Over the past decade, thousands of young people in the post-communist region applied nonviolent methods of resistance to protest against large-scale electoral fraud. In 2000, the social movement Otpor (Resistance) played a vital role in removing Slobodan Milosevic from power. Inspired by Otpor, a number of youth movements emerged in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine. In my post-doctoral project at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, I examine why some youth movements were more successful than others in mobilizing the population against the repressive political regime. My research suggests that political learning of autocratic incumbents has contributed to the diminishing power of similar youth movements.

In the wake of the 1998 draconic laws on universities and the mass media, a group of students from the University of Belgrade formed the youth movement Otpor and chose the clenched fist as its symbol. In the course of two-year nonviolent struggle against Milosevic, Otpor spread across Serbia and attracted more than 70,000 supporters. The youth movement launched a campaign with the provocative title “He Is Finished” and shifted the blame for all the country’s problems on the incumbent president. In addition, Otpor collaborated with other civil society actors to stage a get-out-to-vote campaign “It’s Time!” aimed at bringing first-time voters to the polling stations. In the 2000 election, almost 86 percent of 18-29 year old Serbs cast their ballot; most of them voted against Milosevic.

Given state pressures on the mainstream media, the Serbian movement delivered its messages by occupying the public space. Movement participants plastered Otpor stickers, spray-painted graffiti, staged street performances, and organized street concerts. “It is amazing how people notice branding in their everyday life, but underestimate it in nonviolent struggle,” a former Otpor activist noted. Without doubt, Otpor succeeded in creating and popularizing a model of nonviolent resistance.

Notwithstanding slight modifications of Otpor’s model, Belarus’ Zubr (Bison) in 2001, Georgia’s Kmara (Enough) in 2003, Ukraine’s Pora (It’s Time) in 2004, and an assortment of Azerbaijani youth groups in 2005 largely took a similar course of action. The youth movements were formed around the time of a national election and called for free and fair elections. Emulating Otpor, youth activists planned a negative campaign targeted at the incumbent president and a positive campaign aimed at boosting youth voter turnout. Likewise, youth movements employed a similar toolkit of protest strategies, including stickers, graffiti, street performances, and rock concerts.

At the same time, autocratic incumbents in the post-Soviet region began to scrutinize Otpor’s model of nonviolent resistance to prevent the repeat of the Serbia scenario. In light of electoral revolutions in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine, the governments in Azerbaijan and Belarus deployed coercive measures against youth movements before they could develop into powerful agents of political change. In addition, the incumbent presidents have invested considerable resources into the creation of state-sponsored youth organizations. In 2005 and 2008, the Azerbaijani youth movement Ireli (Forward) called upon young voters to support President Ilham Aliyev. Similarly, the Komsomol-like Belarusian Republican Union of Youth has become a tool for youth co-optation under President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Like in the Soviet times, membership in the state-sponsored youth organization is now a pre-requisite for university admission and career growth in Belarus.

As the date of the America withdrawal from Iraq approaches, there are a number of key imperatives that must be addressed and important goals to be achieved to help assure that recent hard-won gains will not be reversed once the American withdrawal takes place, argues Larry Diamond, Director of FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at both FSI and the Hoover Institution, in a recent op ed in the Arabic magazine, The Majalla.

Although Iraqis are eager to be rid of U.S. troops after more than six years of occupation and Americans want to bring their troops home, both share the anxiety that too rapid a withdrawal, without first laying adequate foundations, could unravel hard-won political and security gains.  To prevent a descent into “horrific violence or tyranny” in Iraq after the United States withdraws, Diamond sets out four key imperatives:

1. A more authentic and inclusive constitutional bargain must be struck among the major political, regional, and sectarian groups in Iraq;
2. The Iraqi government must make good on its pledge to integrate the Sahwa mililtia, which played a major role in stabilizing large parts of Iraq and battling al Qaeda, into the country’s civilian forces and civilian jobs;
3. Adequate provision must be made to assure a peaceful, fair, and open electoral process this coming December when the mandate of the Iraqi parliament will be renewed; and
4. Vigilant, sustained, and effective action is needed to control the corruption that is currently diverting needed monies away from the vital tasks of rebuilding infrastructure, reviving schools and health care, and strengthening the economy and improving the quality of life.

Diamond, a world renowned authority on democracy and the factors facilitating democratic transitions and consolidations, served with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2004 and wrote a book about the experience titled, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq.  His most recent, critically acclaimed book, is The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Times Books, 2008).

President Bush's vision of a democratic Middle East was premised in part on the region's popular Islamist groups reconciling themselves to the give-and-take nature of democracy.

It might make sense then, that the Bush administration would do what it could to support a party that has made such a transformation in Turkey. But it's not.

Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP), which fashioned itself as the Muslim equivalent of Europe's Christian Democrats, has stood out by passing a series of unprecedented political reforms as the country's ruling party.

Yet the Turkish Constitutional Court - bastion of the hard-line secularist old guard - is now threatening to close down the AKP and ban its leading figures, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, from party politics for five years. And the Bush administration, in the face of this impending judicial coup, has chosen to remain indifferent. The consequences could reach beyond a setback to democracy in Turkey and affect the Middle East.

The Constitutional Court will rule as soon as next week on an indictment accusing the AKP of being a "focal point of antisecular activities."

Turkey's Constitution establishes secularism as an unalterable principle and allows the court to ban parties it deems antisecular. But disbanding a democratically-elected party on such dubious grounds as attempting to lift a controversial ban on wearing head scarves in universities - the crux of the case against the AKP - is not how mature democracies handle divisive issues. Judges should not decide parties' fates; voters should.

Indeed, voters have flocked to the AKP since its founding by break away reformists within the Islamic movement. The party was elected in 2002 on pledges to preserve secularism and vigorously pursue Turkey's efforts to join the European Union. It also explicitly disavowed the Islamist label.

The AKP-led government then passed a series of democratic reforms that led Brussels to begin formal accession negotiations with Turkey. Those reforms, together with a booming economy, spurred 47 percent of Turks to vote for the AKP in its landslide 2007 reelection.

To be sure, the AKP's democratic credentials are hardly perfect. It has been overly cautious in repealing certain restrictions on freedom of speech, and it abruptly lifted the head scarf ban without first initiating a national dialogue.

Yet despite its flaws, the AKP is the most democratically inclined - and somewhat ironically, the most pro-Western - political party on the Turkish scene today. Closing it down would be a mistake.

A ban on a party that nearly half of the country supports could spark violence - which Turkey's secularist generals might then use as a pretext for a direct military intervention. Regardless, senior EU figures have criticized the closure case and warned that banning the AKP could gravely damage Turkey's candidacy.

Even more troubling is the message it would send to the rest of the Muslim world - no matter how much Islamists moderate, they won't be accepted as legitimate participants in the democratic process.

In recent years, mainstream Islamist groups throughout the region - including in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco - have embraced many of the foundational components of democratic life. Yet their moderation has been met with harsh government repression, or more subtle designs to restrict their political participation.

More is at stake than may initially appear. If the AKP - the most moderate, pro-democratic "Islamist" party in the region today - is disbanded, it will strengthen those Islamists who see violence and confrontation as a surer means to influence political power.

During the past year, a number of Islamist leaders we've spoken to in Egypt and Jordan have warned that rank-and-file activists are losing faith in the democratic process, and may soon become attracted to more radical approaches. A ban on the AKP would only make it that much harder for moderates to continue making the case that participating in elections is worthwhile.

Though US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praises the AKP's democratization agenda, last month she said, "Obviously, we are not going to get involved in ... the current controversy in Turkey about the court case." Yet moments later she opined, "Sometimes when I'm asked what might democracy look like in the Middle East, I think it might look like Turkey." It's difficult to tell if she's referring to the new, democratizing Turkey of the past five years - or the reactionary Turkey where judges and generals flagrantly overrule the people's will.

President Bush has one last opportunity to reinvigorate the cause of Middle East democracy. By publicly denouncing the closure case, the administration would signal that the US not only supports Turkish democracy against a dangerous internal assault, but that it is also committed to defending all actors willing to abide by democratic principles in a region that desperately needs more of them.

CDDRL Director Larry Diamond engaged in a far-reaching conversation at FSI with Jason Yuan, Taiwan's Representative to the United States, about the dynamic relationship among Taiwan, the United States, and China. Finding fertile ground for debate, the two examined democracy in Taiwan, cross-strait relations, Taiwan's economy, and prospects for the development of democracy on the mainland.