The Spirit of Democracy, page 44
Finally, a foreign policy for democracy must have a long time horizon, a comprehensive strategic vision, and a flexible set of tactics. The whole world will not become democratic in a decade, or even two. The struggle to advance and consolidate freedom in the world is a generational task. It will require a sense of realism, a sense of optimism, a careful analysis of differing democratic prospects, and a careful assessment of differing tactics for engaging specific regimes. There must be unifying principles and overarching objectives, but every country is distinctive, and strategies to assist democratic development must be specific to the place and the time.
THE REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
One promising trend has been the rise of democratic norms and initiatives within regional and international organizations, as we saw in chapter 6. But to combat democratic recession, regional actors will need to serve as the first line of promotion and defense.
In Africa, the long tradition of strict deference to state sovereignty is beginning to erode. It will take some time for the African Union (AU) to institutionalize procedures for the defense of democracy like those adopted by the Organization of American States (OAS). But for the first time since the birth of most modern African states in the 1960s and ’70s, the AU is putting concerns about democracy and governance on the African agenda. Its principal instrument for doing so is the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).52
Created in 2003, the APRM serves as a means for realizing the AU’s rhetorical commitment to good governance. It conducts voluntary self-assessments and “peer reviews” (by experts from within Africa chosen by Africans) in the areas of democracy and political governance, economic governance and management, corporate governance, and socioeconomic development. When it works well, an open, development-minded government welcomes the peer review process, extensively involves its civil society in the self-assessment process, and organizes a broad dialogue about its agenda for reform. More than any other African country so far, Ghana has embraced the spirit of the APRM, putting a different independent think tank in charge of each area of self-assessment and actively mobilizing the public through an educational campaign. Consequently, the resulting assessments were competent and thorough.53
Of course, Ghana was already a relatively liberal democracy, but now it has a road map for improvement and consolidation. In the few other countries where reviews have been done, the states have been more resistant to criticism and controlling of the process, as in South Africa, or appear less able and willing to respond to the issues raised in the peer reviews.54 By 2007, roughly half the fifty-three AU member states had joined the APRM, with most of those still awaiting completion of their first assessments. Unless the process is reformed to ensure greater civil society participation,55 to explicitly assess freedom of the mass media,56 and to diminish governments’ interference in the process, the reviews will not be as serious as Ghana’s. Aid donors could make participation in the process a requirement for official development assistance, a shrewd way to improve governance since it would be Africans themselves, not the donors, doing the assessment.
Over several decades, the OAS has evolved a much more explicit regional approach to democracy, including its procedures for convening in the face of a suspension or overthrow of democracy. Now that the OAS has collectively responded to several military and executive coups, it is clear that its Resolution 1080 and Democratic Charter are not empty threats. But the means for response to incremental threats—like the steady desecration of democracy under Hugo Chávez—remain to be developed. One official in the OAS Department for Democratic and Political Affairs, Rubén Perina, proposes that the organization’s secretary-general be authorized, “at the request or not of the government affected,” to send a political observation mission to a country in democratic crisis or decay. The mission would be authorized not only to gather information and “put the opposing factions on notice that the international community was watching their behavior,” but also to facilitate negotiations among the factions to resolve the crisis.57
Political observer missions are a useful step, but a more muscular capacity is needed. Sometimes the problem is not so much political polarization as it is the abuse of power by an elected president. OAS members need to summon both the means and the will to inform an offending government that it faces condemnation and suspension. More generally, democratic communities must develop stronger institutional capacities to detect and respond to limitations of voting rights, government subversion of free and fair elections, restrictions on the mass media, abuse of the judiciary, harassment of government critics, and the mobilization of violence against political opponents. After assessing whether an abuse is a onetime event or sustained antidemocratic campaign, regional neighbors and organizations should apply the appropriate pressure on those responsible. Democratic governments must be willing to use diplomacy, aid, trade, and suspension of membership in the regional organization to try to reverse democratic erosion. “Regional bodies should maintain a set of democratic indicators for a region” to guide the initiation of formal monitoring.58
A 2002 Council on Foreign Relations task force, chaired by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former Polish foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek, has championed more active and continuous monitoring of democratic performance, suggesting that the Community of Democracies (CD) create such a mechanism “to function on a permanent basis, and build up the institutional capacity to support it.”59 The task force proposed that CD monitoring be used “to help provide targeted assistance to stem erosions” of democracy; that the CD and regional organizations continue to recognize diplomatically any democratic governments deposed by coups; that the CD treat unconstitutional interruptions of democracy as crimes under domestic and international law; and that the CD members “adopt legislation to enable them to impose sanctions quickly, including targeted sanctions—such as asset seizures and visa denials—directed at coup plotters or elected officials engaging in auto-coups.”60 The task force’s recommendations were heavily focused on making the Community of Democracies a more potent body for the defense and advance of democracy. That is a worthy goal, but there is a long distance to travel.
Since its creation in 2000, the CD has mainly been a symbolic gathering of states. Many of the participating countries have been dubious democracies at best. Some authoritarian regimes—including Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, Malaysia, Russia, and Venezuela—have participated fully, while others—such as Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Singapore—have been invited to meetings as “observers.”61 While the convening group (a kind of steering committee) includes such major democracies as the United States, India, and Mexico, it lacks the participation of such key industrial democracies as Britain, Germany, France, and Japan.62
Meeting every two to three years, the CD has lacked the institutional means to develop, monitor, and enforce democratic standards and to coordinate more than a hundred member states.63 Fortunately, the impending creation of a permanent secretariat, based in Poland, may partially fill this need. But most of all, the CD lacks backbone, as its broad membership drags the group down to the lowest common denominator of inaction. If the more committed democratic members are not able to draw the line by excluding authoritarian regimes and demanding serious collective action, the CD—so promising in conception as an alliance of democracies—will gradually fade into insignificance.
Precisely because the CD is so diluted, a group of foreign policy thinkers, gathered together in the Princeton Project, has recommended the establishment of a concert of democracies “to strengthen security cooperation among the world’s liberal democracies.” The group would provide a means to act—with military force if necessary—to defend liberty and protect human rights when other bodies, such as the UN Security Council, fail to move.64 The Princeton Project suggests that the core of this new group would consist of the established democracies of NATO. However, with only a few exceptions—Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and perhaps South Korea—it is difficult to identify other democracies of any significant size or power that would agree to join a concert whose explicit purpose is to mobilize power outside the United Nations and established regional organizations and in defiance of traditional notions of sovereignty. The Princeton Project proposes expanding beyond NATO to include India, South Africa, Brazil, and Mexico, but all of these influential developing-country democracies (and others, such as Indonesia and Argentina) have long-standing reservations about the use of force in violation of sovereignty and about the exercise of force by the United States in particular. The better near-term prospect may lie in sharpening the CD by making its membership more selective and its institutions more robust, and in enhancing NATO’s capacity to deploy military force rapidly and decisively in defense of democracy and human rights.65
Whenever possible, it is worth trying to make existing institutions work, or work better. One recently created institution with potential to advance the rule of law (and thus indirectly, democracy) is the International Criminal Court (ICC), the independent permanent court established by treaty in 2002 to try persons accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The ICC’s jurisdiction is limited to crimes committed on the territory or by a citizen of a state that has ratified its founding statute and those that have been referred by the UN Security Council or consented to its jurisdiction. While it may seem that punishing crimes against humanity will do little to advance or defend democracy, in order for democracy to be achieved the worst forms of abuse must be halted and a general, shared climate of respect for law must be inculcated and enforced. Anything that enhances legal accountability at the international level creates a more favorable environment for democracy—particularly when 104 countries have joined the institution.
Unfortunately, the United States stands as one of the few major democracies to reject the ICC’s authority. Due to largely misplaced concerns that American soldiers could be subject to arbitrary prosecution, the United States is missing a significant opportunity to advance the global climate for freedom through the rule of law. It is not simply accountability for human rights crimes that is at stake. The mere threat of prosecution can help to rein in warlords and abusive states. The ICC can also promote the rule of law within countries, as its statute requires states to introduce constitutional safeguards against arbitrary rule and abuses.66
There is also the tantalizing prospect that the court could add to its jurisdiction a specific set of “crimes against democracy,” involving “the use or threat of force to remove or replace a democratic government or to prevent the installation of a democratically elected government.” Any such modification would have to first “identify an international right to democracy that is the subject of international regulation,” but as I have argued in this book, existing international instruments provide that norm.67 In time, the ICC could also advance the global rule of law by prosecuting crimes of massive predatory corruption that are not addressed by states because, for example, the president is the guilty party. The devastating humanitarian effects of such corruption and wanton misrule provide a compelling argument for its status as a crime against humanity.68
THE SPECIAL CHALLENGE OF THE MIDDLE EAST
As I suggested in chapter 12, a special strategy will be needed to promote freedom in the Arab Middle East as well as in Iran. Unfortunately, the mistakes of the Bush administration have compounded the difficulties in this most difficult region of the world for democracy. With Iraq burning, Palestine slipping into civil war, sectarianism aflame, and terrorism gaining, this is not a propitious moment for promoting democracy in the Middle East. The United States has a tall agenda just to regain some shred of credibility in the region. More effective, multilateral efforts to address the region’s crises of instability are essential. But the United States must also demonstrate, with a sense of humility and realism, that it means it when it says it seeks freedom for all peoples, and that it is ready to live with the consequences.
One early imperative is a broader and more sustained dialogue among Americans, Europeans, and moderate Islamists of the Middle East. This should extend to all individuals and groups that publicly reject violence, denounce terrorism, and embrace democracy, even if they have as their goal a greater role for sharia in public life. In return for Islamist parties making a clear commitment to democracy, and to liberal principles including peaceful relations with Israel and equal rights for women and religious minorities, the United States and the European Union should press for those parties’ rights to contest for power in free and fair elections. As a Council on Foreign Relations task force observed in 2005, the United States “should not allow Middle Eastern leaders to use national security as an excuse to suppress nonviolent Islamist organizations. Washington should support the political participation of any group or party committed to abide by the rules and norms of the democratic process.”69
Next, the Western democracies need to facilitate strategies for political transition in the Arab world that will help to maximize the prospects for a “soft landing” from authoritarianism to democracy. Mechanisms of horizontal accountability need to be built up, from independent, secular courts to nonpartisan electoral administrations to countercorruption, public audit, and citizen complaint committees. To these might be added a semiautonomous national security council to ensure that an elected civilian government cannot politicize control of the military and police. While this would run some risk of undermining civilian control of the military, it might also reduce the risk to established elites of democratizing control of the government. Such a strategy might especially ease the transition in Arab monarchies, including Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, because the appointment and supervision of the national security apparatus and agencies of horizontal accountability could remain with the monarchy for some time as a check on elected government. Another avenue is to help build secular, democratic political parties and movements that can better compete with Islamists; still another is to encourage Arab regimes and their oppositions, including more moderate Islamists, to negotiate political pacts that would provide for a transitional period of power sharing and certain guarantees (such as amnesties from prosecution) to protect the interests and assets of those being asked to surrender power. In the context of a gradual dialogue that fosters understanding and trust, some Arab leaders may come to see “extrication through a political deal” as “a much more attractive option than running the risk of being overthrown by a revolution.”70
The democratic countries of the West need to do much more to engage and strengthen democratic actors in Arab civil society. Part of this involves assistance to NGOs, think tanks, women’s and human rights groups, business chambers, and trade unions, but with so much suspicion of the U.S. government and its motives, this assistance needs to come as much as possible from nongovernmental channels, not the U.S. State Department or USAID. This suggests the wisdom of making the Bush administration’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) a nongovernmental organization, like NED.71 A transatlantic partnership between the United States and the European Union would expand the credibility of these efforts and mitigate suspicion that it is an “American project.”72
In general, Western democracies should foster more exchanges with the region and more opportunities for training and advanced study on the part of Arab and Iranian journalists, civil society leaders, businesspeople, legislators, and party leaders. In the enhanced security climate since September 11, 2001, obtaining visas for visits to and study in America is often a time-consuming and frustrating process, particularly for residents of the Middle East. The American government must invest more in the consular staff responsible for reviewing visa applications in order to allow more Middle Eastern professionals to study and train in the United States. And as it did during the Cold War (then with Russian and other Communist-bloc languages), the United States needs to invest in training more speakers of Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Pashtu, Urdu, and other critical languages of the “Broader Middle East,” while expanding foreign broadcasting in these languagues.
Many other creative ideas have been offered for promoting freedom in the region. Some of these, like the conditioning of aid and trade, overlap with the proposals I have offered above.73 Alternatively, it can be argued that support for economic reform in the Middle East needs to be pursued since an independent business class can provide a much more favorable environment for democratizing.74 By this logic, anything that can encourage Arab countries to make the reforms necessary for entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and for the attraction of foreign direct investment will likely have positive implications for democracy down the road. In addition, Europe and the United States must “work together to complete the full anchoring of a democratic, secular Turkey in the West,”75 including support for Turkey’s bid to enter the European Union and for continuing reforms under its successful Muslim democratic ruling party, Justice and Development. The United States should also support the creation of a security organization, modeled on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), that could provide security guarantees among Middle Eastern states, reduce fears of aggression, and place human rights on the regional agenda.76
Finally, there is the vexing confrontation with Iran. Iran is the most dangerous country in the region, given its bid to acquire nuclear weapons and the vow of its zealous president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to wipe Israel off the map. Yet, paradoxically, its population is the most receptive to democratic ideas. Simply isolating and sanctioning Iran (not to mention bombing it) is unlikely to bring about a change of regime. A better strategy would be to increase exchanges with Iranian civil society while offering the regime a broad bargain: the lifting of economic sanctions, the restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States, and the integration of Iran into international circles in exchange for the verifiable halt to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, the cessation of its support of terrorist groups, and the affirmation of basic human rights and the rights of its citizens to monitor those conditions. The more societies like Iran are opened, the better the chances of being able to encourage the political awareness, understanding of democratic values and institutions, and civic pluralism necessary for organic political change. To engage the Iranian people and encourage these processes, the United States needs an embassy in Tehran.77
