Promoting Democracy in the Third World: Lost Cause or Sound Policy?

PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN THE THIRD WORLD: LOST CAUSE OR SOUND POLICY? StephenJ. Solarz o promote democracy or t? tolerate tyranny—that is a question that has perplexed and divided U.S. foreign policymakers for decades. The logic of realpolitik suggests that America's security concerns are too great and its resources too limited to attempt to remake the world in our own image. The logic of idealism suggests that we betray the values on which our country was founded if we fail to foster democracy. Realists and idealists can no doubt agree on the ways the United States would benefit if democracy were the rule rather than the exception as the basis of government among the nations of the world. Politically, democratic governments are more likely to share our broad foreign policy objectives and less likely to pursue those of our adversaries. Diplomatically, the spread of democracy would create an international environment in which it would be easier for the United States to muster support for its initiatives. Economically, the community of market economies would be strengthened, since political democracy tends not to be associated with centrally planned economies. Ideologically, we would be less estranged from other members of the international community and feel greater confidence at home about our role in the world. And from a humanitarian perspective, democracies generally show greater respect for human rights than other political systems. The disagreement occurs over whether it is possible to remove the obstacles to political pluralism, particularly in the countries of the Third World. The conventional wisdom argues pessimistically that democracy is Representative Stephen J. Solarz is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs and is a democrat from New York. 139 140 SAIS REVIEW close to impossible in nations that are poor, rife with ethnic conflicts, and unblessed by the traditions of the Enlightenment. We should not, it is said, ignore these underlying realities, particularly with respect to our security partners. It would be naive to think that we can induce in the countries of the Third World a quick conversion to democracy. In many cases we simply lack the leverage to do so. In other cases, the need to cooperate with strategically important countries places limits on our ability to promote pluralism. Yet we should not surrender to sociological determinism or the imperatives of realpolitik. Democracy may be a rare political species in the Third World and it may at times seem endangered, but it is not extinct. It is important, therefore, that we understand why it is relatively uncommon, the circumstances under which it can be encouraged, and specifically how the United States can promote it. For purposes of this discussion, democracy is defined as a political system with periodic elections with mass suffrage to select the nation's political leadership; freedom of organization for the purposes of political competition; peaceful transfer of power by established procedures; freedom of the press; freedom of political expression; an independent judiciary enforcing the rule of law. Based on the above definition, how prevalent is democracy? The latest assessment made by Freedom House is instructive. At the end of 1983, fifty-two of the world's independent countries (31 percent) were designated "free," fifty-eight (35 percent) were designated "not free," and fifty-six (34 percent) were designated "partly free." These countries had an aggregate population of 4.647 billion, of which 35.8 percent was in free countries, 41.2 percent in not free countries, and 23.0 percent in partly free countries.1 If the countries of the world are grouped according to their levels of economic well-being, the frequency of democratic government can be seen on the following table. On the surface, the statistics confirm the common pessimism that democracy and poverty are as incompatible as oil and water. The usual explanation is that poor people care too much about the struggle for daily survival to worry about affairs of state. Because poor people are generally uneducated, so the argument goes, they are incapable of understanding the subtleties of politics and government policy. As a 1. Freedom House rates each country, on a scale of one to seven, on adherence to political rights and...