The Economic Crisis and Democracy: A Year Later

In a new commentary, Zachary Davis and Thomas Carothers take the pulse of global democracy a year after the start of the economic crisis and find that despite severe economic challenges, democracies have demonstrated more resilience than many predicted.

Will the International Economic Crisis Undermine Struggling Democracies?

Julia Brower and Thomas Carothers examine existing research on the political effects of other economic crises in recent decades, offering important insights about the amount of instability that might occur—including whether it may consist more of changes of government or changes in systems of government—as well as whether democratic or authoritarian governments will suffer more.

Revitalizing Democracy Assistance: The Challenge of USAID
Democracy is largely stagnant in the world and a growing number of governments exhibit hostility toward international democracy aid. Thomas Carothers explains that tackling longstanding problems with the basic structures of U.S. democracy aid would boost President Obama’s effort to formulate an approach to democracy promotion. As the largest source of such assistance, USAID is an obvious starting point for deep-reaching reforms.

Democracy Promotion: Finding a Way Forward
The Obama administration faces pressure to pull back U.S. democracy promotion efforts in the wake of the Bush administration’s legacy. Thomas Carothers explains in a new Carnegie publication that by building a new approach to democracy promotion based on Obama’s values of cooperation and empowerment, the United States can regain its place as a respected, trusted, and influential ally of democracy around the world.

Rule of Law Temptations

During his recent speech at the Summit of the Americas, President Obama affirmed a commitment by the United States to promote rule-of-law reforms around the world. Thomas Carothers warns that leaders must not underestimate the difficulty of the task, and should avoid overestimating the degree of consensus about what building the rule of law means in practice, reducing the concept down to a procedural minimum, and embracing the idea that the rule of law should precede democracy.

Stepping Back From Democratic Pessimism

Bad news about the global state of democracy has accumulated steadily this decade, producing a widespread sense of pessimism about democracy's prospects.  In a new Carnegie paper, Thomas Carothers challenges this pessimism.  Closely examining the recent political evolution of the developing and post-communist worlds, he finds that democracy is not in fact in retreat and that concerns about the dangers of elections in weak democracies are overblown.

Democracy Assistance Without a Plan

Thomas Carothers discusses the linkages between development and democracy, the appropriate place for external democracy promotion, the future of the European Union, the value of democracy indices, and possible implications for Eastern Europe and Russia of the Obama administration.

Democracy Assistance: Political vs. Developmental
As international democracy assistance matures it is undergoing a process of strategic differentiation into two distinct approaches:  a political approach and a developmental approach. Thomas Carothers diagnoses the key characteristics of these differing approaches and their implications for European and U.S. democracy assistance.

Democracy and Discontent

In his review of The Freedom Agenda, James Traub's new book on U.S. democracy promotion, Thomas Carothers argues that the next administration will have to go beyond simply righting the wrongs of the Bush administration in this domain to reformulate our very understanding of the relationship between our own democracy and the struggling democratic systems abroad that we seek to help.

Does Democracy Promotion Have a Future?

Thomas Carothers analyzes current challenges to democracy promotion in "Does Democracy Promotion Have a Future?" published in a new book on Democracy and Development, edited by Bernard Berendsen (KIT Publishers, Amsterdam).

More on Democracy Promotion >

Is a League of Democracies a Good Idea?

In the third brief in this new series, Thomas Carothers argues that although the proposed “League of Democracies” reflects a useful recognition of the need to rebuild U.S. credibility through greater multilateralism, it rests on a false assumption that democracies share sufficient common interests to work effectively together on a wide range of global issues. Rather than restoring the credibility of U.S. foreign policy and placing democracy promotion efforts back on track, such a league could aggravate global sensitivities over the U.S. global security agenda. Carothers outlines steps the next U.S. president should take to bolster democracy promotion and foreign policy in general.

League of Democracies Debate:
Washington Post op-ed: An Unwanted League
Foreign Policy: A League of Their Own

Pro League:
Jackson Diehl
Robert Kagan

Anti League:
Michael Emerson and Richard Youngs
Morton Halperin
Gideon Rachman

Confronting the Weakest Link

Political parties are the weakest link in many new democracies around the world—frequently beset with problems of self-interest, corruption, ideological incoherence, and narrow electoralism. A new Carnegie book, Confronting the Weakest Link, is a pathbreaking study of international aid for political parties.  Beginning with a penetrating analysis of party shortcomings in developing and postcommunist countries, Thomas Carothers draws on extensive field research to diagnose deficiencies in party aid, assess its overall impact, and offer practical ideas for doing better. 
Click here to see video of the book launch held on November 30.

More on Political Reform >

U.S. Democracy Promotion During and After Bush

Despite sweeping rhetoric about the global spread of democracy, the Bush Administration has significantly damaged U.S. democracy promotion efforts and increased the number of close ties with “friendly tyrants,” concludes Carnegie Vice President for Studies Thomas Carothers. Carothers analyzes the Bush Administration’s record on democracy promotion, its effect on democracy worldwide, and presents fresh ideas about the role democracy promotion can and should play in future U.S. policies.

Event: In a recent Carnegie seminar, Francis Fukuyama, Vin Weber, Jennifer Windsor, and Carothers discussed the present and future of democracy promotion.
Click here for video, audio, and transcript. 

Related: Repairing Democracy Promotion, Carothers, Washingtonpost.com, September 14, 2007

The "Sequencing" Fallacy: A Debate

Are some countries moving too fast into elections and democracy?  Should democracy await the establishment of the rule of law and a well-functioning state?  Thomas Carothers takes issue with proponents of democratic sequencing in a January 2007 Journal of Democracy article, “How Democracies Emerge: The ‘Sequencing’ Fallacy.”

Jack Snyder, Edward Mansfield, Francis Fukuyama, Sheri Berman and Thomas Carothers debate the "sequencing" fallacy in a follow-up set of essays in the July 2007 Journal of Democracy "The Debate on 'Sequencing."

To view or listen to a panel debate on the article held at the Carnegie Endowment with Thomas Carothers, Professor Jack Snyder of Columbia University, and Professor Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins University, click here.

A Quarter-Century of Promoting Democracy

"The legitimacy of democracy promotion is under serious question."  In a talk at a National Endowment of Democracy event commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 1982 "Westminster Address," Thomas Carothers highlighted the progress and struggles of democracy assistance and the new challenges it now faces.
 

The Democracy Crusade Myth
Some observers argue that the United States should back away from what they characterize as a reckless global democracy crusade.  In fact, as Thomas Carothers argues, the notion that democracy promotion plays a dominant role in Bush policy is a myth.  Rather than a realist corrective, what is needed is a searching debate about how the United States can get back on track with an approach to democracy promotion that commands bipartisan support at home and legitimacy abroad.

This article appears in the July/August 2007 National Interest.

Read Tony Smith's response to Thomas Carothers' The Democracy Crusade Myth here.

Read Thomas Carothers' reply here.