*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Democracy Promotion Increases Risk of Ethnic Conflict
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- Assistance Generally Exacerbates Intrastate Conflict
Democracy Promotion Increases Risk of Ethnic ConflictDEMOCRATIZATION/GOOD GOVERNANCE AGENDA FOR NEW STATES INCREASES RISK OF ETHNIC CONFLICT WITHIN THE STATE Jens Stilhoff Sorensen, Research Fellow – Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 2010, Challenging the Aid Paradigm: Western Currents and Asian Alternatives, ed. J. S. Sorensen, p. 90 The crucial point to be made here is that the remolding of a traditional society into one with universal, liberal (Western-style) values may, in fact, require a breaking down of traditional social institutions and networks, including the kind of social trust embedded in them, and may thereby generate social conflict. The alternative is that traditional networks and informal institutions are reproduced within a new formal institutional framework and that they become embedded in them and thereby shape them, which in turn makes those institutions less universal. Such a process might generate conflicts with the “out” groups, such as the “ethnic other” or other “clan-family networks.” Social trust is high within clans or ethnic groups which are in conflict with other clans or ethnic groups, and the problem is how to create social trust between them and thus reconciliation, how to transgress traditional loyalty networks and extend social trust beyond them. A requirement for the latter, and in order to create trust in universal institutions, may be the weakening of existing loyalty networks, which could otherwise be perceived as a threat to fair and non-corrupt institutions. The Western liberal ideal type requires an atomization of traditional structures and an individualization of society. The whole idea of “one person one vote as well as the idea of meritocracy, is founded upon such an individualization process. The requirement of such transgressions constitutes a dilemma, and the promotion of social and cultural change through contemporary aid policy, may thereby generate social conflicts as well as diffuse them.
Jens Stilhoff Sorensen, Research Fellow – Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 2010, Challenging the Aid Paradigm: Western Currents and Asian Alternatives, ed. J. S. Sorensen, p. 91-2 The reliance on and promotion of market forces and relations, and the accompanying limitations placed upon the state with regard to economic policy and development, carry the risk of leaving the state with few or no instruments for promoting integration and attracting loyalty and trust in its institutions. The problem is not only that development and economic policies are largely removed from the democratic process, but also that people are forced to retain and rely on alternative security and loyalty structures. In an underdeveloped and divided society, the free play of market forces may contribute to existing tensions and further fragmentation, and strengthen patron-client and nepotism networks of favoritism, loyalty and security. In such a manner it may block allegiance to “neutral” state institutions or alternatively shape these institutions along existing networks of nepotism and clientism. Such a shaping of institutions may be the trend anyway, it was certainly not unknown to institutions in the socialist or developmental state, but under conditions of programs of development and welfare, where state institutions are more expansive, they can afford to be more inclusive, and crucial processes concerning development and welfare are brought under institutions that can be held accountable and subject to bargaining. Assistance Generally Exacerbates Intrastate ConflictAID EXERBATES INTERGROUP TENSIONS IN CONFLICT AREAS Mary B. Anderson, president of the Collaborative for Development Action, 1999 Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace- or War p. 46-47 Differential benefits from aid can reinforce intergroup tensions in conflict areas. When aid is targeted toward some groups and others are excluded, competition between them is fueled. When returning refugees receive aid and people who stayed in a war zone during the fighting receive none, tensions can result. When aid agencies label people according to their needs and focus assistance programs accordingly, they can reinforce subgroup identities and accentuate intergroup differences. Aid agencies target subgroups for good reasons. With limited resources, they must set priorities and focus on where the need is greatest. They often direct aid toward people who have been marginalized or impoverished by their own societies. Furthermore, aid staff know that when aid is given without regard for group differences, people with power can use it for their own ends and further disadvantage those without power, which is why NGOs make gender and vulnerability analyses an integral part of aid planning. Nonetheless, experience shows that in conflict settings targeting aid reinforces divisions rather than connectors in societies. Aid's profit and wage effects can also reinforce intergroup tensions. Ownership of the assets aid agencies need is often differentially distributed among local groups; thus the profits to be gained from aid are also unevenly distributed. When aid agencies hire local people who can speak their language, such benefits can be biased because foreign language ability (and otller skills needed by aid agencies) is often related to educau6iialaccess that, in turn, is correlated with patterns of privilege and discrimination. Uneven benefits from aid, if realized according to subgroup identities,can exacerbate tensions between groups. COMPETITION AMONG AID AGENCIES LEGITIMIZES CONFLICT WITH THOSE YOU DISAGREE WITH Mary B. Anderson, president of the Collaborative for Development Action, 1999 Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace- or War p. 56 Another negative implicit ethical message is conveyed by the failure of aid agencies to cooperate with each other. Aid agency field workers report that they often bad-mouth other agencies' work. They compete for aid recipients, often by criticizing the program approaches of other agencies and refusing to have anything to do with them. Sometimes these situation results from a fundamental difference in outlook (as when some agencies take an explicit religious stance and others decry proselytizing); sometimes it results from personality clashes among fieldbased staff; sometimes it reflects different politics, either that of the donor country from which the aid agencies come or politics in relation to the events occurring in the recipient country. The message conveyed to people in a recipient community is that it is unnecessary to cooperate with people they do not like; our work has no space for tolerance of differences, and we do not and need not respect people with whom we disagree. These attitudes permeate and underlie the intergroup conflicts that shape the space within which aid is provided. 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