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Contributions from
the Column
Facts and trends
BMZ proposal for reforming voting rights at the World Bank
How fast the world population
After Cancún: future of G21 uncertain
Building democracies from outside takes a long time
Development Policy Media Prizes 2003
EU Commission to integrate development fund in the EU budget
Negotiations between EU and ACP states
SPD Forum: 'One World starts at home
New framework for GTZ projects: “Impact and objectives are crucial”
11/2003
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[ Rand Corporation study ]
Building democracies
from outside takes a long time
If the United States wants to succeed in what it calls its mission to pacify and democratise Iraq, it needs to be prepared for a long and heavy commitment of financial and human resources. That is the conclusion reached in a study presented at the end of September by the US political think tank, the Rand Corporation. The crucial question for the United States, it says, is not "how soon it can leave [Iraq], but rather how fast and how much to share power with Iraqis and the international community while retaining enough power to oversee an enduring transition to democracy and stability.
The authors base their conclusions on a study of seven cases since 1945 in which the United States (or a US-led alliance) attempted to pacify and stabilise a country after military intervention. While Germany and Japan are held up as examples of success, the interventions in Somalia and Haiti are classed as failures. The engagement in Bosnia and Kosovo is found so far to have been a partial success, but the way things have developed in Afghanistan to date is not very encouraging. Factors such as the ethnic and social homogeneity of the population, the state of economic development, the existence of administrative structures and experience of democracy can influence the outcome of such engagements but what really makes the difference is the intervening power's willingness to invest as much time, money and human resources as is needed. No one has ever succeeded, the study's authors note, in bringing democracy to a country from outside in a space of less than five years.
The attempt to do so in Haiti in the mid-1990s failed, we're told, because the US-led UN mission was terminated before the newly created democratic institutions could be consolidated; restoring the elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not enough. The authors' forecast for the international engagement in Afghanistan is a sceptical one because donors are felt to be too reluctant to make aid payments. While per capita aid in the first two years after military intervention exceeded 800 US dollars in Kosovo and even reached 1400 dollars in Bosnia, the figure in Afghanistan so far is just 52 dollars. (See also p. 405 in this issue) (ell)
The study can be found on the Internet at
www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1753/
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