Has the west given up on democracy?

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Tunisian General Rachid Ammar announces his resignation on TV, June, 2013. Demotix/ Chedly Ben Ibrahim. All rights reserved. Authoritarianism is on
the march. Aggregate Freedom House scores on political rights and
civil liberties have declined each of the past nine years. A third of all
democratic regimes since the ‘third wave’ of democratization began forty years
ago have failed. Authoritarians are methodically cracking down on
opposition elements, restricting civil society activity, swapping surveillance
and censorship tips and technologies to keep domestic dissent at bay.

It’s true that democracy
comes in ‘waves’ of democratization, ebbing and flowing, as described by the
late Samuel Huntington. Political scientists including Jay Ulfelder, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way rightly urge
caution when assuming the demise of democracy. We should hardly expect
political systems to develop linearly, especially in places like the Middle
East, where dictatorships have been rooted for decades usually with strong
western support.

Still, growing evidence
of democratic backsliding and authoritarian resurgence, chronicled by USIP’s Steven Heydemann is troubling. Russia and
Syria are poster children for how authoritarianism has led to international
instability. Support for democracy has been a core, bipartisan element of US
foreign policy since the time of Woodrow Wilson. While idealism has been a
motive; at its core, support for democracy has advanced US national interests.
Democracies don’t go to war with each other; they are more reliable partners
than tyrannies; they don’t commit mass atrocities; and they are better at
reconciling domestic differences peacefully.  Systemic corruption and
institutionalized discrimination have been key drivers of violent extremism,
according to Carnegie scholar-practitioner Sarah Chayes. 
 

Around the world,
aggrieved citizens are still standing up to challenge power structures,
demanding basic freedoms. The question is. can we avoid citizen challenges
leading to bloodbaths and prolonged chaos?  How can democratic movements
lead to reforms that encourage more durable stability?

Our book, Is
Authoritarianism Staging a Comeback? analyzes authoritarian resilience
in places like Central Asia, Syria, and the Gulf,  highlighting the
dilemmas and possible solutions.  As Denver scholar Erica Chenoweth
demonstrates, mass nonviolent movements, which have historically been major
drivers of democratic transitions and twice as successful as armed struggles at
overturning dictators, have seen their effectiveness drop in the past few years
to levels not seen since the 1950s. According to media expert Zeynep Tufecki,
authoritarian regimes are using the internet and state-controlled media to
counter challenges to their rule.

What can be done to
reverse the tide? First, we should recall that civil society activism, in the
form of speech, peaceful assembly, and labor organizing, are protected under
international human rights law. Nonviolent activists have a right to
receive information and even financial help from external actors, a point
underscored by Seton Hall law professor Elizabeth Wilson. Second, the fact that
the popular Arab Spring uprisings that toppled four dictators have not produced
consolidated democracies doesn’t mean that western powers should give up on
democracy in the Middle East – or anywhere else.

It’s hardly surprising
that Tunisia, the one Arab Spring country on the best path to democratization,
had the most nonviolent and participatory of all the uprisings. Tunisia has a
civil society, anchored by strong trade and labor unions, helping to ensure
nonviolent discipline during and after the transition. Tunisia’s George
Washington, army chief of staff Rachid Ammar, refused regime orders to fire on
peaceful demonstrators. This sense of integrity within the ranks of the
military, as ex-Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair writes
about, can be inculcated through contacts with military officers from
democratic countries. Military-to-military ties are underappreciated sources of
western leverage.

In an era of
authoritarian backlash, there is a need for a new breed of diplomacy. Diplomats
have a wide range of tools and assets to support pro-democracy movements.
Popular uprisings in places like Egypt, which are often led by non-traditional
civil society actors took diplomats who are too used to dealing with registered
NGOs and CSOs by surprise. Ambassador Jeremy Kinsman and Kurt Basseuner
highlight in their Diplomat’s Handbook for Democracy Development Support that
everyday diplomatic tools can make a difference.  These range from
showing solidarity, to physically inter-positioning to deter violence and
coordinating allied embassies’ support for democrats. Unfortunately, foreign
service officers receive minimal training on how to support
democrats.   

Helping populations pivot
from protests to politics is no simple undertaking. As Stanford’s Larry Diamond
emphasizes, the reality is that democratic institutions, strong political
parties, and the rule of law take generations to take root. There is plenty of
evidence that technocratic tweaking of institutions without such strong civil society engagement
doesn’t achieve democratic progress. Successful anti-corruption campaigns
around the world, as chronicled by John’s Hopkins fellow Shaazka Beyerle,
combine citizen-led action with engagement with government
institutions.  

Arguably the most
important role outside actors can play is helping civic actors pry open space
for political engagement. Democracy support foundations and organizations need
to develop innovative ways to support civil society, particularly in
restrictive spaces. Such support should seek to advance key aspects of successful
nonviolent movements, as Peter Ackerman and Hardy
Merriman have stressed: unity around goals and leaders, operational
planning, nonviolent discipline, diversified participation, movement
resilience, and the ability to prompt loyalty shifts in the authoritarian’s key
pillars of support. Engaging with broad array of civil society actors, using
small, flexible grants to support credible local mobilizers, encouraging
sustainable leadership and movement principles and providing convening spaces
for activists, traditional civil society and government reformers to mix it up
are a few ways to do that.  

Acclaimed strategist and
Nobel Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling once said that in the match
between repressive regimes and domestic challengers, each side seeks to impose
costs on the other side while minimizing the costs to their own side. “It is a
contest and it remains to be seen who wins.” As authoritarians around the world
seek to consolidate their grip on power, it behooves western actors to get
serious about pushing back against the authoritarians, otherwise we risk the
current ebb turning into a growing tide against
democracy.