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News and Views

Commentary from experts on the directions and challenges of democracy assistance programs.


January 11, 2013	Avoiding War Number Two in Liberia Foreign Policy Michael Scharff, a senior research specialist at Princeton University, describes how Liberia achieved peaceful elections in 2005 following the 2003 peace agreement that ended the civil war that had devastated the country since the late 1980’s. The peace agreement resulted in an interim government, which set clear electoral laws and appointed a new election commission tasked with establishing public trust and ensuring peaceful elections. A UN peacekeeping mission was also deployed to monitor the implementation of the peace agreement. The election commission tackled issues like voter registration and electoral boundaries, and on election day international and domestic monitors helped make sure polling staff followed electoral procedures. Despite some controversy with the presidential election results, the October 2005 elections were relatively peaceful, which Scharff credits to pre-emptive measures like the presence of armed United Nations peacekeepers to ensure voters felt safe, and the election commission’s “care in staff selection, its emphasis on fairness for parties and candidates, its openness, and its willingness to relax certain requirements to encourage broad participation by Liberians.” “‘Those were exciting times, because Liberia had been at war for nearly 14 years, and to have an opportunity to elect leaders that would take them out of the mode of belligerence and violence, that was very good,’” said Frances Johnson-Morris, head of the election commission. “‘When you involve people in decision making, you uphold your transparency and your credibility. I think we did that very well.’” Read More
January 6, 2013	Greece's Rotten Oligarchy The New York Times In a recent New York Times op-ed, Kostas Vaxevanis, a Greek magazine publisher and TV journalist, describes the Greek crisis as a “battleground of interests and ideologies.” Vaxevanis argues that Greek democracy has been broken since the collapse of the military junta in 1974 resulted in a “hybrid, diluted form of democracy” that gives real power only to members of the political elite. “Democracy is like a bicycle," he said. "If you don’t keep pedaling, you fall. Vaxevanis describes a dysfunctional public sector with business elites bribing politicians, the rich evading taxes, a corrupt ruling class that “answers to the name of democracy even as it casually nullifies it” and a largely complicit media. He shares his own experience being arrested after publishing a list that named wealthy citizens who committed tax fraud, after many other outlets refused to publish it. “The Greek people must remount their bicycle of democracy by demanding an end to deception and corruption. Journalists need to resist manipulation and rediscover their journalistic duties. And the government should revive Greece’s ancient democratic heritage — instead of killing the messenger.” Read More
December 30, 2012	Combating Corruption in Transition Countries The Huffington Post John Sullivan, executive director of the Center for International Private Enterprise, writes that while political transition varies widely in different countries, it is never a “one-off event.” Citing examples such as Egypt, Tunisia and Burma, Sullivan argues that transition is often a long and difficult process toward meaningful change. Though corruption is often a driving force behind political change, it also doesn’t disappear after a revolution has ended. Corruption, Sullivan says, “is not just a moral problem: it is an institutional problem, a matter of the underlying incentive structures that determine why things work the way they do.” Engaging citizens through organizations like civil society groups and think tanks is key to fighting corruption during a political transition. Sullivan also stresses in particular the importance of engaging the private sector in “building integrity and transparency.” “History shows that it can take years before democracy is fully institutionalized, market economy becomes competitive and inclusive, and embedded corruption begins to be effectively treated. As we celebrated the International Anti-Corruption Day on December 9, let us examine lessons learned from past transitions and apply them in new contexts so that corruption does not derail people's aspirations for greater political and economic freedom.” Read More
December 28, 2012	Save Mali Before It’s Too Late The New York Times Oumou Sall Seck, the mayor of Goundam in northern Mali, gives a personal account of the change that has taken place in her town and the rest of the northern region after it was taken over by rebel extremists. Seck, who was the first woman to be elected mayor in northern Mali, was forced to flee as her town and others were left “foundering in total chaos.” The greatest tragedy, she says, “is that people are starting to get used to it.” Seck calls for international help to immediately reclaim northern Mali and “resolve the crisis before it becomes a greater threat.” “After recovering its lost territory, Mali needs help in organizing free, transparent and credible elections to choose representatives who are elected by — and not imposed upon — the citizens. We also need help reconstituting a national army, accelerating political decentralization, strengthening civil society groups and making economic development a fundamental part of re-establishing security.” Read More
December 24, 2012	In Saudi Arabia, women are confined by technology The Washington Post Though technology has enhanced communication and individual liberty for many around the world, in Saudi Arabia it is being used to modernize a system that suppresses women’s rights, according to Minky Worden, director of global initiative for Human Rights Watch. The country is now using SMS to make it more convenient for women—who are treated as minors—to be monitored by their male “guardians.” However, some women are also using Internet-based communication like Twitter to demand equal treatment and make the world more aware of their situation. “It is jarring to see a government use the latest digital technology to enforce medieval treatment of women. One hopes at least that digital technology can increasingly give voice to courageous women fighting for equality, and for their supporters outside Saudi Arabia to press for structural reform of the kingdom’s backward policies.” Read More
December 20, 2012	Overhaul of US Foreign Aid is Overdue The Hill Reps. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) and Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) advocate for an overhaul of the U.S. foreign aid system that would make it more effective in serving the country’s long-term interests, arguing that the Global Partnerships Act of 2012 (H.R. 6644) will help modernize the foreign aid process currently outlined by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to make it more transparent and accountable. Despite the country’s fiscal challenges, they emphasize the importance of continuing to invest in foreign assistance, which makes up only one percent of the federal budget, because effective foreign aid can help “create the conditions where it’s no longer needed.” “Foreign assistance is a critical tool in the diplomatic toolkit. A great power must have the tools to act—beyond simply intervening militarily. A streamlined, effective foreign aid template can enhance U.S. values and influence in a dangerous world and help avoid the enormous costs in blood and treasure that inevitably result from military intervention.” Read More
December 11, 2012	Putting Mali Together Again The New York Times The crisis in Mali demands a long-term solution, rather than the current options of negotiating deals with rebels and sending multinational forces to fight Malian terrorists in the Sahara, which would provide only a temporary solution, says Alex de Waal, executive director for the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. He argues that “Mali’s problem won’t be solved by making deals with good guys and sending special forces to hunt the bad guys — because there are no good and bad guys, just buyers and sellers of expedient allegiances.” De Waal suggests that Mali should explore devolving political power to the provinces, and that Europe and America should stop funding both rebel groups and government officials. Leaders have been corrupt on all sides, he says, and Mali needs its own version of a truth and reconciliation commission. “Outrage at the abuses perpetrated by the Islamist rebels should not provoke a moral panic in which we lose sight of what will deliver a solution. Malians need a consensual political formula for governing their diverse country, and for creating a system based on sustainable development and not a scramble for personal riches, licit and illicit. Only when such a political process is under way will military operations to reconquer the desert bring lasting benefit.” Related: Read the testimony on Mali by NDI’s regional director for Central and Western Africa, Christopher Fomunyoh, before the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa. Read More
December 10, 2012	Ghana's Mahama Reaches Out to Defeated Rivals Reuters Ghana's incumbent President John Dramani Mahama was announced the winner of the country’s Dec. 7 election, and urged his opponents, who have threatened to contest the polls, to “join [him] now as partners in the projects of nation-building and of creating a better Ghana." Mahama is reported to have won 50.7 percent of the vote. The non-partisan Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), which deployed more than 4,000 poll watchers and conducted a parallel vote count, confirmed the results and said the election was “generally free and fair.” Read More
December 9, 2012	Terror Central in Mali The Washington Post The Obama administration has dubbed Mali “a safe haven” for terrorist and extremist groups. The Washington Post editorial board writes that spite a “Taliban-style rule of stoning and amputations” that has been imposed in Northern Mali, the United Nations says that military intervention will not come before the fall of 2013. The U.N. Security Council could approve a resolution for intervention by West African states that have pledged to contribute 3,300 troops. However, military experts say that a “counterinsurgency campaign in a territory larger than Texas would likely exceed the capabilities of the African forces,” while the Obama administration is insisting on holding elections for a new government and negotiations with groups in Northern Mali before military intervention. “Negotiations, which began this month, are certainly worth a try," said the Washington Post editorial board. "But it’s also worth bearing in mind what is happening while this process drags on. As a Malian minister told the Security Council, ‘there are floggings, amputation of limbs, summary executions, children forced to become soldiers, rapes, stoning, looting and the destruction of cultural and historical sites.’ Perhaps the diplomats in Turtle Bay can conclude it’s prudent to allow such atrocities to continue for another 10 or 12 months. But morality as well as common sense suggests that intervention must come sooner.” Related: Read the testimony on Mali by NDI’s regional director for Central and Western Africa, Christopher Fomunyoh, before the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa. Read More
December 9, 2012	Inventing Democracy The New York Times Nearly a generation after it wrote the most progressive constitution on the continent, Bill Keller describes South Africa as “a great vantage point for watching the Arab world struggle to tailor itself a set of new democracies.” South Africa, he writes, should be a model for aspiring democracies, but “a glorious constitution carries you only so far if its values have not taken root.” After asking influential figures of South African democracy what advice they would give to other struggling democracies, Keller summarizes suggestions related to creating a constitution, promoting peace and reconciliation within a country and creating national unity, many of which can also still be applied to South Africa as it struggles to practice many of the values set forth in its progressive constitution. Keller shares advice from Mamphela Ramphele, a nonpartisan anti-apartheid activist and academic, for founders of new democracies as well as for South Africa that “freedom […] has to be won over and over.” Read More