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The world is riveted as people across the Middle East pour into the streets trying to cast off authoritarian regimes and demand better living conditions. As the United States and its allies develop policies to respond to the evolving upheaval, it’s worth taking a look at what happened the last time a major region of the world shook off the old order and tried to remake itself. Twenty years after the pro-democracy movement swept through Eastern Europe, the results have been decidedly mixed. The reasons for this are complex and varied, but it is clear that civil society is a critical factor in the success and failure of new democracies in the former USSR and its Eastern European neighbors. Those who want to see democracy flourish in the Middle East must learn the lessons of the post-communist transition and make civil society engagement and support a priority.

As a teenager in Russia in the early 1990s, I watched my neighbors take to the streets of (then) Leningrad, filled with a euphoric sense of the possible. The air seemed to literally crackle with excitement and anticipation as hundreds of thousands filled the squares, demanding a future they could shape themselves. Today, most Russians are unlikely to say that their country has ended up in the way they hoped when they took to the streets 20 years ago. As Russia languishes at the bottom of economic freedom and corruption indices, even its president Dmitry Medvedev has acknowledged that Russia’s weak democracy and economy will not improve unless the country’s fledgling civil society plays a greater role in governance.

Russia’s neighbors in Poland have good reason to be far more satisfied with the results of their movement. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton calls their nation “a case study in how a vibrant civil society can produce progress.” Twenty years after it cast off authoritarian rule, Poland boasts a healthy representative democracy and one of the fastest growing economies in Central Europe – thanks in no small part to the tens of thousands of organizations and activists that play a role in the country’s governance – every day.

Civil society organizations are critical to democracy because they serve as fora where citizens can organize around political, economic and social issues outside of direct government control and work to shape the policies that affect them. These organizations serve to counterbalance state power and improve a government’s accountability to its citizens. Assisting nations with strengthening civil society is slow and unglamorous work that requires an in-depth understanding of the historical context and culture of the country. Perhaps this is why such policies were absent from the early US approach to reforming post-communist Russia. Instead, Western policymakers focused on the far more exhilarating – and mostly disastrous – economic “shock therapy”. Without credible public institutions and civil society oversight, these economic reforms were doomed.

While there are important cultural, economic, and geo-political differences that make it difficult, even dangerous, to draw facile comparisons between Eastern Europe’s post-Communist transition and the current turbulence in the Middle East, there are nonetheless important parallels that make Russia’s example instructive. Oil is one critical common factor – numerous studies have shown that oil wealth has a negative correlation to democratization. Another is that, as in Russia, independent civic participation across the Arab world has historically been fairly low. Now that we are seeing an unprecedented level of civic involvement, policymakers should move quickly to harness and sustain the momentum.

In the Middle East, as in Russia, the West lacks two important democratization tools it used during the post-Communist transition – the carrots of EU and NATO membership. The promise of the economic and security benefits of membership were used to coax and coerce Eastern European political leadership into making reforms improving the rule of law, human rights, accountability and transparency. Without these external drivers of democracy, an organized citizenry will have to be the primary driving force behind reforms.

The Obama administration has made civil society involvement a foreign policy priority. The administration has worked to initiate civil society dialogues in a number of countries and has even created a position in the State Department focusing on the issue. The newly-appointed Advisor to the Secretary of State for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies has already launched an ambitious strategic dialogue with civil society – the first strategic dialogue the State Department has held with a group other than a government. It will be critical for the advisor to be on the front lines of the current Middle East involvement.

It is important to recognize the credibility issue Western-led democracy initiatives will face in the Middle East. The West will therefore have to take a careful and culturally sensitive approach to civil society engagement and include a broad range of prodemocracy groups – including religious organizations. This will mean engaging groups that do not perfectly mirror Western values, but engaging only those we agree with is incompatible with democracy-building. To be successful, civil society-building programs cannot be standard-issue, but must be shaped by local realities.

As the unrest continues to grab world headlines, those who support the democratic opposition movements have exhorted authoritarian leaders to step down, called for imposing various sanctions, even suggested providing arms to anti-government rebels. But even as we work to address the immediate needs of the region, we should be developing the strategies that will strengthen the citizens who will have to build and sustain the democratic movement once the world community moves on to the next crisis. Though I no longer live in St. Petersburg, many of my family and friends do. We do not want to look back, twenty years from now, and see the people who are finding their voices across the Arab world today as disillusioned and disempowered as so many of my former neighbors. Careful and consistent engagement and support for civil society organizations that can give voice to the needs and dreams of people across the Middle East will be critical to ensuring we do not have to.

Anna Makanju is a Special Assistant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy in the United States.  The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense.

This article was submitted for the atlantic-community.org's competition: "Empowering Women in International Relations." It coincides with the 10th Anniversary of UN resolution 1325 calling for an increased influence of women in all aspects of peace and security. The contest is sponsored by the U.S. Mission to NATO and the NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

You can read more submissions from the competition here.