National Endowment for Democracy
Publications >> Staff Testimonies and Presentations
Speeches, Presentations

David Lowe,
Vice President of Government and External Relations, NED

September 18, 2003 		“Expanding Democracy Around the World: Prospects and Challenges”
by David Lowe, Vice President of Government and External Relations
Address to the Savannah Council on World Affairs
September 18, 2003

I am honored to have been invited to kick off your new season, particularly in light of the interesting lineup of speakers that I saw on your website. Of course, it is always a pleasure to come home and see old friends. This community’s reputation ranges far and wide, enhanced no doubt by groups such as yours which provide an important link between Savannah and the world.

I would like to begin my talk on the spread of democracy not in Baghdad, or Teheran or Kabul, where intense conversations are no doubt taking place about the subject even as we sit here tonight, but rather in the Czech capital of Prague. Twenty three years ago following the American Presidential election of 1980, I was asked by the United States Information Agency to travel from London, where I was then living, to speak to the CTK news agency about the election. Of course, CTK was a news agency in only the most tortured sense of that term, serving as it did a thoroughly Stalinized regime that followed the Soviet line closely on all matters. It was a very tense time in the region, with rumors flying about a possible Soviet invasion of Poland following the creation there of the Solidarity Trade Union Movement. One of the first things I heard there was speculation about Czech troops joining in such an action, and learned that there was widespread support for it in light of the participation of Polish troops in the crushing of the Prague spring thirteen years earlier.

It was an interesting if nerve wracking experience for my wife and me. We were treated to three days of silent harassment, followed everywhere by secret police, who were not in the least discreet about their presence. But we were also aware of the existence of a small but determined dissident community spearheaded by a group known as Charter 77 that was circulating pamphlets on human rights, an action that could, and did, bring serious prison time, and that sponsored artistic performances that were not sanctioned by the state, one of which we managed to attend.

Exactly nine years to the day after I gave that talk, the Husak regime in Czechoslovakia fell in a revolution that was as bloodless as it was swift. The so-called Velvet Revolution was led by that same Charter 77 movement whose stirrings my wife and I had picked up on that trip. Four years later, Czechoslovakia split apart amidst concerns that the new state of Slovakia, lacking the democratic tradition of its Czech counterpart, would revert to the kind of dictatorship that had oppressed its people during both the Nazi and Communist periods.

By now, you may have guessed why I have opened a talk on the expansion of democracy with this dramatic, albeit unique, example. For that same country that became such a symbol of crushed hopes in the 1960s, not that long ago in the scheme of things, has emerged as one of the leading democracies on the European continent. Today, not only is the Czech Republic a member of NATO, it is poised to formally join the European Union next year. Slovakia, though slower to make the transition to democracy, is preparing to join both NATO and the European Union.

Significantly, my organization, the National Endowment for Democracy, works routinely with non-governmental organizations from those two countries, not so much to help consolidate democracy in them, since this has already been achieved, but rather to help those countries further east that are struggling to make the transition. And we heard recently that a serious effort is underway in the Czech Republic to create a fund for democracy, not unlike my own organization, through which the government would promote democracy outside its borders.

When I was in Prague in 1980 speaking to a government run press agency and dodging the secret police, little could I have imagined that within a generation, full democracy would become a reality.

The Third Wave

But not only does history work in unpredictable ways, we are rarely able to see the path it is taking until well after the fact. By the time I gave that speech in 1980, the world was well into what the political scientist Samuel Huntington has termed the “Third Wave” of democracy, encompassing a period that began in the mid-1970s and whose end many commentators believe has not yet been reached. According to Prof. Huntington, this democratic wave began in Portugal, spread first across Southern Europe to Spain and Greece, shifted to Latin America before taking down the Berlin Wall and moving on to parts of Africa and Asia.

What has been its impact? Some numbers can help us appreciate the scope of the Third Wave of democracy (and I am grateful for Professor Larry Diamond, a pioneer in the area of democracy research, for these compilations): when it began in 1974, of the 150 existing countries, only 41 were democracies. Of the remaining 109, about half are democratic today. Of the 45 new states created since the Third Wave began, almost ¾ are democracies. And there’s more: the overwhelming number of states that became democratic during the Third Wave have remained so. Only 14 of the 125 democracies that have existed during the Third Wave have reverted to authoritarianism, and in nine of these, democracy has been subsequently restored. One more encouraging statistic: of the 36 countries that the United Nations Development Program classifies as having “low human development,” nearly one of three is a democracy.

Let me make it clear that by “democracy,” I am referring to those countries where the principal positions of political power are filled through regular, free, fair, and competitive elections such that the will of the voters is reflected in the outcome and, if you don’t like what they do in office, you can, as they say in Brooklyn and in parts of New Jersey, “throw the bums out.”

Now, I realize that many of you might not find this so impressive. After all, isn’t it possible to have free and fair elections simultaneously with violations of civil liberties, official corruption, and lack of protections for the rights of minorities? In fact, one could point to a number of countries where this is in fact the case.

So let us stipulate that free and fair elections (and keep in mind that I do NOT include as democracies those countries where dictators seek to legitimize themselves by conducting sham elections) are but a first step, albeit an important first step, toward achieving a system of government that protects minority rights, and promotes respect for the rule of law, free association, clean government, civilian control of the military, government accountability, etc. I call this “liberal” democracy, and it is the kind of political system that organizations such as mine both here and abroad are working toward helping to bring about.

But even if one is emphasizing the “liberal” part of democracy, the overall pattern is encouraging. In its annual survey of freedom in the world, the human rights organization Freedom House measures various aspects of freedom, both civil and political, classifying countries as “free,” “not free,” or “partly free.” In 1973, not free countries outnumbered free countries by 69 to 43, roughly 3 to 2 (with 38 countries receiving the partly free designation). Today, the reverse is true, with free countries outnumbering not free countries 89 to 48, nearly 2-1, an all time high.

Having outlined for you the dramatic growth over the past quarter century or so, of both democracy and freedom around the world, I’d like in the time remaining to focus on two questions:

First, what are the prospects for the continued spread of democracy?

And second, why does it matter?

To gauge the prospects for the spread of democracy, we must first account for the success it has achieved over the past quarter of a century.

Democracy’s Successes

For many years political scientists have emphasized the importance of economic factors to the ability of countries to make the transition to democracy and sustain it. But this needs to be qualified, because what we really are talking about is not so much per capita income as it is those other benefits that derive from economic development, namely, rising levels of education; the growth of a middle class; the creation of a pluralistic civil society, meaning voluntary groups and organizations independent of the government; increasing levels of participation of women; and the emergence of a democratic political culture.

One interesting development during the third wave of democracy has been the number of poor countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, that have joined the club, including Benin, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Bangladesh and Nepal. And what makes this most impressive is that survey data is beginning to confirm what many democracy advocates have argued for years, namely, that democracy is not simply a western value. For example, in a poll conducted in 12 mainly poor African countries in 2001, about 2 of 3 say that democracy is “always preferable” to authoritarian rule and the same number reject one-party rule. An even higher number, 80%, reject military or one-man rule. In Latin America, where electoral democracies have often been plagued by problems of governance, support for democracy is a bit more ambivalent. Still, nearly 3 in 5 believe that democracy is always preferable, and only 15 per cent prefer an authoritarian regime. In East Asia and the post-Communist countries of Eastern Europe, the numbers supporting democracy are even higher.

The overwhelming conclusion is that after all the many isms the world has experienced over the past century, democracy is the only legitimate political doctrine that remains, or, as Churchill famously put it, the worst form of government except for all the others. Why else would dictators such as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Alexander Lukashenka of Belarus, or even Fidel Castro seek to cloak their authoritarian rule in democratic clothing by holding “elections”?

The Indian Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who first came to world attention with his study of the relationship between democracy and the absence of famine, argues that of all the achievements of the twentieth century, the rise of democracy is the most significant. This has resulted largely from an attitudinal shift that has made the choice of democracy the metaphoric equivalent of the “default” setting in a computer program. “In considering democracy for a country that does not have it and where many people may not yet have the opportunity to consider it for actual practice,” Sen contends, “it is now presumed that the people involved would approve of it once it becomes a reality in their lives.”

In his celebrated speech at London’s Westminster Palace twenty-one years ago, President Reagan offered a simple but eloquent argument for democracy:
“It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity?”
Obstacles to Democracy

Lest I be accused of painting too rosy a picture, let me point out that democracy, which we take so for granted, faces many obstacles, particularly in countries that lack democratic traditions. One thinks of situations where ethnic and tribal divisions are so dominant that electoral and governing coalitions are virtually impossible to put together, where political parties are so weak that the wishes of citizens are unable to be transmitted to decision makers, and where governments are so lacking in checks and balances that leaders can and do plunder their economies in order to enrich themselves and their families, or punish with impunity those who speak out against them.

As a result, there are vast areas of the world where freedom and self-government continue to be denied. This so-called “democracy gap” is particularly striking in the countries of the Arab world, not one of which can be considered democratic. Because all countries in this category have predominantly Muslim populations, there is a tendency to blame religion for the gap. But that would ignore the reality that many non-Arab countries with Muslim majorities are, in fact, electoral democracies. In a fascinating article in the current edition of the Journal of Democracy, two respected political scientists who have examined the 47 Muslim majority states in the world conclude that not only do many countries in that category meet the test of electoral democracy, a number of them are what they term “overachievers,” i.e., states which have achieved democracy in spite of low per capita income levels. Among those included in this category are Senegal, Mali, Bangladesh, and Indonesia.

Nonetheless, when it comes to the Arab world, the opposite is the case, namely, that democracy is unexpectedly absent even in those countries with high levels of per capita income, a variable, as I have pointed out, that otherwise correlates strongly with democracy.

Let me read from the conclusion of the Arab Human Development Report issued last year by the United Nations Development Programme:
“There is a substantial lag between Arab countries and other regions in terms of participatory governance. The wave of democracy that transformed governance in the 1980s and 1990s has barely reached the Arab States. This freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development.”
How do we account for the lack of democracy in Arab countries? Let’s go back to the argument that economic development correlates with democratization. There is one exception to this rule, and that is in those countries where virtually all economic growth can be accounted for by a single commodity, usually oil. In these countries, the easy income from oil has retarded the growth of an independent business sector while enabling authoritarian rulers both to buy off their populations without having to tax them and to invest heavily in state security structures that stifle political dissent. This pattern, while existing outside the Middle East, has been particularly characteristic of regimes we know all too well.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has also worked to the benefit of the region’s authoritarian regimes, by providing them the opportunity to divert potential dissent against them by channeling it against others, such as the U.S., for its support of Israel. That is why the UNDP report is so significant. It was written entirely by Arab scholars, advised by policy makers throughout the region, exhibiting the quality of self-criticism that has been all to rare in that part of the world. In this vein let me recommend a web site, the invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute, which makes a point of highlighting liberal voices in the region, which are so frequently drowned out by state-controlled media.

Indeed, one should not think that movement toward democracy is impossible in Arab countries. There are, in fact, small but significant signs of progress in countries such as Yemen, where opposition groups freely criticize the president and elections held last April were praised by western monitors; and in Bahrain, where parliamentary elections were held last year for the first time in 30 years, where women participate both in voting and in standing for election, and which now allows genuinely independent trade unions.

And though there are many ways to look at what is happening today in Iraq that can justify both hope and deep concern, one thing is clear: tyrants in the region and elsewhere are looking at the situation there with great fear. As the Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis notes: “An open and democratic regime in Iraq, inevitably with a Shiite majority, could arouse new hopes among the oppressed peoples of the region, and offer a corresponding threat to their oppressors.”

Of course, I do not want to leave the impression that a democracy deficit exists in only one part of the world. As we know, there is the problem of failed states, notably on the African continent, that breeds war and misery, not to mention terrorism. But even in Africa there are signs of progress and hope, from the breakthrough in South Africa, which will celebrate its first decade of freedom next year, to the more recent one in Kenya, where just last year the political opposition was able to replace the long ruling dictator, Daniel Arap Moi, with a new leadership whose ambitious platform includes tackling corruption, economic and social issues, and political reform.

One of the most, if not the most conspicuous democracy holdouts, is the country with the largest population on the planet. I am talking, of course, of China, whose example should give pause to those who argue that economic growth and liberalization automatically lead to democracy. The Chinese Communist Party, after all, continues to handpick its rulers while imprisoning those who advocate for free expression, independent political parties, and worker rights. Nonetheless, it is difficult to see how the rise of a middle class, which is inevitable, will not have a long term impact in creating the kind of political awareness that demands accountability. And one should not underestimate the impact of either Chinese democracy in Taiwan or of the recent events in Hong Kong. The large demonstrations there have had the impact of successfully shelving China’s planned enforcement of a potentially draconian anti-subversion law, giving some credibility to the proposition voiced by a few commentators when Hong Kong was handed over to China by Great Britain five years ago that it would have as much an impact on China as China would have on it.

The other key question related to the prospects for democracy in the world is whether those countries that have achieved democratic breakthroughs in recent years will become consolidated democracies. In so many of them, the institutions of governance remain fragile: weak political parties, overly centralized economies, corrupt leaders, etc. The part of Prof. Huntington’s historical analysis that is not so often referenced is the idea that the first two waves of democracy were accompanied by what he called “reverse waves.” Although we have not experienced this phenomenon in any significant way this time around, few of the third wave democracies have been completely consolidated to the point where, like Portugal, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Chile, it is unlikely that they could revert to their nondemocratic past.

Role of the International Community

That is where the international community comes into play, not just through democracy foundations in the U.S. and elsewhere, but also through the efforts of established democracies and regional bodies such as the European Union and the Organization of American States to support the development of democratic institutions both at the governmental and non-governmental levels.

Which brings us to the question of why it matters so much that this wave of democracy not be reversed or that democracy be allowed to spread to new countries. There are few postulates that are as accepted among students of international relations as the one holding that democracies do not fight one another, except through words and occasional trade rifts. (Some recent examples will remain unspoken.) For it remains true that democracies do not export terrorism, or proliferate weapons of mass destruction, both current major national security concerns. Nor do they create mass flows of refugees, a concern of many of our allies, including new and fragile democracies that could be easily destabilized under such circumstances. By and large, democracies make the best protectors of human rights. And although the relationship is not absolute, there is some very compelling evidence that democracies are far more reliable than other systems in improving the economic prospects of their citizens.

As former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has observed:
“Dictators impose; democracy is chosen. Nor is democracy a religion, but it is a faith that has lifted the lives of people in every corner of the globe.”
So let me close with the observation that while we fight the war on terrorism through the traditional instruments of the military and law enforcement, we should not ignore the impact of assisting those individuals, groups, and governments working to make the transition to democracy. Although the benefits are so self-evident to us, we need to be mindful of the fact that democracy is not an easy system to sustain, particularly for countries whose people lack those habits of the heart that are its natural foundation. And yet, democracy has made more progress in the past quarter century than anyone could have imagined. Let that thought be our inspiration for the important tasks that lie ahead.

|