*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention


*Neoliberalism/Cap K Answers* Democracy Assistance Trades Off with Economic Reforms



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*Neoliberalism/Cap K Answers*



Democracy Assistance Trades Off with Economic Reforms


GOVERNANCE ASSISTANCE TO MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES MUST BE CAREFULLY BALANCED WITH THE NEED FOR ECONOMIC REFORMS

Patrick Cronin & Tarek Ghani, Director-International Institute for Strategic Studies & Policy Assistant-Center for Global Development, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 203-4



While rhetoric supporting good governance and democratic reform is attractive to U.S. policymakers, MEPI has failed to institute reliable, systematic criteria for measuring and evaluating results. This opens democracy and governance projects to charges that MEPI is not sufficiently committed to reform to support critical strategic goals. However, one must ask whether the partnership initiative is receiving sufficient funds for these efforts and whether the executive and legislative branches are prioritizing these budget items.

U.S. diplomacy toward its allies in the Middle East must continue to strike a delicate balance between focusing on governance assistance versus traditional project implementation support. In U.S. government-funded assistance to the Middle East, there is a tension between political and economic reform, on one hand, and stability on the other. These two goals are not mutually exclusive; however, the transition to political and economic reform can create instability. In addition, the United States has limited or no leverage in some countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, for any reform. Trade, however, has become an increasingly important lever to promote reform and closer relationships within the region. The outcome of this complex balancing of interests, priorities, and relationships will determine the sustainability and success of assistance programs in the region in the long term.


*Imperialism Answers*



No Link: Democracy Promotion Not a Tool of Western Imperialism


DEMOCRACY NOT A TOOL OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM

Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow Hoover Institute, In Search of Democracy, 2016, p. 422



Neither is it convincing to argue any longer that democracy is mainly a “Western” concept, unsuitable or and largely unwanted by non-Western peoples and cultures. As we saw in Chapter 4, for some two decades now, the majority of the world’s states have been democracies, and there is at least a critical mass of democracies in every region of the world except the Middle East—which las at least seen the emergence of the first genuine democracy in the Arab World (Tunisia). Some Muslim-majority states, such as Indonesia and Senegal, have made noteworthy progress in developing and institutionalizing democracy (and Turkey and Bangladesh in Chapter 4). Moreover, public opinion surveys show clear majorities of the public in each cultural zone preferring democracy as the best form of government. In short, democracy has become a universal vale, with broad appeal in every region of the world and with no global rival as an ideal form of government.


*Development/Assistance Kritik Answers*



AT: Development Ks


POST-DEVELOPMENT Ks FLAWED

Maria Eriksson Baaz, Goteborg University-Department of Peace and Development-Researcher, 2005, The Paternalism of Partnership: a postcolonial reading of identity in development aid, p. 28-9

As several writes have argued, some so-called post-development texts present an image of development ideas and practices that is too totalizing and homogenizing, with limited attention given to context and changes over time. According to Kiely (1999: 30), “post-development is guilty of homogenizing the idea of development, thereby conflating all theories of development with the outmoded (and long discredited) theory of modernization.” In a similar way, Pieterse (2001: 111) remarks that:
“’Post-development’ is misconceived because it attributes to ‘development’ a single and narrow meaning, a consistency which does not match either theory or policy, and thus replicates the rhetoric of developmentalism, rather than penetrating and exposing its polysemic realities.”

As Crewe and Harrison (1998: 181) contend, “the development industry” is often wrongly described as a cohesive machine. According to them, the development apparatus must be seen as fragmented “not only is there a great diversity in types of organization, but the ways they work … and their political contexts vary greatly.” From this perspective, the study conducted in Tanzania that forms the heart of this book – based not only on a particular location at a particular time – should be seen as but a small part of a diversified industry. Hence, it should be seen as relevant only to its particular context.


POST-DEVELOPMENT Ks ARE HYPOCRITICAL – PEOPLE IN COMFORTABLE LIVING STANDARDS SPEAKING ON THE LEGITIMACY OF THE DEMANDS OF OTHERS

Maria Eriksson Baaz, Goteborg University-Department of Peace and Development-Researcher, 2005, The Paternalism of Partnership: a postcolonial reading of identity in development aid, p. 162-3



The problem of the post-development approach, however, is not only located in the risk of relegating questions of poverty and economic inequality to the margins by an infatuated interest in the authentic and the unspoiled. It is also about the ways in which demands for economic development and equality are delegitimized as symptoms of a pathetic, dangerous Westernization. Some post-development writers seem to ascribe to themselves the right and authority to detect the layers of falseness and truthfulness and to decide what/who is authentic and what is not. The problem of separate development becomes especially evident when one considers the representations of the other in terms of sobriety, conviviality, simplicity, and “noble forms of poverty.” According to this logic, demands for economic development and equality become signs of a loss of authenticity, a sign of Westernization and adaptation to the corrupting influences of – to use Galtung’s words – a greedy and inconsiderate West. As Fagan observes, those who propose anti-development in this way are themselves displaying Eurocentrism: “adopting the privilege of being antidevelopment is not…politically or morally viable when sitting in an ‘overdeveloped’ social and individual location.”
POST-DEVELOPMENT Ks ELEVATE INTEREST IN AN AUTHENTIC “OTHER” OVER REAL LIFE AND DEATH ISSUES OF PEOPLE

Maria Eriksson Baaz, Goteborg University-Department of Peace and Development-Researcher, 2005, The Paternalism of Partnership: a postcolonial reading of identity in development aid, p. 163-4

As noted in Chapter 1, post-development is in many ways similar to the highly diversified field of postcolonial studies, with its preoccupation with the cultural dominance of the West and argument for the need to situate contemporary societies within the history of the colonial. Nevertheless, the post-development trend discussed in this chapter is, in several respects, different from the approach adopted by the postcolonial writers discussed in Chapter 2. In her article “Development Studies and Postcolonial Studies: Disparate Tales of the “Third World’” (1999), Christine Sylvester presents critical genealogies of development studies and postcolonial studies and concludes that the two fields “ignore each other’s missions and writings” (1999: 703). Her view of the respective weaknesses of the fields is summarized in the conclusion that “development studies does not tend to listen to subalterns and postcolonial studies does not tend to concern itself with whether the subaltern is eating” (Sylvester 1999: 703). I would argue that this equally holds true for the post-development writings discussed in this chapter. While postcolonial studies has focused on culture and identity rather than economic inequalities and poverty, its politics is different from that of post-development, which, with its simplistic problematization of poverty and infatuated interest in an authentic Other, seems not be concerned with “whether the subaltern is eating.”
POST-DEVELOPMENT K CALLS FOR TOTAL REJECTION OF AID – NOT USEFUL FORM OF CRITIQUE

Maria Eriksson Baaz, Goteborg University-Department of Peace and Development-Researcher, 2005, The Paternalism of Partnership: a postcolonial reading of identity in development aid, p. 164-5

Whereas the process of critique can be seen to destabilize belief in the value of development work, this questioning seldom involves ultimate rejection. It often involves instead a reversal whereby the legitimacy of development aid is reinstated. Such reversals, which reflect the partial and temporary nature of the critique articulated in the development aid context, are best seen as expressions of the need to reinstate legitimacy. If the notion that “the whole idea of development and development workers is absurd from start to finish” was accepted, aid and the presence of the development worker Self would lose all legitimacy. A consistent critique such as that put forward by post-development writers, where development is totally rejected, is therefore problematic given the meanings attached to development work.

Notwithstanding such reversals, the process of questioning should not be seen as insignificant. It should not be seen as hiding the unambiguous identity of a Western superior Self. The reversals should be seen as an effort to reinstate legitimacy, which is never fully successful. The contradictions evident testify to the workings of conflicting discourse: on the one hand are discourses in which the Truth and “light of learning: are located within a developed Western Self; on the other are various counter-discourses that challenge these identities.


NO ALTERNATIVE TO UNIVERSALISM IN DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSE

Maria Eriksson Baaz, Goteborg University-Department of Peace and Development-Researcher, 2005, The Paternalism of Partnership: a postcolonial reading of identity in development aid, p. 46

Hence, the ironic compromise of mimicry displays the contradictions inherent in the colonial project. Above all, it displays the ways in which particularism must be seen as an integral part of “the Western universalizing project.” The Western universalizing project was characterized by claims to proprietorship over universalism. Moreover it was highly selective – particularist – universalism reserved for the colonial Self. It was precisely through the particularism of the universalistic project that continued domination and social and economic inequalities were legitimized. If this (along with hybridity) is acknowledged, resistance can be no longer be framed in terms of the simple choice between either “the Western” or “the African;” either universalism or particularism.
POST-COLONIAL” STUDIES FLAWED

Maria Eriksson Baaz, Goteborg University-Department of Peace and Development-Researcher, 2005, The Paternalism of Partnership: a postcolonial reading of identity in development aid, p. 61-2

One criticism that has been directed at postcolonial studies is that the approach overstates or exaggerates the role of the colonial. There are different dimensions to this critique. One is that the postcolonial presents the colonial as “the origin of history” and that it is thereby reproducing Eurocentrism. As McClintock argues:

“The prefix post- moreover, reduces the cultures of people beyond colonialism to prepositional time. The term confers on colonialism the prestige of history proper; colonialism is the determining market of history. Other cultures share only a chronological, prepositional relation to a Eurocentered epoch that is over (post-) or not yet begun (pre-). In other words, the world’s multitudinous cultures are marked, not positively by what distinguishes them but by a subordinate, retrospective relation to linear, European time.” (McClintock 1995: 11).

Even if this criticism, as Childs and Williams (1997:16) suggest, is somewhat misplaced since it places too much emphasis on the term itself and “ignores the work that is done under its aegis,” it points to an important and problematic tendency within the field. As I elaborate in the last part of this chapter, there is a risk of overstating the impact of colonialism, a risk that, above all, is connected to the failure to recognize heterogeneity. However, there is a second dimension to this critique, which – in contrast to that above – comes from critics who question the issues dealt with in the postcolonial field itself. The critique does not so much oppose the potential risk of repeating Eurocentrism by privileging the colonial as the origin of history, but rather opposes the specificity, and the image of this specific history, through the argument that the racism that characterized European colonization and its aftermath was not specific to Western or European colonialism.
POSTMODERN DEVELOPMENT Ks INTERNALLY CONTRADICTORY

Edward Ramsamy, Africana Studies Professor-Rutgers, 2006, The World Bank and Urban Development, p. 18



Postmodernists are certainly correct in questioning how development discourse homogenizes everything it encounters. However, characteristically they discard the conceptual tool of generalization itself when countering a generalizing discourse. Their preoccupation with posturing against modernity has led them to philosophical commitments that do not permit them to selectively appreciate the analytically and politically strategic value of generalized representation, without which certain stories cannot be told. Such analytic tools are part of the arsenal with which authors and actors like Escobar circumvent such logical and practical impasses by conveniently shifting gears back to the modernist method of generalizing the discourse to suit their purposes. In spite of posturing to the contrary, they require generalization as a method in order to ascribe a cause and purpose to development identified by Escobar as “domination”, without which they would have no reason to tell the story of development. However, by doing so, they take the bait of modernist reasoning in spite of their own theoretical prohibitions against it. Perhaps such missteps betray a modernist habit of mind that is unable to keep pace with the alleged postmodern rupture from a modern past.
POSTMODERN/POST-DEVELOPMENT Ks FLAWED: TOO ABSTRACT, NO WORKABLE SOLUTIONS

Edward Ramsamy, Africana Studies Professor-Rutgers, 2006, The World Bank and Urban Development, p. 18-9



The modernization and dependency paradigms, as postmodernists and other critics of the development process have pointed out, both fail to consider the historical and national diversity of development patterns that characterize the Third World. In the modernization paradigm, prespecified outcomes are associated with the development process, with little or no attempted to examine, spatial and temporal contingencies of the developing world. Wallerstein’s would system analysis, for example, collapses the formerly socialist states of Eastern Europe, mineral-exporting states such as South Africa, and newly industrializing countries of Latin America and East Asia as part of homogenous or semi-periphery. While modernization theorists overlook the constraints imposed on developing countries by the global political economy, dependency theorists, on the other hand, “liquidate the unique history and development of specific countries.” In this regard, Haggard contends that in an “attempt to outline a parsimonious conception of international structure, [the dependency theorists] missed the variation in state strategies and capacities.” As a result, neither modernization theory nor the dependency approach can explain differences in the behavior of similarly situated states. Postmodernists are, to their credit, interested in the particularities of p laces and peoples as they intersect with the “metanarrative” of development. Escobar states that a focus on cultural issues has resulted in “new ways of thinking about representations of the Third World,” but these ideas remain tentative and inadequately developed. When postmodernism’s interest in representation, identity, and difference is stymied by its own reticence on economic and political issues concerning Third World actors, one is left with little more than good intentions. Postmodern thinkers on development often frame their analyses in excessively abstract language; their conjectures make little attempt to link symbolic and textual representations with political and economic representations. This is because they disregard an extensive body of theory on the materiality of capitalist development, exemplified by the works of Frank, Emmanuel, Amin, Mandel, and Smith. The “post-development” alternatives suggested by postmodernists call for hybrid solutions that transcend tradition and modernity; however, postmodernists place the onus of finding these solutions upon less developed societies themselves without sufficiently analyzing their capacity for autonomy in the context of deepening globalization.



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