Promoting Democracy. Manal A. Jamal
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in some cases as opposed to others. It begins with an examination of the divergent outcomes pertaining to democracy promotion in two cases of conflict-to-peace transitions, the Palestinian territories and El Salvador. It examines these developments at a more macro, general level in terms of democratic outcomes and then at the level of civil society by tracing transformations in one social movement sector—the women’s sector—in each case. The book then generalizes these findings by expanding the temporal and geographic aperture of the study. First, it examines developments in the Palestinian territories surrounding Hamas’s election victory in 2006. Then it expands this discussion to Iraq and South Africa to illustrate how the respective political settlements shaped the different outcomes and how Western donor assistance mediated these processes.
The more general discussion about the divergent democratic outcomes in the two cases brings the study to the present period. The more specific examination of developments in the women’s sectors in each case, however, focuses on the immediate post-settlement period.70 As opposed to a more recent examination, this time frame captures the immediate changes these societies underwent after the influx of postsettlement foreign donor assistance. This ten-year period allowed me to assess how the influx of postsettlement aid transformed the sector, as well as how it impacted the relations that transpired in the decade that followed. This time period also comprehensively captured the scope of transformation in each case in the postsettlement period; a more focused time period would not have encapsulated the breadth of organizational change and adjustment in each context. In this section of the study, I employed a structured, focused comparison that is historically sensitive but conducive to generalizing across cases. This method allowed for a more rigorous examination of the different outcomes by isolating certain variables. Political settlements are the key explanatory variable I examined. In keeping with the requirements for structured focused comparison, I collected data on the same variables across cases. I assessed the quality of civil society and prospects for democratic development by evaluating the extent to which different civil society groups forged horizontal linkages with one another, and their capacity to engage local and national levels of government. In both cases, I focused on the political centers, the Jerusalem-Ramallah access area in the Palestinian territories and San Salvador in El Salvador.
Research
This book draws from research conducted during five fieldwork trips: February 2002 to June 2002 in El Salvador, and June to October 2001, September to October 2006, July to August 2009, and August 2013 in Palestine. My research draws from over 150 formal semistructured and open-ended interviews. I conducted these interviews in the Palestinian Territories and El Salvador with grassroots activists, political leaders, directors and program officers in donor agencies, and directors of NGOs (for a more detailed discussion of interview case selection and sampling, refer to appendices I and II). My research also entailed participant observation, especially in terms of attending political events and protests and visiting professionalized organizations and the offices or headquarters of grassroots committees. It also relied heavily on the collection of primary and secondary materials, including newspaper articles, reports, government documents, and books in Arabic, English, and Spanish. I also examined in detail donor funding to El Salvador and the Palestinian territories, focusing more in depth on funding to civil society, democracy promotion, and women. This research project relied on several donor funding data sources, including primary reporting from donor agencies and NGOs, interviews with directors of donor agencies and NGOs, and country national-level reporting. To enhance data comparability and to corroborate and validate findings, the project also drew from data of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The Comparative Examination: Similarity and Divergence
The Palestinian and Salvadoran cases illustrate how the inclusivity of political settlements and the mediating role of Western donor assistance can lead to drastically divergent outcomes in cases that shared similar political and organizing trajectories during a certain phase of the respective conflicts. The comparison is across cases as well as between the presettlement and postsettlement periods in each case. Both cases experienced protracted conflicts in the latter part of the twentieth century. Furthermore, both contexts have also been shaped by extensive imperial encounters. The temporal parallels and similar trajectories of what became FMLN and PLO grassroots organizing justify this comparison. During the 1970s and 1980s, the political factions and organizations of the PLO and the FMLN both adopted policies of mass mobilization and established their own grassroots structures that included labor unions, agriculture unions, health unions, student groups, women’s groups, and various other professional unions. In the early 1990s, the Palestinian territories and El Salvador began conflict-to-peace transitions, and Western donors provided extensive donor assistance.
Notwithstanding the historical and temporal similarities, key features distinguished the Palestinian and Salvadoran cases. In the Palestinian case, the conflict was between Israel and the Palestinian territories and their main representative, the PLO, and based on a history of colonial settlement, land appropriation, and military occupation; Palestinians were internally divided vis-à-vis an external enemy and occupier.71 In El Salvador, the conflict was a civil war grounded in class conflict between the government of El Salvador and the FMLN—two domestic parties.72 Conceivably, a civil war resolution is more likely to involve a larger number of domestic actors, necessitating higher levels of domestic support as opposed to “interstate” conflict. The Salvadoran conflict also centered on class conflict and economic grievance, whereas the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was more political and polarized along national lines.73 Some would argue that the inequality-based differences in El Salvador were more amenable to amelioration than nationality-based differences. Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was complicated by its colonial settlement nature, and that the Palestinian leadership was predominately based abroad. It is important to note, however, that much of the Salvadoran FMLN leadership was also based abroad in the period before the peace accords. Very importantly, however, regardless of the type of conflict, polarization will result when a political settlement fails to garner the support of major domestic political actors or important societal constituencies. Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the internal divisions among Palestinians are rooted in political differences and not identity-based differences. Just as the economic basis of the conflict was not fully addressed in the Salvadoran case, the political bases of the conflict were not fully addressed in the Palestinian case.
Others may contend that the Palestinian territories do not constitute a full-fledged state, and that this accounts for the divergent outcomes. The WBGS, however, are recognized as a state and treated as such by the international community and by the people who inhabit that territory.74 Moreover, the PA is an institutionalized political organization that carries out the functions of a state, such as tax extraction, education, and health provision.75 I am also examining the impact of the political settlement and Western donor assistance on social movement sectors. These social movement sectors were able to organize before the establishment of the PA.
The political settlements also differed in terms of the stages embodied, the scope of the agreements, and, most significantly, the levels of inclusivity and extent of societal support they enjoyed. In the Palestinian case, the initial Declaration of Principles (DOP) culminated in agreements involving renegotiation and the spelling out of implementation details. Fatah, the leadership party, negotiated these agreements on behalf of the PLO. Although the accords in this case were meant to serve as only interim agreements and were nonbinding, they did not meet minimal Palestinian nationalist aspirations. Critics pointed out that the Palestinians had not received any guarantees for a future independent, sovereign, viable state, nor any guarantees to halt Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied territories. Ultimately, the Oslo peace process and related initiatives would enjoy little support among Palestinians in the territories.76 Most of the Palestinian political organizations, both leftist and Islamist, as well as prominent secular Palestinian intellectuals, did not support or endorse the peace accords. The renegotiation agreements did not expand beyond the bilateral, narrow participation of the PLO (represented by Fatah) and Israel that characterized the DOP interim agreements.77 While negotiations in the Palestinian context moved toward interim arrangements that sought independent statehood, in El Salvador negotiations moved toward a final and comprehensive agreement addressing human rights, land redistribution, and ex-combatant reintegration. Also, a United Nations peace