Failing to Meet Expectations

The NYT carried a story about Ukraine’s economic collapse and the results for Ukraine’s young democracy.

Basically, the economic collapse, coupled with the inability of the political system to effectively deal with rising unemployment, rising debt obligations, inflation and bank runs, has disillusioned Ukrainians.  One Ukrainian stated, ironically standing in the same place where the Orange Revolution began, that: “There will be a revolt,” he said. “And people will come because they are just fed up.”

The problem for democracy promoters is that the Ukrainian people blame the political system – the democratic political system – for their current predicament.  As the artcle makes clear, Ukraine’s proximity to Russia makes the crisis, and the subsequent loss of government legitimacy, more worrisome as Russia will undoubtedly seek to take advantage of any opportunity to undermine the pro-Western, democratic government on its doorstep.

Finally, the situation highlights the need for democracatic systems to overcome partisan divides and provide tangible  improvements in their citizens’ lives.

Update   I felt Jack’s comments should be highlighted as he raises a good point:

And, in the interim, the need for the old democracies’ heads of state to pressure Ukranian leaders to stick with democratic institutions through the crisis.

Obama drops democracy. Or does he?

Saturday’s NY Times piece is causing a stir. These snippets capture the essence:

[Obama's] Inaugural Address a few days later was a sharp contrast from Mr. Bush’s four years ago. Where Mr. Bush called the spread of freedom the central goal of American policy, Mr. Obama made just passing reference to those who silence dissent being on “the wrong side of history.” Indeed, his secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, outlined a policy of the “Three D’s” — defense, diplomacy and development. The fourth D, democracy, did not make the list.

And:

To many Democrats, [democracy promotion] ought to be lower on the agenda. America should not lecture others, if only because quiet diplomacy may work better, they argue. In this view, the whole focus on elections, particularly, is misplaced when so much of the world is suffering from poverty, hunger and disease. Mr. Obama seems to side with that point.

Going by the quotations, many in the democracy business are concerned that Obama’s foreign aid approach will emphasize AIDS, cholera and mosquito nets in rural Zimbabwe, for instance, over political reform in the capital city Harare. We cannot reject the possibility, however, that this is a recalibration of democracy assistance in light of new challenges.

The Third Wave has crested. As measured by Freedom House, the number of democracies in the world has declined for the third year in a row. Just as Huntington identified reverse waves of dictatorship following each of the first two democratization waves, we appear to be in the midst of a third reverse wave.

At a symposium held jointly by IFES and Georgetown last December, several experts and practitioners discussed the challenge and how to respond.¹ In sum, authoritarian leaders have become more sophisticated in the means by which they maintain power. They back each other in multilateral institutions like the UN, support each other with bilateral aid and share best practices on stymieing opposition without resort to naked repression.²

These manifestations of reversal call conventional democracy assistance methods into question. Conventional democracy assistance refers to the usual programs: political party development, NGO development, election assistance, training journalists, et cetera. It is important to note that, most often, these programs require permission from host governments. Broadly speaking, from the perspective of promoting democracy, there are three kinds of countries:

1) New democracies where underdevelopment poses a latent threat to the legitimacy of democratic institutions. These states represent the Third Wave’s most stable gains. These are the countries with leaders most amenable to democracy assistance. Therefore they can benefit from it most. At the same time, persistent underdevelopment combined with the current financial crisis means these regimes are at risk of losing performance legitimacy. Frustration with democracy’s perceived inability to solve complex social problems can make non-democratic ’solutions’ palatable to populations. So development assistance and governance reform are as important as democracy promotion in these cases.³

2) Weaker democracies whose leaders are ambivalent about democratic institutions. The number of regimes in this category is shrinking, most recently with the exits of Venezuela and many Central Asian states. Now Pakistan and Ukraine are at risk. In these countries, leaders may tolerate democracy assistance programs, but pressure at the top to respect democratic institutions is more likely to produce results. Likewise, development assistance is important for building bottom-up demand for institutions of limited government.

3) Closed regimes. These are countries where leaders do not tolerate democracy assistance at all (North Korea) or only to the point where an opposition might win an election (Egypt, Morocco). There is little sense in running programs to build opposition – that is, conventional democracy assistance – when leaders are unwilling to transfer power after a free and fair election. In these cases, combined pressure at the top and development assistance are jointly more important than conventional democracy assistance.

Gone are the days of smooth transitions. Most of those happened in Eastern Europe. Three factors explain much of their success: post-Soviet window of opportunity, strong incentives for economic and political reform and concerted, high-level pressure to effect it. The last two factors resulted from European Union expansion. The EU unfortunately does not exist in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America or Eurasia. The challenge, then, is to replicate elsewhere the conditions that advance political liberalization, free markets and more equitable distributions of wealth.

If the above is correct, Obama’s recalibration is not based solely on a widely recognized need to tone down democracy rhetoric. It reflects recognition that, in today’s political landscape, conventional democracy assistance is insufficient for consolidating and ineffective at creating democratic gains. Perhaps we are moving toward the unification of democracy and governance assistances with a dose of incentives to liberalize. In light of that possibility, it is worth revisiting a line from the President’s inaugural address:

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

1. The causes of democratic breakdowns are multiple and beyond the scope of this short blog post.
2. Several means have been covered on this blog. See our tag on authoritarian upgrading.
3. Paradoxically, however, these states get the least democracy assistance. States in the other two categories get more.

It’s called “Elections”

In today’s “The Conversation,” a new discussion format by the New York Times that pits columnists against each other, David Brooks makes a sloppy error that I couldn’t help blogging about (for the first time in several months).  In a discussion about the new stimulus bill, Brooks responds to Gail Collins’ argument that unfettered markets are not the savior that many right wingers want them to be with the following:

As for the broader point that capitalists can be pretty dumb. Granted. But the market does have a mechanism for educating itself: prices, and in some cases bankruptcy. Government lacks a self-correction mechanism, or at least a good one.

Democratic governance features a number of “self-corrective” mechanisms, perhaps the most obvious of which is elections.  For example, when it became obvious that the Republican administration’s policies were no longer effective for the country, voters pulled the plug on the Bush administration and many Republican congress members lost their seats.   This is how democracies self-correct – purge the old and bring in the new.

Perhaps Brooks thinks that this is not a “good” mechanism of self-correction, but I doubt that.  By virtue of the fact that it’s better than all the others, democratic elections appear to be a pretty good check.  This is particularly true when coupled with other checks and balances in addition to protections that permit political oppositions to thrive.

Iraq and Afghanistan

I don’t know how many of our readers follow the events in Afghanistan and Iraq, but here is a great article about the developments (and potential problems forces still face) in both these countries. The stories linked within the article are also great briefings on the individual situations of Afghanistan and Iraq. I highly recommend reading all three articles

As it’s finals season, I don’t have the time to give a thorough analysis of the piece. I disagree with a few of their conclusions and recommendations, but the facts they present alone are worth spending the time working through the articles.

Enjoy.

$5 Million Dollar Man

Is Joaquim Chissano a modern day George Washington? Lead his country to independence? Check. Played a crucial role in resolving a civil war that lasted for 16 years? Check. Becoming the second president of Mozambique, a newly established country, and stepping down after 18 years of relatively successful governing even though you could have constitutionally sought an additional 5 years? Check. Once beat Chuck Norris in a fight by simply taking off his jacket in a threatening manner? Ok, well I do not know that for certain, but I just added it to Wikipedia.
(UPDATE : That didn’t take long – already off.)

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Mo Ibrahim and his eponymous foundation think that Chissano is a swell guy. In fact, they awarded Chissano with a $5 million dollar prize because of his “achievements in bringing peace, reconciliation, stable democracy and economic progress to his country”. Mo Ibrahim is a Sudanese billionaire who established this prize to acknowledge and reward African leaders who have practiced good governance. According to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation website, a committee of six “distinguished” experts evaluate all eligible candidate and select a winner. In order to qualify, a candidate must have left office within the last three calendar years. The official prize fine print states that Chissano will receive $5 million over the next ten years and then $200,000 annually for the rest of his life.

Mo Ibrahim states that his goal with the prize is to create and incentive for African leaders to govern better. The eligible candidates are assessed based on their scores from “The Ibrahim Index of African Governance.” According to the most recent Ibrahim Index, Mauritius was number one and Somalia was last. Mozambique placed 23rd.

Chissano was obviously not awarded the prize for being humble. After finally being notified during a trip to a remote section of Uganda while working on a peace agreement, Chissano reportedly replied:

“I am not surprised … I have received many other rewards for the same reasons. Even before I left power I had been praised on several occasions and I have the appreciation of my colleagues, other African leaders,”

Is this a smart plan? Does $5 million provide a strong incentive for African rulers to govern better? I dunno, but I bet that Idi Amin fled Uganda with a lot more than $5 million. However, Mo Ibrahim may has inadvertently provided me with an incentive to overthrow some African government and give myself a shot at winning the prize. After all, I sit here and talk about how I could do so much better than Mugabe, Al Bashir, or Qaddafi – why not put Ibrahim money where my mouth is?

Is Ahmadinejad Significant?

Lost in the hype surrounding Ahmadinejad’s visit is the fundamental question: how much does he matter? Democracy Arsenal has the video of Lee Bollinger’s opening remarks and I found it interesting that among the Columbia University President’s criticisms of Ahmadinejad, were Ahmadinejad’s policies and, more specifically, his policies towards women. I’m not trying to defend the guy, but it was Ahmadinejad who was responsible for the law permitting women to attend soccer matches about a year ago and the religious establishment that compelled him to rescind it. So, while Bollinger’s speech sounded nice, we should be careful not to render Ahmadinejad a straw-man. He is absolutely not singularly responsible for the path that Iran has taken.

Then, the real question is: Who Rules Ahmadinejad’s Iran? This is a link to an article that I co-authored with some of my U.S. Institute of Peace colleagues earlier this year. The article summarizes the contents of a meeting of the Institute’s Iran Policy Forum, which brings together most of the top Iran analysts in D.C. and the world. Here’s a teaser:

“… Public opinion also has significant influence on the character of Iran’s decision-making. The results of recent elections furnish evidence of this influence: they have produced presidents as divergent in character and political platform as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mohammad Khatami. International pressure and world opinion, particularly public opinion in the Islamic world, affect Iran’s foreign policies as well. Iranian support to groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas stems in part from the support that those groups enjoy in the Muslim world. In turn, Iran’s leaders perceive that support for these groups contributes to the nation’s regional standing; recent popular opinion polls conducted in the Arab world indicated that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and Ahmadinejad are currently the two most popular leaders in that region.

“That said, the power of republican institutions and popular opinion in the Iranian political order is severely checked by non-elected actors and organizations…”

So check out the article by heading to the link above.

No homosexuals in Iran… how about Transsexuals?

Even if there are no homosexuals in Iran, as Ahmadinejad claimed at Columbia, there certainly are transsexuals. Al-Arabiya, of all the news outlets in the world, did a pretty insane report that MEMRI translated and is posted on You Tube. Although MEMRI is not always so accurate, I watched this for an Arabic class and the translation is fine.

تفسيرالنظام السياسي في المغرب

لاحظ الدكتوران أودنل وشمِتر في كتابهما عن الانتقالات من الحكم المطلق الاستبدادي في أعقاب الحرب العالمية الثانية، أن الحكام الاستبداديون قد عانوا من قلة المصداقية. فافتقر هؤلاء الرؤساء والملوك والزعماء إلى كفاءة “الترويج نفوسهم كحلولِ مشاكلٍ تتعلق بالترتيب السياسي للمستقبل الطويل المدى وكما احسن نماذج ممكنة لمجتمعاتهم.” [1] لم تعد المبررات النفسية مُقنِعةً كما قد كانت في السنوات قبل الحرب وخاصة بالمقارنة مع الحكومات الديمقراطية البرلمانية في أوروبا وأمريكا اللتين قد انتصرا على الألمانيين. مدركين ذلك، قام الحكام الاستبداديون بأن يَعِدون بمستقبلٍ ديمقراطيٍ بل قبل قد يتسلموا بأي شيء من السلطة، من الضرورة أنهم يحاربون من مجتمعاتهم بعض الأفكار الشعبية “المتخلفة” Ùˆ”يحضرون” شعبهم ويحفظون على “الخصوصيات” الثقافية. أُتسم لهذه جهود تغطية الفراغ الديموقراطي الاستبدادي ب”انفصامٍ اديولوجيٍ” وقد أصبحت “كعبَ أخيلِ” الاستبداديين.

من هذه الناحية, ليس المغرب استثناءً. فقد أخذ الملك محمد الخامس يتمسك الخطاب الديمقراطي Read the rest of this entry »

Employment!

Congress Passes Lantos, Wolf Legislation to Promote Democracy, Human Rights Abroad

Congress has passed legislation co-authored by Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) to strengthen and secure America’s commitment to the expansion of freedom and the protection of human rights around the world. The legislation passed by the House today (H.R. 1) and the Senate last night, which implements the remaining recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, also includes provisions of the ADVANCE Democracy Act of 2007. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation was co-authored by Lantos and Wolf in the House and Senators Joseph Lieberman (I/D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ) in the Senate. “Promoting democracy and protecting human rights are core aspects of the American moral compass, and these aims are crucial to our national security interest,” Lantos said. “With this legislation, we take another step toward ensuring that we focus on the long-term, difficult work of fostering budding democracies and those who support them around the world.”The ADVANCE Democracy Act requires the State Department to develop new, written strategies for the promotion of democracy in all countries that are currently non-democratic or transitioning to democracy. These strategies will help ensure that America’s democracy promotion efforts are carefully tailored to the unique, long-term challenges presented by each country, and that they are focused on more than just holding elections, but on building democratic institutions and fostering democratic values.

Read the full press release here.

MCC Fight

The MCC, one of President Bush’s key foreign aid initiatives, is facing severe budget cuts from Congressional appropriators.   Although the president requested $3 billion for the fund for FY2008, the Senate markup of the FY2008 State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill left the MCC with $1.2 billion.  House appropriators had cut it to $1.8 billion.  The fund, which operates under the apparently innovative principle that “aid is most effective when it reinforces good governance, economic freedom and investments in people,” has had its critics since its inception, but defenders claim it needs “time and money” to prove itself. As a budget fight, even one over foreign aid, the MCC budget isn’t too hot a topic. However, one of the more interesting tactics used by MCC defenders is linking of U.S. foreign aid cuts to the foreign policy of rising “star” (as Lou Dobbs likes to jingoize it) China, which “is making inroads in Africa and the rest of the developing world by offering funding in return for resources like oil and minerals to feed its rapidly growing economy.”  The budget issue is unlikely to be resolved until the fall.

U.S. a Lazy Democracy Promoter?

In testimony given today before the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, Freedom House Executive Director, Jennifer Windsor, criticized the United States’ track record of promoting democracy and human rights in its bilateral relations with other states, citing Azerbaijan, Cuba, and Egypt as examples.  From a Freedom House press release:

“The U.S. should never retreat from its role as a defender of human rights, one whose support struggling democratic activists around the globe have looked to for decades,” said Ms. Windsor. “While adherence to democratic principles and respect for human rights cannot always be the sole foreign policy consideration for the U.S. in its bilateral relations, they can and should always be a key element of U.S. relations with all countries. The U.S. should demonstrate a preference for democracy whenever it can.”

Windsor’s comments come in light of remarks President Bush made this week in support of his good friend, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, calling him a partner in the promotion of democracy.  Pervez, a military general who took power in 1999 as a result of a coup, has been a consistent recipient of praise and support from President Bush for his cooperation with America’s global war on terror.  Unfortunately for America’s credibility abroad, he has also been a consistent autocrat, who has made no serious attempt to bring about a return of democratic government in his country.

Windsor’s comments bring this serious disjuncture between rhetoric and policy into clear focus, as she points out a continuous lack of commitment to promoting democracy and human rights that is manifested in our foreign policy stances on Azerbaijan, Cuba, and Egypt – three countries in which security, economic, or ideological interests have caused us to look the other way. 

 In words reminiscent of President Bush describing America’s commitment to freedom in his second inaugural address, Jennifor Windsor extolls policymakers to renew their commitment to that noble ideal, which has been cheapened by America’s recent inconsistencies in applying it:

“In our dealings with foreign governments and their citizens, we should never allow our core values of human rights and democracy to fall off the table. Instead of ignoring this commitment because it appears to be too difficult, we should renew our efforts and consider new and innovative ways to help those who need it most.”