*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
Claiming Success for US Democracy Assistance Undermines Legitimacy of New Countries
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- Democracy Promotion Imperialistic: Generally Assistance Seeks to Impose U.S. Model
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Claiming Success for US Democracy Assistance Undermines Legitimacy of New CountriesTAKING CREDIT FOR DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE DELEGITIMIZES NEW DEMOCRACIES Jennifer L. Windsor, Executive Director, Freedom House, 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] First, attributing progress in a country to specific U.S.-Government-funded programs may undermine the very legitimacy of groups and individuals that are the intended beneficiaries of those resources. If you say that assistance to Ukraine brought about the Ukrainian Orange revolution in Ukraine, that delegitimizes the very people that brought about that change. U.S. programs absolutely helped, but that doesn't mean that they have been--they themselves are the cause for the change.
Dionysis Markakis, Center for International and Regional Studies- Georgetown University, 2016, US Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: The Pursuit of Hegemony, p. 17-8 The simplistic abstraction of democracy from a grounded historical context, combined with its re-interpretation in universalist terms, has been a key element of the US’s pursuit off hegemony. It constitutes an attempt to de-politicize and de-contextualize the promoted American ideology, presenting “democracy” as a neutral value that people everywhere aspire to, and that is manifested in a system of government applicable anywhere. In essence, the US has attempted to position the Western liberal democratic model as the only truly legitimate form of governance. Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis exemplifies the US’s monocultural, teleological approach to democracy promotion. The aim is the internalization by other societies of the US’s interpretation of democracy, and associated norms and values, as the natural order. This process has been remarkably successful. Slavoi Zizek observes that: “it is easy to make fun of Fukuyama’s notion of the End of History, but the dominant ethos today is “Fukuyamaian”: liberal-democratic capitalism is accepted as the finally found formula of the best possible society.” The term “democracy” itself has become almost universally identified with the liberal Western variant. And despite being far removed from its original Athenian context, it has successfully suppressed competing conceptions, for instance, popular or social democracy. DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE DESIGNED TO INFLUENCE COUNTRIES TO ADOPT OUR MODEL OF DEMOCRACY Jo Beall, Director Development Studies Institute-London School of Economics, 2005, Funding Local Governance: small grants for democracy and development, p. 81 Aid is an emotive concept, and a controversial issue for both donor and recipient countries, not least because it is variously conceived. Almost by definition aid is normative, infused with ideology and with more or less obvious strings attached. For example, if aid is used to promote economic growth and/or political reform in less developed countries, a certain type of growth – based on neoliberal principles – and a certain type of political reform – based on Western multi-party democracy – is assumed. Donor governments are usually averse to giving aid to countries or groups that are antagonistic towards them and bilateral development cooperation often involves industrialized countries giving aid to countries that share their political persuasion or that they wish to influence. The first development decade followed the American President Harry S Truman’s explicit anti-communist agenda. Very much concerned with promoting the American view of freedom and economic growth, this persisted well beyond the 1950s, as did the fact aid flows were closely associated with the Cold War and competition with the Soviet Bloc for territorial bases. By contrast, in the 1970s and 1980s the social democratic government of Sweden saw its SIDA giving aid primarily to developing countries with a socialist or social democratic persuasion, such as Tanzania, Nicaragua, and Mozambique. In the case of apartheid South Africa, moreover, SIDA supported the African National Congress (ANC) during its exile, and funded South African NGOs rather than the apartheid government.
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. 107-8 Both through networking and through funneling resources, American public funds could be used to advance a relatively narrow economic and political doctrine. Foreign partners were as much advocates of particular viewpoints as they were technical experts helping their local partners advance locally-developed goals. In part as a result of this advocacy, a transmission orientation exists: foreign experts speak, lecture, answer, and provide, but much less frequently ask in-depth questions or engage in a real dialogue.
Dionysis Markakis, Center for International and Regional Studies- Georgetown University, 2016, US Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: The Pursuit of Hegemony, p. 60 This has resulted in the so-called “Islamist dilemma” the fear that by encouraging democratic transitions in the Middle East, the US will facilitate the rise to power of parties intrinsically opposed to it. Robert Pelletreau, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs under Clinton, claimed: “we’re suspicious of those [Islamic groups] who would use the democratic process to come to power only to destroy that process in order to retain power and political dominance.” The precedent for this dilemma was established by the Algerian elections of 1992. As a result of political liberalization measures initiated by the ruling National Liberation Front, the Islamic Salvation Front was poised to assume a majority in the National Assembly. So as to pre-empt this, the Algerian military seized power. This led to a vicious, protracted civil war that claimed over 150,000 lives. Manifestations of this dilemma appeared in the Egyptian parliamentary elections in 2005, and the Palestinian Territories’ legislative elections in 2006. Both came amidst demands by the G.W. Bush administration for political reform in the Middle East. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won an estimated 19 per cent of seats, in part because US pressure prevented the widespread fraud and manipulation characteristic of most previous elections. After this, the US’s enthusiasm for expedited political reform in Egypt waned notably. In the Palestinian Territories, elections were a precondition for US engagement and support for a future Palestinian state. This culminated in the election of Hamas, an Islamist group classified as a terrorist organization by both the US and the European Union classified as a terrorist organization by both the US and the European Union (EU). The US and the other Quartet powers—the United Nations (UN), the EU and Russia—subsequently refused to recognize Hamas as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This because it refused to accept the conditions demanded of it, namely to “recognize Israel’s right to exist, forswear violence and accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements.” Following Hamas’ forcible takeover of Gaza in June 2007, the Quartet imposed economic sanctions on the Palestinian enclave; these were eventually superseded by an Israeli blockade. At the same time the US rapidly increased funding for the Fatah-controlled West Bank, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, whose candidacies for prime minister in 2003 and president in 2005 it had supported. Jim Zanotti notes: “The United States has appropriated or reprogrammed nearly $2 billion since 2007 in support of [Palestinian Authority] PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s security, governance, development, and reform programs, including $650 million for direct budgetary assistance to the PA and nearly $400 million…for strengthening and reforming PA security forces and criminal justice systems in the West Bank.” The US’s intention was clearly to undermine the Islamist Hamas movement, and conversely strengthen the secular Fatah party. The above demonstrate that it is only where conditions for political reform have been deemed viable that the US has promoted transitions to elite-based democracy. This assessment of viability is contingent largely on the prospects of the US’s preferred candidates assuming power through the ballot box. Alternatively, authoritarian proxies have been maintained.
Dionysis Markakis, Center for International and Regional Studies- Georgetown University, 2016, US Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: The Pursuit of Hegemony, p. 70 Yet, while there may be a tendency to conflate electoralism with a process of democratization, this is clearly not quite the case in the Middle East. As the Arab Human Development Report notes: “The right to political participation has often been little more than a ritual, representing a purely formal application of a constitutional entitlement. In most cases, elections have resulted in misrepresenting the will of the electorate and in low levels of representation for the opposition…These elections have generally reproduced the same ruling elites.” Elections in the Middle East have therefore predominantly been a means for authoritarian incumbents to legitimize their rule, creating the façade of progress through “democratic” accoutrements. The resilient, prevalent nature of authoritarianism in the Middle East evidences the limited progress of the US strategy of democracy promotion. Yet it must be emphasized that democracy promotion is only one element of American policy in the region, which has to take into account multiple demands placed on it by often divergent interests. As stated previously, it is only where conditions for political reform have been deemed favorable, that the US has promoted democracy. This has generally been determined by the anticipated impact on its national interests, as well as the presence of viable political forces amenable to these interests. This explains the US’s longstanding policy off cooperation with authoritarian governments in the Middle East, including throughout the Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations. Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers argue: “US policy-makers are still effectively paralyzed by an old problem: the clash between their stated desire for a deep-reaching transformation of the region and their underlying interest in maintaining the useful relations they have with the present governments of many non-democratic states there” MIDEAST DEMOCRACY PROMOTION CONTINGENT ON THE “RIGHT” GROUPS WINNING Dionysis Markakis, Center for International and Regional Studies- Georgetown University, 2016, US Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: The Pursuit of Hegemony, p. 93 The electoral successes of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas ultimately resulted in the “demotion” of US democracy promotion efforts in Egypt and the wider region. Following 2006 there was a discernible decrease in the G.W. Bush administration’s enthusiasm for expedited regional political reform. Perhaps sensing this trepidation, Mubarak launched a concerted effort to stymie any momentum that the reform initiative had gathered in the aftermath of the 2005 elections. Opposition parties, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood, a judicial reform movement, and the media, were all targets of sustained repression over the next few years. The G.W. Bush administration’s response to these events, at least publicly, was relatively muted. US DEMOCRACY PROMOTION NOT NEUTRAL – ONLY SUPPORT CERTAIN GROUPS Dionysis Markakis, Center for International and Regional Studies- Georgetown University, 2016, US Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: The Pursuit of Hegemony, p. 160 As with other cases of US democracy promotion in the Middle East and beyond, it is important to underscore the partisan nature of the civil society actors supported. This was reflected in the US’s explicit, repeated refusal to countenance “Islamist” or conservative “tribally based” actors, whether in parliament or civil society more generally, instead emphasizing the role of “liberal” and “moderate” elements, a minority constituency in Kuwait, but one more likely to be positively inclined towards its interests.
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