America as a Developing Country
Also in Zimbabwe, Ireland, Lithuania, Russia (yes, even Russia)...
My wife and I recently returned from a vacation in Australia, a land of beautiful beaches, other natural splendors, kangaroos galore and remarkably friendly people concerned about what America’s current course means for their country.
[Continue Reading]Some Thoughts on Vipers, Strongmen, Patience and Small Steps
We can’t view the news these days without finding fuel for despair. Nonetheless, I’d like to draw on my nearly forty years of advising on foreign aid for democracy, the rule of law and human rights around the world to offer ten positive points about American democracy in these troubled times.
These thoughts are not predictions. I see all sorts of reasons to see a dark future. But I don’t see how giving up does us any good.
1. We’re comparatively fortunate. Yes, really. As I sketch below, foreign societies burdened by poverty, poor education, repression and histories far worse than ours have overcome more daunting circumstances to launch, protect or restore democracy. If they can overcome, so can we.
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Over the course of my international development career, one thing that always amazed me about America was how blessed we were by nature. Abundant natural resources. Farms that could feed the world. Massive oceans and two friendly neighbors bordering us.
Yes, we certainly had our share of natural catastrophes. But, fairly or not, our relative ability to cope with them contrasted with that of so many countries constantly cursed by droughts, floods, typhoons, oppressive heat or petrifying cold that regularly left their peoples homeless or lifeless. Though our disaster responses were occasionally disasters – recall Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans – we at least knew what we should prepare for and had the capacity to respond.
Lately, we’re not looking quite so lucky or so able to adapt.
[Continue Reading]For 40 years, the U.S. government has ignored what sorts of democracy promotion work — and which ones don’t
[This opinion piece, which in its original form can be accessed here, appeared in the “Made by History” section of the Washington Post.]
Perspective by Stephen Golub
July 4, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
Stephen Golub has taught courses on legal and democratic development at Berkeley law school and Central European University’s public policy school. He has edited several volumes and published approximately 40 papers relevant to these topics. He blogs about democratic development at “A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country.”
As America celebrates Independence Day, we find our democracy not nearly as strong as we’d once thought. Authoritarian challenges threaten our institutions, our rights and the rule of law.
Ironically, this sobering reality confronts us after the United States, along with affluent allies, has devoted decades and massive resources to trying to build democracy in the world’s poorer and post-communist societies, including via rule of law, good governance, human rights and anti-corruption programs. With some exceptions — mostly centered on providing electoral assistance and fortifying civil society and media — these efforts have largely fallen flat. Data from Freedom House, the World Bank and the World Justice Project confirm the decline in democracy and associated fields across the globe.
[Continue Reading]And What Our Own Struggling Democracy Can Learn
In January, backers of Brazil’s former President, Jair Bolsonaro, seized the country’s Congress and Supreme Court buildings, as well as its presidential palace. The action represented much more than a repeat of America’s January 6,. 2021 debacle. It signified the failure of several decades of massive democratic development aid across the globe.
Reaching back to at least the 1980s, America and its wealthy European and other allies poured many billions of dollars into buttressing democracy, good governance and the rule of law around the world. The efforts continue to this day. Focusing on post-communist and poorer countries, including Brazil, they have been driven by a mix of cynicism, foreign policy priorities, naivete, idealism and good intentions.
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