Democracy Promotion in the Age of Obama

On Wednesday, April 22, 2009, New America Foundation hosted a conference on “Democracy Promotion in the Age of Obama.” The conference brought together five panelists to debate the future of democracy promotion and the lessons learned from the Bush Administration’s efforts. At the center of the debate were the recommendations posited by Michael A. Cohen and Maria Figueroa Küpçü in their recent publication Revitalizing U.S. Democracy Promotion: A Comprehensive Plan for Reform. Other panel experts included Ted Piccone, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director for Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, Thomas Melia, Deputy Executive Director, Freedom House and Chris Homan, Foreign Policy Advisor to Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL).

Michael Cohen began by summarizing the findings described in his and Maria Figueroa Küpçü’s recent publication. He noted three reasons why the Bush Administration’s “Freedom Agenda” failed:

Cohen continued by laying out a framework for improving the yield of democratization funding. According to Cohen: 

Chris Homan then responded with large agreement to the conclusions presented by Cohen and Figueroa Küpçü. He noted that Senator Durbin is currently working on a bill that would triple USAID. More generally, he pointed out that democracy assistance is too often equated to mean “regime change.” He also argued that the US needs to do a better job of championing the causes of political prisoners being held in non-democratic states, something that, he says, the US used to do more fervently. Finally, he concluded that the US needs to have a conversation about how to handle the “Hugo Chavez like” leaders – those that were democratically elected yet do not govern like most modern democratic leaders. How do we reconcile the existence of these leaders with our long-term democratization goals?

Ted Piccone began by addressing the need for an efficient pool of funds dubbed “multilateral aid.” He argued that aid should come from more than just the US and the EU, but also from states like India. He posited that the organization “Community of Democracies” should not break out into issues like climate change, but should focus on sharing methods of democratization. He agreed with Cohen and Figueroa Küpçü in that funding should apolitical and focused on bottom-up institutions. But he did not encourage the expansion of USAID; rather he said that money should be given to NED to avoid politicization of democracy promotion. He remarked that the US should “support processes and not the end result.”

Finally, Ted Piccone spoke briefly about Cuba, arguing that it would be a mistake to let states like Cuba back into the OAS as they do not meet the fundamental standards, which require members to be democracies (under the American Inter-Democratic Charter).

Tom Melia was the last panelist to weigh in. He spoke more generally of the US role in democracy promotion. He described the recent report by Cohen and Figueroa Küpçü as iconoclastic, as it came from “new eyes.” He noted forlornly that fewer free states have come into being lately compared with non-free states and that it was indeed time to engage with non-free states but only for assertive talks. He did not believe that the American example of democracy was fully tarnished and noted that the US is a great “self-correcting” democracy, as evidenced by our latest debate on torture practices and our extremely free press.

-- Event summary written by Emily Gallagher, Research Associate, Bernard L. Scwartz Fellows Program, New America Foundation

Participants

Michael A. Cohen
Co-author, Revitalizing U.S. Democracy Promotion
Senior Research Fellow, Privatization of Foreign Policy Initiative, New America Foundation

Thomas O. Melia
Deputy Executive Director, Freedom House

Ted Piccone
Senior Fellow and Deputy Director for Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution

Chris Homan
Foreign Policy Advisor to Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL)

Moderator
Maria Figueroa Küpçü
Co-author, Revitalizing U.S. Democracy Promotion
Senior Research Fellow, Privatization of Foreign Policy Initiative, New America Foundation