Journal - Orient Online

German democracy promotion: The German political foundations in the MENA region

Katharina Konarek

The seven German political foundations are an essential part of German foreign policy. Due to their secured funding through German tax money paired with access to key political decision-makers, they are a unique institutional construction acting as a hybrid between an independent NGO and a state-funded think tank. For decades they have maintained offices and projects in the whole MENA region, shaping democratic developments in project countries and therefore contributing to German foreign policy on a soft-power level. This contribution reflects on their current activities in the MENA region, on their challenges and also on the possible impact of the change in German government on the foundations’ work.

Katharina Konarek the director of the Haifa Center for German and European studies (HCGEs) at the University of Haifa. she is a political scientist with a specialisation on German and European foreign policy. Her regional focus is on Israel and Palestine. In her PhD, conducted at the Bundeswehr University of Munich, she examines the role of the German political foundations in Israel and Palestine. Her book The German political foundations’ work between Jerusalem, Ramallah and Tel Aviv. A Kaleidoscope of Different Perspectives was published in 2018 by springer vs.

Re-visioning Germany’s democracy promotion in the Arab World

Larbi Sadiki, Layla Saleh

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This article briefly investigates German democracy promotion in the Arab world since the 2011 popular uprisings and revolutions. It seeks a parsimonious discourse analysis, looking at Germany's "democracy-promotion speak" during the Merkel era. A constructivist frame lends itself to exploration of the interplay between norms and interests when it comes to fostering Arab democracy as a subset of German foreign policy. As the Arab world has slid further into a "crisis of democratisation", so too has German democracy promotion. It seemed to buckle in rising to challenges of resurgent authoritarianism. Despite setbacks, the contention here is that the new German government should not abandon the democratic impulse in dealing with the region. Policies should be attuned to socio-economic deprivation and marginalisation as development spills into democratisation. Filtered through a "democratic learning loop" rooted in parity and mutuality, German support for Arab civil society can still enhance pro-democracy activism and civic practices.

Larbi Sadiki is Professor of Arab Democratization at Qatar University. A graduate of ANU's Politics and International Relations programme (PhD: 1997) and taught at its Centre for Arab and Islamic studies as well as the University of Exeter in the UK. He has published numerous books on questions surrounding democratisation in the Arab World and was lead Principal Investigator in the four-year project titled “Transitions of Islam and Democracy: Engendering ‘Democratic learning’ and Civic Identities", a Qatar National Research Fund Grant. He is the editor of the Routledge series on Middle Eastern Democratization and Government and the new Brill journal Protest. He is also co-founder of the Tunis-based research and advocacy centre Demos: Center for Democratic sustainability.

Layla Saleh is Associate Professor of Political science at Qatar University’s Department of International Affairs. she is author of numerous journal articles and book chapters and the book US Hard Power in the Arab World: Resistance, the Syrian Uprising, and the War on Terror (Routledge, 2017). she is also Associate Editor of the Brill journal Protest and co-founder of the Tunis-based research and advocacy centre Demos: Center for Democratic sustainability

The Journal for politics, economics, and culture of the Middle East published by the German Orient-Institute

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ORIENT II 2022: Germany’s role in the MENA region: Between continuity and change

ORIENT I 2022: Afghanistan

ORIENT IV 2021: External actors’ role in the MENA region

ORIENT III 2021: Rapprochement in the GCC

ORIENT II 2021: The role of Islamist groups and movements in the Near and Middle East

ORIENT I 2021: Ten years after the Arab Spring

German democracy promotion: The German political foundations in the MENA region

Re-visioning Germany’s democracy promotion in the Arab World

Why "democracy promotion" should play no role in a values-based German foreign policy in the MENA region

German-Turkish cultural and educational relations after the German elections: A new golden era?

Germany-GCC relations: Continuities, priorities and Atlanticism

Moroccan-German bilateral cooperation: Historical roots and future perspectives

Towards a more active role for Germany in Palestine

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The impact of civil society on building democracy and promoting liberalism in Tunisia

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A nuanced look and equal footing – Expectations towards the new German government: A view from Cairo

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