>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Silence ]   >> Okay hi everybody.

Thank you all for coming and I'm Mary Jane Dibb [phonetic],
Chief of the African Middle East Division
and I'm delighted to see you all here.
The program today is unusual in a way because we are covering more
than one region at the time.
We're actually covering Central Asia, Tajikistan, South American
and Africa so we're covering actually three regions.
And I'm saying this because, as you're all aware,
we are three different sections
and so this program combines the interests of two sections
at least plus the Hispanic Division Section and I'm happy
to see a member of the Hispanic Division is here and I want
to thank the Hispanic Division
for co-hosting this program today with us.
Unfortunately Dr. Georgette Joiner [phonetic] will not be able
to join us, although she was very supportive of this program
because as you know she is in mourning for her husband.
So Dr. Fisher, the speaker today, received her BA
in International Studies at Pomona College in Claremont, California
and her MA and PhD Degrees from my Alma Mater,
from the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
in Washington, D.C. Between 97
and 2005 Julie Fisher was a Program Officer at the Kettering Foundation
in charge of International Fellows, International meetings
on the Liberty of Democracy, International NGO's,
the Nonprofit Sector Relationship with the Public and Research
on Community Decision Making in the United States.
From 2005 to 2007 she was a Kettering Associate researching her
book, Importing Democracy, The Role of NGOs in South Africa,
Tajikistan and Argentina.
The book is going to be published by the Kettering Foundation and will be
out in a couple of months but weeks, [laughter],
sorry, in a couple of weeks.
And you have, on your chair you have a chapter
of the book that you can look at.
The book has extensive areas of expertise from this
and previous work as an independent consultant include the liberty
of democracy, international NGOs,
evaluation of grassroots development projects, microcredit,
women in development, international education
and international population issues.
Before joining the Kettering Foundation, Dr. Fisher was a Scholar
in Residence at the Program on Nonprofit Organizations
at Yale University and a lecturer in the Biology Department
for a course on World Population.
She previously taught comparative politics and a course called
"The Politics of Third World Development" at Connecticut College.
As a specialist on nongovernmental organizations
and microenterprise development, she has been a consultant
to numerous international agencies, including CIVICUS, Technoserve,
CARE, Trickle Up, Lutheran World Relief and Save the Children.
She is the author of The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development
and the Nongovernmental Movement in the Third World published by Praeger
in 1993 and Nongovernments: NGOs and the Political Development
of the Third World, Kumarian in 1997.
Her first book was translated into Spanish and published
by the Fondo de Cultura Economico in 1993.
The second was translated into Chinese and published
by Tsinghua University in 2002.
Dr. Fisher has been a member of the Advisory Board
for the Civil Society Series published
by the New England University Press.
She often reviews articles for the Nonprofit
and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and Voluntas.
So with no further ado, Dr. Fisher.   [applause]

>> Dr. Julie Fisher: Thank you, Mary Jane.
Can you all hear me?
Good. Well my book has, I thought it would be
out by the time I was speaking here but unfortunately it's been delayed
by a second copy editor so it will be out by March 1,
I am told so if you are interested, after this talk,
in ordering it there's a brochure there and you get a discount.
My husband and I spent a month in each country in 2005
and 2006 interviewing people from what I call democratization NGOs
and I will explain that term.
But let's start first with sort of some common ground.
You all know what NGOs are.
I don't have to define that, I assume,
Nongovernmental Organizations.   You all know what Civil Society is.

There are varied definitions.
I like the very broad one that includes not only NGOs
but the media, some say even broader than that public talk, public dialog
and in many cases markets and that's a debate people have but I do think
that markets are a part of civil society.
Why did I call this book Importing Democracy?
There's been a lot of talk, particularly around the Iraq
and Afghan wars about exporting democracy and there were many people
who in a way democracy was a topic and it was hot on the front pages
of the newspapers for those years, that somehow we
in the U.S. could export democracy militarily, if you will.
And there were others who said no, that doesn't work
but you can do it peacefully.
And that's a debate that I hope we'll have some questions on.
But my idea was to say when people import democracy
for their own country they choose particular democratic ideas
from other countries that suit their own cultures
and they also combine them with their own traditions
and I'll get into that in a minute.   But why is democracy important?

Is it even possible?
We have a lot of evidence that it's terribly hard to achieve.
Democracy, and this is mostly from a book
by Halperin called The Democracy Advantage which came out in 2005,
he did a lot of statistical research,
democracies have higher rates of development overall,
they have more stability politically and they don't tend to go to war
with each other, although they may go to war
with other kinds of regimes.
Exporting democracy with military means doesn't usually work.
There's one exception, when we look at the end of the Second World War,
the American occupation of Japan where democracy was implemented.
But even peaceful attempts to export democracy can promote a reaction
and we've seen this recently in Russia
where Putin has outlawed the ability of NGOs in Russia
to get foreign funding if they're working on topics like this.
So as I said people choose democratic ideas and practices
that work in their own countries and they combine them with the recovery
of traditional democratic practices.
Now one of the most interesting things we found
in Tajikistan was the wide variety of local democratic practices
which predate the soviet period which survived, in some ways,
during the soviet era and which still exist,
the [foreign language] the community council, the tea houses,
[foreign language] work groups, common work groups, and this is true
in many, many countries, these local organizations are very important.
In Argentina there's a tradition all over the country
of community based libraries and these serve as a place
where people can gather and talk about local issues.
So when I say importing democracy it's not only bringing new ideas in
but it's recovering what exists in your own country.
Since the 1970's there has been an associational revolution throughout
the world.
Many NGOs that have been created can impact democracy indirectly.
Democratization NGOs have a potential direct impact.
So when I say indirectly I mean that many scholars believe
that as civil society becomes stronger,
as the number of NGOs increase, as they become more effective
in what they do, that that has an impact
on democratization that's generally positive, not always.
But the more direct impact
of democratization NGOs is that is their program.
In other words an NGO that promotes microenterprise may get women
engaged at the local level in the community council
because they have problems with the road
and they can't export their product to the city.
But they are not directly working on politics, or on democratization,
I should say, politics has a different meaning for many people.
This book tells the story
of how these NGOs strengthen the political system
into what I would call struggling democracies,
if I may characterize it as such, Argentina, South Africa
and let's just say at the outset
that we're all struggling democracies
in the world, in one way or another.   It's not an easy political system.

They strengthen democratic trends in a more authoritarian regime,
Tajikistan, which is, as you know, was part of the Soviet Union.
But Democratization NGOs are active in many other countries.
I have an appendix in my book with just a sample of those
in 15 other countries around the world and all
of these countries are radically different.
The three in my book are radically different countries.
But these organizations are remarkably similar.
If the Argentines new Tajik or new Russian,
they could go to Tajikistan, or vice versa,
the Tajiks could come to Argentina.
I would even argue that the creation of democratization NGOs is
as big a trend as the street demonstrations around the world
that we have seen in favor of democracy.
And like the street demonstrations they are fueled by the internet
and by, and a lot of this could not have happened 30 years ago.
However the democratization NGOs have not gotten anywhere near the
attention that the street demonstrations have gotten.
Yet in the long run what happens to the tap roots, you might say,
of democracy, the civil society, the organizational development,
is more important for sustainability
than a particular street demonstration,
as important as those are for getting attention.
There are four general topics that these organizations focus
on in all three countries.
Number one is legal reforms and civil liberties because without
that nothing else is very easy to do.
The second is building a loyal opposition.
This sounds like, this is the hardest one.
This is the one I would say is the most challenging and I'll get
into that in more detail.
Three is deepening and widening citizen participation.
By deepening I mean getting down to the local participation
at the local level, getting people involved in a wider range of issues.
And finally the promotion of a democratic political culture.
And much of that is defining, I want to be careful in my choice of words,
but most countries in the world have violence, local violence,
most countries in the world have corruption.
And violence and corruption are the hallmarks of a kind
of a negative political culture and so changing those two things
in any country is a way
to strengthen the democratic political culture support.
There are also more direct ways like courses
for high school kids, civic education.
But this wide range of activity shows that number one,
democracy is about much more than elections and two, democracy,
democratization is a long hard slog,
even when promoted consciously by NGOs.
And if you look at the cover of the brochure
that has my first chapter you'll see a jigsaw puzzle
and it shows how these hands
from the signs are putting together tiny little pieces.
This is like one of those jigsaw puzzles that you put
on your dining room table and it takes three weeks to do,
only in this case it's a lot longer than three weeks.
But you can see the kinds of topics.
And many of these NGOs specialize in one topic, like they specialize in,
for example, freedom of information law.
There's one in South Africa that that's all they do
and I'll tell you a little about them.
I imagine most of you already know something about South Africa
so I'm not going to go into a lot of background detail
but because I'm sure you all know about its transition
from the apartheid system and I'm sure you also know that most people
in South Africa, although it has the infrastructure
of a developed country, most people are still very, very poor
and the socioeconomic inequality is very bad in South Africa.
And recently there was a shooting of minors by the very government
that supposedly represents them so this is a really tough situation.
What are the democratization NGOs doing in South Africa
to strengthen South African democracy?
I think one of the keys there is to strengthen socioeconomic rights
because of the inequality.
And an NGO which is called the Open Democracy Advice Center is the one I
mentioned that focuses only on freedom of information.
When a poor community obtained neither the water nor the
electricity promised by the government,
ODAC worked with the community to raise awareness of the problem
and then won the court case against the government.
One of the strengths of the South African political system is the
strong legal system which they inherited.
And there's a sort of irony because before the end
of apartheid South Africa had what I've called
in this book a miniature legal system and by
that I mean this was a well functioning, fair legal system
but only a few people were included in it, those who had white skin.
So it is relatively easier to take a well functioning tiny legal system
and expand it to include everybody then
to take a less functioning legal system and reform it.
And so South Africa is one of the good background
or contextual pluses that South Africa has.
And by 2011 ODAC was working with 15 other local communities to make sure
that they got what they had been promised.
In other words they're increasing governmental accountability as well
as strengthening the legal system.
Another NGO, the Legal Resources Center,
conducted a successful civil trial allowing the only daughter
in a tribal area to inherit her parent's house after they died.
Otherwise, under traditional law, it may have gone to her male cousin.
And what most people don't know is the laws
of apartheid were dismantled, the tribal laws that went
with them were left intact so this is an example
of an inequity based on tribal law.
Although the case took nine years to litigate in the courts
and the legal resources stuck with it, it had a great impact
on the inheritance rights of hundreds of thousands
of women in South Africa.
Again, a long hard slog, democratization.
An NGO in the Eastern Cape region has worked on more than 500 cases
of official corruption at the provincial government level,
although only a few of these have led to corrective action.
The provincial government officials,
according to all the accounts I have read, now think twice
or even thrice before carrying out corrupt acts.
Corruption has declined in the Eastern Cape significantly.
So here's an example of changing the culture,
at least of a province, of South Africa.
The largest democratization NGO in South Africa, Idasa,
The Institute for Democracy in Southern Africa, has a reputation
for independent policy analysis and has had a big influence
on many government ministries.
Opposition political parties are not strong in South Africa
but democratization NGOs like Idasa often act like a loyal opposition
so they provide an alternative policy.
Idasa also helped organize the good governments learning network
which is made up of 15 local democratization NGOs
in the provinces that develop and share participatory tools
to activate citizens and make provincial governments
more accountable.
Now I would like to give you some background on Tajikistan.
It is a beautiful mountainous country.
I'm from Colorado and when I got there I thought I had gone home
to Colorado.
[laughter] In fact Dushanbe and Boulder are sister cities
and I grew up in Boulder.
When it was part of the USSR it was the poorest of the Soviet Republics.
The Soviets gave Tajikistan one huge very good thing
and that was the educational profile of a developed country,
one not so good which is the authoritarian political system.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union,
Tajikistan had a terrible civil war.
Between 1993 and 1996 more than 50,000 people died
and many more remained homeless.
The Kettering Foundation where I used
to work sponsored a sustained dialogue that laid the groundwork
for the official UN negotiations that ended the war
and then created the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue
which is here in Washington
and has sponsored similar sustained dialogues in many other places.
The task of democratization NGOs in Tajikistan is more difficult
than in South Africa or Argentina, however many Tajiks told me,
and I heard this repeatedly, not just from democratization NGOs
but just from other people like cab drivers, I heard the same thing over
and over, and that was we have more freedom then we have democracy.
[laughter] And if you look
at the freedom house ratings you'll see that they are too.
It's kind of interesting.   People aren't afraid to speak out.

The Public Committee for Democratic Processes,
which grew out of the sustained dialogue, has introduced the concept
of a loyal opposition by sponsoring monthly dialogues that include NGOs,
parliamentarians, members of the executive branch
of government and journalists.
One outcome is that people get to know each other and members
of small opposition parties are beginning
to introduce legislation in the parliament.
I think that's kind of a remarkable thing really.
In some ways it's more difficult for the South African opposition parties
to introduce legislation.
NGOs have also scored impressive legal victories on human trafficking
to Dubai and against the death penalty.
The League of Women Lawyers represented a battered woman
and a court, a Tajik court, sentenced her husband to jail.
That was unprecedented.
As in South Africa, NGOs are playing the role of a loyal opposition.
The judicial consortium got the government to reverse a decision
to revoke the license of a television station
after it provided space for the opposition.
Legal reforms are also dependent
on the education of government employees.
Since 2001 an NGO has been teaching local organizations
of law enforcement including police and prison staff
about international human rights standards.
The young lawyer who runs this NGO told me
"after the civil war the police force were full of fighters
who were aggressive and psychologically disturbed.
When they were asked how do you understand human rights?
A majority of them replied I can do whatever I want".
A central government is not opposed to [foreign language],
this is the name of the NGOs, training
and psychological counseling and you can understand why.
If the police at the local level are well trained,
handle disturbances better,
that's better for the central government as well.
So far there's nothing equivalent at the national level
but I wouldn't be surprised if that happens at some point.
Another major focus of democratization NGOs
in Tajikistan is local participation tied to socioeconomic development.
In one community the people built a greenhouse for vegetables
because they decided that too many women had anemia
and low energy for work.
As the NGO leader who supported this effort noted,
democracy is not just a government issue.
And I like that quote very much.   I think that's very important.

Cultural change in Tajikistan, changing the political culture,
very little being done by democratization NGOs.
As all of you know there's a serious corruption issue there.
On that, however, I would argue that the record of democratization NGOs
on using mediation to contain community violence has been very
strong and in that sense they're changing the political culture
of Tajikistan.   I will now turn to Argentina.

You probably know about the human rights movement that developed
after the end of the military dictatorship in 1983.
Since then human rights NGOs have joined a larger group
of democratization NGOs.
In fact human rights NGOs have been around a lot longer
and now they're part of a larger picture.
Provincial democratization NGOs are being supported by larger NGOs based
in Buenos Aires because political reforms
at the provincial level are usually easier and that is true
in all three countries, I would argue.
In Tucuman, which is way up in the North, it's the Andean Region
of Argentina, the Buenos Aires based civil rights association supported
an NGO founded by young law graduates and got the rights
of indigenous people into the provincial constitution
and the criminal code.
This was a huge step but again it was at the provincial level.
This hasn't happened at the national level yet.
Provincial NGOs also share ideals with each other.
An NGO in Santiago [foreign language] pioneered a course
for local judicial candidates,
audited by neighboring NGO leaders the course has now spread
for training judicial candidates in five other Argentina provinces.
And this is incredibly important because before this all you had
to do was know somebody to get a judicial appointment
and now you have to take a course and you have
to actually know something about the subjects you're going
to be dealing with.
Some reforms in Argentina are national, however.
After a coalition of national democratization NGOs succeeded
in opening up the parliamentary hearings for Supreme Court justices,
in other words when a Supreme Court justice was nominated in the past,
the president would send the name over to somebody in the parliament,
I'm not even clear who, and they would sign it and then
that person would be a Supreme Court Justice.
That has changed as a result of NGO pressure.
Now they have open hearings just the way we do for Supreme Court Justices
and when this was announced,
because they also said all existing Supreme Court Justices have to go
through this hearing that they didn't go through to begin with,
and when that announcement was made four justices resigned immediately.

Well what about citizen participation in Argentina?
[foreign language] which means city foundation,
worked with very poor communities along
with the Rio Salado River in Buenos Aires.
Mountains of rotting garbage had created a public health crisis.
And they sponsored eight successive deliberative forums
and those are places where people in the community can talk openly
and weigh choices and weigh pros and cons of different choices.
But they all said number one priority was garbage.
And they had informal discussions and all
in all this process involved over 700 people.
The community decided, at the end of this long process where they talked
and talked and talked, to hire teenagers, their own teenagers,
part time to become guardians of the river
and to collect the trash every day.
The provincial government provided seed money
and the garbage company provided bags, gloves and clothing
with profits recycled back to the community.
At the time of my visit, the project served over 1,000 families
and political leaders of 14 other communities had requested meetings
with the city foundation to start the same program.
According to an article in [foreign language], these two settlements
where this started have the cleanest streets in Buenos Aires.
Once the streets were clean the ministry of the environment was sort
of shamed into removing 12 tons of trash
from the river itself in one day.
Another example, you all know where [foreign language] is?
Way down at the tip, [foreign language],
of South America, very cold down there.
It has probably the most remarkable citizen activism
in city government anywhere in the world.
Citizens committees have to approve municipal laws
through deliberative forms and a weekly radio program.
As of 2009, 80% of all municipal ordinances had either been amended
or replaced based on citizen input.
[foreign language], citizen power, is the Argentine chapter
of Transparency International, which all of you I'm sure know
of with their record on corruption,
and [foreign language] has taken the lead
on changing the political culture of corruption in Argentina.
Its national petition on the subject of retirement fraud had more
than a million signatures.
The former director of Citizen Power now heads a new network
of 23 anticorruption NGOs.
In other words, 23 democratization NGOs in Argentina
that either specialize on corruption or have a large part
of their program focused on corruption.
[inaudible] opposition in Argentina, there is a very remarkable NGO
in Argentina called [foreign language].
It was the only example that I found like this in the three countries.
But what they do is sponsor joint trainings of business
and corporate leaders with NGO leaders to get them
to interact more, to strengthen programs
of corporate responsibility, to make them, in other words,
more functioning parts of a larger civil society.
And that's a model that I think would be extremely useful
in other countries.
I'm going to conclude now, opposition parties are weak
in all three countries and one of my conclusions is that in spite
of their great record on many other issues,
democratization NGOs do very little to support opposition parties.
They do support open public debate, however,
which is part of loyal opposition and they strengthen themselves
and other nongovernmental organizations for the long term.
Another conclusion is that democracy activists are very similar
to each other.
Many of them have already demonstrated considerable political
courage and are very self conscious and aware
about their role in promoting democracy.
Their central task is to combine indigenous democratic traditions
with democratic ideas imported from other countries,
not just the United States or Europe.
Participatory budgeting was pioneered in Brazil, for example,
this is where citizens get involved in a city budget very directly
and it's spread to many other countries.

Democracy activists also import ideas from the past.
And here I can only point to ideas of the enlightenment which continue
to have considerable residence and power in all three
of the countries that I looked at.
Particularly the loyal opposition idea, people say,
in all three countries they said we don't have it
but that's what we need so that was a similar kind of thing.
South African, Tajik and Argentinean NGOs could import each other's
good ideas.
For example, the use of public deliberation by [foreign language]
in Argentina is an innovative socioeconomic approach
to political participation
that could be used in any local community.
And in the question period I'd be happy to talk more
about public deliberation which is the focus
of the foundation I worked for.
Networking among democratization NGOs
and those focused more exclusively on economic development,
as you know in most countries most NGOs work
on socioeconomic development, I think there needs
to be far more networking among these two groups,
or between these two groups,
because socioeconomic NGOs often have stronger community connections
than democratization NGOs and they have a very deep commitment
to socioeconomic rights.
On the other hand, democratization NGOs are more aware
of the wider democratic agenda than are the socioeconomic NGOs
so there needs to be some well thought out strategic networking
between these two groups and between these two groups and people
in local communities, people at the grassroots level.
There are striking parallels between this generation
of democracy activists and the leaders of the enlightenment.
In 18 century Europe population growth increased literacy
when the rise of the middle class led to the creation of new spaces
such as the cafe's of London.
Educated members of the nobility such as [foreign language] wanted
to create societies in which members of this public sphere
who are involved in politics.   Democracy is not a good fix.

In this journey, South Africa and Argentina are ahead of Tajikistan
in some ways but the Tajik interviews demonstrate
that the process can begin even in a more authoritarian system.
What about international donors?
Often donors pose the wrong question, not just in this
but in development as well.
Donors often ask what do you need instead of what do you have?
Which could, for example,
include local democratic traditions, that's what they have.
Or in the case of Tajikistan they have the legacy of a,
they have an educated population, that's the sort
of question you need to ask and listen to.
Donors, in other words, should be doing their homework.
Who is already doing what and where?
And then I would argue that they should carefully
and with great thought, because you don't want to get into a situation
like happened in Russia recently,
then I think they could provide support for nonpartisan,
multiparty training which seems to be a real lack
in all of these countries.
I think donors could also support efforts to combat corruption,
whether they be done within civil society or even
in the government themselves.
And finally I think exchanges and internships among NGOs
and grassroots organizations within and between countries
such as the ones I studied.
So I will end there and open this up to questions.
[applause]
>> Thank you, thank you very much, Julie.
That was a very interesting presentation.
And now please feel free to ask questions.
If you'd like to identify yourself before, if not, please go ahead.
I'm going to start with one question.
I have a question which has been sort of in the back of my mind.
I wanted to ask you about the social media.
How is that impacting the development of NGOs?
>> Dr. Julie Fisher: There's a lag time, I would say, between the kind
of social media that we are now, all of us, or most of us,
[laughter] involved with.
When I was in Tajikistan, for example,
very few of the NGOs I interviewed even had websites.
Now they do.
And there's now an NGO umbrella group
in Tajikistan with its own website.
It's a question that I don't feel I'm really up to date on.
I can just tell you that from what I hear these people do communicate
with each other whether it's through email or through, you know.
And I also know that many of these people have been following me
on Linkedin so [laughter] they're connected with my research.
>> Questions?   Yes?


[ Inaudible audience question ]   >> Dr. Julie Fisher: Don't support?

>> Don't support the opposition.
>> Dr. Julie Fisher: They support the concept of a loyal opposition.
That's a difference.
>> Okay and you say that they should support the opposition even more.
>> Dr. Julie Fisher: No, no, no, if you support the concept
of a loyal opposition it means that political systems work better
if there is some accountability for the government,
if the government has to respond to questions.
Loyal opposition is a tricky concept
because in many countries it's not something
that people have talked about a lot.   Loyal means you support the system

but opposition means you probably oppose the regime
that happens to be in power.
So you're not going to overthrow the government but you're going
to criticize the government on particular policy issues
and that round table that I reported on in Tajikistan
that I attended was fascinating
because you know how sometimes you're in a meeting
and there's a text and then there's a subtext?
And for three hours the subtext of that was loyal opposition.
The subtext was tiny political parties saying we're not going
to overthrow the government.   We support the government.

But we want to be able to introduce legislation different
or amending a government bill, we want to have a role in parliament,
for example, an independent role, an autonomous role.
So loyal opposition is an advanced concept.
You know if you look at where it's really been effective,
usually it's defined by political parties.
It doesn't have to be defined by political parties.
NGOs can function that way, for instance.
The press in a way can be part of a loyal opposition that's independent.
So it's a concept that everybody I interviewed,
it was like there were three words where people lit
up when I asked them about it, two of them were loyal opposition.
And they'd so oh, they would just get so excited about it
and then the next word would be nobody here understands this.
And that was in all three countries I might say.
I think less in South Africa.
There was another word, what was the other word?
I will think of it in the course
but there's an educational challenge here.
Two theorists about 30 years ago said loyal opposition is the highest
form of conflict and it's a good phrase because there's no violence
but it does represent difference of opinion, conflict.


>> On a related note, could you talk a little bit about the quantity
of quality of political party agreement?
>> Dr. Julie Fisher: Yeah, well let's see,
Tajikistan there was the Islamic Renaissance Party which was part
of the Civil War which is very small now and really not
as significant as it used to be.
There are small parties, the Social Democratic Party,
run by a political scientist who's quite a bright guy.
He's also, you know, has some influence
through the judicial consortium which is one of the NGOs
that I talked about, which has done a lot of very successful legal work,
won a lot of cases for freedom of the press and things
like that and also very small.
In South Africa there've been several attempts,
recently there was the Cope Party in South Africa which was started
by former President Mbeki but didn't go anywhere.
There's now a new opposition party that's been announced.
The Democratic Alliance, which probably the Democratic Alliance,
they did win the Merrill Race in Cape Town
but the problem has been they're overwhelmingly white
and it's very difficult to create an opposition party
in South Africa unless it's multiracial.
I mean that's been the disadvantage of many of these attempts.
There's a new one announced just a few days ago and I don't know much
about it but Cope didn't go anywhere either.
There's not a lot, there's not a lot of opposition
in terms of political parties.
But as I say there is opposition and that's what's interesting,
the process still operates even without the form.
The function is still there although not the form


Other questions?
>> I had a question [inaudible audience question].
>> Dr. Julie Fisher: Okay and then there's a gentleman
in the back, okay.
>> What you meant by freedom but not democracy.
>> Dr. Julie Fisher: Well there's more freedom then democracy and by
that they mean that they don't feel afraid to speak up in public.
The press has on and off battled for press freedom
but it's a continual battle.
They haven't been suppressed completely.
On the other hand you know the elections,
there've been questions raised about the elections, let's just say that.
I don't want to get into a lot of details
because the election observer missions have raised questions,
for example and other aspects of democracy that I talked about,
you know, political parties are weak.
And you could say that about the other countries too, I think.
In fact I would say probably in all three there's no freedom
in democracy, perhaps at different levels.
The legal systems are very,
I mean South Africa is clearly the strongest legal system
of the three, no question.
Argentina has all the forms but there are difficulties
of corruption, etcetera in the courts.

So you know it's not, it's a complicated subject.
But I do feel, it's not like, I mean like Uzbekistan, for instance,
there's clearly less freedom of speech then in Tajikistan.
There's no, you know, just anything you read will tell you that.
It's not my opinion, Freedom House has pointed this
out in their reports.   You had a question too, sir.

[ Inaudible audience question ]
How what? [inaudible audience question] Well I think
when people organize, for example, organize an NGO
that NGO takes the case to court, for example, or creates a coalition.
As in Tajikistan the coalition that got sex trafficking outlawed,
which the Tajik government passed, it can be quite effective.
The League of Women Lawyers is an interesting group in Tajikistan
because one of the international donors that is big
in Tajikistan is the [foreign language] foundation.
And it happens that the head of [foreign language] was a head
at Kettering when I was there so I know her very well.
And she said to me, you know, the League of Women Lawyers came to us
to talk, they wanted to know what we thought.
What kinds of legal challenges or reforms we could make
on behalf of women's rights.
And she said we offered to provide them with some money
and they wouldn't take it.
They said no, we don't want to take from any international donors.
We have other, I don't know, they had other ways of earning money then
to take from international donors and I thought
that was very interesting because they wanted the advice
and the council of the [foreign language]
but they didn't want their money, which was,
and they're not all that way.   Some of them will.

But I think this issue of money is going to be double,
this movement more and more, as we saw in Russia.
And the reason is that there are so few domestic sources of support
for any NGOs, not just democratization.
Most countries don't have the philanthropic tradition
that we have.
The only one I can think of in the developing world is Venezuela
because of the oil money but most countries don't have that.
And so it's very tough to keep an organization like this going.
In Tajikistan these are run
by volunteers basically who have other jobs.
They are professors or teachers.   They don't get salaries.

In fact foreign money to Tajikistan has gone way
down since we were there for a number of reasons.
We also heard there, it was very interesting,
I asked people about foreign donors.
I wanted to know what people thought and they all said
without a question they said well,
a lot of these foreign donors hire people here who aren't honest
so they have their Tajik representative
and they don't know how to pick the right person so they get someone
who takes the money and doesn't use it effectively.
And they said the only foreign donor that was consistently able
to find the best Tajiks, the most honest Tajiks,
the most capable Tajiks, was the Swiss, the Swiss government.
And everybody independently told me, if you want to know how
to run this kind of international support?
Look at the Swiss.
Now I don't know whether that's true in other countries or not
but I remember that was kind of striking what people said.
And they liked [foreign language] too.
That was the other one they thought was honest.
But again, they were a larger group and they had more ability
to hire the best Tajiks in terms of ability and honesty and all that.
Any other questions?   >> Okay, let's give Julie a hand.

[applause] Thank you so much.   >> Dr. Julie Fisher: You're welcome.

And if any of you would like extra copies of this, we have some.


>> Dr. Julie Fisher: And it's available online as we speak so.
>> Thank you all for coming.
And we look forward to your book coming out.
>> Dr. Julie Fisher: Thank you.   I'm sorry it wasn't ready in time.

>> It's okay.
[laughter] You gave us a good insight.
>> Dr. Julie Fisher: Thank you all.
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.