*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Assistance Generally Increases Debt Burden
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- Turns Case – Strong Economy Key to Success of Democracy
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Assistance Generally Increases Debt BurdenMOST US AID IS “TIED” Edward O’Neill, Jr., Professor Emergency Medicine, Tufts University, 2006, Awakening Hippocrates, p. 103 Aid also promotes the business interests of the United States and other wealthy countries through a phenomenon know as "tied aid." By definition, tied aid is "foreign assistance that is linked to the purchase of exports from the country extending the assistance" (Kim et al 2000, 51). As a rule, most assistance comes with strings attached. According to the Congressional Research Service, 87% of US military aid financing, over 90% of food assis tance, and 81% of bilateral developmental assistance overall was used to purchase US products or services in recent years (2005, 19). Given the cozy relationships that business elites have with those in power, it follows that businesses in donor countries often receive a large share of the business of aid. . Author Graham Hancock offers the following blunt and largely accurate assertion, "Here is a rule of thumb that you can safely apply wherever you may wander in the third world: if a project is funded by foreigners it will typically also be designed by foreigners and implemented by foreigners using foreign equipment procured in foreign markets" (Hancock 1989, 155) HIGH LEVEL OF TIED AID INCREASES EXTERNAL DEBT BURDENS Ronald Labonte et al, International Development Research Center, 2004, Fatal Indifference: The G8, Africa and Global Health, p. 127 The relation between ODA and levels of external indebtedness suggests a more subtle respect in which the proportion of aid that is tied may be understated by the OECD figures. A quarter of developing countries’ long-term external debt is owed to export credit agencies (ECAs) in industrialized countries, which exist solely to promote their countries’ exports. It may be that a substantial proportion of ODA that is not formally tied is nevertheless offered in order to facilitate repayment of these debts, owed to agencies whose purpose and function are strictly commercial. Turns Case – Strong Economy Key to Success of DemocracyGOVERNANCE 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. HEALTHY ECONOMY KEY TO SURVIVAL OF DEMOCRACY Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 14 There is strong evidence that healthy economies are vitally important for vibrant democracies, although scholarly research remains divided over democracy’s contribution to economic development. According to Adam Przeworski, “The evidence is overwhelming that if democracy emerges in a country that is already [economically] modern, then it is much more likely to survive. No democracy ever fell in a country with a per capita income higher than that of Argentina in 1975 -- $US6,055. This is a startling fact given that throughout history about 70 democracies have collapsed in poorer countries. In contrast, 35 democracies spent a total of 1,000 years under more affluent conditions, and not one collapsed. Affluent democracies survived wars, riots, scandals, and economic and governmental crises.” --War/Democratic Peace TheoryDemocratic Peace Theory FlawedDEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY FLAWED IN THE MIDDLE EAST: STATIST FOCUS AND TRANSITIONAL WARS Dionysis Markakis, Center for International and Regional Studies- Georgetown University, 2016, US Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: The Pursuit of Hegemony, p. 32=3 The US’s application of democratic peace theory to the contemporary international system is flawed in a number of important ways. First is the theory’s statist focus, given that as Omar Encarnacion notes: “the classic view of war as an epic struggle between rival states has been out of date for decades.” This was exemplified by the post-11 September 2001 war on terrorism, which immersed the US into a conflict with predominantly asymmetrical forces. Given that intra- rather than inter-state conflicts are the primary source of instability in the Middle East, but also across the international system, this clearly undermines the theory’s relevance. Second is the fact that the democratic peace theory is primarily applicable to established liberal democracies. Randall Schweller argues: “While there is good evidence to support democratic peace theory, the vast majority of democracies have, until recently, been prosperous, satisfied, fully developed, Western and insular states. Changes in the values of these critical variables warrant great caution in extending the democratic peace proposition into the future.” This point is of particular relevance to the Middle East, given that the majority of states there are either partial or total autocracies, while a few may be said to undergoing the early stages of a process of democratization, for example, Tunisia. As Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder famously argued: “It is probably true that a world where more countries were mature, stable democracies would be safer and preferable for the United States. However, countries do not become mature democracies overnight…In this transitional phase of democratization, countries become more aggressive and war-prone, not less, and they do fight wars with democratic states.” This conclusion is clearly relevant to the contemporary Middle East, with significant implications for the strategy of democracy promotion. It also has implications for US efforts to encourage a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which are based on the premise that political and economic reform in the region will expedite this. 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