Getting Democracy Promotion Right Posted by Michael Cohen

There was a smart article by Dick Gephardt and Vin Weber in Politico yesterday on the issue of how the Obama team should think about democracy promotion and, in particular, democracy assistance.

Democracy assistance comes in various forms. Some is “top-down” aid — i.e. assistance to the governments of emerging democracies to improve their performance; other assistance is more “bottom-up,” — supporting independent and politically active civic groups at the grass roots. While the former can be provided directly by government, much of the latter is best provided through nongovernmental channels.

This is a smart way to approach the issue, but it's incomplete.  While some countries need financial resources, others (particularly the poorest nations) really are better served by the sort of technical assistance that strengths institutions and helps governments govern more effectively. Countries without well-developed transparency and accountability standards stand a very real risk of squandering the financial resources they receive. But the further a country is on the development trajectory the better chance resources will not only be used properly, but they will produce results.

As to the second point, Gephardt and Weber are spot-on that we need to better support independent and politically active civil society groups - and we should be using non-governmental channels to do it. Obviously this means the NED, but it should also include multilateral organizations like the UN Democracy Fund and we should be thinking about ways to use the Millennium Challenge Corporation as a tool for encouraging recipient countries to bring local actors into the assistance process (both in designing aid initiatives and implementing them).

But Gephardt and Weber also raise another really important point:

Nongovernmental democracy assistance must be supplemented by the vigorous defense of democracy activists under attack by repressive regimes, even those with which we are linked for security and other reasons. As the recent release of the Egyptian opposition figure Ayman Nour makes clear, autocrats who seek our goodwill know that we care about how they treat their citizens. We need to reinforce that message at every opportunity, including through meetings with democracy activists when U.S. officials are making foreign visits.

Yes, yes and yes! But that must be taken a step further. We need to protect not only democracy activists. We need to protect the NGOs and other civil society actors that are at the vanguard of local democracy promotion activities.

There is today a global effort by autocratic and semi-authoritarian regimes to limit the ability of NGOs and other non-state groups to operate effectively (Russia and Kazakhstan are at the forefront, but we're also seeing it in China, Ethiopia and much of the Arab World). We are seeing restrictions on freedom of association, denial of legal status for NGOs, impediments to fundraising—both internationally and domestically, and interference and restrictions on their political activities.  We should not underestimate the risk to democratization that such laws represent.

If restrictions on the activities of non-state actors become institutionalized, the negative impact could be long lasting and difficult to reverse. If autocratic or illiberal regimes are permitted to believe they can, with impunity, prevent NGOs from engaging in civil society activities or political advocacy, other countries will adopt similar approaches.  

The State Department must establish stronger linkages between the treatment of civil society organizations and non-state actors, and U.S. bilateral relationships. Responses to civil society interference should run the gamut, from the issuing of démarches and expressions of concern and scheduled meetings with democracy advocates and civil society groups to the discontinuation of bilateral assistance and even economic or trade sanctions, if necessary.

But, if the United States is to empower civil society and local non-state actors as the vanguard of its democracy promotion agenda, it must be prepared to protect and defend these groups.

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It was great to know the Obama administration is likely to recalibrate rather than relegate democracy as a foreign policy objective. It understands that democracies are the most effective partners in helping us address today’s great international challenges: terrorism, poverty, weapons proliferation and civil conflict..Thanks for sharing such a great post.

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