RSS

August 21, 2008

Richard Wales, MEI Network, Silver Contributor (59)

The history of U.S. "Democratization" operations is a corrupt and bloody one. In every case since World War II American involvement in nation building has been motivated by profit. From Vietnam to Iran to Chile, all for corporate agendas. As a matter of fact the U.S. has spent more time destroying democracies and supporting dictators than it has actually trying to elevate and stabilize countries. We don’t even have a democracy in the U.S., our election system is controlled by corporate influence, money and a corporate controlled media. The last two elections were questionable because of the use of electronic voting machines that created no paper log of the votes and were accessible from open electronic porting. The last two elections were the only elections in seventy years that the exit polls did not match the election “results”. No, I think it’s a better idea if the U.S. were to get out of the nation building business completely. We’d do better to curb our rush towards a total police state at home and work to weight our school/prison spending towards schools instead of favoring prisons as things stand today.

August 21, 2008

Vladimir Shaporenko

Democracy promotion has become a bad word. It has become a regime change instead of being a role model and a good world citizen. Bad policies have slaughtered the very meaning of the word.

August 22, 2008

Member deleted

Dear Christine,

unfortunately I must agree with Richard Wales' remarks. The american history of Democratisation is affected by misleading reasons and more or less hidden interests which have hardly something in common with the original idea of the "city upon the hill".
Furthermore, I cannot agree with two of your three points.
First, when have we reached an "erosion stage"? The US and Europe should support so-called democratic movements in a much earlier stage to be effective. But this and "any military involvement" would mean an intervention in domestic affairs and territorial integrity of an independent state. By the way, for such behaviour the West criticises Russia in the last couple of days. Thus, we see the main problem of Democratisation: it is double standards with which different states will be measured.
Second, to choose Ukraine as an good example sounds a little bit odd. Observing the aftermath of the Orange Revolution shows another problem: How to democratise a country with an out-and-out corrupt elite? Both, Victor Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko cannot really be characterised as democrats. It is power politics and corruption which rule in Ukraine.
Finally, a framework to stabilise a country is not really a bad idea. I am not sure whether economic institutions work or not. But I am sure that military institutions do not work (see the rule of NATO in Georgia). As a counter-example I would choose Romania and Bulgaria. Both are in the EU but a positive economical development is far out of reach. The only consolidation we can see concerns the corruption in these states.

Dave

August 22, 2008

joe stone, Community Organizer, Silver Contributor (43)

Christine

Do you have a primar source for the amount you contribute to the US as being spent.

Thanks in advance for the reference

joe

August 23, 2008

Christine Otsver, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Silver Contributor (53)

Dear Richard, Vladimir, Dave, and Joe,

Thank you for all your comments.

Democracy promotion is indeed a controversial topic nowadays (as rightly pointed out by Richard and David).

Notwithstanding current political situation in the US as well as the recent invasion of Iraq, however, promoting democracy and human rights still remains to be important internationally (that is not to say, of course, that democracy is a perfect form of government; many of us are well-familiar with a quote of Winston Churchill, who defined democracy as " the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.")

Granted, nations pursue their national interests while promoting democratic values abroad. Even rhetorically the US admits that it promotes democracy for its own national interest, namely security (on the grounds of a Democratic Peace Theory).

Although it is relatively hard to come up with precise figures for democracy-promotion programs spending as they are often combined with other human rights – oriented initiatives, they are substantial of the US side. Over $1.2 billion has been budgeted for programs targeted to promote human rights and democracy in fiscal year 2006. (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/rm/2007/82655.htm )

Regarding the definition of a phase of erosion, it is mostly characterized as a period when regime’s illegitimate and undemocratic practices, which include but are not limited to, abuses of human rights and civil liberties of its own citizens, repression of existing political opposition, limiting information flow, falsification of election results, etc, dissatisfy the population to the extent that available political opposition can attain legitimacy and support to make a break-down possible.

On the question of external intervention during the erosion, I would disagree with David. In fact, I would highly discourage any pro-active interference on the part of external actors at this stage. It is dangerous and counter-productive.

As for citing the Ukrainian case in my article, I do consider it a success of transatlantic cooperation because the political crisis, which was feared by many to turn into a serious conflict and spread further, was resolved peacefully. What is happening right now in Ukraine is beyond (and should be) control of the US and the EU. What is important is that US and EU acted in a right way during the crisis in 2004.

August 23, 2008

joe stone, Community Organizer, Silver Contributor (43)

Christina

I am still having a bit of a problem of understanding what you are capturing in the numbers you are using. Just what does one buy with or how does one define democracy promotion and the related projects. Are there measurable receivables?

How would Yugoslavia fit into your strategy? It would appear the West acted too soon.

And to follow the example you used about the Ukraine, should Russia send in “peacekeepers” to protect the ethnic Russian population, the correct course of action is to let whatever happens happen but not to intervene.

The Ukraine would return to the “transition phase”. Is that correct?

August 24, 2008

valentine akishkin

Dear Joe Stone,
You can just load the words "53 trillion debt" into google search or follow: http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat.htm

Cheers from Russia

August 24, 2008

Member deleted

Hello Christine,

apparently, you misunderstood my point. As I pointed out, the souvereignty of an independent country should be untouchable (e.g. no matter if it is Russia or the US who acts). But you did not wrote that military actions are not an option. In fact, you see it as an ultima ratio. We obviously disagree about this issue.
I still have a problem with Ukraine as a good example. I think it is the result of actions by Europe and the US which are most important. Is it really democratisation when they support an opposition and after the leaders have been changed the formerly so-called democratic opposition shows the same behaviour as their predecessors?
I think you provide here an unsatisfying answer. You wrote: "What is happening right now in Ukraine is beyond (...) control of the US and the EU." But with their action in 2004 the US and Europe took responsibility for the consequences. That is, they should also denounce undemocratic behaviour of the new leaders in Ukraine. Or can serious democratisation end in simply initiating a process and thinking "The rest is not my business"? I would say no.
The Problem seems to be right here: The fact that democratisation correlates with responsibility for the consequences of actions makes it so complicated to be realised.

David

August 25, 2008

Patrick Edwin Moran, Wake Forest University, Platinum Contributor (155)

A major problem is how any corporate entity (business corporation, national government, etc.) can operate other than in its own narrow self interest. One way to weld together the individual actors in such an organization is to create a situation in which the majority understands what is in the enlightened and long-term interests of that organization. Another way is through the use of a persuasive ideology that captures and directs the motivational interests toward a common goal of long-term success. Neither course is very stable. One strong negative force arises because factions compete in organizations, and the aforesaid organizations cannot easily ostracize one divisive element or the other. Competing ideas of what long-term interests should be promoted may lead to the organization's dealing only with short-term and potentially short-sighted goals.

Another problem is how any actor can influence the functioning of a nation or other such social entity from the outside. The obvious tools are incentives and punishments, but organizations as well as individuals may well choose to evade attempts at external control. Nations and organizations, like individuals, may not take offense at general conditions established by others that are not perceived as having been created with the intention of manipulating them.

A stumbling block to some possible actions against unresponsive and/or coercive policies acted out by governments against individuals lies in the way that the vast majority of people constitute their own models of the world. Individuals are typically perceived as being subsumed under nations, and as owing their primary allegiance to these nations. Attempts by principled individuals such as Dag Hammarskjold to give some individuals a status according to which they owe primary allegiance to transnational entities have failed under the general perception that such individuals would almost automatically function as traitors to their original nationality. In addition, while it is legally an ordinary matter for an individual to change nationality, there is no acceptable transnational entity to which one might legally change allegiance. Organizations such as al Qaeda are feared because of the potential for anti-social activities that their transnational status enhances, but organizations with much more benign attributes (at least as perceived by Western democracies) such as Amnesty International must also give cover to their members by such policies as having members not work on behalf of prisoners of conscience in their own countries. The primary model of the modern world is a community composed of discrete nations. Accordingly, the blurring of the boundaries of these ideally discrete entities (e.g., in the case of the Kurdish ethnic group that is distributed primarily in the national territories of Iraq and Turkey) is anomalous under that model. There are no very good methods for looking after the interests of such ethnic groups, or of minority groups within a single nation's boundaries, or of people with shared religious identities residing in more than one nation. The current "standard model" says that national identity makes all other identities subordinate.

Given the current strictures arising from the discrete nation model of world social and political organization, it is difficult for the political forms of one nation to be influenced by any but the most indirect of means. Just as many U.S. citizens feared that John F. Kennedy would be an agent of the Vatican if elected president, any influence of an organized nature coming to a country from outside will almost automatically be resented. And, when indigenous forces organize effective ways of better democratizing their own nations, they are often suspected of being agents or dupes of foreign powers, as was the case with Martin Luther King in the U.S.

What, then, have been the most effective modalities for growing civil liberties from within? Have the leaders who have wrenched freedoms from the hands of autocratic leaders always been without any kind of support from outside their own country? Or are there currents of some kind of that move across national borders to nurture these indigenous sources of social and political change?