Seven Stanford undergraduates traveled to Guatemala as FSI Research Abroad Undergraduate Interns this summer, conducting field research examining poverty, governance, and health in the rural Guatemalan highlands, alongside Professors Paul H. Wise and Beatriz Magaloni. From the field, they have been documenting their experiences in FSI's blog, intheworld.stanford.edu.

Two decades after the fall of Soviet-bloc dictatorships, popular movements for democracy are erupting in the last regional bastion of authoritarianism: the Arab world.

So far, only Tunisia's dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, has been toppled, while Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak - who has ruled that ancient land longer than many pharaohs - announced Tuesday that he will step down in September. But other Arab autocrats are bound to go. From Algeria to Syria to Jordan, people are fed up with stagnation and injustice, and are mobilizing for democratic change.

So, what happens when the autocrat is gone? Will the end of despotism give way to chaos - as happened when Mobutu Sese Seko was toppled in 1997 after more than 30 years in power in Zaire? Will the military or some civilian strongman fill the void with a new autocracy - as occurred after the overthrow of Arab monarchs in Egypt and Iraq in the 1950s, and as has been the norm in most of the world until recently? Or can some of the Arab nations produce real democracy - as we saw in most of Eastern Europe and about half the states of sub-Saharan Africa? Regime transitions are uncertain affairs. But since the mid-1970s, more than 60 countries have found their way to democracy. Some have done so in circumstances of rapid upheaval that offer lessons for reformers in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries today.

Unite the democratic opposition.

When a dictatorship is on the ropes, one thing that can rescue it is a divided opposition. That is why autocrats so frequently foster those divisions, secretly funding a proliferation of opposition parties. Even extremely corrupt rulers may generate significant electoral support - not the thumping majorities they claim, but enough to steal an election - when the opposition is splintered.

In the Philippines in 1986, Nicaragua in 1990 and Ukraine in 2004, the opposition united around the candidacies of Corazon Aquino, Violeta Chamorro and Viktor Yushchenko, respectively. Broad fronts such as these - as well as the Concertacion movement that swept Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin to power in Chile in 1989 after the departure of Gen. Augusto Pinochet - often span deep personal and ideological differences. But the time for democratic forces to debate those matters is later, once the old order is defeated and democratic institutions have been established.

Egypt is fortunate - it has an obvious alternative leader, Mohamed ElBaradei, whom disparate opposition elements seem to be rallying around. Whether the next presidential election is held on schedule in September or moved up, ElBaradei, or anyone like him leading a broad opposition front, will probably win a resounding victory over anyone connected to Mubarak's National Democratic Party.

Make sure the old order really is gone.

The exit of a long-ruling strongman, such as Ben Ali, does not necessarily mean the end of a regime. Fallen dictators often leave behind robust political and security machines. No autocrat in modern times met a more immediate fate than Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu, who was executed by a firing squad of his own soldiers in 1989 just three days after a popular revolution forced him to flee the capital. Yet his successor, Ion Iliescu, was a corrupt former communist who obstructed political reform. Most of the former Soviet states, such as Georgia and Kazakhstan, had similar experiences.

Countries are much more likely to get to democracy quickly if they identify and embrace political leaders who are untainted by the old order and are ready to roll it back.

But also come to an understanding with the old order.

Victorious democrats won't be able to completely excise the pillars of the authoritarian order. Instead, for their country to turn toward democracy, those pillars must be neutralized or co-opted. This old order may descend into violence when, as in Iraq, broad classes of elites are stigmatized and ousted from their positions. In a successful bargain, most old-regime elites retain their freedom, assets and often their jobs but accept the new rules of the democratic game.

Unless the military collapses in defeat, as it did in Greece in 1974 and in Argentina after the Falklands War, it must be persuaded to at least tolerate a new democratic order. In the short run, that means guaranteeing the military significant autonomy, as well as immunity from prosecution for its crimes. Over time, civilian democratic control of the military can be extended incrementally, as was done masterfully in Brazil in the 1980s and in Chile during the 1990s. But if the professional military feels threatened and demeaned from the start, the transition is in trouble.

The same principle applies to surviving elements of the state security apparatus, the bureaucracy and the ruling party. In South Africa, for example, old-regime elements received amnesty for their human rights abuses in exchange for fully disclosing what they had done. In this and other successful transitions, top officials were replaced, but most state bureaucrats kept their jobs.

Rewrite the rules.

A new democratic government needs a new constitution, but it can't be drawn up too hastily. Meanwhile, some key provisions can be altered expeditiously, either by legislation, interim executive fiat or national consensus.

In Spain, the path to democratization was opened by the Law for Political Reform, adopted by the parliament within a year of dictator Francisco Franco's death in 1975. Poland adopted a package of amendments in 1992, only after it had elected a new parliament and a new president, Lech Walesa; a new constitution followed in 1997. South Africa enacted an interim constitution to govern the country while it undertook an ambitious constitution-writing process with wide popular consultation - which is the ideal arrangement.

An urgent priority, though, is to rewrite the rules so that free and fair elections are possible. This must happen before democratic elections can be held in Egypt and Tunisia. In transitions toward democracy, there is a strong case for including as many political players as possible. This requires some form of proportional representation to ensure that emerging small parties can have a stake in the new order, while minimizing the organizational advantage of the former ruling party. In the 2005 elections in Iraq, proportional representation ensured a seat at the table for smaller minority and liberal parties that could never have won a plurality in individual districts.

Isolate the extremes.

That said, not everyone can or should be brought into the new democratic order. Prosecuting particularly venal members of a former ruling family, such as those tied to the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos, Indonesia's fallen strongman Suharto or now Tunisia's Ben Ali, can be part of a larger reconciliation strategy. But the circle of punishment must be drawn narrowly. It may even help the transition to drive a wedge between a few old-regime cronies and the bulk of the establishment, many of whom may harbor grievances against "the family."

A transitional government should aim for inclusion, and should test the democratic commitment of dubious players rather than inadvertently induce them to become violent opponents. However, groups that refuse to renounce violence as a means of obtaining power, or that reject the legitimacy of democracy, have no place in the new order. That provision was part of the wisdom of the postwar German constitution.

Transitions are full of opportunists, charlatans and erstwhile autocrats who enter the new political field with no commitment to democracy. Every democratic transition that has endured - from Spain and Portugal to Chile, South Africa and now hopefully Indonesia - has tread this path.

Fragile democracies become stable when people who once had no use for democracy embrace it as the only game in town.

There is a widespread perception of a strong link between immigrants and crime. It is common to hear those who oppose immigration argue that the first act illegal immigrants commit on U.S. soil is to break the law-that is, our immigration laws-and that they are ipso facto criminals who will continue to disregard U.S. laws once in the country. Those making this argument are generally steadfastly opposed to any immigration reform that will provide the 10 million to 12 million illegals already in the country any path to citizenship, on the grounds that such an "amnesty" would reward law-breaking.

The association of immigrants with crime is strengthened by the weekly barrage of news about drug and gang violence in Mexico as the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderón seeks to crack down on that country's powerful drug mafias. And long before the Mexican drug war, Americans were threatened by Colombian cartels, Salvadoran street gangs, and other criminal groups from Latin America. Moreover, it is perfectly true that the simple fact of being an illegal immigrant induces one to break further laws: One is reluctant to buy mandated auto insurance, pay taxes, or register businesses for fear of deportation.

There is indeed a huge problem of crime originating in Latin America and spilling into the United States. This is almost wholly driven by the enormous demand for drugs from the U.S. There are many things we can and should do to mitigate this problem, but it will persist as long as that demand remains high.

But the problem of gangs and drug violence should not be confounded with the behavior of the vast majority of illegal immigrants to the U.S., who by and large are seeking the same thing that every immigrant to America has wanted since the time of the Mayflower: to better their condition and that of their families. They are not criminals in the sense of people who make a living by breaking the law. They would be happy to live legally, but they come from societies in which legal rules were never quite extended to them. They are therefore better described as "informal" rather than "illegal."

Understanding this distinction requires knowing something about the social order in Latin America or, for that matter, in many other developing countries. These societies are often characterized by sharp class distinctions between a relatively small, well-educated elite and a much broader and poorer population.

The rule of law exists in places like Mexico, Colombia and El Salvador; the problem is that access to the legal system tends to be a privilege of the well-to-do. The vast majority of illegal immigrants to the U.S. come from poor rural areas, or shantytowns in large cities, where the state-in the form of courts, government agencies and the like-is often absent. Registering a small business, or seeking help from the police, or negotiating a contract requires money, time and political influence that the poor do not possess. In many Latin American countries, as much as 70%-80% of the population lives and works in the informal sector.

The lack of legal access does not make everyone in these regions criminals. It simply means that they get by as best they can through informal institutions they themselves create. The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has written extensively about the lack of formal property rights, not just in his own country but throughout the developing world. The poor do not hold legal title to their homes, despite having lived in them for years, because of the insuperable barriers the system throws up to formal registration. So they squat in their homes, constantly insecure and unable to use their property as collateral.

The poor are entrepreneurial and form businesses like restaurants and bus companies, but they are unlicensed and don't conform to official safety rules. They and everyone else would be much better off if they could be brought into the formal legal system, but it is a dysfunctional political system that prevents that from happening.

What illegal immigrants to the U.S. have done is to recreate the informal system within our borders. The Americans who hire them are often complicit in this system by not providing benefits or helping them avoid taxes through cash payments. The gardeners and maids and busboys who participate in this game, along with their employers, are indeed breaking the law. But they are in a very different category from the tattooed Salvatrucha gang member who lives by extortion and drug-dealing.

A comprehensive immigration reform that provides hardworking illegal immigrants with an ultimate path to citizenship should not be regarded as rewarding criminal behavior. It should be seen as an effort to move people from a dangerous informal system to one characterized by a modern rule of law.

We need, of course, to control much better the total number of people coming into the country, which can ultimately be done only through stronger enforcement of employment rules. If we can better distinguish between illegal and informal in our political discourse, then we can begin to concentrate our resources on going after those in the immigrant population who are genuinely dangerous criminals.

The Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America is a policy-oriented research initiative of the Global Center for Development and Democracy, which was founded by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo in 2006. Authored by a taskforce of 20 former Latin American Presidents, as well as development experts from academia, the private sector, and multi-lateral organizations, the Social Agenda comprises 16 pressing social issues and 63 specific public and private policy recommendations to the region's current heads of state.

From the Washington, D.C. launch of the Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America:

The Global Center for Development and Democracy, founded and presided over by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, along with The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the National Endowment for Democracy, the Brookings Institution, and the Inter-American Dialogue, is pleased to invite you to join us at the Falk Auditorium at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday, November 3, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. for a presentation of The Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America for the Next Twenty Years by Dr. Alejandro Toledo and the following former presidents: Vicente Fox of Mexico; Carlos Mesa, Bolivia; Nicolas Ardito Barletta, Panama; Ricardo Maduro, Honduras; and Vinicio Cerezo, Guatemala.

The Global Center for Development and Democracy has sponsored five Presidential Meetings over the last two years, at which a Presidential Task Force (including 20 former presidents of Latin American countries) has met with leading experts from policy-oriented academia, multilateral organizations, the private sector, and members of civil society to consider the innovative policy research of those experts and to discuss what the former heads of state consider to be the 15 most important social issues facing the region.  The conclusions of their research and discussions at these meetings have been synthesized into a report that will be shared with the sitting presidents of Latin American nations at the Ibero-American Summit in Estoril, Portugal, on December 1, 2009 – as well as with President Obama, the Prime Minister of Canada, and the heads of state of the European Union.  The report will present specific recommendations for actions to significantly reduce poverty, inequality, and social exclusion, as well as to strengthen democratic institutions in Latin America. The report will also include mechanisms for carrying out a twenty-year program of monitoring the results of the policy initiative.

Full text of the Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America (pdf).
 

In a new Stanford endeavor, FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law has joined with the Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society to launch an interdisciplinary Program on Human Rights. Introducing CDDRL's latest program, Director Larry Diamond noted that "today's human rights interact with a number of other urgent global issues including climate change, immigration, security, women's rights, poverty, and child soldiers" to name but a few. The campus-wide Human Rights Program builds on the work of CDDRL's Program on Global Justice by bridging the normative and the empirical.

The October launch featured an interdisciplinary panel on human rights, "Bridging Theory and Practice", combining the work and insights of Senior Law Lecturer, FSI Senior Fellow and Human Rights Program Coordinator Helen Stacy, who also served as moderator, Political Science Professor Terry L. Karl, Stanford Law School Professor Jenny Martinez, Anthropology Professor Jim Ferguson, and Civil and Environmental Professor Ray Levitt.

Observing that each of the panelists works adeptly across several disciplinary fields, Program Coordinator Helen Stacy noted that "they dynamically cycle between high theory and everyday action in a constant arbitrage between principle and practice."

Invoking the French philosopher Michel Foucault, Jim Ferguson observed that "the world is a dangerous place" and we need to be careful, watchful, vigilant, and realistic. Just as "If you want peace, work for justice," he said, "If you want human rights, work to overcome economic inequalities."

A second session featured Philosophy Professor Debra Satz, Director of the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, who introduced the new Undergraduate Human Rights Summer Fellowships, which will allow four undergraduates to immerse themselves in a summer-long internship with a leading human rights organization.

A final keynote address by pediatrician Paul H. Wise, the Richard Behrman Professor in Child Health and a core faculty member of the FSI's Stanford Health Policy center, addressed the aspirational, "Between the Concrete and the Clouds: Living Your Human Rights Principles."

Wise's professional life has been devoted to the real human rights of real children by improving child health-care practices and policies in developing countries. Active in child health projects in India, South Africa, and Latin America, Wise spends each summer in an indigenous village in Guatemala, where he teaches and provides needed care at the village clinic.