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91. Challenges to U.S. Government Support for Media Development

Author:
Andrew Green
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
Media play a pivotal role in U.S. foreign policy, but the two U.S. government bodies most directly involved in media development assistance—the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—face significant resource shortfalls in this area. This weakness has a direct impact on the U.S. government's ability to support media development around the world. Several units within the State Department are engaged with media efforts. Those that work in media development usually do so in cooperation with or through USAID and its media experts.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, Mass Media, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States

92. The Political Economy of Heterogeneous Development: Quantile Effects of Income and Education

Author:
Marcus Alexander, Matthew Harding, and Carlos Lamarche
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Does development lead to the establishment of more democratic institutions? The key to the puzzle, we argue, is the previously unrecognized fact that based on quantitative regime scores, countries over the past 50 years have clustered into two separate, very distinct, yet equally-common stages of political development—authoritarian states with low levels of freedom on one side an d democracies with liberal institutions on the other side of a bimodal distribution of political regimes. We develop a new empirical strategy—exploiting exogenous world economic factors and introducing new panel data estimators—that allows for the first time to estimate the effects of development as well as unobserved country effects in driving democracy at these different stages of political development. We find that income and education have the least effect on democracy when authoritarian regimes are consolidated and that only country effects, possibly accounting for institutional legacies, can lead to political development. Ironically, it is in highly democratic and wealthiest of nations that income and education start to play a role; however greater wealth and better educated citizenry can both help and hurt democracy depending again on what the country's institutional legacies are. Far from accepting the notion that much of the developing world is cursed by unchanging and poor long-run institutions, policy-makers should take note that with democratization we also see country-specific factors that in turn condition the difference income and education make for democracy.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, Political Economy, and Third World
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, China, Asia, and Germany

93. Who Gets Bought? Vote Buying, Turnout Buying, and Other Strategies

Author:
Jordan Gans-Morse, Sebastian Mazzuca, and Simeon Nichter
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
During elections in many countries, political parties distribute particularistic benefits to individuals. The existing literature reveals that parties choose from at least five distinct strategies when distributing benefits, but fails to explain how parties allocate resources across these strategies. Our formal model provides insight into this key question. Most studies focus exclusively on "vote buying," a strategy by which parties reward voters for switching their votes. Our model first shows how parties trade off between "vote buying" and "turnout buying," a strategy by which parties reward supporters for showing up at the polls (Nichter 2008). We then show how parties combine these and other commonly observed strategies.
Topic:
Corruption and Democratization
Political Geography:
United States and Argentina

94. After the Crackdown: The Iran Democracy Fund

Author:
J. Scott Carpenter
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Nearly three months have passed since Iran's bloody crackdown on the mass protests over the controversial June 12 presidential election. The Obama administration, however, has yet to determine a strategy to support the first serious challenge to the regime since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Last week's statement by Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- that he saw no proof the British or the West were behind the protests -- should encourage the United States to pursue a more assertive approach to support Iranians working for change. Nevertheless, the State Department's Iran Democracy Fund -- currently the only tool available for promoting democracy in Iran -- has been extremely cautious in its funding decisions since President Barack Obama's inauguration.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Democratization, Diplomacy, Islam, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Iran

95. Mubarak Comes to Washington

Author:
J. Scott Carpenter and David Schenker
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On August 18, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak travels to Washington for a White House meeting with President Barack Obama. The trip -- Mubarak's first visit to the United States in six years -- marks the culmination of a six-month effort by the Obama administration to hit the reset button with Cairo. After years of tension resulting from the last administration's focus on human rights and democratic development, the traditional U.S.-Egyptian bilateral "bargain" has been effectively restored. In exchange for cooperation on key mutual interests -- the peace process and the Iranian threat --Washington appears to have shelved longstanding concerns over internal Egyptian governance. While the new dynamic may help mitigate some regional crises, the political and economic challenges Cairo faces will not age well, particularly as the state enters its first period of leadership transition in twenty-eight years.
Topic:
Democratization, Human Rights, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Washington, Middle East, and Egypt

96. "Fixing Broken Windows": Security Sector Reform in Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen

Author:
Yezid Sayigh
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
As they emerge from conflict, states can rarely commence the arduous task of reconstruction and consolidate their governments until they undertake extensive restructuring of their security forces. Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen are all fractured, quasi-democratic states with divided societies, and deep disagreement over what constitutes the national interest. Successful reform in each will require security institutions that answer to democratically-elected civilian leaders, but the U.S. and European approach has thus far focused largely on providing military training and equipment, targeted toward counterterrorist capabilities.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Democratization, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Yemen, Arabia, and Lebanon

97. Revitalizing Democracy Assistance: The Challenge of USAID

Author:
Thomas Carothers
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
President Obama and his foreign policy team are only just starting to confront the challenge of reformulating U.S. democracy promotion policy. Crucial to any such effort will be revitalizing democracy assistance, a domain that has expanded greatly over the past 25 years but risks not adapting adequately to meet the challenges of the new landscape of democratic stagnation in the world. As the largest source of U.S. democracy assistance, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a natural starting point for such a process of revitalization.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, International Cooperation, and Reform
Political Geography:
United States

98. The Future of Red, Blue and Purple America

Author:
Ruy Teixeira
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Political polarization in the United States has a number of causes, ranging from media hype to gerrymandering to hyper- ideological elites to cultural “sorting” between the parties. But there is another key contributor that is frequently overlooked: demographic and geographic changes in the electorate that have altered the sizes of different population groups and even shifted their political orientations over time. These changes have helped produce the current deadlock between coalitions of roughly equal size and opposed outlooks. But these same changes—since they will continue to alter group sizes and political orientations in the future—could also provide the impetus for unlocking this polarization and policy gridlock in the future.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and America

99. Iraq's Interior Ministry: Frustrating Reform

Author:
Robert M. Perito
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
In December 2006, the Iraq Study Group reported that the Iraqi Interior Ministry (MOI) was confronted by corruption, infiltrated by militia and unable to control the Iraqi police. In July 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that Iraq's MOI had become a "federation of oligarchs" where various floors of the building were controlled by rival militia groups and organized criminal gangs. The report described the MOI as an eleven-story powder keg of factions where power struggles were settled by assassinations in the parking lot. In its September 2007 report, the congressionally mandated Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq described Iraq's MOI as a ministry in name only, dysfunctional, sectarian and suffering from ineffective leadership. Even Iraq's Interior Minister, Jawad al-Boulani, has called for the comprehensive reform of his ministry.
Topic:
Democratization
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

100. Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: Restoring Credibility

Author:
Marina Ottaway
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The Bush administration's democratization rhetoric was never buttressed by an unambiguous, sustained policy to promote political reform. Concerns about security and stability have now virtually halted U.S. democracy promotion efforts. This is a short-sighted policy because political reform is imperative in countries where political systems remain stagnant in the face of rapid societal change. The United States needs to renew its efforts, taking into account that past policies have undermined its credibility in the region. It thus must abandon the empty rhetoric of the last few years in favor of modest goals developed and pursued in cooperation with regional and local actors, rather than imposed from Washington.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East