Barbara Bodine is Executive Director of the Kennedy School of Government's Governance Initiative in the Middle East, which promotes executive training and academic research in emerging governance issues with regional scholars and leaders in cooperation with the new Dubai School of Government. A former career member of the Senior Foreign Service, she previously served as US Ambassador to Yemen 1997-2001, a period that saw enhanced support for democratization and increased security cooperation, as well as the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Ambassador Bodine spent her 30-year diplomatic career primarily in the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, including tours as Deputy Principal Officer in Baghdad and Deputy Chief of Mission in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion and occupation in 1990. In 2003 Ambassador Bodine served as coordinator for post-conflict reconstruction for Baghdad and the central provinces of Iraq.
In addition to a number of assignments in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Ms. Bodine was the Associate Coordinator for Operations and subsequently acting overall Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State, Dean of the School of Professional Studies at the Foreign Service Institute and Director of East African Affairs. Most recently, she served as Senior Advisor for International Security Negotiations in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the Department of State. Ambassador Bodine is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Secretary's Award for Valor, the Secretary's Career Achievement Award and the Distinguished Service Award. In addition to her appointment at Harvard, Ms. Bodine is Visiting Professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a member of the Advisory Committee to MIT's Persian Gulf Initiative. Ms. Bodine is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Presented by The Directors Lecture Series on Contemporary International Affairs.
Location: Smith-Buonanno 106, Pembroke Campus
Event Summary
"Governance in the Middle East: Iraq and Beyond'Speaker: Barbara Bodine, former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen
Watson Institute Directors Lecture Series on Contemporary International Affairs
April 12, 2005
Barbara Bodine, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, presented a lecture on the status of governance in the states of the Middle East. The event was apart of the Watson Institute's Director's Series on Contemporary International Affairs, which brings leading public intellectuals to engage Brown faculty and students in discussions about compelling global issues.
Bodine prefaced her talk by making a distinction between democracy and governance. Among policymakers, calling a state "democratic' means the existence of specific formal structures, namely the holding of elections and the establishment of a parliament. Governance's fundamentals include such important qualities as government accountability, rule of law, and transparency. Bodine noted that it is possible to have all the trappings of democracy without having good governance, but it is also possible to have good governance without democracy.
In terms of her recent experience in the Gulf region, Bodine joined the Iraq reconstruction team in March of 2003, and the "beacon of democracy' theory reigned supreme among U.S. policymakers. The theory stated that the transformation of Iraq into a democracy would be a shining example for the rest of the tyrannical regimes in the Middle East. Yet, Bodine objected to this theory because it discounts many of the positive reforms and changes that have been occurring under the radar screen in many Middle East countries for several years.
In Yemen, leftist parties, which originally abstained from elections, have been persuaded to join. Morocco has been holding steady parliamentary elections. Even Saudi Arabia has started to hold some municipal elections. Bodine also weighed in on recent developments in Egypt and Lebanon in the wake of the elections in Iraq and argued that more credit should be given to indigenous activists and reformers rather than to U.S. foreign policy. And it is probable that recent protests and demonstrations in Lebanon were inspired more by the Rose Revolution and the Orange Revolution rather than the recent Iraqi elections. Although it remains to be seen how permanent some of these changes will be, Bodine did suggest that the election in Iraq would not have been so successful without these other regional precedents. "The U.S. needs to resist the temptation to become the cock who takes credit for the sun rising in the morning,' she said.
In looking toward the future, Bodine expressed guarded optimism. In terms of Lebanon, Syria seems to have lost its hold over the country; the results of the elections in May will signal more clearly Lebanon's future direction. Yet, she remained skeptical about the constitutional reforms announced in Egypt and only time will tell how genuine these reforms actually are.
While these changes are taking place, Bodine listed three issues that U.S. policymakers should keep in mind. First, the tone of U.S. rhetoric and policymaking should be more diplomatic. A recent report released by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that the U.S. was willing to "tolerate' a certain level of instability on the road to transformational democracy. This report was worrisome to Bodine because it sent a negative message to the people actually living in these countries who must live through such "instability.'
Second, the U.S. should re-examine how to support reformers in Middle East countries. For example, reformers may actually be called "pawns of the U.S. internally if the U.S. voices its support for these reformers too loudly. "You help your friends by doing what helps them, not what helps you,' said Bodine. And in many cases, it may be better for reform activists if the U.S. remained quiet and simply provided logistical and financial support.
Third, Bodine worried about situations where U.S. concern for security may take precedence over U.S. concern for democratization. The U.S. has already pressured some governments in the Middle East to adopt acts similar to the "Patriot Act' for security purposes, and this move has signaled a backslide in the democratic progress of those countries.
In the resulting Q& A session, audience queries focused on clarifying the role of the U.S. in helping reform in Middle East countries. Bodine stated that she accepts two basic premises. First, most people prefer good governance over bad governance. Second, it is better to cooperate with the government structures that already exist and work to improve them rather than to start anew. Following these two basic principles, the U.S. ought to work both with reformers within the existing governments and with activists outside the government. "Personally, I believe we should have diplomatic relations with every government,' Bodine said. "No matter how repressive the government, it is important to have that dialogue. Ultimately, you always negotiate with your enemies, not your friends.'
Submitted by Peng Wu '05, Watson Student Rapporteur