December 10, 2008

Commemorating Human Rights Day, IFES and Georgetown University’s Center for Democracy and Civil Society co-hosted a conference on December 10, 2008. The conference focused on the backlash against democracy promotion from authoritarian regimes and its implications on US foreign policy and democracy assistance.  The conference featured both academic and practitioner perspectives from experts in democratic theory, democratization and democracy promotion in transitional countries.

The experts commented on trends in authoritarian resistance to democracy promotion and on efforts by several countries to influence the development in transitional countries through foreign assistance and other means to complicate democracy promotion efforts.

The panelists highlighted that while U.S. and European efforts to foster democratization faced little challenge in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, those countries and regimes opposed to these efforts have become more assertive in exercising regional and global influence in transitional countries.

Players who defy democracy create significant challenges for democracy promotion. The panelists noted, however, that while the U.S . and other donors must take these challenges into consideration, the spread of democracy is not in dire straits. Democracy is still the only ideology with broad appeal and has most moral legitimacy. Further, the ideas of ‘managed democracy’, ‘sovereign democracy’ or other alternative systems do not present an ideological challenge to democracy as Communism once did.