America's Response to the Arab Uprisings: US Foreign Assistance in an Era of Ambivalence

Abstract

This article traces the impact of the Arab uprisings on US foreign assistance to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the period since 2011. Despite the Obama administration's rhetoric in support of Arab protesters and their demands for political and economic change, and despite the US President's commitment to place the full weight of the US foreign policy system behind political openings created by mass protests, US foreign assistance programs to the MENA region were largely unaffected by the dramatic political changes of 2011 and beyond. The article explains continuity in US foreign assistance as the result of several factors. These include the administration's ambivalence about the political forces unleashed by the uprisings; domestic economic and political obstacles to increases in foreign assistance; institutional and bureaucratic inertia within the agencies responsible for managing foreign assistance programming, and institutional capture of the foreign assistance bureaucracy by implementing organizations with a vested interest in sustaining ongoing activities rather than adapting programs in light of the new challenges caused by the Arab uprisings.

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