Promoting Democracy: Is Exporting 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 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. as well—as a rupt regimes—although senior administration

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officials were quick to deny that the United post-communist (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 . 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

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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 in Budapest to co- Welle correspondent. After the Rose and Or- ordinate assistance to Milogevic's opponents. ange revolutions, Georgian and Ukrainian Georgian social movements first formed links youth movements began to challenge Otpor's with Otpor in spring 2003 (six months before consulting monopoly. Pora activists even joked the Rose Revolution), when civil-society ac- about creating a new Comintern for democratic tivists from Georgia visited Belgrade on a trip revolution. In fact, Vladislav Kaskiv, the leader sponsored by the Soros Foundation. With fi- of Pora, met with President Bush at the nancial and logistical help from abroad, Otpor Bratislava summit and received the president's activists trained Georgian activists in tech- support for creating a center to aid the spread niques of nonviolent resistance. The local of democratic revolution to Russia, Belarus, Georgian branch of the Soros Foundation Moldova, and Azerbaijan. Ukrainian, Georgian, helped support Kmara (the Georgian version and Serbian activists have developed modules of Otpor) out of its $350,000 election sup- for teaching the art of nonviolent revolution. port program, and Kmara and other opposi- These modern professional revolutionaries tion groups received significant financial and have turned up with increasing frequency in organizational aid from the National Demo- Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. cratic Institute. In Ukraine, the U.S. govern- ment spent $65 million promoting democracy OME DEMOCRACY-PROMOTION NGOs such in the years immediately preceding the Or- as Freedom House have embraced non- ange Revolution—most of it channeled to S violent resistance as the most promising Ukrainian NGOs and social movements that path for promoting democratic change around opposed Kuchma—through third-party NGOs the world. A March 2005 Freedom House re- such as Freedom House or the National En- port by Adrian Karatnycky, senior scholar at dowment for Democracy. The United States Freedom House, and Peter Ackerman, chair of Agency for International Development its board of trustees, argues that the greatest (USAID), for instance, granted millions of long-term gains in democratization have oc- dollars to the Poland-America-Ukraine Coop- curred as a result of nonviolent "people-power" eration Initiative (PAUCI), administered by movements rather than "pacted" democratic Freedom House. PAUCI then sent these transitions from above. They base their find- funds to Ukrainian NGOs associated with the ings on a simple correlational analysis of Free- anti-Kuchma opposition. dom House scores over the last several de- Indeed, fostering democratic revolution has cades. Karatnycky and Ackerman call for a now become an international business. In ad- "paradigm shift" in democracy-promotion that dition to the millions of dollars of aid involved, would target aid to those groups that make numerous consulting operations have arisen, nonviolent civic resistance a priority, encour- many of them led by the former revolutionar- age broad-based coalitions among opposition ies themselves. Since the Serbian revolution, forces, transfer knowledge about civil resis- for instance, Otpor activists have become, as tance to opposition groups, invest in alterna- one Serbian analyst put it, "a modern type of tive media networks, and wield external sanc- mercenary," traveling the world, often in the tions to constrain the repression of democratic

2,0 n DISSENT / Winter 2006 POLITICS ABROAD opponents. Ackerman himself is a major expert In view of the unpredictable outcomes of on nonviolent resistance and founder of the In- revolutionary crises, promoting a wave of demo- ternational Center on Nonviolent Conflict, cratic revolutions is a form of brinkmanship— which conducts training workshops on promot- the equivalent of playing a high-stakes game ing democracy and human rights. His film of poker with democracy. And where sharp cul- Bringing Down A Dictator, a PBS documentary tural differences are embodied in state insti- detailing the overthrow of Milogevic, has be- tutions, the political crises provoked by mobi- come something of a best-seller among would- lized civic groups may easily flow over into eth- be democratic revolutionaries. nic violence. For instance, civil war was only narrowly averted in the Georgian, Ukrainian, HE PROBLEM WITH the Karatnycky/ and Kyrgyz cases. There was nothing inevitable Ackerman argument (and with Boot's about their felicitous outcomes. They de- T wholesale embrace of democratic revo- pended on the political restraint of the actors lution for export) is not that revolution is an involved—including the restraint of the dicta- inappropriate mode of democratization or that tors themselves, none of whom ordered wide- the strength of civil-society movements and spread repression. As the Uzbek case demon- popular mobilization are unimportant for suc- strates, that same restraint is not likely to be cessful democratization. On the contrary, a evident in most places where dictatorial re- large body of literature in recent years has gimes are entrenched. Thus, one of the unin- documented how mass movements and pres- tended consequences of the attempt to export sure from below have played a more critical democratic revolution could be the inadvert- role than is usually recognized in democrati- ent stimulation of repression, ethnic conflict, zation. Rather, the problem lies in the conse- and even civil war. quences of packaging, exporting, and spread- Of course, Karatnycky and Ackerman most ing democratic revolution like a module across definitely do not advocate the violent seizure a broad array of settings, irrespective of local of power. They are consistent proponents of circumstances. nonviolent resistance. Their correlations show For one thing, as those who study revolu- that when movements turn to violence, the tion know, the outcomes of revolutionary up- long-term prospects for democratic develop- surges are highly unpredictable and just as of- ment sharply decline. The catch lies in the ten lead to failure and prolonged civil war as unpredictability of violence within revolution- to democratic success. Failed revolution can ary crises. In the Kyrgyz "Tulip Revolution" of in fact be worse for democratic development March 2005, for example, ten thousand oppo- than the protracted evolution of civil society— sition enthusiasts, drawing inspiration from because widespread repression can lead to the recent revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and decimation of democratic forces. Some observ- responding to fraudulent parliamentary elec- ers, for instance, attribute the Uzbek tions, violently seized a number of towns in government's radically repressive response to southern Kyrgyzstan. When they attempted to the May 2005 protests in Andijan, where spread their revolt to the capital Bishkek, thugs Uzbek government troops by some accounts associated with the regime attacked them, killed more than five hundred people, to the leading to the storming of the presidential pal- panicky sense that the spread of revolution in ace and subsequently to riots that decimated Central Asia had to be stopped. Andijan lies much of central Bishkek. The Tulip Revolu- immediately across the border from the Osh tion occurred almost accidentally and in con- valley, where the Kyrgyz revolution originated. tradiction to the plans of opposition leaders. By inflicting an overwhelming blow against dis- And, though it was inspired by the example of sent, Karimov sought to demonstrate that he nonviolent revolution in Serbia, Georgia, and would not tolerate the same outcome as in Ukraine, it succeeded only because it was vio- Kyrgyzstan, where President Askar Akaev was lent, because the structural conditions for a overthrown in part because of his refusal to successful "people power" revolt were lacking. apply significant force against his opponents. The Kyrgyz opposition was at most capable of

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turning out fifteen thousand people in dem- so in Ukraine and Georgia. But we don't know onstrations—hardly enough to force Akaev's what the long-term prospects for democracy resignation through nonviolent disruption. are in any of these countries, and recent trends Nor were the results of the Tulip Revolu- have raised doubts about democratic stability. tion particularly democratizing. It was more a Vojislav Kogtunica returned to power in shift in power among clans than a democratic March 2004 as prime minister, after slightly breakthrough. The seizure of power occurred less than four years as president of Serbia, by several days after the new, fraudulently elected forming a coalition with Milogevic's Socialist Parliament was sworn in. In a deal brokered Party of Serbia—the very political force that by the provisional government's leader, the Bulldozer Revolution aimed to overthrow. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the fraudulently elected Indeed, Serbian president Boris Tadic has re- parliamentarians were allowed to remain in cently accused the Kogtunica government of place, thus undermining the original rationale reviving the political atmosphere of the 1990s, for the revolution. Bakiyev subsequently ran in and many leading liberals have expressed dis- a presidential election in which he captured may with the direction in which the country is 89 percent of the vote. Corruption and the pen- moving. Kogtunica's government, for example, etration of organized criminal groups into the has dropped criminal charges against Kyrgyz government remain prevalent under the Milogevic's son and lifted an international war- Bakiyev administration, and efforts to pursue rant against his wife. It has failed to live up to official wrongdoings led recently to the dis- its obligations to turn over war criminals such missal of the country's chief prosecutor. as Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to in- The Kyrgyz experience suggests the pos- ternational authorities. Human Rights Watch sible consequences of stimulating revolution- has documented a wave of violence against mi- ary democratic change where the conditions norities in Serbia since 2003 (including physi- for civic activity are weak. Karatnycky and cal assaults, attacks on religious and cultural Ackerman are aware that their statistical asso- buildings, and cemetery desecration) to which ciation between the strength of nonviolent civic the authorities have turned a blind eye. An- movements and long-term gains in democrati- other report by the Organization for Security zation was not controlled for the influence of and Cooperation in Europe singled out Serbia levels of income, education, or other factors for its high levels of corruption and lack of ju- widely known to be associated with stable dicial independence, lumping it together with democratic development. But these factors Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. may be, as Boot contends, less important in the making of democratic revolution when de- SIMILAR THERMIDORIAN reaction ap- mocratization is given "a little extra shove" from pears to have taken shape in Ukraine outside or when it occurs in significant part as A in September 2005 when the coalition the result of modular change—due, that is, to that had sustained the Orange Revolution un- the cross-national influence of successful ex- raveled completely. Yushchenko's chief politi- amples elsewhere. The result, however, is likely cal adviser, Oleksandr Zinchenko (head of to be a "democratic" revolution in contexts Yushchenko's 2004 election campaign), re- where the structural conditions for democracy signed, claiming that corruption "is now even are lacking. worse than before." Stunned by the resigna- Even in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine the tion, Yushchenko fired his entire cabinet, which long-term stability of democratic change pro- had been consumed by behind-the-scenes duced from these revolutions is in doubt. Po- fighting between populist prime minister Yulia litical freedoms improved in all three of these Tymoshenko (Yushchenko's ally during the Or- countries in the immediate wake of revolution. ange Revolution) and chocolate magnate Petro That is to be expected whenever a repressive Poroshenko (head of the National Security regime is overthrown. According to Freedom Council) for control over key media and indus- House's own ratings, the progress has been trial assets. In an astounding reversal, more evident in Serbia and considerably less Yushchenko then forged an alliance with his

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erstwhile rival Viktor Yanukovych (whose elec- Some, like human rights activist Davit toral manipulations had prompted the Orange Zurabishvili, who ran Tbilisi's Liberty Institute Revolution in the first place) to ensure the elec- (a human rights center that played a critical tion of his choice for prime minister. Part of role in making the Rose Revolution), have left the deal with Yanukovych included formal Saakashvili's parliamentary group over concerns promises by Yushchenko not to open criminal about the direction in which the country is cases against those involved in perpetrating evolving. electoral fraud in 2004 and to expand parlia- mentary immunity to local deputies, thereby N SHORT, democratic development remains protecting criminal structures. The achieve- under serious question in all of the coun- ments of the Orange Revolution have today I tries that experienced "colored revolution." been placed in doubt. Yushchenko's popular- Moreover, the effects of the "colored revolu- ity has plummeted, and many of those who tions" on other countries so far have been far helped to make the revolution now find them- from positive, as authoritarian regimes have selves in opposition. Of course, revolutionary cracked down on democratic opponents, closed coalitions are always fragile formations and down or monitored more closely relations with typically begin to disintegrate once the revolu- human rights NGOs, and attempted to isolate tionaries take power. As the Serbian and Ukrai- themselves from transnational influences. In nian cases suggest, a strategy of external en- the Russian case, the emergence of youth couragement for a broad coalition among op- movements favoring "colored revolution" in- position forces may indeed aid the overthrow spired the Putin regime to organize its own

of dictators. But it does not promote stability countermovement—Ours (Nashi) —which is or predictability in the democratic evolution of strongly anti-American and attacks the influ- postrevolutionary governments. ence of foreign ideologies (particularly liberal- In Georgia, democratic revolutionaries have ism) on Russian society. The role of NGOs been attempting to transform what amounts to such as the Soros Foundation and Freedom a failed state into a functioning democracy House in aiding democratic revolutionaries has within a short period of time—a daunting task precipitated a backlash in a number of post- in a society where, in many areas, electricity Soviet states, which have begun to view them functions for only an hour a day, and large as revolutionary organizations. The Soros Foun- swaths of the country remain outside the dation, for instance, no longer operates in Be- government's control. More than a fifth of the larus, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan population has abandoned Georgia due to the precisely because of growing hostility from host dire conditions there, and most live below the governments; in other countries their ability to poverty line. President Mikhail Saakashvili has work effectively has been undermined. In the engaged in a concerted campaign against cor- wake of the latest , the tran- ruption and contraband, initiated a major road- snational NGO presence within the Eurasian building effort, and overthrown the local sa- region is waning. Rather than active engage- trap in the enclave of Ajaria, bringing the re- ment with nondemocratic societies in order to gion back under Tbilisi's sway. But this has encourage the emergence of democratic forc- hardly solved the deeper problems of the es, what we see is the increasing isolation of country's territorial integrity, ethnic division, authoritarian regimes, even where the pros- rampant lawlessness, and corruption. pects are remote for successful democratizing Saakashvili's increasingly authoritarian drift and revolution. This is not likely to be a recipe for his emphasis on ensuring territorial integrity promoting the long-term prospect of democ- over civil liberties (opposition figures and in- racy. dependent journalists have been harassed, a Perhaps the United States would do well to subtle censorship operates, and police torture learn a lesson from its rival in the cold war, is still practiced) have spawned fears among a which also tried to export revolution, though not number of his erstwhile revolutionary allies of the democratic variety. The attempt by pro- about the potential "Putinization" of Georgia. fessional revolutionaries to stimulate global revo-

DISSENT / Winter 2006 n 23 POLITICS ABROAD lution and provide "a little extra shove" to what derstand and could not control. Having already they envisioned as the march of history, and entered the democratic revolution business, the even to engage in externally induced regime- United States finds itself facing similar dilem- change through military means, transformed mas. Let us hope, for the sake of democracy, their movement into a tool of state power, per- that the results prove better. • verted its goals and meaning, generated a se- ries of unstable postrevolutionary regimes, and MARK R. BEISSINGER is a professor of political ultimately unleashed forces that it did not un- science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

From Real Estate to Nation-State Who Will Lead Afghanistan?

Charles Norchi leaders were nurtured and empowered by a Kalashnikov culture. Crossing the Khyber Pass, the young com- mander Abdul Haq, who had left Kabul Uni- HANS, KINGS, and conquerors—these are versity to oppose the Soviet occupation, said, the leaders Afghans have mostly known. "Afghanistan can be a democracy when the KThe legacies of Alexander the Mace- occupiers are gone, and when we have a new donian, Genghis Khan, the Soviet Army, the generation of leaders who can lead without the Mujahadin, and finally the Taliban and Osa- gun alone, and without the Qur'an alone." In ma bin Laden share one feature: leadership October 2001, even as an American air strike based on power and divorced from authority— attempted to rescue him, Abdul Haq was cap- or with only the Qur'an as the authorizing sym- tured and executed by the Taliban while on an bol of governance. Invariably, the outcomes ill-advised secret mission—killed by the have been cumulative human rights abuses and Kalashnikov culture that he could not escape. what I call disvelopment, that is, the unravel- Through the 1980s, for many in the West, ing of the little development that existed. A Afghanistan held a romantic image of a land common denominator in the repetitive failures of Kipling and Kim, where turbaned freedom of governance, human rights, and economic fighters crossed deserts, mountains, and Cen- development in Afghanistan has been bad lead- tral Asian steppes to fight the foreign occupi- ership. ers. So long as the Soviets were in Afghanistan, As a journalist in Peshawar, Pakistan, on it was the good jihad. It was on the battlefields the rim of the Afghan war of the 1980s, I was of Afghanistan that our cold war was won. But fortunate to spend time with the late anthro- a price was paid in human dignity—by the poor pologist Louis Dupree, whose book Afghani- and marginalized who became refugees, the stan had become required cold war reading. many victims of torture, the innocent villagers "This place has always been more real estate who were massacred, and by every Afghan who than nation-state," he said. "They are wonder- has since stepped on a land mine. ful people, with a rich history and culture, and During that period, Commander Ahmad often below the surface, some fine leaders— Shah Massood, who became known as the Lion the glue that holds the thing together." The fine of the Pansjhir Valley, was an enlightened leaders could not operate above the surface be- statesman as much as a military leader. He cause this land was on everyone's way to some- built schools and clinics, implemented a tax place else; it was a pawn in the games of ex- system in the region under his control, and oc- ternal powers that imposed leaders. Afghan casionally negotiated truces with the Soviets.

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