authoritarianism in MENA

free information flow is essential and vital for the press and scientific research. We often hear of difficulties facing journalists in accessing information and sensitive data because official entities refuse to disclose information. We also often hear about academic research stumbling and terminating because of lack of security permits or because the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) objected to a research questionnaire, under the pretext that opinion polls could divulge information to the enemy about the domestic front and thus could be a national security risk. These security caveats caused the quality of the press and scientific research in the country to decline

Thus, if the intelligence rationale about freedom of information has merits, then the logic of rights also has merits because it argues that access and dissemination of information strengthens national security.

we can also say that the mindset of caution and opacity that caused a lack of transparency and negligible public oversight of state institutions was an even greater danger to national security

The big exception is Norway, which had the foresight to become wealthy and democratic before striking oil. As almost all the world’s untapped oil reserves now lie in the developing world, Norway is not likely to have much company

Governments often try to save for lean years by paying a portion of oil revenues into a walled-off, legally untouchable fund. Unfortunately, temptation is often more powerful than the law. Venezuela’s oil fund, for example, has been raided6 (pdf, p 16) by Hugo Chavez, dropping from $6 billion to $3 million in the last decade — during a time of record-high oil prices

Taxes create accountability — citizens want to know how the government is spending their money. Substituting oil revenues decouples government from the people

Oil-to-cash programs are essentially unconditional transfers financed by oil. They can be targeted at the poor — like the cash transfers we know — or universal. It is obviously cheaper to pay only the poor. But universality helps the second goal of oil-to-cash: creating better government. If you want citizens to become effective watchdogs, it helps to include people with clout. Governments tend not to respond to the clamors of the poor

you want people to know they are paying taxes, and know exactly how much. “That’s exactly the point,” says Moss. “It creates accountability and forces tax authorities to build a sound, transparent system.” (This is plausible, but there is no evidence either way just yet that oil-to-cash programs would lead to better governance.

Distributing oil money to citizens is a big step, and oil countries and companies have rejected much more modest ideas that might put limits on their abilities to manipulate oil revenues. One that is gradually gaining ground is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative13, now implemented by 37 countries. Under the EITI, oil companies disclose what they pay to governments, and governments disclose what they receive. The EITI then compares and reconciles these figures

oil-to-cash is probably easiest to do in countries just starting to exploit oil — that way there aren’t entrenched interests guarding business-as-usual

Ennahda has vilified the leading opposition group Nida Tounes as counter-revolutionary because it incorporates some former members of deposed President Ben Ali’s RCD party

the Leagues to Protect the Revolution. The Leagues are effectively a kind of militia, clearly now peopled by adherents of Ennahda even if not under the movement’s formal control, and they have been involved in a string of violent incidents. The most notorious of these was an attack on a regional branch of Nida Tounes last October in which the local party coordinator was killed. Chokri Belaid was among those who saw Ennahda as having created a climate of tolerance toward these attacks. In a TV interview recorded shortly before his killing, he charged Ennahda with having given a “green light” to political violence, and said that “Ennahda mercenaries and Salafists” had tried to break up a meeting of his supporters last weekend

The importance of restraining political violence between now and the next elections cannot be overstated. What happens next in Tunisia could have repercussions across the Middle East and North Africa. The European Union and other outside groups with a stake in Tunisia’s transition should send a clear and unambiguous message that turning a blind eye to political violence is incompatible with democratic principles

Malek said his organization was also trying to broker a solution to Cairo's debt to foreign energy companies producing oil and gas in Egypt such as BP, Gas Natural, Petronas, Shell and Dana, that has accumulated since the 2011 uprising.He disputed the figure of $9 billion cited by consultancy Executive Analysis and European diplomats for the total energy debt, saying it was far less, but declined to give a number."Some of their contracts needed to be reviewed because they were not balanced to cover both the national interest and the company interest. So some licenses were suspended when they expired, which made a bit of a problem," Malek said."We tried to encourage them by giving them more concessions and rescheduling these payments (owed by Egypt). We opened other opportunities in the same field such as refineries and other projects they can take. Up to this moment, none of these companies has decided to leave," Malek said.He acknowledged that most foreign energy companies were still holding back on new investments in Egypt. "They want to see these problems tackled first. They want to see a clear road map, which is normal in such an environment."