*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention


Good Governance Focus Key to Reducing Poverty/Inequality



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Good Governance Focus Key to Reducing Poverty/Inequality


GOOD GOVERNANCE VITAL TO DEMOCRACY’S REDUCING POVERTY

Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow Hoover Institute, In Search of Democracy, 2016, p. 386

Yet, as many analyses have shown, many democracies do a lackluster or only mediocre job of reducing poverty. Of course, sustainable poverty reduction requires overall economic growth, and to the extent that a poor economy suffers a drop in international trade or other shocks, it may experience a recession through no real fault of its own. But shocks are by definition temporary. The long-term persistence of high levels of absolute poverty in a given society is logically attributable to systemic conditions. And these conditions, I would argue, emanate to some considerable extent from bad governance.

Should Increase Anti-Corruption Assistance


SHOULD ASSIST EFFORTS TO FOSTER CIVIL SOCIETY

Michael Johnston, Political Science Professor Colgate University, 1993, Corruption and Reform, 7:189-204, p. 201-2

Perhaps one aid objective, among others aimed at helping democratization, might be to target nations that seem to be doing the most to foster and protect a lively civil society. It should be worthwhile to compare the number, size, and independence of political parties, trade unions, and interest groups, and to look closely at the stand and de facto protections and civil liberties accorded them (private organizations might be aided directly via nongovernmental organizations, as is being done in some nations at present). It is also worth remembering that civil society includes nonpolitical entities that help to create a public life outside the state. In Spain, for example, the transition to democracy was marked by, among other things, a proliferation of debating societies, social organizations, football clubs, and the like. Such groups may never enter directly into the political arena, much less directly attempt to check the state; but they do foster social participation, a sense of community, and of rights and values beyond the controlling reach of official power.

*Democracy Good*



Democratic Transition Yields Multiple Advantages


DEMOCRACY EXPANSION SOLVES MANY GLOBAL PROBLEMS: WAR, GENOCIDE, FAMINE, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow Hoover Institute, In Search of Democracy, 2016, p. 25



Imagine a world in which all states were democracies. Given the progress of the past four decades, it is no longer unthinkable. A world of universal democracy would not be a perfect world. Many democracies would no doubt still be illiberal, but the framework of democracy and an open society would generate public pressure to gradually move them in a more liberal direction. There would still be abuses of power by people in authority, from the local police to high-level officials. But these would be more often detected, punished, and deterred. It would be a world of dramatically fewer human rights abuses, greater personal and press freedom, less corruption, less violent conflict, and quite conceivably a world that had put an end to interstate war. It would be a world that no longer sponsored or tolerated mass killings like the Rwandan genocide, depicted on the cover of this book. It would be a world without famine; a world of states that were responsible to and could be held accountable by their own people. It would be a more just world.
DEMOCRACY ON BALANCE GOOD: MORALLY AND PRACTICALLY – NO WAR, FAMINE, GENOCIDE

Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow Hoover Institute, In Search of Democracy, 2016, p. 424



The case for promoting democracy is in part moral—that democracies do a much better job of protecting human right, and that peoples have a right to determine their own future democratically—but it proceeds as well on fiercely practical grounds. Democracies do not fight wars with one another; in fact, no two genuine, liberal democracies have ever done so, and all of American’s enemies in war have been highly authoritarian regimes. Today, the principal threats to American security – whether from terrorism or from potential military adventurism or cyberwarfare—all come from the world’s remaining authoritarian regimes, such as Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China, or from states like Somalia and Yemen that have collapsed or decayed because of authoritarian rule. Democracies make better trading partners because they are more likely to prosper and to play by fair rules, as they are more “likely to develop fair and effective legal systems.” This same regard for law makes democracies more likely to honor their international treaty obligations. And they make more reliable allies because their commitments are grounded in and ultimately sustained by public opinion; “democracies are like pyramids standing on their bases.” By contrast, the international posture of autocracies rests on the personal interests of the autocrat, and when he dies, changes course, or is overthrown, American interests get burned. Much of the Cold War history of America’s engagement with the Third World is a story of heavy investments in authoritarian client regimes—in places like China, Vietnam, Iran, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Zaire—eventually going down the drain due to revolution or state collapse. Moreover, once democracy takes root in a country, the US is relieved from having to worry about responding to famine, genocide, and humanitarian emergency (though certainly not poverty). These are uniquely phenomena of authoritarian regimes, and state failure is also the product of authoritarian abuse. As the spread of democracy in Europe and Latin America has demonstrated over the last two decades, a zone of democracy is also a zone of peace and security.




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