American democracy assistance in Egypt: understanding neoliberalism in decentralization and democratic governance

Abstract

The research effort revolves around American democracy assistance and democracy promotion focusing on Egypt. The ideological underpinning under investigation raises questions regarding foreign democracy assistance in general, along with conditionality, governance, and our prospects for the realization of much elusive democratic governance in the Arab world. In reviewing decentralization in development and using the USAID funded Egyptian Decentralization Initiative (EDI) as a case study, I intend to demonstrate the inherent ideological conditionality at the heart of American democracy promotion. While simultaneously extricating economic governance from beyond the grasp of political institutions, neo-liberal economic globalization has begun to take its toll on the democratic institutions of participatory governance. Such a transformation is felt in the most consolidated and developed of democracies. The very same democracies, under the stress and strain of neo-liberal economic globalization, assist and advise â transitioningâ dictatorships and â semi-authoritarianâ regimes claiming democratic aspirations. However what is at the heart of doctrines of American democracy assistance, the alleged â liberalizationâ pushed by USAID, is merely a political façade of a ruthless economic diagnosis that holds no bearing for possibilities of democratic self-determination and the realization of self-rule in a region that has yet to experience governing its own.