In this book I have advanced the argument that political aid is both inherently political and deeply paradoxical; and that people involved in every sector of democracy promotion are intensely aware of the politics and the paradoxes.

By definition political aid interjects external symbolic, material, and institutional resources into national (and, in the Middle East, pan-Arab) arenas. If all politics involves competition over scarce resources, then political aid naturally stimulates controversy and rivalries. Inevitably resources flow to selected organizations, agents, and causes, but not others. Donors’ provision of expertise, technology, publicity, or funds to executive, judicial, legislative, or civic institutions affects the balance of power between and within those bodies. Even if the idea is that international agencies are supporting ‘transitions to democracy’ or ‘women’s empowerment,’ projects entail complex forms of cooperation and conflict. Practitioners and participants, including many cited here, realize the banalities of interagency and office politics on a commonplace level. This is ‘low’ politics.

Democracy promotion also reflects the ‘high’ politics of the international arena where the United States and European powers engage and ally with some Arab regimes and sometimes intervene militarily and/or diplomatically directly to influence outcomes. Certainly military and development assistance, and also political aid, reflect these power politics. However much Western advocates try to place democracy promotion on the altruistic end of the realism-idealism debate, many in the Arab world find connections to the colonial past and imperial present. Moreover as recounted in these chapters client governments variously sought to capitalize on political aid or made a big show of resisting ‘foreign interference.’ In many instances popular forces, counter-elites, and rights defenders sought to distance themselves from donor agencies and agendas. In all these ways, political aid was politicized.