*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
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- AT: “Arab Public Supports Democracy”
- *Political Conditionality Fails/Bad*
- Conditioning Aid Generally Fails
Democracy Promotion CoerciveUS DEMOCRACY PROMOTION POLICIES HAVE ALWAYS MIXED COERCION AND PERSUASION E. Doyle Stevick, Education Professor- University of South Carolina, 2008, Advancing Democracy Through Education: US influence abroad and domestic practices, eds. E. Stevic & B. Levinson, p. xx-xxi If the general feeling within the United States that the country had a positive influence around the world, at a peak following the transformations of Germany and Japan, waned during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, it was certainly reinvigorated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and apartheid South Africa and the military engagements of the First Gulf War and the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Skepticism about the use of American power and the agendas driving it vary around the world and shift over time, but reached a summit with the ongoing conflict in Iraq. The sense that the US might be advancing hidden agendas through its policies, particularly the promotion of Christianity, emerged again as rhetoric of a “Crusade” presaged the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite perceptions that the U.S. feels a sense of entitlement to remake the world through violence, without regard to or understanding of foreign cultures or countries, or that economic agendas of expanding markets trump true support for democracy, many who operate within the U.S.’s broader involvement in promoting democracy adamantly oppose their contemporary administration’s foreign policy and simultaneously advocate different values, even as they are caught up within larger geopolitical agendas. This seemingly bifurcated view is not new, however; President Dwight Eisenhower, who warned the country of the growing “military industrial complex,” also provided the country with the notion that it was in a global struggle to “win hearts and minds.” Indeed, whether seeking to stem the tide of spreading communism or militant Islam, American engagement with and influence in the world has been an oscillating formula and diplomatic means, wedding coercion with persuasion in different ratios.
Dionysis Markakis, Center for International and Regional Studies- Georgetown University, 2016, US Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: The Pursuit of Hegemony, p. 18 But is democracy truly a universal value? Amartya Sen claims that: “in the twentieth century…the idea of democracy became established as the ‘normal’ form of government to which any nation is entitled.” He argues that democracy is a universal value, based amongst others on the claim that “a universal value is [one] that people anywhere may have reason to see…as valuable.” This may be true of democracy as an ideal concept, one associated with similarly abstract notions such as “freedom,” “justice,” or “peace.” But it is not the case with the elite-based, liberal democratic ideology promoted by the US. As Bertrand Badie argues: “empires construct themselves around a specific culture that they intend to defend, promote, or possibly expand. But the universal is nothing more than a fictional and uncertain finality, realized precisely by negating the culture of the other.” This is the case in the contemporary Middle East, where political Islam, one of the few viable rival ideologies, has met with fierce opposition from the US, which has invariably sought to demonize both the ideology and its practitioners. Perhaps more relevantly though, substantial portions of Middle Easterners do not necessarily view democracy as a solution for the region’s complex political, economic, and social challenges. The concept of universality is intrinsically flawed: in essence it implies the system of government promoted by the US is applicable in all cases, everywhere, and at any time. This is simply not the case; the ideology promoted by the US is historically and culturally specific to the West. And it is ultimately misleading if not dangerous to take abstract notions of democracy, manifested in such phrases as “rule by the people, for the people,” which form the basis of claims of universality, and argue that they first of all reflect the reality of Western liberal democratic government, and second of all that they should be adopted by all other societies.
Current Aid to Middle East Not ConditionedUS HAS NOT CONDITIONED ASSISTANCE TO MIDDLE EAST 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. 202-3 Democratic reform and more accountable governance have not been a priority of U.S. strategic assistance to the region. Congressional attempts to link Middle East ESF to other human rights or economic issues had always been opposed and defeated by successive administrations. Nonetheless, lawmakers have sought to ensure that U.S. assistance supports a range of reforms. For Egypt only, Congress required that any portion provided as cash transfer “shall be provided with the understanding that Egypt will undertake economic reforms which are additional to those which were undertaken in previous fiscal years.” And indeed, cash payments as a percentage of ESF have declined, in part because this form of government-to-government assistance does not offer benchmarks for measuring results. Conditioning Aid Generally FailsLARGE AMOUNT OF MILITARY ASSISTANCE TO TOPIC COUNTRIES MEANS CONDITIONING THE PLAN’S ASSISTANCE IRRELEVANT 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 The sheer difference between MEPI and FMF funding is staggering. In 2003, for instance, MEPI funds remained a miniscule 5.4 percent of the U.S. economic assistance package to the Middle East. Thus any strategically important government resisting reform can nonetheless count on receiving the great majority of its aid package intact. If democracy promotion is a primary goal, the budget does not reflect the rhetorical priorities. Middle Eastern leaders are far more apt to feel a cutoff of military assistance than they are the impact of small reform programs. AID CONDITIONALITY GENERALLY FAILS Stephen Browne, UN Aid Program Director, 2006, Aid & Influence: do donors help or hinder? p. 43 Evidence, however, points to the relative ineffectiveness of conditionality. Rather than following donor prescriptions, developing countries have usually found their own paths to policy reform and adjustment. To the extent that this is true, much policy-based aid will have been wasted. MILITARY ASSISTANCE TO EGYPT DWARFS DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE 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. 205 Despite an increased emphasis on democracy promotion and economic reform in economic aid, traditional military assistance accounts for the bulk of U.S. assistance to Egypt. Since 19998 the United States provided Egypt with some $1.3 billion of military assistance each year – nearly 75 percent of total assistance to that country. This aid plays a role in ensuring stability in the region, as Egypt’s amplified force strength confers prestige upon its military establishment and commands respect from its Arab allies. AID CONDITIONALITY NOT EMPIRICALLY USEFUL AT IMPROVING GOVERNANCE OR REDUCING CORRUPTION Nicolas van de Walle, Professor of International Studies & Director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University, 2004 Overcoming Stagnation in Aid-Dependent Countries p. 39-40 Donors, moreover, found it difficult to penalize governments that did not comply with conditionality, either because they did not fully understand the lower level of compliance or because pressures to lend outweighed concerns about noncompliance. As Elliott Berg (2000, 300) has argued, “none of the parties to a structural adjustment program want it to fail. A cessation of disbursements is a personal defeat for responsibly donor staff and the organizations they work for.” Perversely, evidence suggests that governments that did not comply with donor conditions did not receive less external support (Burnside and Dollar 2000). In fact , on study (Alesina and Weder 2002) suggested that there was a positive correlation between corruption and aid during the 1980s and 1990s- more corrupt countries got more aid on average than less corrupt ones. In effect, governments faced disincentives to comply with the donors to change their policies or improve their governance. The toothless nature of conditionality has been blamed for the ineffectiveness of much aid, particularly to low-income countries undergoing economic policy reform. 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