In his monthly column in Sunday’s Washington Post, the Carnegie Endowment’s Robert Kagan argues that free elections should come first in the struggle against autocracy.  My colleague here at the Democratic Piece, Danny Adams, posted his thoughts on this issue earlier this week, arguing that in many ways this approach makes a lot of sense.  Naturally, democracies need elections.  While I agree with his assertion that the “priority should be democracy first, not only development,” I think Kagan misses the broader point: ‘elections first’ is often just as bad of a policy choice as focusing solely on economic development.

Kagan’s argument mirrors the Bush administration’s strategy in both Afghanistan and Iraq: if you have elections, democracy will follow.  I think it is safe to say at this point that having elections first in each of these countries was at the very least unhelpful in moving either country toward sustainable democratic government.  Without a stable security situation, developed political parties, and a set of institutions that allow the elected government to effectively govern, elections can often do more to solidify a certain set of interests rather than lay the foundations for democracy.

Kagan points to Russia as an example of a ‘resilient autocracy’ whose rulers have been strengthened rather than undermined by its increased integration into the world economy.  Certainly this seems to be the case in Putin’s oil-rich Russia.  He forgets, however, the period shortly following the fall of the Soviet Union when Western governments were promoting democracy equally as much as economic liberalization and development in Russia.  While there is debate on how democratic Russia actually was between 1993 (first Duma election) and 1999 (Putin comes to power), it cannot be conveniently forgotten that elections did come first in Russia, and in many ways they contributed to the current backsliding we see there.

If we’ve learned anything from the past two decades of democracy promotion efforts, in which elections have played the starring role, it’s this: elections have consequences that do not always have a positive impact on a country’s transition to democracy.  We need to learn from our past mistakes and realize that, while necessary, elections don’t always come first.