I recently received an invitation from the Washington office of one of the German political foundations to participate in a discussion of the upcoming German elections. The title of the event was "Regime Change in Berlin?: Potential Implications for Germany's Foreign and Security Policy." The sponsor of the meeting was clearly using the term "regime change" in a tongue-in-cheek manner as a way to attract an audience, but the title raised an important question, even as it further muddied the political waters. Germany is a liberal democracy, and what is at issue in the elections there is not a possible change of regime but rather a change of government. One of the great and recognized virtues of democracy, after all, is that it is a system that allows the people to change the government without changing the regime.

But if the politically loaded term "regime change" does not apply to a democratic election, to what, then, does it apply? It could apply, for example, to violent revolutions, such as the Russian Revolution of 1917 or the Iranian Revolution of 1979. And yes, it could also apply to the peaceful revolutions of 1989 when the collapse of communism set in motion a process of democratic transition in many countries. But it cannot apply to an election in a democracy.

The term "regime change" is also misused if it is applied to democracy assistance, even if the purpose of that assistance is to help people build a democratic system where one does not now exist, a process that inevitably entails change from a non-democratic system or regime to a potentially democratic one. Regime change is not the purpose of democracy assistance. Democracy is the purpose, and the fall or removal of a non-democratic regime does not automatically produce democracy as an outcome. The replacement of Batista by Castro, for example, or the Shah by Khomeini should make that perfectly clear. The removal of a dictatorship can provide the opportunity for people to build democracy, but that is inevitably a long and difficult process, involving decades of hard work, democratic learning, and the development of values of tolerance and institutions of governance that enable pluralist societies to resolve differences through peaceful means. And even then, as the abolitionist Wendall Phillips once said, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

I am afraid that the title of this panel "Supporting Regime Change: Democracy Assistance or Intervention?" -- does little to clarify the issues and alternatives before us. Not only is democracy assistance not regime change, but it is also not an alternative to intervention since it is a form of intervention, albeit one, like the defense of human rights, that is done peacefully and openly. Such intervention may be resented by non-democratic regimes, but it is not therefore illegitimate. When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel Lecture in 1970 that when it comes to human rights, "all internal affairs have ceased to exist on our crowded earth," he was responding to the position of the Soviet government that expressions of international concern for the rights of Soviet dissidents were illegal interference in its internal affairs. Since then, the doctrine of state sovereignty has ceased to be an absolute principle of international relations, while the active promotion of democracy has become a new norm of international behavior, one that explains why we are meeting today and why our parliaments fund us to do the work that we do.

Obviously, though, it is not a universally accepted norm, since there are some elements in the international community who wish to de-legitimate democracy assistance by equating it with regime change. Where does this come from, and why is it an issue today? The main source of the problem, I believe, derives from the widespread prevalence today of semi-authoritarian or "hybrid regimes" where, in the words of political scientist Larry Diamond, the existence of some formal democratic processes, such as elections, "masks (often, in part, to legitimate) the reality of authoritarian domination." The number of such regimes has actually grown as a consequence of the third wave of democratization, as democratic transitions have stalled and many countries have entered a "political gray zone" of illiberal democracy, and also as the result of backsliding by some former electoral democracies. Diamond estimates that there were only about half a dozen such regimes in 1974, whereas today "at least 45 and perhaps as many as 60 are electoral authoritarian roughly between a quarter and a third of all states." The defining characteristics of such systems are state control and manipulation of the electoral machinery, often involving various kinds of formal and informal disenfranchisement of voters potentially opposed to the government; as well as the centralization of power in the hands of the executive authority, a weak parliament, a judiciary that lacks independence, a high level of corruption, significant government control of the media, serious human rights violations, and the weak rule of law.

Despite these democracy deficits, opposition political parties and civil society NGOs have sometimes been able to mount a successful challenge to the ruling party. Such breakthroughs occurred in Slovakia and Indonesia in 1998, Nigeria in 1999, Croatia and Yugoslavia in 2000, Mexico in 2001, Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, and Kyrgyzstan earlier this year. But these breakthroughs, especially the so-called "colored revolutions" in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, have sent shock-waves through the remaining semi-closed autocracies in the post-communist region as well as in other regions. The leaders of these regimes, alarmed at what they see as a new threat to their power, have stepped up measures to prevent a repetition of any such events in their own countries. This is the political context we face at the present time. It consists of a concerted backlash against internal democracy movements as well as against international democracy assistance, which is being portrayed as an aggressive and illegitimate form of intervention, the purpose of which is not to promote democracy but to overthrow hostile regimes.

The measures being taken to block democracy assistance and undermine independent civil society organizations and opposition parties take a variety of forms. In Uzbekistan, for example, media registration requirements block the publishing of NGO newsletters and other publications; funding restrictions approved last year prevent NGOs from receiving transfers wired to the bank accounts; and the government has created an official association of co-opted NGOs, even as the Ministry of Justice is closing down independent NGOs. The object of the association is to manage civil society, and all funding for NGOs will have to go through it. In addition, some international democracy foundations have been expelled from the country, and criminal charges have just been brought against two employees of Internews, an international media assistance organization.

In Belarus, the government has just issued a decree prohibiting organizations and individuals from receiving foreign technical assistance for purposes deemed "unconstitutional." And for years now it has been systematically preempting effective opposition activity by removing opposition leaders from the political arena, attacking the independent media, destroying civil society organizations, abolishing the autonomy of local government, and controlling and manipulating all aspects of the electoral process. Many of the same steps have been taken in Russia, where last month President Putin announced his opposition to foreign funding of what he deemed the political activities of NGOs. Indeed, just last Friday I received word that the Russian tax police have seized all the funds in the bank account of one of these so-called "political" NGOs. These governments also use visa bans to limit the travel and movement of democracy activists.

Such activities are by no means limited to post-Soviet countries. Egyptian law allows the authorities to block foreign funding and dissolve NGOs by administrative order, restrictions that are compounded by the extra-legal efforts of the security services to harass NGO activities and reject NGO registrations. Proposed legislation in Zimbabwe would bar NGOs from receiving foreign funding or becoming registered if they are involved in issues of governance. And in Venezuela an NGO is being tried on treason charges for having received from my organization a small grant for the purpose of conducting workshops on electoral rights.

The regimes engaged in these efforts to block and even to criminalize democracy assistance are even beginning to cooperate with each other across different regions. The Venezuelan government, for example, has noted with alarm at the revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan and is now embarked on a program of parliamentary collaboration with Belarus based on the principle, in the words of Belarusian MP Mikhail Orda, that "there should be no interference in the foreign affairs and politics of sovereign countries."

Even China, which is a dictatorship more than a hybrid regime, has been alarmed by the Rose and Orange Revolutions and has taken steps to tighten controls on international NGOs it has permitted to work the country. Researchers have reportedly been sent to Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus to assess the role of pro-democracy NGOs and to propose countermeasures. A new unit, the "Foreign NGOs Management Office," has been established in the Foreign Ministry's Bureau of International Organizations with the mandate to review the work of all foreign NGOs in China. A new Regulation on the Management of Foundations requires an "inter-agency review" of all foreign NGOs, the assignment of NGOs that pass scrutiny to a government sponsoring agency, and then the negotiation with the cognizant agency of a performance contract.

The point in recounting all of this is to underline that democracy assistance organizations face a new reality, one that is dramatically different from the conditions in which we operated during the years following the revolutions of 1989. It should remind us that advancing democracy is a struggle, not a process of social engineering undertaken by bureaucrats; and that what people on the front lines need from us is practical assistance and political solidarity. In the end, it is the indigenous democratic activists in these countries who must decide what needs to be done, since they must also take the risks. Our job is to keep our ears close to the ground and to be as responsive as possible to the needs of independent civil-society NGOs and democracy movements in each country.

First, it is necessary to stay engaged and not be frightened off or discouraged by aggressive resistance to our work. Where certain channels of assistance or ways of operating are closed off, we need to find new ways of aiding democrats. In this respect, democracy assistance in some countries in the period ahead could take on some of the features of the cat-and-mouse game that has been underway for years now in China over the use of the Internet, with the government trying to block access to independent websites while activists seek ways to break through the "great wall" of resistance.

This leads to the second point which is communications. It is critical to provide NGOs and activists with independent information. The Internet is a critically important tool that was not available during the struggles in Central Europe during the 1980s. It should be utilized to the fullest, bearing in mind that Email publications are harder to jam than web pages. Email might also be a useful instrument in building coalitions of independent NGOs, which could be an important tactic in developing strategies for protesting government restrictions.

Third, it is important to assist and cooperate with the development of regional initiatives for advancing democracy and responding to the new anti-democratic backlash. In this respect, the Borjomi Declaration issued on August 12 by President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine is highly significant. It calls for broadening the horizon of European and Euro-Atlantic integration to the entire Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian area and for the creation by the leaders of the countries within the region of a new Community of Democratic Choice. In a different vein, activists in Central Asia are looking to take advantage of the recent gains in Kyrgzstan to provide a safe haven for training young leaders and facilitating communications and the circulation of information. This builds upon the experience in Central Europe, where activists in Poland and other new democracies provided "cross-border" assistance in non-democratic neighboring countries.

Fourth, it is necessary to build international networks of support for democracy activists, the very thing that Saad Eddin Ibrahim is trying to do in Egypt. Such networks should be transatlantic to the greatest degree possible, since autocrats often try to play the two sides of the Atlantic against each other. Such networks can protest restrictions on political rights and acts of repression of civil society and provide support to victims of political repression and their families, including moral solidarity, legal assistance, and material sustenance. It will be especially important to organize international campaigns for the release of prisoners, the defense of civil society, and the repeal of repressive political and legal measures. Such networks can also foster the sharing information among democracy assistance organizations and the development of a sense of common purpose.

Indeed, it is the strengthening of this sense of common purpose that could provide a new mission and a raison d'etre for the community of democracy assistance foundations that is assembled here. It is important that we know each other and increase our cooperation. But that is only useful if it advances our common mission in practical ways. The people who look to us for help need it more than ever before. We should not let them down.