NSIC is developing the capacity of local and national governmental and civil society leaders to foster widespread societal support for the rule of law. These leaders, their organizations, and their constituencies become champions of a culture of lawfulness and engender support for the personnel and institutions charged with upholding the rule of law.
Vision and Narrative
In many countries, people are caught between corrupt elites and powerful extremists promising salvation or material benefits through criminality and political violence. This is the case in large parts of the Americas, Eurasia, Africa, and the Middle East. There is no quick fix or panacea for this challenge.
For years it was believed that electoral democracy would be adequate to produce economic development, social justice, and stability. However, this proved not to be the case time after time. Emphasis then shifted to creating competent government institutions, in the hope that the institutions would help struggling societies build stable and thriving democracies. But much like elections, effective government institutions by themselves are an insufficient, albeit necessary, component of a stable democracy.
Healthcare workers connect the rule of law to protecting life and health in the local community. Here, young patients paint a culture of lawfulness mural at a local hospital.
To enhance the effectiveness of these efforts, citizens and government officials must believe that they have a personal stake in upholding the rule of law and preventing crime and corruption. They must share the expectation that laws ought to be fair and apply to everyone regardless of socioeconomic status—and that every individual has a role in creating and overseeing the implementation of the laws.
The rule of law—the glue that holds together the various structural elements of a democracy—cannot be developed without citizen buy-in. It is public participation in the making of laws and oversight in their implementation, coupled with the demand that both rulers and the ruled be governed by the law, that guards against the arbitrary exercise of state power and against general lawlessness.
There is now growing interest in providing average citizens and government officials with a vision and narrative that explains rule of law principles, why people have a stake in them, and what it takes to foster a supportive culture. This “culture of lawfulness”—and not just words on paper or institutions by themselves—creates the environment for democracy and the rule of law to flourish. As much as any factor, the rule of law separates societies where citizens feel secure and free to develop their individual potential, from others where people live in fear of the state’s arbitrary actions or of criminals enabled or emboldened by corruption and public apathy.
NSIC Technology
Experiences show that it is possible to initiate such a cultural change in a relatively short time. More than a decade ago, NSIC began to research success stories – such as those in Hong Kong, Bogotá, and western Sicily—to determine how a culture of lawfulness gained an influential foothold in corrupt and crime-ridden environments. In Palermo, Sicily, for example, citizens began to reclaim their culture—and their streets—from the Mafia. This effort involved the participation of civil society, government and religious leaders, schoolchildren and their parents, as well as the media. Based on the success in these diverse environments, NSIC developed a set of principles and programs that have guided its efforts.
NSIC’s educational approach focuses on key sectors of society:
- schools
- law enforcement and public servants
- faith-based and secular centers of moral authority, and
- the mass media
It has developed educational “technologies” that are inexpensive, sustainable, and replicable. They have been carefully evaluated and refined over years and shown to be effective in diverse settings.
School-based programs have a ripple effect, influencing teachers, administrators, parents, politicians, and the community at large.
This includes the ability to assist local partners in formulating culture of lawfulness commitments from local partners, develop their capacity to tailor and manage educational programs, evaluate the results, and institutionalize sustainable culture of lawfulness education. As part of its project planning, NSIC devises an “exit strategy” for itself, enabling local partners to operate their programs independently.
A combination of “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches is ideal. By top down is meant adoption of reforms, codes of conduct, and incentives to affect the daily life of government personnel. Bottom up refers to formal and informal educational programs and training for government officials and civil society about the principles and benefits of the rule of law. Through these approaches, governmental and nongovernmental leaders and their organizations become champions of lawfulness and engender societal support for the personnel and institutions charged with upholding the rule of law.
Mexico
Mexico has become increasingly democratic since the 1990s. However, it is now experiencing a serious increase in violence and a proliferation of armed gangs capable of battling and corrupting the government. More than a surge in crime, this is a struggle for influence in the country between democracy and development on the one hand, and the forces of corruption and criminality on the other. This has dramatic implications not only for the people of Mexico but also for the country’s northern neighbor—the United States.
Providing curricula and education to enhance police integrity is a trademark of NSIC’s work.
NSIC’s techniques are being employed in Mexico. National and local partners are developing large scale educational programs to enhance public safety and integrity in multiple sectors of society. Mexicans across the socioeconomic spectrum are realizing that a culture of lawfulness is critical for the future of their country. Political and civil society leaders in states throughout the country are seeking NSIC’s guidance as they try to set up educational programs to promote this concept. NSIC has partnered with Mexican institutions, among them the Federal Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Public Service and state Secretaries of Education, Public Security, and Attorneys General. Federal police officials, for example, now undergo education in the rule of law aimed at generating more effective public security and strengthening integrity in their ranks.
The Mexican government has made the promotion of a “culture of lawfulness” one of the mandated actions in its National Security Law. Similarly, culture of lawfulness is now integrated into the national middle school curriculum in Mexico and taught to almost one million students in many of the country’s 32 states.
The Arab Middle East
NSIC is exploring how to partner with Arab media to enhance the rule of law in Arab societies. In cooperation with Georgetown University’s Center for Democracy and Civil Society, NSIC convened a seminar series for print and broadcast media professionals—from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Jordan. The first seminar took place in Sicily, the scene of a historic effort to strengthen the rule of law. Arab media professionals learned how the culture of Sicily changed over a decade—with journalists and entertainment media playing an active role in the transformation.
Participants in the seminar went on to develop their own Arabic-language media content which narrated the struggle to enhance the rule of law in the Middle East. Some chose to focus on the universal issue of failure to obey traffic laws and the large number of fatal accidents that result. Others wrote about the ill effects of small-time bribery, viewed in the aggregate, on the economy of a country as a whole.
Subsequent seminars included screenplay writers, television and radio personalities, and producers from Lebanon and Jordan. Each seminar was divided into two parts: First, participants learned about existing strategies for promoting the rule of law through media work and devised writing and productions of their own which could serve a similar purpose. Six months later, the group convened again, with each participant sharing the outcome of his or her efforts. One such result, a Jordanian TV talk show about corruption, generated such a response that the call-in lines were jammed during the discussion segment. Newspaper articles provoked letters to the editor and numerous phone calls to columnists.
The NSIC culture of lawfulness initiative has developed an Arabic and English Website and Facebook Page for the region’s media professionals. These sites facilitate an exchange among media professionals interested in furthering the rule of law and bringing their work to the attention of others in the region and around the world.
Colombia
NSIC began working in Colombia several years ago with rule of law education programs in the country’s schools, police, and urban communities. Those projects have been transformed into nationwide initiatives reaching millions of people daily.
Congregants celebrating a special mass calling for a “culture of lawfulness”. A first-of-its-kind project in the city of Pereira demonstrated the feasibility of equipping a community to develop societal support for the rule of law. In partnership with the mayor, the local government, leaders of civil society, the Colombian National Police, and the local media, NSIC helped to engage multiple sectors of society simultaneously to provide a rule of law vision and narrative. The project was led by NSIC’s bilingual Colombian Project Director, Lisa Lungren, a Californian who has become well-known in Pereira. In mutually reinforcing initiatives, local partners in schools, police, businesses, faith-based organizations, and government are now teaching their own employees and the public that in building respect for the law, “they are part of the solution.”
In Pereira, the focus was on “bringing together the efforts and talents of multiple sectors, so their work mutually reinforces each other” as they try to change the culture from indifference and fear to action and positive change, Lungren says.
One program in Pereira involved health care workers who come to understand that the health of children and mothers is advanced when the community takes advantage of the city’s laws and services. Another involved a youth poster art competition and rap contest centering on lawfulness and a vision of Pereira free of crime and corruption. This featured outdoor murals and concerts by young artists. Also part of the mix was the involvement of local media, and more than 200 priests and pastors in the local Catholic Diocese and Protestant churches. The Pereira example is being talked about as a model for other urban environments in Colombia and elsewhere in the region.
Read Report: Fostering a Culture of Lawfulness: Multi-Sector Success in Pereira, Colombia
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