Tag: Somalia
Odd duck
I livetweeted Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s appearance in Washington at SETA (a Turkish thinktank for political, economic social research) yesterday, but the performance merited more. Maybe my numerous Turkish readers will find it interesting, even if the Americans don’t. I rarely attend such high-level public events, as little new gets said.
But Erdogan did not disappoint. Speaking in Turkish (I was listening to the simultaneous translation), his main theme was this:
no justice means no humanity, no dignity, and no peace.
He went on to talk about the “bottom billion” living on less than $1 per day, most of whom are innocent children, as well as the suffering in Somalia and Darfur. Personally moved by starvation and circumcision done with a simple knife on several children, he underlined the injustice of racism and discrimination, referring in particular to violence against Muslims in Myanmar.
Lack of justice in one place is a threat to justice elsewhere. Palestine is not a territorial issue but a justice issue. Israeli settlements are making a two-state solution impossible. Israel should release Palestinian prisoners and end the blockade. Hamas will have to be at the negotiating table. It was elected and then denied the right to govern. Israel has apologized for its raid on the Turkish aid flotilla. Compensation is under discussion. Then Turkey will press for an end to the occupation.
The twentieth century was one of war and injustice. The twenty-first century should be one of peace and justice. Turkish policy is based on justice and humanity. This is why Turkey supported the people in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria. But the UN Security Council is doing nothing. The system is blocked, and wrong. Humanity cannot be in the hands of one or two countries; the system has to be changed. Events like those of the 1990s in Bosnia and Rwanda are happening again, but the Security Council is doing nothing.
A world in which babies are slaughtered is not a religious world. This is not honorable and it makes me mad. When you witness things of this sort, you have a responsibility. Why is the media not covering the slaughter in Banias (Syria)? The babies dying are not only their parents, but also ours. You have to act. You have to stop these things. Society shares responsibility for this evil. There is a need for global conscience and justice. We have to see that the elements bringing us together are stronger than those that drive us apart. We have to help the poor and the weak. We cannot step on each other and remain connected to our ideals and faith.
Somewhere around this point, Erdogan took a diversion that I wasn’t able to capture tweeting but I’ll try to reproduce here. God’s justice, he said, is ever present but manifests itself at different times and places. He reminded the audience of the Koranic phrase
Bismillah al rahman al rahim
This is generally translated
In the name of God, most Gracious, most Compassionate
But, Erdogan said, its real meaning is that God has two aspects. The first he shows to everyone on earth during their lifetimes. This is the same for everyone (most Gracious). The second is reserved for the faithful in the afterlife (most Compassionate). I’m no theologian, but this struck me as a millenarian concept rather similar to that of the raptured Christians or the Puritans’ “elect.” No ecumenism in this second aspect. Only true believers enter heaven.
I imagine some aide in the front row was figuratively urging him to move on at this point, which is what he did. Turkey will fulfill its obligations, Erdogan said. We want to see more countries concerned about Syria, where the regime does not control much of the territory but uses its weapons to fire on the population. Asad has fired hundreds of missiles and used sarin gas.
President Obama is trying to do the right thing, but what is needed is UN Security Council action, which would accelerate the process. Russia needs to step forward. Turkey will continue to cooperate with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
In the Q and A, Erdogan said he would go soon to Gaza and the West Bank (he did not mention Israel). He is against war, but sometimes justice requires it. The clergy should help us avoid getting to that point by reaching across borders. An EU/US trade agreement is a fine idea, but it will need to take into account Turkey’s interests, as Turkey has a customs union with the EU. Turkey will continue to press China on respecting the rights of the Uighurs.
The session ended without questions about Kurds inside Turkey, imprisonment of journalists or other human rights violations. As questions were submitted in writing, the moderator presumably tossed those.
This is an odd duck: a religious and social conservative who has instituted vigorous free market economic reforms but also holds liberal internationalist views on the world, while ignoring those views when it comes to internal politics and human rights.
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The UN’s challenges
I’ve been in New York since Thursday, unable to tweet or blog due to inexplicable wireless router problems at the home of friends, where we were staying. My focus was naturally on the UN, where the renovation of the Secretariat building is said to be nearing completion but you wouldn’t know it from the way it looks. I hope the people who move back in are feeling more renovated than the facility.
Here’s a quick list of things I’ve learned:
- Lots of angst at the UN about its expanding role in peace enforcement operations. In Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali, UN forces are being asked to go beyond impartiality to combat bad guys, some of whom may not be a lot worse than the folks the UN is helping. Life is complicated.
- The war in Syria is presenting enormous difficulties to the UN observers in Golan, where the UN staff is subject to threats, intimidation, kidnapping and murder. Troop contributing countries are withdrawing their soldiers, the rebels are using the neutral zone to mount operations and the Syrian army is lobbying artillery shells that occasionally land in Israel.
- Some countries are nevertheless pledging troops conditionally for post-war Syria. Lakhtar Brahimi will stay on as a personal representative of the Secretary General to help prepare contingency plans while possibly resigning his more formal mandates from the Security Council and the Arab League, which has seated the Syrian opposition coalition in Damascus’ place.
- Some folks think it would be a good idea to keep the UN out of stabilization operations altogether: it lacks understanding of local situations, imposes insensitive, standardized approaches, is opaque and unaccountable and leaves behind pathologies like prostitution and trafficking, not to mention the warlords it helps install in power and teaches the finer arts of corruption by shortcircuiting proper procurement procedures in the name of urgency.
- In any event, everyone is expecting financial stringency as a result of the American sequester. I expect the Americans, if they can overcome their ideological distaste for the UN, to load it up with more tasks, not fewer, as they do triage and and toss the lower priorities in the UN’s direction whenever the Security Council permits. It was pretty clearly a mistake not to have a beefier UN mission in Libya, for example, to help with demobilization and retintegration of the militias that are wrecking havoc with the transition, aided by a disappointing performance from the parliament elected last summer.
The UN reminds me of the High Line, New York’s elevated freight railroad spur now converted to an elongated park (where I spent an hour this morning, see the photos below). Created under different conditions for different purposes, the High Line has been repurposed and is now playing a starring role as a people magnet, attracting tourists and New Yorkers alike.
The UN was created in San Francisco to ensure post-World War II peace and security and to that end:
- to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
- To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
- To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
- To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
The circumstances were very different in 1945, but these purposes remain valid, far more so than during the Cold War. What the UN needs more than repurposing is reform to ensure that it has the knowledge, talents and resources to meet its high purposes in a 21st century environment.
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All planes to Mogadishu are full
SAIS master’s student Solvej Krause reports:
A Georgetown University event last week brought together civil society representatives from Somalia, US-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that operate in Somalia, and a US State Department representative to discuss recent developments in stabilization and statebuilding in Somalia. The tone of all four speakers was surprisingly optimistic. “All planes going into Mogadishu are full,”said Abdurashid Ali, who runs an NGO based in Minneapolis and Garowe, Puntland. State Department officer Rob Satrom said that for the first time he is getting calls from US-based Somalis wanting to move back to Somalia. The panel agreed that the formation of the new government and the election of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud are reasons for cautious optimism.
Speakers
Abdurashid Ali, Executive Director, Somali Family Services
Eric Robinson, Senior Program Officer, Horn of Africa, National Endowment for Democracy
Steven Hansch, Relief International, Board Member, Professor at GWU
Rob Satrom, Somalia Desk Officer, State Department, Bureau of African Affairs
Background
For the first time since the collapse of Siad Barre’s dictatorship in 1991, the US government officially recognized the Somali government in Mogadishu in late January 2013. President Hassan Sheikh met President Obama in Washington last month, a sign of the strong US support for the burgeoning governance structures in Somalia, the former “failed state” poster child . The Somalis on the panel spoke of the current period as “the end of the transition period” in Somalia, even though in many respects this is only the beginning.
Official recognition by the US means that Somalia is now eligible to receive development assistance from USAID and other development agencies. Without an internationally recognized government, Somalia has long been unable to receive any direct governmental development assistance. Somaliland, the autonomous and largely peaceful region in Northern Somalia, suffers the same fate. Its politicians frequently complain about the lack of recognition by the international community. But the chances of recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state are now lower than ever, despite the region’s remarkable success in stabilization, the development of robust trade links to the Gulf, and a shift from clan-based politics to multiethnic democratic governance.
Steven Hansch from Relief International traced the history of US humanitarian involvement in Somalia. The US began delivering food aid to Somalia during the Ogaden War in 1978. In 1992, following a devastating famine in the Horn of Africa, the US intervened launched “Operation Restore Hope,” originally a military intervention on humanitarian grounds. But once the intervention was under way, the mandate shifted to governance. In 2009/10, food aid to Somalia was interrupted and foreign aid workers had to be evacuated because of a dangerous rise in kidnappings of foreigners. The anti-terrorism agenda in Somalia often got in the way of the humanitarian agenda. Hansch believes Congress must to revisit the Patriot Act to ensure that anti-terrorism objectives do not prevent the delivery of food aid. Other points made by Hansch:
- There is currently a big debate among governments and NGOs about the role of the UN in Somalia. A proposal to unite the different UN agencies into one integrated mission is on the table. This move is meant to improve the efficacy of the UN’s humanitarian and stabilization work in Somalia. Hansch is strongly against this proposal because he does not want humanitarian aid to get caught up with the UN’s more political functions. This is also the view of the UK, which wants to keep the different branches separate, while the US is formally for integration. In Liberia, the UN led an integrated mission. According to Hansch, it was a complete disaster.
- The situation of Somali refugees in Kenya is precarious. There were more than 976,000 refugees in Kenya and Ethiopia in 2012. The Kenyan government recently announced its intention to round up Somali refugees and send them to camps. Is this a matter that UNHCR should handle or should the US government act?
Rob Satrom from the Somalia Desk at the State Department said that the previous US-backed government (the Transitional Federal Government) was largely operated out of Nairobi and widely regarded as corrupt. In 2012, elections in Somalia could not be held due to instability. The number of members of parliament was reduced from 550 down to 250. To the surprise of everyone, the former president of the TFG was not reelected. Satrom called the new president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud a “pretty credible player.”
- Since 2007, the US has provided a little over $400 million in assistance to Somalia. The US government is keen for Somalia to develop a more professional national army. But the USG does not provide any funds directly to the Somali government, because leakage, corruption and diversion of funds pose a huge problem.
- Satrom stressed the destructive role of Al Shabaab, an Al Qaeda-linked militia, during the famine last year. The group banned 18 organizations from delivering food aid in the country. Satrom believes that this is one of the reasons why the Somali population has turned against Al Shabaab. Until one year ago, Al Shabaab carried the day but today the tables have turned.
Eric Robinson is half Somali and works for the National Endowment for Democracy, a Congressionally funded organization founded by President Reagan in 1983 to promote democracy abroad. NED invests $1.1 million in projects in Somalia – South, Puntland and Somaliland. He stressed that democracy cannot solely be viewed as an end in itself in Somalia: “…democracy has to deliver. People want to see service delivery. Somalis have seen other people do things in their country. They’ve never seen Somalis doing things in their country.” There is huge resentment towards the UN in Somalia due to its failure to provide stability and provision of ineffectual projects. What matters most for Somalia now, is “delivering things that aren’t conferences or UN compounds,” said Robinson.
- Turkey is getting a lot of credit for the development work they do in Somalia. According to Robinson, this credit is deserved, but he adds that it is easier for Turks to operate inside Somalia than for Americans or Europeans because of their shared religious beliefs and greater cultural affinity.
- One of Somalia’s biggest problems right now is corruption. “Billions are stolen with impunity”, says Robinson. But establishing rule of law and security means that ministries have to be trusted with money. Robinson called for a new “on the fly” audit mechanism to verify how money is spent.
- Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson’s ‘Dual Track Policy’ to engage all Somali political actors as long as they are not supporting Al-Shabaab did not deliver. The impact of the policy is not felt on the ground, says Robinson.
- Puntland is moving forward with municipal elections. They do not want sovereignty, according to Robinson. New political associations are being formed in Puntland and Robinson is curious to see whether they will be multi-clan or single clan. He recommends caution: “There is no way they are ready for one person, one vote by May.”
- It is getting safer in Mogadishu and it is getting more dangerous in Somaliland, particularly around Burao. Many Al-Shabaab leaders are from southern Somaliland and they are getting pushed back into Somaliland. There is an Al Qaeda presence in southern Puntland. The problem with Al-Shabaab is that the traditional clan-based rules of protection based on diya (blood money, trading captured people between clans) are “out of the window”.
Abdurashid Ali is the executive director of Somali Family Services, an NGO based in Minneapolis and his native Puntland. For the first time in Somalia’s post-1991 history, he says people are hopeful about the future. Somali expats are returning to Mogadishu where the security situation is improving. “All flights into Mogadishu are full.”
- Negotiating with Al Shabaab as a political group is not an option for Ali.
- He is skeptical about building a national army from Mogadishu because this would inevitably empower one clan over another. Central government funds should be distributed to all regions.
- Federalism is the answer to Somalia’s governance problems. Ali calls clan politics “a cancer.” Using the clan to get to power is not the answer. Clan politics are not going anywhere in Somalia. We have learned that.
- Ali criticizes those who say that “traditional” (i.e. clan-based) forms of politics should be accepted as the norm and believe that democracy does not stand a chance in Somalia: “Who the hell does not want to have a stake in his life? Who does not want a say in how he is governed?” Who does not want a say in how he is governed?” He notes that the clans were used by Western colonial powers to mobilize people in Somalia.
- Demobilization is one of the hardest challenges in Somalia today. Members of clan militias who were given AK 47s and left their nomadic lifestyle have nowhere to return to.
- He is excited to see a multi-clan leadership of a new Puntland party. The question is whether the elected representatives will surround themselves with their own clan members or commit themselves to multi-clan, multi-party democratic politics.
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Prevent what?
Most of us who work on international affairs think it would be much better to use diplomacy to prevent bad things from happening rather than waiting until the aftermath and then cleaning up after the elephants, which all too often involves expensive military action. But what precisely would that mean? What do we need to prevent?
The Council on Foreign Relations survey of prevention priorities for 2013 was published last week, just in time to be forgotten in the Christmas rush and New Year’s lull. It deserves notice, as it is one of the few nonpartisan attempts to define American national security priorities. This year’s edition was in part crowd-sourced and categorizes contingencies on two dimensions: impact on U.S. interests (high, medium, low) and likelihood (likely, plausible, unlikely).
Syria comes out on top in both dimensions. That’s a no-brainer for likelihood, as the civil war has already reached catastrophic dimensions and is affecting the broader region. Judging from Paul Stares’ video introduction to the survey, U.S. interests are ranked high in part because of the risk of use or loss of chemical weapons stocks. I’d have ranked them high because of the importance of depriving Iran of its one truly reliable ally and bridge to Hizbollah, but that’s a quibble.
CFR ranks another six contingencies as high impact on U.S. interests and only plausible rather than likely. This isn’t so useful, but Paul’s video comes to the rescue: an Israeli military strike on Iran that would “embroil” the U.S. and conflict with China in the East or South China seas are his picks to talk about. I find it peculiar that CFR does not treat what I would regard as certainly a plausible if not a likely contingency: a U.S. attack on Iran. There are few more important decisions President Obama will need to make than whether to use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Certainly it is a far more challenging decision than whether to go to war against China in the territorial disputes it is generating with U.S. allies in Pacific. I don’t know any foreign policy experts who would advise him to go in that direction.
It is striking that few of the other “plausible” and high-impact contingencies are amenable to purely military responses:
- a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure
- a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally
- severe internal instability in Pakistan, triggered by a civil-military crisis or terror attack
It is not easy to determine the origin of cyberattacks, and not clear that a military response would be appropriate or effective. The same is also sometimes true of mass casualty attacks; our military response to 9/11 in Afghanistan has enmired the United States in its longest war to date, one where force is proving inadequate as a solution. It is hard to imagine any military response to internal instability in Pakistan, though CFR offers as an additional low probability contingency a possible U.S. military confrontation with Islamabad “triggered by a terror attack or U.S. counterterror operations.”
In the “moderate” impact on U.S. interests, CFR ranks as highly likely “a major erosion of security in Afghanistan resulting from coalition drawdown.” I’d certainly have put that in high impact category, as we’ve still got 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and a significant portion of them will still be there at the end of 2013. In the “moderate” impact but merely plausible category CFR ranks:
- a severe Indo-Pakistan crisis that carries risk of military escalation, triggered by a major terror attack
- a severe North Korean crisis caused by another military provocation, internal political instability, or threatening nuclear weapons/ICBM-related activities
- a significant increase in drug trafficking violence in Mexico that spills over into the United States
- continuing political instability and emergence of a terrorist safe haven in Libya
Again there are limits to what we can do about most of these contingencies by conventional military means. Only a North Korea crisis caused by military provocation or threats would rank be susceptible to a primarily military response. The others call for diplomatic and civilian responses in at least a measure equal to the possible military ones.
CFR lets two “moderate” impact contingencies languish in the low probability category that I don’t think belong there:
- political instability in Saudi Arabia that endangers global oil supplies
- renewed unrest in the Kurdish dominated regions of Turkey and the Middle East
There is a very real possibility in Riyadh of a succession crisis, as the monarchy on the death of the king will likely move to a next generation of contenders. Kurdish irredentist aspirations are already a big issue in Iraq and Syria. It is hard to imagine this will not affect Iran and Turkey before the year is out. Neither is amenable to a purely military response.
Most of the contingencies with “low” impact on U.S. interests are in Africa:
- a deepening of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo that involves military intervention from its neighbors
- growing popular unrest and political instability in Sudan
- military conflict between Sudan and South Sudan
- renewed ethnic violence in Kenya surrounding March 2013 presidential election
- widespread unrest in Zimbabwe surrounding the electoral process and/or the death of Robert Mugabe
- failure of a multilateral intervention to push out Islamist groups from Mali’s north
This may tell us more about CFR and the United States than about the world. Africa has little purchase on American sentiments, despite our half-Kenyan president. All of these contingencies merit diplomatic attention, but none is likely to excite U.S. military responses of more than a purely emergency character, except for Mali. If you’ve got a few Islamist terrorists, you can get some attention even if you are in Africa.
What’s missing from this list? CFR mentions
…a third Palestinian intifada, a widespread popular unrest in China, escalation of a U.S.-Iran naval clash in the Persian Gulf, a Sino-Indian border crisis, onset of elections-related instability and violence in Ethiopia, unrest in Cuba following the death of Fidel Castro and/or incapacitation of Raul Castro, and widespread political unrest in Venezuela triggered by the death or incapacitation of Hugo Chavez.
I’d add intensification of the global economic slowdown (high probability, high impact), failure to do more about global warming (also high probability, delayed impact), demographic or financial implosion in Europe or Japan (and possibly even the U.S.), Russian crackdown on dissent, and resurgent Islamist extremism in Somalia. But the first three of these are not one-year “contingencies,” which shows one limit of the CFR exercise.
I would also note that the world is arguably in better shape at the end of 2012 than ever before in history. As The Spectator puts it:
Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.
May it last.
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Wisdom, not resolve
I’m in Atlanta this week for Thanksgiving, which Americans will mark tomorrow with parades, running races, a giant meal, lots of football (watching and playing) and much debate on the issues of our day, from cranberry sauce recipes to the state of world affairs. Some will go to church, but most will mark the day entirely at home–or in a relative’s home–with marathon culinary preparations, a lengthy and leisurely afternoon meal and a long denouement of talk, napping and TV, in my family followed in the late evening by a giant turkey sandwich, on white toast.
I mention these things because close to 50% of my readers are non-Americans, only some of whom will have enjoyed the Thanksgiving experience first hand. To my knowledge, the holiday is entirely a New World phenomenon. Canada has its own version, celebrated last month. Of course lots of cultures express thanks in both religious and non-religious ways, but I wonder if any have made it quite the major event that the North Americans have. Readers should feel free to enlighten me.
Americans certainly have a great deal to be thankful for. We are slowly climbing out of a lingering recession, we’ve gotten through the difficult quadrennial drama of presidential elections without the uncertainties that have sometimes plagued the process, our troops are out of Iraq and moving out of Afghanistan, and there is no existential threat on the horizon, even if there are many less dramatic challenges. We are the solution to our own worst problems, which focus on the relatively mundane questions of what the government should spend money on and where it should find the revenue needed.
The world is not in such good shape. While statistics show that the overall frequency of war is down, the catalogue is full of long lasting conflicts and their devastating impacts on people: the revolution and civil war in Syria are getting on to marking two years, Israel and Palestine have been in conflict one way or another for 65 years, the Afghanistan/Pakistan war is dragging into its 12th year, and I don’t know how to determine when the war against al Qaeda in Yemen, the war against its affiliates in Somalia or the war in Eastern Congo began. Then there are the more recent conflicts: northern Mali and the all but defeated revolution in Bahrain. And there are the wars that might come: perhaps against Iran, in the South or East China Seas, on the Korean peninsula or between South Sudan and Sudan.
I can’t claim that most Americans will be thinking about these disasters as they give thanks for their own blessings. They are more likely to be thinking about Breezy Point and Hoboken, two communities that hurricane Sandy devastated early this month. We’ve still got tens of thousands homeless and some without power weeks later. Those who turn to America for help–and many do–are going to find us preoccupied these days with our own needs. I suspect this will not be just a short-term phenomenon, but a longer-term effort to put our own house in order, limiting commitments abroad and prioritizing them in accordance with America’s own interests.
This will sound ungenerous to non-Americans, who may bemoan American interference but also look to the U.S. to step in to help stop the Gaza fighting and turn to Washington when other disasters strike. We will continue to do what we can where vital American interests are at stake, but it will be healthy if we are a bit less committed and rely on others rather more than we have in the past. Our withdrawal–retrenchment is what some call it–will not be absolute. It has to be calculated and calibrated. Good judgment, not ideology, should be its guide.
That is one of the many reasons I am grateful to the American people for re-electing President Obama. I don’t always agree with his judgment–I’d rather he did more on Syria, for example–but he is thoughtful and cautious in ways that fit our current circumstances. Managing the relative decline in American power and constructing a global architecture that will limit conflict and provide space for those who choose to live in free societies to prosper are the great challenges of the coming generations. Wisdom, not resolve, is the essential ingredient to meet them.
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Constitutions count. What does tech do?
Constitutions count. In a democratic society ruled by law, they distribute power among institutions and determine how it is gained and how it is lost. The process of preparing one after civil war or dictatorship is particularly fraught, as we are seeing in the recent Arab Spring revolutions. Society is divided, who truly represents “the people” is unclear, how those who draft the constitution are chosen is problematic, and power still grows out of the barrel of a gun. How does a constitution avoid capture by armed elites and gain popular legitimacy in these difficult situations? What role can and should the public play? How can technology best contribute?
A group of experts on constitution-making and on technology met last week in DC to discuss these issues at a roundtable co-hosted by Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Google Ideas. Some conclusions on constitution-making were clear: the process should be seen to be transparent, it has to fit the particular context in which it is occurring, and it has to create or demonstrate a broad, inclusive consensus around main issues. The ways in which technology can contribute are still the subject of experimentation. It can facilitate public participation by enabling substantive citizen inputs to the text of a constitution, improving transparency, enhancing civic education and expanding inclusiveness. The drafting of a constitution can also benefit from technology that makes the body of all past constitutions discoverable and searchable.
The constitution-making experts see the process as a complex one that includes not only public participation but also judicial engagement and external assistance in deliberating, drafting, adopting, promulgating and implementing a new constitutional order. The South African process is often viewed as the best example and imitated elsewhere, because public participation ensured the post-apartheid constitution’s legitimacy, even though there was little apparent impact on the constitutional text, which remained virtually unchanged. Even where public participation has had an impact on the text, it is rarely extensive. Historically, relatively few provisions have attracted intense public scrutiny.
Legitimacy also depends to an important extent on the transparency of the constitution-making process as well as public understanding of the outcome. A good constitutional process lays the foundation for good implementation and the creation of a culture of constitutionalism. This is particularly difficult to achieve if the constitution is the product of an international intervention, as in post-war Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. There international officials actually wrote the initial constitutions, with little consultation with local citizens. What the internationals consider “universal” principles do not necessarily translate well. It might have been better to adopt a transitional or provisional constitution, (as in Tunisia and Libya) that can be used until the local population is in a position to conduct its own constitution-making process.
When the time comes for a locally prepared constitution, the process needs to be transparent but still allow for elite deal-making and technical drafting behind closed doors. Not everything can be done in public, as some compromises will embarrass participants with their own constituencies. Expectations need to be managed. The public should not be led to believe it will have an impact on the drafting if in fact it will not, which happened in Iraq. Over-promising in post-conflict situations creates big difficulties. So too does drafting that is piecemeal or uncoordinated. The pieces of a constitution need to fit together, without leaving gaps and overlaps that will create problems later. It is also important to provide a suitable mechanism and threshold for amendments, which are difficult decisions in post-war situations.
Technology-based experiments conducted so far in connection with public participation in constitution-making processes include those in Iceland, Tunisia, Egypt and Somalia.
The recent Icelandic constitution-making process included weekly publication of drafts and an extensive dialogue on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube conducted by members of the drafting committee. This enabled direct interaction with interested members of the public, who were able to comment on a website as the draft evolved. Out of a national population of 300,000, there were 40,000 visitors to the site, 12,000 views on the YouTube channel and 3,600 comments.
In Egypt and Tunisia, Google supported the creation of web platforms that provided YouTube videos for voter education and enabled the general public to comment on all the individual articles of the constitutions. On the Egyptian site, articles could be sorted by how happy users were with them and how hotly debated they were (using Face book ‘likes’ and ‘comments’, respectively). This gave the drafters clear input and enabled the public to verify that their views were taken into account, but it allowed for little nuance. Egyptians have made upwards of 150,000 “inputs” to the constitutional process.
In Somalia, Voice of America (VOA) and Google Ideas partnered in a telephone survey conducted by professional Somali journalists skilled in asking questions and getting answers. Each survey’s results were discussed on daily political talk radio, with call-in listeners and even directly on-air with the Somali Prime Minister. This allowed people living in a precarious security environment to give their opinions while remaining anonymous. The polling reached over 3,000 people.
None of these experiments is definitive but some have already been transplanted from one context to another. All illustrate the potential of technology to open the constitution-making process and build legitimacy and trust in the public eye. But they tend to favor the technology-enabled part of the society, which may amplify the influence of some parts of society at the expense of others. They also favor individual contributions and may disadvantage some technology-poor civil society organizations. Direct democracy is not necessarily good democracy. Especially in post-conflict societies, there is the real possibility of illiberal results. We need to be careful not to harm the democratic process. Technology should enable constitution-making, not drive it.
There is also an important role for technology in supporting the drafting process. More than anything else, drafters want examples of how to deal with their problems. They often turn to the constitutions of countries that share their geography, culture or language, to find possible models and appropriate solutions, even sometimes copying typographical errors. No easily retrievable central repository of these documents currently exists. The Constitution Explorer project, run out of Stanford University and the University of Texas, aims to change that, by collecting and coding the world’s constitutions for the past two hundred years. This kind of toolbox is what those charged with drafting most need to avoid pitfalls and improve their own product.
This applies more broadly as well. There is no definitive solution to the problem of how technology can contribute to public participation in constitution-making. There is a growing variety of tools that may be appropriate—or not—in particular contexts. Where they work well, they can improve not only substantive input but also transparency, accountability and civic education, leading eventually to a democratic and constitutional culture.
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