1998CRE63B PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AROUND THE WORLD

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Archive-Name: gov/us/fed/congress/record/1998/feb/03/1998CRE63B
[Congressional Record: February 3, 1998 (Extensions)]
[Page E63-E64]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr03fe98-9]

PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AROUND THE WORLD

______

HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

of indiana

in the house of representatives

Tuesday, February 3, 1998

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, the euphoria that greeted the end of the
cold war, and the authoritarian regimes around the world that drew
their strength from it, is fading as we face the reality of how
difficult it is to instill democratic ideals and processes in emerging
nations. Some critics have argued that elections have not brought
freedom to many of these countries. Some have even gone so far as to
suggest that a new kind of authoritarian government might be preferable
to an elected one.
I am not so pessimistic. In my judgment, what is useful at this point
in the U.S. and international experience with democracy-building
programs is to analyze which programs have proven useful in the long-
term process of reforming institutions and citizens' demands on their
governments. Instead of giving up on democracy, we should support the
democratic leaders--in government and civil society--who will lay the
foundation for reforms in their countries.
I would commend to my colleagues a January 26, 1998 Wall Street
Journal article on this subject by Marc F. Plattner and Carl Gershman
of the National Endowment for Democracy. The Endowment works creatively
with non-governmental organizations in the U.S. and around the world to
help build lasting democratic institutions that can protect fundamental
freedoms. I am proud to be one of its strongest supporters.
The article follows:

[From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 26, 1998]

Democracy Gets a Bum Rap

(By Marc F. Plattner and Carl Gershman)

Two recent articles--by Fareed Zakaria in Foreign Affairs
and by Robert Kaplan in The Atlantic Monthly--have given
voice to a growing pessimism about the global fortunes of
democracy. This gloom is no more well-founded than the
euphoria about democracy that prevailed just a few years ago.
For serious students of democracy have always known that it
is a difficult form of government to sustain: Setting up a
new democracy is much easier than getting it to perform well
or to endure.
Two decades ago the world had only a few dozen democracies,
predominantly in Western Europe or countries populated
primarily by the descendants of Western Europeans. Citizens
of these countries enjoyed not only free and competitive
multiparty elections but also the rule of law and the
protection of individual liberties. Nearly all (India being
the most notable exception) had advanced industrial
economies, sizable middle classes and high literacy rates--
characteristics that political scientists typically regarded
as ``prerequisites'' of successful democracy. Meanwhile, what
were then called the Second and Third Worlds were dominated
by other kinds of regimes (Marxist-Leninist, military,
single-party, etc.) that rejected multiparty elections.

Regimes Crumbled

By the early 1990s this situation had changed dramatically,
as Marxist-Leninist, military and single-party regimes
crumbled and were mostly succeeded by regimes that at least
aspired to be democratic. Today, well over 100 states can
plausibly claim to have elected governments, including most
countries in Latin America, many in the post-Communist world
and a significant number in Asia and Africa.
Outside Africa, surprisingly few of these regimes have
suffered outright reversions to authoritarianism. At the same
time, it has become clear that many of them, even among those
that hold unambiguously free and fair elections, fall short
of Western standards in protecting individual liberties and
adhering to the rule of law. As Larry Diamond, co-editor
of the Journal of Democracy, puts it, many of the new
regimes are ``electoral democracies'' but not ``liberal
democracies.'' Mr. Zakaria puts a more pessimistic spin on
a similar diagnosis in his article, entitled ``The Rise of
Illiberal Democracy.''
The difference is more than semantic. Calling the emerging
democracies ``illiberal'' suggests that they constitute a new
threat to freedom. In fact, compared with the old regimes,
they represent a major gain for freedom, a new opening that
makes possible

[[Page E64]]

the gradual institutionalization of democratic practices and
liberties. The new pessimists criticize the simplistic view
that elections are sufficient to make a country free. But
they commit the same fallacy, failing to recognize that
democratization is a process of transition, not an instant
transformation to a new order.
The new pessimists seem inclined to rush to the judgment
that elections are the primary cause of the problems
besetting the new democracies, and to believe that the
holding of all those elections is a product of U.S. policy.
Both these propositions are false.
The problem with elections, it is said, is that they
empower majorities that may favor policies motivated by
ethnic or religious intolerance or by short-term economic
interests. This is a danger, but what is the alternative? The
critics tend to suggest some version of what might be called
``liberal nondemocracy''--an unelected government that
preserves political stability, promotes economic development,
observes the rule of law and generally respects the rights of
its subjects.
In theory such a benevolently authoritarian government
might be preferable to a corrupt and illiberal democracy. But
where can we find one in the real world? The critics cite
very few contemporary examples. Mr. Kaplan lavishes praise on
the temporary, technocratic government of Pakistan's
appointed premier Moeen Qureshi, named to the post after the
army forced out his elected predecessor in 1993. Mr. Qureshi
served for just three months--hardly a model for long-term
stability or widespread emulation. Mr. Zakaria's prime
examples are 19th-century European constitutional monarchies
that restricted suffrage and Hong Kong under British rule--
not exactly a practical vision as we look toward the 21st
century.
Proponents of liberal nondemocracy fail to recognize that
there is a reason why electoral democracy and liberalism,
though sometimes at odds, usually tend to be found together.
Liberalism derives from the view that individuals are by
nature free and equal, and thus that they can be legitimately
governed only on the basis of consent. The historical
working-out of this principle inevitably ``democratized''
Europe's constitutional monarchies, just as it later
undermined colonialism. Even if ``first liberalism, then
democracy'' were the preferred historical sequence, today a
nondemocratic government would be hard put to find a solid
basis for its ligitimacy--and thus also for its stability--
while it goes about the task of liberalization.
Moreover, the new pessimists overlook the close connection
between elections and rights. Elections, if they are to be
free and fair, require the observance of a substantial body
of rights--freedom of association and expression, for
example, and equal access to the media. The pessimists
fear that elections will undermine rights by legitimizing
illiberal regimes. But elections, if they are truly
competitive, tend to arouse citizens to insist upon their
rights and upon the accountability of elected officials.
The process makes government more subject to public
scrutiny.
The spread of democracy abroad is the result not of
American policy or propaganda, but of demands by peoples
worldwide. Whether this demand springs from human nature or
from global communications and the unparalleled current
prestige of democracy, people almost everywhere want to have
a say about who their rulers are. On what basis shall we deny
them? Mr. Kaplan suggests that electoral democracy is somehow
responsible for the problems of places like Russia,
Afghanistan and Africa today. This is plainly absurd. If
democracy is the problem, why wasn't Africa flourishing
during the 1970s and 1980s, when the continent had but a
handful of democracies?

Elections Are Not Enough

None of this is meant to deny the important--though hardly
unfamiliar--insight that elections are not enough. Many of
the new democracies have performed poorly with respect to
accountability, the rule of law and the protection of
individual rights. Helping electoral democracies become
liberal democracies is certainly in the interests both of the
U.S. and of the countries that we assist.
But we are more likely to provide such assistance if we
view elections as an opportunity to work for the expansion of
rights, rather than an obstacle to it. As countries lacking
the usual prerequisites attempt to liberalize and improve
their democracies, it would be foolish not to expect serious
problems. But it would be even greater folly to believe that
authoritarianism is the solution.

____________________