“Advances for human rights and democracy depend first and foremost on the courage and the commitment of men and women working for reform in their own countries. Progress also will require sustained and concerted efforts by the United States and fellow democracies in every region of the world. The path forward rarely will be linear. Fragile democracies can founder. Countries whose leaders are not fully committed to democracy can backslide. Those pressing for reform inevitably encounter push back from those who do not welcome change. These are sobering realities. At the same time, we believe that our work for freedom’s cause can help to create new, hopeful realities for men and women across the globe” (Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2006).
At a general level, there is a view that US Leadership and Democratic Project (LEAD)-type projects have largely been concocted with the sole intention of undermining governments the US views as undemocratic. Indeed, for political reasons, it is being peddled that the current LEAD project, even if not intentionally, would have the effect of undermining the electoral fortunes of the PPP/C. When President Ramotar said that we do not need any democratic project at this time, he was expressing this type of concern.
I have argued in a previous article that this type of project is intended to make citizens interact with the political system in a more policy-orientated and rational manner and that this could affect the fortunes of political parties whose support is rooted in ethnic voting (“The LEAD project: Direct foreign intervention should be avoided:” 29/01/2014).
US involvement in the promotion of democracy can be viewed as founded in centuries of liberal political philosophy and a long period of activism. When, during his visit to the Middle East and North Africa in 2011,President Obama stated “We look forward to working with all who embrace genuine and inclusive democracy. What we will oppose is an attempt by any group to restrict the rights of others, and to hold power through coercion and not consent. Because democracy depends not only on elections, but also strong and accountable institutions, and the respect for the rights of minorities”, he was not breaking new ground. Every modern American president has made some commitment to promoting democracy.
President Woodrow Wilson claimed that America entered the First World War “to make the world safe for democracy.’’ After the Second World War, the Marshall Plan and the reconstruction of Japan and Germany were cast in a democratic mold. In 1995, Bill Clinton, in his State of the Union address claimed that “Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere.’’ Even the overthrow of democratically elected governments was done in the name of building democracy.
Thus, “American foreign policy of the past 100 years cannot be understood without serious attention to the democracy ideal. And the history of democracy around the globe during the same period is incomplete without sustained attention to the role of the United States on the world stage” (Carothers, Thomas -1999 – “Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
With the end of the Cold War the accepted narrative in the US foreign policy establishment has been that the major global threats from terrorism, crime, disease and environmental catastrophe will come from weak and failed states. The US has then had to gear its foreign policy to deal with these threats.
Of course, states are weak or failing to different degrees: some may require military intervention and others can be dealt with by more pacific means, e.g. leadership and democratic-type projects. The problem, as we have seen in Guyana, is that many of these state-building efforts are usually sold as apolitical – not really intended to affect the interest of given political parties. However, as Michael Wesley has argued, state weakness is a political problem. “The intention of remaining aloof from politics while concentrating on technocratic reforms has proved unrealistic … state-building missions inevitably find themselves factored into local rivalries” (“The Rise and Fall of the Failed – State Paradigm,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2014)
There has been a notable growth in countries designated as democratic, and the US and the West in general have been in the forefront of trying to create the environment for their flourishing. The number has risen from about 30 in 1974 to about 117 today. US spending on the promotion of democracy has also been growing steadily and must now be nearing a US$1 billion.
Lest I be misunderstood, I am not for one moment claiming that over this period of democratic activism, American foreign policy has been driven mainly by concerns about democracy. It has been embroiled in support for motley dictators, and in this region its participation in the overthrow of democratically elected governments in Guyana and Chile is now rarely denied.
But generally, for democracy promotion to work optimally there needs to be transformative, coalescing, visionary leadership. This kind of leadership is absent from the ruling circles in Guyana. As the PPP’s use of the outcome of that fiasco called the Walter Rodney inquiry is daily demonstrating, its leadership is not coalescing but divisive and will do almost anything to get back to a situation in which it has a parliamentary majority.
When he left Guyana in frustration in 2004, former President Jimmy Carter wrote “Jagdeo is an intelligent and capable leader, but he takes full advantage of the ancient “winner take all” system in Guyana. Following my meeting with him, I was very doubtful that his political party (PPP) would commence new dialogue with the PNC, be willing to make any substantive moves to implement the National Development Strategy, share political authority with other parties, or permit members of parliament to be elected by their own constituencies instead of being chosen from party list on a proportional basis.”
Perhaps the framers of the LEAD project should have taken heed of Carter’s assessment of the uncompromising political nature of the PPP. But then of course, since LEAD could not have succeeded without the supportive leadership, the project may never have started and an invaluable experience lost!
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
