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The Century Foundation, as part of its project on democracy and U.S. foreign policy, and Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Stiftung organized a day-long conference addressing the future focus of international support for democracy as new leaders take stock of the efforts of recent decades. Participants discussed recent disillusionment and a resurgent “realism”; the symbiosis between democracy and people’s economic prospects; the special issues of democratic governance in the turbulent Middle East; and strategies going forward. Financier/philanthropist George Soros led a lunchtime discussion on the implications of current global economic crisis for the future of democracy.
The diversity of panelists and participants, who came from five continents and included trade unionists, government representatives, UN officials, academics, and NGOs, ensured a fresh and lively debate.
- For conference program, click here
- For conference participants, click here
Disillusionment, Realism, and Renewal in the Democracy Debate
- Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi (Democratic Governance Practice Director in the Bureau for Development Policy, UNDP)
- Thomas Melia (Deputy Executive Director, Freedom House)
- Karsten Voigt (Coordinator of German-American Cooperation, Federal Foreign Office, Germany)
- Moderator: Jeffrey Laurenti (Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign Policy Programs, The Century Foundation)
The opening panel explored European, American, and developing-world perspectives on the support the international community has provided, or should provide, to support democratic governance as a core political right that is virtually universally acknowledged, even as the hard-earned international consensus around democracy as the normative political ideal has faced erosion in recent years.
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Discussion Video
Q&A Video
Democracy, Economics, and Unforeseen Couplings
- Ian Bremmer (President, Eurasia Group)
- Gert Rosenthal (Permanent Representative of Guatemala to the United Nations)
- Austin Muneku (Director of Research and Economics, Zambia Congress of Trade Unions)
- Moderator: Eddie Webster (Professor, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa)
The linkage between democracy and economics is controversial; during the cold war democracy was derided by both left and right as a distraction from economic development or economic justice—and perhaps as a pathway to subversion of either one or the other. In recent decades, some have insisted democracy is coupled inextricably with free-market economics, others that it requires mass mobilization through trade unions, and still others continue to challenge democracy’s suitability for accelerating economic development.
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Discussion Video
Q&A Video
The Economic Crisis: A Crisis of Democracy Too?
Financier/philanthropist George Soros led discussion of the political reverberations of the global economic crisis. He reviewed efforts to support democratic openings in communist-ruled Eastern Europe, and then analyzed the impact of macroeconomic trends and the profound implications of the U.S.-led free-market collapse for the world economy and for the stability and survival of democratic systems.
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George Soros Discussion Video
George Soros Q&A Video
Democracy Promotion in the Middle East
- Noha El-Mikawy (Governance and Poverty Advisor, UNDP Oslo Governance Center)
- Shadi Hamid (Fellow, Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Stanford University; Director of Research, Project on Middle East Democracy)
- Marina Ottaway (Director, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
- Moderator: Michael Wahid Hanna (Program Officer, The Century Foundation)
Nowhere has democracy promotion from abroad proved more contentious than in the Middle East, where authoritarian governments have often ruled fractious societies and where the religiously devout are often sharply–and sometimes violently—at odds with the more secular-minded. This session explored such issues as the democratic potential of social movements in the Middle East, including both historical examples of leftist parties as well as modern-day Islamists, and the implications for resolving the region’s recurrent conflicts.
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Discussion Video
Q&A Video
What Now? Where to take the cause of democracy?
- Morton Halperin (Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress)
- Heraldo Muñoz (Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations)
- Ernst Kerbusch (Former Head of Division for International Cooperation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung)
- Masood Haider (UN Correspondent, The Daily Dawn of Pakistan)
- Moderator: Werner Puschra (Director, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, New York Office)
The experiences of Chile, Pakistan, and Germany in both developing domestically and promoting externally democratic institutions featured heavily in this panel’s debate. Key questions addressed included the proper role of larger and more prosperous democracies, aid and trade conditionality, regional organizations’ intervention against interruptions of democratic governance among their member states, and the capacities and roles of the United Nations and groupings of like-minded states such as the Community of Democracies. Discussion Video
Q&A Video
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Taking Note
