U.S. “Hypocrisy” Damages Prospects for Democracy

Sarah Trister writes at The Christian Science Monitor that U.S. support for undemocratic regimes sends the message that “repressing civil society won’t interfere with a strategic relationship.” Trister cites Egypt as a prime example of a country which receives significant amounts of aid from the U.S. while effectively stifling the work of independent NGOs: “The Egyptian government has arbitrarily canceled NGO events and conferences, detained and deported NGO workers, and frozen funds of independent organizations.”

In a related article, Moataz A. Fattah, an associate professor of political science at Cairo University and Central Michigan University, looks at the effect that Western support of despotism in the Middle East has on democratic movements in the region. Fattah argues that “a number of studies found that the chances of success for home-grown spontaneous popular democratic movements are considerably lower than those for movements that enjoy regional or international support.” He then asks what conditions lead to Western support for democratic movements, saying that it is a “simple calculation of the balance of power,” where “Western condemnation [...] of election forgery in the Arab world is never as strong [...] because the oppressor is a friend and (the) aggrieved is a foe.”