-related issues, whether regarding funding for media, politics, or CSOs in Egypt (Elagati, "Foreign Funding in Egypt").70. Ibid.71. Janine A. Clark "Relations between Professional Associations and the State in Jordan," in Francesco Cavatorta, ed., Civil Society Activism under Authoritarian Rule (London: Routledge, 2013), 158–180.72. Interview with a Jordanian official working at the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, Amman, February 23, 2014.73. Interview with officials working at the EU Delegation Office, Amman, February 23, 2014.74. Interview with a Jordanian official working at the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, Amman, February 23, 2014.75. Behr, "Talking about the Revolution," 85.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the European Union under a Marie Curie IEF grant (AIDINMENA project, 2013–2015, grant number: PIEF-GA-2012-327088, host institute: Fafo, Oslo).