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