“If Thailand has a half-deified king, Burma has an ‘uncrowned queen’” in Aung San Suu Kyi, says a leading analyst.

“I am irresistibly reminded of the halcyon days after Václav Havel became president of Czechoslovakia in 1990,” writes Timothy Garton Ash:

There is the same mix of fairy-tale charm, public adulation at home and abroad, and a nagging murmur of private unease. The unease, in her case as in his, flows from several different sources—including the unhappiness of local intellectuals who barely get a look in. But mainly it is about the dissonance between the moral-literary-spiritual antipolitician of yesterday and the practical politician of tomorrow.

Much of that unease surrounds what some observers see as her politically-calculated rapprochement with the military and her muted response to recent violent attacks on the country’s Muslim minority.

“There are no votes to be gained on the issue—indeed, there are only votes to be lost—among the ethnic Burman majority,” Garton Ash writes for The New York Review of Books:

And she will need all the Burman votes she can get in the 2015 parliamentary elections, as well as forming alliances with ethnic minority parties and at least part of the military—whose parliamentary appointees will still have a reserved 25 percent of seats—if she is to get the more than 75 percent vote in the lower house needed to change the constitution, so that the new parliament can elect her president.

Leaders of the military-aligned USDP, including the powerful house speaker Shwe Mann, recently pledged to collaborate with Suu Kyi to amend the Constitution, but “do they risk crossing the invisible line” that protects the former dictatorship’s prerogatives? asks Kyaw Zwa Moe (left), editor (English Edition) of the Irrawaddy magazine:

No. Despite promised amendments, the military’s dominance in Burmese politics will not be washed away—it is part of the invisible line. Lawmakers will make some changes to the much criticized Constitution, and Thein Sein will continue taking liberties in navigating the reform process, but the important constitutional article that allows the military to appoint 25 percent of lawmakers in Parliament will not be amended. Thein Sein has already made that clear, recently telling the Washington Post that Burma’s military “will always have a special place” in government.

“In its scope and pace, Myanmar’s rapid opening after decades of harsh, secretive military rule has been likened to the end of South Africa’s apartheid era,” say analysts Gwen Robinson and Lionel Barber:

Parallels have been drawn between reformist leaders in both countries and, more controversially, between “the Lady”, as Ms Suu Kyi is known, and Nelson Mandela – to the chagrin of critics who accuse Ms Suu Kyi of sacrificing principles for political gain. But as with any society emerging from repressive rule, Myanmar’s transition is about far more than the liberation and rise of a pro-democracy leader.

Burma’s reform process is beginning to “bear fruit”, says the International Monetary Fund, but Suu Kyi’s relationship with President Thein Sein remains critical to maintaining momentum.

“Myanmar’s moment is now,” says U Soe Thane, minister in charge of economic affairs. “We have been planning for two years, we have changed many things. But this is our year of implementation, particularly for economic reforms,” he tells the Financial Times:

The government’s pace of reform has gone way beyond the tightly controlled transition mapped out in 2003 by Than Shwe, the military dictator, who handpicked Thein Sein as his successor. “Things are indeed moving fast,” said U Than Lwin, a leading banker and parliamentary adviser. “But we have been waiting decades for this moment. You cannot tell us to stop or slow down now”.

Crucial to the reform dynamic is the dual metamorphosis of Ms Suu Kyi and Thein Sein. “The Lady is a democracy icon, the president is the reform icon,” says Soe Thane. “These two still have good relations, they co-operate though not on a daily basis. We must take care of both for the sake of Myanmar,” he said.

There is some justification for Suu Kyi’s hard-headed approach, says Garton Ash, a celebrated participant-observer in east-Central Europe’s Velvet revolutions and post-Communist transitions.

“In my experience, the ex-dissidents who do best in post-dictatorship politics are those who say in effect, ‘OK, back then I was an intellectual, now I am a politician. One day I may go back to being an intellectual again, but for now I’ll do my best at playing a reasonably clean game of politics. For these are different games with different rules,’” he writes.

And yet Suu Kyi’s “own political nous has not been so evident as Havel’s in the opposition years, and the NLD lacks the expertise necessary to govern,” he fears.

Burma is not an Asian Czechoslovakia but more like an Asian Yugoslavia, an ethnic patchwork that can only be kept together by timely and far-reaching devolution of power. ….On the other hand, she seems clear-sighted about what she has to do. “I’ve never had illusions about politics,” she told one of her BBC interviewers. No Havelesque visions there; and that’s an advantage.

There is little doubt the NLD could sweep a free and fair election “but the biggest challenge will come in its capacity to govern”, Hervé Lemahieu, a Myanmar analyst, tells the FT:

Other critics note that the NLD is a collection of former activists and political prisoners with little economic expertise and no government experience. The push to promote younger members has caused serious internal rifts, which will sorely test Ms Suu Kyi’s famously imperious leadership style.

Beyond that, the greatest risk for the opposition is what Mr Lemahieu calls the NLD’s “one-woman strategy”: Ms Suu Kyi’s “continued centrality to the party’s political viability”. There are no apparent heirs to the NLD leadership and certainly none with her political pedigree and pulling power.

The NLD’s “pragmatic policies and narrow focus on law and order could damage its standing among the wider pro-democracy opposition and ethnic minority groups”, says Mr Lemahieu.

Bolivia’s expulsion of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) this month is a troubling development on its own, but when viewed in the context of similar actions by other governments, it raises questions about the future of American foreign assistance in the face of authoritarianism, writes Sarah Trister, Manager of Congressional Affairs for Freedom House.

Bolivian president Evo Morales (right) linked his decision to an offhand comment in which Secretary of State John Kerry referred to Latin America as the United States’ “backyard,” but he also accused USAID of political meddling and “conspiring” against his government. Morales’s discomfort with American assistance dates back many years. In 2009, USAID suspended most democracy programming in Bolivia at his insistence; now the agency’s operations in the country are being shuttered completely.

Many governments are wary of democracy aid because it is designed to foster independent institutions and civil society, rather than buttress entities under the control of incumbent national leaders. But the short-term interests of incumbents should not be confused with the long-term interests of their country, or of the United States. The tremendous value of independent structures becomes especially obvious in times of transition. In the case of Egypt, USAID agreed to grant the Mubarak government control over most democracy assistance in 2009, effectively shutting down many of those efforts. When the regime collapsed in the face of a popular uprising in 2011, the country was left with an array of dysfunctional and discredited institutions, and the United States was left to scramble for friendly partners and a viable path to stability.

Support for civil society, democratic institutions, and human rights should be elevated to a universal, and nonnegotiable, aspect of American foreign policy, and no government should get an exception. In countries that are outright hostile to democratic values, the administration should continue to raise these issues in bilateral meetings and public statements, and assist civil society through creative methods—including offshore and multilateral initiatives, as has been done in cases such as Cuba, Ethiopia, and Egypt in the past.

Congress and the administration should work together to make specific and quantifiable progress on democracy and human rights matters a core condition for U.S. aid to authoritarian governments, as in places like Egypt, Sri Lanka, and Burma. And if the established goals are not met, the United States must follow through on the consequences.

This brief extract is taken from a longer post on the Freedom House blog here. 

At first glance, it might seem counterintuitive that media freedom is on the decline, writes Karin Deutsch Karlekar, project director of Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press report.

After all, in a world in which news is being produced by a broader range of professionals – as well as citizen journalists and bloggers – information is flowing at faster rates than ever before. And with news being transmitted through a greater variety of mediums – including newspapers, radio, television, the internet, mobile phones, flash drives, and social media – one might expect the level of media freedom worldwide to be improving, not worsening, she writes for CNN’s Public Square.

Yet Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press report (excerpt below), which measures the environment journalists operate within as well as access to news and information, shows that the world’s media are often facing growing pressures in a range of political settings. An overall decline in the level of global media freedom – reversing last year’s improvement – was driven by declines in almost every region of the world. Reasons for the deterioration included the continued, increasingly sophis­ticated repression of independent journalism and new media by authoritarian regimes; the ripple effects of the European economic crisis and longer-term challenges to the financial sustainability of print media; and ongoing threats from non-state actors such as radical Islamists and organized crime groups…..RTWT:

Ongoing political turmoil produced uneven conditions for press freedom in the Middle East in 2012, with Tunisia and Libya largely retaining their gains from 2011 even as Egypt slid backward into the Not Free category. The region as a whole experienced a net decline for the year, in keeping with a broader global pattern in which the percentage of people worldwide who enjoy a free media environment fell to its lowest point in more than a decade. Among the more disturbing developments in 2012 were dramatic declines for Mali, significant deterioration in Greece, and a further tightening of controls on press freedom in Latin America, punctuated by the decline of two countries, Ecuador and Paraguay, from Partly Free to Not Free status.

While there were positive developments in Burma, the Caucasus, parts of West Africa, and elsewhere, the dominant trends were reflected in setbacks in a range of political settings.

The trend of overall decline occurred, paradoxically, in a context of increasingly diverse news sources and ever-expanding means of political communication. The growth of these new media has triggered a repressive backlash by authoritarian regimes that have carefully controlled television and other mass media and are now alert to the dangers of unfettered political commentary online. Influential powers—such as China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela—have long resorted to a variety of techniques to maintain a tight grip on the media, detaining some press critics, closing down or otherwise censoring media outlets and blogs, and bringing libel or defamation suits against journalists.

Russia, which adopted additional restrictions on internet content in 2012, set a negative tone for the rest of Eurasia, where conditions remained largely grim. In China, the installation of a new Communist Party leadership did not produce any immediate relaxation of constraints on either traditional media or the internet. In fact, the Chinese regime, which boasts the world’s most intricate and elaborate system of media repression, stepped up its drive to limit both old and new sources of information through arrests and censorship.

The United States should give a higher priority to advancing global religious freedom as a matter of national security, says a major new survey. The persecution of people of faith is inherently dangerous because it has the effect of empowering extremists at the expense of moderate religious believers, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

“The state of international religious freedom is increasingly dire due to the presence of forces that fuel instability.  These forces include the rise of violent religious extremism coupled with the actions and inactions of governments,” said Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett (left), USCIRF’s Chair.

“Extremists target religious minorities and dissenters from majority religious communities for violence, including physical assaults and even murder,” she said. “Authoritarian governments also repress religious freedom through intricate webs of discriminatory rules, arbitrary requirements and draconian edicts.”

The Boston bombings highlighted the implications of religious intolerance, she said. The report is notably scathing about religious repression in the former Soviet bloc states of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia, including the north Caucasus.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are among the worst violators of religious liberty, but the Commission has also expressed concern about the recent kidnapping of two Christian bishops in Syria. The commission reserves the right to name Syria a “country of particular concern,” said Lantos Swett.

“Helping create and protect civic space for diverse religious opinions on matters of religion and society can help counter the rise of violent religious extremism,” its 2013 annual report (excerpted below) suggests.

The U.S. and its allies should “increase and strengthen diplomatic, development and military engagement to promote human rights, especially religious freedom,” it concludes.

But the Syrian case highlights a difficulty with the Commission’s mandate, laid out by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998,” says The Economist:

The system assumes that most religious repression is practiced by state authorities, and can be corrected by putting pressure on governments. But some of the world’s worst persecution is practiced by what political scientists call “non-state actors” who may be relatively immune to diplomatic pressure. Nobody knows for certain who kidnapped those Syrian bishops but it happened in a rebel-controlled area, so calling the government names might not help very much.

IRFA requires the administration to designate as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) those regimes that engage in or tolerate “particularly severe” violations of religious liberty, with “particularly severe” defined as violations that are “systematic, ongoing, and egregious,” including torture, prolonged detention without charge, disappearances, or “other flagrant denial[s] of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons.” After a country is designated a CPC, the President is legally required to take action.

The 2013 recommends that eight countries – Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan – be re-designated as CPCs, and proposes that seven other countries – Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam – should also be designated as such.

A country is included on USCIRF’s Tier 2 list, on the threshold of CPC status, when the violations are particularly severe and meet at least one of the three elements of the “systematic, ongoing, egregious” standard. USCIRF deems that eight countries – Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, and Russia – meet the Tier 2 standard, which designation provides advance notice of negative trends that could become severe violations of religious freedom, giving policymakers an opportunity to pre-empt, prevent or diminish the violations.

An extract from the report:

Justifications for Tier 1 CPC Designation

Burma: Ongoing and important political reforms in Burma have yet to significantly improve the situation for freedom of religion and belief. During the reporting period, most religious freedom violations occurred against ethnic minority Christian and Muslim communities, with serious abuses against mainly Christian civilians during military interventions in Kachin State and sectarian violence by societal actors targeting Muslims in Rakhine (Arakan) State. In addition, Buddhist monks suspected of anti-government activities were detained or removed from their pagodas, and at least eight monks remain imprisoned for participating in peaceful demonstrations.

China: The Chinese government continues to perpetrate particularly severe violations of the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief. Religious groups and individuals considered to threaten national security or social harmony, or whose practices are deemed beyond the vague legal definition of “normal religious activities,” are illegal and face severe restrictions, harassment, detention, imprisonment, and other abuses. Religious freedom conditions for Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims remain particularly acute, as the government broadened its efforts to discredit and imprison religious leaders, control the selection of clergy, ban certain religious gatherings, and control the distribution of religious literature by members of these groups.

Egypt: During the reporting period, the Egyptian transitional and newly elected governments have made some improvements related to freedom of religion or belief and there was positive societal progress between religious communities. Nevertheless, during a February 2013 visit to Egypt, USCIRF found that the Egyptian government continued to engage in and tolerate systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief. Despite a significant decrease in the number of fatalities and injuries from sectarian violence during the reporting period, Coptic Orthodox Christians, and their property, continued to experience sustained attacks.

Eritrea: Systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations continue in Eritrea. These violations include: thousands of religious prisoners; arbitrary arrests and detentions without charges of members of unregistered religious groups; a prolonged ban on public religious activities; revocation of citizenship rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses; interference in the internal affairs of registered religious groups; and inordinate delays in responding to registration applications from religious groups.

Iran: The government of Iran continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused. Iran is a constitutional, theocratic republic that discriminates against its citizens on the basis of religion or belief. During the past year, the already poor religious freedom conditions continued to deteriorate, especially for religious minorities, in particular for Baha’is as well as Christians and Sufi Muslims. …………

Iraq: Over the last several years the Iraqi government has made efforts to increase security for religious sites and worshippers, provide a stronger voice for Iraq’s smallest minorities in parliament, and revise secondary school textbooks to portray minorities in a more positive light. Nevertheless, the government of Iraq continues to tolerate systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations, including violent religiously-motivated attacks.

Nigeria: The government of Nigeria continues to tolerate systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom that lead to particularly severe violations affecting all Nigerians, both Christian and Muslim. For many years, the government has failed to bring those responsible for sectarian violence to justice, prevent and contain acts of such violence, or prevent reprisal attacks. As a result since 1999, more than 14,000 Nigerians have been killed in sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians. Boko Haram, a militant group that espouses an extreme and violent interpretation of Islam, benefits from this culture of impunity and lawlessness.

North Korea: The recent leadership transition in the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK or North Korea) has not improved human rights or religious freedom conditions. North Korea remains one of the world’s most repressive regimes, where severe religious freedom abuses continue. In the past year, refugees and defectors reported discrimination and harassment of both authorized and unauthorized religious activity; the arrest, torture, and possible execution of those conducting clandestine religious activity or engaging in “fortune-telling;” and the mistreatment and imprisonment of asylum-seekers repatriated from China.

Pakistan: The government of Pakistan continues to engage in and tolerate systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief. Sectarian and religiously-motivated violence is chronic, especially against Shi’i Muslims, and the government has failed to protect members of religious minority communities, as well as the majority faith. Pakistan’s repressive blasphemy laws and other religiously discriminatory legislation, such as the anti-Ahmadi laws, have fostered an atmosphere of violent extremism and vigilantism.

Saudi Arabia: During the reporting period, the Saudi government made improvements in policies and practices related to freedom of religion or belief, but remains a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, for violations of freedom of religion or belief. The Saudi government continues to ban most forms of public religious expression other than that of the government’s own interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam; prohibits any public non-Muslim places of worship; and periodically interferes with the private religious practice of non-Muslim expatriate workers in the country.

Sudan: Systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief continue in Sudan. While religious freedom conditions greatly improved in South Sudan and improved in Sudan during the Interim Period of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the civil war in January 2005, conditions in Sudan have deteriorated since South Sudan’s independence. ……………

Tajikistan: Tajikistan’s restrictions on religious freedom remained in place during the reporting period, and systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief continue. The government suppresses and punishes all religious activity independent of state control, and imprisons individuals on unproven criminal allegations linked to religious activity or affiliation. These restrictions and abuses primarily affect the country’s majority Muslim community, but also target minority communities, particularly Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses……..

Turkmenistan: Severe religious freedom violations persist in Turkmenistan. Despite a few limited reforms undertaken by President Berdimuhamedov after he took office in 2007, the country’s laws, policies, and practices continue to violate international human rights norms, including those on freedom of religion or belief. Police raids and other harassment of registered and unregistered religious groups continue. The repressive 2003 religion law remains in force, causing major difficulties for religious groups to function legally.

Uzbekistan: Since Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991, its government has systematically and egregiously violated freedom of religion or belief, as well as other human rights. The Uzbek government harshly penalizes individuals for independent religious activity regardless of their religious affiliation. A restrictive religion law facilitates state control over all religious communities, particularly the majority Muslim community. The government arrests Muslims and represses individuals, groups, and mosques that do not conform to officially-prescribed practices or that it claims are associated with extremist political programs. ………….

Vietnam: The government of Vietnam continues to expand control over all religious activities, severely restrict independent religious practice, and repress individuals and religious groups it views as challenging its authority. Religious activity continues to grow in Vietnam and the government has made some important changes in the past decade in response to international attention, including from its designation as a “country of particular concern” (CPC). Nevertheless, authorities continue to imprison or detain individuals for reasons related to their religious activity or religious freedom advocacy………..

Justification of Placement on Tier 2

Afghanistan: Conditions for religious freedom are exceedingly poor for dissenting members of the majority faith and minority religious communities. Individuals who dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy regarding Islamic beliefs and practices are subject to legal actions that violate international standards. The threat of violence by the Taliban and other armed groups is an increasing reality……

Azerbaijan: Despite the government’s claims of official tolerance, religious freedom conditions in Azerbaijan deteriorated over the past few years. During the reporting period, religious organizations were closed and non-violent religious activity was punished with detentions, fines and other penalties.

Cuba: Serious religious freedom violations continue in Cuba, despite some improvements for government-approved religious groups. Reports indicate a tripling in the number of violations, such as detentions and sporadic arrests of clergy and religious leaders; harassment of religious leaders and laity; interference in religious groups’ internal affairs, and pressure to prevent democracy and human rights activists from participating in religious activities.

India: There has been no large-scale communal violence against religious minorities in India since 2008, and in recent years the Indian government has created special investigative and judicial structures in an effort to address previous such attacks. Nevertheless, in the past year, progress in achieving justice through these structures for the victims of past incidents continued to be slow and ineffective. …

Indonesia: Indonesia is a stable and robust democracy with political institutions able to advance and protect human rights. In recent years, however, the country’s traditions of religious tolerance and pluralism have been strained by ongoing sectarian tensions, societal violence, and the arrest of individuals considered religiously “deviant.” While the government has addressed past sectarian violence and effectively curtailed terrorist networks, religious minorities continue to experience intimidation, discrimination, and violence. ……

Kazakhstan: Religious freedom conditions in Kazakhstan deteriorated in 2012. In late 2011, the Kazakh government adopted a repressive new religion law, which resulted in a sharp drop in the number of registered religious groups in 2012. Unregistered religious activity is illegal, and the activities of registered groups are strictly regulated. ………..

Laos: Serious religious freedom abuses continue in Laos. The Lao legal code restricts religious practice, and the government is either unable or unwilling to curtail ongoing religious freedom abuses in some provincial areas. In the past year, provincial officials violated the freedom of religion or belief of ethnic minority Protestants through detentions, surveillance, harassment, property confiscations, forced relocations, and forced renunciations of faith. …..

Russia: During the reporting period, religious freedom conditions in Russia deteriorated further and major problems discussed in previous USCIRF reports continue. These include the application of laws on religious and non-governmental organizations to violate the rights of allegedly “non-traditional” religious groups and Muslims; the use of the extremism law against religious groups and individuals not known to use or advocate violence, particularly Jehovah’s Witnesses and readers of Turkish Muslim theologian Said Nursi…………In addition, an arsenal of restrictive new laws against civil society was passed in 2012, and a draft blasphemy bill before the Duma, would, if passed, further curtail the freedoms of religion, belief and expression.

“At least 56 political prisoners have been freed in Burma, campaigners say, following the EU decision on Monday to lift the last of its sanctions,” the BBC reports:

One of those freed, activist Zaw Moe, told the BBC Burmese service that the releases were linked to the EU move.

Rights groups welcomed the latest round of detainee releases, but caution that the laws allowing for political detentions are still on the statute books.  

“But more than 200 political prisoners are still in prison,” Bo Kyi of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, told the AFP news agency.

“Political prisoners should be recognized as political prisoners and be released unconditionally,” he said.

Some rights groups opposed the lifting of further sanctions because of continuing ethnic violence.

“Seduced by a romantic narrative of swift democratic transformation in Burma, the international community is paying insufficient attention to the human rights and humanitarian crisis unfolding there,” says Human Rights Watch’s David Mepham.

“All You Can Do is Pray: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan State,” a new report from his group, “documents crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing against the minority Rohingya population in Arakan state,” he notes. “These are not claims we make lightly.”

The BBC has broadcast footage of communal violence shot by police in which Buddhist mobs, including monks, ransack Muslim-owned shops and appear to kill at least two people, UPI reports:

A motorcycle taxi driver claims Muslims dragged off his Buddhist monk passenger off the bike and then killed him. Other footage of a different event shows a man — “almost certainly a Muslim,” the BBC announcer said — lying on the road, his body badly burned after being set on fire by the mob.

Someone calls for water but another voice off-camera shouts: “No, no water for him — let him die!” Meanwhile, policemen walk around the man “watching but not helping,” unable or unwilling to intervene.

A more brutal slaying was captured on video in a field when what appeared to be a teenager was clubbed repeatedly by men — one of them a monk — with long sticks. Another man soon appeared with what seemed to be a sword, the BBC announcer said, and he delivered “what appears to be a fatal blow.” 

Around 735,000 Rohingya live in Rakhine state, close to the Bangladeshi border, according to the Arakan Project, a human rights group funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.

“The Obama administration warned Friday that nations such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela are turning up pressure on human rights other activists, decrying what it described as a global crackdown on the ‘lifeblood of democratic societies,’” the Associated Press reports.

In assessing global human rights over the past year, five developments are particularly striking, according to the US State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012:

• Shrinking space for civil society activism around the world;
• the ongoing struggle by people in the Middle East for democratic change;
• steps toward emerging democracy and a tentative opening for civil society in Burma;
• the game-changing nature of information and communication technologies, in the face of increased suppression of traditional media and freedom of expression; and
• the continued marginalization of and violence against members of vulnerable groups.

The report states that “governments continued to repress or attack the means by which individuals can organize, assemble, or demand better performance from their rulers.”

But authoritarian regimes are not the only threat to human rights and democratic governance, the report notes.

“Our world is complex and increasingly influenced by non-state actors – brave civil society activists and advocates, but also violent extremists, transnational criminals, and other malevolent actors,” US Secretary of State John Kerry notes in what may appear to be prescient comments in the light of current events in Boston.

Russia’s crackdown on civil society is highlighted, notably recent measures designed to curtail the activities of foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations, as well as a broader array of restrictions, including “large increases in fines for unauthorized protests, a law recriminalizing libel, a law that limits Internet freedom by allowing authorities to block certain Web sites without a court order, and amendments to the criminal code that dramatically expand the definition of treason.”

Human rights advocates welcomed the thrust of the report (extracted below).

Human Rights First’s Robyn Lieberman applauded Kerry for making the case “that human rights are central to U.S. national security” and for his commitment to continue to engage with civil society.

“Civil society is the lifeblood of democratic societies,” the report states. “Countries succeed or fail based on the choices of their people and leaders — whether they sit in a government ministry, a corporate boardroom, an independent union or a cramped NGO office. When individuals have the ability to come together, air their views and put forward their own proposals, they challenge and support their governments in reaching higher standards of progress and prosperity.”

Shrinking space for civil society activism

Civil society is the lifeblood of democratic societies. Countries succeed or fail based on the choices of their people and leaders – whether they sit in a government ministry, a corporate boardroom, an independent union, or a cramped NGO office. When individuals have the ability to come together, air their views, and put forward their own proposals, they challenge and support their governments in reaching higher standards of progress and prosperity. Countries are stronger when the different elements of society work together for the common good and when a lively and critical debate informs government decision-making. Governments that welcome and foster civil society activism are more stable and resilient, and those societies are thriving; government crackdowns on civil society point to weakness and fragility on the part of those in power and are characteristic of societies where governments are stifling economic and social development. Unfortunately, some governments appear to be learning restrictive tactics from others and, in some cases, regional powers are setting a negative but persuasive example for neighboring governments.

Increased headwinds buffeted civil society in 2012, as governments continued to repress or attack the means by which individuals can organize, assemble, or demand better performance from their rulers. From Iran to Venezuela, crackdowns on civil society included new laws impeding or preventing freedoms of expression, assembly, association and religion; heightened restrictions on organizations receiving funding from abroad; and the killing, harassment, and arrest of political, human rights, and labor activists.

Russia adopted a series of measures that curtailed the activities of NGOs and civil liberties. These measures included laws restricting NGOs – particularly those receiving international funding – and large increases in fines for unauthorized protests, a law recriminalizing libel, a law that limits Internet freedom by allowing authorities to block certain Web sites without a court order, and amendments to the criminal code that dramatically expand the definition of treason.

The Egyptian government took action against domestic and international NGOs at the end of 2011, with police raids against a number of prodemocracy and human rights groups, including the Washington-based National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute. The government charged citizens and foreign personnel with “running unlicensed organizations” and “receiving foreign funds without permission” and for several months imposed a travel ban on the expatriate NGO workers. Forty-three individuals remained on trial throughout 2012, in a process marked by delays, and the government continued to use an onerous registration process to prevent domestic and foreign NGOs from working in the country.

In Bangladesh, independent labor unions continued to face major obstacles to their ability to register and conduct organizational activities. Furthermore, a lack of government attention to safe workplace standards contributed in part to numerous deadly fires in garment factories, including the tragic Tazreen fire in December that killed 114 workers.

In China, the government imposed burdensome registration requirements that effectively prevented the formation of independent political, human rights, religious, spiritual, labor, and other organizations that the government believed might challenge its authority. The government increased efforts to silence political activists and public interest lawyers and employed extralegal measures including enforced disappearance, “soft detention,” and strict house arrest, to prevent the public voicing of independent opinions.

There are some hopeful signs, however. In Afghanistan, the revised Law on Social Organizations passed the lower house of parliament in December. Among other changes, the new law would remove existing barriers to the receipt of foreign funding for social organizations. In Mongolia, the draft law on Public Benefit Activities provides for a governmental foundation to support civil society. The government is also developing legislation on contracting out services to civil society organizations. If adopted, these laws will provide for new domestic funding sources for civil society and at the same time, ensure transparency and accountability in distributing public funding.

Ongoing struggle for democratic change in the Middle East and North Africa

The Middle East is in the midst of transformations every bit as profound and consequential as the changes which swept over Latin America, Europe, and Eurasia two decades ago. Progress across the region is uneven, and the challenges of this moment – two years into what will likely be a long and difficult evolution – are immense. Debates and divisions suppressed for decades are resurfacing. Institutions are being held accountable for the first time. Young people are impatient for reform and results. Citizens and governments are negotiating democratic rules of the road.

In the countries that gave rise to the Arab Awakening, 2012 witnessed a bumpy transition from protest to politics, brutal repression by regimes determined to crush popular will, and the inevitable challenges of turning democratic aspirations into reality. While there were encouraging democratic breakthroughs in some cases, other countries saw the erosion of protections for civil society, sexual violence against women, violence against and increased marginalization of members of religious minorities, and escalating human rights violations, especially in Syria. Each of the nations of the region will follow its own path, but those governments that do not respond to the aspirations of their own people will have difficulty maintaining the status quo.

In Syria, the Asad regime continued to brutalize its people. The government conducted frequent police and military operations against peaceful civilians, including attacks on funeral processions, breadlines, schools, places of worship, and hospitals, and continued to use indiscriminate, disproportionate, and deadly force to terrorize the Syrian population into submission. Sexual violence was widespread. According to the UN, as many as 70,000 people have died since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, and the number of deaths had increased from around 1,000 per month in the summer of 2011 to an average of more than 5,000 per month by July 2012.

In addition to supporting the Asad regime and terrorist organizations outside its borders, the Government of Iran continued to severely restrict the rights of its own citizens. The government committed acts of politically motivated violence and repression, targeting journalists, students, lawyers, artists, women, ethnic and religious activists, and members of their families. According to NGO reports, the government executed a total of 523 persons in 2012, many after trials that were secret or did not provide due process. Prosecutors often charged persons arrested for political and human rights-related activities with moharebeh, “enmity towards god,” a vague and overly broad charge that carries the death penalty. The government promulgated new and sweeping restrictions on women’s activities, education, and employment.

Bahrain remained at a crossroads at the end of 2012. The government took some steps to implement the recommendations in the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report. However, the most important recommendations addressing fundamental inequalities in Bahraini society were unfulfilled at year’s end, and sectarian tensions continued to rise.

In addition to the crackdowns on NGOs in Egypt, 2012 saw increasingly targeted sexual violence against women, the failure of security forces to protect Coptic Christians from several incidents of societal violence, impunity for many of the perpetrators, and increasing political polarization. The latter trend led to widespread protests for and against the president’s efforts to declare his actions temporarily above judicial review and to expedite enactment of a controversial new constitution, which was adopted in a hastily organized December referendum.

Encouragingly, 2012 saw Libyans and Egyptians participate in contested and credible elections for the first time in decades. Tunisia held on to many of the historic gains towards sustainable democracy made in 2011, and the National Constituent Assembly conducted an open and inclusive constitutional-drafting process. Libya’s newly elected government, meanwhile, struggled to assert control over local militias and extremist violence, which claimed the lives of four Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador, in Benghazi in September.

The sweeping change set off by the frustrations of a single Tunisian fruit vendor in late 2010 will play out in different ways over the coming decades. The transition to democracy in the region will not be linear, and there surely will be setbacks. But it is important to analyze these changes with a longer view of history and a steady commitment to work with the people of this region in their quest to build free, democratic, inclusive, and stable societies.

RTWT

Cubazuela under threat

Venezuela’s disputed poll result is bad news for Cuba’s Communist regime, which relied on former leader Hugo Chavez for hard currency and an annual supply of $6bn of subsidized oil. The end of chavista subsidies could trigger “social upheaval” on the island, analysts suggest.

“Cubans can’t be cheering this result. They have to be worried that Maduro proved so politically weak. The opposition has the momentum and will define the agenda,” said Michael Shifter, head of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.

With Maduro entering office with a much weaker mandate than his colorful predecessor, the Castro-led regime may not enjoy the same economic benefits, potentially threatening the communist island’s lifeline……A clause in Venezuela’s constitution allows for a possible referendum to revoke a president half way through his six-year term, a consideration that will weigh on Maduro’s foreign policy, after his narrow election win.

“The outcome could accelerate Cuba’s reform process,” Shifter told AFP, alluding to the likely need for Maduro to focus his efforts on domestic policy. “The (Cuban) government will be compelled to pursue other economic options.”

Developments in Caracas will compel Cuba to accelerate a reform program designed “to ‘update’ its stalled socialist model,” reports suggest:

To date, measures under Raúl Castro, 81, the president, have bettered everyday life but failed to improve Cuba’s underlying performance, critics say. For the regime, it is a balancing act: change too fast and the regime could unravel; change too slow and the economy will deteriorate and undermine the Castro brothers’ legacy anyway.

Mr Castro, who was quick to congratulate Venezuela’s president-elect on his victory, which should ensure that Cuba has five more years of cheap oil, has three main goals, says Bert Hoffmann, a Cuba expert at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies: “Avoid splits in the elite, and also social unrest; organise a succession; and get gradual economic reforms started to secure the regime’s survival.”

Venezuela supplies Cuba with two thirds of its oil – 100,000 barrels of crude a day – on privileged terms. The arrangement is worth some $9bn, the regime’s major source of funds, exceeding the value of remittances ($2.5 billion), tourism ($2 billion) or exports of nickel, tobacco and drugs (less than $2 billion).

“Cuba can’t hope for anything good from political instability in Venezuela,” according to Cuban academic Arturo Lopez-Levy, from the University of Denver.

“The Cuban government would do well to accelerate its reform process and the opening up of its economic system, to prepare for various scenarios, all of them less favorable than the current situation,” he told AFP.

The regime has enacted a series of relatively anemic economic reforms, allowing Cubans to establish small businesses, buy and sell their homes and permitting farmers to sell up to 50% of their produce directly rather than to the state. But the attempt to mimic China’s model of Market-Leninism is likely to fail, say analysts.

“Nonetheless,” the FT’s Marc Frank suggests, “those changes are only around the edges of what remains a centrally-planned economy that needs to attract foreign investment and grow by more than 5 per cent a year if it is to have any hope of rebuilding crumbling infrastructure and create sufficient jobs to absorb the bulk of Cubans who work for a state that barely pays a living wage.”

Since Castro became president, he adds, economic growth has averaged 2 per cent.

“The reforms are afflicted by inner contradictions in their design: a positive step is taken but then excessive controls and restrictions are introduced, generating disincentives that conspire against their success,” said Carmelo Mesa-Lago, author of Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms.

The demise of Chavismo is likely to have significant repercussions for Cuba’s citizens, not least Miguel Diaz-Canel, Castro’s designated successor, said Paul Webster Hare, British ambassador to Cuba from 2001-2004 and a former deputy head of its mission in Caracas.

“Cubans will know now that the Chavista movement depended on Chavez for its leadership and momentum,”

“The Cubans will now conclude that their time for depending on the largesse of Chavismo is limited,” said the ex-diplomat, who teaches international relations at the University of Boston.

“The key lesson may be that for Miguel Diaz-Canel to assume smoothly the mantle of the Castros will be much tougher than they may have supposed,” he said.

Diaz-Canel “may need to start talking more about the material ambitions of Cubans,” and “tell fewer fantasy stories.”

Leaving aside Pyongyang’s current rhetorical bluster, there are four likely scenarios that might trigger a dramatic crisis on the Korean peninsula, writes North Korea expert Andrei Lankov:

The first is an attempt at reforms more or less similar to those undertaken in China and Vietnam. New leaders — including, above all, Kim Jong Un himself — might be seduced by the prospect of opening up the economy, hoping to enrich themselves as Chinese party cadres have. They would thus ensure their own downfall, as increasingly dissatisfied citizens pushed to reunify with the much richer South.

Another possible trigger of unrest would be serious factional infighting within the top leadership — a purge of prominent officials, for instance, or an attempted coup. Alternatively, the loser in a factional clash might decide to go down fighting.

The third possible endgame involves a spontaneous outbreak of popular discontent — a local riot that quickly develops into a nationwide revolutionary movement, somewhat similar to what we saw in 2011 in the Arab world. Nowadays, North Koreans appear to be too terrified, isolated and distrustful of one another to emulate the Tunisians or Egyptians. Nonetheless, the regime’s control is steadily getting weaker, fear is diminishing, and the knowledge of available alternatives is spreading. So in the long run, a “Pyongyang Spring” isn’t impossible.

The fourth scenario would involve the spread of unrest from China — the only country where an outbreak of civilian disobedience or a riot might produce some impact on North Korea.

North Korea has been described as a totalitarian residue of the Cold War, but its own ‘1989’ is far from imminent, most analysts believe.

There is little prospect of regime change driven by domestic discontent, a recent forum at the National Endowment for Democracy heard.

“Pyongyang is often described as the world’s last Stalinist regime, but for all practical purposes, North Korea’s state-run economy of steel mills and coal mines is dead,” Lankov told the NED meeting. The ruling elites feel cornered and understand that unity is a major condition for their survival…[and therefore] “continue to support their leader with little regard for the plight of most North Koreans.”

The NED’s Carl Gershman echoed Lankov’s assertion that “open engagement with the world would expose North Koreans to the modern world and would therefore have the salutary effect of breaking down the isolation that is an integral dimension of the North Korean totalitarian system.”

In the absence of a fundamental regime change, “the emergence of a pro-Chinese satellite regime in North Korea would be better than indefinite continuation of the status quo,” says Lankov, a professor of history at Seoul’s Kookmin University, and the author of “North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea” and “From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960”.

“But a unification of the Koreas is still the most preferable outcome,” so officials in Washington and Seoul should consider how to persuade Beijing that “a unified Korea is less unacceptable than an intervention,” Lankov writes:

First of all, the Chinese government should be assured that a unified Korea will not become a strategic bridgehead for U.S. military influence in continental Northeast Asia.

Secondly, South Korea’s recurrent support of irredentism in northeastern China and semi-official claims about alleged Korean territorial rights to large chunks of China are counterproductive. They strengthen suspicions that a unified Korea would strive to seed discontent in borderland areas of the mainland itself. The South Korean government should explicitly state that a unified Korea will respect earlier agreements pertaining to Sino-Korean borders.

Since the North Korean population can no longer be kept completely insulated from outside information, the country’s leaders have changed their propaganda tactics.

“Until 2000, the people believed that South Korea was a very poor country,” a refugee reportedly told Lankov. “But then the people saw South Korean films. Now only elementary school students believe that South Korea is poor.”

But Lankov is skeptical as to whether new information will destabilize the regime  or even spark a revolution.

“The spread of knowledge about the outside world will make the North Koreans more distrustful of their government. But that doesn’t mean immediate action against the government.”

On the other hand, he adds: “In 5 to 10 years, the majority of the North Korean population will have learned that they live in a very poor and unusually repressive state.”

“Alas, the widespread hope that reformist groups in Pyongyang will finally emerge and bring about a nonnuclear, non- threatening, and peacefully developing North Korea seems to be wishful thinking,” Lankov writes in an excerpt from his new book, “The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia,” published May 8 by Oxford University Press.

“At the same time, the status quo isn’t sustainable. Sooner or later the current regime will go down. Now is the time for the world to start planning for that moment,” he concludes.

The ethnic violence jeopardizing Burma’s reform process is laying bare “an often hidden truth,” according to a must-read special report from Reuters:

Monks have played a central role in anti-Muslim unrest over the past decade. Although 42 people have been arrested in connection to the violence, monks continue to preach a fast-growing Buddhist nationalist movement known as “969″ that is fuelling much of the trouble.

And one of the most movement’s leaders is the nationalistic monk Wirathu, who, “relishing his extremist reputation,  ….. describes himself as the ‘Burmese bin Laden.’

“Wirathu [left] was freed last year from nine years in jail during an amnesty for hundreds of political prisoners, among the most celebrated reforms of Myanmar’s post-military rule. He had been locked up for helping to incite deadly anti-Muslim riots in 2003,” Reuters reports:

Today, the charismatic 45-year-old with a boyish smile is an abbot in Mandalay’s Masoeyein Monastery, a sprawling complex where he leads about 60 monks and has influence over more than 2,500 residing there. From that power base, he is leading a fast-growing movement known as “969,” which encourages Buddhists to shun Muslim businesses and communities.

The three numbers refer to various attributes of the Buddha, his teachings and the monkhood. In practice, the numbers have become the brand of a radical form of anti-Islamic nationalism that seeks to transform Myanmar into an apartheid-like state.

“We have a slogan: When you eat, eat 969; when you go, go 969; when you buy, buy 969,” Wirathu said in an interview at his monastery in Mandalay. Translation: If you’re eating, travelling or buying anything, do it with a Buddhist.

But many Burmese democracy and civil society activists suspect that elements of the state security services may also have a hand in the violence.

Min Ko Naing, a former leader of the 88 Generation Student Movement, said it was “very clear” that the riots were instigated by “well-trained terrorists,” notes a leading activist.

“I learned the same painful lesson in my own Bosnia in the early 90s,” writes Igor Blazevic, the director of Educational Initiatives, a training program for Burmese activists based in Thailand.

“Ethnic cleansing is never done by the spontaneous violence of a “mob” or by grassroots communities that allegedly hate each other. It is usually the work of well-trained paramilitary groups organized by elements of the security apparatus,” he writes for Irrawaddy:

With democratization, tense ethnic relations are usually the first skeleton out of the closet. With political opening, the grievances and demands of the suppressed and discriminated groups surface in an open space characterized by a multi-party system, free media and freedom of association. Many of these demands and grievances fuel passionate nationalism which can create a lot of pressure on emerging democratic institutions.

“But there is another type of nationalism that is much more dangerous for emerging democracies,” says Blazevic, a leading member of the World Movement for Democracy.

“In many places, nationalism, sometimes in its extreme form, became the last defense of the previous authoritarian structures.”

Aside from Buddhist-Muslim violence, ethnic tensions on the country’s periphery also threaten to undermine the transition.

“When residents of this northernmost region of Myanmar talk about the tremendous changes of the past two years, they are not referring to the media freedoms or the economic liberalization transforming other parts of the country,” New York Times journalist Thomas Fuller reports from Myitkyina:

They mean the radicalization of the Kachin ethnic group, whose members inhabit the foothills of the Himalayas near the borders with China and India and have become more militant than at any time in living memory, Kachin leaders say.

Analysts are divided on what the deteriorating relations between the Kachin and central government mean for the country’s overall moves toward democracy and economic liberalization… A number of countries in Southeast Asia, including the neighboring Thailand, have become prosperous despite ethnic or religious conflicts.

“There are always going to be tensions, rival nationalisms, debates about discrimination and at least the possibility of communal violence,” said U Thant Myint-U, a scholar of Burmese history and an adviser to President Thein Sein. “But that’s very different than having a significant part of the country being fought over by tens of thousands of armed men, belonging to dozens of different militia.”

Min Ko Naing [right], the former political prisoner “revered by Burmese nearly as much as Suu Kyi, was in Meikhtila as the violence began,” Reuters reports:

After the massacre, he said, the mob looked well organized. Cell phones in hand, monks inspected cars leaving town, he said. A bulldozer was used to destroy some buildings. “The ordinary public doesn’t know how to use a bulldozer,” he said.

The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar said he had received reports of “state involvement” in the violence. Soldiers and police sometimes stood by “while atrocities have been committed before their very eyes, including by well-organized ultra-nationalist Buddhist mobs,” said the rapporteur, Tomas Ojea Quintana. “This may indicate direct involvement by some sections of the state or implicit collusion and support for such actions.”

Ethnic cleansing—and what is happening in Burma with its Muslim population has all the parameters of ethnic cleansing—is usually prepared in advance through ‘psychological warfare’ and cannot happen without the involvement of at least some elements of the state apparatus,” writes Blazevic, a Czech-based human rights campaigner of Bosnian origin:

To break the vicious circle of extreme nationalism before it is too late, courageous and responsible initiatives by civil society leaders such as Min Ko Naing and his 88 Generation colleagues are not enough. Civil society, respected personalities, moderate religious leaders, responsible media and the opposition can and should help to reject violence and call for calm. But ultimately, it is the responsibility of the government and state not to let ethnic cleansing happen on its territory and to stop with quick and decisive action all state and non-state forces which are instigating it.

Irrawaddy is a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.

The failure of young democracies in so many regions of the world has had enormous consequences, writes Joshua Kurlantzick. Most obviously, the renewed strength of authoritarian rule means that billions of people continue to live under repressive or pseudo-democratic hybrid regimes, deprived of the freedoms most in the West take for granted. But external actors can regain the initiative, he argues in this extract from his new book*, by adopting new approaches to democracy assistance.

Outside actors can have the greatest impact on democratization at three critical points in the process. First, when countries are still under authoritarian rule, outside actors can play a significant role through rhetorical criticism, funding of prodemocracy dissident groups inside the country, or just publicly providing a different model of governance to authoritarianism, one that average citizens of an autocratic state can see. This role was played in the 1980s when the United States and Western Europe increased their rhetorical condemnation of Soviet bloc rulers, boosted their support for broadcasts into the Eastern bloc, provided exchange programs for intellectuals, and helped promote labor rights and other civil society.

Once a developing nation has begun to make a transition to democracy, outside actors have their second chance to make a significant impact. In the early years of the transition, when countries normally are more aid-dependent, political culture and institutions are still in flux, and the possibility of a regression to authoritarianism remains, major donors can play a dual role: they can continue using aid money and rhetoric to demand that the countries do not regress to authoritarian rule, while simultaneously offering critical expertise in areas like developing civil society, fighting corruption, and holding and monitoring elections. With democracies so nascent, this expertise is more likely to be needed and absorbed than later on when countries like Tunisia would develop their own cadres of experts, and when politicians, labor leaders, and journalists might be more resistant to training programs from foreign nations. 

Meanwhile, leading democracies can be using aid money and bully pulpits to try to ensure that elements from the previous authoritarian regimes do not return to power: Washington can warn the military in places like Thailand not to launch coups, link aid to benchmarks of democratization, and work with developing nations to create reasonable systems of accountability for former authoritarian leaders.  Of course, the United States, which is widely unpopular today in countries such as Egypt, needs to be cautious—if its pressure on developing nations to stick to a democratic transition becomes counterproductive, then it may be better to stay quiet, at least for a time.

Finally, as developing countries’ democracies become more stable and mature, donors can play a third role. By this point, as in Indonesia, the Philippines, or South Africa today, the process of democratization is unlikely to be reversed, and is less dependent on aid as a percentage of its national budget. At this point developed democracies can help solidify these nations’ democracies by recognizing progress and including them in international institutions like the G-20 and other groups, citing them as examples of democratic change, and working alongside local democracy promotion specialists from these countries on the ground, as equal partners by, for example, calling on democracies like Indonesia or South Africa to send experts—in elections, budgeting, media, or other topics—to developing countries at an earlier stage of democratic development.

Focus Spending on Best Prospects

Democracy assistance should focus more clearly on countries where efforts can make the largest impact with limited dollars. This is not an easy trade-off, and any decision to ignore potential democratic change somewhere will be open to criticism. But it is a necessary selectiveness in an era of diminished resources and significant existing global threats including terrorism and nuclear proliferation, both of which much be addressed as well, at significant cost.  The United States should be consistent in rhetorically upholding democracy and human rights, but focus democracy assistance on a certain spectrum of countries where democratic consolidation seems most feasible, assistance can make a greater difference, and aid can be packaged with multilateral assistance from other donors.

          Leading democracies can identify the nations ripest for democracy promotion assistance by examining them on a range of indicators, such as those used by Freedom House or the Economist Intelligence Unit, to rank countries that have begun transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy. These indicators can be compiled and combined with historical data to analyze which nations have the best chances of consolidating democratic transitions. Countries that are above a certain level of income, that have only modest economic inequality, and that have some experience with inclusive government are most likely to complete a successful transition to democracy.

          By evaluating nations eligible for democracy assistance using these criteria, policy makers also will be better equipped to decide whether to prioritize democracy promotion when it potentially conflicts with U.S. strategic interests. These criteria for evaluating potential democratic success stories thus will help create a kind of sliding scale. On one end of the scale are countries such as North Korea where, judging from historical data and current criteria, the likelihood of successful democratization is very low. Given the unlikelihood of democratic change anytime soon, U.S. policy toward countries like these should revolve around critical strategic interests, hard-hearted though that may be. On the other end of the spectrum are nations, like Thailand, that fulfill many of the conditions that, historically, have proven essential to successful democratization. In these cases, it may make sense for Washington to prioritize democracy promotion, even when it conflicts with strategic interests.

          The balance of democracy promotion and strategic interests will prove the most difficult in the middle ground of countries on this sliding scale—a country like Egypt, which fulfills only some of the criteria that historically have suggested a successful transition to democracy, but where the ruling regime, not yet truly democratic, also has been historically a close partner on many high-priority strategic issues. Should the White House throw all the weight of its office behind democratic change in Egypt, given that a democratic transition is hardly assured, and the strategic issues are so weighty? It is beyond the scope of this book to provide answers to every such conundrum. But at least by having the kind of established, quantifiable criteria of democracy’s chance of success that we have examined here, American officials can make informed judgments on when to make decisions that could threaten the United States’ strategic interests.

Move Beyond ‘Big Men’

          U.S. administrations too often tend to associate reform with one supposedly groundbreaking leader in a developing nation. In rare cases, such a leader exists, someone like Nelson Mandela, who not only is truly dedicated to reform but also possesses such moral authority and total control of his political party and allies that he or she really can push a country through transition. More often, even a truly reform-minded “big man” like Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono requires many factors to go in his favor to push his country successfully toward democracy, and can be hindered by recalcitrant leaders from the old regime, endemic poverty, a restive army, or many other factors.  In worse cases, like Nigeria’s Olesegun Obasanjo or Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade, once in power “big man” leaders who initially look like reformers, perhaps because they spent years in opposition fighting authoritarian rulers, turn out to be as corrupt or autocratic as those they replaced.

          Administrations must avoid the temptation to personalize reform, and to confuse supporting change and institutions in a country like Nigeria or Indonesia with supporting one leader. At the least, this personalization can allow such a leader to kill quality foreign-funded programs, from civil society building to anticorruption initiatives, which might go against his or her interests.  This “big man” theory of democracy promotion also leads U.S. diplomats to ignore a wide range of opinion leaders in an emerging country. Failing to make contacts with many other potential democrats thus leaves the United States unprepared if the favored reformer loses an election.

Respect Poll Winners—If They Play Fair

          Leading democracies will have to make a habit of respecting the winners of elections, as long as they adhere to certain guidelines of a democratic society, such as not using victory to then legitimize authoritarian rule. If the winners of democratic elections show, in good faith, commitment to democratic norms and values, the United States and other leading democracies should not isolate or remove them. This commitment will probably mean dealing with political parties that win elections and contain noxious beliefs within their party platforms. But such problematic parties have gained power in many countries, without destroying those nations’ political systems; for example, in Austria the far-right Freedom Party gained a good deal of power in the mid- and late 2000s, while in India elements of the Bharitya Janata Party, which ran the government between 1998 and 2004, were implicated in anti-Muslim pogroms that left thousands dead. And over time, as has occurred in countries like Indonesia and India, extreme parties’ participation in the political system tends to moderate views as they seek to gain larger numbers of voters.

          However, if elections are clearly flawed, or simply preempted by a democratic reversal such as a coup, the United States needs to be willing to take a stronger stand. In 2006, for example, following the coup in Thailand, the United States did not cancel joint military exercises with the Thai military, a sign of de facto acceptance of the coup. Many Thai officers—and military in other parts of Southeast Asia—interpreted the U.S. reaction as a potential signal that the Washington does not condemn military takeovers.

Elections Are Only Step One

          Effectively promoting lasting democracy will require investing in far more than national elections, even ones held freely and fairly. Donors should consider pushing aid-recipient developing nations to adopt some of the decentralization strategies used by Indonesia over the past decade. By decentralizing political and economic power, Indonesia devolved control from the capital, involved more citizens in the political process, and reduced threats of separatism. By funding and helping monitor Indonesian-style village, local, city, and provincial elections as well as national elections, donors would be contributing to the inclusion of larger numbers of citizens in developing nations in the democratic process.

          Donors also should recalibrate funding so that larger percentages of assistance go less toward organizing and holding national elections, and more toward building institutions: constitutional courts, anticorruption commissions, an informed populace, a vibrant civil society, a reduced role for the army, and, possibly, a more fragmented political system. To shift funding toward these foundations of democracy, donors could modify budgeting from renewal annually to every two or three years, a change some Scandinavian nations already have made. Moving toward funding over a longer cycle would allow projects on the ground to develop closer relations among local partners, set long-term objectives, and have the time to truly assess whether projects are succeeding. 

          Donor nations should expand exchange programs for opinion leaders from emerging democracies, in part by relaxing visa restrictions religious leaders, civil society leaders, and politicians from developing nations. Diplomats and officials from donor nations could make greater efforts to link civil society in developing nations not only to officials but also to civil society organizations, serving as a kind of bridge.

Get Better at Judging

          Going beyond electoralism also would include conditioning a growing amount of foreign assistance on criteria similar to those of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Historical data show that this is the right approach—that the foundations for a more participatory and inclusive government make democracy’s success more likely. In a comprehensive study of developing nations, international political economists Hilton Root and Bruce Bueno Mesquita found that those that were the most inclusive—defined by government openness and citizens’ ability to organize and compete on a national level, among other criteria – are more likely to promote frequent government turnover, a sign of democratic consolidation.

Flexible Programming

          Of all the complaints about U.S. democracy promotion offered by aid recipients, the one that comes up most often is the rigidity of democracy assistance programs, which tend to be put into place, with little flexibility, in various countries. They are done in this one-size-fits-all way, notes the Carnegie Endowment ‘s Thomas Carothers, primarily because developing one consistent plan is easier when working with Beltway contractors, easier to present to appropriators who then get familiar with the structure of aid programs, and easier for people working in the field to learn.

          However, this type of plan usually does not work. For example, many plans that were based on projects developed in the late 1990s for supporting local and national governance, as well as civil society, in the Balkans were then brought, with few changes, to Afghanistan—even though Afghan society bore little resemblance to the areas where USAID and other agencies had worked in the Balkans.  Nevertheless, USAID and other aid organizations transplanted programs developed in places far more prepared for democratization directly to rural Afghanistan. 

          Democracy assistance programs must become more attuned to local conditions. Like companies thinking about entering a new market, USAID and its contractors should use a small amount of funding to conduct extensive surveys of countries in which they are planning to launch programs, asking questions about the labor and media environments, and the political culture, and meeting with other donors to avoid program duplication. Currently, donor group meetings are often are not held until after the major donors already have planned and launched projects.

Work with Multilateral Actors

          Stronger democracy promotion also should include boosting cooperation with multilateral efforts to promote civil society and to improve the quality of democracy, such as the United Nations Democracy Fund. Some 85 percent of UN Democracy Fund monies are allocated for nongovernmental organizations. The fund was launched in 2006 but remains underfunded and poorly utilized; it could be drastically expanded and, with greater American support, made into a powerful tool of aid to civil society in emerging democracies.

Other multilateral democracy organizations also tend to be poorly funded and relatively unknown, such as: the Bali Democracy Forum, a group that brings together primarily Asian democracies to discuss ways to foster democracy in the region; the Community of Democracies, an intergovernmental group of democracies from all regions of the world that mostly serves to share information on how to improve the quality of democracy; and several others. Although the United States participates in many of these organizations, it tends to play a minimal role. But with only modest financial assistance (less than $5–$10 million annually) and perhaps higher-level U.S. participation, some of these organizations could play a larger regional role in promoting democracy.

Enlist Emerging Giants

          Many of the emerging democracies, such as India, Brazil, and South Africa, have thus far been reluctant to engage in democracy promotion, or even to stand up for democracy and human rights at international forums like the United Nations. Besides their Cold War histories, which made them adherents of absolute sovereignty, many of these emerging giants still do not see the gains they would accrue by promoting democracy. But what have these emerging giants gotten from defense of sovereignty and support for autocratic regimes like Zimbabwe, Sudan, Libya, and Myanmar? American officials, and activists in the emerging giants themselves, must work harder to convince these new powers that, no matter how they defend sovereignty, China still always will have an advantage over them in making business deals and strategic alliances with autocratic nations.

          India, South Africa, Brazil, or other emerging democratic powers could establish themselves as models of democratic rule for other developing nations—and thus reap the strategic benefits of being seen as a model when other nations solidify their democracies.

          Turkey already is reaping this benefit of being seen as a democratic model, despite recent concerns that its government has jailed growing numbers of journalists who disagree with Ankara’s policies. As nations in the Arab-Muslim world throw off their tyrants, and then look for models of democratic consolidation that promote secular and liberal rule, the “Turkey model”—Turkey’s successful evolution from a shaky, army-dominated nation to a solid and vibrant democracy—frequently tops the list.

Show Humility

          Even while reviving aggressive advocacy for democracy and human rights, established democracies need to become more humble. Humility means accepting, and trying to remedy, the crisis of governance in established Western democracies, which has not only damaged support in Western nations for democracy but also has made it harder to promote democracy abroad. While the United States and other Western nations struggle with their own governance problems, leaders, and officials should not avoid talking about current troubles.

And, while talking about American exceptionalism on the presidential campaign trail may be a political imperative, admitting that even developed democracies face governance challenges—and can resolve these challenges through public discussion, nonviolent protest, political campaigns, and elections—should hardly degrade the “brand” of American democracy. These gestures demonstrate to foreign audiences that the United States recognizes that, while there are certain core democratic values and norms, there are different approaches to making democracy work.

* Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government.