Obama Hails Indonesian Elections “Free and Fair”

From the Jakarta Post, in a statement on Tuesday President Obama hailed Indonesia’s July 8 election as free and fair. The President went on to say that increased civil society, media and political party activity was a further sign of Indonesia’s strengthetning democracy.

Obama is immensely popular in Indonesia, his having gone to school here as a child is a constant talking point for all folks from taxi drivers to politicians. In preparation for a potential late year visit, the Indonesian government has launched plans for a cultural center dubbed “American place” to commemerate his visit and to serve as a place to learn about American culture.

While these efforts seem frivolous, there is plenty that can be achieved if the USG takes advantage of the goodwill felt towards Obama. Pressure to step up efforts to curb corruption, to tackle climate and environmental issues in Indonesia, and to increase health and education services are some examples of issues that could go a long way in lifting Indonesia up, while also mitigating shared global concerns.

Secretary Clinton on the future of USAID

Clinton made a few revealing remarks on the future of USAID, especially in the Q&A session.

Highlights include an effort to build USAID’s capacity to keep some implementation work in house, a question on the future of AID beyondthe Obama administration and a focus on increasing AID’s technical expertise.

Take a look at the transcript and video here.

The Public Option

A lot of talk around town concerns the public health insurance option that Congress and the President are trying to pass this year (ie, before the August break…cause after that it’ll be hard to get anything done).

I was struck by this post at Andrew Sullivan’s site.  While I’ve been following his site pretty regularly, due to his great coverage of Iran, I have to say this is one of his less-than-great moments.

Sullivan, before writing anything about the article, claims that only “ideological conservatives” will disagree with the author of the argument (and by “ideological conservative” he means “hates government doing anything”/”neocon”).  Now, I would like to think of myself as fairly open-minded and willing to concede a point if well made.

The post Sullivan links to is in no way an argument only an “ideological conservative” could disagree with.

Here is an excerpt:

CIGNA and Aetna have a lot of money pooled together and they’ve been around for awhile — but they don’t have as much money, nor have they been around as long, as the federal government. It’s possible, certainly, that the profit motive in the insurance industry has driven more innovation than we’re giving it credit for. But that isn’t my bet, and it isn’t George Will’s: There’s no obvious reason that the government couldn’t provide more for less. And if we are wrong, we would find out soon enough: if the public option can’t deliver more bang for the buck than private insurers, it wouldn’t gain much market share from them, and Will will have nothing to worry about.

What Will’s position reflects instead is ideology: who cares that the federal government could build a better mousetrap? They’re the government and that’s bad. His argument is really no more sophisticated than that. If a libertarian conservative wants to make this argument, more power to them, but they absolutely should not be turning around and suggesting that a public option would raise health care costs. They’re saying, rather, that they’re morally opposed to the cost savings that would ensue.

The assumption that supports the author’s elaborate house of cards-style argument is that government won’t be willing to lose money to pay for health care.  George Will and the other “ideological conservatives” are betting that government is willing to use public money to pay for health care – no matter the cost.  Will, et al, aren’t concerned about government providing a “free service”  (though truth be told, Greg Mankiw makes an excellent argument for why the government creating a “non-profit” insurance company seems ridiculous), rather, Will and others are concerned that government will subsidize insurance costs using public money, thereby making it illogical for anyone to take health care from another provider. 

The CBO analysis of the bill strengthens this argument.  According to the CBO, the current plan being discussed on the Hill will cost one trillion over ten years and only cover 16 million of the uninsured (that’s approximately a third).  What other company do you know that can lose one trillion and remain in the market (banks and/or car companies being saved with government money aside)?

I am completely open to the possibility that there are cost savings to be had through a different system than the one we currently have.  I am also open to moral argument that people should not be without health care.  Lastly, it is completely reasonable to argue that instead of bailing out banks and other industries, or paying for the Iraq War, we should spend the money on health care.  Fine.  But at least admit that in such a scenario, the government will be spending public money to pay for insurance, thereby distorting market incentives.  A company cannot compete with the federal government because, insolvency aside, the federal government can always (and seemingly always does) throw money at problems.  “Profit” means nothing to government.

While I agree that something needs to be done…is this the right something?

Regardless of where anyone stands on that, hopefully we can all agree that Mr. Sullivan should check his facts before he makes such general claims such as, “only ideological conservatives would agree with this…”  The topic is more complex than that.

Gauging Obama’s Reaction to Iran

Chris Hitchens seems to think Obama is being too weak.  Key quote:

That last observation also applies to the Obama administration. Want to take a noninterventionist position? All right, then, take a noninterventionist position. This would mean not referring to Khamenei in fawning tones as the supreme leader and not calling Iran itself by the tyrannical title of “the Islamic republic.” But be aware that nothing will stop the theocrats from slandering you for interfering anyway. Also try to bear in mind that one day you will have to face the young Iranian democrats who risked their all in the battle and explain to them just what you were doing when they were being beaten and gassed. (Hint: Don’t make your sole reference to Iranian dictatorship an allusion to a British-organized coup in 1953; the mullahs think that it proves their main point, and this generation has more immediate enemies to confront.)

I must admit, I am sympathetic to the argument.  The regime has shown that, no matter how non-interventionist Obama behaves, they will still claim that the West is at the root of the riots (apparently Britain is the real veiled enemy this time…though the U.S. is not spared).

The question that Hitchens dodges, however, is the credibility of those claims.  By refusing to jump into the debate, isn’t Obama actually discrediting  the “tired slogans” of the regime?  If it is apparent to all (including those inside Iran) that the U.S. is in no way acting against the regime, don’t the charges against the West begin to sound like the baseless propaganda it actually is?  That, I think, is the best argument for Obama’s measured stance.  What Obama is essentially doing is revealing the regime as a bunch of liars who create myths to support their power.

On the other hand, I am not at all sympathetic to the argument that we must walk a fine line since we have to negotiate with them afterwards.  Regardless of our actions, the Iranian government in power will pursue what it sees to be its interests.  If that means negotiations with the Great Satan, then so be it.  If that means sticking it to the West, then say bye-bye diplomacy.  President Obama could go to Iran and hug Ahmadinejad and Khamenei right now…but I promise you, if a few weeks later the regime does not like what he is asking for, his calls will go unanswered.

Let us also not forget that Iran is not walking a fine line with the U.S.  They kill our troops in Iraq, they instigate violence in Lebanon and Palestine to suit their needs.  Their strategy is tuned to achieve two goals: unsettle the U.S. and gain regional power.  If they can stab us in the back while shaking our hand, why is it that we fear doing the same?  The argument is: “well, they won’t talk to us if we don’t play nice.”  My response is, “they’re not playing nice and they’ll only talk to us if it is in their interest.  That will not change if Obama says ‘we are with those demonstrating for their rights and freedom’”  From what I know of the Cold War, that was how the game is played back then too.  Kill your enemy at night, talk to them in the morning.

I promise you, that is the strategy of the Iranians.  Hitchens is right: when will we wake up?

Obama on Democracy Promotion

In Strasbourg, France today, President Obama gave a Town Hall style meeting. Among the many interesting questions was one about Obama’s strategy to help people living under autocratic regimes, victims of human rights abuses, and those living in poverty. I couldn’t find a video clip, but here is a section of the transcript:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I’m a student from Heidelberg, Germany, and — (applause) — my mother tongue is German, but my French is not good enough, so I ask my question in English.

You mentioned in your speech that we are a lucky generation. We live in peace, we live in democracies and free states, and we really — we are very pleased to have this situation in Europe. But this is not the case all over the world, even not in Europe. Look to Belarus, for example; there’s an autocratic regime.

And so my question concerns the many children all over the world that live in poverty, under human rights violation. They have hunger, they have no education, and other problems. So what is your strategy, Mr. President, to solve this problem?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it’s an excellent question, and the — first of all, I think one of the things that we should be very proud of from the G20 summit yesterday was that we made a significant commitment to additional resources through the IMF and other mechanisms to provide assistance to emerging markets and poor countries that, as I said, are bearing the burden of a collapse in the financial system that they had nothing to do with.

The problem is so many of these countries had export-oriented markets, and when the economies contracted in our developing nations, it made them extremely vulnerable. You know, you have a country like Botswana, which is actually a well-managed country that has made enormous progress, but their main revenue generator is diamond sales, and they have literally seen the diamond market collapse — in part because they couldn’t get trade financing, in part because the demand in developed countries has dropped off. So we started to make progress there. Our most important task right now is helping them get through this crisis.

Over the long term, though, we’ve got to have a strategy that recognizes that the interest of the developed world in feeding the hungry, in educating children, that that’s not just charity; it’s in our interest. There’s not a direct correlation between poverty and violence and conflict and terrorism. But I can tell you that if children have no education whatsoever, if young men are standing idle each and every day, and feel completely detached and completely removed from the modern world, they are more likely, they are more susceptible to ideologies that appeal to violence and destruction.

If you have no health facilities whatsoever in countries in Africa, these days a pandemic can get on a plane and be in Strasbourg or New York City or Chicago overnight. So we better think about making sure that there are basic public health facilities and public health infrastructure in those countries, because we can’t shield ourselves from these problems. So that means developed countries have to increase aid, but it also means that the countries who are receiving aid have to use it wisely.

My father was from Kenya. And when I traveled to Kenya — I had just been elected to the United States Senate — everybody was very excited and they greeted me as if I was already a head of state, and there were people waving and lining the streets. I went to speak at a university and I had to be honest, which was, America has an obligation to provide Kenya help on a whole range of issues, but if Kenya doesn’t solve its own corruption problem, then Kenya will never grow. It will never be able to provide for its own.

And so there’s nothing wrong with the developed nations insisting that we will increase our commitments, that we will design our aid programs more effectively, that we will open up our markets to trade from poor countries, but that we will also insist that there is good governance and rule of law, and other critical factors in order to make these countries work.

We spend so much time talking about democracy — and obviously we should be promoting democracy everywhere we can. But democracy, a well-functioning society that promotes liberty and equality and fraternity, a well-functioning society does not just depend on going to the ballot box. It also means that you’re not going to be shaken down by police because the police aren’t getting properly paid. It also means that if you want to start a business, you don’t have to pay a bribe. I mean, there are a whole host of other factors that people need to — need to recognize in building a civil society that allows a country to be successful. And hopefully that will — that approach will be reflected not just in my administration’s policies but in the policies that are pursued by international agencies around the world. Okay, good. (Applause.)

While it took him a few minutes to get to the D-word, President Obama’s response shows his nuanced view of U.S. democracy promotion and the recognition that there is more to democracy than voting. Hopefully President Obama and the future administrator of USAID remain committed to developing accountable democracies in countries that receive foreign aid and making aid programs more effective.

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.

The Future of Democracy Promotion

Yesterday’s New York Times ran a story by Peter Baker about the new administration’s approach (thus far) to democracy promotion.  Anyone in the democracy promotion business – or those interested in starting in that business – would do well to read it.

Simply put, the author suggests that the Obama administration is “demoting” democracy.

While many of the practitioners interviewed for Baker’s piece worried that Obama might write off democracy promotion, most of them agreed that we need to lower our profile, so to speak.  Thomas Carothers, who is releasing an article soon (for those interested in such happenings), expresses the sentiment well for the practitioners when he writes,

“Caution and moderation on democracy promotion are very much in order, including a careful post-Bush process of repair and recovery,” he wrote. “At the same time, however, President Obama and his foreign policy team should not, either explicitly or implicitly, embrace a broad realist corrective.”

It seems what most practitioners worry about is a “realist” backlash, whereby we remove democracy promotion from our foreign policy, on account of the hangover we worked up from eight years of an often hypocritical democracy promotion agenda.

Jennifer Windsor, assistant director at Freedom House, also captures the mood of democracy promoters when she says,

“The challenge for the Obama team is to find words and concepts that enable the administration to distinguish itself from the Bush administration, but not to downgrade support for democracy and civil and political rights,” she said. “So far, I haven’t seen them even try.”

It’s too early to pass judgment but so far it seems the administration is, understandably so, putting democracy promotion on the back-burner while they attempt to save the economy (oh, and Pakistan and Afghanistan).  It will be interesting to see how they Obama-ize democracy promotion abroad.

Hillary Can’t be the VP

There are an array of reasons that Obama should not choose Hillary as his running mate.  But there is one simple reason that Obama cannot select Hillary for the ticket: she doesn’t share his world vision.  Through the course of the primary process, we have learned that Hillary subscribes to a values system that differs from Obama’s.  Although their ideological stances pit them in the same corner, Obama’s raison d’etre clashes with Hillary’s behavior during this race.  For him, Hillary’s the part of Washington that needs to be reformed or displaced.  They play by different rules, and I’m not so sure that Hillary can be reformed.

Obama revealed a lot about his world vision in his speech on race a few months ago.  Explaining his revulsion to Reverend Wright’s infamous and derogatory comments, Obama said:

“[The remarks] expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

Later, Obama states:

“The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

Why do I raise these statements about Reverend Wright when talking about Hillary Clinton?  Hillary and Bill, as Jonathan Chait surmises in the New Republic, adopted a conservative populist rhetoric in the waning months of the primary season.  Chait writes:

“Conservative populism… dismisses any inference that the rich and the non-rich might have opposing interests as “class warfare.” Conservative populism prefers to divide society along social lines, with the elites being intellectuals and other snobs who fancy themselves better than average Americans.”

Indeed, this accurately explains why, to borrow once again from Chait, the “über-wonk [Hillary] has disparaged economists and expertise” and “the staunch ally of black America [again, Hillary] has attacked her opponent for lacking support of ‘working, hard-working Americans, white Americans.’”  I’d like to add to this the fact that Hillary has shamelessly failed to state unequivocally Obama’s religion (He’s not Muslim “as far as I know.”).
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Overdone

According to her own advisers, Hillary can’t win even by changing the rules:

In a Clinton campaign conference call with reporters on Wednesday, three top advisers acknowledged that even if all the delegates from disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida were seated at the Democratic convention, Mrs. Clinton would still not have enough delegates to claim the nomination.

Phil Singer, a spokesman for the campaign, estimated that in a best-case event, where the Michigan and Florida delegates were apportioned according to each state’s popular vote, Mrs. Clinton would still be about 100 delegates shy of the number needed. Delegates in those states have not been counted, the penalty for holding early primaries.

So it’s difficult to see where she has a case to stay in the race (I’m a rapper) if she can’t even win via a coup d’etat.

Domestic observers will monitor PA primary

According to a press release I just received (emphasis mine):

Common Cause’s election reform team will monitor voting problems and concerns that may arise tomorrow during the Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania, where an unprecedented turnout is expected, including a huge surge of new voters.

Some 7 million Pennsylvania voters are expected to vote tomorrow on paperless electronic voting machines that lack the ability to do a recount. Common Cause will help monitor problems reported to the Election Protection Coalition’s national voter hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Pennsylvania election officials are bracing for unprecedented turnout in a state with a recent history of voting machine problems, and where voter registration and registration changes have surged in recent months.

How will PA affect the big picture? Not very much, according to PoliBlog:

I must confess, it is difficult to get too excited about the Pennsylvania primary, given that no matter the result, we will be in basically the same position: Obama with more popular votes and pledged delegates, and therefore on the surer footing for the nomination.

Another part of the big picture concerns close elections. As Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 taught, close elections strain the legitimacy of rules otherwise considered minutiae. Will voting equipment and voter rolls join Michigan and Florida as flash points in the Clinton-Obama saga?