Promoting Democracy And Peace

How Western donor assistance can both help and undermine democracy in different parts of the world Democracy promotion is a central pillar of the foreign policy of many states, but the results are often disappointing. In Promoting Democracy, Manal A. Jamal examines why these efforts succeed in some countries, but fail in others. A former journalist and researcher in the Palestinian territories, she offers an up-close perspective of the ways in which Western donor funding has, on one hand, undermined political participation in cases such as the Palestinian territories, and, on the other hand, succeeded in bolstering political engagement in cases such as El Salvador. Based on five fieldwork trips and over 150 interviews with grassroots activists, political leaders, and directors and program officers in donor agencies and NGOs, Jamal brings into focus an often-overlooked perspective: the experiences of those directly affected by this assistance. Promoting Democracy makes an important and timely argument about how political settlements ultimately shape democracy promotion efforts, and what political choices Western state sponsored donors can make to maximize successful outcomes in different contexts across the world.

Demand for practical knowledge and lessons about how the United States and other countries can more effectively promote democracy around the world has never been higher. This timely book by Thomas Carothers, one of the foremost authorities worldwide on democracy building, helps meet that need. Critical Mission draws together a wide-ranging set of Carothers's many seminal, widely cited essays, organized around four vital themes: the role of democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy the core elements of democracy aid the state of democracy in the world the new U.S. push to promote democracy in the Middle East From puncturing myths about promoting civil society to sizing up the prospects for democracy in the Arab world, Carothers is consistently penetrating, incisive, and challenging to policymakers, democracy activists, and scholars alike.The book also includes the only up-to-date, comprehensive bibliography on democracy promotion.

In Advancing Democracy Abroad, McFaul explains how democracy provides a more accountable system of government, greater economic prosperity, and better security compared with other systems of government. He then shows how Americans have benefited from the advance of democracy abroad in the past, and speculates about security, economic, and moral benefits for the United States from potential democratic gains around the world.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Publisher description

Democracies are extremely unlikely to wage war against other democracies – this main proposition of the Democratic Peace theory constitutes the starting point for this volume. Chapters authored by experts from different parts of the world explore the concept of Democratic Peace in greater depth in relation to selected issue areas and in comparison to other concepts such as security communities or concerts of powers. The role and significance of international organizations and gender equality, for instance, are discussed and assessed in this context. The objective guiding this exercise is to give an answer to the question as to whether Democratic Peace and the other two concepts – i.e. security communities and concerts of powers – can provide a solution to today’s security challenges and constitute a guide to peaceful co-existence and conflict settlement. So, the chapters discuss intellectual frameworks at some length, at the same time, reflecting on potential inferences for the outside world and highlighting associated challenges, limits, or even possible adverse implications.

Civil Paths to Peace contains the analyses and findings of the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding, established in response to the 2005 request of Commonwealth Head of Government for the Commonwealth Secretary-General to 'explore initiatives to promote mutual understanding and respect among all faiths and communities in the Commonwealth.' This report focuses particularly on the issues of terrorism, extremism, conflict and violence, which are much in ascendancy and afflict Commonwealth countries as well as the rest of the world. It argues that cultivating respect and understanding is both important in itself and consequential in reducing violence and terrorism. It further argues that cultivated violence is generated through fomenting disrespect and fostering confrontational misunderstandings. The report looks at the mechanisms through which violence is cultivated through advocacy and recruitment, and the pre-existing inequalities, deprivations and humiliations on which those advocacies draw. These diagnoses also clear the way for methods of countering disaffection and violence. In various chapters the different connections are explored and examined to yield general policy recommendations. Accepting diversity, respecting all human beings, and understanding the richness of perspectives that people have are of great relevance for all Commonwealth countries, and for its 1.8 billion people. They are also importance for the rest of the world. The civil paths to peace are presented here for use both inside the Commonwealth and beyond its boundaries. The Commonwealth has survived and flourished, despite the hostilities associated with past colonial history, through the use of a number of far-sighted guiding principles. The Commission argues that those principles have continuing relevance today for the future of the Commonwealth--and also for the world at large.