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We Don't Know How to Build Democracy
By Stephen D. Krasner
Los Angeles Times Op/Ed
November 16, 2003
Regime-building is the central challenge of our time, but
surprisingly little is known about how to do so successfully.
In a speech to the National Endowment
for Democracy this month, President Bush outlined the country's
commitment to promoting democracy throughout the world, saying that
"the advance of freedom" is both "the calling of our
time" and "the calling of our country."
The president articulated clearly where
we would like to end up: in a world composed of functioning,
sovereign, democratic states. The advantages of such a world are
obvious. In mature democracies, domestic institutions are stable and
leaders accountable. The rule of law prevails and corruption is
limited. Economic policy is constructive and incomes and
opportunities increase. The appeal of terrorism lessens.
But with all our determination to
promote democracy, the truth is, we don't have a very good idea of
how to do it. Neither the United States nor anyone else has much
experience in creating democracy where there was none.
The accepted international practices to
promote democracy — such things as United Nations peacekeeping
operations, foreign assistance to support better governance, and
transitional administrations like those set up in Kosovo and East
Timor — haven't proved to be all that satisfactory. Even our
governmental institutions reflect our unpreparedness for the task:
We have a Department of Defense, but we don't have a Department of
Regime Building.
What we do know — or should know —
is that getting from here to there will be hard. The states we're
most interested in helping to transform today generally have low
per-capita incomes, limited experience with democracy and long
histories of autocratic and sometimes brutal rule. These are not
conditions that tend to foster democracy.
Among the surprisingly few things we
know about creating democracies is this: While it doesn't
necessarily take higher per-capita income to establish a democracy,
it certainly helps in sustaining it. No democratic country with
per-capita income above $6,000 has ever reverted to autocracy.
We also know that democratic transitions
are dangerous. Autocratic leaders feeling threatened by democratic
reforms can respond by cracking down. A destructive sort of
nationalism can surface (think Kaiser Wilhelm II before World War I,
Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s or Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe today).
And states in transition are more likely than either stable
democracies or autocracies to become involved in wars.
Foreign occupation, even when
accompanied by large amounts of money, does not guarantee a smooth
transition to democracy. Since the Dayton accords of December 1995,
Bosnia has effectively been under the control of the international
community, led by Europe. Aid has flowed freely: In the late 1990s,
foreign assistance amounted to a quarter of the country's gross
national income. While this international effort has kept the lid on
a volatile situation, it has hardly set Bosnia on a clear path
toward democratic autonomy. The situation in Kosovo, which in 1999
became a de facto NATO protectorate, is no better.
The simple fact is that we do not know
how to do democracy-building. We do not have clear historical
precedents. Germany and Japan after World War II demonstrated that
an extensive, sustained American presence can contribute to the
establishment of stable democracies. But in 1945, Germany and Japan
were countries with more wealth, better-educated populations and
more experience with democracy than the countries with which America
is now engaged.
In other countries where we have
attempted regime change, results have been mixed. Over the last
century, the United States has intervened both covertly and overtly
in the Caribbean and Central America. But we have not done nearly as
well as we would have liked in leaving successful democracies and
market economies in our wake.
Several East Asian countries, most
notably South Korea, have successfully moved from poverty and
autocracy to prosperity and democracy. But the path was long, and
the United States provided not only substantial economic assistance
but also a strong military presence legitimized by a U.N.
resolution. Even then, for decades, South Korea was neither fully
sovereign nor democratic.
What judgments, then, can we make about
American policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere?
First, we need to accept that
regime-building is hard, and there are no templates. No American
postwar plan can work seamlessly in Iraq or anyplace else.
Second, we must reject the arguments of
President Jacques Chirac of France and others who have pushed for a
rapid transition to full sovereignty for Iraq. Only Iraqis can
create a stable, democratic Iraq, but those Iraqis who share such a
vision cannot prevail unless the United States and others make a
commitment to remain engaged over the long term.
Third, we must understand that we'll
never have universal support from the international community. The
United States is trying something difficult and risky —
jump-starting a transition to democracy and development in an area
that has stagnated for decades — and the outcome is not only
uncertain but could have deleterious consequences for countries that
did not support our policies in the first place.
Finally, we can't expect policy
consistency. While it's true that a new Iraq must be fashioned by
Iraqis, it is not clear today who these Iraqis will be. Meanwhile,
the policies and strategies that we are employing may need frequent
revision. Infrastructure development, rule of law, elections,
security, and government effectiveness will not progress at the same
speed. It may become essential to think in new ways and, for
instance, encourage partnerships between Iraqis and non-Iraqis
(nongovernmental organizations, international organizations, other
countries) that could improve education, health care, fiscal policy,
security, and the disposition of oil revenue. Accountability might
have to begin with local rather than national elections.
Putting Iraq and Afghanistan on a path
that will eventually lead to prosperity and democracy would be
historic accomplishments that only the United States has the
resources and, we should hope, the confidence to carry out. But we
do not, and cannot, know now how this project might best be
accomplished.
We are now, after all, operating in a
very different world than in previous decades, one in which some of
the most basic tenets of international relations have changed
dramatically. Elementary concepts for understanding the world, like
balance of power and deterrence; recognized policies such as
treaties, economic sanctions and war; and organizational and
administrative structures for implementing these policies such as
departments of state and ministries of defense have become less
relevant.
This familiar, if not always benign,
world is now gone. Weapons of mass destruction and global terrorism
have given the lie to the notion that only other powerful nations
can pose major threats. States with only a fraction the gross
national product of the United States could secure weapons that
would allow them to violently end the lives of millions of
Americans. Regimes in small, obscure countries could engage in
terrorist activities themselves, provide support for transnational
terrorist organizations or simply be unable to effectively regulate
activities originating within their borders that could threaten
others.
The fundamental problem of our time is
not to balance against a challenger superpower or to reinforce the
deterrent capability of our nuclear arsenal, but rather to change
the nature of domestic political regimes in countries that could
pose a threat to American security.
Nation-building, or perhaps better,
regime-building, is what our foreign policy is all about now and
will be for decades to come. We just need to learn how to do it.
Stephen D. Krasner is a professor of
political science and director of the Center on Democracy,
Development, and the Rule of Law at the Stanford Institute for
International Studies.
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