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Ukraine: Democracy is not an American plot. By Michael McFaul.
This odd collection of critics is a little bit right
and a whole lot wrong.
Did Americans meddle in the internal affairs of
Ukraine? Yes. The American agents of influence would prefer different
language to describe their activities—democratic
assistance, democracy promotion, civil society support, and so on—but their work,
however labeled, seeks to influence political change in Ukraine. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, and a few other
foundations sponsored certain U.S. organizations, including Freedom
House, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the
Solidarity Center, the Eurasia Foundation,
Internews, and several others, to provide small grants and technical assistance to Ukrainian civil society. The
European Union, individual European countries,
and the George Soros–funded International Renaissance Foundation did the same.
In the run-up to vote, these American and European
organizations concentrated on creating
conditions for free and fair elections. Western organizations provided
training and some direct assistance to the Committee of Ukrainian Voters,
Ukraine’s first-rate election-monitoring organization. Western funders pooled resources to
sponsor two exit polls.
Western foundations also provided assistance to
independent media. Freedom House and others supported Znayu and the Freedom
of Choice Coalition, whose members included the
high-profile Pora student movement. And through
their conferences and publications, these American organizations supported
the flow of knowledge and contacts between Ukrainian democrats and their counterparts in Slovakia, Croatia, Romania,
and Serbia. The Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe coordinated with several
other European, U.S., and Canadian organizations to mobilize a major international monitoring effort of the election
process. Formally, this help was nonpartisan because the aim was to aid the
electoral process. Yet most of these groups believed that a free and fair
election would mean victory for Viktor Yushchenko. And they were right.
Did the U.S. government fund the Yushchenko campaign
directly? Not to my knowledge. Both the International Republican Institute
and the National Democratic Institute conducted training programs for
Ukrainian political parties, some of which later joined the Yushchenko
coalition. But in the years leading up to the 2004 votes, American
ambassadors in Ukraine insisted that no U.S.
government money could be provided to any candidate. Private sources of external funding and expertise aided the
Yushchenko campaign. Likewise, U.S. and Russian public relations
consultants worked with the Yushchenko campaign, just as U.S. and Russian
public relations people were brought in to help his opponent, Viktor
Yanukovych. In future elections Ukrainian
officials might enforce more controls on foreign resources. But this kind of private, for-profit campaign advice
occurs everywhere now, and Americans no longer control the market.
Did American money bring about the Orange Revolution?
Absolutely not. The combination of a weak, divided, and corrupt ancien
régime and a united, mobilized, and highly motivated opposition
produced Ukraine’s democratic
breakthrough. Westerners did not create or control the Ukrainian democratic movement but rather supported its cause on the
margins. Moreover, democracy promotion groups do not have a recipe for
revolution. If the domestic conditions
aren’t ripe, there will be no democratic breakthrough, no matter how crafted the technical assistance or how
strategically invested the small grants. In fact, Western democracy
promoters work in most developing democracies in the world, yet democratic
transitions are rare.
Do these American democracy assistance groups carry
out the will of the Bush administration? Not really. One of the greatest
myths about U.S. democracy efforts is that a
senior White House official carefully choreographs the efforts of the National Endowment for Democracy or Freedom
House. Although they are perhaps supportive philosophically, policymakers
at the White House and the State Department
have had almost nothing to do with the
design or implementation of American democracy assistance programs. In some
countries, they clash with one another. I witnessed this as the National
Democratic Institute’s representative in Moscow during the last days
of the Soviet Union: “They—the U.S.
policymakers—supported Mikhail Gorbachev; “we” worked
with Democratic Russia, Gorbachev’s opponents. The same divide is
present in many countries today.
Does this kind of intervention violate international
norms? Not anymore. There was a time when
championing state sovereignty was a progressive idea because the advance of
statehood helped destroy empires. But today those who revere the
sovereignty of the state above all else often do so to preserve autocracy,
and those who champion the sovereignty of the people are the new progressives. In Ukraine, external actors who helped
the people be heard were not violating the
sovereignty of the Ukrainian people; they were defending it.
This essay appeared in the Washington Post on December 21, 2004. New from the Hoover Press is The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, by Hugh Agnew, part of the Studies of Nationalities series, which examines the nationalities of Central and Eastern Europe. To order titles in the series, call 800.935.2882. Michael McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also a professor of political science at Stanford. An expert on international relations, Russian politics, political and economic reform in post-communist countries, and U.S. foreign policy, he is director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where he also serves as deputy director. |
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