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Following is a timely and insightful article by the Carnegie Endowment's
Tom Carothers on the prospects for U.S. democracy promotion efforts in a
Trump Administration.

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Ken

Kenneth Wollack
President
National Democratic Institute
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website: www.ndi.org


Prospects for U.S. Democracy Promotion Under Trump

By Thomas Carothers | January 5, 2017

------------------------------

It is impossible to know for certain what approach President-elect Donald
Trump will take to supporting democracy and human rights abroad. So far, he
has offered only scattered hints—expressions of instincts and impulses that
largely point toward a disinclination to engage in democracy promotion but
remain far from being elaborated into concrete policy plans. In addition,
Trump’s leadership style and the overall troubled state of U.S. democracy
will clearly hurt U.S. efforts to advance democracy’s global fortunes in
the years ahead. While all of this points almost uniformly in a negative
direction, it is likely that as Trump and his team move to actual
policymaking, their actions in this domain will prove less consistently
negative than their initial signals might indicate.

NEGATIVE SIGNALS

Throughout his campaign, Trump emphasized his intention to take a purely
transactional approach to other international powers. Underlying this
approach is the idea that the United States will define its interests
narrowly and thereby focus on U.S. economic interests and core security
concerns (above all, counterterrorism). Democracy and human rights in other
countries, and other “soft” interests, are to be put aside in the pursuit
of a get-tough, America-first foreign policy. According to Trump and his
advisers, their counterterrorism strategy will rest on stepped-up military
efforts
<http://www.time.com/4309786/read-donald-trumps-america-first-foreign-policy-speech/>
and possibly harsher treatment of suspected terrorists who are detained or
imprisoned. They have shown no interest in longer-term political approaches
to undercutting the roots of state fragility: for example, Trump declared
at a public event
<http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/in-his-own-words-donald-trump-in-hershey>
in December that “we’re going to stop trying to build new nations in
far-off lands” that “you’ve never even heard of.”

In line with his promise of transactionalism, Trump has taken a strikingly
friendly approach toward various foreign strongmen. His favorable
statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin have attracted the most
attention but are only one part of a larger pattern that includes a recent
sympathetic statement about Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal
crackdown
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/world/asia/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-donald-trump.html>
on undocumented immigrants and drug traffickers, a backslapping meeting
with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in New York in September, and
an effusive postelection telephone call with Hungary’s Prime Minister
Viktor Orbán. He has made it clear that in pursuing warmer relationships
with such leaders, he does not intend to raise unpleasant truths about
their democratic shortcomings. Of course, the United States has long
maintained cozy ties with various nondemocratic governments for the sake of
security and economic interests; but Trump has been offering a kind of
lavish praise that generally does not characterize such relationships and
that extends to strongmen leaders who are not even strategically important
to the United States (like Orbán).

Another serious negative signal related to democracy policy is Trump’s
deep-seated doubts about the value of core U.S. alliances—both with NATO
partners and other crucial longtime allies such as Japan and South Korea
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/donald-trump-foreign-policy.html>.
He has exhibited a lack of appreciation of these alliances, which are
foundational elements of a broader international order that the United
States helped establish and has led for more than a half century—an order
rooted in liberal political values. Without anchoring specific democracy
policies and programs in a larger strategy to preserve this international
order, such efforts will lack real weight.

Of course, U.S. democracy promotion relies not just on actions the United
States takes abroad, but the power of the example it sets at home. Various
problematic features of U.S. political life in recent years—the
institutional gridlock, the ever-rising role of money in politics, and the
frequent skirmishing over basic electoral rules and procedures—have already
tarnished the United States’ image abroad. But the recent U.S. presidential
election process damaged this image much more widely and deeply. Although
this damage had many sources, numerous actions that Trump took during the
campaign and since the election—from his vows to prosecute his main
opponent to his baseless postelection assertions of massive electoral
fraud—figure significantly in the dispiriting diminishment of America’s
global political brand. Trump went so far as to mock the idea of the United
States as a democratic exemplar
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/politics/donald-trump-issues.html>,
declaring in July that “when the world sees how bad the United States is
and we start talking about civil liberties, I don’t think we are a very
good messenger.”

Moreover, highly visible elements of Trump’s leadership style—from his
propensity to engage in personal attacks against journalists and even
average citizens in response to minor perceived slights to his
unwillingness to seriously address the linkages between his business
interests and his political position—set a devastating example to strongmen
leaders around the world. In taking such actions, he is drawing from the
playbook of these vindictive leaders, who have undercut democracy in a
growing number of countries that once enjoyed considerable political space,
such as Hungary, the Philippines, and Turkey. Many democratically dubious
leaders are observing these actions emanating from the president-elect and
undoubtedly saying to their critics: How can you object to my efforts to
defend myself? When I reach out to slap those who dare criticize me, I’m
only doing what the new president of the world’s greatest democracy does.

THE INSEPARABILITY OF VALUES AND INTERESTS

In short, the prospects for serious, effective U.S. engagement by Trump to
support democracy and human rights abroad look dismal. But in practice, the
picture will likely end up being at least somewhat less negative than the
initial signals indicate. The outlook and intentions of incoming U.S.
presidents with respect to democracy promotion tend to change when leaders
move from campaigning to governing. This is true both because of certain
realities of democracy support that come to the fore once new
administrations get under way and because international events sometimes
surprise and redirect new presidents. During the 2000 presidential
campaign, George W. Bush and his top foreign policy advisers showed only
disdain for democracy building and nation building as elements of U.S.
foreign policy. Yet, as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, and Bush’s subsequent embrace of the idea that promoting democratic
inclusion in Muslim-majority countries would undercut violent radicalism,
Bush was soon trumpeting democracy promotion as the defining theme of his
foreign policy.1 President Barack Obama took office intending to
deemphasize what he viewed as an overheated emphasis on democracy promotion
by his predecessor. He omitted any mention of the topic in his inaugural
address in January 2009. However, just six months later, he spoke in Cairo
in ambitious aspirational terms about the possibility of democracy in the
Middle East; and soon after that, in Accra and then at the United Nations
(UN) General Assembly, he took up the democracy theme as well.2

One reason incoming presidents intent on rigorous realism end up adopting
democracy goals more than they had intended is that a sharp separation
between foreign policy interests and values—a key tenet of the tough-minded
realism that presidential candidates often find so appealing to
articulate—is an illusion. Once one descends from policy generalities to
specific country cases, the fact quickly emerges that supporting democracy
is often a useful way to advance “hard” economic and security interests.
This is especially true in countries newly attempting democratic
transitions, where the question almost always arises of whether the United
States will lend a helping hand.

Consider three examples. In Burma, U.S. support for the country’s
transition to democracy—which involves diplomatic engagement, economic
carrots and sticks, and democracy-related assistance—is strongly motivated
by values. It reflects the straightforward hope that the Burmese people
will be better off living under a democracy than under a military-led
dictatorship. But it also has geostrategic motives, including the effort to
limit Chinese influence in Asia. The Burmese military began allowing a
democratic opening in part to defuse citizen unhappiness with China’s
dominant role in the country—a role that the military allowed to grow for
decades. A successful transition to civilian, democratic rule would almost
certainly result in a greater Western economic and diplomatic presence in
the country and a reduced Chinese role.

In Ukraine, the massive outburst of citizen activism that toppled Ukraine’s
government in 2014 and led to a new effort to renovate its stagnant,
semi-authoritarian political system was rooted in Ukrainians’ powerful wish
for their country to have a stronger orientation toward the West. The
extensive U.S. and European support for this attempted democratic
renovation reflects a Western desire to help Ukrainians enjoy the benefits
of democracy. Yet it also has an important strategic impetus: the hope that
a stable, democratic Ukraine will be less subject to Russian political
interference and a better economic and security partner for the West.

Or look at Tunisia. The country stands as a notable exception to the
negative trend of post–Arab Spring political developments in the region
thanks to constructive compromises achieved by the major contending
political factions. The relatively substantial U.S. and European support
for Tunisian democracy is based not only on the hope that Tunisians can
enjoy a better life under democracy. It is also rooted in a security
rationale: Successful political inclusion in Tunisia may help undercut the
threat of radicalization and violent political extremism. And a
consolidated democratic transition in Tunisia would be an important example
of successful political inclusiveness and accountable governance in a
region where political exclusion and unresponsive governance are core
drivers of dangerous security crises.

These three cases are not atypical. In most of the dozens of countries
where the United States is employing diplomatic, economic, and assistance
measures to support potential or struggling democratic transitions—from
Cambodia, Indonesia, and Mongolia to El Salvador, Kenya, Nigeria, and
Venezuela—such efforts align closely with and serve a critical array of
unquestionably hard interests. These include limiting the strategic reach
of the United States’ autocratic rivals, fighting terrorism, reducing
international drug trafficking, and undercutting the drivers of massive
refugee flows.

In a small number of countries, for example, Albania and Malawi, the United
States is engaged in supporting democracy despite having few significant
economic or security interests at stake. However, by supporting democracy
in such cases as well, the United States helps contribute to positive
contagion effects within politically shaky regions where every additional
successful democratic experiment helps buttress other fledgling attempts.
Trump and his advisers who profess tough-minded realism should ask
themselves a basic question: if democracy promotion is such a soft interest
disconnected from U.S. core interests, why do our major geopolitical rivals
so intensely dislike our attachment to the endeavor?

In this regard, it is worth noting that despite Trump’s signaling about
values-free deal making with rivals such as Putin, he has already spoken in
favor of supporting democratic principles in some nondemocratic countries.
In his statement following the death of former Cuban president Fidel Castro
<https://www.greatagain.gov/president-elect-donald-j-trump-statement-on-the-passing-of-fidel-castro-44f8262c37ad#.6zhugvj5r>,
he pledged “our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban
people finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty.” Late in
the presidential campaign, he similarly pledged “to stand with the
oppressed people of Venezuela
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/opinion/venezuelas-currency-madness.html>
yearning to be free.”

The inseparability of values and interests points to an additional
consideration for the president-elect and his advisers that complicates
taking a purely transactional approach to dealing with U.S. rivals. Trump
has implied that democracy and rights are among those niceties that will
need to be put aside in the muscular process of forging new or better deals
with these countries. It is indeed true that U.S. criticisms related to
democracy and rights seriously irritate governments such as those in China
and Russia. One reason that Chinese elites took a somewhat cautiously
positive view of Trump’s election was their relief over not having to deal
with Hillary Clinton bothering them about their human rights shortcomings.
Yet if a focus on democracy and rights is such an irritant, shouldn’t a
transactional approach seek to use it as a bargaining chip to be traded
away in return for something useful to the United States? In other words,
if Trump fancies being a shrewd negotiator on the international diplomatic
stage, why not take advantage of every lever or pressure point available to
the United States in dealing with difficult rivals? Why unilaterally
disengage on the democracy and rights front before even going into the fray?

GIVING UP IS DIFFICULT TO DO

An attempt by Trump and his advisers to shift decisively away from the
longtime, bipartisan consensus on the important place of democracy
promotion in U.S. policy will confront not just the complex interlocking of
different U.S. interests but also multiple institutional or contextual
constraints. None of these constraints is likely to be decisive, but all of
them will complicate any effort to reset the dial of U.S. democracy support
at somewhere close to zero.

First, the Trump administration will encounter significant resistance
within Congress. Various senators and representatives on both sides of the
aisle are committed to U.S. support for democracy and human rights, seeing
it as a commitment to fundamental values and an intrinsic part of
projecting American strength. This group comprises a bipartisan mix of
influential senators, including Ben Cardin, Lindsey Graham, Tim Kaine,
Patrick Leahy, John McCain, and Marco Rubio. Policy toward
Russia—especially how much the United States should overlook Russia’s
nondemocratic nature for the sake of cooperation on certain security
issues—is already a source of sharp disagreement between the Trump team
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/08/republicans-ready-to-launch-wide-ranging-probe-of-russia-despite-trumps-stance/?utm_term=.1092945de8ef>
and some senators and representatives. Conflicts will arise with respect to
policies concerning other countries, as well as with assistance programs
where administration actions go against well-established congressional
preferences.

Second, even if the Trump team deemphasizes democracy support from the top
down in its foreign policymaking, the issue is widely institutionalized
within the foreign policy bureaucracy. Many U.S. ambassadors and other
career senior diplomats have worked for years to employ diplomatic and
economic carrots and sticks to support democracy where it is advancing or
backsliding. Democracy support is built into country strategies wherever
the United States provides aid; and democracy-related programs are rooted
in multiple sources of aid, including security-related sources such as the
sizeable assistance budget of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. While the Trump team
may reduce diplomatic attention to democracy policy from the top, tearing
out the many threads of democracy support from the institutional fabric of
U.S. foreign policy would not be a simple or quick task.

Third, the U.S. public may be less inclined to applaud the abandoning of a
U.S. commitment to a more democratic world than the Trump team may think.
It is true that in surveys asking U.S. citizens about foreign policy
priorities, supporting democracy abroad ranks low
<http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/31/americans-foreign-policy-priorities-for-2014/>
on the list when presented alongside alternatives such as protecting the
country against terrorism. It would be surprising if it did not, given the
many perceived threats facing the country. Yet the Trump administration
will likely be surprised to discover how many Americans still support a
broad-gauged U.S. engagement in the world.3 Moreover, once past the initial
puffery over the idea of negotiating great new deals for the country, Trump
and his team will find that befriending dictators and disappointing
democratic allies does not play well over the long term within the U.S.
public arena.

Fourth, as he begins to meet with allies, Trump and his team will confront
the reality that democracy support is not a uniquely American
preoccupation. They will find that many good friends of the United States
work in important ways to advance democracy internationally and want the
United States to continue to play a major role in that effort. The idea
that has gained traction in U.S. policy circles in recent months—that the
liberal international order has no significant adherents anymore beyond
Germany—is deeply flawed. It ignores that numerous governments and regional
groupings—including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile,
the European Union, Great Britain, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, the
Netherlands, the Nordic countries, South Africa, South Korea, and
Taiwan—are deeply committed to an international order rooted in shared
liberal values. The abandonment of democracy support would not smooth over
U.S. relations with most other countries; it would instead put the United
States at odds with the majority of its most valuable and reliable
international partners. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s congratulatory
message to Trump
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/angela-merkels-warning-to-trump>
after his election—in which she specified that Germany’s offer of
cooperation with the United States is based on shared democratic and other
liberal values—underlined this fact.

THE BREAKING POINT

Taken at face value, Trump’s signals regarding democracy and human rights
support point to a serious deviation away from a basic recognition that has
informed U.S. foreign policy for the past thirty years—that it is in the
United States’ interest to give at least some serious attention to these
issues. However, there are reasons to think that Trump and his foreign
policy team will not end up diverging from this norm as drastically as
these signals indicate. They will discover that supporting democracy and
rights also helps to serve hard interests vis-à-vis many countries and that
significant opposition to dismantling democracy policies will arise from
within the U.S. government, as well as from the U.S. public and many U.S.
allies.

For the U.S. democracy support community, this situation has several
implications. First, the community will need to emphasize to the Trump team
the multiple ways that democracy support serves U.S. security and economic
interests. Democracy promoters—proud of supporting democracy as an ideal
and reticent about giving foreign counterparts the idea that this support
is primarily aimed at advancing U.S. interests—have not always made the
instrumental case as forthrightly as they could. Second, the community
should make extra efforts to build relations as widely as possible
throughout the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, going beyond the
core set of known democracy promotion stalwarts to reach the next circle of
senators and congressmen and staff who are less knowledgeable about and
committed to the topic, but open to the idea. Third, U.S. democracy
supporters should prioritize bringing together officials, aid
practitioners, and activists from other democracies that are engaged in
international democracy work with representatives of the new U.S.
administration to highlight common interests and the value of joint action.
Many of these individuals abroad have been watching the negative signals
coming from the president-elect and wondering what will be left of U.S.
democracy promotion. The democracy community will need to actively show
these counterparts that democracy support will remain a continuing part of
U.S. policy and help them connect with the new administration.

Despite the possible constraints the president-elect faces in regard to
dismantling democracy support—and the practical, preventive actions the
democracy community can take—the situation is troubling. It is difficult
know how deeply the damaged state of U.S. democracy and the possible
continuation of antidemocratic actions on Trump’s part—such as his open
ridiculing of independent media—will undercut the credibility and
legitimacy of U.S. democracy-related policies abroad. Of course, it is not
necessary to be a flawless democracy to be a meaningful supporter of
democracy in other countries. Many democratic countries engaged in
democracy support have significant democratic deficiencies. Effective
democracy support draws from the hard and comparative experience of
multiple countries, rather than supposedly pristine models. But there is a
breaking point in which a democracy is so fractured that its politicians
and diplomats lack basic credibility when they attempt to encourage or
pressure foreign counterparts to forge a democratic path—especially from a
country in the habit of putting itself forward as the head of the
democratic pack. The United States is closer to this breaking point than it
has ever been before.

NOTES

1 George Packer, The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar,
Straus, and Giroux, 2005).

2 Thomas Carothers, Democracy Policy Under Obama: Revitalization or
Retreat? (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012).

3 A 2014 Chicago Council survey found that “58 percent say that the United
States should play an active part in world affairs.” However, it should be
noted that a 2016 Pew report found a lower percentage of Americans (37
percent) believe that the United States “should help other countries deal
with their problems.” See Dina Smeltz, Ivo Daalder, and Craig Kafura,
Foreign Policy in the Age of Retrenchment: Results of the 2014 Chicago
Council Survey of American Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy (Chicago:
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2014); and Pew Research Center, Public
Uncertain, Divided Over America’s Place in the World (Washington, DC: Pew
Research Center, 2016), http://www.people-press.org/
2016/05/05/public-uncertain-divided-over-americas-place-in-the-world/