In a piece for The Atlantic, CDDRL Director Larry Diamond shines light on the Obama administration's betrayal of democracy in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain. As security interests outweigh moral principles, Diamond details how the U.S. has turned its back on human rights activists and their popular aspirations for democracy. One such activist is Abduljalil al-Singance, a 2007 Draper Hills Summer Fellow, who was tortured at the hands of the Bahraini regime and recently sentenced to life imprisonment.  

President Obama and Mitt Romney meet for their third debate to discuss foreign policy on Monday, when moderator Bob Schieffer is sure to ask them about last month's terrorist attack in Libya and the nuclear capabilities of Iran.

In anticipation of the final match between the presidential candidates, researchers from five centers at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies ask the additional questions they want answered and explain what voters should keep in mind.

What can we learn from the Arab Spring about how to balance our values and our interests when people in authoritarian regimes rise up to demand freedom?  

What to listen for: First, the candidates should address whether they believe the U.S. has a moral obligation to support other peoples’ aspirations for freedom and democracy. Second, they need to say how we should respond when longtime allies like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak confront movements for democratic change.

And that leads to more specific questions pertaining to Arab states that the candidates need to answer: What price have we paid in terms of our moral standing in the region by tacitly accepting the savage repression by the monarchy in Bahrain of that country's movement for democracy and human rights?  How much would they risk in terms of our strategic relationship with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia by denouncing and seeking to restrain this repression? What human rights and humanitarian obligations do we have in the Syrian crisis?  And do we have a national interest in taking more concrete steps to assist the Syrian resistance?  On the other hand, how can we assist the resistance in a way that does not empower Islamist extremists or draw us into another regional war?  

Look for how the candidates will wrestle with difficult trade-offs, and whether either will rise above the partisan debate to recognize the enduring bipartisan commitment in the Congress to supporting democratic development abroad.  And watch for some sign of where they stand on the spectrum between “idealism” and “realism” in American foreign policy.  Will they see that pressing Arab states to move in the direction of democracy, and supporting other efforts around the world to build and sustain democracy, is positioning the United States on “the right side of history”?

~Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

What do you consider to be the greatest threats our country faces, and how would you address them in an environment of profound partisan divisions and tightly constrained budgets? 

What to listen for: History teaches that some of the most effective presidential administrations understand America's external challenges but also recognize the interdependence between America's place in the world and its domestic situation.

Accordingly, Americans should expect their president to be deeply knowledgeable about the United States and its larger global context, but also possessed of the vision and determination to build the country's domestic strength.

The president should understand the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorist organizations. The president should be ready to lead in managing the complex risks Americans face from potential pandemics, global warming, possible cyber attacks on a vulnerable infrastructure, and failing states.

Just as important, the president needs to be capable of leading an often-polarized legislative process and effectively addressing fiscal challenges such as the looming sequestration of budgets for the Department of Defense and other key agencies. The president needs to recognize that America's place in the world is at risk when the vast bulk of middle class students are performing at levels comparable to students in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria, and needs to be capable of engaging American citizens fully in addressing these shared domestic and international challenges.

~Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Should our government help American farmers cope with climate impacts on food production, and should this assistance be extended to other countries – particularly poor countries – whose food production is also threatened by climate variability and climate change?

What to listen for: Most representatives in Congress would like to eliminate government handouts, and many would also like to turn away from any discussion of climate change. Yet this year, U.S. taxpayers are set to pay up to $20 billion to farmers for crop insurance after extreme drought and heat conditions damaged yields in the Midwest.

With the 2012 farm bill stalled in Congress, the candidates need to be clear about whether they support government subsidized crop insurance for American farmers. They should also articulate their views on climate threats to food production in the U.S. and abroad.

Without a substantial crop insurance program, American farmers will face serious risks of income losses and loan defaults. And without foreign assistance for climate adaptation, the number of people going hungry could well exceed 15 percent of the world's population. 

~Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment

What is your vision for the United States’ future relationship with Europe? 

What to listen for: Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, it was the United States and Europe that ensured world peace. But in recent years, it seems that “Europe” and “European” have become pejoratives in American political discourse. There’s been an uneasiness over whether we’re still friends and whether we still need each other. But of course we do.

Europe and the European Union share with the United States of America the most fundamental values, such as individual freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to live and work where you choose. There’s a shared respect of basic human rights. There are big differences with the Chinese, and big differences with the Russians. When you look around, it’s really the U.S. and Europe together with robust democracies such as Canada and Australia that have the strongest sense of shared values.

So the candidates should talk about what they would do as president to make sure those values are preserved and protected and how they would make the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe more effective and substantive as the world is confronting so many challenges like international terrorism, cyber security threats, human rights abuses, underdevelopment and bad governance.

~Amir Eshel, director of The Europe Center

Historical and territorial issues are bedeviling relations in East Asia, particularly among Japan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries. What should the United States do to try to reduce tensions and resolve these issues?

What to listen for: Far from easing as time passes, unresolved historical, territorial, and maritime issues in East Asia have worsened over the past few years. There have been naval clashes, major demonstrations, assaults on individuals, economic boycotts, and harsh diplomatic exchanges. If the present trend continues, military clashes – possibly involving American allies – are possible.

All of the issues are rooted in history. Many stem from Imperial Japan’s aggression a century ago, and some derive from China’s more assertive behavior toward its neighbors as it continues its dramatic economic and military growth. But almost all of problems are related in some way or another to decisions that the United States took—or did not take—in its leadership of the postwar settlement with Japan.

The United States’ response to the worsening situation so far has been to declare a strategic “rebalancing” toward East Asia, aimed largely at maintaining its military presence in the region during a time of increasing fiscal constraint at home. Meanwhile, the historic roots of the controversies go unaddressed.

The United States should no longer assume that the regional tensions will ease by themselves and rely on its military presence to manage the situation. It should conduct a major policy review, aimed at using its influence creatively and to the maximum to resolve the historical issues that threaten peace in the present day.

~David Straub, associate director of the Korea Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorentein Asia-Pacific Research Center

Compiled by Adam Gorlick.

From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movement, young people have emerged at the helm of citizen-led change, opposing and challenging the status quo. Recognizing their local and global impact, youth are increasingly stepping up to fulfill Gandhi's famous maxim: "Be the change you want to see in the world." In turn, they are encouraging other members of their generation to answer this call to duty. In the aftermath of revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), youth have never been more engaged and active in the future development of their communities.

Inspired by these events, a group of young Stanford students launched a forum to unite leaders from the MENA region with their Western counterparts to build a bridge towards greater understanding, collaboration, and partnership. Nothing of this scale had ever been done on the Stanford campus, and there was a clear demand from the student body for deeper engagement with the region.

It was in this spirit that the American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford (AMENDS) was born, which will host its inaugural conference at Stanford University April 10 to 14, 2012 to convene exceptional young leaders together to share their ideas, seed potential collaborations and inspire the world. The AMENDS team represents a diverse group of students of various nationalities, faiths, and persuasions, but the common thread that connects them all is a desire to interact with the future generation of leaders who are writing a new chapter in the history of the Middle East.

AMENDS seeks to take a step forward towards greater partnership with a post-Arab Spring generation of leaders in the Middle East.                                -AMENDS co-founders Elliot Stoller and Khaled AlShawi

Co-founders Elliot Stoller (BA '13) and Khaled AlShawi (BA '13), hailing from Chicago and Bahrain respectively, were inspired to start a project devoted to U.S.-MENA relations largely in response to events surrounding the Arab Spring, “The problems addressed through the uprisings transcend a single country or region. They affect us all and require global collaboration to solve. AMENDS seeks to take a step forward towards greater partnership with a post-Arab Spring generation of leaders in the Middle East. ”

Within a year of launching the initiative, the AMENDS team received applications from over 300 promising delegates, organized a four-day summit, and launched an ambitious fundraising campaign to cover the costs of such an endeavor. Described by AMENDS senior leadership as a "full-time job" on top of their demanding academic schedules, this grassroots operation is fueled by the entrepreneurial energy of a band of passionate and dedicated student volunteers. AMENDS has benefited from the consultation of a board of advisors comprised of Stanford faculty and staff from the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies.

According to Larry Diamond, CDDRL director and member of the AMENDS advisory board, "It has been a pleasure working with the AMENDS team on the design and implementation of this innovative project — the first of its kind — to convene a new generation of leaders in the U.S. and the Middle East at Stanford University."

AMENDS delegates hail from 17 countries and together represent students and young professionals leading projects driven by the ingenuity of the new Middle East. 

AMENDS delegates hail from 17 countries and together represent students and young professionals leading projects driven by the ingenuity of the new Middle East. While many of their projects are still in their initial stages of development, the AMENDS conference and network is intended to provide leadership training and peer support to help scale-up these initiatives. A mentorship program pairs delegates with professionals, development practitioners, and industry leaders for tailored advice and support.

AMENDS delegates are as diverse as the issues they are confronting in the Middle East, North America, and the United Kingdom. Several AMENDS delegates are leveraging the use of new technology and social media to unite civil society, stimulate public debate, introduce alternative energy resources, and promote citizen-led journalism. In Egypt, Morocco, and Palestine, delegates are members of youth movements at the forefront of the Arab Spring revolutions and are championing new approaches for political change. Others are working in their local communities to defend the rights of HIV/AIDS patients in Egypt, support children with disabilities in Canada, and empower uninsured MENA immigrants in the U.S. Many projects share the common goal of getting more youth engaged and active in their local communities to achieve broader societal goals.

Over a five-day period, delegates will deliver ten-minute "AMENDS Talks" styled after TEDTalks^TM, where they will introduce their initiatives to the larger Stanford community. The videos will be recorded and available through an online forum — in both Arabic and English — giving delegates’ a global platform to share their ideas, inspiring others to take action. Delegates will also participate in leadership development workshops at the Stanford Graduate School for Business and networking events sponsored by AMENDS strategic partner TechWadi, a Silicon Valley-based organization fostering high-tech entrepreneurial development in the Arab world.

Notable scholars and practitioners from the U.S. and the MENA region will provide unique insight and analysis to some of the timeliest topics emerging from the region. Speakers include Sami Ben Gharbia, Tunisian political activist and a Foreign Policy Top 100 Thinker; Thomas T. Riley, former U.S. ambassador to Morocco; and Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

CDDRL faculty and staff will also be leading sessions and addressing the AMENDS delegates at the summit, including CDDRL Director Larry Diamond, CDDRL Consulting Professor and AMENDS Advisory Board Member Prince Hicham Ben Abdallah, Arab Reform and Democracy Program Manager Lina Khatib, and Moroccan journalist and CDDRL Visiting Scholar Ahmed Benchemsi.

Most AMENDS Talks and sessions are open to the Stanford community and general public. For more information on AMENDS, to read about the 2012 delegates, and to view the conference agenda, please visit: amends.stanford.edu.

A year has passed since the Egyptian uprising, one of the defining moments of the democratic wave that surged across the Arab world. Since Jan. 25, 2011, three long-standing Arab dictatorships have toppled and citizen movements continue to challenge entrenched autocratic regimes. Reflecting on this pivotal moment, five scholars at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law talk about how these events changed the course of democracy – if at all – and what they mean for the region as a whole.

What are the prospects for democracy in the Arab world today?

Larry Diamond: The near-term prospects for democracy are mixed and uncertain – but far better than they were a year ago. Within the space of a single year, Tunisia has become an electoral democracy – the first in the Arab world since Lebanon fell apart in the mid-1970s. This is an astonishing achievement, and Tunisia’s prospects to build democracy are quite good. Egypt has a chance to turn the corner politically, but it depends on whether the Muslim Brotherhood will evolve in a truly democratic and tolerant direction, and whether the military will step back from power. Libya must still disarm its militias and build democratic institutions and a viable state. Syria and Yemen remain much more deeply troubled, with a risk of civil war.

In examining the arc of history, was the Arab Spring inevitable? Should we have been surprised by what happened?

Francis Fukuyama: Economic growth and technological change foster the rise of a middle class that fosters demands for political participation. This is the social basis for democratic revolutions around the world. Some people argued that cultural factors – Islam, Arab passivity –would prevent this from unfolding in the Middle East, but this has clearly been proven wrong. These structural shifts do not imply inevitability, since it is human agents who must translate social demands into political action. This is why the general phenomenon of a revolt may have been predictable, but the timing absolutely uncertain.

Have living conditions improved in the Arab world, or are they worse for the average citizen?

Lina Khatib: The Arab Spring has brought immense change in the lives of Arab citizens. Political taboos have been broken, and the wall of fear that used to govern their everyday lives has crashed down. The Arab world still has some way to go before it can be called democratic in the full sense. While the economy in particular has taken a hit in the current period of transition and uncertainty – making conditions worse for many in the short term – the average Arab citizen today can actually look forward to seeing freedom of expression, human rights, and political and economic reform. These are no longer unrealizable dreams.

What are some of the lessons U.S. policymakers have learned from the Arab Spring?

Jeremy M. Weinstein: A number of fundamental ideas that underpinned 30 years of U.S. policy in the Middle East were upended by the events of 2011. The idea that Arabs do not care about democracy, are politically apathetic, and are too frightened to resist oppressive regimes has been disproved. The notion of authoritarian stability is now questioned, and it is no longer taken for granted that “the autocrats we know” are the safest bet to secure U.S. interests. And the fear of Islamists is slowly receding among policymakers as they confront the electoral success of Islamist parties and begin to directly engage a new cadre of leaders.

How did Arab monarchies weather the storm and avoid the experiences of Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia?

Ahmed Benchemsi: Except in Bahrain, where security forces opened fire on unarmed crowds, Arab monarchies generally managed to outflank their respective protesters in a peaceful way. They did so either by implementing illusory reforms while in fact playing for time (in Morocco and Jordan) or by buying off the opposition with huge social spending (in the Gulf). As this last tactic may remain effective for some time, non-oil monarchies’ victories are more likely to prove short-lived. New rounds of popular anger could be spawned sooner rather than later by, if anything, growing economic difficulties. These will be harder to quell by subterfuges.

Looking forward, are you hopeful that democracy will prosper in the Arab world?

Diamond: Yes, I am quite hopeful that democracy will develop in the Arab world, but I think there will be wide variation among Arab countries in the near term, and much will depend on whether there emerges an instance of clear democratic success that inspires other countries. This is why I think we should bet heavily now on Tunisia, while also intensively engaging Egypt, the largest Arab country.

Fukuyama: In the long run yes, in the short run, no – a safe answer.

Khatib: Even if democracy takes decades to materialize, the Arab world has finally taken the first steps in what – as history has taught us – is always a long and difficult journey, and that’s an important milestone.

Weinstein: All of us know that the road to democracy is uncertain and filled with obstacles. But I take comfort in the fact that no one could have predicted a 2011 in which Ben Ali, Mubarak, Gadhafi, and Saleh would leave the stage. Something profound has changed in the region, and I am confident that – having lost their fear – citizens will make their voices heard as the struggle for democracy continues.

Benchemsi: For democracy to have a real chance in the Arab World, liberals must build grassroots organizations – ones that would be large and strong enough to challenge both autocratic regimes and Islamist groups. When this is done, I will have reason for optimism.

In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, Rajaie Batniji uncovers the role of medical professionals involved in acts of torture. With a lens to the unrest in Syria, Batniji calls for an international body to identify, monitor, and disqualify those complicit in torture and genocide.

Doctors have a long history of complicity in torture, but the torture of political dissidents holds a privileged place.  In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, surgeons removed the ears of men who failed to report for military service or defected from the army. In the Soviet Union, psychiatrists held political dissidents in mental hospitals with false diagnoses, in order to isolate and punish them. It is in this tradition of medical torture of dissidents that the Syrian healthcare establishment may be heading.

A July 6 report by Amnesty International documents the treatment of Wassim, a 21-year-old protester in the Syrian town of Talkalakh. After an injury from a soldier's bayonet, Wassim was taken to al-Bassel hospital, which had been occupied by Syrian security forces. As he reported: "The nurses, men and women […] swore at me and beat me hard and one female nurse punched me repeatedly with all her strength on my chest. Some were taking off their shoes and slapping me with them. I could hear many voices asking: 'You want freedom, eh?'" The report states he later had his wounds stitched without anesthesia, before being beaten on these wounds by hospital staff.  

Wassim's is not an isolated incident. In May, Reuters documented the case of a protester who had lost sensation in his legs who requested to see a doctor in jail. He told the news agency: "The doctor hit my knees with his legs, and asked: 'There, is it better now?' and then he slapped me". Most pervasively, reports suggest that even when doctors have not been involved in direct abuse, they have falsified the causes of injuries and released information about patients to the Syrian regime's security forces. The result is a public distrust of hospitals, and a clear incentive for injured protestors to avoid the healthcare system. 

The medical torture of political dissidents holds a privileged place because it can be perversely justified. The torture of dissidents may be seen as an act of loyalty to the state. Doctors acting on behalf of the state, such as military doctors, have what is called "dual loyalty" - loyalty to both their patient and a third party.

In addressing the issue of dual loyalty, Physicians for Human Rights has proposed guidelines that physicians not be present when torture takes place, and calls on them to report all human rights violations, especially when they interfere with their loyalty to patients. Like the medical professionals from the US recently implicated in the torture and abuse of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and Iraq, some Syrian doctors may have valued their contribution to the security of the state more than their adherence to the norms of their profession. 

But, in their pursuit of perceived enemies of the state, have these physicians become enemies of the profession? Doctors involved in torture should be pursued as enemies of medicine: their crimes documented, their professional credentials revoked, and their ability to practice internationally thwarted.

Identifying and disqualifying doctors involved in torture

While it is exceedingly unlikely that Bashar al-Assad, an ophthalmologist, will go back to correcting cataracts in London - where he trained - if his regime is overthrown, other physicians culpable in his regime's torture will seek to continue clinical practice abroad.

Even with continued instability, it is likely that physicians and other elites will seek to emigrate. Could doctors involved in abuse head to Europe, North America or neighbouring Arab countries and continue to operate? How will they be identified? Critically, the majority of Syrian physicians that have not been complicit with abuses must be distinguished from those who have. 

Unfortunately, the medical profession has no method for identifying or punishing doctors complicit in torture. We rely on human rights organisations to provide sporadic documentation of medical torture.

With limited access and competing priorities - such as being able to provide medical care while working in countries where torture occurs - these organisations have a narrow scope for documenting the occurrence of torture. In an excellent Lancet article, Len Rubenstein and Melanie Bittle argue that the World Health Organization is best positioned to play a leading role in documenting attacks on medical functions in conflict, and this should include those attacks committed by physicians.

Among the suggestions put forth by Rubenstein and Bittle are a UN Security Council resolution providing a mandate for the WHO to pursue investigations, and the use of mobile devices for securely and quickly transmitting information about abuse. By documenting medical complicity in torture, we give physicians under incredible pressures incentive to oppose orders from their superiors and the state.

The greatest challenge, however, is enforcement, and the punishment of physicians complicit in torture. No international body retains information on professional qualifications. Like most other professions, medicine has proclaimed a need to be self-regulating, yet it has no system in place to disqualify or sanction physicians on a global level (national licensing bodies exist in most countries, but there is little to no international coordination). To this day, investigations continue of Rwandan doctors now practising in Europe and Africa, accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide.

Of course, their crimes were far more widespread than those in Syria today, as doctors oversaw the killing of hundreds of patients and staff in their hospitals, but the challenge of enforcement is nearly identical. Even if medical complicity in torture does not warrant imprisonment, it ought to warrant professional disqualification - and as of yet, no institution or process is in place to disqualify a physician from practising internationally. 

Honouring the heroism of Syrian doctors

Attacks on the healthcare system are common - perhaps inevitable - in modern war, but doctors don't always become complicit. In Bahrain, the Salmaniya medical centre was raided, and its doctors beaten and jailed for treating protesters. In Libya, Misurata hospital came under fire, deterring the sick from seeking care and endangering staff and patients.

Despicable as these attacks are, they have come to be expected as a feature of conflict. Attacks on the healthcare system have been documented in almost all recent conflicts including in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Nepal, Iraq, and the occupied Palestinian territories. In most cases, doctors have acted admirably, and sometimes heroically: seeing the sick in their homes, in secretive and makeshift clinics, risking their lives to provide care. Under oppressive regimes, doctors may be risking their lives just by refusing to be complicit in torture. 

In Syria, a group known as the "Damascus Doctors" has been organising on Facebook to provide hidden clinics in areas of protest, as reported by CNN. These doctors are upholding a tradition of professionalism and protest that existed since at least 1980, when more than 100 healthcare professionals were arrested for striking to demand the lifting of Syria's state of emergency, in place since 1963 (as of 1990, at least 90 of them remained missing). These doctors, like many others who have opposed the regime, were subjected to gruesome physical and psychological torture. 

The overwhelming majority of Syrian physicians have likely been acting heroically. It is in their honour that we should pursue aggressive international efforts to document and disqualify those physicians complicit in torture. This will require emboldened international institutions, cooperation among national licensing bodies, and the courage of doctors, journalists, activists and human rights organisations in documenting and reporting medical torture. 

As the Arab Spring meets the Moroccan summer, the movement for democratic reform in our country finds itself in a rare moment when constitutional issues are in the forefront, demanding immediate attention, while the political and social forces that shape the fundamental context, and will determine ultimate outcomes, remain in motion and cannot be forgotten. With the February 20th movement evolving into a series of rolling demonstrations, and the regime drawing other political forces into a process of constitutional reform guided by a royally-appointed consultative commission (CCRC), the major players continue to circle each other, testing their strengths and weaknesses. The movement wants to see how far it can go with militant non-violence, reinforced by the regional momentum of reform; the regime wants to see how well it can contain the pressure with a mixture of co-optation and repression, and is also drawing on an emerging regional pushback against reform demands.

For the moment, the regime has established an agenda: By the end of June, a consultative commission will report to the King, who will then prepare a revised constitution to be presented to the voters in a referendum. The King’s speech regarding this commission was initially greeted as a very positive response to popular pressure, but observers are now wary that this process is quickly being diverted into familiar channels of cosmetic change. 

The regime has put itself in a conundrum: Either you have a real campaign with open, democratic debate around this commission and the proposed reforms – in which case there will be serious dissent and the results will be unpredictable; or, you have a carefully managed and restricted theater of discussion with a familiar cast of characters and a predictable happy ending. 

What seems to be developing is more like the latter – an opaque process, in which traditional party and union leaders (most of whom withheld or hedged their support of the movement), presided over by a royal advisor, will formulate reform proposals that will be further edited by the king before being submitted to a popular vote. From such a process, it will not be difficult to come up with some “good enough” constitutional revisions that are likely to win approval in a quick referendum, as well as international praise. This would gain the regime some instant credibility for democratic reform, and might give it an excuse to brand any further extra-electoral mobilization as “undemocratic.” Since this process would also produce low participation, a weak turnout, and increased disappointment, those extra-electoral demonstrations would be a virtual certainty.

It is not hard to understand why movement activists have declined to participate in such a tightly-managed “consultative” process, though their participation could have transformed it into a useful forum. The constitutional issues in play are extremely relevant in the Moroccan context, as the demonstrators themselves have made clear, with, for example, their frequent references to the articles pertaining to the commanderie des croyants. Clearly, the heart of the matter, and the real test of constitutional reform, will be whether and how the powers and prerogatives of the monarchy are, for the first time, precisely and carefully delimited. This includes, not only the powers of the monarch relative to the different branches of government, but also a wide range of traditionally extra-legal, patrimonial prerogatives, such as the power to issue royal decrees, which should now be delimited within a constitutional framework.

Authoritarianism is not an office but a system, embedded in a widely-dispersed network of institutions and practices. Hicham Ben Abdallah

But, although no real reform will advance without resolving this question of monarchical privilege, the kind of political change that people are now seeking goes beyond the fate of any single institution. Authoritarianism is not an office but a system, embedded in a widely-dispersed network of institutions and practices. Nowhere else is this clearer, for example, than when we consider the issues surrounding elections. Until now, we have tolerated “transparent” elections that are, in fact, structurally rigged, through gerrymandering, the complexity of the electoral code, and the tacit agreement of parties, to prevent an inconvenient majority. At the least, we need to strengthen the electoral code, and give the electoral commissions total independence from the Ministry of the Interior. If we also think about the independence and integrity of municipal and regional governments, the judiciary, the police, schools and universities, and even economic entities, we see the breadth of the changes that are implied in a thorough process of democratization. The persistence and complexity of the political effort necessary to advance that process and make it self-sustaining is clear. Democracy is a process, not a result, and it would be naive to think that a statute, or a referendum, or a demonstration could make it happen.

Indeed, beyond any set of legal or institutional changes, there is the more fundamental question of political culture. It requires, not just elections, but engagement -- the ongoing participation of millions of citizens in all the difficult decisions required to remake their society and their lives. But the legacy of decades of authoritarianism includes passivity, resignation, fear, and cynicism -- as well as, in Morocco, illiteracy. It includes a political framework in which parties become part of a spoils system, inured to their dependence on the monarchy, and reluctant to embrace a reform that would cut those ties. These implicit but powerful elements of authoritarianism provide the most stubborn obstacles to a thoroughgoing, self-sustaining process of democratization. The world is full of countries with perfect constitutions, passive, fearful citizens, and compliant political parties.

The educated, energetic, internet-savvy youth who inspired the February 20th movement, like their comrades across the region, have largely overcome this legacy for themselves, but have barely begun to bring with them the large swaths of Moroccans who are traditionalist, religious, culturally conservative, and -- not without reason -- afraid of making their lives any worse. To attract and mobilize these people, to help them become active citizens rather than passive subjects, requires setting another agenda, proposing a new social project—something visionary enough to inspire them, and programmatic enough to give them hope that their lives can be, not just different, but better. Do that, and the law will follow.

It has been understandably difficult to articulate such a project in a movement that has been a mixture of different social and political tendencies. But to advance, the movement must become more than a front de réfus. It has to adapt to a political space in Morocco that is more open than in many other Arab countries, and a target for its demands that is more difficult to define. The movement has tapped into the enormous desire for change among the populace, but has not yet been able to craft coalitions that will mobilize a broad constituency or develop a politically effective program and strategy.

For its part, the regime has not yet articulated a new vision of its own, adequate to the challenges we face. It is likely to find that the aura of history and tradition is no longer sufficient to sustain its own front de réfus, bricolé from the sticks and carrots of the security apparatus and the usual suspects among the political parties, against the forces of change. 

The relations between movement and regime are still dominated by suspicion and fear, and this creates a very dangerous situation. We have to realize that, whatever the results of the consultative commission and referendum, they will almost certainly be overtaken by ongoing political events. Constitutional reform might turn a page, but it will begin another chapter. Either it will be substantive, and therefore become the condition and support of a continuing process of democratization that affects all the institutions of society, or it will be restricted and superficial, and quickly become an excuse for increased repression and a provocation to renewed militancy.

Particularly troubling in this regard is the regime’s seeming turn, already, to a strategy of harsher repression. It’s as if the regime believes not only that a single constitutional reform constitutes the process of democratization, but also that the mere promise of one puts an end to it. Beating people out of streets and squares, mass arrests, and drive-by attacks by police on motorcycles will do more to undermine the support of the government, and the monarchy, than would a sympathetic understanding of the need for a change that is comprehensive and social, not narrow and legal.

Whether the result of a momentary ascendancy of our own forces sécuritaires, or of the fear of lobbies with vested interests, or of the influence of some of our Arab brethren, who seem to think the Arab Spring can be choked off in mid-bloom by a strong enough dose of the herbicide of repression, such a harsh turn is dangerous and self-defeating. Throughout the region, the appeal of monarchy as a unifying and stabilizing force has been real, but it is also fragile, and requires its own careful and constant tending, or it may quickly wither. In February, the demonstrators in Bahrain were not calling for the ouster of the King or the end of the monarchy. Does anybody think they will be as reticent the next time they take to the streets? Does anybody think there will not be a next time? No “club of Kings” will protect a monarchy from the rage of people who have been beaten by the King’s clubs.

Bleeding wounds leave a harsher and longer-lasting impression than cast ballots. It would be wise for all political actors in Morocco to build on their own strengths rather than on their own or others’ weaknesses, to meet their political opponents with respect rather than fear, as compatriots and citizens rather than as enemies, and to prepare, as best they can, for a complex project of reform that will reach beyond the central squares of major cities, and will not be over in a month, or two months, or on anyone’s timetable. The Arab Spring is entering a long, but let’s hope not too hot, Moroccan summer.