Is the Obama administration putting democracy promotion on the back-burner or simply toning down the previous administration’s Freedom Agenda oratory? Is promoting democracy falling victim to calculating realpolitik or simply being “pursued with more modesty, less volume and better understanding”?
“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history,” said President Barack Obama in his inaugural address, appearing to confirm a commitment to promoting democracy.
But Peter Baker’s New York Times analysis creates the impression that the D-word is politically unfashionable, citing its absence from the secretary of state’s trinity of defense, diplomacy and development as the principal foreign policy pillars.
Many democracy promoters would happily exchange less rhetoric for quietly sustained strategic support. Baker quotes Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, arguing “for lowering the profile of the issue without abandoning the commitment, especially in the Middle East.”
Yet Baker fails to observe that Vice President Joe Biden recently affirmed that democracy remains on the foreign policy agenda as one of “the most powerful weapons in our collective arsenals“. As Kenneth Wollack, president of the National Democratic Institute, observes, the debate is not whether democracy should be a foreign policy priority, but “where it ought to be on that agenda.”
[Baker is also mistaken in his belief that Egypt freed Ayman Nour after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a trip to protest his imprisonment, and to suggest that Ronald Reagan "created the National Endowment for Democracy". Reagan's celebrated Westminster address laid out the rationale for the NED and his support was indispensable to its development, but it resulted from a bipartisan initiative, with Dante Fascell, a leading Democrat, widely recognized as a joint architect with Reagan].
Democracy assistance practitioners will find little cause for concern if Obama prefers “as a matter of prudence, to speak of building a liberal order rather than promoting democracy“. Not will many demur at his professed preference for viewing democracy promotion “through a lens that is actually delivering a better life for people on the ground and less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance”.
It is more often its detractors who present democracy promotion as overly focused on elections when, in practice, democracy assistance is more holistic, reflecting an appreciation that democracy must deliver, has important socio-economic and cultural underpinnings, and requires a robust civil society, including healthy intermediate institutions like labor unions and business organizations.
“A full belly first, then morality,” wrote Bertolt Brecht. But it doesn’t take such crude Marxist materialism to recognize that democracy doesn’t thrive amid deprivation. Authoritarian and populist forces have gained credibility and power by apparently addressing basic needs for security and welfare.
“Look at why the baddies win these elections,” said Samantha Power, senior director for multilateral affairs on Obama’s National Security Council. “It’s because [populations are] living in climates of fear.” U.S. policy should be “about meeting people where they’re at. Their fears of going hungry, or of the thug on the street. That’s the swamp that needs draining. If we’re to compete with extremism, we have to be able to provide these things that we’re not [providing].”
In the Middle East, for instance, militant Islamist groups have gained support by providing “Dawa” – welfare or social services – notes Obama adviser Dennis Ross. He advocates an “alternative Dawa” in Muslim nations, including internship programs for developing job-related skills; job-creation projects involving the private sector and NGOs; and food-distribution centers in destitute areas.
It seems that recalibration of democracy promotion is more likely than relegation. It would also help to divorce democracy promotion from unrealistic strategic objectives and adopt more modest goals, suggests Kori Schake, author of Managing American Hegemony:
The record is at best mixed whether promoting democracy has reduced terrorism, whether the magnitude of the threat merits the magnitude of effort the United States has expended, and whether a more consciously defensive strategy could better serve American interests….. Improving the quality of governance by engaging in localized political disputes hile attacking the roots of terrorist activity continues to be a preferable approach.
[...] reform in the capital city Harare. We cannot reject the possibility, however, that this is a recalibration of democracy assistance in light of new [...]