Democracy Assistance Generally Ineffective

Democracy Assistance Generally Ineffective

Stephen Browne, UN Aid Program Director, 2006, Aid & Influence: do donors help or hinder? p. 9

Aid follows the non-developmental objectives of donors. As we shall see in the chapters that follow, aid is a means of influence that may be related to factors of commercial, geopolitical, strategic/security or historical importance to donors. To take just the last factor, for example, patterns of aid allocation are still skewed by former colonial ties. For all the talk of supporting democracy and economic openness, the former colonial powers still give about twice as much aid to their former colonies that are not democratic or that have relatively closed economies, than they give to democratic and open non-colonies (Rogerson, 2005).

Democracy Assistance Fails: Problems with USAID

Lorne W. Craner, President Republican Institute, 2010, House Hearing: Human Rights and Democracy Assistance: Increasing the Effectiveness of U.S. Foreign Aid, June 10, [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg56888/html/CHRG-111hhrg56888.htm]

Today, we face tougher obstacles abroad; and more action is needed. As I told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after I had left the administration but when I headed the State Department's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion, our Government bureaucracy is not organized to deliver on Presidential promises on democracy and human rights. USAID's democracy capabilities are weak, career officials need to be better trained and incentivized, there is an excessive bureaucracy at the State Department on this issue, and better coverage is needed across the field.
DIPLOMATIC FOCUS CRITICAL TO EFFECTIVE DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE

Representative Ros-Lehtinen, 2010, House Hearing: Human Rights and Democracy Assistance: Increasing the Effectiveness of U.S. Foreign Aid, June 10, [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg56888/html/CHRG-111hhrg56888.htm]

While the recently released national security strategy includes two pages on the promotion of democracy and human rights, what matters is what is done, not just what is written. If our foreign aid for any objective, including development, is to be effective, we must have open and responsive governments and institutions so that we can track the use of our funds and ensure that they are not diverted into private bank accounts.

Second, a lack of diplomatic focus on human rights and democracy will only embolden dictators and corrupt rulers to consolidate their power. We need to ramp up our diplomacy in support of democracy, while also targeting our assistance for this key challenge. For example, while aggregate funding numbers may have increased, I have concerns about whether certain time-tested organizations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, are maintaining their proper place in our budget priorities. The administration's request for NED for Fiscal Year 2011 is nearly a 9 percent cut from Fiscal Year 2009 levels and an 11 percent cut for the estimated Fiscal Year 2010 levels.

Democracy Assistance Fails: Weak Empirical Record

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. 92-3

“Since interaction is so rare one could hardly speak of social reintegration, and certainly not or reconciliation.”

The report further concluded that although reconciliation is one of the aims with SIDA’s assistance, the evaluation in Bosnia confirms findings from studies in other parts of the world.
VERY DIFFICULT TO TRANSPLANT DEMOCRACY

Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 13-4

While there is broad support and mounting evidence for the virtues of liberal democracies that emerge organically on the foundations of robust political and societal institutions, there is nonetheless controversy surrounding the ability of foreign powers to transplant democracy into societies where existing institutional foundations are weak. Indeed, administration officials have acknowledged the uncertainties of elevating democratization to the primary organizing principle for diplomacy and foreign assistance. In the words of one administration official, “On this question of…not having a theory…it’s true. This is a very hard problem and we don’t have a clear theory about how to go about it. Do we need organic change in which we have to do everything at once? Can we identify certain key sectors? Can we isolate some sectors?”

The success of Hamas – considered an extremist group in the Untied States—in the Palestinian elections shortly after Secretary Rice enshrined transformational diplomacy as a primary principle of foreign policy served to dramatize the inherent contradictions in this agenda. The complexity of the task before the United States is summarized thoughtfully by Francis Fukuyama:

“The final area that needs rethinking, and the one that will be the most contested in the coming moths and years, is the place of democracy promotion in American foreign policy…The United States has played an often decisive role in helping along many recent democratic transitions…But the overarching lesson that emerges from these cases is that the United States does not get to decide when and where democracy comes about. By definition, outsiders can’t ‘impose’ democracy on a country that doesn’t want it; demand for democracy and reform must be domestic. Democracy promotion is therefore a long-term and opportunistic process that has to await the gradual ripening of political and economic conditions to be effective.”