The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at CDDRL is pleased to announce its second annual conference, From Political Activism to Democratic Change in the Arab World, to take place on May 12 and 13, 2011. The conferences addresses the key achievements of and challenges facing Arab activists in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Palestine, Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. It features scholars and activists from across the Arab world, Europe, and the United States who will discuss the contexts and strategies of reform-driven political activism in the Arab world.

On April 11, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted an event to celebrate the release of Francis Fukuyama's latest book, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution. The occasion drew an audience of over 100 faculty, students, and members of the community, who were eager to hear Fukuyama introduce the first volume of this "magnum opus," which traces the history of the development of political institutions through the eighteenth century. Fukuyama was joined by two Stanford faculty members to provide commentary on the book; Ian Morris, Professor of Classics and History, and Barry Weingast, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
Francis Fukuyama
Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2011
608 pages

Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and in residence at CDDRL since July 2011, coming to Stanford from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). CDDRL Director, Larry Diamond opened the event by commenting on how CDDRL is the ideal intellectual home for the Origins of Political Order, which examines democracy, development, and the rule of law from an evolutionary perspective. Diamond discussed the richness and breadth of Fukuyama's scholarship, which is not confined to one region or discipline but is truly global and interdisciplinary in nature, underpinning the philosophy and approach of CDDRL's research agenda.

Fukuyama provided the audience with an overview of how he conceived of writing such a sweeping account of political development, which began when his former teacher and mentor, the late Samuel Huntington asked him to write the forward to a new version of the 1968 classic, Political Order in Changing Societies. It occurred to him that there was little scholarship available that focused on where institutions first originated and how they evolved throughout human history. Fukuyama stressed the practical importance of this empirical question and its application to the present day, as Arab states struggle to create viable political institutions in the wake of revolution. 

Fukuyama described modern political order as consisting of three characteristics that are the foundational analysis of his book--the state, rule of law, and accountability. In discussing the evolution of the state, Fukuyama characterized it as the "long term historical struggle against a family."

Examining history through an anthropological lens, Fukuyama described early societies as orderly, with specific rules based on biologically grounded mechanisms, favoritism towards kin, and reciprocal altruism. Cooperation among relatives and friends is something that "every human society defaults to in the absence of institutions that provide different incentives," said Fukuyama.

These early social orders evolved into modern states once patrimonialism was replaced by a more impersonal form of politics, and citizens were no longer favored based on their ties to the ruler. Fukuyama traces the first modern state to ancient China during the time of the Qin dynasty in the third century BC, which created an impersonal, rational, and centralized bureaucracy that diverged from the patrimonial systems of the past. Similarly, in the Muslim world a system of military slavery was adopted by the Ottoman empire to break young men's allegiance to their family and generate loyalty to the Sultan.  

While state institutions were constructed in the Arab, Hindu, and Chinese worlds, underneath these systems, Fukuyama stressed, are strong kinship groups that continued to influence the formation of the modern state. By contrast, he claimed, "Europe is the only world civilization that gets beyond kinship on a social but not a political level."

Examining the development of rule of law, Fukuyama described it as, "an outgrowth of religious law administered by a hierarchy residing outside the state that puts limits on the executive." In order to institutionalize law, a cadre of legal specialists were trained and law was made coherent through codification.

Something that I find striking about the rise of democracy or accountable government in Europe is how accidental and contingent it is.
- Francis Fukuyama

Fukuyama discussed how the sequence in the development of institutions can often be an accident of history that will ultimately determine its type of governance. "Something that I find striking about the rise of democracy or accountable government in Europe is how accidental and contingent it is," Fukuyama continued, "you would not have democratic institutions in the west were it not for the survival of certain feudal institutions into the modern period."

European monarchical authority was limited by feudal institutions called estates, parliaments, sovereign courts, and the like, consisting of the upper nobility, gentry, and bourgeoisie, which served as a balance of power against the central state. Fukuyama argued that this ultimately led to constitutional governance in England, but not in France, Spain, Russia, or Hungary, were parliaments were weak and divided.

Stanford historian and classicist Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules for Now, lent an historical account of Fukuyama's book, commenting on the breadth of the scholarship and soundness of his historical judgment, which he views as a rarity in academia. On the whole Morris agreed with Fukuyama's argument, particularly the way he stressed the evolutionary basis of social and political change.

However, he disagreed with a specific detail of Fukuyama's analysis, where he classified the Qin dynasty as the first modern state. Instead, Morris views the Qin as part of a broader package of shifts occurring during the 1st millennium BCE, from China to the Mediterranean basin where patrimonial states evolved toward more "high-end type states," which separate political power from kinship networks.

On a deeper level, Morris believes there are more similarities than differences in patterns of human development. The biggest divergences did not occur until the last 500 years when according to Morris, "geographical forces have driven the rule of law, accountable government, and all that's happened since the French Revolution."

Barry Weingast, Professor of Political Science at Stanford and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, provided a theoretical examination of The Origins of Political Order, discussing the important gap Fukuyama's book fills in defining political development since Huntington's seminal 1968 piece.

Weingast highlighted two areas of the book--the role of ideas and the issue of violence. According to Weingast, the role of ideas is a causal feature of Fukuyama's analysis but he does include ancient Greece and Rome, telling the story of republics and how ideas defined their political development. Weingast discusses the dilemma that lies at the heart of governance from the time of the Romans to the early American republic, which is characterized as a 2,000-year struggle of how to scale-up into larger societies, capable of defending themselves from other larger societies.

Examining the concept of violence, Weingast argues that Fukuyama does not give enough attention to the theoretical element of violence and challenges the way he conceptualizes it through Max Weber's definition of a modern state, which "has a monopoly on the legitimate uses of violence."

The debut of Fukuyama's treatise on political development left everyone in the room with a fresh perspective on where modern institutions evolved from to more fully understand their characteristics and complexities today. We look forward to the second volume of this book, which will bring the story up to the present day.

On April 4, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law in collaboration with the Cloud to Street project held a digital townhall meeting connecting three Egyptian  pro-democracy activists with scholars at Stanford, Harvard, and the University of British Columbia. The web-based platform allowed virtual participants to see and hear from activists broadcast live from Tahrir Lounge in the epicenter of the January 25 movement, which shook Mubarak from three decades of rule. The Egyptian activists, Sabah Hamomou, Mona Shahien, and Adbel Rahman Faris, provided personal testimony to how political action and technology combined to produce such explosive results.

The Cloud to Street project includes CDDRL visiting scholar Ben Rowswell and a team of experienced diplomats and academics from the University of British Columbia and Harvard. The Cloud to Street team deployed to Egypt two weeks ago on a fact-finding mission to connect with activists, listen to their stories, and assess their needs as they begin to construct the foundations of a democratic state. Rowswell moderated the 90-minute virtual session that included 35 virtual participants who posed questions and provided comments through a live chat tool, sparking a conversation amongst the online community.

The session began with Rowswell asking the activists about how they became involved in the events leading up to the revolution. Shahien, a founder of the Revolutionary Youth Union and a shadow minister for the Reform and Development party, confided that she had never intended to join the movement originally but was "downloaded" as an activist after responding to an advertisement on Facebook.

Hamamou an acclaimed media journalist and blogger, joined the protests when she witnessed wave after wave of activists pass by her office. She set up a camera in Tahrir Square posting a live stream of footage on her blog, documenting the protests as they unfolded. Faris, a blogger and member of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, used Facebook to coordinate and mobilize protests initiated by this citizen-based movement.

Hamamou responded to questions about the future of state-run media, discussing how she lobbied for the transition of al-Ahram's (Egypt's largest newspaper) overnight transition from pro-regime to pro-revolution and its attempt to make media more representative of the new Egypt. While, traditional media has played a role in the revolution, particularly when the Internet was blocked, Shahien claimed that papers have lost credibility as more people turn to online sources for accurate and uncensored reporting.

What was clear from all three leaders was the transformation of Egypt's youth from a state of political apathy to activism. "Many youth didn't want to be part of political life, it's a dirty job they don't want to be part of.  Now this is changing since January 25," said Shahien. Similarly, she added that the Revolutionary Youth Union is reaching out to women and empowering them through civic education.

The virtual chat was ablaze with questions about what is next and how academics and outsiders can be helpful (if at all) to their efforts. Faris explained, "Mubarak may have left but the regime still remains with all its corruption." He emphasized the importance of this period of transition for street-based initiatives, which should not be compromised by the rush to form political parties.

Shahien added "getting rid of Mubarak's regime will take years, we can't just exclude them, they will come back. Our role is to change the rules-journalists and political activists."

All three activists emphasized the importance of letting Egyptians shape a future democratic state for themselves, free from foreign government interference, but they welcomed exchanges with NGOs and international civil society to lend their expertise.

Hamamou described the revolution as a collective enterprise driven by secularists and Islamists alike, who worked together towards the common goal of overthrowing the regime. Looking forward, she envisioned Egypt in the same light as a "civil" (secular) country ruled by the people and separating religion from the political space. 

While, social media was successful in catalyzing this youth-led movement, it is clear that there is significant work that still needs to be done on the ground to reach the general public. In response to this challenge, Shahien launched the Tahrir Lounge project to train activists and equip them with the offline tools necessary to conduct civic education events across Egypt, particularly in rural communities. She even proposed creating a mobile application that will educate the public on their rights, civil liberties, and build awareness during the democratic transition.

Going forward, the Cloud to Street initiative and its academic partners will be working with Egyptian partners on the ground to identify ways to harness their expertise in service of Egyptian democracy activists.

For detailed information on the Cloud to Street Initiative and to read blogs, watch videos, and learn more about the activists featured in the townhall, please visit www.cloudtostreet.org or follow us on Twitter@cloudtostreet.