Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s military leader (in uniform, foreground), is seen at a polling station in Jan. 2014 for Egypt’s vote on constitutional reform. As democratic advances in Egypt (and Turkey) dissipate, many Egyptians support reinstating the very same elements they violently ousted in 2011. Photo: (AP Photo/Egyptian Defense Ministry via Facebook, File)
Last month I wrote about The Economist’s timely debate about how democracy is doing these days. For the final tally of the public vote, 69 percent agreed with me that concerns about the health of democracy are not overblown. Two chief concerns are Egypt and Turkey.
In an op-ed last week for “Christian Science Monitor,” Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski and Kristin Fabbe focused on the dangerous “derailment” of democracy in these countries, which not coincidentally are of tremendous geostrategic importance and key to regional stability. As they put it, free press, the rule of law, and civil liberties (and the civil society organizations that try to protect them) have come under “open assault” recently in both places. Accompanied by increasing derision of the impact of the United States.
Today’s Turkey does not appear to be the secular, democratic vision that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk worked so tirelessly to establish. In Egypt, the uplift and promise of the Arab Spring seem to have evaporated. In both cases democracy seems to be “backsliding,” with those in power reverting to more autocratic rule.
U.S. policy toward encouraging democracy in the Middle East often takes a backseat to what are considered more important interests. Also, it relies on punishment for bad behavior after the fact: see sanctions against Iran, reduction in military aid to Egypt. Perhaps the U.S. should consider rewarding good behavior instead. Create positive incentives for countries leaning away from democracy to return to it, and don’t seem like a watchdog that gets upset when things go wrong. Provide support where it is helpful, but let the impetus to democratize develop internally. That is the only way it will be considered legitimate.
In other words, U.S. policy should be proactive in helping democracy survive, not reactive in admonishing its decline. As Boduszynski and Fabbe state, “A failure to speak out against the erosion of liberty in Egypt and Turkey, which seem to be following in Russia’s authoritarian footsteps, not only damages America’s ideals and image but it harms long-term strategic U.S. interests.” I would add not only U.S. interests, but interests the world over, for all would be benefit from more stable and open Turkey and Egypt.
