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DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IS A FAILED ENTERPRISE
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- ADVANCING THE INTERESTS OF DEMOCRACY IS DISASTROUS
DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IS A FAILED ENTERPRISE1. DEMOCRACY IS IN RETREAT AROUND THE GLOBE Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Co-Editor of the Journal of Democracy, March-April 2008. “The democratic rollback: the resurgence of the predatory state,” FOREIGN AFFAIRS, vol. 87, no. 2, p. 36. But celebrations of democracy's triumph are premature. In a few short years, the democratic wave has been slowed by a powerful authoritarian undertow, and the world has slipped into a democratic recession. Democracy has recently been overthrown or gradually stifled in a number of key states, including Nigeria, Russia, Thailand, Venezuela, and, most recently, Bangladesh and the Philippines. In December 2007, electoral fraud in Kenya delivered another abrupt and violent setback. At the same time, most newcomers to the democratic club (and some long-standing members) have performed poorly. Even in many of the countries seen as success stories, such as Chile, Ghana, Poland, and South Africa, there are serious problems of governance and deep pockets of disaffection.
Lincoln A. Mitchell, the Arnold A. Saltzman Assistant Professor in the Practice of International Politics at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, May-June 2008. “Democracy bound.(Contagions),” THE NATIONAL INTEREST, p. 70. Finally, democracy itself needs to be balanced against other American interests--such as cooperation in the war on terror in Pakistan and Kenya or facilitating the West's energy security in Georgia. However, the recent events in the above three examples have demonstrated that de-emphasizing democratic development comes with a cost--even for America's core security interests. Of these three countries, Georgia is perhaps the most intriguing, because it shows just how difficult it is, even under reasonably good circumstances, to consolidate democratic gains--as well as how strong the temptation to cut democratic corners in the name of expedience and state building is, even for those who claim, with some legitimacy, to be democrats. 3. IMPROVING CURRENT DEMOCRACIES IS A PRE-REQUISTE TO SPREADING DEMOCRACY Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Co-Editor of the Journal of Democracy, March-April 2008. “The democratic rollback: the resurgence of the predatory state,” FOREIGN AFFAIRS, vol. 87, no. 2, p. 36. Before democracy can spread further, it must take deeper root where it has already sprouted. It is a basic principle of any military or geopolitical campaign that at some point an advancing force must consolidate its gains before it conquers more territory. Emerging democracies must demonstrate that they can solve their governance problems and meet their citizens' expectations for freedom, justice, a better life, and a fairer society. If democracies do not more effectively contain crime and corruption, generate economic growth, relieve economic inequality, and secure freedom and the rule of law, people will eventually lose faith and turn to authoritarian alternatives. 4. YOUNG DEMOCRACIES ARE ENTERING A ROLLBACK Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Co-Editor of the Journal of Democracy, March-April 2008. “The democratic rollback: the resurgence of the predatory state,” FOREIGN AFFAIRS, vol. 87, no. 2, p. 36. Elsewhere in the developing and postcommunist worlds, democracy has been a superficial phenomenon, blighted by multiple forms of bad governance: abusive police and security forces, domineering local oligarchies, incompetent and indifferent state bureaucracies, corrupt and inaccessible judiciaries, and venal ruling elites who are contemptuous of the rule of law and accountable to no one but themselves. Many people in these countries--especially the poor--are thus citizens only in name and have few meaningful channels of political participation. There are elections, but they are contests between corrupt, clientelistic parties. There are parliaments and local governments, but they do not represent broad constituencies. There are constitutions, but not constitutionalism. ADVANCING THE INTERESTS OF DEMOCRACY IS DISASTROUS1. THE PROCESS OF DEMOCRATIZATION INCREASES LIKELIHOOD OF MAJOR WARFARE Minxin Pei, Ph.D., Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, December 1, 2002. “Implementing the institutions of democracy,” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON WORLD PEACE, No. 4, Vol. 19, p. 3. The process of regime change--the fundamental restructuring of power relations between the state and society as well as within the state itself--is itself often destabilizing and likely increases the danger of war. Consequently, democratic transition is fraught with risks of instability and conflict. Democracy may bring peace among nations, but democratization could cause war, both among and within nations. Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder argue that democratizing states are unstable and therefore have a greater propensity for external war. The risks of war may be low during the initial stages of regime change; but the likelihood of warfare increases over the next decade after transition.
Edward D. Mansfield, Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and Jack Snyder, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, Winter 2005. “Prone to Violence, The Paradox of the Democratic Peace,” THE NATIONAL INTEREST, Accessed 12-15-2008, In all of these varied settings, the turbulent beginning phase of democratization contributed to violence in states with weak political institutions. Statistical studies show that countries with weak institutions undergoing an incomplete democratic transition are more than four times as likely to become involved in international wars than other states, and that incomplete democracies are more likely to experience civil wars than either pure autocracies or fully consolidated democracies. Democratic transition is only one of many causes of war, but it can be a potent one. 3. NEWER FORMS OF DEMOCRATIZATION FOSTER NATIONALIST REVOLTS AND CIVIL WARS Edward D. Mansfield, Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and Jack Snyder, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, Winter 2005. “Prone to Violence, The Paradox of the Democratic Peace,” THE NATIONAL INTEREST, Accessed 12-15-2008, There is no reason to believe that the longstanding link between democratization and nationalist war is diminishing. Many of the countries that are still on the Bush Administration's "to do" list of democracy promotion lack the institutional infrastructure needed to manage the early stages of a democratic transition. The "third wave" of democratization in the 1980s and 1990s consolidated democratic regimes primarily in the richer countries of Eastern Europe, Latin America, southern Africa and East Asia. A fourth wave would involve more challenging cases: countries that are poorer, more ethnically divided, ideologically more resistant to democracy, with more entrenched authoritarian elites and a much frailer base of governmental institutions and citizen skills. 4. DEMOCRACY PROMOTION CAN’T OVERCOME MULTIPLE BARRIERS Steven Erlanger, Staff Writer, February 18, 2004. “Selling democracy: an ideal difficult to implant,” THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, p. 1. The selling and implanting of democracy face three essential problems: institution-building, which requires time, money and commitment; making that effort palatable in a foreign land, so it is not seen as imperial; and making the effort sustainable in countries where other interests -- wars on terrorism or drugs, or maintenance of regional stability -- trump the ability to face down an illiberal state. "The principal struggle in all these societies is about modernization," said Fareed Zakaria, author of "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad." "The idea that you can just hold elections while everything else remains feudal, medieval, means you won't get democracy but some perversion of it," he said.
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