Washington -- Developing democracy in the
world “is a long-term, generational task,” Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice told the inaugural meeting of
the Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion on November
6.
“America can have a leading voice
in promoting democracy” working in concert with universities
and other nongovernmental institutions to help develop civil
society in new democracies, Rice said.
“[E]ven if people hold very dear in
their hearts the desire to be free, it is still quite a
challenge to get from that desire to be free, to working
governmental and nongovernmental institutions that can be
the core of helping people to realize those dreams,”
she told the group of policy experts.
“If you ask people, ‘do you
want to live in a society in which you have some say in
who will govern you, in which you can educate your children,
both boys and girls, in which you can speak your conscience,
in which you can worship freely, in which you can associate
to promote your interests’ -- the sort of basics of
democracy -- most people will say ‘yes.’ And
we're learning around the world that most people will say
‘yes’ whether they are sophisticated and literate
or … they are poor farmers.”
Rice said democracy is a process of development
that does not follow straight lines, and is "prone
to fits and starts. They are prone to reversals from time
to time."
Rice said governments must be responsive
to the needs of their people, but often a new democracy
cannot deliver benefits to the people immediately. “[W]hen
people have voted, they seem to expect that there is going
to be change, and when that change doesn't come, there is
sometimes frustration and a tendency to blame democracy,”
she said.
The United States had its own struggles
with democracy, she said, noting that it was not until 1965
that all American citizens were guaranteed the right to
vote. “[W]hile our institutions were created to sustain,
support and protect democracy, ... they were initially institutions
of a very limited franchise, but ... over time, little by
little, step by step, brick by brick, the United States
has included more of its population in the democratic enterprise,”
she said, adding that the same process might be expected
for other evolving democracies.
International organizations such as NATO
and the United Nations play an important role in promoting
democratic values, she said.
Rice explained that delicate diplomacy is
necessary to maintain complex bilateral relationships with
states that are not strong protectors of human rights and
other democratic freedoms. “You have to keep pressing
the issues, no matter how important other elements of the
relationship may be,” she said. For this reason, she
said, it was important to support the independent press
by meeting with the staff of Novaya Gazeta when she was
in Russia. (See related
article.)
Individual freedoms can suffer when “the
institutions that one would hope would separate power are
not very strong – the legislature, the press, the
judiciary,” she said. (See Freedom
of the Press.)
Another example Rice cited was Egypt. Civil
society “is stronger in Egypt than I had known,”
and its long-standing and “articulated set of institutions”
merit support, she said. But she said the United States
has protested the detention of opposition politician Ayman
Nour. (See related
article.)
When asked about the elections in the Palestinian
Authority, Rice said, “Because sometimes elections
turn out differently than we might have hoped,” it
does not mean the United States will withdraw support of
democracy there. “When Hamas won the election in the
Palestinian Territories, we recognized that this was a legitimate
election; by all accounts it was free and fair.” She
said where Hamas fails is in “the international acceptability
that it takes to get assistance and to provide for the Palestinian
people.” (See related
article.)
She asked, “Would we ever have seen
Hamas confronted with that dilemma without elections?”
All young democracies require multifaceted
support to become “well-governed democratic states”
that can sustain democracy, Rice emphasized.
“You can’t just have an election
and leave these states to their own devices … you
have to help to build the infrastructure.”
Government officials serving on the committee
include Rice, Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance Randall
L. Tobias, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global
Affairs Paula J. Dobriansky (the committee’s executive
director) and Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau
of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Barry F. Lowenkron.
Other committee members are former U.S.
government officials and representatives of corporations,
nongovernmental organizations, public policy organizations
and academic institutions. Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of
Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public
and International Affairs, chairs the committee.
For more information, see Democracy
Dialogues.
###
