The new millennium has been unkind to democracy, but never has the brand suffered greater damage than it did in 2016. The populist winds that have been roiling the world finally reached the Atlantic, marking Britain and the United States’s retreat into nativism. Through the hallowed means of the ballot, Britain voted itself out of the European Union and America elected for president an unvarnished populist with white nationalists in the wing. A quarter century after Francis Fukuyama declared the “end of history” with free market globalisation as the engine to carry the world to a liberal democratic utopia, the twin fears of terror and migration are rehabilitating authoritarianism, giving Fukuyama himself doubts about the future of democracy.
In The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy, Brian Klaas makes a compelling case that the West, for all its virtuous posturing about promoting democracy, has not always matched rhetoric with reality. The author acknowledges that only the West has shown the means and motivation for promoting democracy, empowering democrats in various parts of the world with funding, training and election monitoring. But the commitment, he argues, has not always been consistent and the efforts have been subordinated to short-term concerns. NGOs entrusted with democracy promotion and funded by western governments have often found their work undercut by diplomats from the same governments in the name of political expediency. The West at times has also subverted democracy, directly interfering in elections (as it did in occupied Palestine) or actually overthrowing democratically elected governments (as in Chile and Guatemala).
Klaas notes that western attitudes towards democracy are guided foremost by geopolitical concerns. If a state is geopolitically significant, its mode of governance will not be a barrier to good relations. If its geopolitical value is in doubt, then the West will demand nothing less than absolute commitment to democracy. In most cases, however, the West is content with counterfeit democracy – democracy with all its trappings but none of its substance – as long as the state is deemed geopolitically significant. US and Britain have shown no qualms in allying with dubious regimes in exchange for services rendered in the so-called “war on terror” or in the name of “stability”.
But such choices are not always cynical. How does one deal with a state like Belarus, for example? After a brief dalliance with democracy, in 1994 the former Soviet republic relapsed into authoritarianism when Alexander Lukashenko was elected president. Consequently the country remained under sanctions for years. But this only prompted it to move closer to Russia. In 2016, the West eased sanctions on Belarus in the hopes of weaning it away from Russia. This may or may not work; but legitimate geopolitical concerns have led the West to disregard Lukashenko’s disdain for democracy in the hopes of an uncertain gain.
A similar dilemma has also guided US attitudes toward Thailand, a state prone to frequent coups. In the past, after a coup, the US would rebuke the military and pressure it to relinquish power, even if it was only to a chosen puppet. But after the last coup in 2014, the military has maintained direct control and the US has been reluctant to exert pressure lest it send the junta closer into Chinese arms.
With an increasingly assertive Russia and China, it is understandable that the West would try not to antagonise potential allies. What is not understandable, however, is when the West goes out of its way to alienate democrats in the hopes of courting wavering authoritarians. In the spring of 2012, when the military in Thailand cracked down on protests, killing 90 and injuring 2,000, the US state department under Hillary Clinton blamed the protesters; in Syria, when the regime repeatedly flaunted ceasefires and spurned proposals for political transition, John Kerry blamed the opposition.
In the long term, these attitudes will have consequences. If one day any of these regimes is overthrown, the people are unlikely to see the West as an ally. The West has already alienated many with its cynical use of democracy and human rights as cudgels to be used against ideological opponents and disregarded where inconvenient. In Syria, for example, where there are no strategic interests at stake, the West has been perfectly willing to abandon democratic forces and overlook what the UN has described as the “crime of extermination”.
Equally significant in undermining the West’s authority has been the quality of its own democracy. The crisis of the euro zone has unfolded in front of a global audience; American democracy, too, appears dynastic and corrupt. In a gloomy chapter, Klaas – who as project director ran the successful gubernatorial campaign for democrat Mark Dayton of Minnesota – gives his bleak assessment. He notes that through gerrymandering, gridlock and out-of-control campaign financing, the US political system has been thoroughly rigged. In the 2014 midterm elections, 34 out of 50 states did not have a single competitive seat, and out of 79 million votes cast only 5 million were in competitive districts. Since the passage of the Citizens United ruling in 2010, which lifted limits on campaign donations, and with the rise of Super PACs (Political Action Committees), America’s already flawed democracy has been debilitated even further.
This decline has been exploited by the resurgent Russia and China. Both have sophisticated propaganda operations that are dedicated to exposing western hypocrisy and presenting themselves as an alternative model. Russia’s RT and China’s CCTV hammer this message each day through their vast global operations. They have found particularly receptive audiences in the Middle East and Latin America.
But these models only look good from afar. No one in Ukraine is pining for the Russian model and protesters in Hong Kong have explicitly rejected Chinese Communist Party control. The ideals of liberal democracy do still hold appeal. And Latvia and Tunisia present successful examples of the transition to democracy.
Tunisia’s example is particularly instructive as it is the only state that has emerged from the Arab Spring with a functioning democracy when others were overwhelmed by counter-revolution. A main reason, Klaas notes, is that unlike in Iraq, where the de-baathification process excluded a large segment of society that had actual experience of governing and administration, in Tunisia, the revolutionaries showed magnanimity and did not exclude the entire previous structure. This way, not only was Tunisia able to gain from their administrative expertise, it also avoided creating a powerful hostile force invested in its failure.
For Klaas, democracy promotion is worthwhile, but he believes the idea has been tainted by poor implementation and by its unfortunate association with George W Bush’s interventionist policies. Klaas rejects the neoconservative view that democracy can be imposed by force. But he does not rule out force as a legitimate means of defending an existing democracy should forces of authoritarianism imperil it. Ultimately, however, he believes carrots are more useful in promoting democracy than sticks, as the example of the European Union shows. With membership conditional upon democratic governance, it has encouraged states to consolidate democracy and, in turn, membership of the EU has brought them major economic dividends.
Does all this sound quixotic? Klaas addresses this question in his response to the common realist and conservative criticisms of democracy promotion. Sometimes Klaas sidesteps fraught questions and sometimes his answers fail to persuade. But he is conscious of the limitations of his argument and he writes without illusions. He offers 10 principles, illustrated with case studies, that can ensure that to the extent that the commitment to democracy is real, the outcome may be successful.
The book is replete with interesting anecdotes from Klaas’s visits around the world as a researcher and election monitor. It is written with precision and learning, with lively prose and dark humour. His proposals combine the conviction of an idealist with the experience of a technocrat. At a time when democracy is in retreat and the world seems headed for turbulence, this book can be the shot that revives this ailing patient.
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is a lecturer in Digital Journalism at the University of Stirling and a contributor editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books.
