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Network of Democracy Research Institutes
-Democracy Research News-March-April 2006Welcome to Democracy Research News, the quarterly newsletter of the Network of Democracy Research Institutes (NDRI). The Network is a membership association of institutions that conduct and publish research on democracy and democratic development. It is also one of several functional networks associated with the World Movement for Democracy (www.wmd.org). This newsletter is one means of informing democracy scholars and others worldwide about the activities of and publications produced by NDRI member institutes. The newsletter will continue to evolve as the Network grows, and we invite readers' comments and suggestions of useful features they would like to see in future issues. Additional information about the Network and profiles of all member institutes are available at www.wmd.org/ndri/ndri.html. To submit comments or to inquire about joining the Network, please write to Thomas Skladony (). Subscribing to Democracy Research News Democracy Research News is distributed exclusively by e-mail. Subscriptions are available free of charge by writing to ndri@ned.org. We encourage readers to forward this newsletter to colleagues who may wish to subscribe. If you do not wish to receive Democracy Research News, send the message "unsubscribe" to ndri@ned.org and we will remove your name promptly. Contents 1. News and Announcements 2. New Publications and Recent Events by NDRI Members 2.1 Africa 2.2 Asia and the Pacific 2.3 Europe 2.4 Latin America 2.5 Middle East 2.6 Russia and the Former Soviet Union 2.7 United States and Canada 1. NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTSNew Master's Degree Program in Democracy Studies: The Center for Democracy and the Third Sector (CDATS, United States) and Georgetown University's Department of Government announce the creation of a new master's degree program in democracy studies that will begin in fall 2006. The program will address the diverse needs of a growing population working in the field of democracy promotion, with a specific focus on issues of democracy and development, and on improving the quality of democratic life around the world. Additional information about this program is available at www.georgetown.edu/centers/cdats/maprogramaims.htm.New Leaders Take Charge at Three NDRI Institutes: Jibrin Ibrahim replaced Kayode Fayemi as the director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD, Nigeria) on February 1, 2006, when Mr. Fayemi retired after nine years as CDD's director to run for governor of Ekiti State, Nigeria. Mr. Ibrahim previously served as director of Global Rights, an international human rights organization in Nigeria. Rose Gottemoeller succeeded Andrew Kuchins as director of the Carnegie Moscow Center in January 2006, at which time Mr. Kuchins returned to Washington to serve as a senior associate in the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ms. Gottemoeller, most recently a senior associate with Carnegie's Russian and Eurasian Program and with its Nonproliferation Project, had also previously served as deputy undersecretary for defense nuclear nonproliferation in the U.S. Department of Energy. Michael McFaul was recently appointed director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). Mr. McFaul, an expert on Russia and the former Soviet republics, is an associate professor of political science at Stanford University and is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He replaced Stephen Krasner, who currently serves as director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State. NDRI Welcomes New Member: The Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI, Germany), a major research project within Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation, joined the NDRI in December 2005 as the Network's sixty-second member. The BTI (described below in the section on Europe) is a biennial quantitative ranking of the state of democracy and the market economy, plus the quality of political management, in more than 100 countries worldwide. 2. NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECENT EVENTS BY NDRI MEMBERSFour scholars affiliated with NDRI members (Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Romanian Academic Society; Ghia Nodia, Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy, and Development; Nikolay Petrov, Carnegie Moscow Center; and Richard Youngs, Democratisation and Rule of Law Programme at FRIDE) contributed chapters to Democratisation in the European Neighbourhood, a 250-page volume of essays edited by Michael Emerson, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. The anthology includes case studies of democratic progress (or regress) in Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Egypt, and Palestine; an overview chapter on Arab democratization; and a lengthy concluding chapter on the effectiveness of the European Union as an exporter of democratic values in its own neighborhood. The Centre published the printed book in October, and also provides a free download entire content.2.1 AFRICA The Afrobarometer recently added several new publications to its Working Papers series. "Seeking the Democratic Dividend: Public Attitudes and Attempted Reform in Nigeria," by Peter Lewis and Etannibi Alemika, analyzes the results of the third Afrobarometer opinion survey in Nigeria, which was conducted in September-October 2003. The authors conclude from their research that "for the most part, the Nigerian public today feels that they have failed to see a democracy dividend, and they are increasingly critical of government, ambivalent about the democratic regime, and divided about the future direction of the economy." "Free and Fair or Fraudulent and Forged: Elections and Legitimacy in Africa," by Devra C. Moehler, examines the role of elections in increasing the perceived levels of legitimacy among the public in Africa. Rather than acting as a legitimizing agent, elections in Africa may inspire complacency among those close to the regime, while generating apathy among "outsiders," the author argues in this 31-page study. Other recent Working Papers titles included "Democracy and Primary School Attendance: Aggregate and Individual Level Evidence from Africa," by David Stasavage, and "Atitudes em Relaçăo ŕ Qualidade da Democracia em Cabo Verde" (Attitudes in Relation to the Quality of Democracy in Cape Verde), by Deolinda Reis, Francisco Rodrigues, and Jose Semedo. Newly available titles in the Afrobarometer's Briefing Papers series include "Sustained Support for Democracy in Ghana," "Despite Reforms, Dissatisfaction Persists with Economic Conditions in Ghana," and "Parliament of the Fourth Republic of Ghana-Views from the Grassroots." The Centre for Democracy and Development's (CDD, Nigeria) Gender Budget Initiative recently published A Handbook on Budgeting: A Guide to Due Process. The 60-page handbook gives civil society tools to promote fairness and transparency in public budgeting by explaining the policy process and relevant legal frameworks. The handbook also includes case studies of budgeting in Mexico, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, South Africa, and the Philippines. The Ghana Center for Democratic Development published "Assessing and Reforming Public Efforts to Control Corruption," by Larry Diamond, who argues in this Briefing Paper that fighting corruption effectively requires a combination of proper incentives to public officials, serious punishments for violators, and strong systems of horizontal accountability in government. In November 2005 the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) published Taking the Lead, a 52-page booklet that presents the experiences of seven citizens who play important but underappreciated roles in South Africa's civil society. (The seven individuals had all participated in Idasa's Citizen Leadership for Democratic Governance training program in 2003.) In December 2005 Idasa also published Fundraising and Proposal Writing, by Morné Maritz, as part of the Handbook Series for Community Based Organizations. 2.2 ASIA AND THE PACIFIC In October 2005 the Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI, Australia) hosted seven representatives of Indonesia's major political parties during a ten-day working visit to Australia. The visit was the inaugural event of a CDI project to strengthen linkages between Australian and Indonesian parties. Participants attended a state council of Australia's Liberal Party in New South Wales, then met with senior federal representatives of that and other Australian parties in Canberra. Discussions focused on building and maintaining party structures, candidate recruitment, party discipline, internal party democracy, and political-party finance. The Centre also organized its seventh annual Pacific Parliamentary Forum in December 2005 in the Fiji Islands, where participants from twelve Pacific countries, including many young and emerging leaders, discussed the "Foundations of Public Leadership." The November 2005 issue of CDI News, the Centre's bimonthly electronic newsletter, reported on these and other CDI projects and provided a brief listing of new research on democracy available through the Internet. The Centre for Policy Research (CPR, India) published a report on its August 2005 symposium on "Restoring Peace and Democracy to Nepal: The Challenges Ahead." Conference participants, who included members of the media, political parties, and representatives of civil society and academia, discussed the likely future of Nepali politics and the role of the international community in restoring democracy in that country. Christine Loh, chief executive officer of Civic Exchange (Hong Kong), wrote "Political Evolution: The Rise of Donald Tsang," a 20-page overview of the campaign promises, policy agenda, and political strategies of the new chief executive of Hong Kong. Civic Exchange published "Hong Kong Constitutional Reform: What Do the People Want?" (December 2005), a 73-page study conducted by the Hong Kong Transition Project that provides a wealth of survey data and analysis on attitudes toward democracy and reform in Hong Kong. Other recent Civic Exchange publications include "The Executive Council: Role, Responsibilities, and Scope for Reform," "Taxation and Democracy in Hong Kong" by Richard Cullen and Tor Krever, and a response by Civic Exchange to the most recent report of Hong Kong's Constitutional Development Task Force. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA, Sri Lanka) sponsored a series of four workshops on "The Future of Democracy and Good Governance in Sri Lanka" in September and October 2005. For more information write to Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of CPA. 2.3 EUROPE The Access to Information Program (AIP, Bulgaria) organized its third annual commemoration of International Right to Know Day on September 28, 2005. The AIP ceremony, held at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, featured the presentation of both positive and negative awards in seven categories to individuals and organizations that had helped or hindered free access to information in Bulgaria in the preceding year. AIP also cosponsored the International Freedom of Information Litigation Conference, which met November 25-26, 2005, in Sofia. Participants discussed lessons learned in recent litigation, the impact of freedom of information laws on national security, government contracting, and personal privacy; and opportunities for international cooperation in advancing national freedom of information regimes. Ivan Krastev, program director of the Centre for Liberal Strategies (CLS, Bulgaria), participated in a November 2005 panel discussion entitled "Does Anti-Americanism Matter to American Foreign Policy?" The meeting was held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. Mr. Krastev also discussed "Enlargement of the Empire: EU and the Balkans" at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., on November 9, 2005. Mr. Krastev and other speakers expressed concern that enlargement of the European Union has drawn foreign investment away from Bosnia and Serbia to the benefit of EU candidate states Romania and Bulgaria. The Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS, Bulgaria) organized a November 17, 2005, discussion in Sofia on "The French 'Intifada:' Crisis of National Democracy and Perspectives on the Multicultural Model in Europe," featuring presentations by Ognian Minchev, executive director of IRIS, and other senior researchers from the Institute. Mr. Minchev participated in a November 2005 conference in Vienna entitled "The Black Sea Region: Setting a Safe Course on Democracy and Development." The meeting was organized by the Tblisi-based South Caucasus Institute of Regional Security. In December 2005 he also participated in a conference in Brussels organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States on "Developing a Western Strategy Towards the Wider Black Sea Region." Four papers on the Black Sea region by IRIS scholars (including a study of democratic developments in Moldova by Diana Draganova) are available at here. The Centre for the Study of Democracy and Culture (CDK, Czech Republic) published Víceúrovnové vládnutí: teorie, prístupy, metody (Multilevel Governance: Theories, Approaches, and Methods), edited by Petr Fiala and Maxmilián Strmiska. The Czech-language anthology of essays focuses on how European Union enlargement affects politics in individual member states and alters the behavior of individuals, interest groups, and political parties. More information about the book is available here The January 2006 issue of Revue Politika, the Centre's monthly journal, includes several articles on Czech and EU politics, a report on privatization and capitalism in the Czech Republic, and a European view of the policies of the Bush administration. The Centre continued work on its project on "Democratic Institution Building Process: Lessons from the Czech Republic" throughout the past year. Launched in 2004, the project seeks to inform Iraqi political and intellectual leaders about the successes and failures of democratization in the Czech Republic, and also to inform the Czech public about Iraq's transition from dictatorial rule. Two cohorts of Iraqis (most recently, in September 2005) visited Prague and Brno for meetings and discussions with elected officials, political-party leaders, university faculty, journalists, and representatives of civil society. In the fall of 2005 CDK published in Arabic a 350-page volume of essays entitled Transition to Democracy: Czech Experiences. The collection was designed for use as a textbook for promoting democracy in Iraq, and was distributed to state institutions, political parties, and civic organizations throughout the country. The Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI, Germany), the NDRI's newest member, organized a major international conference entitled "Political Management of Transition: Enhancing Governance Capacity" on October 5-7, 2005, in Berlin. More than 100 scholars, political leaders, and elected officials from Europe, Russia, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and North and South America participated in plenary and breakout sessions on political management, measuring democratic and economic progress, and societal reform in the Arab world. The conference also marked the release of the Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2006, a biennial study of the state of political and economic transformation in 119 countries worldwide. The BTI 2006 includes numerical indices of democratic and market reforms, as well as in-depth evaluations of the management of the transformation process. The project includes a book (published in German and English), charts and tables ranking countries hierarchically, and thousands of pages of country reports and analysis (available online only). BTI scholars are also developing the Bertelsmann Transformation Atlas, an Internet-based interactive application that will allow users to compare countries according to political and economic criteria, and to see graphical visualizations of the results. Visit here for an overview of the Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2006 and for instructions on its use. Numerous links from there take users directly to countries and regions of interest. The Fall 2005 issue of the Turkish Policy Quarterly, published with the support and collaboration of the European Stability Initiative (ESI, Germany), includes articles on the future of Turkish-U.S. relations, the expectations of Turkish Cypriots' from the European Union, Turkish foreign policy toward Israel, and a set of articles on the Armenian tragedy. In December 2005 ESI published "Moment of Truth: Macedonia, the EU Budget, and the Destabilization of the Balkans," which argued against recent policy decisions by the French and British governments that, in the author's opinion, would "throw the entire European strategy in the Balkans into confusion." The Institute of Public Affairs (ISP, Poland) organized an October 2005 seminar on how new member states of the European Union try to reconcile EU migration and border policies with their need to maintain good relations with non-EU neighbors to the east. The event also marked the publication by IPA of The Visegrad States between Schengen and Neighbourhood, a volume of essays edited by Piotr Kazmierkiewicz with a special focus on immigration from Ukraine and Moldova to Poland and other EU countries. A summary and policy recommendations are available here. Krystyna Iglicka, Piotr Kazmierkiewicz, and Agnieszka Weinar published a 28-page case study of Poland's immigration policies for a project entitled "Current Immigration Debates in Europe," a collaborative effort of IPA, the Migration Policy Group, and the Center for International Relations that includes sixteen individual country reports. IPA also organized a December 2005 conference on "European Perspectives on Turkey and the Ukraine," whose participants included Agnes Batory from the Center for Policy Studies, an NDRI member in Hungary. The Institute of Political Studies (Instituto de Estudos Politicos, IEP, Portugal), hosted a February 10, 2006, lecture by Noel Malcolm of All Souls College, University of Oxford, entitled "Hobbes and the Contemporary World Order," as part of its British Council Distinguished Guest Professor lecture series. The January-March 2006 issue of Nova Cidadania (New Citizenship), IEP's quarterly journal, features an analysis of the political ideas of Portugal's presidential candidates; an interview with Jung Chang, coauthor of Mao: The Untold Story; and an essay by Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute on cultural and academic trends in American universities. Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, president of the Romanian Academic Society (SAR), contributed the introductory essay to A Quest for Political Integrity (Polirom, 2005), a documentary account of the 2004 campaign organized by the Romanian Coalition for a Clean Parliament, in which SAR played a major role. The Coalition, an umbrella association of leading civil-society groups, developed formal criteria by which to judge the fitness of parliamentary candidates for office, collected and disseminated information about candidates, and eventually published a blacklist of 202 candidates declared to be unfit (of whom 98 withdrew their candidacies or lost their respective elections). SAR also published the Spring/Summer 2005 issue of the Romanian Journal of Political Science, whose special theme was "From Democratization to Normal Politics." It featured a lead article by Ms. Pippidi entitled "Democratization without Decommunization: The Balkans' Unfinished Revolutions," plus additional studies of political parties and voting behavior in Eastern Europe, and of democratization in Romania, 1989-2000. The Center for Liberal-Democratic Studies (CLDS, Serbia and Montenegro) organized a major conference entitled "Four Years of Transition in Serbia," held October 5, 2005, in Belgrade. Keynote speakers included Boris Tadic, president of Serbia; Miroljub Labus, deputy prime minister; Zoran Zivkovic, former prime minister; and other senior political and academic figures. The event marked the publication by CLDS of Four Years of Transition in Serbia, a study of that country's economic and political development in the post-Milosevic era. CLDS scholars Boris Begovic and Bosko Mijatovic edited the 471-page book. The Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM, Serbia and Montenegro) and the Center for Regionalism (based in Novi Sad) cosponsored a January 2006 roundtable entitled "Montenegro and Serbia on the Eve and after the Referendum." Scholars, political leaders, and representatives of international organizations discussed the likely outcome and implications of the referendum on independence that will take place in Montenegro in April 2006. The October-December 2005 issue of CEDEM's newsletter included a lead article on EU enlargement in the Balkans, plus the results of a December 2005 CEDEM poll on political party preferences and attitudes toward EU membership among Montenegran respondents. The Institute for Public Affairs (IVO, Slovakia) published Slovakia's Euro-Atlantic Integration: A Year After in November 2005. The 91-page monograph was edited by Marek Stastný, Martin Bútora, and Olga Gyárfásová. IVO researchers Olga Gyárfásová and Zora Bútorová prepared a report entitled "Slovakia on the Threshold of an Election Year" that summarized a November 2005 IVO opinion survey in which respondents compared their current personal financial situation with that of the year before, evaluated social developments since 2002 (the year of the most recent Slovak elections), and identified the main problems facing the country. On November 15, 2005, IVO and Philip Morris Slovakia cosponsored a workshop entitled "Violence against Women as a Problem of Public Policy." Approximately 150 participants representing government ministries, local elected leaders, women's rights organizations, and scholars discussed government policy on domestic violence, the effectiveness of public and private campaigns to reduce violence, and lessons learned from such efforts in neighboring Austria and the Czech Republic. Zora Bútorová completed a summary of the workshop. The Democratisation and Rule of Law Program of FRIDE (La Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, Spain) and Freedom House cosponsored a November 7-8, 2005, conference in Brussels entitled "Common Goals, Different Strategies? Options for a Transatlantic Agenda on Cuba." Participants debated the advantages and disadvantages of differing U.S. and European approaches to promoting democratization and liberalization in Cuba. A conference agenda is available here. In October 2005 the Program published its "Dossier Colombia," a collection of six essays on the political process, human rights, and the rule of law in that country. Manuel Alcántara of the University of Salamanca was the featured speaker at a November 2005 FRIDE forum on "The New Electoral Cycle and the State of Democracy in Latin America." Richard Youngs, codirector of the Program, and Haizam Amirah Fernández edited The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: Assessing the First Decade, a 164-page volume of essays on the achievements and shortcomings of the EMP during the past ten years. The book was published jointly by FRIDE and the Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estratégicos, also based in Madrid. The UK Democratic Audit, a research project of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex (United Kingdom), published "Parliamentary Approval for Making War," a brief paper by Andrew Blick, Paul Hunt, and Stuart Weir recommending greater parliamentary control over the government's war-making power in the United Kingdom. The Democratic Audit continues research on counterterrorism laws and policies in Britain, and their impact on democracy and human rights. Andrew Blick and Stuart Weir recently completed a brief study entitled "The Rules of the Game: The Terrorism Bill of 2005" and will release a longer report on this topic later in the spring. Stuart Weir, director of the Democratic Audit, was one of a team of authors who prepared "The Far Right in London: A Challenge for Local Democracy," a case study of trends in popular support for the British National Party in a changing neighborhood in East London. 2.4 LATIN AMERICA Pedro Isern, director of the economics and rule of law program at the Center for Opening and Development in Latin America (CADAL, Argentina), published "1990-2010: Tres Etapas del Consenso en Chile en el Camino al Bicentenario" (1990-2010: Three Stages of Chilean Consensus Toward the Bicentenary), a report on the development and consolidation of democratic political institutions in Chile. CADAL also published "Freedom of the Press and Economic Development in Latin America 2005," a brief report by Hernan Alberro that updated earlier CADAL studies of the complex relationship among economic development, democratic consolidation, and freedom of the press. In cooperation with the political science department of the University of Belgrano and the Friedrich von Hayek Foundation, CADAL organized a November 2005 seminar examining the East European transitions to democracy and their implications for Latin America. Diplomats from the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia participated in the discussions with numerous Argentine scholars, political leaders, and journalists. The event also marked the release of Transitions: The Eastern Europe Experience, a major study of post-1989 Europe by Fredo Arias King. Visit www.cadal.org/libros/pdf/Transiciones.pdf for the complete Spanish text of this 464-page book. An English-language listing of its contents is available at www.cadal.org/english/nota.asp?id_nota=1047. The State of the Nation Program (Programa Estado de la Nacion, Costa Rica) published the eleventh in its series of annual reports on Costa Rican human development. This year's study focused on equality and social integration, economic opportunities and stability, the environment, and the state of democracy. The authors conclude that Costa Rica is in danger of political and economic backsliding caused by a decline in foreign investment and annual income, as well as corruption scandals involving three former presidents. State of the Nation also published "La Auditoría Ciudadana Sobre la Calidad de la Democracia" (Citizenship Audit on the Quality of Democracy), which drew on survey research to measure citizen's attitudes toward and support for democracy in Costa Rica. Two additional reports on human development in Central America and Panama are available in Spanish at www.estadonacion.or.cr/Region2003/Paginas/indice.html. The Latinobarómetro released its Latinobarómetro Survey 2005 in Santiago, Chile, on October 28, 2005. The 82-page report summarized the findings of field surveys in eighteen Latin American countries on such topics as democracy, the rule of law, civic culture, and the performance of political leaders, and also included selected data from previous surveys dating back to 1995. Previous Latinobarómetro reports are also available here. FUNDAR (Center for Analysis and Research, Mexico), published the Latin American Index of Budget Transparency 2005 in October 2005. Research centers and nongovernmental organizations in eight countries (Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru), including the NDRI-member State of the Nation Program in Costa Rica, designed and conducted surveys of the budgeting process among legislators, journalists, academics, and others experts as respondents; coded results; and issued reform recommendations based on their findings. "Most of the countries have unsatisfactory levels of transparency in public budgeting," the report notes. The complete 82-page report is available here. FUNDAR researchers Juan Cepeda, David Dávila, and Jorge Romero published a 17-page report entitled "How to Strengthen the Participation of the Chamber of Deputies in Public Expenditure," part of a FUNDAR essay series on citizen monitoring of the Mexican Congress. 2.5 MIDDLE EAST The Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies (ICDS, Egypt) organized and directed a coalition of sixteen Egyptian nongovernmental organizations that monitored the 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections in that country. The Independent Committee for Election Monitoring, part of the Egyptian Democracy Support Network, has issued a series of preliminary reports documenting incidents of voter intimidation and disenfranchisement, electoral fraud, and violence. The December 2005/January 2006 issue of Civil Society, the Center's magazine, also includes several reports on the Egyptian elections, plus additional articles on elections in Iraq and Palestine, the deterioration in U.S.-Egyptian relations, popular demands for democracy in 2005, and the Lebanese challenge in confronting the Hezbollah movement. The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) released the 2005 Israeli Democracy Index on November 3, 2005, in a ceremony and conference held at the official residence of Moshe Katsav, president of the state of Israel. The Index, compiled by IDI scholars Asher Arian, Shlomit Barnea, Pazit Ben-Nun, Michal Shamir, and Raphael Ventura, includes an annual updating of survey results on support for political institutions and elected officials, trust in government, levels of tolerance, and national and religious tensions. In recognition of the tenth anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the 2005 Index also includes survey data on how that tragic event is remembered in Israeli society and on how it continues to influence domestic politics to this day. A summary of the 2005 Index is available here. The Hebrew text is available here, and an English translation will be published soon. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) conducted and analyzed opinion polls throughout the recent election cycle that culminated with the Palestinian parliamentary elections on January 25, 2006. The most recent study published by the Center (February 16, 2006) identified three key factors in the surprisingly strong support for Hamas in the election: widespread corruption and mismanagement in the Palestinian Authority, the waning of the peace process as a priority of Palestinian voters, and the fragmentation of the Fatah movement in numerous electoral districts, leading to wasted votes. Full text (including graphs and tables) is available here. (Pre-election surveys and analysis are also available at the Center's Web site.) Khalil Shikaki, the Center's director, participated in an October 26, 2005, panel discussion on "Israel and the Palestinians: The Road ahead after Gaza Disengagement" at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C. A Webcast of the event is available here. The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS, Lebanon), the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the Sustainable Democracy Center cosponsored a December 2-3, 2005, workshop on Dealing with the Past in Lebanon: Various Approaches to Transitional Justice." The workshop included five panel sessions and concluded with a roundtable discussion of how to create a system of reconciliation in Lebanon. The Center will publish papers from the workshop later in the year. The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID, United States) and Street Law, Inc. celebrated the publication of Islam and Democracy: Toward Effective Citizenship at a November 29, 2005, reception in Washington, D.C. The two organizations produced the Arabic-language text for nonspecialist audiences, and will use it in a civic-education campaign they will conduct together in Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, and Egypt. Recent speakers and topics in CSID's monthly lectures include Reza Aslan ("Welcome to the Islamic Reformation: The Struggle to Define the Faith and Practice of Islam"), and Graham Fuller, Muqtedar Khan, Emad Shahin, and Joe Montville ("Ideas and Strategies for Democracy in the Arab/Muslim World: How Can CSID Help?"). The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) organized an international conference in December 2005 on "Turkey's Minority Rights Questions: A Citizenship and Democracy Based Approach" that brought together scholars to discuss the question of minority rights within the context of citizenship in a democratic regime. TESEV also published "The Problem of Internal Displacement in Turkey: Assessment and Policy Proposals," a 33-page preliminary report by the Foundation's working group on internal displacement, restitution, and social rehabilitation. The study examined the ongoing effects of the forced displacement of large numbers of persons (mostly ethnic Kurds) that occurred between 1984 and 1999, critiqued current government policies on their return, and recommended policies that would facilitate their reintegration into their home communities. TESEV also convened an October 2005 international conference on "Citizens' Right to Information" that brought together experts and scholars from Turkey and international organizations that support access to information (including Gergana Jouleva, executive director of the Bulgaria-based Access to Information Program, another NDRI member). 2.6 RUSSIA AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION
Rights & Democracy (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, Canada) has launched a new research project that will examine the effects of foreign direct investment on human rights. The research, entitled the Human Rights Impact Assessment, will begin with case studies of selected investment projects (such as waterworks, mining, and railroads) in Argentina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru, the Philippines, and Tibet. The project seeks to establish a methodology for improving corporate accountability and ensuring that development project financing does not undermine international human rights laws and norms.
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