Uncertain Democracy. Lincoln A. Mitchell
promotion strategy that included military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, substantially increasing resources for democracy promotion programs around the world, linking fair elections to attempts to resolve decades-old problems such as the Israel-Palestine situation, claiming strong links between democracy abroad and security—primarily from terrorism—at home, and supporting, and in some cases encouraging, democratic breakthroughs in countries like Ukraine and Lebanon in addition to Georgia. Bush’s support for democracy promotion was so strong that many on both sides of the country’s increasingly partisan divide began to view democracy promotion as a Republican policy, ignoring its deep, bipartisan roots.
While Bush’s rhetoric regarding democracy promotion differed in quantity and emphasis from his predecessors, democracy assistance programs under the Bush administration did not look very different than they had under Clinton. Election support, assistance to legislatures, local governments and other government institutions, support for nascent civil society organizations and NGOs, as well as the occasional program seeking to expand political participation on the part of women or young people remained the primary ways the United States sought to strengthen democracy around the world. The exception was, of course, Iraq, which has dominated almost all discussions of Bush foreign policy, including democracy assistance, and will be discussed in more depth later. Yet if Iraq is taken out of the equation, and Bush’s rhetoric is discounted, there is strong continuity between democracy assistance during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
As democracy promotion has taken on an increasing role in U.S. foreign policy, it has matured as an “industry” as well. Before the mid-1980s, it would have been impossible to discuss a democratization “industry.” To the extent that democracy promotion, as distinct from anti-communism, was part of American foreign policy, it was an element informing decisions on military and financial assistance, sanctions, clandestine operations, trade policy, and other traditional foreign policy approaches. It also was part of American propaganda efforts abroad through organizations like the United States Information Agency (USIA). However, very few organizations or individuals saw their work strictly in terms of building and promoting democracy overseas.
Although this situation began to change in the mid-1980s, it was largely beginning in the 1990s that a democracy promotion industry began to emerge and mature. While this industry is in many respects less developed than many other industries, it is a significant sector of the foreign policy community. The democracy promotion industry today can be said to include governmental organizations, such as parts of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI); nongovernmental organizations like the NED, NDI, IRI, Freedom House, American Bar Association (ABA) and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), all of which rely heavily on the U.S. government for funding; numerous private contracting companies such as Chemonics, Associates in Rural Development (ARD), Management Systems International (MSI), Development Associates International (DAI), Development Associates (DA), and hundreds of small businesses, consultants, and scholars.
In recent years this business has become more professionalized with fewer firms and organizations using volunteers and one-time consultants for projects, relying instead on a growing network of trained and experienced professionals. As democracy assistance has matured it has begun to take on the characteristics of many other industries that rely on the government for a substantial amount of their funding. While it is still far too soon to speak of a democracy industrial complex, some of these issues are worth exploring.20
Unlike twenty or even ten years ago, there are now dozens of American businesses and thousands of American individuals who have a financial stake in the perceived needs not just for democracy promotion, but for the U.S. approach to democracy promotion, aspects of which rely substantially on expensive training and resident American experts, consultants, and staff and offices in the United States. It is not my intention to propose that the democracy promotion business is characterized by financial self-interest or corruption, but merely to suggest that the financial motives, particularly among the for-profit contractors, for maintaining and expanding democracy promotion exist, are becoming stronger, and play some role in discussions of democracy assistance and its implementation.
As the policy implementing apparatus entrenches itself more in the government, private, and NGO sectors, it has become more difficult to evaluate the needs of democracy promotion. “Will this country benefit from direct democracy promotion assistance?” is rarely asked about a particular country. Instead, the question “what kind of democracy promotion will benefit this country?” or even “what kind of political party/civil society program will benefit this country?” are increasingly among the first questions asked. In some respects this is a positive development: the need to promote democracy no longer must to be explained or defended in a particular country. However, it also reflects an implicit assumption that the best way to support democratization in every country is through an essentially similar battery of democracy promotion programs.
The Democracy Assistance Debate
As George W. Bush’s first term in office came to an end in 2004, a debate had begun to reemerge in foreign policy circles about the wisdom and efficacy of democracy promotion. Although this debate had been around for years, new life was breathed into it during the Bush administration. To some extent, this debate began to get traction because of the use of democratization by the administration as a way to justify the unpopular war in Iraq, but the debate was much more complex than that, with many critiques and defenses along numerous different dimensions. Moreover, it did not lend itself easily to partisan or ideological leanings.
Proponents of democracy promotion based their support on several occasionally overlapping notions. Some shared the moral outlook of President Bush, believing that democracy was, essentially, a God-given right that Americans should help the rest of the world to achieve. Others took a more ideological and less moral view, simply arguing that democracy was the best and most fair system of government and that all people should have the right to self-governance. Arguments based on stability, security, and economic development were made as well.21
In general, views on democracy promotion can be grouped along two dimensions: the moral-ideological dimension and the U.S. interest dimension. There are several positions on the moral-ideological dimension. First, there are proponents who for ideological, moral, or religious reasons believe that democracy is the right thing for all people and that the United States should do its part in helping people by promoting democracy whenever it can. This has been the position of the Bush administration, but it is shared by others as well. For years, the notion that people should have a right to choose their own government was a core value of the American non-communist left. This seems to be changing now.
Within this moral-ideological dimension two arguments can be found to oppose democracy promotion. These two arguments overlap to some degree but are presented differently. The first, often associated with the right, is that not all people are ready for democracy. With regard to some countries, the argument is that a longstanding attachment to another form of government, overarching religious views, or lack of political modernity leaves the people simply unprepared for democracy. While few academics make this precise point, it is a frequently encountered sentiment in opinion pieces, blogs, and comments by politicians. This belief is often presented with a tone of exasperation as if the speaker or writer were stating the obvious. A comment by Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) sums this view up very succinctly “You cannot in my opinion just impose a democratic form of government on a country with no history and no culture and no tradition of democracy.”22
The second argument, generally associated with the left, is that democracy promotion on the part of the United States is not genuine. Rather, it is thinly veiled self-interest and a twenty-first-century form of imperialism. This critique is particularly prominent when applied to countries like Iraq, where democracy promotion has been accompanied by military intervention, but it is also used to describe countries where U.S.-supported elections have led to a new government, more friendly to the United States, taking power.23
The second dimension of the democracy promotion debate is centered around the idea that expanding democracy worldwide is somehow good for the United States. The best-known explanation for why democratization is good for the United