National Endowment For Democracy Research Articles

Democracy in Divided Societies: Electoral Engineering for Conflict Management “Chapter 3 Centripetal Incentives and Political Engineering in Australia”

Benjamin Reilly is a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Western Australia. Benjamin previously served as dean of the Sir Walter Murdoch School and was director of the Centre for democratic institutions at the Australian National University (ANU). Benjamin is also an expert in the Australian government, the United Nations, and other international organizations. As a professor of political science, Benjamin was invited to various scientific forums to speak at well-known campuses, such as Harvard, Oxford, and Johns Hopkins. Publicizing scientific papers and books earned Benjamin numerous international grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the United StatesInstitute of Peace, the East-West Center, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Australian Research Council. Benjamin’s ideas and thoughts were widely published in various international and national newspapers, including the New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Time Magazine.

U.S. SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRATIC VALUES IN UKRAINE: THE INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION

The purpose of this article is to analyze the role of U.S. governmental and non-governmental institutions in supporting democratic values in Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. It examines how American assistance has contributed to preserving Ukraine’s democratic governance, sovereignty, and political freedoms during the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict (war). The article also provides an overview of key U.S. institutions and organizations that have actively supported Ukraine’s democratic aspirations through financial aid, technical assistance, and institutional reforms. The methodological basis of the study includes a thorough review of publications from the websites of relevant organizations and agencies, official reports and news for 2022–2024. The research also draws on analytical works from prominent U.S. think tanks, including the Brookings Institution and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, alongside data from surveys conducted by the National Democratic Institute and Razumkov Center. Comparative analysis and case studies are used to assess the feasibility of U.S. support in areas like anti-corruption initiatives, civil society development, and local governance reforms. The scientific novelty of the article lies in its holistic approach to understanding the diverse dimensions of U.S. support for democratic values in Ukraine. Unlike previous studies, which focus on specific aspects of U.S.–Ukraine cooperation, this research presents a comprehensive examination of how American institutions, including the U.S. Department of State, USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) etc. are making efforts to strengthen democracy in Ukraine during the war. The author concludes that U.S. assistance is important for Ukraine’s democratic foundations. However, it has not yet addressed such problems as the decline in Ukrainians’ trust in government institutions, which underscores the need for continued efforts to increase transparency, anti-corruption measures, and accountability to bring Ukraine closer to European standards in the long run.

The National Endowment for Democracy at 40: Back to Basics?

The world system is increasingly characterized by a New Cold War competition between the USA, Russia and China, framed as a battle between “democracy” and “autocracy” by the Biden Administration. This article focuses on the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a key instrument of U.S. democracy promotion in support of national security over the last 40 years. It analyses the extent to which it will remain a valid and effective actor in U.S. foreign policy during the New Cold War. The first two sections focus on the two structural elements that enable the NED to function. The first section focuses on the conceptual framework which has legitimated democracy promotion as an element of U.S. foreign policy. While this has been a U.S. policy imperative since the foundation of the state, its salience and the methods used to pursue it have been determined by shifts in the power of the United States and American perceptions of threats from foreign actors. The second section analyses the factors that have shaped the institutional and strategic position of the NED in U.S. foreign policy since the Cold War. When the U.S. foreign policy elite perceives a unitary threat from a political-ideological actor, coupled with a need to transform closed regimes, the Executive and Congress align to empower the NED through provision of support and resources. The third section examines the position of the NED in the Biden Administration’s strategy and argues it is being supported to the maximum as the lead institution for promoting democracy in hostile authoritarian competitors. It concludes that the NED has shown a high level of institutional survivability but that its model of democracy promotion is increasingly challenged by closing political space in other states, and the erosion of the U.S. economic, military, and ideological power.

Matching program complexity with institutional funding realities in democracy, human rights, and governance program evaluation

AbstractThis chapter introduces the evaluative perspective of a funder – the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – that advances a portfolio of highly diverse and multifaceted democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) projects. The chapter explores the underlying political character of democracy assistance work – which is therefore viewed by some as partisan – and second, the variable dynamic forces intrinsic to complex operating contexts, both of which affect how the NED is able to both standardize and provide flexibility in grantee evaluation. This analysis draws attention to the challenges and opportunities inherent to grantmakers operating on a global scale as well as structuring adaptable evaluation methodologies commensurate with that scale of work yet relevant to grantees.

Edukacja a sytuacja zawodowa młodzieży w Maroku. Zagrożenia i szanse?

The aim of this article is to present the threats and opportunities in the fields of education and the professional situation of Moroccans, especially young people who both try to find their place on the local labor market and emigrate mainly to Western European countries, largely to France, Spain and Italy, seeking stabilization. The recent reforms and unilateral or multilateral initiatives of international consortia, governments, agencies, and non-governmental organizations operating globally and locally are a chance to create a most stable labor market for young people. Often these are micro-scale activities, but the activation and professional support on a micro scale may translate into the effects of improving quality on a macro scale, throughout the country. This article was prepared on the basis of international reports of OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), UNESCO, EU national studies, articles and press reports as well as information on the home pages of institutions and organizations such as USAID (United States Agency for International Development) or NED (The National Endowment for Democracy)

The contested origins of US democracy promotion: the national endowment for democracy and its congressional critics

In 1983, a compromise between the Reagan administration, members of Congress and private groups led to the establishment of the bipartisan democracy promotion organization: the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Tracing congressional efforts to prevent the formation of the NED, this article offers the first comprehensive, archival-based study of the NED’s critics and their arguments and motivations. I find that opposition to the NED consisted of an unlikely and ideologically diverse alliance between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, who took issue with its organizational structure and strategic objectives. Although Congress eventually established the NED with minor concessions to its critics, its origin was considerably more contested than previously acknowledged. The case of the NED also demonstrates the substantial influence of domestic politics and individual members of Congress on US foreign policymaking.

Роль публичной дипломатии США в политической трансформации Венгрии в 1989-1990 гг.

The research objective includes identifying the role and place of the USA public diplomacy in Hungary in the period of political transformations (1989-1990) and in the course of the first democratic elections of 1990. The article examines activity of the American non-commercial organizations (National Endowment for Democracy, Open Society Foundation) that promoted the swift change of Hungary’s political regime in 1989-1990. Scientific originality of the study involves revealing the basic factors that influenced grant policies of the American non-commercial funds in the period of democratic reversals in the region. The conducted research has allowed the author to identify the target audience and to estimate efficiency of the USA public diplomacy programs in the period of Hungary’s political transformation.

Is Li Hongzhi a CIA Agent? Tracing the Funding Trail Through the Friends of Falun Gong

In 2000, Mark Palmer, one of the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED’s) founders and Vice Chairman of Freedom House—an organization funded entirely by the U.S. Congress—founded a new government-supported group, Friends of Falun Gong (FoFG). By perusing FoFG’s annual tax filings, one discovers that FoFG has contributed funds to Sounds of Hope Radio, New Tang Dynasty TV, and the Epoch Times—all Falun Gong media outlets. FoFG has also contributed to Dragon Springs (a Falun Gong ‘compound’ that hosts a Falun Gong school and a residency complex) and to Shen Yun (a Falun Gong performance company), as well as to Falun Gong’s PR arm. In order to contextualize the U.S. government’s funding of Falun Gong, it will also be helpful to examine a handful of additional U.S. agency activities, such as the NED’s funding of Liu Xiaobo, the Hong Kong protests, and other China-related and Tibet-related groups.

Book Review: Is Democracy Exportable?

In 2007, Sirote Klampaiboon, a Thai independent researcher in Political Science, complied his articles and published a book titled “Prachatipatai (Mai Chai) Khong Rao” (lit. Democracy is not ours) to stress to the members of this society, who have an innate belief that they are unique and distinct from the others in various aspects, on the fact that the government system being used for over 75 years, since 1932, is not a creation of their own ancestry but that of those from the other side of the globe. Thus it was not for anyone on this motherland to claim or proclaim as a new denomination of their own interpretations, perspectives, or traditions, collectively called a “culture” of their own and designated it as “Thai Democracy”. While Klampaiboon, along with many from regions all over the world, tried to show their fellow nationals that the “Democracy” was an abstraction their ancestries had “brought in/imported” from, or worse “been indoctrinated” by, the Western world, such as Europe and the United States, and hence it must be abided by as it stands, Zoltan Barany and Robert Moser of the University of Texas advised us to review this from a different perspective by raising questions such as “Can democratic states transplant the seeds of democracy into developing countries?” “What have political thinkers going back to the Greek city-states thought about their capacity to promote democracy?” and “How can democracy be established in divided society?” “Is Democracy Exportable?” is an effort of them, along with 13 fellow academics from the United States, in the finding of the answer to the questions, or stated in terms of 2009 context and before “Can or should the United States or other democratic countries try to export it?”, though it has become a crucial part of foreign policy of the United States of America since the first World War and its international norm since the 1990s. Along with the introduction by Marc Plattner of the National Endowment for Democracy, igniting a chain of thoughts on the unsuccessful efforts to promote democracy of the States, and conclusion by Oxford University’s Nancy Bermeo of analyses of empirical evidence that democracy is not exportable, the book has complied articles from conferences of six divisions within the University of Texas at Austin in April 2007, divided into three parts: Part I. “A Moral Imperative?” contains a single chapter “The Morality of Exporting Democracy: A Historical-Philosophical Perspective” by Thomas Pangle of the University of Texas; Part II. “Structural Preconditions” contains four chapters, “Re-Integrating the Study of Civil Society and the State” by Sheri Berman of the Columbia University, “Encountering Culture” by M. Fish of the University of California, Berkeley, “Does Democracy Work in Deeply Divided Societies?” by Daniel Chirot of the University of Washington, Seattle, and “Democracy, Civil Society, and the Problem of Tolerance” by Adam Seligman of the Boston University – remarking on structural preconditions such as culture, divided societies, and, particularly, civil society, which has been tightly associated with democratization and consolidation since the 1990s, and getting even more critical when Seligman points out that “Whereas democracy may or may not be “exportable”, it is pretty clear that the civil society of any particular country or society most probably is not.”; Part III. “Institutions and Processes” contains five chapters, “Electoral Engineering in New Democracies: Can Preferred Electoral Outcomes Be Engineered?” by Robert Moser, “Does It Matter How a Constitution Is Created?” by John Carey of the Dartmouth College; “Building Democratic Armies” by Zoltan Barany, “Democratization, Conflict, and Trade” by Edward Mansfield of the University of Pennsylvania and Jack Snyder of the Columbia University, and “Exporting Democracy: Does It Work?” by Mitchell Seligson of the Vanderbilt University, Steven Finkel and Anibal Perez-Linan of the University of Pittsburgh – remarking on democratic institutions and processes, such as constitutions, elections, security sector reform, conflict, and trade, ending with a question “Does democracy promotion work?”. In the reviewer’s perspective, as more empirical evidence has increasingly been applied to raise questions on large-scale accounts nowadays, which are progressively becoming more like faiths, or unquestionable realities that are often elicited, “Is Democracy Exportable?” covers prime examples of such important deeds, is recommended for reading, and joining everyone in this extensive and informative discussion on the matter in hand.

A Policy in Tension: The National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Response to the Collapse of the Soviet Union

The failure of a hardline coup attempt in the Soviet Union in August 1991 spelled the end of Communist Party (CPSU) rule in the USSR and left the Soviet state teetering on the brink of dissolution. In a September 1991 article in the Washington Post, David Ignatius attributed the coup’s defeat—as well as the crumbling of Soviet-style communist regimes across Eastern Europe in 1989—in part to a new weapon in the U.S. foreign policy arsenal: independent, overt democracy aid. “[T]he old era of covert action,” Ignatius proclaimed, “is dead.” Instead, over the past decade, a new “network” of private democracy organizations based in the United States had been “doing in public what the CIA used to do” covertly. By providing assistance to anti-communist groups in the Soviet bloc, he argued, these organizations had played a key role in nurturing the growth of democratic opposition movements across the Soviet empire.1 Ignatius’s analysis illuminates an important but understudied development in the final years of the Cold War: the rise of private democracy organizations as tools of U.S. foreign policy.2 Most accounts of the influence of independent actors in U.S. Soviet relations during this period focus on the role of transnational human rights and peace networks in ending the Cold War by fostering “new thinking” in the Soviet Union and the amelioration of superpower tensions.3 Less attention has been paid to analyzing the nature and impact of efforts by newly established independent democracy organizations based in the United States to make inroads in the increasingly accessible USSR.4

From Promoting Political Polyarchy to Defeating Participatory Democracy: U.S. Foreign Policy towards the Far Left in Latin America

During the 1980s, the United States initiated an explicit policy of democracy promotion throughout the world. William Robinson (1996) more accurately described this initiative as “promoting polyarchy,” whereby the United States supported moderate elite actors that promoted neoliberal economic policies to displace both right-wing and communist despots, such as General Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Soviet rulers in Eastern Europe. While much of Latin America remained characterized by polyarchies throughout the late 20th Century, Latin American citizens began to reject these political arrangements and to elect anti-neoliberal candidates that promoted participatory democracy by the turn of the 21st Century, particularly in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. How has the United States changed its democracy promotion strategies to respond to these new dynamics? The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the U.S. government, through agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID, has altered the main thrust of its foreign policy in Latin America, from promoting polyarchy and displacing despotic leaders, to supporting opposition actors to unseat democratically-elected far leftist leaders that promote participatory democracy. This paper deploys a case study method involving recent U.S. foreign policy in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and it utilizes both U.S. diplomatic cables and interviews with U.S. state elites to illustrate this shift.

The Activity of American Non-Governmental Organisations in the Post-Soviet States during the 1990s

Non-governmental human rights organisations play an increasingly important role in the modern world. One of the most famous of them is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) established in the United States in 1983. This article considers the activity of the NED in the post-Soviet countries during the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author aims to identify the main directions, methods, and patterns of the work of the Endowment. The research is based on annual financial reports of the NED, which provide information on the money received by the fund from US government agencies, and other contributors, and the directions in which the funds are spent. These reports also comment on the development of the democratic process in the states where the NED carries out its projects. The comparison of the amounts allocated to certain countries demonstrates how the priorities of the NED changed, and what problems were given more attention. In the 1990s, the NED paid special attention to the countries of the former Soviet Union, regarding them as promising, but also posing risks to the development of the democratic process in the world. The financing of various democratic and human rights groups in these countries gradually increased: in 2000, the amount allocated to them was almost twice as high as in 1991, with Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus being the most important post-Soviet countries for the NED. It financed several dozens of organisations in them, and the range of its activities in these countries was the most extensive. It is noteworthy that in Russia, the NED actively supported various historical projects aimed at revising Soviet history. After the euphoria of the early 1990s, the NED analytics admitted that the development of the democratic process in many countries of the former USSR faced economic and political difficulties. They stated that in some countries (Belarus, and from 2000, Russia), authoritarian tendencies began to increase, with cases of human rights violations becoming more frequent. As a result, the activity of the NED in the post-Soviet space did not bear fruit everywhere, but increased the hostility of the official authorities towards foreign non-governmental organisations.

Containing revolution: democracy promotion, the Cold War and US national security

This article examines the rise of democracy promotion as a US national security priority and the origins of the US’ first democracy promotion organization: the National Endowment for Democracy. During the 1970s, non-state actors called for the foundation of a private democracy promotion organization to overcome strategic and organizational dilemmas which had resulted in the US state limiting its export of democracy in favour of short-term national security objectives and restraining state–private network organizations during the Cold War. Blueprints for a private democracy foundation resolved these dilemmas by removing the US state as the key actor in democracy promotion. However, the fact that private democracy promoters required state funding to be effective led to a reconciliation with the state, and the foundation of the NED as a privately managed but state-funded organization during the Reagan administration. This reconciliation has led to a recurrence of previous dilemmas, which impact US democracy promotion today.

Popular Value Perceptions and Institutional Preference for Democracy in “Confucian” East Asia

Scholars and observers of democracy have argued that the world has entered a period of democratic recession (Carothers 2006; Diamond 2008; Kurlantzick 2011; Plattner 2015; Puddington 2007, 2009). This pessimistic view is supported by Freedom House's annual report on political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World 2015, which concludes that the state of freedom has declined for the ninth consecutive year (Freedom House 2015). In many cases, this rollback has taken place even as democratic institutions remain, at least superficially, in place. As the National Endowment for Democracy (2006, 2) has noted, there has been an increase in semi-authoritarian hybrid regimes characterized by superficially democratic processes that disguise and help legitimate authoritarian rule. In these countries, there has been a pushback against democracy as autocratic governments clamp down on free media, civil society, and human rights groups (Carothers 2006). In East Asia-the eastern part of the Asian continent that can be defined in either geographical or ethnocultural terms-the democratic recession in semiauthoritarian hybrid regimes has coincided with the entrenchment of authoritarianism in China, which is now the region's largest economy. In the context of the global democratic recession and the rise of China, the prospects for democratization in East and Southeast Asia are now bleaker than at any time since the beginning of the third wave of democratization.Some observers have argued explicitly that the democratic recession is closely associated with China's rise and the position taken by China's leadership toward political institutions (Ambrosio 2012; Ikenberry 2008; Leonard 2008; Tao 2015). Tao (2015) argues that the China model, as an alternative modernization model, has enhanced the normative power of autocracy over democracy. Tao describes China's authoritarian model as an economic globalization model based upon liberal state-market relations and illiberal statesociety relations, with a market economy driven by globalization and a political system operated according to the rule of law. Concerning the mechanisms for international diffusion, Thomas Ambrosio (2010) contends appropriateness and effectiveness are the two key mechanisms for the diffusion of authoritarianism. In this regard, the existence of a successful China model already shows the appropriateness and effectiveness of authoritarianism for countries where a liberal political culture has not developed and both political elites and citizens tend toward normative values such as the accumulation of wealth over political freedom.Literature ReviewThe literature on the decline of democracy is reminiscent of the Asian values debate of the 1990s, following the economic emer- gence of the four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). In the wake of economic development and rising national pride, some politicians in East Asia, such as Lee Kwan Yew and Mohamad Mahathir, questioned the necessity and desirability of liberal democracy, and developed an alternative discourse based on Asian values.1 With the economic rise of China and the stability of its political system the debate surrounding Asian values reappeared. The global financial crisis of 2008 resulted in even more attention given to Asian values as an alternative to liberal democracy (Shin 2012). China's rise has thus reopened the debate between cultural determinism and modernization theory.Cultural determinism and modernization theory are premised on competing claims about the attitudes of ordinary people. Therefore, this study reexamines the Asian values debate by considering popular value perceptions and institutional preference for democracy among citizens in seven societies with Confucian traditions: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, mainland China, and Vietnam.2 The economic success of Confucian (or authoritarian) societies has discredited the idea that the wholesale adoption of democracy is requisite for economic development. …

The Constitutionality of Russia's 'Undesirable' NGO Law

In recent years, Russian lawmakers have expressed heightened concern about the activities of foreign non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”) operating within their country. Russian officials view these NGOs as a potential source of foreign interference in Russian internal affairs. They have responded to this perceived threat with a series of laws that increasingly hinder the work of international NGOs. The most recent anti-NGO law, passed in May 2015, takes the most aggressive steps yet. This law (the “Undesirable NGO Law”) allows Russia’s Prosecutor General to declare certain organizations “undesirable.” Such a label can be issued with minimal process and effectively constitutes a death sentence for foreign NGOs — many of which seek to protect human rights in Russia. Affected organizations include the National Endowment for Democracy, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Committee Against Torture.The Undesirable NGO Law provoked immediate criticism from both Russian civil society dissidents and international observers. Critics were quick to question the law’s constitutionality but failed to construct a thorough legal argument. This Article attempts to fill that gap with the first comprehensive constitutional analysis of the Undesirable NGO Law.The Article addresses threshold considerations related to constitutional supremacy and the authority of the Constitutional Court in Russia — both of which are relevant to resolving conflicts between the Undesirable NGO Law and the Russian Constitution. Next, the Article identifies and discusses key issues raised by the Undesirable NGO Law, including tension with Russian constitutional provisions for separation of powers, protection of civil rights, and the right to judicial appeal. The Article also assesses conflicts with Russian treaties and incorporated international law.Notwithstanding the multiplicity of constitutional questions raised by the Undesirable NGO Law, the Article concludes that the law will likely withstand legal scrutiny. Ingrained cultural and institutional challenges to comprehensive protection of civil rights in Russia operate as seemingly insurmountable barriers to realistic opposition. Nonetheless, the Article posits that simply considering the constitutional problems with the Undesirable NGO Law is a crucial way to continue the conversation and appeal to the sympathy and reason of the Russian people.

Electing to Evaluate: A Review of <i>Evaluating Democracy Assistance</i>

No abstract available.

The European Endowment for Democracy and Democracy Promotion in the EU Neighbourhood

The European Endowment for Democracy (EED) is a recently established instrument of democracy promotion intended to complement existing EU tools. Fashioned after the US National Endowment for Democracy, the EED’s privileged area of action is the European neighbourhood. Meant as a small rapid-response, actor-oriented ‘niche’ initiative, its main task is to select those actors, from both civil and political society able to produce a change in their country. The EED represents a step forward in the EU’s capacity to foster democracy, but does not necessarily go in the direction of more rationality and effectiveness. Not all EU member states support the EED with the same enthusiasm and it is still not clear how it fits into the EU’s overall democracy promotion architecture. Its actions may be successful in a very constrained timeframe. However, recent crises at the EU’s borders would seem to call for a strategy that takes into consideration systemic hindrances, post-regime change complexities, regional dynamics and finally rival plans of autocracy promotion.

Ripple Effects of Process Change

· Decisions to change processes in one area have the potential to cause ripples throughout the entire grantmaking process, impacting both donor and grantee. Recognizing this, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) thoroughly examines and/or tests any changes before they are integrated into the grantmaking practice. In 2009, NED launched a pioneering grantee self-evaluation process that significantly altered its grantmaking processes. · This article describes how NED tasked a team of staff from the different sections of its grantmaking program to determine the most effective way to capture the information needed to determine whether a grant should be recommended for renewal. · What resulted was a shift from requiring grantees to self-evaluate projects at the conclusion of each project to tasking them with evaluating the cumulative impact of NED grants on their longer-term objectives. The systems change has resulted not only in a substantive improvement in process for NED but also in incentivizing longer term strategic thinking in grantee organizations.

Promoting democracy or the external context? Comparing the substance of EU and US democracy assistance in Ethiopia

This article analyses the substance of the European Union's and United States' democracy assistance in Ethiopia in 2005–2010. Does this case reveal a transatlantic split, whereby the EU focuses on the external context and the US on the partial regimes of embedded, liberal democracy? Emphasizing the importance of institutions in analysing how interests and ideas affect democracy assistance, the article investigates how the substance may differ between the European Development Fund (EDF), European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The analysis finds a transatlantic split whereby the EU focused more on the external context and the US more on the partial regimes. This transatlantic split can be explained by the combination of ideas and institutions. More specifically, it reflects a difference between the EDF and USAID in their focus on ownership, alignment and harmonization in democracy assistance. The combination of interests and institutions played a less significant role in explaining the substance of democracy assistance, as USAID emphasized the partial regimes, despite political control from the State Department.

TOWARD “THE DAY AFTER”

Since 1998, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a quasi-private, grant-making organization funded almost entirely by the U.S. Congress via the U.S. State Department, has been, directly or indirectly through its four core institutes, supporting right-wing, neoconservative South Korean human rights and defector groups. In addition to technical assistance, this support has included $6.7 to $11.9 million from 1999 to 2010, with an additional $3 million starting January 2009 directly disbursed to many of these groups by the State Department under then newly elected Barack Obama. This article contends that NED's “human rights” work is part of a much larger strategy of destabilizing the North Korean government in line with U.S. interventionist aims against its foes. By funding international conferences and defector critiques of North Korea (including strategic testimony provided before Congress in the push for passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004), NED has fostered a North Korean human rights knowledge economy that has substantially shaped public images and opinion about North Korea in South Korea, the United States, and around the world. At the same time, NED's radio broadcasting, propaganda leaflet drops, and other incursionary media have sought to sow discord in North Korea.