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Promoting Democracy: Is Exporting Revolution a Constructive Strategy?

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Promoting Democracy: Is Exporting Revolution a Constructive Strategy? Promoting Democracy: Is Exporting Revolution a Constructive Strategy? Mark R. Beissinger Dissent, Volume 53, Number 1, Winter 2006 (whole No. 222), pp. 18-24 (Article) Published by University of Pennsylvania Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2006.0090 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/438101/summary [ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] POLITICS ABROAD when an upheaval took place in November: ety? Although the split within the Likud Party, Labor Party chair Shimon Peres was defeated initiated by Prime Minister Sharon's turn to and replaced by Amir Peretz. This transformed the center, enhances this possibility, the an- the sleepy party, for Peretz, a dovish, social swer will be known only after the next gen- democratic trade unionist of Moroccan ori- eral election. • gins, was critical not only of the Ashkenazi elite and the neoliberal manifesto of the party, YORAM PERI is a professor at Tel Aviv University. but also of the security ethos so dominant in His book Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Israeli culture at large. But will his call for Military Shapes Israel's Policy will be published this the adoption of a civilian discourse win the winter. He was an adviser to Prime Minister hearts of the electorate in this warring soci- Yitzhak Rabin in the 1970s. Promoting Democracy Is Exporting Revolution a Constructive Strategy? Mark R. Beissinger strategy for promoting democratization. In No- vember 2003, as the Georgian Rose Revolu- tion was just getting underway, President George W. Bush spoke before the National VER THE PAST five years, four success- Endowment for Democracy, where he rede- ful revolutions have occurred in Serbia, fined (once again) the purpose of the Ameri- 0 Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, can invasion of Iraq, calling it the beginning overthrowing pseudodemocratic regimes and of a "global democratic revolution." Since then, bringing to power new coalitions expressing we have seen active efforts by the United commitment to democratic reform. There is States and a number of American-based non- now enormous interest in revolution among governmental organizations (NGOs such as democratic activists throughout the region. The Freedom House, the National Endowment for "colored revolutions" (so named for their adop- Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, tion of "people power" tactics of nonviolent re- the International Republican Institute, and the sistance and their symbolic use of colors to Soros Foundation) to support democratic revo- identify supporters) have inspired oppositional lutions within the post-Soviet region and else- groups in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, where. In October 2004, Bush signed the Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Belarus Democracy Act, which authorizes as- Uzbekistan. Oppositions in places as distant sistance to pro-democracy activism in Belarus, as Lebanon, Egypt, Togo, and Zimbabwe have with the intention of overthrowing the been emboldened by these developments. Like Lukashenka regime. And in May 2005, Bush European monarchs after 1848, post-Soviet traveled to Tbilisi, where he praised the Rose strongmen are now concerned about the Revolution as an example to be emulated transnational spread of revolution to their throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia. fiefdoms. Some have already taken counter- Democratic opposition leaders in Armenia and measures to stave off such a possibility. Post- Azerbaijan (both countries plagued by exten- Soviet Eurasia today is a region consumed by sive electoral fraud and both allies of the the hope and fear of revolutionary change— United States) took heart from Bush's speech, and of its aftermath. seeing in it the possibility that they too might "Colored revolution" has come to the at- receive support for efforts to topple their cor- tention of the U.S. government as well—as a rupt regimes—although senior administration 18 n DISSENT / Winter 2006 POLITICS ABROAD officials were quick to deny that the United post-communist governments (Serbia, Belarus, States was in "the revolution business." Nev- Ukraine, Russia, and Uzbekistan) over their ertheless, neoconservatives have lauded the foreign policy orientations and internal human Bush administration's readiness, in Max Boot's rights practices together with the Bush words, to "apply the lessons of Ukraine" administration's embrace of unilateral efforts throughout the world. As Boot has argued, "The to reshape the world in America's interest have triumph of the Orange Revolution should dis- been responsible for a more aggressive ap- pel the quaint notion still prevalent in many proach toward democratization. New as well Western universities and foreign ministries that is the use of third-party, democracy-promoting democracy is a luxury good suitable for rich NGOs to channel aid to revolutionary causes. countries with a tradition of liberalism stretch- Such organizations in the past acted mainly as ing back centuries. These revolutions re- monitors and informational clearinghouses, veal the hollowness of the cliché that 'democ- mobilizing transnational support in order to racy can't be imposed by outsiders.' . Some- sanction offending behavior, rather than as the times, when dealing with an entrenched dic- financiers and trainers of revolutionaries. Di- tatorship, this requires military intervention of rect external financial and organizational aid the kind that occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan. from third-party countries or from foreign More brittle regimes can be brought down by NGOs was not a significant element in earlier their own people, but even they often need a waves of democratic revolution—as in Portu- little extra shove." gal, for example, or the "People Power" revolu- Recent developments in the four countries tions of East Asia, or the 1989 revolutions in that experienced "colored revolutions," how- Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. ever, raise questions over whether the promo- Some of the NGOs involved enjoy close rela- tion of democratic revolution from abroad sig- tionships with the U.S. government. The Na- nificantly advances the long-term prospects for tional Endowment for Democracy, for instance, democracy—or, alternatively, has unanticipated was established by the Reagan administration and sometimes deleterious effects for demo- as a private, nonprofit organization that chan- cratic development. There are real dangers in nels federal funding to pro-American civil-so- the export of revolution as a strategy for de- ciety groups throughout the world. Others, mocratization: first, the danger that democracy such as the Soros Foundation, have indepen- could come to be viewed as a tool of external dently embraced more confrontational modes statecraft rather than an indigenous develop- of fostering democratic change out of frustra- ment; second, that human rights organizations tion with the progress of democracy in the post- could compromise their ability to act as inde- communist region and under the influence of pendent monitoring organizations if they in- the civil-society communities they serve. volve themselves with specific political move- For the most part, the post-communist "col- ments or come to be identified as "revolution- ored revolutions" were not engineered from ary organizations"; third, that efforts to promote abroad. They relied on local dissatisfaction and democratic revolution could produce intensi- replaced corrupt regimes that maintained fied ethnic conflict and even civil war; and fi- themselves in power through electoral fraud nally, that giving democratic revolution "a little (and in the cases of Milogevic and Kuchma, extra shove" could lead to postrevolutionary regimes that also occasionally practiced politi- situations in which democratic development is cal murder). Few advocates of democracy could highly vulnerable to reversal. deny the euphoria felt in Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia as hundreds of thousands of citizens— HE EMERGENCE of the American govern- in Kyiv, up to a million people—incensed by ment as a "revolutionary state" within the massive electoral irregularities, braved the T world system is, of course, a novelty and threat of violent repression (and inclement marks a departure from its traditional role weather) to reclaim their right to free and fair within the cold war order. Growing conflict elections. between the United States and a number of But while the sources of these revolutions DISSENT / Winter 2006 n 19 POLITICS ABROAD may have been indigenous, support provided pay of the U.S. government or NGOs, in or- by the American government and American- der to train local groups in how to organize a based NGOs was critical to their materializa- democratic revolution. A number of leaders of tion and spread. The U.S. government, for in- the Ukrainian youth movement Pora were stance, spent $41 million promoting anti- trained in Serbia at the Center for Non-Vio- Milogevic civil society groups such as Otpor, lent Resistance, a consulting organization set the student group that spearheaded the up by Otpor activists to instruct youth leaders Serbian Bulldozer Revolution in 2000. The from around the world in how to organize a Clinton administration even erected a series movement, motivate voters, and develop mass of transmitters around the periphery of Serbia actions. "They taught us everything we know," to provide alternative news coverage, and it one leading member of Pora told a Deutsche established a special office
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