The Larger Lessons of the January Insurrections: Why Western Democracy Aid Failed

Money for Almost Nothing

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.

Under the rubric of “institution-building,” these wealthy nations have mainly provided aid and advice for recipient governments’ judiciaries, legislatures, ministries, elections and other state institutions and processes. The funding has covered, inter alia, training, equipment, administrative improvements and reform initiatives.

Civil society (that is, nongovernmental groups), media and academic programs have also received support, though at much lower levels. The recipients have included policy advocacy and analysis centers, as well as legal and social services organizations working with and for women, farmers, minorities, the urban poor and a host of other disadvantaged populations.

Though the early and mid-1980s saw some initial initiatives, worldwide democracy aid picked up steam starting with the 1989 fall of the Berlin wall and the communist collapses in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In the 1990s and beyond, democracy-building programs marched across those regions, as well as Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Books on “exporting democracy” – one even presenting it as America’s (manifest) destiny – assumed it was the wave of the future. One analyst hailed “The End of History” and proclaimed the irreversible triumph of liberal democracy.

We now know better.

What Went Wrong?

Data from Freedom House, the World Bank, the World Justice Project and a wide range of studies and scholars sadly confirm the widespread decline in democracy, good governance, the rule of law and anti-corruption effectiveness, along with the failure of efforts to promote these goals.

A common and partly correct explanation for this failure is that economic and national security priorities often trump aid for democracy and human rights. But based on my over 30 years of research, consulting and teaching for dozens of foundations, policy institutes, universities, nongovernmental groups and development ministries (such as the World Bank and the U.S., U.K and Danish aid agencies), I see several other factors at play:

• The institution-building fallacy. Development agencies display too much faith in aiding government institutions controlled or coopted by corrupt forces or other undue influences.
• Sidetracking civil society. Such agencies provide relatively little funding for nongovernmental groups that provide crucial services and advocate reform. This is despite a United Kingdom government evaluation, a Norwegian government literature review and a plethora of studies suggesting that civil society track records are superior to government-focused support.
• Bureaucratic inertia. Many aid bureaucracies and personnel comfortably continue down the programming paths they’ve repeatedly taken. Bureaucratic inertia blocks in-depth analyses and new perspectives that could point them in more productive programmatic directions.
• Indicator madness. Development agencies often display an excessive reliance on mechanical means for measuring misleading indicators of supposed progress  – “indicator madness,” as it has been called.
• Beltway bandits. Consulting firms dominate much of the international development field. Though partly staffed by some smart, dedicated personnel, many firms nonetheless tend to view poverty alleviation as a profit center. Government aid agencies’ excessive reliance on these outfits limits learning about and addressing country-specific conditions, options and constraints.
• Donor hubris. Development agencies often adopt an array of hubristic assumptions: that they can fix broken governance, that they know better than foreign funding recipients and that such recipients are merely their program “implementers.”

I’m not claiming that foreign aid to recipient governments never succeeds. Certain countries might make good use of such support. In others, a given minister, mayor or maverick official may merit help.

To its credit, even as it’s often worked with state institutions, the U.S. Agency for International Development sometimes recognizes the roles of civil society – though its support is often bureaucratic and heavy-handed. On the other hand, it also has found creative ways of working with reformist nongovernmental groups seeking change in, for instance, repressive Myanmar.

Of course, in some countries there is little or no civil society with which to partner. In others, the government imposes barriers blocking such support; India is a leading example of this phenomenon. But that does not mean that funds should be poured into the black holes of repressive or corrupt state institutions.

Meanwhile…

Here at home, the Republicans’ new House majority comprises members who either outright back or cravenly condone Trumpism’s election denialism and drive to gut our democracy. It has allies across the country seeking to do the same.

Our former president and his minions export insurrection and authoritarianism via Bolsonaro and other demagogues. America has been in turn influenced by foreign forces, ranging from Russia’s 2016 election interference to Republican and Fox News infatuation with Hungary’s autocratic leader, Viktor Orban.

Just as democracy aid has largely failed abroad, democracy is under increasing attack here at home. But by no means does this mean that it is doomed. Presidential election victories protecting the Western Hemispheres’ two largest democracies, the United States and Brazil, have been narrow but noteworthy. Joe Biden has forcefully condemned authoritarianism at home and abroad. What’s more, the spectacular failures of Russia’s President Putin in attacking Ukraine and China’s President Xi in combating Covid illuminate how execrable their corrupt, repressive regimes are.

What Can Go Right?

Still, if so much has gone wrong in democracy aid, what can go right in learning lessons?

First, as I’ve argued, a greater focus on financial and political support for civil society constitutes a worthwhile paradigm shift away from pouring funds into often unproductive or counterproductive government projects.

Second, the flexible funding approaches taken by the Asia, Ford, Open Societies and other foundations represent effective alternatives to the bureaucratic practices of large development agencies. Such agencies cannot mimic the foundations’ models; but they can move in that direction.

Finally, bringing all of this back home, let’s take heart from what America can and must learn from international development experience. The lessons feature the value of citizens organizing, advocating and mobilizing to defend universal rights and principles. They also include builiding alliances across previous political divides, with principled Republicans such as former Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and with writers constituting such sites as The Bulwark, an anti-Trump outlet. These efforts by no means guarantee that our democracy will thrive; but without them, it cannot survive.

Here’s one more lesson for out nation: The battle through 2024 and beyond will not narrowly hinge on whether a given government institution simply remains superficially intact. Rather, our fate could depend on what people dedicated to democracy will stand up for and stand against.

The years to come will offer ample opportunities to take such stands.