European Approaches to Democracy Promotion

Abstract

Democracy is the only system that guarantees people political and civil rights and the right to participation. No other form of government has proved to be so successful, so humane, and so conducive to development.The international community too has recognized that social, economic, and environmental progress and broad-based growth can only be achieved and secured on a sustainable bases within a democratic political system based on the rule of law.1Europe's democracies have a pioneering record in promoting democracy and human rights outside their borders. Through government developmental agencies such as Britain's Department for International Development, Germany's Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Swedish International Development Agency, and similar organizations, much of Europe has long made development assistance a priority. While the bulk of development assistance addresses concerns such as poverty, hunger, and conflict, many European governments have incorporated democracy and human rights programming into foreign assistance.This more traditional approach to democracy and human rights work as a part of broader development assistance has been accompanied by a strong commitment by European political parties and related institutions to democracy promotion. Beginning as early as the 1920s, European parties embarked on programs to support democratic development through a fairly consistent model. Germany's political party foundations, or Stiftungen, have long played a leading role in supporting foreign political parties with training, seminars, and other activities in developing democracies. Under the German model, foundations are established with links to the major political parties. In some cases, (such as in Great Britain), the parties themselves established international offices as part of the party structure. Funding is provided by the government, typically apportioned based on parties' relative strength in the national parliament (or a combination of national and regional parliamentary representation).Particularly since the fall ofthe Berlin wall in 1989, many new players have followed Germany's lead and begun democracy and human rights work through party foundations. These new European foundations have largely followed the German example of establishing government-funded nongovernmental organizations linked to major political parties. As in Germany, many of these new party foundations combine domestic and international activities. But many ofthe newcomers to democracy promotion in Europe have also borrowed from the American model of establishing an independent (though state-funded) NGO to serve as a mechanism to channel resources to democracy-promotion activities to party foundations while maintaining an arm's-length distance from the government.The European Union has also become a major player in democracy and human rights work, particularly since the expansion of the EU to include former communist nations in central and eastern Europe. As with Spain and Portugal in the 1970s, many ofthe new member states benefited from democracy promotion activities in the 1980s and 1990s. As full-fledged members of the European Union, countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have brought a renewed emphasis and supported increased funding from the EU for human rights and democracy work.This article will survey the scope of democracy promotion activities in Europe, with an emphasis on two areas in which Europe's approach has been distinct: the party foundation model developed in Germany and used with modifications across the EU, and the unique role of the European Union itself as a transnational source of funding and support.THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCEFormer President George W Bush made democracy promotion a central tenet of American foreign policy. During the Bush years, the US dramatically increased spending for democracy and human rights activities and created a host of new mechanisms to provide resources toward democracy promotion. …