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- Democracy promotion programs are wasteful and ineffective .
- Domestic laws in authoritarian nations create barriers that significantly inhibit U.S. democracy promotion.
Impact AnswersA2: Democracy Impact — PromotionU.S. democracy promotion empirically fails — Iraq proves.Tripathi 14 — Deepak Tripathi, writer with a particular reference to South Asia, the Middle East, the Cold War and America in the world, fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 2014 (“When nation-building goes wrong”, Middle East Eye, April 15th, Available online at http://www.middleeasteye.net/essays/when-nation-building-goes-wrong-1083646272, Accessed on 07-05-2016, KG) In Iraq and Afghanistan the US destroyed state structures as part of efforts to create Western-style democracies. Unlike post-World War II successes, this only sowed the seeds of violence and chaos The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue by an American armoured vehicle in Baghdad’s Firdos Square in April 2003 became a telling reference point in Iraq’s recent history. The event marked the end of the battle for Baghdad, which shown live in many parts of the world had been hailed as proof that the US was still the world’s master, less than three years after the trauma of the 11 September, 2001 attacks. Although the event was portrayed as one of great significance, important aspects were missed in the United States and the rest of the Western world. For instance, it was obvious that the crowds present there were small, and their enthusiasm not great. Before the statue was toppled, US marine corporal Edward Chin covered the statue’s face with an American flag. The crowd became silent, and one woman shouted at the soldiers to remove the flag, which was replaced with an Iraqi one. Cynics later suggested that the whole event had been staged by the United States military. Iraq descends Post-Saddam triumphalism then so overwhelmed the American psyche that president George W Bush, just three weeks later on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, proclaimed this a “mission accomplished” moment. Within a month, Bush had appointed Paul Bremer as governor of Iraq, and dissolved the Ba’ath Party and armed forces — moves that in effect dismanted Iraq's state structure. The logic was that only by destroying all the old regime, could a Western-style democracy modelled on America’s vision be created. Examples of post-conflict reconstruction in Japan and Germany after their defeat in World War II loomed large. However, both of these defeated powers were wealthy with advanced systems of their own before the war. The versions of democracy created as part of reconstruction had distinct Japanese and German cultural and national imprints. It was assumed that a new Iraqi state after the 2003 invasion would equally have a strong imprint of Iraqi culture and historical experience. However, when after almost nine years of occupation the American military presence formally ended in December 2011, few could say this had been achieved. Iraq’s chaotic emergence from eight years of occupation in 2011 was a reminder of what can go wrong in state- or nation-building, particularly when the victorious power’s cultural makeup is radically different from that of the defeated country. The cultural values on which a society are founded take long to evolve, and are so durable that any change involves risks and uncertainties. However, Iraq is not a solitary example exposing the limits of American military power and its capacity for state-building in this century. As the world's only remaining superpower, the US had visualised a world in its own image — a community of docile nations who would not challenge American power. After experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and more recently Libya and Syria, Washington remains far from achieving this. It seems that although America’s overwhelming power enables it to intervene and occupy foreign lands, the country’s ability to sustain war against resistors and undertake the task of state- or nation-building has been found wanting again and again. Ruthless rulers emerge Decisions taken immediately after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow were aimed at creating a new state structure to replace Iraq. Instead of a return to stability and rise to democracy, Iraq sank into a vicious multi-layered conflict after 2006, forcing the outgoing Bush administration to negotiate America’s exit — not the dawn of democracy Bush envisioned before leaving the White House. The downbeat exit in 2011 marked an embarrassing finale for the Bush presidency and a painful beginning for his successor, Barack Obama. Democracy in Iraq is a forlorn hope. The continuing violence in which scores of people are killed and maimed every week is a largely forgotten story in the Western world. The Iraqi state, weakened by harsh American-led sanctions in the 1990s and dismantled in 2003, never regained the capacity to impose control over a fragmented nation, which was created under the 2005 constitution along with a new power elite. The Shiite majority in the south and the Kurds in the north, long suppressed under Saddam’s rule, has become dominant. The minority Sunni elite that dominated the erstwhile power structure has been isolated, even demonised, in the absence of the effective checks and balances that a real democracy requires. As sectarian violence prevails in today’s Iraq, ruthless and manipulative politicians like Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki have emerged. The country is neither a democracy nor a US ally. A graveyard for nation-builders Instead, Iran, once Iraq's fiercest enemy, is now its closest ally. America’s neoconservative political establishment and its military-industrial complex may derive perverse satisfaction that Iraq is now unable to challenge the United States in the way that Saddam Hussein had attempted, but this seems cold comfort in the wider context. Iraq has become the most serious failure in America’s democracy promotion enterprise thus far in the 21st century, but there are other examples, both in the immediate past and in the previous century. The 11 September, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington prompted a US response in Afghanistan for the second time in two decades — the previous response being in the proxy war against the Soviet occupying forces in the 1980s. The enemy changed from communism to the Taliban militia; the motive was to shape events in West Asia in the West’s interests under the auspices of spreading freedom and democracy. The US intervention in support of Afghanistan’s mujahideen against communist rule, in particular after the Soviets invaded the country in December 1979, revealed contradictions often seen in other places. An external power’s backing for radical groups in an internal conflict changes the balance in ways that have long- and short-term. In conflicts like Afghanistan, when the intervening power supports a weak non-state or state player, the motive is to gain a foothold and then permanent influence. However, the power thereby contributes to a culture in which violence becomes the primary means of settling disputes and keeping order. Democracy promotion programs are wasteful and ineffective.Haring 15 — Melinda Haring, fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Eurasia program, Editor of UkraineAlert, a biweekly publication of the Atlantic Council, 2015 (“Can Washington Stop Doing Dumb Democracy Promotion, Please?”, Foreign Policy, December 15th, Available online at http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/15/can-washington-stop-doing-dumb-democracy-promotion-please-usaid/, Accessed on 07-02-2016, KG) On Nov. 30, the Senate voted to confirm longtime international development expert Gayle Smith as the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal agency responsible for overseas humanitarian projects like caring for refugees, building clinics, and supporting democracy. In her confirmation speech before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Smith pledged to expand USAID’s “work and impact on democracy, rights, and governance.” But before Smith expands that work, she should take a look under the hood. She’s likely to find more than a few problems. While USAID’s traditional development work is better known than its democracy work, the organization dominates democracy assistance, distributing more than 85 percent of the $3 billion the United States spends every year to make the world more democratic. It’s hardly news that the democracy bureaucracy is often uncoordinated, redundant, and counterproductive. Sometimes, it’s not very smart. Last year, USAID made headlines when details about a secretive social media program designed to bring regime change to Cuba became public. But supporting democrats is an important plank of U.S. influence and national security, and one that can be improved with three reforms that I previously outlined for Democracy Lab. First, the U.S. government should leave democracy assistance in countries that Freedom House ranks as “not free,” like Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe, to the independent grant-making model exemplified by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) — because in-country offices in authoritarian countries entail all sorts of compromises, dilute programs, and are far more expensive. Second, field-based organizations like the National Democratic Institute and Chemonics International should focus on “partly free” and “free” places already on the road to change, like Ukraine and Tunisia. Finally, noncompetitive mechanisms for awarding funds to democracy promotion organizations should end. These reforms might be too radical for Smith, a late-Obama-era political appointee whose days in her new role may be numbered. But at a minimum, she should ensure that USAID is putting its limited democracy dollars into countries where there is political will to change. In the past, I have highlighted laughably wasteful programs in Eurasia, from Azerbaijan to Uzbekistan. But democracy assistance programs in the former Soviet Union are a drop in the bucket compared to other “not free” countries that policymakers prioritize. This means that USAID dumps lots of money into countries that lack any political will to change.USAID dumps lots of money into countries that lack any political will to change. These programs are enormously expensive, unsuited for these countries’ circumstances, naively constructed, and may do more harm than good. In Afghanistan, USAID committed $216 million to empower 75,000 young women in an attempt to ensure that they’ll be included in the next generation of Afghan leaders. This is the U.S. government’s largest women’s empowerment project in history, and its cost exceeds the NED’s annual budget. Its implementers are for-profit contractors: Chemonics, Development Alternatives Inc., and Tetra Tech. USAID has already received a letter from the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction worrying that Afghan women engaged in the program “may be left without any tangible benefit upon completion.” The inspector general writes that many of his concerns were echoed by Afghanistan’s first lady, who said, “I do hope that we are not going to fall again into the game of contracting and sub-contracting and the routine of workshops and training sessions generating a lot of certificates on paper and little else.” The program wants “women to become leaders alongside their male counterparts, and ensure they have the skills, experience, knowledge, and networks to succeed,” which is standard USAID boilerplate — but it is unrealistic, unattainable, and potentially even dangerous to women, given the precarious state of women’s rights in the country. As Human Rights Watch has noted, highly visible women in Afghanistan, such as policewomen and activists, experienced a series of threats and assassinations in 2014 — and the government failed to protect them. But even aside from the question of safety, the program may simply be too big. Societies produce only so many genuine activists, and too much assistance can create an artificial cottage industry and invite abuse.Societies produce only so many genuine activists, and too much assistance can create an artificial cottage industry and invite abuse. In 2013, USAID authorized Democracy International to “develop effective, inclusive, and accountable governance” in South Sudan, a country where civil war has displaced an estimated 2 million people and killed at least 50,000. The five-year program, with a $74.7 million price tag, was meant to “promote a peaceful democratic transition by facilitating smooth elections, the establishment of a sustainable constitution, and by promoting the participation of citizens.” On March 24, South Sudan’s national parliament delayed the country’s first elections and extended the terms of all elected officials, including President Salva Kiir, by three years. So much for citizen engagement. The program was also meant to provide direct assistance to the National Constitutional Review Committee to “support an inclusive constitutional development process.” The commission, established in 2012, has failed to produce a draft constitution. In Jordan, a country where King Abdullah II controls the Senate, approves laws and can dismiss the parliament, prime minister and cabinet at whim, USAID pledged $35.7 million this September to “support King Abdullah’s democratic reforms.” King Abdullah has weathered the Arab Spring better than most in his region by sacking a prime minister, passing new constitutional amendments, and holding parliamentary elections. However, his moves to assuage demonstrators are window dressing, and they are better understood as a ploy to stay in power rather than a genuine desire to embrace democracy. USAID continues to fund such ill-advised programs in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries that display no interest in reform for three reasons: bureaucratic self-interest, inertia, and the assumption that more is always better. As I have written before, we can end the waste with an emphasis on triage, allocating more money where there is a greater chance of real change, not just spending wherever there is a mandate and a mechanism to do so. For starters, President Barack Obama’s oft-criticized foreign-policy mantra — “don’t do stupid shit” — is perfectly suited to democracy promotion. The programs in Afghanistan, Jordan, and South Sudan never should have been approved. If the U.S. government discontinued these and other programs in similarly unpromising environments, nothing would change in those countries — but the democracy bureaucracy and its staff in those countries might have to find new employment. The bottom line is that scarce U.S. dollars to promote democracy should go toward countries where real and genuine progress is possible.U.S. dollars to promote democracy should go toward countries where real and genuine progress is possible. The United States shouldn’t give up completely on “not free” countries; instead, it should support democrats in “not free” countries primarily with modest grants through the NED. The U.S. government can also plant seeds in “not free” countries through exchanges and online programs that don’t require an in-country presence. In Iran, for example, an e-learning program to teach democratic values to civil society makes a real difference without the need for field offices. In her confirmation hearing, Smith assured the Senate: “USAID has taken great strides to improve operations, increase transparency, embrace accountability, and ensure that the agency is both responsive and responsible.” It’s time for her to seriously examine whether USAID’s work in “not free” countries is actually responsible and yields “greater and more potent returns for the United States and millions of men, women, and children around the world.” I have my doubts — and taxpayers should, too. Domestic laws in authoritarian nations create barriers that significantly inhibit U.S. democracy promotion.Bush 15 — Sarah Bush, assistant professor of political science at Temple University, her research focuses on democracy promotion, human rights and gender policy, and international relations, 2015 (“Democracy promotion is failing. Here’s why.”, The Washington Post, November 9th, Available online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/09/democracy-promotion-is-failing-heres-why/, Accessed on 07-02-2016, KG) People around the world were watching as Burma voted Sunday. The results of the election — the first there since the end of 50 years of military rule — will be pivotal for the country, also known as Myanmar. A number of international election observer groups have been present, attempting to evaluate whether the process is truly free and fair amid a number of concerns about state repression, discrimination against the Rohingya minority and post-election violence. In Burma and elsewhere, the ability of the international community to successfully promote democracy is being questioned. According to some observers, we are in an era of “resurgent dictatorship.” Although this phenomenon has a number of dimensions, one prominent characteristic of the authoritarian backlash against democracy is the proliferation of domestic laws restricting the activities of foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and preventing foreign funding of local NGOs. As James Savage of Amnesty International said in a recent interview, “This global wave of restrictions has a rapidity and breadth to its spread we’ve not seen before, that arguably represents a seismic shift and closing down of human rights space not seen in a generation.” A number of countries have been in the headlines this year for enacting these restrictive laws, which Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace refers to as the “closing space challenge.” Russia made the news in July when it banned the National Endowment for Democracy from working within its borders. China also has been considering measures that would regulate and significantly hamper foreign NGOs. Although Russia and China may be among the most prominent countries engaging in these tactics, they are hardly unique. In 2013, Darin Christensen and Jeremy Weinstein examined 98 countries and found most had either prohibited or restricted foreign funding for local NGOs. Moreover, an examination of a complete sample of states between 1993 and 2012 by Kendra Dupuy, James Ron and Aseem Prakash found that 45 countries had adopted similarly restrictive laws. The passage of laws that target foreign support for civil society has had significant consequences for international efforts to advance democracy and human rights in the developing world. Since the 1980s, there has been a tremendous growth in foreign aid programs designed to advance democracy and human rights. As I document in my recent book, the United States has been a leader on this front, giving about $3 billion annually in recent years to democracy assistance programs. In addition, most European democracies — including recently transitioned states — and international institutions have been major donors. Foreign aid programs supporting democracy and human rights in the developing world pursue a number of activities. They support the capacity of local civil society organizations, train journalists and election officials, and encourage women’s political participation. In the end, these activities are designed to encourage countries’ democratic transition and consolidation. Yet the restrictions that many countries are placing on the work of democracy promoters make it difficult for organizations engaged in democracy assistance to choose the programs that they think are most likely to lead to democratization. In other words, countries’ restrictions increasingly encourage what I refer to as a “tame” approach to aiding democracy abroad. Restrictions on foreign-funded activities are not limited to the passage of laws — they also include informal tactics. Consider an example from my field research in Jordan. In 2012, I spoke to a woman working for an NGO who had prepared for months to host a training session for political parties. On the day of the workshop, several men who were not on her participant list showed up. The men sat quietly throughout the workshop, taking notes and observing the day’s events but not participating in the activities on crafting messages, developing platforms and designing voter outreach. As the workshop continued, the other participants became uncomfortable. Although the men had introduced themselves as members of an unspecified political party, it was clear to her that they were observers from the Mukhabarat, Jordan’s omnipresent and highly professional General Intelligence Directorate (GID). Unfortunately, such an anecdote is becoming increasingly familiar for NGO employees and funders from Cairo to Beijing. People in the field of democracy assistance must worry about maintaining good relations with the governments in the countries where they work. And those governments carefully monitor the foreign-funded programs within their borders. The end result is that it is harder than ever for states to directly and effectively aid democracy overseas. Sometimes, the consequence is the cessation of foreign NGOs and foreign-funded domestic NGOs. In Egypt, the headline-grabbing 2013 convictions of 43 people working for foreign and foreign-funded NGOs have been followed by yet more state repression of domestic civil society. Other times, the foreign NGOs and foreign-funded domestic NGOs are allowed to continue their work but must switch tactics to a tamer form of democracy assistance that refrains from directly confronting undemocratic rulers and sometimes even cooperates with them. In Azerbaijan, programs supporting women and youths in undemocratic environments have been criticized for failing to support “meaningful social change.” While the direct repression of foreign NGOs may be more shocking and newsworthy now, the indirect suppression and co-optation of these organizations may ultimately prove an even greater obstacle to democracy promotion in the years to come. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.85 Mb. Share with your friends:
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