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CIAO DATE: 04/05/07
Sustaining Democracy's Last Wave
by Kim Campbell and Sean C. Carroll
"Are we next?" Syrian President Bashar Assad asked in February of this year. "The first step was Iraq and soon it will be Iran and Syria." He charges Israel and the White House with being behind the series of "objectives."1 His comments came more as a result of the response to the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, and the ensuing revolt in Lebanon than the events in Iraq. What he has now realized is that the people in the region, rather than the machinations of the Mossad and the White House, are the ones taking their nations toward democracy. The Lebanese are demanding to be citizens of an independent Lebanon, rather than merely inhabitants of an occupied state. A month later Assad answered his own question, promising multi-candidate elections and alternating power.2 Exactly when and how remains to be seen, but Assad's words were deemed unthinkable by many a few months ago. It is not as astonishing or sudden as it would seem.
The gathering wave of democracy in the Arab world is real. So is the continuing wave in the former Soviet Union, which has recently watered the buds of democratic renewal in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, bringing colorful Rose, Orange, and Tulip Revolutions. Could this be the swelling of what will become democracy's last wave, breaking over the remaining bastions of autocracy? It might be, but the international community has a weighty obligation to ensure that this wave is not fleeting, as it was a decade ago in Africa and, prior to that, in the Middle East. The question is how democracy promoters can best support leaders and citizens of new democracies to successfully ride the wave through transition and consolidation. Democracy, to be sure, is a powerful force in itself, but international support can go a long way to secure its presence and durability.
Ronald Reagan asked Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down that wall," but it was the people of Berlin who actually demolished it. Either external or internal pressures can open the door to democracy, but only local actors can eventually fling it open wide and walk through it, as occurred in the Philippines and Poland, in Chile and South Africa. It is now taking place in Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, and Egypt, and will soon in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Like previous transitions, the changes in the Arab world will come from within by some combination of reform-driven leaders and citizens. The international community must support these democrats at every step of the way by walking behind or beside them-not in front of them.
Leadership is crucial to successful democratic transition and consolidation. One important role for international democracy supporters is to provide capacity building for new political leaders, including those in opposition to non-democratic regimes and those newly elected. Democratization is a complex, open-ended, and uncertain process in which participants learn and define what is (and is not) democratic practice over time.3 The transitional period is critical, as democracy either takes root or flounders in the early days and weeks of change. In fluid environments, strong, principled leadership is key to establishing and sustaining democratic governance as new institutions and politicians emerge. Studies of the relationship between democracy and long-term economic development cite the leadership factor as critical for producing sustainable results.4
Kim Campbell is Secretary General of the Club of Madrid. She served as Prime Minister of Canada.
Sean C. Carroll is Program Director of the Club of Madrid.