Democracy Promotion Increases Violence—Transition Wars
DEMOCRACY PROMOTION INCREASES SHORT TERM SECURITY THREATS – TRANSITION PHASE DANGEROUS
Daniela Huber, Senior Fellow Instituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, 2015, Democracy Promotion and Foreign Policy: Identity and Interests in US, EU, and Non-Western Democracies, p. 36
Hence, from a neo-classical realist viewpoint democracy promotion should be perfectly coherent with classical material security interests, such as preventing conflict and setting up stable alliances, as well as with more ontological security interests, such as protecting one’s own system of values and norms. Therefore, the puzzle becomes not why democracy is promoted, but why democracy promotion has not always been promoted. Decisive in answering this question is what is called in this book the democracy dilemma: in the long term democracy promotion might be a strategic policy to foster security interests, but in the short term it is risky when applied toward allied autocracies. Transition states are the most war-prone states, with several power centers complicating reliable signaling. They are volatile, unpredictable, and might bring actors to power that are perceived as threatening and might defect from alliances. In a benign environment democracies can afford a risky policy of democracy promotion for the benefit of long-term security, but if they find themselves in a highly threatening, conflictual environment they will be risk-averse and pursue short-term security interests. Thus rising threat perceptions from the environment should be a central hindering variable off democracy promotion. This applies to this study specifically, since in all three cases – US, EU, and Turkish democracy promotion in the neighborhood—we are dealing with dilemmatic cases of democracy promotion where democracy is promoted in allied autocracies. The logic of democracy promotion changes when pursued toward unfriendly regimes. In these cases, the democracy dilemma does not exist and democracy promotion fosters the security interest in the short and long term; rising threat perceptions might then not hinder democracy promotion, but influence the means by which it is pursued, as has been argued by Miller (2010).
Arab Spring Increased Violence
ARAB SPRING HAS RESULTED IN INCREASED VIOLENCE AND INSTABILITY – CONFIRMS AUTHORITARIANISM AS BEST FOR MIDEAST STABILITY
Dionysis Markakis, Center for International and Regional Studies- Georgetown University, 2016, US Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: The Pursuit of Hegemony, p. 181
The events of the Arab Spring led to the historic elections of the Ennahda party in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—both of whose Islamist political roots the US has repeatedly refused to countenance. Yet ongoing instability in Tunisia, Egypt’s swift return to military rule, turmoil in Libya, Yemen and Iraq, and the unceasing violence in Syria—has muted much of the initial optimism. So far the Arab Spring has not heralded the advent of a new Middle East, at least in a positive sense, with instability its primary manifestation, amidst the region’s steady decline and Al-Sham (ISIS)’s takeover of swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory is the most stark indication off this. Perhaps the primary legacy of the Arab Spring so far has been the reaffirmation of authoritarianism as the sine quo non of Middle Eastern politics. The US and key regional allies such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have sought to suppress these challenges and maintain the established order. The coup d’etat led by General Abdul Fatah-al-Sisi in Egypt, a year after the Muslim Brotherhood assumed power electorally, illustrates this. The US tacitly endorse the military’s coup, refusing to label it as such, with Secretary of State John Kerry claiming: “in effect, they were restoring democracy.” He would later argue that the Egyptian “revolution…got stolen by the one single-most organized entity in the state, which was the Brotherhood.” Saudi Arabia and the UAE promptly underwrote Egypt’s finances. In keeping with its traditional role of regional bellwether, the ongoing machinations in Egypt allude to the fragility of the broader political transitions in the Middle East.
--Political/Ethnic Stability
Democracy Assistance Increases Conflict
DEMOCRATIZATION INCREASES CONFLICT AND CRISIS
Carlos Santiso, Johns Hopkins University, 2002, Promoting Democracy by Conditioning Aid? Towards a More Effective EU Development Assistance, [http://www.mafhoum.com/press3/100E18.pdf], p. 6-7
While it acknowledges the destabilising effects of state disintegration in conflict-ridden and war-prone countries, the Commission’s approach fails to recognize that democratization itself can generate sources of conflict. In fact, hasty transitions towards democracy and premature elections can destabilize fragile peace processes. While democracy and modernization generate political stability, the process of democratising and modernizing often breeds instability (Mansfield and Snyder 1995; ICG 2001). In some extreme cases, it is increasingly believed that benign authoritarianism may be preferable to hollow and corrupt façade democracies.
It is increasingly recognised that democratization processes are highly volatile. Democratization does not follow a natural, orderly and linear sequence of positive and progressive political transformation. More often than not, it is an irregular, erratic and sometimes reversible process, taking place in highly fluid environments. It can go backwards and sideways as much as forward. Moreover, the resurgence of democracy since the late 1980s has not produced a clear-cut division between democratic and non-democratic countries, but rather a wide spectrum of semi-democratic or semi-authoritarian regimes with an extensive “grey area” in between (Carothers 2000). Increasingly, the term democracy is used with adjectives to capture the reality of “hybrid regimes” struggling to consolidate (Collier and Levitsky, 1997).
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