Q&A Ambassador Barbara Bodine

Last December, Ambassador Barbara Bodine was named the first Executive Director of the Belfer Center's new Governance Initiative in the Middle East, which promotes research and training in governance issues with a new generation of regional scholars and leaders in cooperation with the new Dubai School of Government. This new initiative and Ambassador Bodine's appointment were announced at the 2004 Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai, which brought together a host of leaders from around the world, including Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, the late Rafiq Hariri, and others, to discuss the future of the region.

As a former career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Bodine served as U.S. Ambassador to Yemen from 1997 to 2001, a period that saw enhanced support for democratization and increased security cooperation, as well as the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000. She spent most of her 30-year diplomatic career in the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, including tours as Deputy Principal Officer in Baghdad from 1980 to 1983 and Deputy Chief of Mission in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion and occupation in 1990. In 2003, Ambassador Bodine served as coordinator for post-conflict reconstruction for Baghdad and the central provinces of Iraq.

What are your plans for the Governance Initiative in the Middle East?

Bodine: The primary focus of this initiative is to encourage, support, and enhance both the practitioner's skills and the scholar's understanding of the evolving governance issues in the Middle East region. Both the governance initiative and the Dubai School of Government (DSG) recognize this effort must be regional to be successful and that it must also grow organically if it is going to endure. As such, our approach is to build outward, cumulatively adding programs as we go. Most immediately, DSG and the governance initiative will conduct both an executive program and a conference on e-government, and the governance initiative is supporting student research projects in the region. We will conduct at least one executive training program and follow-on conference each year. In addition, we are actively recruiting and can financially support professionals in the region for KSG's many mid-career fellowship programs, as well as students for the degree programs. Finally, we will recruit a Senior Fellow in Islamic Government as well as creating senior and junior research scholarships for both those from the region and those interested in it. The ultimate goal is to raise the competence and awareness levels both at KSG and in the region through DSG.

How do you expect these efforts to be received in the region?

Bodine: This is a regional initiative and is the result of several years' discussions between KSG and the Dubai government. Reflecting a growing sentiment in the region among citizens and leaders, Sheikh Mohammed al Gergawi of Dubai, who is also the driving force behind DSG and its relationship with KSG, opened the Arab Strategy Forum last December with a widely reported address in which he declared flatly that international crises can not be used as an excuse to delay reforms in the Arab world and challenged his fellow regional leaders to "change or be changed." But it is one thing to admonish and another to reform. Through the governance initiative, the Kennedy School will provide the tools, resources and expertise. Someone asked me what was the core question behind the initiative. Few in the region relish a return to the 7th century but many understand that the history of grafting foreign "isms" into the Middle Eastern context has not been good. So ultimately, the question for the leaders, scholars, and people becomes: what does a truly twentyfirst century Islamic government look like, and how do you get there?

Clearly improving regional governance is the principle aim of the initiative. Do you see this initiative bringing other benefits as well?

Bodine: Absolutely. For all the assistance we hope to be able to provide the scholars and practitioners at DSG, this project will also provide a unique opportunity for American academics and faculty and students at Harvard to deepen their understanding of this critical region and its emerging political and social issues. Given the central role of this region in global affairs, we could use both more regional experts and better understanding of regional governance issues. The broader hope is that this understanding will help inform the public and political debate here in the United States. Right now, there is a tragic disconnect between the resources the U.S. government expends in the Middle East and the knowledge they have of the region and its people. This is a recipe for bad public policy. Given our long-term strategic interests there, we need to understand this region every bit as much as we want them to understand and accept us. As Joe Nye points out, the war on terror will ultimately be won or lost as a battle of ideas, and fostering better understanding among people on both sides directly contributes to our winning that war against the forces of extremist ignorance and violence. Promoting the spread of knowledge broadly is an important part of the mission of the university, and this is an opportunity for the Belfer Center to take the lead on one of the most critical issues in the world today.