Marketing Democracy: The Political Economy of Democracy Aid in the Middle East

Erin A. Snider, Assistant Professor of International Affairs, Texas A&M University

Wednesday, February 5, 2025
12:30 PM (Pacific Time)
Webinar

ABOUT THE WEBINAR

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ABOUT THE BOOK

For nearly two decades, the United States devoted more than $2 billion towards democracy promotion in the Middle East with seemingly little impact. To understand the limited impact of this aid and the decision of authoritarian regimes to allow democracy programs whose ultimate aim is to challenge the power of such regimes, Marketing Democracy examines the construction and practice of democracy aid in Washington DC and in Egypt and Morocco, two of the highest recipients of US democracy aid in the region. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, novel new data on the professional histories of democracy promoters, archival research and recently declassified government documents, Erin A. Snider focuses on the voices and practices of those engaged in democracy work over the last three decades to offer a new framework for understanding the political economy of democracy aid. Her research shows how democracy aid can work to strengthen rather than challenge authoritarian regimes. Marketing Democracy fundamentally challenges scholars to rethink how we study democracy aid and how the ideas of democracy that underlie democracy programs come to reflect the views of donors and recipient regimes rather than indigenous demand.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Erin A. Snider is an Assistant Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University's George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service.

Her research focuses on the politics of democracy assistance, foreign aid, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as the political economy of development in the Middle East more broadly. She is particularly interested in questions of power in the provision of aid and understanding the role of international actors in promoting reform in authoritarian states.

Her first book, Marketing Democracy: The Political Economy of Democracy Assistance in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press 2022), asks why democracy aid efforts have failed in the Middle East despite billions allocated for its promotion and explains how democracy aid may work to reinforce, rather than challenge, authoritarian regimes. It also explains why particular ideas about democracy prevail over others in democracy aid programs, to the detriment of civil society in recipient countries.

Snider also has an interest in the role of ideas in political economy. Her new projects examine the politics of transitional aid and democratization, as well as the political economy of climate change and renewable energy in the Middle East.

She has conducted field research in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Djibouti, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Pakistan.

Snider was a Carnegie Fellow with the New America Foundation, a Fulbright Fellow in Egypt, and a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where she earned her PhD in Politics and International Studies. She earned her MSc in Middle East Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. Before arriving at the Bush School, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Regional Political Economy at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs.

Before returning to academia, Snider worked for several years on development and humanitarian demining with the U.S. Department of State and the UN Association of the USA (UN-USA).

Snider's research has been supported by the Gates Trust, the New America Foundation, the Scowcroft Institute at Texas A&M, and American University's Bridging the Gap Initiative and her work has appeared in International Studies Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, Globalizations, Middle East Journal, and Middle East Policy among other outlets.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Margaret Peters is Associate Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Chair of the Global Studies major at UCLA. She is also a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research on the political economy of migration. She is currently working on a book project on how the process of forced displacement affects migrants’ sense of dignity and how these dignity concerns affect decisions of whether to move from the crisis zone, where to move, and when to return. She is additionally writing a book on how dictators use migration, including forced migration, to remain in power. Her award-winning book, Trading Barriers: Immigration and the Remaking of Globalization, argues that the increased ability of firms to produce anywhere in the world combined with growing international competition due to lowered trade barriers has led to greater limits on immigration, as businesses no longer see a need to support open immigration at home.