Stanford University

Democracy

What the Democratization of Mexico Means for All the World

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
Larry Diamond - Vicente Fox's presidential election victory in Mexico on July 2 was more than a shattering defeat for the world's longest-ruling governing party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI); it was also a hugely significant victory for democracy. In Mexico, it puts a long-overdue end to seven decades of rotten, cynical control by a single party over a swollen and abused state. In Latin America, it ends the biggest exception to the two-decade-long regional swing toward genuine electoral competition.
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Debt for Democracy

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

From a humanitarian perspective, few international policy proposals appear more compelling than debt relief for the world's poor. The poorest countries have seen their external debts spiral to the point where interest payments are crowding out desperately needed investments in roads, schools, sanitation, health care, and other social services. The majority of their people live below the poverty line, struggling to survive on a dollar or two a day. Average life expectancy is well below 60 years and declining in many countries because of AIDS. Lacking access to safe drinking water, preventive medicine, and basic education, as well as to markets, credit, and justice, people live needlessly short and degrading lives.

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Iraq: The Long Haul

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
Larry Diamond - Out of the ruins of one of the world's worst tyrannies, in an ancient land that has rarely known any form of decent or constitutional governance, a democracy is struggling to be born. Iraq is one of the world's least likely sites for a transition to democracy. Virtually all the classic preconditions for liberal government are lacking. And yet, with its decades-long despotism shattered, Iraq is now better positioned than any of its 15 Arab neighbors to become a democracy in the next few years. That achievement, however tentative and imperfect, would ignite mounting aspirations for democratization throughout the region - from Iran to Morocco - and renew the momentum of freedom worldwide.
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The New War for Iraq

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

HILLA, IRAQ - On a rough, woven mat, under a huge tented mudheef (a traditional reed-frame guesthouse), atop the roof of one of Iraq's most beautiful mosques, a giant bear of a man implores his American visitors to act against the religious fanatics who have vowed to kill him and destroy his movement for democracy. The black-turbaned man with outsized feet, hands, girth, and ambition is a Sayyid, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. With his unruly black beard, flowing clerical garb, and retinue of religious followers, he could easily be mistaken for just another radical Shiite mullah.

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Report from Baghdad

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

With the transfer of power to a new interim Iraqi government on June 28, the political phase of the U.S. occupation came to an abrupt end. The transfer marked an urgently needed, and in some ways hopeful, new departure for Iraq. But it did not erase, or even much ease at first, the most pressing problems confronting that beleaguered country: endemic violence, a shattered state, a nonfunctioning economy, and a decimated society. Some of these problems may have been inevitable consequences of the war to topple Saddam Hussein. But Iraq today falls far short of what the Bush administration promised. As a result of a long chain of U.S. miscalculations, the coalition occupation has left Iraq in far worse shape than it need have and has diminished the long-term prospects of democracy there. Iraqis, Americans, and other foreigners continue to be killed. What went wrong?

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Between Democracy and Stability: The Middle East

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

How do we balance two conflicting imperatives for U.S. foreign policy: preserving the short-term stability of Arab regimes that have been friendly-or at least not explicitly and intractably hostile-to the United States and promoting a deeper, more organic stability in the region through democratic reform?

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It Only Looks Dead: Don't Write the Obituary for Iraq's Constitution Just Yet

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
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Iraqi's failure to complete a constitution by August 15 is a blow to the country's prospects for political stability and democracy--and to the credibility of the Bush administration, which staked so much on this deadline. But there could have been a worse development: a bad constitution--unworkable, illiberal, or unacceptable to a section of the country. At least that disaster has been averted for now....

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Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain

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As an eternal optimist, I have for decades been one of those who believed that Russia could make the transition from communism to democracy, a development which in turn would help to integrate Russia into to the West. In the long run, I am still certain of this eventual outcome. In the short run, however, it is obvious that President Putin is building a more autocratic regime, an internal process that in turn has strained Russia's relations with the West.

The appropriate policy response to these new developments is not a return to containment or isolation of Russia. Rather, a more substantial agenda between the Russian and American governments would create more permissive conditions for democratic renewal inside Russia. A new American policy towards Russia must pursue both a more ambitious bilateral relationship and in parallel a more long-term strategy for strengthening Russian civil, political, and economic societies, which ultimately will be critical forces that push Russia back onto a democratizing path. As the Bush and Putin administrations wind down, grand new initiatives in U.S.-Russia relations are unlikely to unfold in the next two years. New leadership in both countries in 2008 will open a new window of opportunity to reorient the bilateral relationship along a more constructive path, which in turn will provide a more conducive environment for fostering democratic development inside Russia.

To make the case for this dual track approach for dealing with Russia, my written testimony proceeds in four parts.

  • Section one describes the erosion of democracy under Putin.
  • Section two explains why this more autocratic regime in Russia has not caused economic growth, produced a more effective state, or made Russian citizens more content.
  • Section three outlines three false assumptions made by the Bush Administration about Russia which have impeded the emergence of a more effective U.S. policy towards Russia.
  • Section four offers several concrete policy recommendations for changing the troubled bilateral relationship.
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Publication Type
Testimonies
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
House Committee on Foreign Relations
Authors
Michael A. McFaul
External URL

New Efforts to Promote Democracy

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The symposium is being organized by the Center's "Taiwan Democracy Project." It will feature participation from the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other publicly funded as well as civil society efforts to assist democratic development internationally.

The symposium, which will be limited in size to facilitate extensive dialogue and exchange, has several purposes. One set of purposes is informational and analytical. We want to delineate and assess what new and smaller democracy promotion organizations are doing-and what they can do effectively-to support and advance democratic development around the world. To answer the latter question, we want to distill some of what the more established democracy assistance organizations have learned over the last two decades that can be of value in guiding the strategic thinking and organizational development of these new initiatives. How should such new and emerging foundations define their priorities, and what types of grants and activities are most likely to add value to existing efforts? What countries, sectors, and problems may provide, within each region, opportunities for new democracy assistance initiatives to leverage their limited resources into a higher impact?

Second, we would like to promote, in a modest and limited way, some interaction between academic studies of democratic development and the practical efforts to assist it. The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law has embarked upon a very ambitious study of how international influences affect democratic transitions and consolidation, and we would hope to inject some of what we are learning into the discussions-and most of all, to benefit from them.

Third, we want the workshop to be practically useful to the participants. We want to explore the possibilities for cooperation and joint effort among democracy promotion efforts, small and large, new and old. How can such newer and smaller initiatives acquire the information necessary to identify and evaluate potential projects and grantees? What opportunities may exist for sharing information about potential recipients of assistance? What other forms of exchange and interaction could help new and small assistance efforts to leverage their limited resources? How can the established democracy promotion organizations benefit from some of the "ground truth" that new initiatives may accumulate and the new methods that they may develop in their work?

DAY I: Thursday May 31

Morning Session (8:30 am - 12:30 am):

Introduction

Panel 1: Established Efforts to Promote Democracy: Evolution of Strategy, Priorities, and Programs

Panel 2: New Efforts to Promote Democracy--Asia

Afternoon Session (1:30 pm - 4:45 pm):

Panel 3: New Efforts to Promote Democracy--Eastern Europe

Panel 4: New Efforts to Promote Democracy--Africa

DAY II: Friday June 1

Morning Session (9:00 am - 12:15 pm):

Panel 5: Starting New Democracy Foundations

Panel 6: What Kind of Assistance Do New and Struggling Democracies Need?

Afternoon Session (1:15 pm - 3:00 pm):

Round Table Discussion: How to Measure Success?

Closing Comments

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Oksenberg Conference Room

Symposiums

Taiwan's China Policy and Cross-Strait Relations

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This is a CDDRL's Special Event within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Dr. Chen-yuan Tung is vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, Republic of China (Taiwan) and associate professor at the Sun Yat-Sen Graduate Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, National Chengchi University (Taiwan). He received his Ph.D. in international affairs from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. His expertise focuses on economic relations between Taiwan and China, Chinese economic development, Taiwan-U.S.-China trilateral relations, and international economics.

Dr. Tung published book and book chapters including Challenges in the Era of Hu Jingtao (2002, in Chinese), The Globalization of the Chinese Economy (2002), Cross-Strait Economic Relations in the Era of Globalization (2003, in Chinese), Future China: Degenerative Totalitarianism (2004, in Chinese), Renminbi Exchange Rate: Economic and Strategic Analysis (2004, in Chinese), China Today (2005), and China as the World Factory (2006).

Philippines Conference Room

Chen-yuan Tung Vice Chairman Speaker Mainland Affairs Council, ROC (Taiwan)
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