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Can Maduro hold onto power?

Atlantic Council — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 20:17:07 +0000

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He’s not giving up without a fight. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s election commission declared him the winner in Sunday’s vote, despite ample evidence of fraud and intimidation. Opposition candidate Edmundo González declared victory as the United States and other countries expressed concerns about the results. What will be the opposition’s next move? How will Maduro respond? And what role will regional and global powers play? We polled our experts for the answers.

TODAY’S EXPERT REACTION COURTESY OF

Jason Marczak (@jmarczak): Vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center
Iria Puyosa (@NSC): Senior research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab
Geoff Ramsey (@GRamsey_LatAm): Senior fellow at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

How to steal an election

The stage was set for this moment in the months leading up to the vote, when the regime banned opposition leader María Corina Machado, with González ending up on the ballot. Then, as Jason points out, only small delegations from the United Nations and the Carter Center were allowed to monitor the vote, meaning “the González campaign could only count on its own observers to verify results.”
The González camp said he won about 70 percent of the votes that his team was able to verify—while Venezuela’s National Electoral Council claimed that González won 44 percent of the vote, with Maduro earning 51 percent. Jason notes that “it would be a mathematical miracle for Maduro to prevail” based on how the opposition has described the votes that it has seen.
The public isn’t fooled, Iria tells us, noting the “outpouring of messages and videos on social media” from witnesses on the ground indicating their certainty that González won. “This is strengthening the opposition’s unity and determination to continue its fight for the restoration of democracy,” she adds.
As of this afternoon, those voters are mobilizing in the streets, creating a new test for the regime. “Maduro has to convince the ruling elite that he can keep things under control, but both he and the military know that he can’t govern a country in flames,” Geoff says. “He’s effectively inviting the biggest loyalty test he’s faced in years.”

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Pressure from abroad

In addition to the “serious concerns” expressed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, several countries throughout the region called for more transparency around the vote count—including neighboring Colombia, where, as Jason notes, “President Gustavo Petro has maintained a close relationship with Maduro.”
Without full results and an independent audit, “the international community has no choice but to respond with swift condemnation and diplomatic pressure,” Geoff says, with the United States and its allies in Latin America and Europe playing a crucial role.
That international pressure will be important to uphold the will of Venezuelans, but there are self-interested reasons for regional and international powers to push for change. Jason says another six years of Maduro will lead to “new outward migration flows and new transnational criminal activity that will extend far beyond Venezuela’s borders.”

Crackdown at home?

The major point of contention will be sanctions, which the United States reimposed in April after the Maduro government didn’t uphold its end of last year’s deal to hold free and fair elections. “I doubt Venezuelan elites are eager for six more years of repression, sanctions, and economic catastrophe,” Geoff says.
The opposition, therefore, should “exploit divisions within the ruling coalition,” Iria says. At the same time, opposition leaders should “find ways to address public discontent without exposing the population to the violent repression experienced in 2017.”
And if Maduro were to return to the bargaining table, it would look very different from the negotiations between the government and the opposition, Iria tells us. Now, she says, negotiations would no longer be about electoral conditions “but rather on Chavismo’s exit from power after its defeat in the voting booths. The next six months will be a crucial period of intense conflict in Venezuela.”

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Ramsey quoted in the Washington Post on Venezuelan election

Atlantic Council — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 08:57:00 +0000

On July 28, 2024, Senior Fellow Geoff Ramsey of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center was quoted by the Washington Post about Venezuela’s contested election.

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Geoff Ramsey

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Civil Society Democratic Transitions

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Geoff Ramsey interviewed by BBC News on Venezuela’s election

Atlantic Council — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 02:11:00 +0000

On July 28, 2024, Senior Fellow Geoff Ramsey of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center was interviewed by BBC News about the Venezuelan presidential election taking place that day.

Venezuela is STILL waiting for results in its presidential election.

An exit poll predicts an opposition victory but both sides sound confident.

"If the ruling socialist party actually has the results then the electoral authorities should be able to prove it."@GRamsey_LatAm pic.twitter.com/wtG4DOO9U4
— Carl Nasman (@CarlNasman) July 29, 2024

This independence was severely undermined by the massive grassroots protests that erupted in Belarus in the wake of the country’s 2020 presidential vote. Large numbers of Belarusians believed reformist opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya had won the election and took to the streets to protest. Lukashenka only survived thanks to Russian support. This left him far more reliant on the Kremlin and significantly reduced his room for maneuver.

In February 2022, Lukashenka allowed Putin to use Belarusian territory to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, it soon became clear that things were not going according to Putin’s plan. Russia’s heavy losses during the initial weeks of the invasion restored some of Lukashenka’s independence, while disquiet in his own armed forces and some quarters of the security services convinced him that further direct involvement in Russia’s war would be folly. Since then, Lukashenka has provided training and equipment to Russian forces, but has resisted pressure to join the invasion.

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Putin remains eager to exploit Belarus’s resources and strategic position to threaten Kyiv once more and to target Western supplies entering Ukraine from Poland. Belarus could also play an important role in the future, if Russia seeks to intensify hybrid hostilities against the Baltic states or to launch a direct attack. This looks unlikely as long as Lukashenka remains in power. The Belarusian dictator may therefore represent a status quo which fundamentally favors Ukraine and its allies more than Russia.

If Putin continues to fail in his immediate objective of occupying all of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, there is a real possibility that he will ultimately lose patience with Lukashenka and move to either replace him or otherwise compel Belarus to join the invasion. Moreover, it is almost certain that Putin will attempt to secure Belarusian human and material resources if Lukashenka dies before him.

Many Belarusians already know what would await them if Putin fully incorporated and militarized their country. They would experience an oligarchic raiding of businesses, covert or overt mobilization, and the extinguishing of the traditionally Western-looking aspect that is an important part of Belarusian national identity.

In contrast, if Belarusians manage to maintain their independence and empower a reformist leadership, they can begin moving towards European integration, with European Union membership an eventual possibility. In this context, it is vital that all Belarusians, including political elites along with members of the military and security forces, receive assurances that they have a viable alternative to the Kremlin vision for their country’s future.

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Articulating a European future for Belarus does not need to entail talk of NATO membership. Instead, it should involve acknowledging the possibility of removing sanctions, enhancing access to EU travel, education, and capital, and eventually embracing Belarus’s modest population of 9.2 million people under democratic leadership and after deep structural reforms.

From a purely practical standpoint, European integration would not be an insurmountable task. Lukashenka’s repressive regime has actually resulted in relatively good infrastructure conditions for Belarusians, especially in rural areas, compared to most other former Soviet republics. Belarus boasts a highly educated and comparatively young demographic. Prior to the 2020 protests, the country had burgeoning IT and entrepreneurial sectors.

A Belarus free of Russian military entanglements and increasingly aligned with the Euro-Atlantic community instead of the developing Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis of autocracies would contribute significantly to the security of Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states. A Belarusian geopolitical pivot toward the West could also encourage transformation inside Russia itself and compel more Russians to embrace a post-imperial identity.

Failure to articulate the possibility of a European future for Belarus leaves the Euro-Atlantic community at risk of being caught off guard without a plan when Belarus does, indeed, reach its fork in the road. This may come sooner than many are prepared for. By taking steps now to engage with Belarusian society, the EU can strengthen its own foreign policy credentials as a major geopolitical player, mitigate against the risk of a rapid Russian militarization of Belarus, and set the stage for a cooperative relationship with Belarusians in the years to come.

Richard Cashman is a nonresident fellow at the Centre for Defence Strategies.

By comparison, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics unfolded just before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and just after Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin entered their bloody, “no limits” partnership. The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics were tarnished by revelations of Russia’s state-sponsored doping program and set the stage for Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics before them signaled Xi’s rise as China’s most powerful and autocratic leader since Mao Zedong, and Putin’s Russia invaded neighboring Georgia during the Games.

The Olympics never take place in a political vacuum, and this year’s context is chilling: wars in Europe and the Middle East and growing tensions in Asia, all of which contribute to the biggest threats to global order since the 1930s.

“The world is really longing for something unifying among all these tensions and confrontations,” International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach noted in a recent must-read Washington Post feature. Bach added that the Paris Olympics could be that something. Speaking last November at the United Nations, the IOC president worried that the world was in a “dangerous downward spiral . . . Political, social, and economic divisions are gaining more ground.”

The Washington Post’s Les Carpenter writes, “Many in the Olympic world are hoping these Games will do what Los Angeles did 40 years ago” at the 1984 Summer Games.

Those Olympics followed the US-led boycott, joined by more than sixty countries, of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. The Los Angeles Games also set the stage for one of the most dramatic expansions of democracy in history.

They transpired toward the end of US President Ronald Reagan’s first term and five short years before the Berlin Wall’s fall, which was followed by the Soviet Union’s collapse. They were a demonstration of a vibrant US democracy, full of confidence and determined to shape its times.

The games also marked a new, successful business model for the Olympic movement. They were run by a young travel executive named Peter Ueberroth, who introduced rich television deals and corporate sponsorships that produced more than two hundred million dollars in profit. The Soviets and many of their allies boycotted, and US athletes won four times more gold medals than anyone else.

It’s hard to say what legacy the Paris Games might have, though their context feels less promising than Reagan’s “morning in America.” From tomorrow through August 11, the Paris Olympics will coexist with the continued reverberations from French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for snap parliamentary elections, which resulted on July 7 in victory for the New Popular Front, a broad alliance of left-wing parties, and an unexpected defeat for the far right, with a prime minister yet to be chosen.

In the United States, a particularly divisive and decisive election will follow in November, amid an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden’s withdrawal as a candidate.

There have been worse contexts for Olympics.

In 1936, Adolf Hitler used the Berlin Games to rally fascism ahead of World War II; five Games have been cancelled due to wars; Munich’s 1972 Olympics were blighted by a terrorist attack that killed Israeli athletes. Putin has launched invasions of northern Georgia, Crimea, and eastern Ukraine during the period of “Olympic truce,” when for the week ahead of the Games and the week after world leaders agree not to attack other countries.

Here’s the 2024 backdrop: The years that followed the Los Angeles Games saw more countries than ever become democratic—a formidable wave of democracy that lasted more than two decades. This stopped around 2006, and democracy has been in relative decline since then, according to Freedom House, the V-Dem Institute, and the Atlantic Council’s own Freedom and Prosperity Indexes.

When the final medal is awarded and the last athlete departs, the Paris Olympics will likely have reflected more than shaped our geopolitical scrum. They won’t signal autocratic rise, as did those in Beijing and Moscow before them, but it’s probably too much to expect that, like Los Angeles, they will be followed by a positive wave of democratic change.

The good news is that the next five Olympic Games, including both winter and summer, are in Milan-Cortina, Los Angeles, the French Alps, Brisbane, and Salt Lake City. Each will be held in a country that democratically elects its government, and each can be a milestone to measure if democracies are on a winning trajectory.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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I was sentenced to ten years in absentia for highlighting Belarus’s descent into dictatorship

Alesia Rudnik — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 19:48:25 +0000

At the beginning of July, I was one of twenty internationally-based Belarusian academics, analysts, and journalists to be sentenced in absentia by a court in Minsk on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government and taking part in an extremist group.

News of my ten-year sentence provoked very conflicting emotions. While many colleagues congratulated me on what they saw as tacit recognition of my efforts in support of a democratic Belarus, I have struggled to find the right words when explaining to my Belarusian relatives that we may never meet again.

The charges against me and my co-defendants did not come as a complete surprise, of course. Nevertheless, at a time when the struggle for Belarusian democracy is no longer in the international spotlight, it is important to reflect on how we arrived at this point.

Back in the summer of 2020, there were unmistakable signs of growing political engagement throughout Belarusian society. More and more ordinary people were volunteering to join the campaigns of opposition candidates in the country’s upcoming presidential election, or simply expressing their political opinions. Although I was studying outside the country at the time, I also made a conscious decision to continue writing about the political situation in my homeland.

When Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka was then proclaimed the winner of a deeply flawed presidential ballot in August 2020, I was among the thousands of journalists, activists, and academics to speak up against election fraud and condemn the violent Kremlin-backed crackdown that followed. Like me, some had already left Belarus to advance their careers abroad. Others were forced to flee as the regime sought to silence domestic dissent. This large community of exiled Belarusians has continued its open criticism of the Lukashenka regime.

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Lukashenka was able to suppress the 2020 protest movement in Belarus thanks to Russian support. Ever since, he has remained heavily dependent on Moscow for his political survival. In exchange for this backing, he has allowed the Kremlin to expand its influence over Belarus in a process that some have likened to a creeping annexation. Lukashenka has also agreed to play the role of junior partner in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s hybrid war against the West.

In February 2022, Lukashenka allowed Putin to use Belarus as a base for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. During the first month of the invasion, the country served as a gateway for the Russian march on Kyiv, which the Kremlin hoped would be the decisive offensive of the war. Russia has since used Belarus as a training ground for troops and as a launch pad to bomb targets across Ukraine.

In 2023, Putin announced the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus, further involving the country in the confrontation between Russia and the West. Moscow is also accused of funneling migrants through Belarus to the border with the EU as part of its efforts to weaponize illegal immigration.

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While tensions with the West have escalated, the domestic situation in Belarus has continued to deteriorate. Approximately one thousand four hundred people remain in prison on politically motivated charges, while up to six hundred thousand Belarusians are believed to have fled the country, representing more than five percent of the overall population.

In recent years, the Lukashenka regime has signaled its intention to target critics who have left the country. In January 2023, five administrators of a Telegram channel run by exiled Belarusians were each sentenced in absentia to twelve years. Since then, several more opposition politicians and activists have been convicted in the same fashion on charges of attempting to seize power, threatening national security, and organizing extremist groups.

On January 24, 2024, I woke up to news that I also faced similar charges along with nineteen colleagues. While we were arbitrarily grouped together as analysts of Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, many of us had never actually met each other. Our trial started in May. None of us were able to get in touch with assigned lawyers, receive court materials, or join the hearings online. Instead, the case proceeded amid an almost complete information blackout until we learned of our guilty verdicts and prison sentences on July 1.

When I received confirmation of my sentence, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of anger at the injustice and absurdity of the entire process. At the same time, I have also been filled with gratitude for the solidarity expressed by international organizations and colleagues.

Our trial is the latest indication of the increasingly authoritarian political climate in today’s Belarus. In my opinion, this attempt to punish critical voices located outside the country and beyond the reach of the Belarusian authorities reflects the insecurities of a man who knows he has long since lost any remaining legitimacy as ruler of the country. Lukashenka’s growing desperation makes him an even greater threat to Belarusians, and means that he is also significantly more dangerous internationally as an ally of the Kremlin.

Those inside Belarus are well aware of the Orwellian reality they must deal with on a daily basis. They know that any public opposition to the regime will likely have grave consequences. In contrast, Belarusians living abroad still have the opportunity to voice our political opinions and share information about the horrors unfolding in our homeland. It is vital we continue to do so. The fact that Lukashenka is now attempting to intimidate us confirms that our efforts are not in vain.

Alesia Rudnik is a PhD Fellow at Karlstad University in Sweden and director of Belarusian think tank The Center for New Ideas.

Atlantic Council — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 18:16:37 +0000

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Historic day for Ukraine as EU launches official membership talks

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 19:43:21 +0000

Ukraine began official membership talks with the EU on June 25, providing the embattled East European nation with a powerful morale boost as it continues to fight for survival against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

The talks, which took place within the framework of an intergovernmental conference in Luxembourg, marked the launch of a process that could still take years to complete. While much work lies ahead, Ukrainian officials were keen to emphasize the symbolic importance of this latest milestone in the country’s long journey toward European integration.

“Today is an historic day,” commented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a celebratory social media post. “We will never be derailed from our path to a united Europe, to our common home of all European nations. A home that must be peaceful!”

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna, who headed the country’s delegation in Luxembourg, called the talks “a truly historical moment for my country.” Stefanishyna noted that Tuesday’s breakthrough would give Ukrainians “the moral power to continue withstanding” Russia’s invasion.

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While the official start of accession talks was widely toasted in Kyiv, formal negotiations are unlikely to get underway for several more months. Ukraine must then implement a wide range of reforms in thirty-five separate policy areas in order to bring the country’s laws and regulations into line with EU standards. Ukrainian officials have spoken tentatively of aiming to join the EU by 2030, but even this timeline might be overly optimistic.

Nor does the start of negotiations represent any guarantee of future Ukrainian EU membership. A host of other European countries including Türkiye, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Albania are all also bidding to join the bloc. The experience of the Western Balkans in particular illustrates the challenges of transitioning from EU candidate to member status, with numerous countries still struggling to advance despite in some cases more than a decade of talks.

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Ukraine’s progress on the road to EU membership has been remarkably rapid since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Days after the outbreak of hostilities, President Zelenskyy announced the country’s application to join the European Union in a video address delivered from Kyiv as columns of Russian troops advanced on the city. Four months later, EU leaders granted Ukraine official candidate country status. The decision to begin talks then followed amid much fanfare in December 2023. Rarely has Brussels bureaucracy seemed so dramatic.

For millions of Ukrainians, the quest for EU membership represents the country’s civilizational choice of a European future and the decisive rejection of Russian authoritarianism. This historic shift began in 1991, when more than ninety percent of Ukrainians backed the country’s declaration of independence and voted to leave the Soviet Union.

The next major milestone in Ukraine’s geopolitical divorce from Russia was the 2004 Orange Revolution, which saw Ukrainians from across the country flood into Kyiv to protest a rigged presidential vote and prevent the election of a Kremlin-backed candidate. This was to prove a watershed moment in post-Soviet history; the Orange Revolution established Ukraine’s European integration aspirations and sparked a rift with Russia that would only grow more pronounced over the coming decades.

Nine years after the Orange Revolution, Ukrainians once more took to the streets to oppose a renewed Russian bid to force the country back into the Kremlin orbit. The 2013-14 Euromaidan Revolution further cemented Ukraine’s pivot toward the West, while deepening the divide separating the country from Russia. Days after Ukraine’s ousted pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych fled across the border to Russia, Vladimir Putin began the invasion of Ukraine with the seizure of Crimea, sparking a war that continues to this day.

The past decade of Russian aggression has had a profound impact on Ukraine’s commitment to European integration. Prior to the start of Russia’s invasion in 2014, many Ukrainians still favored close ties with Moscow and other former Soviet republics. However, the war unleashed by Putin has transformed Ukrainian public opinion, with the vast majority in today’s Ukraine now backing EU membership.

Ukrainians understand that joining the European Union will not protect them from further Russian aggression. They are also realistic enough to recognize that huge challenges remain before they can finally achieve the goal of member status. Nevertheless, the start of official EU membership talks sends a strong signal that the country is moving in the right direction toward a future that is worth fighting for.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The path to prosperity: The 2024 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

Ignacio Campomanes, Nina Dannaoui, Joseph Lemoine, Dan Negrea — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 15:00:00 +0000

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Executive summary

We are living in turbulent times, and 2024 is without doubt a crucial year. A total of sixty-four countries and almost half of the population of the world will hold national elections this year. Their results will determine the future path for freedom and prosperity in years to come. This report presents the annual update of our indexes, which portray a clear picture of the situation of the world during this decisive year. Moreover, a detailed analysis of the trends of freedom, prosperity, and their respective components during the last decade uncovers several striking facts that can help us understand how we got to this critical juncture.

Freedom at a global level has been stagnant in the last decade, and we document that this is the outcome of two opposing forces: declining political freedom and increasing economic freedom. The former is by far the most worrisome trend in recent years. Our political subindex clearly shows that this process started way before the COVID-19 pandemic, and is still ongoing today, several years after. Overall, the political subindex scores of two-thirds of the countries of the world have decreased since 2013, including a vast majority of countries with well-established democracies in Western Europe and North America.

Analyzing the components of the political subindex, we find that the erosion of political institutions is due to a significant weakening of the safeguards and guarantees that ensure contestation and control of power. Political rights, especially freedom of expression and information, and legislative constraints on the executive, have suffered major declines across the world in the last decade. The widespread wave of disinformation and election interference is deeply troubling. It represents not just an attack on democracy, but a fraudulent attempt to subvert the electoral process. Once in power, if governments succeed in limiting the ability of civil society and other institutions to hold them accountable, they pave the way for a slide into outright autocracy.

While the legal subindex has shown a slight decline since 2013, it’s noteworthy that the components most closely linked to the core principles of liberal democracy, such as clarity of the law and independent justice, have seen the steepest declines. This fact can only reinforce the perception of a major regression in the system of checks and balances that characterizes free societies.

The bright side of freedom measurement in the last decade is driven by freer economic environments across the globe. A total of 130 countries, out of the 164 covered by the indexes, have improved their economic subindex score. Moreover, this positive tendency is predominantly driven by a prominent improvement of the component measuring women’s economic opportunities, which has risen in virtually all the countries of the world. Furthermore, it is encouraging to notice that some of the worst performers in gender equality in terms of economic affairs, such as some Gulf monarchies, have improved substantially. Globally, economic freedom improvements, including mild but widespread increases in trade and investment freedom, as well as property rights’ protection, have acted as a counterweight to the negative evolution of political freedom.

The Prosperity Index reveals the remarkable effects of the pandemic in several of its components—health, income, and education—which jointly produced a halt in the strong improvement of the previous decades. As of today, the global prosperity scores have yet to reach their pre-2019 levels. Nonetheless, this fact does not seem to be solely attributable to the devastating consequences of the pandemic, given two additional circumstances we document in this report.

On the one hand, the component measuring the treatment received by minorities has worsened consistently since 2013, a trend we connect with the deterioration of the political environment and institutions. On the other, the index shows that the share of countries experiencing prosperity growth rates exceeding the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average has been substantially lower since 2013, compared to the previous decade. This means that from 1995 to 2013, developing countries were improving their prosperity faster than wealthy countries. This convergence process has clearly slowed down and fewer countries are progressing as quickly, with significant repercussions for millions of citizens in the world’s least developed areas.

The descriptive trends documented above raise the fundamental question of whether there is a clear link between the evolution of freedom and that of prosperity. Unfortunately, the unprecedented effects of the pandemic on prosperity make it hard to assess the effects of the stagnation of freedom in the last decade. Nonetheless, the ample time coverage of the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes allows us to analyze the relation between both indexes with a long-term perspective. We provide several pieces of evidence, reaching a consistent result: freedom is closely associated with prosperity.

Higher scores in our Prosperity Index are highly correlated with prosperity (0.71). Moreover, when we look at changes in both indexes, we obtain again a very substantial association (0.49). When we compare the third of countries with the highest freedom improvement since 1995 to the less-improved third, we find that prosperity growth has been 50 percent higher in the former group.

Having shown the close long-term relation between freedom and prosperity, we delve into a related question: Do reforms toward freer institutions produce immediate effects on prosperity, or are their fruits only visible after a long time? Our results, based on local linear projections, lean toward the latter. A significant positive shock to the Freedom Index (i.e., the top 20 percent of yearly changes), generates an instantaneous effect on prosperity that is rather small (0.11 points in the year of the shock). Nonetheless, the cumulative effect extends during the following two decades, and is estimated to be seven times higher after twenty years. Conversely, a negative shock produces a 0.13-point drop in prosperity on the year of the impact, but again the cumulative effect in the next two decades is substantially higher, reaching 0.56 points.

The facts and analysis provided in this report are only a small example of the significant capabilities and usefulness of the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes for academic and policy-oriented research. We firmly believe that unbiased, rigorous, data-driven research and policy implementation is the surest path to advance freedom and generate sustained prosperity across the world. Therefore, we encourage scholars and public officials to use the indexes to further explore the mechanisms and interaction between freedom and prosperity, as well as their components, in specific countries, regions, or periods of time.

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Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

Kyiv Pride event highlights changing attitudes in wartime Ukraine

Aleksander Cwalina — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 21:38:28 +0000

On June 16, members of Ukraine’s LGBTQI+ community and allies gathered in central Kyiv to celebrate the first Pride March in the Ukrainian capital since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago. The event highlighted changing attitudes in wartime Ukraine as the country stands defiant against Russia and embraces a European future.

Hundreds of kilometers from Kyiv on the front lines of the war with Russia, the Ukrainian LGBTQI+ community is also present within the ranks of the military among Ukrainians of all ethnic backgrounds and religions defending the country. While calculating the exact number of LGBTQI+ soldiers is challenging, a 2023 article in Britain’s Daily Telegraph estimated that between two and seven percent of serving personnel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces are members of the LGBTQI+ community.

Some serve openly, sporting symbols such as a unicorn patch below the blue and yellow national colors of Ukraine on their military uniform. In many cases, they do so to demonstrate that, contrary to assertions from Russian propagandists and other opponents, LGBTQI+ Ukrainians are just as willing to defend their country as other Ukrainians.

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The increasing openness in Ukraine toward issues of sexual orientation and identity stands in stark contrast to the deteriorating situation in regions of the country currently under Kremlin control. Throughout occupied Ukraine, the LGBTQI+ community faces the reality of draconian Russian legislation that often prevents them from defending their rights and sets the stage for serious human rights abuses.

According to Nash Svit, a Ukrainian LGBTQI+ organization, these abuses include public humiliation, torture, extortion, and sexual violence. The National LGBTQ Consortium in Ukraine has documented a similarly oppressive atmosphere of increased fear and violence in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and the Crimean peninsula following Russian occupation in 2014.

In Russia itself, LGBTQI+ individuals have long featured in the ever-growing category of scapegoated groups, where they are joined by representatives of the free media, civil society, and the country’s tiny anti-war opposition as proxy targets in the Kremlin’s campaign against the West. Scores of LGBTQI+ Russians have fled the country in recent years, citing a mounting climate of insecurity and oppression. Those who remain face routine discrimination along with threats to their livelihood and personal safety.

In line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly radical anti-Western rhetoric, last year Russia’s Supreme Court declared the “international LGBTQ movement” a terrorist and extremist organization. The Russian authorities have since used this ruling to convict Russians of displaying the rainbow flag, raid LGBTQI+ clubs, and brand LGBTQI+ activists as foreign agents.

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The oppression of the LGBTQI+ community in Putin’s Russia has sparked debate across the border and helped persuade many in traditionally conservative Ukraine to reject homophobia. A June 2023 poll found that more than 70% of Ukrainians believe members of the LGBTQI+ community should have the same rights as any other Ukrainian citizen, representing a significant increase from prewar levels of social acceptance.

Despite indications of progress, significant challenges remain. While LGBTQI+ individuals can now serve openly in the Ukrainian military, many say they face difficulties not experienced by non-LGBTQI+ soldiers. Efforts are ongoing to secure equal partner rights, including the right of same-sex partners to make medical decisions on behalf of their partner in case of injury, and to receive the same state benefits for military service.

Amid the unprecedented trauma and turbulence of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the issue of LGBTQI+ rights remains on Ukraine’s political agenda and continues to gain traction. In 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged growing demand for recognition of same-sex civil unions. A year later, Ukrainian MP Ivana Sovsun formally introduced a bill on civil unions.

Current trends look set to continue. As Ukraine takes additional steps toward membership of the European Union, the accession process will include a growing focus on Ukrainian human rights legislation. This will include measures to bring Ukrainian law into line with EU standards, meaning the likely introduction of greater legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Ukraine’s LGBTQI+ community is in many ways at the forefront of the struggle against Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian brand of Russian imperialism. From the LGBTQI+ soldiers on the front lines of the war to the activists pushing for social change in Kyiv, the community plays a vital role in Ukraine’s ongoing European integration and defense against the Kremlin’s anti-Western crusade.

Aleksander Cwalina is a program assistant for the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

The Syrian electoral system guarantees inequality

Vladimir Pran and Maroun Sfeir — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 17:37:28 +0000

President Bashar al-Assad set July 15 as election day for the 250 seats of the Syrian People’s Assembly to be held in the areas controlled by his government. As the electoral process unfolds, a series of articles will deconstruct the key elements of Syrian elections and their role in legitimizing Baath Party rule. It will also conduct a deep dive into the challenges of moving ahead with electoral reform in the United Nations (UN)-facilitated political process.

The first article of the series discussed the outline of the election process and its significance.

This article examines the system of representation, which determines how many candidates will be elected for a four-year term from each of the electoral districts and how the voters will vote for candidates in these districts. Variations of these elements can produce vastly different results. In Syria, the system guarantees three effects: overrepresentation of regime strongholds in parliament, manipulation of candidates through a quota system that reserves seats for workers and farmers, and prevention of effective multi-party competition.

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There are no criteria for the number of members of parliament allocated from each governorate, with allocation decided purely at the president’s discretion. The allocation remains the same as it was in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 elections, failing to consider any demographic changes seen in Syria since 2011. Based on the most recent official data, Syria’s population is 30 million (compared to a United Nations estimate of 23 million), and there has been no census since 2004.

Source: Authors

Even a cursory look reveals how unfair the allocation of seats to constituencies is, and that it leads to significantly disproportional values of the vote. The allocation directly discriminates against the voters of the Raqqa, Al-Hasakah, Daraa, Aleppo, and Damascus City governorates—historically associated with opposition—while it favors voters in Quneitra, Latakia, Tartus, and Damascus governorates. The chart shows clearly the “value of the vote.” As an example, comparison of the official population data reveals that Damascus City governorate is represented in the assembly double than Rural Damascus and three times more than al-Hassakah. In another example, only 85,000 residents are needed for one member representing Lataka, while it takes 150,000 residents of Dara for a seat in the assembly. This is contrary to the international electoral standard of equality of the vote.

While districting defines the inequality of the vote, the quota for farmers and workers defines inequality between the candidates. Of the 250 seats in parliament, the presidential decree assigned 127 to farmers or workers and 123 to “other sectors of society,” but the law does not elaborate on what “other sectors” means.

Source: Authors

Nominally, the quota for farmers and workers introduced in 1973 was supposed to reflect socialist values and secure representation for working-class Syrians. In practice, the lack of criteria for candidacy in this category allows for manipulation, and many businessmen opted to run for these seats. In the 2020 elections, only 27.5 percent of the candidates (456 of the total 1,658) registered to run as farmers or workers, making those seats far less competitive. Also, while the system has a quota for farmers and workers, it does not include a quota for women. While far from the only method for protecting the representation of women, such a quota could counter the extraordinary and historically low representation of women; in the 2020 elections, only twenty-eight women were elected (11 percent of members).

But of all the stifling elements of the system, the ballot structure is the most damaging. On its face, the system appears simple: voters vote for as many candidates as there are seats in the district. Candidates run as individuals and, after the votes are tallied, are ranked simply by the number of votes. Those with the highest rankings win the seats. Yet this simplicity masks the extraordinary effect of this system, which is somewhat deceptively called the “block vote” system. In theory, it allows voters to vote for individual candidates, but in practice voters almost exclusively give all the votes to a block of candidates, often using a ballot with already selected candidates rather than voting on a blank “write-in” ballot.

Source: Authors

Even when a block gains only a slight advantage, this translates into winning all the seats in the district. Those familiar with the Palestinian elections will remember that this system produced an overwhelming parliamentary majority for Hamas in 2005. In Lebanon, it guaranteed the pro-Syrian composition of the parliament in the post-civil war elections from 1992 to 2005. The Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, and Jordan abandoned this system, so Syria remains the only country in the world using it for the national elections. This is not by coincidence—the system is designed to disincentivize competition between political parties. The results of the 2020 elections demonstrate its effect, as the candidates nominated by the Baath-dominated National Unity list won all the seats for which they competed, while those who were not on the list had no chance to be elected. This will remain the case as long as there is no well-organized, disciplined, and unified opposition with a single list of candidates, as the effect of vote splitting between the individual candidates is tremendously damaging to all that campaign as individuals.

It is virtually impossible to estimate outcomes if Syrian elections were held under a different electoral system. Because each voter votes for multiple candidates, their votes cannot simply be re-calculated to present how much each party would receive under a putative proportional representation system. Besides vote tallying, the block vote system has far-reaching implications for political competition as well. Because it assumes competition between individual candidates, undermining options for political organizing and competition between political parties, it all but ensures fragmentation of the opposition. The framework of the block vote is so advantageous to the Baath Party that, even if the opposition were welcome to compete in elections with guarantees that their candidates would not be disqualified or harassed, in practice, opposition parties would not stand a chance to win a significant number of seats.

Vladimir Pran advises electoral authorities, governments, and political leaders on transitional, electoral, and political processes.

Maroun Sfeir advises international and local civil society organizations, political groups, and electoral authorities on electoral and political processes.

The post The Syrian electoral system guarantees inequality appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Don’t be fooled by the ‘reformist.’ Iran’s presidential election won’t bring fundamental change.

Holly Dagres — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:43:33 +0000

“Does the potential election of Masoud Pezeshkian in Iran provide a glimmer of hope for reform and a possibility of diplomacy in the region?” US Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) posed this question on X on June 16. In recent days, reformist politicians, including former President Mohammad Khatami—relics of the past for many Iranians—began throwing their weight behind the sole reformist presidential candidate, Pezeshkian. The member of parliament representing the northwestern city of Tabriz is one of six candidates—the remainder are principalists (known in the West as “hardliners”)—partaking in the upcoming presidential election prompted by the death of then President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on May 19.

The reformist faction has controlled major power centers in Iran, such as the presidency and parliament. However, despite their promises of “reform” and increased civil liberties, their rule was marked by bloody crackdowns, and Iranians are no longer fooled by such undeliverable and false promises.

Just months prior to Raisi’s death, Khatami—whose name and face have been blacked out from appearing in state media for supporting the 2009 post-election protests known as the Green Movement—boycotted the March parliamentary election. That election was described by the Iranian Reformist Front, a coalition of reformist factions, as “meaningless, noncompetitive, and ineffective” because all reformists had effectively been disqualified. Yet, Khatami, the face of the bygone reformist era that aimed to democratize the country, still placed faith in a system and role he once described as no more than a “footman” to maintain the status quo that most Iranians—especially Iranian Gen Z—are disillusioned by and want gone, as evidenced by a poll conducted by Netherlands-based GAMAAN in February.

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The reformist movement in the Islamic Republic has long been dead. Activist Bahareh Hedayat, who spent her life advocating for gradual change, confirmed it in a letter from Evin prison—where she continues to languish—at the height of the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom uprising. Former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated in a March audio leak that the clerical establishment sought the movement’s “erasure.” (Despite his leaked comments, Zarif has now joined Pezeshkian’s campaign team because he believes in overriding loyalty to the Islamic Republic.)

The trajectory of the Islamic Republic in recent years makes it abundantly clear that there is no room for reform under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with principalists—up until Raisi’s death—leading all government branches: the presidency, parliament, and judiciary. This was no accident and engineered by Khamenei, who, with the help of the Guardian Council—a twelve-member vetting body in which six are appointed by him directly—is making every calculation with the Islamic Republic post-mortem in mind. The supreme leader’s vision is an Islamic Revolution 2.0, in which relatively young ultraconservatives take the helm of the country—a new cohort nicknamed the “super revolutionaries.”

Very telling Iranian election cartoon

Families who lost loved ones during #MahsaAmini protests versus clerical establishment and the ballot box

"This gap will no longer be filled" https://t.co/T7mFkMlLYp
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) June 14, 2024

The Islamic Republic had two historically low-turnout elections: the 2021 presidential election—or “selection,” as many described it at the time—which was engineered to hand the presidency to Raisi with 48.8 percent turnout and the March 2024 parliamentary election, which gave 233 out of 290 seats to the principalists with 41 percent turnout, an outcome not much different from the 2020 election. Khamenei has always emphasized that the regime’s legitimacy stemmed from its popularity and always encourages citizens to vote to show that popular support.

Since the December 2017–January 2018 protests, protesters have vocalized that all factions are irredeemable, as evident by the chant: “Reformists, principalists, the game is over.” This is likely why one reformist was allowed to run: to stimulate a higher voter turnout to give the clerical establishment legitimacy, which it lacks domestically. However, the Islamic Republic does not lack legitimacy on the international stage, as it recommenced ties with its Persian Gulf Arab neighbors including Saudi Arabia, has joined the economic grouping known as BRICS and the more security-focused Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and has continued to attend international conferences such as the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Iranian elections are unpredictable, though Pezeshkian could slightly move the election needle, leading to a second round. Still, the average Iranian is not stirred by a man who uses Khamenei’s formal title and claims that he intends to follow “the general policies of the exalted supreme leader” —language not commonly used by reformists.

And while he seems to be hitting all the buzz-worthy topics such as reviving the defunct nuclear deal and speaking out against the so-called morality police’s latest crackdown on women and girls, the Nour initiative, Pezeshkian has not moved the public, as evidenced by one interview that was described as “boring.”

در انتخاب سرنوشت خود سهیم باشید :))#رای_بی_رای pic.twitter.com/BOH49371vE
— MH (@justice2045) June 13, 2024

Pezeshkian has also co-opted the de facto Women, Life, Freedom protest anthem “Baraye” (For the sake of) by singer Shervin Hajipour in his campaign, using “For the sake of wanting a normal life” in an election poster and “For the sake of Iran” as a campaign hashtag. The song reference has angered many Iranians who haven’t forgotten how more than 550 protesters—including sixty-eight children—were killed during the uprising (and the more than 1,500 others in previous protests), as shown by the slogan, “A sea of blood divides us,” referring to the people and the clerical establishment. To many, Pezeshkian and other candidates are merely puppets, which was best highlighted by a viral meme of candidates’ faces superimposed on Khamenei. I’ve been repeatedly told that Iranians are so unenthusiastic about the upcoming election that boycotting is not even a serious topic of conversation, because many assume that is what the majority will do. Even a poll conducted by the Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) noted that 73 percent of Iranians didn’t follow the first presidential debate.

Elections aside, Iranians are drowning in hopelessness, prompted by multiple unsuccessful cycles of protests aimed at ending the Islamic Republic; a dire economic situation caused by systemic mismanagement, corruption, and, in part, US sanctions; and the brutal clampdowns on dissent. The June 15 prisoner swap of two Swedish nationals for Hamid Nouri, an Iranian official who was convicted of war crimes for his role in the 1988 massacre of five thousand political prisoners, was just another instance that demonstrated to Iranians that they could not rely on the West to hold the Islamic Republic accountable. The only way out of this conundrum is if Iranians take their destiny into their own hands. And if one thing is certain, it’s that their destinies will not be determined by the ballot box.

Holly Dagres is a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and editor of the Atlantic Council’s IranSource blog. She is also the author of the “Iranians on #SocialMedia” report. Follow her on X: @hdagres.

The post Don’t be fooled by the ‘reformist.’ Iran’s presidential election won’t bring fundamental change. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

There are several Iranian presidential candidates, but only one Khamenei might want

Shay Khatiri — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:22:16 +0000

The June 28 presidential election in Iran will be the first of its kind. Since the 1988 constitutional reforms that abolished the prime minister’s office and elevated the presidency, this is the first time that the Islamic Republic is holding an election ahead of schedule.

There have been two key trends in the Islamic Republic’s elections. Inside Iran, one is known as shol kon, seft kon (loosen, tighten). It refers to eight-year intervals of conservative administration followed by eight years of a reformist or pragmatist one. For eight years, the regime increases domestic oppression and hostility toward the free world to rally its conservative base. For the next eight years, marginal social freedoms would give hope for gradual reform, and rhetorical softening of foreign policy would release foreign pressure, through sanctions relief. Until recently, this policy recovered the political capital the regime had spent at home and abroad during the previous eight years of conservative administrations.

This has been the norm since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei became the supreme leader, with conservative Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) followed by reformist Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013), pragmatist Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021), and conservative Ebrahim Raisi (2021-2024).

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Raisi’s sudden death in a helicopter crash nearly three years into the job broke this trend. On the other hand, the Islamic Republic feels less of a need to play the same game. Domestically, reformists and moderates cannot rally the people any longer. On the international stage, it’s well-known that the presidency is not a policymaking office. Also, Democratic US administrations give the regime breathing room even if there is a conservative in office—the nuclear negotiations began when Barack Obama and Ahmadinejad were in office in March 2013—and Republicans will increase pressure even if a moderate governs—the Donald Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy began under Rouhani’s presidency in 2018.

The second trend has been that known commodities never get the presidential job. The last president widely known inside and outside Iran was Rafsanjani, who was a prominent revolutionary and the commander in chief of the armed forces during the Iran–Iraq War. Khatami, Ahmadinejad, Rouhani, and Raisi became famous after running for president. The Islamic Republic limits presidents to two consecutive terms. Rafsanjani made two further attempts, but both failed—he lost in 2005, likely because of election fraud, and was disqualified during his 2013 run. Reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister and already a prominent figure, was also cheated out of office during the 2009 election, which prompted the post-election protests known as the Green Movement.

Khamenei worries that established figures can create movements within the regime structure that, combined with their knowledge of how the system works, can challenge him. Therefore, he has preferred unknown, uncharismatic figures, especially when it comes to reformists. Indeed, Ahmadinejad proved to be a formidable foe who freelanced too much. This was due, in part, to the fraudulent outcome of the 2009 election and the subsequent Green Movement. The widespread protests rallied the regime’s base behind Ahmadinejad as almost a martyr, metaphorically speaking. This elevated his stature to unprecedented heights and provided him with immunity from Khamenei’s wrath, which protects him to this day.

The president’s function

Elected offices in the Islamic Republic could be compared to the US civil service. In Iran, things are upside down. The policymaking class is unelected and forms the permanent state, while bureaucrats run in elections to implement this permanent state’s policies. Khatami once described his office as “the system’s footman.” Like all bureaucrats, elected officials can cause headaches for the policymakers through incompetence or mischief. Presidents can also use their bully pulpit to promote a cause. In Ahmadinejad’s case, that cause was himself, a mistake that can never be repeated in Khamenei’s eyes.

Khamenei needs an economic manager to address the economic crisis that ails the Islamic Republic. Khamenei’s hand is relatively light in economics. Sanctions have taught him that he needs self-sufficiency, or economic nationalism, wherein everything is produced at home and science and research are elevated, a concept he termed a “resistance economy.” He also ensures wealth is distributed among all important regime subsidiaries—particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Beyond that, he leaves the details to his elected bureaucrats to figure out. More than ever, Khamenei needs a president who executes this imperative. Whether this is possible is a different question, but Raisi failed to satisfy the need.

Perhaps more than competence, Khamenei needs someone to rally his conservative base. Economic indicators, support for the system, confidence in institutions, and all other measurable and immeasurable political values in Iran are in decline. The supreme leader is not someone who fires up the base. He needs a president who can boost morale among the hardliner youth and motivate them ideologically to beat up protesters in the streets and fight in Syria and Iraq—and elsewhere if Iran expands its direct presence.

Considering these different trends and necessities, the six approved candidates require further scrutiny.

Candidate gallery

The only reformist among the six candidates is the amusingly named Masoud Pezeshkian—his last name means “of physician lineage,” and he lives up to his name as a surgeon and former health minister. Pezeshkian was Khatami’s health minister during his second term and has been a member of parliament since 2008. While there once were sincere reformists in Iran, many rounds of purges and eliminations have left only the insincere and slavish ones in office, including Pezeshkian. However, he checks an essential box for Khamenei: he has no charisma, popular base, or following within the regime structure. His competence and economic management are untested, but he will not rally any base for anyone. That Khamenei has yet to send a signal of support to rally the security forces behind a conservative is potentially a tacit sign that he favors Pezeshkian.

The second category of candidates is the fringe conservative. Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi is one of the dozen vice presidents—better described as deputy presidents—and oversees the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans portfolio. It is a fairly obscure position that oversees benefits for veterans and the families of war casualties. Despite its obscurity, this is an important position. The beneficiaries have been the regime’s foot soldiers, on whose shoulders it has stood for decades, but they are increasingly abandoning the regime. In his current role, Ghazizadeh Hashemi is tasked with using ideological and financial incentives to mobilize veterans. With his experience as the incumbent food distributor among the regime’s base, combined with his hardline politics, Ghazizadeh Hashemi could be the wildcard in this race for his capacity to rally support.

Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani is the other member of the fringe-conservative category and a former member of parliament. He has a low profile and provides no value to Khamenei’s needs. Zakani is the typical supporting character who will be forgotten as a candidate, so a detailed look is unnecessary.

The last category is the known conservative. Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf is a former IRGC unit commander and mayor of Tehran, and is currently the speaker of parliament. He is always a feature of presidential elections, but never a threat. He is also uncharismatic and not particularly popular among the regime’s base. Ghalibaf’s extreme corruption came to light in recent years, which makes him unappealing among the regime’s populist base. But he clears one box: loyalty to Khamenei. He could even be credibly accused of competence, which the regime needs in a president more than ever. But he has been around for too long and is a known commodity—not something Khamenei typically wants. If Khamenei opts to support him, it will be due to the extraordinary circumstances under which this election is being held, and the fact that there has not been enough time to choose and elevate a lesser-known figure.

Saeed Jalili is the other member of the known-conservative category. A war veteran with a missing leg, and as ideologically rigid as they come, he has the bragging right that he did not give an inch when he was the nuclear negotiator. The base loves him already, but he is the one candidate who could be another Ahmadinejad. It is also a problem that his ideological rigidity comes at the cost of competence. His understanding of politics could be summarized as, “Everything will work out if people pray harder and believe more in the system.” Unlike Raisi, who had the wisdom to avoid fiery statements about foreign matters, Jalili carries the risk of public remarks that would jeopardize the current loosening of sanctions. Like Ahmadinejad, he is a candidate who comes with significant risks but potentially big rewards.

The last candidate is Mostafa Pourmohammadi. Raisi was infamous for the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, and Pourmohammadi was a key actor in it. Though Raisi kept somewhat of a low profile after 1988 until he ran for president in 2017, Pourmohammadi has been a feature of every oppression campaign as a member of the security apparatus with close ties to the IRGC. As Ahmadinejad’s interior minister responsible for law enforcement, he set up the morality police and enforced an extreme religious code in public, and occasionally in private. Ahmadinejad sacked him in 2008 for being Khamenei’s mole in his cabinet. He returned to the security apparatus and played a leading role in cracking down on the 2009 protests. As Rouhani’s justice minister, he oversaw a spike in executions. He might prove to be a better economic manager than Raisi, can rally the base, and is not a risk to abuse the bully pulpit against Khamenei or sabotage sanctions relief.

Pourmohammadi is the ideal candidate except for two issues. First, he is a known commodity, which Khamenei does not like. He has been a prominent figure within the system and is shrewd enough to get his way. Second, he is the only cleric in the field. So far, Khamenei’s only civilian president has been Ahmadinejad, which gives Pourmohammadi another advantage. However, a hardliner cleric could immediately become a contender for supreme leadership, which might raise objections from Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, who is allegedly gearing up for the position.

Pourmohammadi’s work at the security apparatus in intelligence, secret-police, law-enforcement, and prosecution capacities means that he is in a perfect position to challenge Khamenei from within, but this does not mean that he will. Unlike Ahmadinejad, the cautionary tale, Pourmohammadi has known Khamenei since the 1980s. This could mean that the supreme leader knows the candidate enough to trust him—or enough not to. But if the elder Khamenei finds him trustworthy, Pourmohammadi is his ideal president, even though the younger Khamenei might object.

The question of Iran’s next president has swung from one misunderstanding to another in Washington. Once upon a time, Americans hoped that a new president would effect reform and change. Now, they ignore elections as entirely irrelevant.

The president of Iran matters in two ways. First, like the US civil service, the Islamic Republic’s administrations cannot make policies, but they have nontrivial influence in implementing them. Whether due to incompetence, disagreement, or corruption, the president can become an obstacle to the permanent state. Second, who Khamenei wants to become president tells us about the internal state of the system and what Khamenei believes to be his regime’s vulnerabilities for a new president to address.

Many crises consume the Islamic Republic, and most of these candidates are a patch for some of these problems. Whoever becomes president will be a hint as to which of these crises Khamenei believes to be the most urgent. It also will tell us where he wants to take Iran next.

Shay Khatiri is the vice president of development and a senior fellow at the Yorktown Institute.

The post There are several Iranian presidential candidates, but only one Khamenei might want appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The missing piece: Political parties are critical to democracy in Africa

Santiago Stocker, Patrick Quirk, and Dan Scaduto — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 19:00:00 +0000

download pdf

This paper is the first in the Freedom and Prosperity Center’s “State of the Parties” series analyzing the strength of multi-party systems in different regions of the world.

In 2024, as many as seventeen countries across Africa, with a total population of nearly 300 million people, will hold national elections. These electoral processes are consequential because whether they are free, fair, and transparent will help determine if the troubling trend in several countries across the continent of democratic regression, military coups, or political instability worsens—or ebbs and begins to reverse, as was recently demonstrated in Senegal.

The stakes are clearly high in these contests, which will occur in the so-called year of elections wherein more than four billion people globally are eligible to cast ballots. While the elections are important to Africa’s democratic trajectory, they are not single-handedly determinative of it.

Strong and institutionalized political parties are also key to the future of democracy on the continent; however, policymakers have not afforded this key institution much attention or associated resources. For example, the US’s national security strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa does not reference strengthening political parties despite the document’s emphasis on democracy promotion. Further, the Biden administration’s Summits for Democracy—the third of which took place in March 2024—have not included commitments from participating governments (the United States included) to strengthen political parties.

Robust political parties inform whether a political system delivers for citizens, provide a key link between citizens and their government, and foster measurable resilience against democratic erosion. For these and other reasons, therefore, political parties as a core institution of democracy will help chart the continent’s future, both in terms of freedom and prosperity.

This piece analyzes the state of political parties in sub-Saharan Africa and uses Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes data and other sources to show why parties are essential to democratic progress. It examines this argument through four case studies and concludes with a path forward for re-centering democracy assistance work in Africa to shore up this critical component.

ISIS fell, but the conditions that created the terrorist group still exist in Iraq

Abbas Kadhim — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 16:07:33 +0000

Its 2014 general elections were lauded as proof of Iraq’s dedication to the democratization process initiated after the 2003 US invasion, marking another milestone on the road to consolidating democracy. The two-term prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, came to the negotiating table armed with a landslide electoral mandate. He also had some major achievements during his eight years in office, including the trial, conviction, and execution of dictator Saddam Hussein and the negotiated 2011 withdrawal of US forces that restored full Iraqi sovereignty. However, Prime Minister Maliki lacked popularity where it mattered: the political elite, who decided the post-election phase and did not favor giving him a third term in office.

While all eyes were on the government-formation disputes, a terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) raided the city of Mosul in Nineveh province on June 10, 2014. It captured the entire territory in a matter of hours, with a brazen goal of establishing an Islamist caliphate that included Iraq, Syria, and eventually the entire region, and ruling under its version of Islam. The complete meltdown of three divisions of the Iraqi Army emboldened the terrorists and allowed them to take most of Salahuddin province. With most of Anbar province already in its hands since January 2014, ISIS secured complete control over one-third of Iraq’s territory within a few days.

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The Iraqi government became paralyzed by the lack of progress in the post-election political negotiations, the continued meltdown of the armed forces, and the lack of military support from the international community. On June 13, 2014, as ISIS was about to close in on Baghdad, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest Shia religious scholar, issued a rare fatwa calling on Iraqi “citizens to defend the country, its people, the honor of its citizens, and its sacred places.” Tens of thousands volunteered to defend the country and help the government fight the most existential threat Iraq faced since its founding in 1920.

Fighting and defeating ISIS was one of the most important accomplishments of the Iraqi population, showcasing the resilience of people who stood up for their national dignity and defended their liberty at a time when no one else was ready or willing to defend them, including their government. Although other countries were involved—Iran supplied weapons to Baghdad shortly after the ISIS invasion, and the United States formed a coalition to provide advice, logistics, and air support starting in August 2014—none of these efforts would have mattered if Iraqis had not risen to defend their nascent, albeit flawed and uncertain, democracy.

Had Iraqis given up in the critical moments after June 10, 2014, as their armed forces had, their democratic dreams would have witnessed a catastrophic end much like what occurred in Afghanistan under similar circumstances in 2021. Self-organized ordinary Iraqis refused to see their country delivered to a terrorist organization or leave themselves at the mercy of religious extremists. Their acts of valor in the early days of the crisis restored morale to the Iraqi armed forces and revived the international community’s faith in the future of Iraq. What followed was a matter of time to plan and manage the battle of liberating the territories that ISIS captured and stop its rule of systemic civilian oppression and mass murder.

In the years following the 2017 defeat of ISIS, Iraq has progressed positively despite serious challenges. Having endured the painful lessons of 2014, it reorganized its armed forces to prevent a similar security collapse. Those forces stand today among the most confident and combat ready in the region, and some of their components, such as the counterterrorism force, perform at par with elite international peers. Iraqi leaders and their counterparts in allied countries, the United States in particular, have gained confidence in the efficiency and performance of the Iraqi armed forces, prompting discussions to transition the Global Coalition To Defeat ISIS, which is led by the United States and includes eighty-four other nations, into bilateral agreements between Iraq and coalition members, focusing on continued security cooperation and capacity building for the Iraqi security forces.

In January, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced “the commencement of the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the mission of the Coalition in Iraq.” The Iraqi government also requested that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) terminate the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) mandate by the end of 2025, arguing that Iraq now has mature institutions to cooperate directly with international organizations like other nations do. On May 31, the UNSC voted unanimously to approve the Iraqi request. The Iraqi government described these developments as the end of contingency relations and the inauguration of a new era of normal cooperation with the international community while leaving internal Iraqi governance to its institutions, which have acquired adequate maturity and competence.

What Iraq needs to ensure its success on the path of security and self-governance is to tackle the two most pressing challenges: economic uncertainty and corruption. Iraq continues to depend on a rentier economy, fully dependent on oil revenues, which fall short of supporting the governmental operational cost or leaving extra funds to invest in building a robust economy. Iraq’s only way out of the current economic quagmire is a diversified economy that encourages investment and a private sector. The Iraqi government must move away from the old philosophy and practice of a state-controlled economy to a new direction where its role is to create a healthy environment in which private businesses can thrive. In contrast, the Iraqi government is a regulator in most sectors where governments have not traditionally performed adequately.

The same attention needs to be given to the malignant threat of corruption.

After two decades of political change, the Iraqi political elites have coexisted with a deeply entrenched culture of corruption, and many high-level officials have contributed to it. Normalized and systemic financial, political, and administrative corruption has denied the Iraqi people the opportunity to build a functional state and heal a society that was traumatized by five decades of wars, international economic sanctions, and terrorism. Efforts to combat corruption continue to be limited in scope and target only insignificant perpetrators. To secure a permanent defeat of ISIS and prevent its return, or the emergence of a similar threat, it is important to eliminate conditions that helped such a group thrive to begin with. The pervasive culture of corruption and a poor economy have been among the leading conditions that contributed to the rise of ISIS in Iraq. Now is the time to address those conditions.

Dr. Abbas Kadhim is director of the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative. Follow him on X: @DrAbbasKadhim.

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Partial government reshuffle in Tunisia as protests continue against its president

Karim Mezran and Nicola Pedde — Fri, 31 May 2024 13:51:56 +0000

On the evening of May 25, Tunisian President Kais Saied surprised the country by announcing a partial government reshuffle, replacing two ministers and establishing a new institutional post to manage national security.

The reshuffle comes at the height of an upsurge in the securitarian clampdown imposed by the president on opposition and civil society organizations. Over the past two weeks, dozens of human rights organization activists, journalists, and lawyers have been arrested. The arrests are a response to the increasingly frequent protests against the government, especially against President Saied’s authoritarian turn in Tunisian politics since July 2021, when the president arbitrarily shut down parliament and progressively began a process of centralization of power.

On May 24, a demonstration was held in the capital, Tunis, where protesters loudly chanted slogans against the president. They described Saied as a dictator and called for the revocation of a recent decree, which allowed the government to crack down on political dissent and facilitate the arrests of those protesting against the line President Saied has imprinted on Tunisian politics and the economy.

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Other measures have led to concern from the European Union and the United States. Both have expressly called for restraint by the Tunisian government in its crackdown on dissent, which President Saied has since described as intolerable foreign interference in the internal affairs of the Tunisian government.

The Tunisian Journalists’ Union (SNJT) has also denounced the government’s gradual authoritarian turn and the judiciary’s tendency to indict many journalists for criticizing the government’s line. SNJT claimed that more than fifty journalists have been detained over the past year for expressing views critical of government policy and have been accused of spreading fake news aimed at disrupting the constitutional order.

The government reshuffle also resulted in the appointment of Khaled Nouri as the head of the Interior Ministry, replacing Kamel Feki. Kamel Madouri, head of the Ministry of Social Affairs, replaced Malek Ezzahi. At the same time, Sufyan bin Sadiq was appointed under secretary of the Interior Ministry and was responsible for the new director of national security post. All three officials are considered very close and loyal to Saied. The president has since to comment on the decision behind this reshuffle or his reason for establishing a new post for national security within the Interior Ministry.

It seems quite clear that the cabinet reshuffle was brought about by the president’s dissatisfaction with the management of national security and the containment of the ongoing protests in the country, particularly in the capital, where the tone of accusations toward the government is becoming more serious by the day. The replacement of Feki with Nouri is most likely motivated by the intention to implement a more aggressive policy against opposition forces and to reduce the scale of protests. This is likely also behind the establishment of the new post of under secretary for national security, now chaired by Sufyan bin Sadiq, who will be specifically tasked with managing the growing phenomenon of dissent.

Despite the growing number of protests, however, President Saied’s popularity appears to be solid. Meanwhile, the opposition—however vocal and persistent in expressing its opposition to the government’s authoritarian drift—appears disorganized, divided, and seemingly unable to counter the government’s pervasive action in suppressing dissent.

President Saied succeeded in arresting the leaders of the Islamic Ennahda Party and the Free Desturian Party in 2023, considerably reducing the capacity of the main opposition parties. This, in turn, has paved the way for him to compete with a greater chance of success in the presidential elections scheduled for later this year.

Thus, at this stage the main force of opposition to the Tunisian government remains the National Salvation Front coalition, led by Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, which includes many of the smaller political groups opposed to the government’s authoritarian drift. Members of the front include the Islamist Ennahda party, the Al Amal party, Islamist parties Al Irada and Al Karama, and other minor groups of different ideological backgrounds united by a shared condemnation of President Saied’s policies.

Aware of his weakness, and in an attempt to fuel further critical debate of the government, Chebbi declared in March 2023 that he does not intend to run in the presidential elections unless authorities meet at least some basic conditions, including the reopening of Ennahda headquarters, the release of political prisoners, and, above all, the guarantee of the independence of the electoral commission that will monitor the elections. This last point is especially complex, as the constitutional amendments promoted by Saied have given the president the power to appoint the members of the electoral commission, making it somewhat unlikely that guarantees of transparency and impartiality will be provided.

What emerges from these latest events in Tunisia is a progressive increase in President Saied’s repression of all opposition to his role and, as a consequence, further opposition to him. The events in Tunisia are taking place in front of the international community, including Western democracies, which once again show their inability to uphold actions that they support in theory: human rights and democracy.

Karim Mezran is a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs.

Nicola Pedde is director of the Institute for Global Studies.

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Libya’s special envoy resigned. What’s next for the country?

Tahani Elmogrbi — Fri, 24 May 2024 18:45:05 +0000

Since the Libyan House of Representatives announced a new law for presidential and parliamentary elections on November 1, 2023, specifying a deadline of two hundred and forty days for holding the polls, political divisions in Libya have deepened. Despite this legislative step, disagreements persist among Libyan authorities, with various powerful politicians and military figures vying for control and influence over state resources.

The April 16 resignation of the head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Abdullah Batili, demonstrated the failure of international efforts to resolve the crisis, exacerbating divisions within Libya. Thus, the path to elections remains uncertain.

For the Libyan people, elections are crucial to establishing legitimate governance and resolving the political crisis. While Libya faces significant hurdles in organizing elections, concerted efforts toward political dialogue, security stabilization, and electoral-law reforms are vital for progress.

Tahani Elmogrbi, a Libya expert, interviewed the High National Election Commission chairman, Dr. Emad al-Sayah, on May 14 for the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative, to get his perspective on the elections in the current environment after Batili’s resignation.

TAHANI ELMOGRBI: Will the elections ever happen in Libya?

EMAD AL-SAYAH: The stakeholders involved in the current Libyan political crisis, including the international community, led by the UNSMIL, consider elections as an objective rather than a tool. Everyone knows that elections serve as a tool for the peaceful devolution of power, necessitating their implementation within a consensual political environment and a cultural framework fostering a minimum level of security and stability. Unfortunately, these conditions are currently absent in the Libyan political landscape. As long as this perspective dominates, the pathway toward elections and a peaceful devolution of power in Libya will face significant constraints, potentially delaying or even preventing the conduct of elections in the short term.

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TAHANI ELMOGRBI: What are the current main reasons behind its delay?

EMAD AL-SAYAH: The Libyan political environment has become hostile toward democratic principles, particularly elections. This phenomenon can be attributed to some factors that have produced negative outcomes and shaped the environment over the past twelve years. The most prominent of these factors include the absence of a culture of democracy and peaceful devolution of power within Libyan society; lack of a constitution to regulate the process of power devolution; negative foreign interference aimed at preserving its interests and maintaining the status quo; and ineffective performance of most of the United Nations secretary-general’s special envoys.

TAHANI ELMOGRBI: Is it possible to amend the electoral law?

EMAD AL-SAYAH: Due to the absence of a permanent constitution establishing the primary legislative rules for the electoral process in Libya, political parties involved in the crisis have not accepted specific articles and provisions, particularly those related to candidate qualifications and the electoral system. In Libyan elections, it is common for some political parties to obstruct any electoral process that could potentially end their political careers. Therefore, amending electoral laws in Libya is much more challenging than drafting them initially.

TAHANI ELMOGRBI: Will Batili’s resignation affect the possibility of holding elections?

EMAD AL-SAYAH: During the twelve years of dealing with the Libyan crisis, the United Nations mission did not have any strategic vision for moving the Libyan state from the transitional phase to the phase of permanent stability. Each UN envoy adopted a different vision for resolving the political crisis based on his/her convictions and perceptions, which would undoubtedly be affected by his/her personal behavior on the one hand, and by the constant and changing political facts in the local and foreign arenas on the other hand. Most of them failed in their missions, and those who would have succeeded found themselves facing challenges that they could not overcome without having international support, which is also divided. Analyzing the briefings they presented to the United Nations Security Council, which primarily reported on Libya’s political, economic, and security situations, reveals that the resignation of any special envoy and their replacement will not have a significant impact without a coherent strategy in place.

TAHANI ELMOGRBI: Is it beneficial to focus on military and economic dialogues rather than political dialogue?

EMAD AL-SAYAH: The central issue in the Libyan crisis is the political dimension, which serves as its primary source and cannot be disregarded. Addressing other aspects, such as economic or security concerns, requires a political solution that results in an elected authority possessing the legitimacy to effectively manage other crises transparently and prioritize national interests above all else. Currently, there is a trend of leveraging foreign interests and ambitions to maintain power, which hinders progress toward resolving the crisis. Continuing with this approach, in the absence of unified and conscientious political leadership, will exacerbate political conflicts and deepen internal divisions. It will also safeguard the interests of foreign countries involved in the conflict and their local allies, preventing any political changes that may threaten their interests.

Tahani Elmogrbi is a Libya expert and international development specialist.

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Thirty years of South African democracy, visualized

James Storen, Nina Dannaoui — Fri, 24 May 2024 16:03:22 +0000

When South Africans head to the polls on May 29, they will not only be deciding on their political future. They will also be participating in a democracy that turned thirty this year.

On April 27, 1994, nearly twenty million South Africans voted in the country’s first-ever democratic election, electing Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress (ANC) as the country’s president. Propelled into a new era, South Africa ushered in a new constitution, formed a multiparty National Assembly, and officially ended the policy of racial apartheid that had plagued the country for much of the twentieth century.

Thirty years later, up to twenty-eight million South Africans will cast ballots in the country’s seventh national election, one that could be the most consequential since the 1994 vote. The ANC, the party that pushed for the end of apartheid and has led South Africa’s government since 1994, has undoubtedly been responsible for many of the country’s accomplishments. But with growing concern among South Africans about issues such as corruption and inequality, the ANC risks losing its majority.

With South Africa’s political landscape poised to shift once again, it provides a perfect opportunity to examine how the country has fared in the thirty years since overcoming apartheid and becoming a democratic state. Data from the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes, two separate indexes measuring 164 countries around the world according to nineteen different indicators of freedom and prosperity, provide a snapshot into the progress made, the progress lost, and the ongoing challenges and opportunities facing the rainbow nation.

Women’s economic freedom, one of the thirteen indicators in the Freedom Index, stands out as one of South Africa’s most successful accomplishments. Between 1995 and 2022, women’s economic freedom in the country rose from 63.9 to 94.4 out of one hundred, jumping eighteen points between 1995 and 1999 and improving incrementally since. South Africa outpaces its neighbors Botswana and Namibia, two other countries that achieved independence from colonial rule and have since maintained democracy, scoring eighteen points above Namibia and forty-seven above Botswana in 2022.

Notably, women’s economic freedom in South Africa surpassed the average of the world’s freest countries in 1999. Today, South Africa scores just as highly as Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and higher than the United States and Singapore. While disparities in legislation still exist, South Africa has made impressive strides in strengthening women’s economic freedom through numerous reforms. These include the Employment Equity Act of 1998, which prohibits gender-based discrimination in the workplace, the increase of paid maternity leave to fourteen weeks in 2003, and legislation protecting women from sexual harassment in the workplace in 2013. Transitioning from an apartheid state that heavily discriminated on the basis of both race and gender to a democratic country with one of the highest women’s economic freedom scores on the globe, South Africa can serve as an example of progress in this metric.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is inequality, one of the six indicators in the Prosperity Index. In the Index, inequality is measured through the share of a country’s pretax income accrued to the top ten percent of earners. With ten percent of the population owning more than 80 percent of wealth, South Africa suffers from significant income inequality, with wide disparities owing to one’s race, education level, and land ownership. With a score of just 13.3 in 2022, South Africa ranks last worldwide in inequality. As the graph below shows, both Botswana and Namibia struggle with inequality as well. In fact, all three countries ranked in the bottom eight in 2022 and are more than forty-five points behind the free country average. Yet South Africa stands alone in that inequality has worsened rather than improved. In 1995, South Africa’s inequality score stood at 50, twenty-six points below the score of free countries and over forty-five points above Botswana and Namibia. By 2022, South Africa’s score had plummeted by nearly 37 points, while Botswana and Namibia saw improvements and the free country average remained relatively the same.

While the nature of the apartheid system actively fostered inequality with a minority of the population controlling the country’s government and wealth, South Africa’s democratic era exacerbated rather than remedied the issue. The country may be more equal politically, but from an income standpoint, power is more concentrated and unequal than ever.

In the middle lies education. Another of the Prosperity Index’s six indicators, education is measured through both expected and mean years of schooling. South Africa’s education score has improved in the past thirty years, increasing from 37.2 in 1995 to 54.5 in 2022. Additionally, the country scores higher than its neighbors; however, its score remains well below that of free countries.

As the data show, South African education has undoubtedly come a long way since the country became a democracy. South Africa has achieved universal enrollment for primary school students, now has fully integrated schools after decades of segregation, and has established a unified department of education. But numerous challenges persist that keep South Africa’s education from reaching the level of the freest countries; while nearly all South Africans enroll in primary school, just 54 percent pass matric (the equivalent of graduating high school). In addition, many schools suffer from a lack of adequate building and sanitation facilities, and transportation to and from school for students is nonexistent in a number of both rural and urban areas. South Africa’s education trajectory is particularly important as about a third of the population is under the age of eighteen.

As South Africans prepare to cast their ballots on May 29, they will not only decide on who will best represent their interests in the future but have the chance to reflect on how their country has changed since transitioning to democracy in 1994. Overall, freedom and prosperity have seen little fluctuation—South Africa’s freedom saw a slight decrease from 72.5 in 1995 to 70 in 2022, and prosperity remained essentially the same, changing from 60.1 to 60. But this data also points to several important areas that the next administration will likely need to address, especially education and inequality.

James Storen is the program assistant at the Freedom and Prosperity Center.

Nina Dannaoui is the associate director at the Freedom and Prosperity Center.

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President Zelenskyy’s term is over but he’s still a legitimate wartime leader

Elena Davlikanova — Thu, 23 May 2024 08:43:10 +0000

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s five-year term in office ended on May 20, but he will remain in his post until security conditions allow for elections to be held. Predictably, the Kremlin is already exploiting this technicality to question Zelenskyy’s legitimacy, but Russia’s claims ignore the many obvious obstacles to holding a credible democratic vote in wartime Ukraine.

In the years following the start of Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014, the Ukrainian authorities were able to conduct multiple presidential and parliamentary elections that were consistently rated as free and fair by international democracy watchdogs. Following the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, this is no longer possible.

The key issue is security. In order for any election to take place in Ukraine, the authorities must be able to ensure the safety of millions of voters and thousands of election officials at polling stations and election commissions across the country. That is clearly out of the question at present, particularly in light of Russia’s record for repeatedly targeting civilians. This also rules out the presence of international election observers.

It is even more difficult to imagine how the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men and women currently serving in the armed forces could participate in a wartime ballot, both as voters and as candidates. Russia would certainly view any gatherings of voting soldiers as priority targets. “It would be unfair if those defending our land were denied the opportunity to vote,” commented President Zelenskyy in March.

Security concerns are also one of the key factors that make it impossible to stage anything resembling a normal election campaign. With election rallies and public meetings of any kind at high risk of being bombed by Russia, the campaign would largely have to take place online. This would fall well short of Ukraine’s established democratic standards, while also creating an inviting environment for Russian interference.

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It is hard to see how Ukraine could hope to overcome the huge administrative challenges created by the displacement of millions of Ukrainian citizens following the Russian invasion. There are currently believed to be approximately six million internally displaced people in Ukraine. Enabling them to vote would require a huge effort to update voter registers. This would likely raise all manner of additional questions regarding issues such as official and temporary addresses.

Meanwhile, at least five million Ukrainians are currently residing outside Ukraine as refugees, half of whom are eligible to vote. Existing voter registration procedures for Ukrainians living abroad are not designed to accommodate such large numbers, while Ukraine’s embassies and consulates would be unable to cope with so many voters. Without the participation of Ukrainian refugees, any wartime election would fail to meet basic democratic standards.

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Recent research indicates that Ukrainian society recognizes the impracticality of wartime elections and is broadly supportive of the government’s decision to postpone any national votes until the security situation improves. A February 2024 poll conducted by the Rating Sociological Group on behalf of the International Republican Institute found that 67 percent of Ukrainians opposed holding presidential elections amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

There is also a consensus among Ukraine’s rival political parties that elections should wait until after the war. In November 2023, all parliamentary factions endorsed a memorandum backing the postponement of presidential and parliamentary votes until the end of hostilities. Ukraine’s vibrant civil society agrees, with more than 100 organizations releasing a joint statement in September 2023 rejecting the idea of wartime elections.

While there is virtually no indication of any appetite for wartime elections inside Ukraine itself, Russia and its allies are expected to continue pushing the notion of Zelenskyy’s alleged illegitimacy in the coming months. Indeed, some of the most prominent Kremlin-friendly figures in Congress have already begun promoting this narrative as part of ongoing efforts to argue against further US support for Ukraine.

Ukraine is not the first country to delay elections due to wartime conditions, of course. For example, During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill repeatedly postponed the country’s scheduled general election, but nobody accused him of undermining the democratic legitimacy of the British parliament.

Ukrainians have impeccable democratic instincts, having staged two separate pro-democracy revolutions in the past twenty years. Indeed, the current war is in part a struggle to defend the country’s democratic identity against Putin’s authoritarian imperialism. At the same time, Ukrainians are sufficiently sensible to understand that the idea of holding elections amid the largest European invasion since World War II is absurd.

Dr. Elena Davlikanova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and an associate professor at Sumy State University in Ukraine.

Other Kuwaitis are likely waiting to see how strong the repression will be. A well-known Islamist and former member of parliament, Walid al-Tabtabaie, was arrested a day after the suspension on May 11, reportedly for a tweet suggesting foreign interference in Kuwaiti affairs—in other words, Gulf state support for the emir’s actions. Although Tabtabaie will likely consider his arrest a badge of honor, it will also serve as a warning to others who might consider publicly opining on their leadership’s actions. However, Kuwaitis will not abandon their tradition of having a say in their politics. They can be expected to find ways over time to express themselves and demand accountability from the ruling Sabah family.

Regional reaction has also been muted. Uniquely, Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed quickly called his Kuwaiti counterpart to offer his support, noting the utmost value of stability. The sultan of Oman, Haithan bin Tariq, was in Kuwait for a previously scheduled state visit ending May 14. He did not comment on internal Kuwaiti matters, but there was some press spin that the visit was a show of support for Sabah’s moves. Other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and regional leaders have been silent, perhaps quietly pleased that Kuwait’s longtime experience with a parliament with some genuine power has been quashed for the moment.

And what about the United States’ reaction to the backsliding of democratic norms in Kuwait? No public statements emerged from the White House or the US Department of State. An anonymous State Department official told me, “We are aware of the developments regarding the Kuwaiti parliament suspension and are monitoring the situation closely.”

In other words, this is not a fight the United States will pick. The reasons for this reticence could range from a simple lack of bandwidth to deal with what is considered a relatively minor matter in the Middle East to a more serious weighing of current priorities. Sabah is known as a reliable security partner, and Kuwait has been a generous and flexible host for US military installations. Thousands of US Army personnel have served at or passed through Camp Arifjan, and Ali al-Salem Air Base has provided a key hub for US aircraft.

Although Kuwait and Bahrain reportedly asked the United States not to use bases located on their soil for any attacks on Iran in reaction to its April 13 retaliation against Israel—which came in response to the killing of senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at Iran’s embassy compound in Syria—these bases remain extremely useful.

But it is not impossible to balance concerns for security and stability with support for political liberalization. On April 15, Kuwait celebrated the nineteenth anniversary of Kuwaiti women achieving the right to vote, prompted by the George W. Bush administration’s “freedom agenda” in the Middle East. That very year, the United States was also pursuing a major war in Iraq, with Kuwait as the critical entry point for US forces. At the time, President Bush was instrumental in convincing Emir Sheikh Sabah to push this measure through the Kuwait parliament. Liz Cheney, a State Department official at that time, came to Kuwait to celebrate the granting of female suffrage.

Democracy mattered then. It still matters now.

Ambassador (ret) Richard LeBaron is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He served as US Ambassador to Kuwait and in a number of other senior diplomatic positions in the Middle East and Washington. He is a member of the Advisory Council of Global Ties US. Follow him on X: @RBLeBaron.

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Georgia’s government uses Kremlin playbook to consolidate grip on power

Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland — Wed, 15 May 2024 23:13:15 +0000

Georgia is currently at the crossroads as the government pushes through contentious Kremlin-style legislation that opponents say will stifle civil society and prevent the country’s further European integration. At stake is the future trajectory of this small but strategically significant nation that plays an important role in the broader geopolitics of the post-Soviet space.

On May 14, the ruling Georgian Dream party passed the controversial “foreign agents” bill, which will oblige organizations that receive more than 20 percent of funding from abroad to register with the government or face fines. Despite claims to the contrary, this law resembles Russia’s own foreign agents legislation far more than the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.

EU officials responded to the news from Tbilisi by suggesting adoption of the legislation could hamper Georgia’s bid to join the European Union. “The EU stands with the Georgian people and their choice in favor of democracy and of Georgia’s European future,” commented the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell. US officials have also voiced concern over the issue.

Georgian Dream officials appear unmoved by these appeals. Indeed, critics say the passage of the foreign agents law is part of intentional efforts to derail the country’s Western integration and bring Georgia back into the Kremlin orbit. They claim the legislation is intended to suppress civil society in the lead-up to parliamentary elections in October, and note that Georgian authorities are now adopting tactics that closely mirror Russia’s own efforts to stamp out domestic dissent and silence opponents.

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As unprecedented numbers have taken to the streets of Tbilisi to protest the country’s turn toward Moscow, the Georgian authorities have sought to crush protests with heavy-handed policing, including beatings, tear gas, and water cannons. Journalists and elected officials have been among those on the receiving end of violence.

In a further echo of tactics widely employed in Putin’s Russia, individual members of Georgia’s political opposition and activists have been assaulted in apparently targeted attacks that have taken place far from the protests. Others have been subjected to threatening phone calls and additional forms of harassment.

Meanwhile, the Georgian authorities are accused of copying the longstanding Russian practice of stage-managing pro-government rallies designed to distract attention from protests and create the illusion of popular support. One rally in late April featured thousands of public sector workers who had apparently been bussed into the Georgian capital from around the country and instructed to attend.

The rhetoric coming from Georgian Dream officials in recent weeks has increasingly resembled the anti-Western narratives and conspiracy theories favored by the Putin regime. In thinly veiled attacks on Georgia’s Western partners, Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the unofficial leader of Georgian Dream, has decried civil society organizations as “pseudo-elites” controlled by patrons abroad, and has accused them of attempting to instigate revolution in Georgia. These allegations are virtually indistinguishable from Vladimir Putin’s complaints regarding so-called “color revolutions.”

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Officially, the Georgian authorities deny they are seeking to turn the country away from the path of European integration and reject claims of a pro-Kremlin agenda. Indeed, Ivanishvili continues to insist Georgia is currently closer than ever to joining the EU. The ruling party’s careful rhetoric around Georgia’s European choice is understandable given that 81% of Georgians support EU membership. However, the fact that Georgian Dream moved forward with the foreign agents law despite condemnation from the EU and large-scale public protests has severely undermined the credibility of the government’s claims.

Georgian Dream officials say the foreign agents law is intended to ensure transparency and prevent undue foreign influence in the country, but critics remain unconvinced. They argue that the legislation will be used as a tool to suppress civil society, and point to the chilling role similar legislation has played in Russia. If it comes into force, many fear the law will strengthen the ruling party’s grip on power ahead of Georgia’s coming elections and set the stage for a more authoritarian form of government.

If Georgian Dream is able to secure a convincing result in the October ballot, Ivanishvili has already outlined plans for a strict “political and legal condemnation” of his party’s domestic opponents. In light of the mounting violence against opposition figures and pro-democracy protesters in Tbilisi in recent days, such statements must be taken seriously.

Hundreds of thousands of Georgians have joined protests this spring in an emphatic display of support for the country’s European future, but the struggle looks likely to continue throughout the coming months. The Georgian government has already demonstrated its readiness to employ Kremlin tactics. The question now is how far they are willing to go.

Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland is a master’s student in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia at Harvard and a Research Assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Atlantic Council — Tue, 07 May 2024 19:50:36 +0000

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The UN Libya envoy’s resignation shows why the political transition is failing

Karim Mezran — Fri, 03 May 2024 14:41:24 +0000

The most recent United Nations (UN) special envoy for Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, resigned on April 16, announcing his decision to the press shortly after reporting it to the Security Council. He had been appointed to the post only eighteen months prior, in September 2022, following the resignation of his predecessor, Jan Kubis.

Bathily’s resignation was motivated by the UN’s inability to successfully support the political transition process that it has been trying to foster in Libya for more than a decade in the wake of the country’s civil war and enduring political fragmentation. As Bathily pointed out, the reason for this inability is that Libya’s various political actors are unwilling to place the collective interest above their own personal interests. Bathily bluntly described the leaders of the country’s political factions as lacking “good faith,” rendering UN initiatives futile and ruling out the possibility of any solution to the country’s current chaotic and unstable political impasse. His resignation, and his candid assessment of the political process in Libya, demonstrate the slim prospects for UN initiatives in Libya so long as national leaders remain unwilling to collaborate.

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Bathily described the attitude of Libyan political leaders as driven by a “selfish resolve” to defend their individual interests and impede the transition process through political and administrative expedients. Bathily’s criticism is directed at the major political figures in Libya whom the UN special envoy had often described as the “big five”: General Khalifa Haftar, Mohammed Takala, Mohamed al-Menfi, Aguila Saleh, and Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. For these five political figures, the transition process doesn’t offer any incentives, but rather would severely limit their current ability to control the political system and the national economy. Particularly frustrating for Bathily, after almost two years of continuous initiatives that these internal actors systematically boycotted, the UN needed to put off a planned national reconciliation conference, which was initially scheduled for April 28 and is now postponed indefinitely due to the rival parties’ intransigence.

The reasons for Bathily’s criticisms are clear. Although a relative calm has returned to the country since the failure of Haftar’s siege of Tripoli in 2020, this calm has not facilitated the resumption of national dialogue nor the start of the necessary transition process to organize national elections. Instead, this quiet period has allowed the different political factions’ balance of power to freeze in place. They are now unwilling to give up their respective spheres of power by initiating an unpredictable transition to elections that could subvert the status quo.

The web of individual political interests, moreover, is closely linked to a variegated framework of parallel interests, including control of the economy, corruption, management of the various militias that control most of Tripolitania (although in a disorganized manner), and deep ties with organized crime, which runs trafficking of all kinds in Libya.

Bathily’s resignation thus demonstrates how the role of the UN special envoy to Libya has become frustrating and devoid of real prospects over time. In 2020, Ghassan Salame resigned after two years in office citing health reasons, although he expressed deep disappointment at how the transition process had been systematically opposed by both local actors and the foreign powers and regional actors that have been intermingling in Libya since the 2011 revolution. He was succeeded by Jan Kubis, who in turn resigned in 2021 without clearly specifying the reasons, although he had clearly determined that it was impossible to fulfil his mandate.

The question remains how and whether the United Nations intends to appoint a new special representative. Talk among insiders indicates that the next special envoy could be Stephanie Koury, currently the vice head of the UN mission in Libya, who would take up the post on an interim basis pending new guidelines from the Security Council.

But regardless of who replaces Bathily, the next special envoy will not be able to solve Libya’s longstanding political impasse as long as the leaders of the country’s factions remain unwilling to meaningfully engage with the UN’s initiatives. The country’s political stasis is unlikely to shift anytime soon.

Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

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An Iron Curtain may fall again—this time in Libya

Karim Mezran — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 17:17:22 +0000

Libya is still divided between two governments: the Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah in Tripoli and a government in Benghazi supported by the warlord Khalifa Haftar. Western countries seem to accept this status quo in Libya favored by the new post-Muammar Gaddafi elites. As long as no Western nation shows interest in stabilizing Tripoli’s political system, the country remains mired in institutional limbo, allowing corruption to flourish. While the Europeans are primarily concerned with irregular migration and thus find it convenient to deal with a semi-anarchic situation; the United States is concerned with terrorism and the spread of Islamist organizations such as ISIS throughout the region, and pays no concern over who governs Libya as long as extremist groups are contained.

This vacuum not only invites external intervention but also presents Russia as the most conspicuous, power-hungry player poised at Libya’s doorstep.

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Following the eruption of Libya’s civil war, the conflict swiftly escalated into a matter of international concern, prompting various international actors to align with different factions based on their strategic interests. Turkey and Qatar directly and militarily support the GNA, while most other nations, while formally recognizing the government, play both sides to their advantage. General Haftar, however, is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia. Nevertheless, in 2020, an opportunity to stabilize Libya appeared thanks to the support of Turkish forces leaving Cyrenaica in Russian forces’ hands.

At first, the Russian penetration in Libya was limited to a few hundred instructors for General Haftar’s LAF in 2015 and 2016. It was only around late 2018 that these Russian soldiers were substituted by a couple of thousand—mostly Russian—mercenaries hired by the Wagner Group, a Russian company owned by a close friend of the Kremlin’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a suspicious plane crash after his mercenaries attempted a coup in Russia in 2023.

Wagner’s presence did not take place suddenly. It was preceded by constant courting by the Russian top establishment, General Haftar, his family, and his officers, not only with generous provisions of weapons and equipment but also with a public show of support for Haftar’s political positions and views, which consisted mainly in his ambition to rule over the whole country. Thus, the Russians had established a strong foothold in Libya by the end of 2019 and the beginning of the attack on Tripoli. All of this happened with almost no reaction from the United States and its NATO allies, even though this has brought armed Russian troops less than a few hundred miles from the southern shores of Italy, the Southern flank of NATO.

This became even more evident after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022 as Russian presence in Libya started to raise some questions among commentators, pundits, and military strategists. Still, even when confronted by this evidence, western decision-makers seemed to pay scant attention to the issue. The truth is that the US diplomacy and political establishment in general in the years between 2014 and 2022 were not receptive to any alarm coming from Libya since they had practically checked out mostly due to the shock of the assassination of US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, in 2012. Since then, the US has preferred to delegate the task of untangling the Libyan issue to the Europeans and the United Nations.

Despite the presence in Tripoli of the United Nations Secretary-General Guterres on April 4, 2019, on a visit with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, Haftar launched his troops in a sudden attack against Tripoli. The US barely reacted, limiting itself to publishing a few diplomatic notes protesting the military operation. It was a worldwide deafening silence that met Haftar’s aggression. The US position sounded to Haftar like a green light for the attack. The Russian component of the aggressor’s forces was primarily formed by contractors—almost all from Moscow’s special forces hired by the Wagner Group. The Russians constituted the better-trained and equipped contingent of Haftar’s army and were the ones who fought harder and got closer to the center of Tripoli. The intervention of Turkish troops in defense of the legitimate government forced the Russians to abandon the capital’s outskirts and withdraw behind the Sirte line about halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi. After a truce was declared between the parties, only about 600 Russian mercenaries remained in Libya, mainly to guarantee that Western Libyan troops and their Turkish allies would not stage a blitz and charge toward Benghazi.

At the end of 2021, reports of an expansion of Russian forces— as it became hard to distinguish Wagner contractors from regular troops—began to appear in the Western press, and it was revealed that Russians were penetrating the territories of countries in the African Sahel ostensibly to protect their economic interests, including mining investments. While this could well be true, they were there with a different purpose, as it was revealed by a series of military coups that mainly overthrew pro-western governments in favor of military dictators who showed evident pro-Russian inclinations.

The Russians penetrated the territories and political environment of the Sahel countries with the precise purpose of intervening in their internal affairs. Russians are very thorough in their destabilization plans since they do not limit the penetration of a particular country only to their armed forces but, as the Libyan case proves, extend the destabilization to the economic area as well. Between 2016 and 2020, the Central Bank of Libya branch, located and operating in the east under the control of General Haftar, contracted the Russian state-owned Joint Stock Company Goznak to print its version of the Libyan dinar even though Haftar’s administration did not have access to collateral, such as gold, and thus in open violation of various international norms as well as Libya’s Banking Act. The issue of these false banknotes in the order of billions of dollars in Libyan dinars is tied to Haftar’s plans of conquest, as shown by data that noted that 4.5 billion Libyan dinars ($0.93 billion in 2019 value) were dispatched in four shipments from February to June 2019, just as Haftar attacked Tripoli in April 2019.

It is estimated that Russians flooded the Libyan market with at least the equivalent in Libyan banknotes of more than 10 billion dollars, most of which paid for Haftar’s army and civil officials. The destabilizing effect of these maneuvers is self-explanatory. There are also unconfirmed rumors of another quantity of counterfeited bills being smuggled again into the Libyan market at the beginning of 2024. Despite all this evidence, coupled with the expulsion of French troops from these countries, there was still no American reaction besides some mid-level officials’ “outrage” and vague calls for the return of democracy. With all the above-described strategies, Russia is attempting to establish itself as the dominant power in Libya to control the territory of the country and, from there, safely project its power towards other North African countries and even further south like Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

The ups and downs of Russia’s war against Ukraine, compounded with the tragic events of October 7, 2023, in Israel and following more than six months of the war in Gaza with all the international consequences that these conflicts brought about, absorbed the US attention and capacity to react, even more so than before. But Washington and its allies cannot ignore anymore the importance of stabilizing Libya through a constant, inclusive, and transparent political process accompanied by a forceful action of resistance and pushback against the Russian infiltration by establishing in Libya a new unity government that could lead the way towards this objective. This would go a long way to gratifying the population and winning their hearts and minds to Western values.

Karim Mezran is the director of the North Africa Program at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

The post An Iron Curtain may fall again—this time in Libya appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine’s veterans can transform the country’s postwar political landscape

Kateryna Odarchenko — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 16:30:58 +0000

What kind of Ukraine will emerge from the horrors of Russia’s invasion? While it is obviously difficult to make any specific predictions amid ongoing hostilities, it already seems clear that postwar Ukraine will have a vastly strengthened sense of national identity as a democratic country firmly embedded within the wider European community. It also looks likely that the evolution of Ukraine’s postwar democracy will be shaped by a new generation of military veterans entering the political arena.

Millions of Ukrainians have served in the country’s armed forces since the onset of Russian aggression ten years ago. This large pool of veterans has the potential to transform Ukraine’s political landscape. Military veterans can bring a range of qualities to Ukrainian politics including patriotism, pragmatism, accountability, and an acute awareness about the costs of corruption. Crucially, Ukraine’s military veterans also enjoy unprecedented levels of trust among their compatriots.

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Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, a number of Ukrainian MPs and local officials have joined the military. Their experiences will inevitably influence their future political activities and may result in increased attention to issues including national security and the rights of veterans. However, these serving politicians are likely to form a small percentage of the military veterans active in postwar Ukrainian politics.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are currently defending their country against a threat that most view as existential. With Russia openly denying Ukraine’s right to exist and erasing all traces of Ukrainian identity in areas currently under Kremlin control, the stakes could hardly be higher. This experience is transforming Ukraine and producing an entire generation of Ukrainians defined by the courage and sacrifices of the struggle against Russian aggression.

Many of Ukraine’s military veterans will seek to continue serving the nation in the postwar environment. They will be driven by a profound sense of duty and by a deeply felt desire to build a Ukraine that will honor the memory of their fallen comrades. These veterans will be highly sought after by Ukraine’s existing political parties, but they also have the potential to become a potent political force in their own right.

The single greatest political asset Ukraine’s military veterans possess is the trust of their fellow Ukrainians. In a country where faith in the political classes is notoriously low, military veterans enjoy an enviable reputation for trustworthiness. One recent survey conducted in March 2024 found public levels of trust for different categories of veteran ranging from 84 to 96 percent. In contrast, a January 2024 poll found that 75 percent of Ukrainians distrust state officials.

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An influx of military veterans into the political arena would not necessarily create a more militarized Ukraine. Instead, it would likely enhance democratic accountability while also bringing valuable practical experience along with patriotic judgment that prioritizes the national interest. This has long been the case throughout the democratic world, where military veterans have frequently pursued political careers. For example, almost 20 percent of currently serving Congress members in the US come from military backgrounds.

The Ukrainian authorities should now be looking to create the conditions for more military veterans to play a role in building the country’s future. This means safeguarding their rights and status, while making sure they and their families enjoy maximum government support. State programs, private grants, and international initiatives should offer veterans free education. Efforts should also be made to improve employment opportunities, including initiatives to hire veterans in public service positions.

In light of the major challenges Ukraine will continue to face for many years to come, including the twin threats of further Russian aggression and economic instability, the active engagement of veterans in Ukrainian politics is more crucial than ever. Their proven commitment to serving their country, coupled with their firsthand knowledge of the realities of war, make them highly qualified to lead Ukraine.

From Dwight Eisenhower to Charles de Gaulle, there are many examples in modern history of military men who have gone on to become pivotal political figures in the democratic world. In many ways, it would be entirely natural if Ukraine’s own evolution as a European democracy follows a similar path.

Ukrainian policymakers need to recognize the potential of the country’s military veterans and provide them with opportunities to take on leadership roles in the political arena. This will allow Ukraine to tap into the wealth of talent, dedication, and experience that veterans can offer, while also strengthening the country’s democratic institutions and rebuilding public trust in the political classes.

Kateryna Odarchenko is a partner at SIC Group Ukraine.

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Renewed efforts to pass last year’s foreign agents bill have sparked fresh debate over Georgia’s future. Opposition groups see the return of the draft law as a further indication of the ruling Georgian Dream party’s intention to steer the country away from Europe and toward Russia. The move comes just months after Georgia achieved a major breakthrough by securing official EU candidate nation status in December 2023.

EU officials voiced “regret” that Georgia’s foreign influence legislation was once again under consideration despite being “unconditionally” withdrawn last year. “Transparency should not be used as an instrument to limit civil society’s capacity to operate freely,” read an EU statement. “We encourage the political leaders in Georgia to adopt and implement reforms that are in line with the stated objective of joining the European Union, as supported by a large majority of Georgia’s citizens.”

The United States also voiced its concerns over the reappearance of the contentious foreign agents law. The largely unchanged draft legislation “undermines Georgia’s commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration and risks pulling Georgia off its European path,” commented US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller.

When officials from the ruling Georgian Dream party first proposed new legislation to curb foreign influence in February 2023, the backlash was so strong that the draft law was ultimately withdrawn from consideration. Thousands rallied against the bill in Tbilisi, leading to clashes with police that generated global headlines.

Criticism also came from a range of international human rights watchdogs. “The foreign agent bill seeks to marginalize and discredit independent, foreign-funded groups and media that serve the wider public interest in Georgia,” commented Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia Director for Human Rights Watch.

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The reintroduction of the foreign agents law ahead of parliamentary elections in October casts a shadow over Georgia’s democratic progress. Critics say this renewed push to pass legislation virtually identical to last year’s abandoned bill is part of the Georgian Dream party’s efforts to silence opponents. They accuse the Georgian authorities of backsliding on the core values underpinning the country’s declared goal of securing a democratic, European future.

These concerns reflect fears over Russian influence. Despite widespread public opposition to Russia’s role in the country, the Georgian Dream party has long faced accusations of seeking to foster closer ties with the Kremlin. Russia continues to occupy approximately 20 percent of Georgia, and has recently announced plans to construct a major naval base on the Black Sea coast in Georgia’s occupied Abkhazia region.

Over the past two years, the Georgian authorities have responded ambiguously to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Georgia has refused to join international sanctions or restrict trade with Russia, while Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili echoed the Kremlin in May 2023 by claiming NATO enlargement was one of the main reasons for the war in Ukraine. Georgia also recently relaunched direct flights to Russia.

In the coming weeks, Georgia’s revived foreign influence legislation is expected to be reviewed by a parliamentary committee. A new round of protests against the law has already begun in the capital, and could serve as a focal point for opponents of the current authorities. The further passage of the law will reveal much about the Georgian Dream party’s grip on power, while also providing an indication of the country’s future geopolitical trajectory.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Ukraine’s Belarusian volunteers create headaches for Putin ally Lukashenka

Alesia Rudnik — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:58:45 +0000

In late March, Ukrainian MP Ihor Guz unfurled the flag of the Belarusian Kalinouski Regiment in the Ukrainian Parliament and paid tribute to the Belarusian volunteers helping to defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. This gesture was a reminder that Belarusians currently make up one of the largest contingents of foreign nationals fighting for Ukraine. Their growing presence is helping to shape the battlefield in Ukraine and has broader implications for regional security.

Belarusians have been part of the Ukrainian struggle against Russian aggression since 2014, when dozens joining the volunteer battalions that emerged in response to Russia’s seizure of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. When Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Febuary 2022, Belarusians responded by forming their own battalion and naming it after Kastus Kalinouski, a nineteenth century Belarusian national hero who led an uprising against imperial Russia.

This Belarusian battalion has since expanded to become a regiment, with representatives claiming as many as 5,000 volunteers. Belarusian troops have taken part in some of the biggest battles of the war including the fighting around Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and Bakhmut. The Kalinouski Regiment now has its own recruitment and training structures, and has acquired a considerable arsenal of military equipment. While casualty figures are not publicly disclosed, there are reports of more than 40 Belarusian volunteers killed while defending Ukraine, with the total number likely to be significantly higher.

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The presence of so many Belarusians fighting alongside the Ukrainian military has long been a source of concern for Belarus’s pro-Kremlin dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Speculation over the potential dangers posed by Belarusian fighters in Ukraine has intensified in recent weeks amid a series of cross-border raids conducted by Russian volunteer units entering Russia from Ukrainian territory. Many are now asking whether Ukraine’s large Belarusian contingent may mount similar border zone operations inside Belarus.

For now, there is no sign of any plans for offensive activity along the Ukrainian border with Belarus. Instead, there are indications that Ukraine’s political and military leaders would rather avoid any escalation in the confrontation with Minsk at a time when they are fighting for national survival against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

In an October 2023 interview, Ukrainian Military Intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov spoke favorably of Lukashenka’s ability to prevent his country from becoming a direct participant in the Russian invasion. This caused considerable disquiet among the Belarusian pro-democracy opposition, with many viewing it as a signal of renewed readiness in Kyiv to deal with the Lukashenka regime.

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Despite the absence of any offensive operations against Belarus, Lukashenka clearly views the Belarusians fighting in Ukraine as a serious threat to his own regime. He is well aware that many Belarusian volunteers regard victory in Ukraine as a stepping stone toward the overthrow of the current pro-Russian authorities in Minsk. Unsurprisingly, volunteer fighters face criminal prosecution if caught inside Belarus. Some family members have also reportedly been detained by the Belarusian authorities.

Lukashenka has good reason to be wary. His position has been precarious since 2020, when nationwide protests over a rigged presidential election threatened to topple his regime until Kremlin intervention and a brutal crackdown enabled him to cling onto power. While there is only relatively limited cooperation between the domestic population and Belarus’s exiled pro-democracy opposition, the danger of renewed protests remains.

Some Belarusians have accused the country’s exiled opposition of not doing enough to confront the Lukashenka regime. Leaders of the Kalinouski Regiment have urged opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to play a more active role in efforts to mobilize support for the regiment and increase assistance for Belarusians fighting for Ukraine.

There are some indications that the Kalinouski Regiment may have political ambitions of its own. The regiment has strengthened ties with the Cyberpartisans hacktivist group, which is a member of the Belarusian opposition’s Coordination Council. In January 2024, Kalinouski Regiment leaders announced plans to visit 12 European cities to meet Belarusian supporters. While in Warsaw, they spoke of their interest in developing a “political track.”

The Kalinouski Regiment is playing a significant role in Ukraine’s armed struggle against Russian imperialism and its leaders clearly have ambitions to eventually liberate their own country. However, the regiment is currently far too small to challenge the Lukshenka regime on its own.

Meanwhile, there is little sign of any Ukrainian appetite to expand the war. On the contrary, the absence of cross-border raids and the softer tone adopted in recent months by some in Kyiv hints at a more pragmatic approach toward ties with Belarus. Until this changes, the Kalinouski Regiment may keep Lukashenka awake at night, but it is unlikely to orchestrate his downfall.

Alesia Rudnik is a PhD Fellow at Karlstad University in Sweden and director of Belarusian think tank The Center for New Ideas.

Why Africans hold the future of global democracy in their hands

Rama Yade — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 20:18:06 +0000

By the end of 2024, the face of political Africa will—theoretically—no longer be the same. With nineteen elections scheduled this year, the continent will see presidents leave who were elected more than ten years ago (in Senegal and Ghana), uncertain civilian transitions (in Chad, Mali, and Burkina Faso), high-stakes elections (as in South Africa), and strongmen hanging on (in Tunisia and Rwanda). This volatility, combined with the continent experiencing a wave of coups d’état, makes many observers pessimistic about a decline of the democratic ideal.

This “democratic winter” is not unique to Africa. In the United States, according to Gallup, only 28 percent of Americans—a record low, fewer even than in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021—are satisfied with the way their democratic system works. In France, two in five voters dream of an unelected strongman at the head of the country. It is not surprising that the value of democracy is also disputed in Africa, and that arguments against it take the form of claims to national sovereignty and are mainly directed against the former colonial powers. Wherever recent coups have taken place, the putschists have publicly rejected the influence of former colonial powers (as in the Sahel region with France) or Western institutions (as in Sudan, where General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan used the structural reforms inspired by the World Bank to justify his coup in October 2021). Coup leaders have accused the previous governments of having installed falsely democratic regimes, which they claim were weak and responsible for the persistence of underdevelopment. In Niger, President Mohamed Bazoum is still being held against his will, accused by a military junta of having had “exchanges” with “foreign heads of state” and “heads of international organizations.”

How has the concept of democracy, at least in terms of aspiration, become so divisive that its rejection is no longer even taboo? No international conference lacks African putschists who have not been elected by anyone claiming their legitimacy to take power by force with the cheers of their supporters. While some of the allegedly “spontaneous” demonstrations in the streets they refer to are organized, these events resonate deeply in African opinions, especially among the younger generations.

These are poor excuses, not to mention that there is something deeply insulting about suggesting that Africans do not deserve to choose their leaders and, therefore, to live freely. Besides, why should anyone believe that democracy is only a Western concept?

An African vision of democracy

The Manden Charter, proclaimed in 1222 at the time of the Mali Empire—centuries before the UK Bill of Rights—is considered in Africa to be the first declaration of human rights in history. The charter celebrated the preservation of life (Article 5: “Everybody has a right to life and to the preservation of physical integrity”) and organized coexistence between communities (Article 11: “When your wife or your child is missing, stop running after them in the neighbour’s house”). It also protected the rights of women (Article 14: “Never offend women, our mothers”; Article 16: “Women, apart from their everyday occupations, should be associated with all our managements”), foreigners (Article 24: “In Manden, do not maltreat the foreigners”), the homeless (Article 31: “We should help those who are in need”) and even the enemy in battle (Article 41: “You can kill the enemy, but not humiliate him”).

As we can see, Africans are very familiar with democratic practice, and that is true well beyond the Mali Empire. Among the Yoruba, the power of the chief was revocable. Among the Ashanti in Ghana, the village chief was chosen by the heads of families, who formed a council. An association of adults from each village represented public opinion and elected a president.

Today, there are plenty of examples of democratic successes in Africa. In its 2023 report, Freedom House wrote, “Freedom in Africa slightly advanced in 2022 with 11 countries seeing improvements in their political rights and civil liberties and 9 experiencing declines.” In Liberia in January 2024, Joseph Bokai peacefully succeeded George Weah, who had succeeded Africa’s first female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in January 2018. In Botswana, all elections since independence in 1966 have been conducted peacefully, in a multiparty institutional system where minorities are represented. Botswana has no curse around raw materials: Diamonds, which generate half of public revenues, ensure the prosperity of the country and the government finances the primary and secondary education of all students. From Mauritius to the Seychelles to Cabo Verde, African islands enjoy remarkable political stability. According to Freedom House, “Cabo Verde (receiving a total score of 92 on Freedom in the World’s 100-point scale), Mauritius (85), and São Tomé and Príncipe (84) have the highest aggregate scores in the region. All are rated Free.” Namibia is notable for having only three presidents since 1990. The third—Hage Geingob, who died in February 2024—was first elected in November 2014 in Africa’s first fully electronic elections. He succeeded Hifikepunye Pohamba, who respected the constitution and stepped down after two terms in office.

Ghana is one of the countries that has made progress in its democratic practice. Since the 1992 constitutional reform, Ghana has held eight free elections, while the current president, Nana Akufo-Addo, is preparing to leave power in December 2024 after two terms.

In Zambia, President Hakainde Hichilema took office in August 2021 following a smooth political transition with outgoing President Edgar Lungu, despite a longstanding rivalry between the two men. Hichilema was running for president for the sixth time, three of them against Lungu. This was the third time since 1991 that power passed to the opposition in Zambia.

In Tanzania, former President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, who introduced multiparty democracy and recently died at the age of ninety-eight, was called the “champion” of democracy in East Africa by US Vice President Kamala Harris during her March 2023 visit. Under his successor, Samia Suluhu Hassan—in office since April 2021 and one of two women leading African nations, a distinction she shares with Ethiopia’s Sahle-Work Zewde, who has been in office since 2018—Tanzania is fighting for a democratic practice that began with Julius Nyerere, the Mwalimu (“the Teacher”), the president of Tanzania from 1964 to 1985.

In Senegal, recent upheavals—including a February announcement, since rescinded, by President Macky Sall that he would delay the previously scheduled February 25 elections—have not derailed the institutional system. Sall and the National Assembly have complied with the decision of the top legal authority that set the date of the presidential election, confirming the exceptional democratic journey of Senegalese society. In sixty years, the country has had only four presidents, and each transition has taken place under the watchful eye of communities and institutions—including the army, which is known for its peacemaking role.

At the level of regional organizations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been criticized by commentators for failing to prevent recent coups d’état in the region and for the withdrawals of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso from the organization. However, the majority of ECOWAS members have upheld democratic norms—including Guinea-Bissau and Liberia, which previously faced war and conflict. Notably, from 2015 to 2020, ECOWAS maintained peace and stability in the region, without any coups.

It is worth noting that while all these successful experiences are individually celebrated as exceptions, they represent a significant trend of African democratic successes. Out of fifty-four African countries, 17 percent are considered “free” by Freedom House and 37 percent are considered “partially free.” Added together, the majority of African nations (54 percent) are at least partially free. In comparison, of the twelve countries in the Eurasia region (the countries of the former Soviet Union), 67 percent are considered “unfree” and none are perceived as “free.” According to Freedom House, people live freer in Africa than in Eurasia thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Contrary to the popular belief that Africa is a land of inter-ethnic wars, the continent’s significant cultural diversity, far from being only a challenge, is one of the most original elements of African democratic systems. For example, Senegal was led for twenty years by a president who belonged to two minority groups, Serers and Catholics, in a country that is predominantly Wolof and Muslim. With more than three thousand languages spoken and multiethnic cultural challenges, African political models have no equivalent elsewhere in the world.

Africa’s history is full of experiences of multicultural governance. In the Mali Empire, diverse ethnic peoples—Tuareg, Wolof, Malinke, Bamba, Fulani, and Toucouleur—lived together, and a religious tolerance prevailed in which no Malian king waged a holy war (jihad). The Ghana Empire, which covered a large area from Tekrour to Awdaghost, included populations as diverse as the Bambara, Toucouleur, Wolof, and Serer. While the emperor practiced animist religion, he showed tolerance toward Muslims and chose most of his ministers from among them, as recalled by the Burkinabe historian Joseph Ki-Zerbo.

There’s no conflict between democracy and sovereignty

But if the arguments against democracy made by coup leaders and their supporters hit the nail on the head, it is because modern democratic practice, far from this African heritage, has disappointed them. First, the colonial period resulted in the destruction of traditional African participatory structures such as “acephalous societies, centralized kingdoms, elective theocracies, independent city-states, and oligarchic republics,” as researchers Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla reported in a January 2024 book. Democracy in Africa was then the collateral victim of geopolitical rivalries, as ordinary men who sought power in the aftermath of independence—such as Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Samora Machel in Mozambique, and Amilcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau—were killed during or after running for office. Secondly, security was prioritized over democracy in countries where jihadist danger needed to be contained. In several cases, containing such danger has been a convenient excuse to muzzle dissidents, and to dodge or even rig elections. In the 1990s, the democratic opening was able to sweep away old leaders—such as the first president of Zambia, defeated in 1991 after twenty-seven years in power, or the first president of Malawi, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, defeated in 1994 after thirty years—but family and military transitions are a widely shared reality in Africa. The most successful democratic experiences have been akin to national liberation struggles and have come at a high price, as symbolized by South Africa, where the story of former President Nelson Mandela demonstrates the harshness of the democratic struggle.

Undoubtedly, these hardships have created a “democratic fatigue” that has been reinforced by the persistence of underdevelopment in countries richly endowed by nature.

The restoration of the democratic ideal requires going far beyond simple rankings with points awarded according to indicators of freedoms or rights. It also requires doing better than the use of election-observation missions in Africa. Although there are numerous such missions (including those by the African Union, International Organisation de la Francophonie, European Union, ECOWAS, foundations, and nongovernmental organizations), and they are governed by the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation (2005), the Code of Conduct for International Election Observers (2007), and the Declaration of International Principles for the Impartial Observation and Monitoring of Elections by Citizens’ Organizations (2012), election-observation missions are often perceived as illegitimate because they are externally funded and, in some cases, do not prevent protests or violence. Moreover, missions can fail for security reasons, such as when the European Union withdrew from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in November 2023. Solutions to restore the luster of these missions have been widely documented, including greater integration of in-country residents, improvement of civil-status registers, better distribution and security of polling stations, and national financing of electoral missions.

But in an ideal situation, Africa would still be able to do without such solutions. Democracy is bigger than any one election. No matter how perfectly organized an election is, if the turnout is low, if the political parties competing are on the same side, if the conditions for competition are biased, if citizens are not educated or informed about the stakes, or if there is no possible appeal, a country is still falling short of the democratic ideal. These things are matters of education policy, civic training, and strong institutions, and often escape international observation missions and rankings.

With its population expected to double in the next twenty-five years, and a generation emerging with the ambition of making its voice heard, Africa holds much of global democracy’s future in its hands. The youth of Africa are fiercely committed to public affairs. There is a clear gap between the young Africans, including movements such as Le Balai Citoyen and Lucha, who are chasing away authoritarian regimes, and those who applaud the Sahelian putschists. Young Africans are united by their desire for stronger national sovereignty. To regain value in the eyes of the people, the African version of democracy will not only have to renew some of their leaders (the new forty-year-old leaders of West Africa contrast with the advanced age of African leaders) but also embody their aspiration for sovereignty and a regained dignity. Neither Washington nor Beijing can bring this to Africans. As for the Westerners who want to reconnect with this old continent with such a young population, it is important that they do not practice the double standards, and instead apply to Africa the level of democratic demands they have for their own citizens. This is a competitive advantage they have over the Russians and the Chinese. This path holds great promise, as it is not certain that African youth—more educated and attached to their freedom of expression—would let Russia and China drag them onto the authoritarian path they promote.

African leaders must understand that democracy, far from being a simple electoral operation, is first and foremost an act of patriotism. That is why it is fundamental to teach the democratic history of Africa, so that democracy and national sovereignty on the continent no longer clash. It is also essential to strengthen civic education, starting in elementary school. In the political arena, the strengthening of institutions is crucial, including the administrations, federal institutions and services, and checks and balances such as the judiciary and media. It will also be necessary to reform institutions so that they better reflect African realities, including better representation of elders, strengthening of local governance, and inclusion of youth associations. Finally, it is crucial that the opponents—often weakened by years or even decades of opposition, exile, or prison—be equal to their heavy task. While men in fatigues are in vogue today, we can bet that this will not always be the case, and it will then be necessary for visionary patriots to be ready to take over.

About the author

Ambassador Rama Yade is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and senior fellow for the Europe Center. She is also a professor of African affairs at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco and at Sciences Po Paris.

She is a Senegalese and French citizen.

Prior to joining the Council, she was a consultant for the World Bank. She also has strong experience in the private sector as an editor in London and as director for development at a French consulting firm in corporate and social responsibility.

Yade has over a decade of experience working in French, European, and international politics. At the age of thirty, she was appointed as the deputy minister for foreign affairs and human rights of the Republic of France: the first ever French minister for human rights and the first woman of African descent to become a member of the French cabinet. In recognition of her work, she was Nelson Mandela’s personal guest on his ninetieth birthday in Johannesburg. At that time she was also recognized as Young Leader by the World Economic Forum.

She was subsequently appointed to the position of deputy minister of sports. Yade was also appointed as the ambassador of France to UNESCO. She started her professional career as a parliamentary high civil servant at the French Senate and director of communications of the TV network of the Parliament.

Ukraine’s partners should link wartime aid to continued reform progress

Mykhailo Zhernakov, Nestor Barchuk — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 19:15:34 +0000

As Ukrainians fight for national survival against Russia’s ongoing invasion, the country is continuing to implement important domestic reforms. These reforms play a crucial role in strengthening Ukraine’s wartime resilience, and also set the stage for a successful postwar recovery. The international community has a clear interest in helping Ukraine achieve further reform progress.

Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion two years ago, one of the key catalysts driving Ukraine’s reform agenda has been the June 2022 move to grant the country EU candidate status. When announcing this decision, the European Commission set Ukraine seven key reform goals to meet before official EU membership negotiations could begin. Priorities included reforms related to the rule of law, particularly the reform of crucial judicial bodies such as the High Council of Justice (HCJ) and the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ).

While significant progress has been made toward implementing these reforms, major challenges persist. For example, although new procedures have been introduced governing the selection of judges to the country’s Constitutional Court, there are still concerns regarding the appointment of politically compromised candidates. As Ukraine continues its judicial reform efforts, it is imperative to infuse these endeavors with renewed energy.

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Looking ahead, a primary focus should be on reforming Ukraine’s Supreme Court, which plays a crucial role in the country’s judiciary. In spring 2023, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office uncovered evidence of a $2.7 million bribe involving the president of the Supreme Court. However, in the wake of this corruption scandal, three-quarters of Supreme Court judges appointed another judge as the new president of the court despite serious integrity concerns.

NGOs and members of the Ukrainian judiciary have proposed a two-step approach to Supreme Court reform featuring the vetting of sitting judges and implementation of a new selection process with the involvement of international experts. This format has been endorsed by the European Commission. Reforming the Supreme Court is widely recognized as an essential step toward strengthening the rule of law, combating corruption, and enhancing protection for investors.

Another reform priority is establishing the High Administrative Court (HACU), following the liquidation of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv (DACK) in December 2022. The DACK was widely accused of judicial misconduct. It wielded substantial power, overseeing cases involving municipal authorities and central executive bodies in the Ukrainian capital, but had become tainted by successive corruption scandals. To safeguard the integrity of HACU judges and prevent future allegations of corruption, it is vital to implement a selection process with the meaningful involvement of independent international experts, similar to the successful model used to establish the High Anti-Corruption Court.

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Reform of Ukraine’s legal education system is also indispensable for the success of the country’s judicial reforms. The judicial system currently suffers from a significant shortage of personnel, underscoring the need for a robust legal education system. Detrimental practices include the training of lawyers by traditional universities and law enforcement institutions. These institutions educate one-third of all legal professionals and receive about half of state funding allocated for legal education. However, rather than promoting critical thinking, students often encounter a curriculum and environment that stresses obedience.

Critics argue that this approach fails to instill the necessary professional skills. Additionally, graduates from law enforcement academies typically exhibit lower levels of specialist knowledge compared to university graduates. The EU highlighted its concerns regarding legal education in the Ukraine Accession Report 2023, stressing the necessity of addressing this issue by separating the training of lawyers in universities and law enforcement academies. G7 countries have also raised this issue.

Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian aggression depends heavily on continued international support. Kyiv’s partners therefore have considerable leverage when it comes to maintaining the country’s reform momentum. With this in mind, it is crucial for Ukraine’s international allies to link continued financial assistance with the implementation of reforms. The effectiveness of this approach can be seen in the progress made between summer 2022 and late 2023 on the reform goals identified by the EU.

The EU has already outlined its additional reform recommendations. It would also be helpful to establish concrete reform requirements from G7 countries and connect these directly to aid. By linking financial support to specific reform targets, Ukraine’s international allies can make sure critical reforms are implemented and the country continues to move in the right direction. The need to maintain Ukraine’s reform momentum is another strong argument in favor of confirming further direct US budget support as part of future aid. This will provide vital leverage while bolstering Ukraine’s resilience and encouraging the authorities in Kyiv to implement the necessary reforms.

The road ahead is extremely challenging, but Ukraine can still emerge as a regional beacon of democracy, Euro-Atlantic security, and the rule of law. This will require the unwavering support of the country’s Western partners. To achieve this goal, future aid should be tied to a steadfast Ukrainian commitment to advance reforms without concessions. This can help shape the kind of future Ukrainians are currently fighting for.

Mykhailo Zhernakov is chair of the board of the DEJURE Foundation. Nestor Barchuk is international relations manager of the DEJURE Foundation.

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Putin initially sought to portray the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a crusade against “Ukrainian Nazis” and a response to decades of NATO expansion. However, as the war has unfolded, he has become increasingly open about the true nature of his imperial agenda in Ukraine. Putin has directly compared the current invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian ruler Peter the Great, and spent much of his recent high-profile interview with American media personality Tucker Carlson attempting to justify today’s war by arguing that Ukraine was historically part of Russia.

Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s influential Security Council, is notorious for echoing Putin’s imperialistic language toward Ukraine. Indeed, he has frequently been even more outspoken than Putin in his denial of Ukrainian statehood and his attacks on Ukraine’s allies. In recent months, Medvedev has warned of possible nuclear attacks on Washington, Berlin, and London, and has vowed to seize more Ukrainian territory including Kyiv.

All this is a far cry from Medvedev’s public persona in 2008 when he replaced Putin as Russian President. At the time, many in the West saw Medvedev as a liberal reformer who would steer Russia toward closer partnership with the West. In fact, the entire Medvedev presidency was a ploy designed to help Putin navigate a two-term constitutional limit before resuming his reign in 2012.

As his political star has waned, Medvedev has sought to reinvent himself as a Russian nationalist hawk. Although often derided as a somewhat buffoonish figure, the former head of state actually plays an important part in Russia’s carefully choreographed political theater. Following the death of Russian nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky in 2022, Medvedev has largely replaced Zhirinovsky as the Kremlin’s unofficial “court clown.”

In this role, Medvedev often makes outrageous statements and voices extremist opinions. This allows the Kremlin to gauge Russian public opinion and test international reaction, while also making Putin himself appear moderate in comparison. With Russia now actively seeking to deter international support for Ukraine by playing on Western fears of escalation, Medvedev’s often colorful threats have become a key element of the Kremlin’s information operations.

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Medvedev’s latest outburst is nothing new, of course. Indeed, senior Russian officials have been publicly questioning Ukraine’s territorial integrity since the early years of the post-Soviet era. This undercurrent of unapologetic imperialism was one of the main reasons why independent Ukraine’s second president, Leonid Kuchma, chose to write a book debunking Russia’s claims to his country. The publication of “Ukraine Is Not Russia” in 2003 directly challenged the Kremlin’s attempts to portray Ukrainians and Russians as indivisible, and was widely viewed in Moscow as a hostile act. Clearly, many within the Russian elite have not forgotten this very public rejection by a country they condescendingly regard as a younger sibling.

In the years following the appearance of Kuchma’s book, Ukraine underwent two pro-democracy revolutions, while Russia grew increasingly authoritarian. For the past decade, Russia’s escalating military aggression against Ukraine has served to further deepen the divide separating the two countries. As Ukrainian society has turned away from the Russian past and sought to embrace a European future, Russian public opinion toward Ukraine has become increasingly radicalized. Genocidal anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is now an everyday feature of the country’s political discourse and has been completely normalized throughout the Kremlin-controlled Russian media.

By declaring that “Ukraine is definitely Russia” and referring to the country as “an integral part of Russia’s strategic and historical borders,” Medvedev has made a mockery of international calls for a negotiated settlement to end the war. His unambiguous comments should be more than enough to remove any lingering doubts that Russia is committed to the destruction of Ukraine as a state and as a nation.

In such circumstances, any talk of a peace deal without Ukrainian victory is delusional. There can be no meaningful middle ground between Russia’s genocidal goal and Ukraine’s national survival. Instead, attempts to compromise with the Kremlin would be perceived in Moscow as an opportunity to rearm and regroup before launching the next phase of the invasion.

Many people like to laugh at Dmitry Medvedev. On social media, he is routinely depicted as an angry little man whose absurd antics are a symptom of Russia’s dysfunctional politics and his own personal struggle to remain relevant. However, there is nothing funny about the message he is now delivering. Medvedev’s comments confirm the imperialistic aims of the 2022 invasion and signal Moscow’s intention to wipe Ukraine off the map. With hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians already feared dead and dozens of Ukrainian cities reduced to rubble, his threats must be treated as deadly serious.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He was awarded the Peterson Literary Prize for his book “Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War: Autocracy-Orthodoxy-Nationality” (Routledge, 2022).

These were men–and I’ll highlight, to their detriment, only men–to whom the connections between freedom and prosperity were obvious, and worth fighting for.

As Alexander Hamilton, the Society’s second president general, knew even then, when it comes to ensuring common prosperity, a government constructed from [quote] “reflection and choice” was far preferable to that of [quote] “accident and force.”

Fast forward to today and the lesson has held true on a global scale — which the 2023 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes compellingly convey.

Now, it’s no secret that democracy is under stress in many countries around the world. The Freedom and Prosperity Center’s own research bears this out, as does the analysis of Freedom House, V-Dem, and other credible research organizations in the field.

Organizing willing world leaders to do something about this alarming backsliding was the motivating impulse behind the two summits for democracy that President Biden convened in 2021 and again about a year ago. Picking up the torch, next month, South Korea will host a third summit for democracy in Seoul.

In line with the goals of the summit for democracy process, at USAID we’ve made strides over the past three years to elevate our support to pro-democracy and human rights actors as a core function of our development mission. In this regard, about a year ago, USAID Administrator Samantha Power published an essay in Foreign Affairs entitled, How Democracy Can Win that I would recommend to all as an encapsulation of our efforts.

A main thrust of the piece was that for several decades now human rights and democracy proponents arguably have spent too much attention on advancing individual dignity largely, if not exclusively, through [in Samantha’s words] “the prism of political freedom, without being sufficiently attentive to the indignity of corruption, inequality, and a lack of economic opportunity.”

That thesis in many respects brings me to my main points this evening:

First, that investments in what we at USAID call “democracy, human rights, and good governance,” or “DRG” for short, are also wise investments in economic prosperity and associated sectors like health and the environment.

Second, while the inverse doesn’t necessarily always hold true– history is replete with development programming that didn’t meaningfully contribute to democratic strengthening–we should be more conscientious when it comes to the potential effects on democracy of our efforts across all sectors of development.

And third – the work of building lasting freedom while reducing poverty and driving inclusive growth has to be a partnership among all relevant facets of society, including governments, the private sector, NGOs and policy organizations like the Atlantic Council, philanthropies, and private donors. In other words, all of us.

The data are quite clear:

Not only are democracies much better at protecting individual rights than non-democratic systems, they’re also more likely to produce more prosperous communities.

To give one statistic, evidence shows that average GDP per capita growth has been higher in democracies than in autocracies going back to 1800. Researchers have also found that countries that democratized increased their GDP per capita by about twenty percent over autocracies in the twenty-five years following democratization.

And democracies, despite all their messiness, have also been shown to deliver better public goods and services to their citizens. Research has demonstrated that in aggregate, democracies do a better job than autocracies in providing goods like education, electricity, and healthcare. They also tend to spend more on social protection, and have more effective climate policies than do autocracies.

As a result, residents in democracies tend to experience better health outcomes in the form of longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality rates, and fewer deaths from non-communicable diseases.

This truly is a matter of life and death. To offer one statistic, researchers have estimated that in the health sector alone, an estimated $500 billion is lost to corruption every year.

On a recent trip abroad, I saw the impact with my own eyes while touring a medical clinic. Shelves that should have been packed with a range of medicines from prenatal vitamins to malaria drugs were bare – due, I was told, to fraud and governmental mismanagement. And people had died of preventable conditions as a result.

Historical examples abound of the positive and reinforcing relationship between growing freedom and growing prosperity, whether one wants to think of South Korea and Taiwan, or Chile, or post-Soviet Eastern Europe.

Now, as probably isn’t lost on this room, in recent years it became fashionable to point to China as an outlier in regard to many of these trends. And not without some reason, given the remarkable economic growth and poverty reduction the country experienced in the period since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms.

Beijing has worked diligently to advance the narrative that autocracies can be more efficient at development than their democratic peers – a line Moscow has been eager to echo.

The results speak for themselves. As the latest Freedom and Prosperity Indexes persuasively demonstrate, since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the paths of Russia and Belarus have diverged significantly from those of the Baltic states, and, more recently, Ukraine and Moldova, when it comes to freedom. Divergence in prosperity has followed. To cite a noteworthy stat from the report: in 1995, Latvia and Russia differed by 2.5 points on the prosperity index. By 2022, this figure stood at almost fifteen points.

Time will tell, but the PRC could face similar challenges. After years of significant growth, the Chinese economy is currently struggling under a party-state willing to intervene in key sectors of the economy and curtail any form of dissent, seemingly no matter the economic cost.

Meanwhile, for all of the very real democratic backsliding around the world, elections in countries from Guatemala to Brazil to Poland have demonstrated countries’ ability to arrest a drift into illiberal governance. And democratic bright spots continue to emerge, as voters decide that they’re fed up with corruption and mismanagement.

A key focus of the Biden Administration, and particularly for us at USAID, has been to help these highly-motivated democracies deliver for their people, so that they can demonstrate a “democratic dividend.” We have, in fact, an entire initiative, which we call “Democracy Delivers,” built around this concept, to assist governments in building trust with their citizens, and enable reformers to make visible progress in improving lives.

This isn’t easy, and it also isn’t always fast – passing laws, writing regulations, tackling corruption, attracting investment, and so on all take time. But with outside attention and expertise, reforms like these can often be made faster or go deeper. So that’s where we put a lot of our effort.

Because we want to bet on societies that have manifested a clear desire through the ballot box to advance a reform agenda, and help them create a better enabling environment for investment. The goal is to jump-start a positive feedback loop of poverty reduction and inclusive growth on the one hand, and a sense among citizens of the benefits of rights-respecting democratic governance on the other.

A few examples are worth mentioning.

Take Moldova. President Maia Sandu has galvanized an ambitious reform agenda centered on growing the Moldovan public’s faith in its political and judicial systems, and ridding public institutions of corruption. Her efforts and those of other Moldovan reformers are paying dividends, as late last year the European Council agreed to formally open EU accession negotiations, signaling a European future for the nation.

Under our Democracy Delivers initiative, USAID is working closely with President Sandu’s government to set conditions for attracting private sector investment and other partnerships in key fields, including energy, e-commerce, cybersecurity, IT, tourism, and agriculture.

That means, among other things, we’re directing USAID assistance toward reducing business costs and enhancing transport, logistics, and customs processes to facilitate trade. At the same time, we’re supporting the Moldovan judiciary to improve the quality of the services it provides to businesses and citizens alike. And it also means we’re actively working to bolster the Moldovan economy in ways beyond our programs; for instance, by connecting Moldova’s government with leading tech and multinational firms like Google, Visa, Stripe, and Palantir.

Tanzania is another good example. Upon taking office three years ago, President Samia Suluhu Hassan committed to opening civic and political space slammed shut by her autocratic predecessor.

Improvements in Tanzania’s democratic environment – such as the lifting of a ban on political party rallies and amendments to the Media Services Act – have underpinned more effective governance and increased confidence in the country’s trajectory.

At USAID, we’re responding. We’ve expanded our democracy and governance programming, including, for instance, by investing to help women overcome barriers to civic and political leadership.

And as we’re putting wind in the sails of democratic reformers, we’re working with Tanzanian civil society, private sector and the government on initiatives that will raise living standards and save lives – reinforcing the virtuous circle of reform and growth, freedom and prosperity.

In December, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) responded to Tanzania’s renewed commitment to strengthening democratic governance by selecting it for a “threshold” program focusing on accelerating institutional reforms to reduce poverty and generate economic growth.

And at USAID, we’re partnering with the Tanzanian government and the Vodafone foundation on an incredible, lifesaving program with a great name – “m-mama.”

M-mama is an emergency referral and transport system that connects Tanzanian women and newborns in the country’s rural areas with emergency transportation to appropriate healthcare. As a maternal health initiative, it’s been a literal lifesaver. And at the same time, its underlying digital infrastructure is poised to unlock broader economic benefits, including through its electronic payments system.

Other countries have taken note, and at present, m-mama deployment is also underway in Kenya, Malawi, and Lesotho.

Finally, consider Guatemala. In August, the Guatemalan people stunned many around the world when, against the will of entrenched power, they rejected the politics of corruption. In choosing now-President Arévalo, the Guatemalan people voted for a better future, one rooted in rule of law rather than in self-dealing.

Both before and after this change, the U.S. Government made clear that it stood with those Guatemalans calling for transparency and accountability. Over the past three years, we imposed economic sanctions and visa restrictions on nearly 400 individuals for engaging in corruption or undermining democracy. And during the period between last summer’s election and January’s inauguration, we ramped up this and other diplomatic work to make clear that the will of the Guatemalan people needed to be respected.

While doing all of that, we were, and are, surging support to President Arévalo’s incoming administration, to help position it to best deliver tangible results for citizens and communities.

We’re launching new programs, such as a financial inclusion effort which supports the new Guatemalan administration’s priority of increasing rural employment and improving living conditions. Our project aims to help rural Guatemalans overcome common financial access constraints, and is just one in a series of large investments we’re making under our Feed the Future initiative and the Biden-Harris Administration’s Root Causes Strategy.

It’s early days with the Arévalo government in Guatemala, which faces no small number of challenges. To maximize the chances of success, the Guatemalan people need help from all of us.

Which brings me back to where I started. The case for strengthening democracy as a means to build resilient, equitable, and inclusive economic growth is well-established. The data don’t lie. Predictability, transparency, and accountability are good for business.

Likewise, arbitrary state intervention and courts guided not by law, but by political whim, inject the uncertainty and risk that leaders in the private sector do their utmost to avoid.

That’s why we at USAID have made a point of engaging closely with the business community. Because for as much as we can bring to the table financially, our resources pale in comparison to those of the private sector. We must be working with business leaders as often as possible, spotting openings and opportunities, making mutually-beneficial connections between business and government, and jointly calling out democratic backsliding when it occurs.

Because while it’s true that we’re in a moment of peril when it comes to democracy, when taking a longer view – the arc of history is, in fact, still bending toward greater freedom and prosperity. Pushing the future forward is going to take work. Nothing should be taken for granted, and we all need to chip in. But at USAID, we’re ready to work with like-minded partners – be they governments, businesses or civil society – to do our part in bending that arc of history in the right directions. Thank you.

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Complicated history helps Russian narratives about Ukraine find a foothold in the Middle East

the Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This is one chapter of the DFRLab’s report, Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023. Read the rest here.

More than a decade after the revolutions collectively known as the Arab Spring, several countries in the Middle East and North Africa are undergoing democratic backsliding and a return to authoritarian rule, including Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Libya under General Khalifa Haftar, and Tunisia under President Kais Saied. This trend and some shifts in sentiments about the West in these and other MENA countries have given Russia openings to undercut Western influence in the region and frame Ukraine as a Western puppet, using its state media and public diplomacy to influence opinion.

This is playing out in the context of growing internal polarization in many countries in the region and, among the citizenry, rising disenchantment with the West and democracy as a workable governing system for them. These developments enable Russia to offer an alternative alliance to authoritarian leaders who aim to diversify their country’s resources and reduce reliance on the West and the United States in particular.

Russian state media has had a presence in the Arab World since the 2007 launch of Russia Today Arabic (now just RT Arabic), and its influence expanded with the 2014 start of Sputnik Arabic, which maintains a regional office in Cairo. Today, RT Arabic is one of the region’s top three most-watched news broadcasters after Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera. As reported in the DFRLab’s previous Undermining Ukraine report, Russia signed cooperation agreements with local media in Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco to formalize official cooperation on joint projects and information exchanges.

Some Arabic-speaking media outlets post the exact text of articles published on RT Arabic’s website, allowing for the spread of narratives promoted by state-run Russian media to Arabic speakers. A short RT article from January 13, 2023, pushing claims that Ukrainian soldiers were carrying chemical weapons, was posted verbatim on the news websites of Egypt’s Al-Ahram, Yemen’s Al-Ayyam, and Dubai-based news aggregator Nabd. An August 2023 RT Arabic article repeating Putin’s claim that the ban on Russian media was due to the West’s fear of the truth was also reposted by Yemen’s Al-Ayyam and Emirati newspaper Al Khaleej. An article published in state-aligned Syria’s Al-Watan and Egypt’s Al-Ahram in September quoting State Duma Member Anna Kuznetsova saying that the “Kyiv regime uses the same methods used by the terrorist organization ISIS [Islamic State group] to recruit children” was originally published in RT Arabic.

Screenshots of an article posted on RT Arabic’s website and reposted by three Arabic news websites about a video allegedly showing Ukrainian soldiers carrying chemical weapons. The text of the articles was identical. (Source, left to right: RT Arabic/archive; Al-Ahram/archive; Nabd/archive; Al-Ayyam/archive)

By cooperating with local media, Russia is able to spread its propaganda to a broader audience in the Arab world. The narratives amplified by Russian state media and local media partners are framed in a way that appeals to audiences in the region and their complicated history with the West. In line with authoritarian Arab leaders’ statements about the West’s interest in their countries, local media amplify narratives suggesting that the West attempts to demonize Russia in order to maintain Arab nations’ reliance on the West. Additionally, narratives about Zelenskyy being a puppet of the West and Putin standing up to them appeal to many in the Arab populations who viewed their former authoritarian leaders as puppets supported by the West at their own expense. Moreover, regional audiences point to Western hypocrisy in considering Russia’s war in Ukraine with a different lens than the US invasion of Iraq or Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.

As Western states imposed a ban on RT and Sputnik and blocked their YouTube channels to minimize the impact of their propaganda, Russian media was further emboldened in the region as it became increasingly considered an alternative source of information after decades of Western influence in their countries . While there is some sympathy expressed online among Arabic speakers for the Ukrainian people, there is also support for Russia and Putin expressed by media and individuals, resulting from internal polarization and disenchantment with democracy and the West.

Russian media and its social media accounts capitalize on such resentment toward Western countries to gain support for Russia in the region. The X accounts of Sputnik and RT Arabic produce more content than BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera, regularly posting content that appeals to Arab audiences. For instance, on June 29, 2023, one day after an incident of Quran burning in Sweden, the three X accounts posted similar videos showing Putin holding the Quran during a visit to a mosque in the city of Derbent, Russia, while criticizing Western countries like Sweden for allowing the burning of the holy book.

Screenshots of similar posts from Russian state media accounts on X showing a video of Putin holding a copy of the Quran and criticizing Western countries for allowing incidents such as the burning. (Source: @RTonline_ar/archive, left; @RTarabic/archive, center; @sputnik_ar/archive, right)

Arabic-speaking journalists and influencers promoting pro-Russia narratives

X also serves as a major social media platform for several Arabic-speaking Russian state media personalities as well as unaffiliated online influencers. Many of these accounts with large followings consistently post news content aligned with the Kremlin’s preferred narratives. There are differences between the two groups, however, as affiliated journalists openly state their ties to Russian media and use their real identities, while influencer accounts appear to more frequently use stolen images and show signs of coordinated posting and engagement.

The DFRLab identified and analyzed thirty accounts of influencers and self-proclaimed journalists boasting large follower counts and posting Arabic content, mostly in the form of news updates. These accounts often promoted similar pro-Russia, anti-Western messaging and celebrated partnerships between Russia and Arab nations. Specifically, the accounts created content that would resonate more with an Arab audience and sometimes expand on regional resentment toward Western countries, accusing them of double standards following their pro-Ukraine narratives.

An analysis of the accounts revealed several suspicious indicators, including similarities in how they present themselves and the content they post. The bios of twenty-three of thirty accounts highlighted interest in Russian news, Russia-Ukraine news, or general political and war news. Many of the accounts often published similar posts on the same day or within a short window. One example showed accounts attempting to attract interest from Arab and Muslim users after Russian general Sergei Surovikin visited Algeria, with six accounts using very similar text and the same photo of Surovikin reading the Quran in an Algerian mosque, all published within a two-hour period on September 15, 2023.

Screenshots of similar X posts from six accounts showing Russian General Sergei Surovikin reading from the Quran during a visit to Algeria. The posts use the same (or highly similar) text and an identical (or nearly identical) photo. (Source, left to right, top to bottom: @id7p_/archive; @Su_35m/archive; @russiatt/archive; @Russianowarabic/archive; @russiaArb4/archive; @hadath1990/archive)

These X accounts routinely promoted disinformation related to the Russia-Ukraine war as well. In one example, on October 4, 2023, three accounts used identical or nearly identical text falsely claiming that Zelenskyy was attempting to recruit Islamic State fighters held in Iraqi and Syrian prisons to join the Ukrainian army in its fight against Russia.

Screenshots showing identical or almost identical textual content posted by three X accounts falsely claiming that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was trying to recruit Islamic State group prisoners to fight against Russia. The image in the tweet at left reuses a popular meme, inserting Zelenskyy’s face over the original. (Source: @Su_3m/archive, left; @mog_Russ/archive, top right; @alhaarb99/archive, bottom right)

The DFRLab also noticed some degree of coordination between some of the accounts, such as liking, retweeting, and replying to each other’s tweets. For instance, reviewing @russiaArb4’s post engagement revealed many retweets from the same three accounts. Moreover, some of the accounts created posts to promote other accounts and asked users to follow them.

Several of the identified accounts appeared focus on retweeting other accounts, alongside retweeting specific and possibly new Arabic media accounts. This apparent coordination around retweeting could be seen in the almost identical timelines with the same set of retweets between accounts.

Screenshots showing three different X accounts with similar timelines after retweeting the same posts by @AlarabBlog. (Source: @ISTRATIJI/archive, left; @russiatt/archive, center; @Russian__media/archive, right)

Furthermore, five accounts that claimed to be either media figures or Russian citizens living in Russia or somewhere else had additional suspicious indicators. According to monitoring tool Twitter ID Finder, four of these accounts were created in October 2022: three on October 20—two of them just twenty minutes apart—and one on October 28. A reverse image search also confirmed that four of these accounts reappropriated publicly available images of attractive women as their avatars. This tactic appears to be similar to one previously used by a set of pro-Russia accounts, as documented by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, in an attempt to target Arab male users to follow and engage with them.

Russian public diplomacy in the region

As in Latin America, Russia uses the social media presence of its diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa to promote its preferred narratives about the war in Ukraine. Most of the diplomatic missions post updates to their official Facebook and X accounts at varying frequencies, focusing on diplomatic affairs with the host country. Most repost content from other diplomatic missions and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s English, Russian, and Arabic X accounts about international affairs and the war in Ukraine, routinely posting falsehoods and exaggerations about the war. These include describing the war as a “special military operation” or fighting Nazis in Ukraine.

Screenshot from a tweet by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as reposted by its diplomatic mission in Tunisia, claiming that Russia is in Ukraine to fight against Nazis. (Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, X tweet, @mfa_russia/archive, October 20, 2023)

The X and Facebook accounts of Russia’s diplomatic mission in Egypt post regular international affairs updates. The accounts posted regularly about Ukraine throughout 2023 with the hashtag #الحق_مع_روسيا (“Russia is right”). Among its posts, Russia’s embassy in Egypt posted statements to Facebook about “Ukrainian Nazis” allegedly firing missiles at a hospital in Pervomaisk, Ukraine, using US-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missiles. Economic and military ties between Russia and Egypt have strengthened in recent years, especially as the latter’s government seeks to reduce its dependence on the United States, which provides Egypt with $1.3 million in annual military assistance. Egypt currently imports the majority of its wheat from Russia and has been working with Russia to construct a Russian-built nuclear plant since 2022.

The increased cooperation and aligning of economic and military priorities between the governments of Egypt and Russia allows the latter to be more aggressive in promoting its narratives to Egyptian audiences through its official channels and getting positive engagement with social media users. The embassy’s messaging about the war in Ukraine sometimes plays on anti-Western sentiment among some audiences.

On February 24, 2023—the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine—the Russian embassy in Egypt tweeted a statement from the ambassador expressing gratitude to Egypt for “fully understanding the reasons for the confrontation over Ukraine and for supporting Russia despite the torrents of lies about our actions launched by the West.”

In September of that year, the embassy posted about a US announcement that Russia characterized as providing tanks to “Ukrainian Nazis” and depleted uranium shells to “expose our land to radioactive pollution. Exactly what they did in Iraq.” Russian diplomatic missions reference the Iraq War as part of its strategy to capitalize on anti-Western sentiment fueled by lingering distrust of the United States.

Diplomatic missions also capitalize on holidays and other public events by posting statements promoting Russian narratives. For example, the Russian embassy in Egypt evoked its fight against “Nazis” in Ukraine in a tweet on Defenders of the Homeland Day, then repeated the same rhetoric in another tweet on Russia’s Victory Day.

The Russian embassy in Algeria posted a statement from its ambassador on the occasion of Russia Diplomats’ Day, suggesting that the West was engaging in an “open anti-Russia campaign,” adding, “In a time like now when we witness tremendous pressure on Russia by the so-called ‘collective West,’ it becomes clear who our real friends are.” The ambassador also posted on Russia’s Victory Day, saying that “our great Homeland will win this time, will once again rid the world of fascism and Nazism.”

In other posts, Russian diplomatic missions in the region promoted narratives related to specific incidents of concern to Muslim audiences, such as a post from the Russian Embassy in Egypt showing a picture of a praying hand and a copy of the Quran with a tweet condemning the alleged burning of the Quran by Ukrainian soldiers. The post stated that the soldiers did so, knowing there are Muslims fighting in the Russian army, referring to a video that appears to show Ukrainian soldiers burning copies of the Quran.

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

In Latin America, Russia’s ambassadors and state media tailor anti-Ukraine content to the local context

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

In the second year of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Moscow tried to sell a wider global audience on its version of events. In Latin America, Kremlin media outlets RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo were key players in this effort.

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Moscow tried to sow fear among Moldovans, Georgians, and Armenians that what happened to Ukrainians could happen to them.

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

Two-pronged approach to Africa pays dividends for Russia

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

In the African countries with which Russia has longstanding ties, diplomats lead the way. Elsewhere on the continent, Wagner Group fighters are Moscow’s more active representatives. Both official and covert approaches exploit local grievances to push Russia’s narrative.

Africa Disinformation

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) has operationalized the study of disinformation by exposing falsehoods and fake news, documenting human rights abuses, and building digital resilience worldwide.

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The post Complicated history helps Russian narratives about Ukraine find a foothold in the Middle East appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Prime Minister Succès Masra on Chad’s democratic transition and regional challenges

Daniel Hojnacki — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 23:01:58 +0000

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Chad’s prime minister on his country’s civilian transition and role in Africa

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT— Prime Minister Succès Masra outlines the future of Chad’s transition to civilian rule and the country’s geostrategic role, with coups unfolding across the Sahel and conflict in Sudan.

Freedom of assembly, freedom of opinion, and democracy are not just American values, “they are human values. They are also African values,” said Succès Masra, the prime minister of the Republic of Chad, on Wednesday.

Formerly the leader of the opposition Transformers party, Masra fled to the United States in the aftermath of the “Black Thursday” crackdown on dissent by the military government in October 2022. Now, after negotiations between the opposition and Chad’s government brokered by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Masra has returned to his home country and was appointed prime minister of Chad’s transition government in January. In this role, Masra has been working toward Chad’s democratic transition and reforming the country’s governmental and electoral institutions. Masra has yet to announce whether he will be a candidate in the May 6 presidential elections.

Molly Phee, assistant secretary for African affairs at the US Department of State, opened the conversation with Masra, urging the international community to support Chad’s transition government as it seeks to build stronger, more inclusive, democratic institutions and serve as an example throughout the region. Below are more highlights from Masra’s discussion of Chad’s democratic transition, economic ambitions, and the role the country should play in the region, which was moderated by Rama Yade, the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Democratic transition and reforms

Masra said that the transitional government’s first priority was establishing governmental and electoral institutions. “Unless we have strong institutions, nothing sustainable can happen,” he said. The war in Sudan, he added, showed that “if everybody has weapons, it’s not enough to build a strong country. It’s important to make sure that institutions are also here to help.”
These institutions include a new independent body for organizing elections and a reform to enhance the independence of the judiciary. “These are new tools that we are putting on the table to push for fair elections,” Masra said.
Another aspect of the electoral reform initiatives is to “push for citizen involvement,” said Masra. “Our ambition is to train fifty thousand volunteers” to help with the elections in the next few weeks, he said, which will require help from institutions in the United States, civil society actors, and members of the African diaspora.
“But we still have challenges ahead,” Masra acknowledged, which include financing the electoral process. “This is where we can also expect some support.”

Economic goals

Masra outlined an initiative for “minimum development packages,” which would ensure that every village has a school, health system, clean water facility, road, and access to energy. Unless Chad “bets on education,” Masra said, “there is nothing sustainable we can accomplish yesterday, today, or tomorrow. The world is led by ideas.”
“We want a Chad which could become tomorrow’s startup nation,” where both local and international actors want to invest, said Masra, who was formerly the chief economist at the African Development Bank. “This is not about philanthropy. This is about business.”
Masra also highlighted the importance of facilitating trade among African countries, including promoting e-visas, ensuring free travel, expanding regional markets, and making the most of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Chad’s international role

Concerning the series of coups in the Sahel countries of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, Masra said that “the reality of security and the obligation for leaders to respond to people’s needs remain the same.” Even during war, “people should continue to talk,” he said. “We speak to everybody, with the idea to use Chad as a regional player.”
“The United States is a partner for our country, and I’m here to say we want to build a stronger partnership,” said Masra. Ongoing areas of cooperation between the United States and Chad, he said, include security, private sector development, and “pushing for a soft landing” in Chad “where people can choose their leaders.”
“Africa must unite. This is mandatory,” Masra said, urging greater African involvement in global institutions. That means “it’s important to have a place” in the United Nations Security Council, he added.
Before concluding, Masra called for “hope” for Chad, stating that “there is a new Chad, a new Africa, and we can build bridges” together.

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The post Prime Minister Succès Masra on Chad’s democratic transition and regional challenges appeared first on Atlantic Council.

No opposition candidates allowed in Belarus dictator’s “sham” elections

Hanna Liubakova — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 15:57:53 +0000

Sunday’s parliamentary and local elections in Belarus were among the most flawed in the thirty-year reign of the country’s authoritarian ruler, Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The ballot was completely cleansed of all opposition, with only loyalist candidates permitted to participate. The election was the first to take place in Belarus since the controversial presidential ballot of August 2020, when widespread accusations of vote-rigging sparked weeks of nationwide protests that briefly threatened to topple Lukashenka until Russian intervention rescued his regime.

With the events of 2020 still very much in mind, Lukashenka was clearly anxious to prevent any kind of renewed public mobilization. The February 25 vote took place amid a series of increased security measures including reports of Interior Ministry forces deployed near polling stations. Belarusian state media concealed the identities of election commission members and obscured the faces of some candidates during election coverage. Many polling stations reportedly lacked curtains on individual booths, while newly introduced restrictions on photography made it difficult to record evidence of protest votes “against all.”

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The election was widely dismissed as illegitimate by members of Belarus’s democratic opposition and Western officials. On the eve of the vote, activists hacked more than 2000 display screens in public spaces across Belarus and were able to broadcast an address by the country’s exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who branded the election a “senseless farce” and urged members of the public to stay home. Meanwhile, the election was widely condemned internationally, with the United States calling the vote a “sham” held in a “climate of fear.”

The Belarusian authorities initiated a crackdown on activists and their families during the election campaign, conducting home searches and detaining hundreds of people, according to human rights groups. In the month prior to the vote, legal proceedings were initiated against 20 Belarusian researchers and journalists (including this author) on charges of “conspiracy to seize power.” With Belarus’s last remaining pro-democracy political parties dissolved last year, only four parties were allowed to take part in Sunday’s vote. The pro-Lukashenka Belaya Rus party, which was registered in 2023, reportedly garnered a considerable amount of seats in the lower chamber, alongside a number of prominent pro-Russian activists and regime loyalists.

The draconian measures adopted ahead of Sunday’s vote may at first glance seem somewhat excessive, especially when considered in light of the ruthless crackdown on all opposition that had already taken place in Belarus over the past three-and-a-half years in the aftermath of the country’s 2020 pro-democracy protests. However, Lukashenka is clearly aware that many Belarusians remain discontented and fears a possible repeat uprising. By staging a loyalist election with no room for even symbolic opposition, he sought to demonstrate stability and reaffirm his grip on the country. This message was meant for domestic audiences and also for his patrons in the Kremlin.

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Last weekend’s highly orchestrated vote was in stark contrast to events in 2020, when a disputed election led to prolonged protests that erupted across Belarus before being forcefully suppressed in a brutal crackdown that saw tens of thousands of people detained amid widespread claims of human rights abuses including torture. In the aftermath of the protests, civil society organizations and independent media outlets were shuttered, while thousands of activists fled the country. Many who remained ended up in prison. In mid-February 2024, opposition activist Ihar Lednik became the fifth Belarusian political prisoner to die in jail since 2020, according to human rights watchdogs.

Belarus’s recent parliamentary elections took place in a climate of heightened political tension due to the ongoing Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Lukashenka is widely seen as Putin’s junior partner in the invasion, having allowed Russian troops to use Belarus as a launch pad for the initial offensive into northern Ukraine in February 2022. The Belarusian dictator sought to justify the stifling atmosphere surrounding Sunday’s vote by claiming the country was under threat from “hybrid Western aggression.”

Sunday’s carefully choreographed vote was a dress rehearsal for next year’s far more significant Belarusian presidential election. As anticipated, Lukashenka confirmed on February 25 that he intends to run in 2025 for what would be his eighth consecutive presidential term. However, questions remain over whether he may yet seek to switch to a different role. In 2022, Lukashenka staged a referendum to rubber-stamp constitutional changes establishing the unelected All-Belarusian People’s Assembly as the country’s supreme authority. This potentially creates an opportunity for him to vacate the presidency while maintaining control over Belarus. Whatever he decides to do next year, meaningful change in Belarus looks to be out of the question as long as Lukashenka remains in charge of the country.

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Freedom to prosperity

The future ahead

Evolution of freedom

The trends shown in the Freedom Index match some key historical events that impacted the region’s trajectory. The wave of democratization that followed the Soviet Union’s fall in 1988–89 peaked during the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98, before stagnating for several years afterwards. Despite, or perhaps because of Indonesia’s transition to democracy in the years after 1998, the overall regional political picture remained relatively constant, with democratic nations sustaining their democratic status and authoritarian countries largely doing the same. This relative stasis led to a plateau in the Freedom Index between 2000 and 2010. The visible improvements in political and economic freedom from 2012 onward are attributable to the quasi-democratic transition in Myanmar, a country previously governed by a military junta for seven decades, as well as greater political dynamism in Malaysia and the region’s overall continued economic liberalization.

The early 2000s also marked an era of substantial economic growth in China, accompanied by limited political liberalization. This trend toward liberalization has taken a dramatic downturn since 2013, which is associated with the rise of Xi Jinping as the paramount leader of China and his hardline approach to governance. This reversal, together with the 2021 coup in Myanmar, has exerted significant downward pressure on freedom across the region. This downward pressure, if weighted by China’s economic and demographic size, would show up even more clearly on the Freedom Index during this period. It is also crucial to acknowledge that the aggregate figures may actually understate the extent to which overall regional freedom was and is under pressure due to China’s internal policy shifts and its external influence over the democratic and economic development of neighboring countries.

On economic freedom, it is striking to observe the remarkable progress made on women’s economic freedom, emerging as a significant positive trend within the broader context. This progress has been led by several countries that recognized the economic potential inherent in women’s participation. This was a priority of the White House-led Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative—that I was a part of—emphasizing the benefits of enhancing female workforce involvement and dismantling regulatory barriers. Such measures were projected to foster substantial economic growth, and by some metrics nearly all economic growth in the region can be attributed to the dramatic increase in women’s economic participation.

Comparatively, other factors like trade freedom, property rights, and investment freedom have shown only marginal improvements over the sample, underlining the pivotal role of women in propelling economic prosperity. This aspect becomes even more profound when considering the exponential economic growth experienced by these countries in the past thirty years. This warrants similar scrutiny to determine if this trend remains consistent on a global scale. There seems to be an undeniable correlation between women’s participation in the workforce and the stimulation of economic growth and prosperity worldwide. While this trend is an overall positive one, given the regression of women’s rights in China under Xi Jinping—a phenomenon that has accelerated in the past five years—we should expect to see a correlating loss of economic momentum across the region. Again, if these numbers were weighted by population and size of economy, China’s regression would wipe out most—if not all—of the recent and projected gains made by other countries in the region.

Overall, recent developments in China reveal a concerning pattern of exerting downward pressure on women’s rights, both politically and economically, in response to demographic challenges. This realization underscores the fragile nature of women’s economic progress, particularly when subjected to external pressures or anti-freedom regulatory changes. The potential impact of these trends could manifest as a significant downward force, consequently jeopardizing decades of progress. The adverse implications could extend to critical areas such as poverty alleviation, health outcomes, environmental sustainability, and educational attainment for entire economies, given the historically strong correlation between these socioeconomic indicators and the economic advancement of women.

On legal freedom, the graph shows periods of marginal improvement followed by stagnation and subsequent regression. Notably, while there appears to be a regional convergence around “legal clarity” and “bureaucracy and corruption” between 2014 and 2018, China sees a sharp divergence on these two issues starting around 2014. These trends coincide with Xi Jinping’s far-reaching anti-corruption campaign at home and the launch of the “Belt and Road” initiative abroad. This period also witnessed a simultaneous shift in China’s legal landscape, namely the reversal of prior, admittedly modest, efforts to cultivate nominally independent judicial and legal institutions that were somewhat separate from the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). With China’s explicit shift from “rule of law” to Xi’s “rule by law” since 2013, law is increasingly utilized as a tool for the CCP to control people and institutions, rather than establishing an independent legal space. This reconsolidation of party control over state institutions wiped out twenty years of progress, with widespread consequences for the rule of law—particularly around the sanctity of contracts and other foundations of economic progress. This increasingly unpredictable legal and policy environment in China has had economic consequences, including a dramatic decline in foreign direct investment and an increase in capital flight.

In many countries in the region, legal freedom is intricately linked to political freedom, particularly in nondemocratic nations. Several of the region’s economies have attempted—with varying degrees of success—to disaggregate economic freedom from political freedom while maintaining a stable and predictable business climate. Singapore is by far the most successful example, but its success is generally considered an anomaly attributable to its small size and the highly competent nature of its ruling elite. Singapore’s long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) prizes the country’s reputation as a rule-of-law jurisdiction that maintains high standards and predictability in its banking, legal, and other economically important sectors. It is also worth noting that Singapore has benefited from a loss of confidence in Hong Kong as a regional financial hub. Even as the PAP has allowed a greater degree of personal freedoms in recent years—and maintains the formal aspects of democracy, such as multiparty elections and a functioning legislature—the Lee family dynasty continues to wield enormous influence on politics and policy. By contrast, in Myanmar, promising economic reforms that spurred dramatic economic growth during the 2012–21 “hybrid period” were also aimed at undoing decades of mismanagement by successive military regimes that ruled through extraction, corruption, and violence. Since the February 2021 coup however, the combination of political repression and armed conflict in Myanmar, together with the return of extractive military mismanagement of the economy, has wiped out a decade of substantial economic growth and plunged the country backwards across all freedom and prosperity metrics.

On security, the anomalies in certain periods can be attributed to global events such as the “war on terrorism” which drove legal uncertainties in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. The period between 1998 and 2002 witnessed particularly intense geopolitical shifts in the region, including the establishment of Timor-Leste and Indonesia’s overall positive trajectory. However, while there have not been similarly earth-shaking transitions in recent years, the region has experienced an increased level of volatility from military coups in Thailand and Myanmar, political disruption in the Philippines and Malaysia, increasing authoritarianism in Cambodia, and China’s military adventurism towards Taiwan and grey-zone antagonism in the South China Sea, all of which have negatively influenced the overall political and legal landscape.

From freedom to prosperity

Consistently maintaining a 3-point lead over the global average in terms of overall prosperity from 1995 to 2019, the East Asia & the Pacific region has shown a remarkable level of economic resilience despite an often tumultuous political environment. With significant progress since the early 2000s, the average income score in the region has surged, positioning the region 5.5 points ahead of the global average by 2022, when the two had been roughly equal in the year 2000.

But it is also worth noting that, despite the frequent invocation of “the East Asian miracle,” the overall prosperity score for the region is parallel to the global trajectory, displaying a proportionate trend rather than a significant disparity. We know that over the past three decades China alone has contributed close to three-quarters of the overall global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty, but looking at overall prosperity brings a new light to that progress in the region. As in other regions, there is a complex interplay between economic growth, inequality, educational attainment, and minority rights that defies easy categorization or explanations.

As we see in the data, rapid economic expansion in nondemocratic countries can lead to progress on education and health indicators, but often coincides with growing income inequality. Environmental sustainability also appears to be a critical area for attention, as the region shows much slower progress than the global average on the environment indicator. This issue deserves a greater focus given the region is home to some of the largest and fastest-growing carbon emitters in the world and some of the planet’s most important and vulnerable areas for biodiversity, climate risk, and the blue economy.

The region also features a notable trend in the context of minority rights, where we see a lot of fluctuation. After a significant positive surge in recognition and protection following the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, events such as the 9/11 attacks, the war on terrorism, and global financial crises appear to have contributed to periods of stagnation and eventual regression. While international efforts to bolster human rights mechanisms focusing on minority rights intensified, the global trend in terms of actual impact remained mostly negative, and we see only minimal and isolated improvements in the region. Yet a closer examination reveals the intrinsic connection between minority rights and inequality. Looking at these two indicators together allows for a more nuanced understanding of the challenges faced by marginalized groups within societies experiencing rapid economic prosperity, and raises a number of interesting questions about sustainability and internal stability for both developing and developed countries in the region.

On education, the fact that the region is in line with the global trend is surprising, and could be considered something of a failure for a region that has been prioritizing progress on educational attainment for decades. Understanding this phenomenon would require a more nuanced evaluation of the region’s educational policies and practices, as well as the impact of social mobility and other economic factors.

The future ahead

The impact of China’s actions within and beyond its borders holds significant sway over the political and economic dynamics of the region. While the unweighted data offers a tantalizing glimpse of this impact, a weighted analysis that reflected China’s economic and demographic heft would likely further reveal its profound influence on political and economic freedoms across East Asia & the Pacific. The practices emerging from the People’s Republic of China, particularly the establishment of Beijing-facing economic infrastructure along the Belt and Road, contribute to a discouraging feedback loop. China’s mercantilist approach, both in its direct relationships with other countries and as articulated in Xi Jinping’s Global Development Initiative, is clearly geared towards replicating China’s securitization of governance and its state-led model of economic development across China’s near abroad. While other regional powers such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia are attempting to push back on this overall trendline—and there are indications that China’s economic weakness may inhibit its ability to project both power and ideology going forward—the sheer mass and momentum of the past decade’s efforts will continue to impede the expansion of freedom in the region.

One powerful force that could potentially counteract Beijing’s authoritarian trend is the persistence and consistency with which the region’s youth population has demonstrated its rejection of authoritarian governance models. From the revolution in Myanmar to the uprising in Hong Kong, and the May 2023 electoral results in Thailand, there has been a clear regional demand from young people for more responsive political systems and more sustainable and equitable growth. This youth wave dovetails with the region’s vulnerability to climate-related challenges, notably in Pacific Island states and littoral nations affected by extreme weather events, and many are calling for a concerted focus on environmental preservation and pragmatic solutions. Beyond the existential threats faced by the most vulnerable states, the general pursuit of cleaner air and water, fewer plastics, lower carbon emissions, and protection of biodiversity, has gained momentum across societies in the region as they progress, modernize, and move up the value chain.

Persistent challenges such as inequality, weak protection of minority and women’s rights, underdeveloped political institutions, endemic corruption, and regression in the rule of law are likely to continue to impede the region’s pursuit of both freedom and prosperity. While China’s influence contributes to these challenges, its success is largely derived from taking advantage of long-standing institutional weaknesses within individual countries. The persistence of weak institutions in developing Asian countries, despite substantial aid from various international donors and entities over a period of decades, deserves greater attention. Internal political instability, highly consequential elections, and ongoing armed conflicts within the region add further pressure, creating an environment of uncertainty and turbulence.

The slow growth of prosperous mature economies like Japan, Australia, and South Korea, coupled with the struggles of middle-income and low-income countries, underscores the need for diversified economic strategies toward this complex region. The persistent downward pressure on political freedom likewise highlights the imperative for stable democracies and allied partners to prioritize reinforcement of effective and pluralistic governing institutions in the region. Acknowledging the time and effort required to build political and economic resilience is crucial, especially in anticipating and effectively managing a potential conflict over Taiwan. The global implications of such a conflict are vast, as are the threats to regional and global stability and prosperity posed by the rogue regime in North Korea.

The more stable Southeast Asian countries continue to struggle with efforts to evade the middle-income trap. Recent trends in supply chain diversification away from China could prove to be an important opportunity for countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. This diversification has opened up new prospects for these countries, leading to an increasing focus on value-added production. Notably, countries such as Indonesia are actively striving to enhance their domestic production capabilities and move up the value chain, reducing reliance on the export of raw materials and commodities to China. This shift has garnered interest from affluent countries in the region, including South Korea, Japan, and Australia, which are extending support in critical areas such as critical minerals supply chain capabilities.

Amidst these developments, it is evident that positive economic prospects persist, although the sustained pressure on political freedom remains a concern. As such, stable and prosperous democracies in the region, along with their allied regional and global partners like the United States, Europe, and Canada, must continue their concerted efforts to strengthen institutions within these countries. It is crucial to recognize that progress in this domain may not be immediately visible, but the resilience and robustness of these countries’ institutions when faced with inevitable pressures and shocks—whether of the “black swan” or “grey rhino” variety—will be the ultimate measure of success.

Amb. (ret.) Kelley E. Currie is a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She is also a founding partner of Kilo Alpha Strategies, a boutique geopolitical advisory firm. In addition, she currently serves as a senior adviser to the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University and as a member of the board of directors of the National Endowment for Democracy, the board of governors of the East-West Center, and the advisory boards of Spirit of America and the Vandenberg Coalition.

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Sub-Saharan Africa grapples with development imperatives

William Easterly — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Evolution of freedom

Freedom to prosperity

The future ahead

Evolution of freedom

The evolution of the Freedom Index for Sub-Saharan Africa closely resembles that of the global average since 1995, with a very mild convergence. The same is also true for the subindexes of economic, political, and legal freedom. This is already good news for the region, as the trends are positive, but this does not capture the full story of freedom development in Africa. This is because the big movement towards liberalization, especially in terms of economic freedom, took place during the 1980–2000 period, so largely before the starting point of the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes data set.

In 1970, all dimensions of economic freedom were extremely low in most of the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Figure 1 below shows the evolution of trade freedom back to 1970, obtained from the same source used in the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes (the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index). The average score for the region at the beginning of the period was around 3.8 out of 10, significantly lower than the rest of the world (5.5). In the 1970s, governments were following counterproductive policies such as overvalued exchange rates or quantitative restrictions on trade. These policies were destroying any possibilities to develop an exporting sector because, with an overvalued exchange rate, exports were simply uncompetitive. Exporters would have to turn in their dollar earnings at an artificially low rate and, in many cases, they would have to resort to the black market to buy their imports. The number of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with a black market premium above 40 percent was very substantial.

A big wave of economic liberalization took place in the 1980–2000 period, with governments correcting the artificial distortions in their exchange rates and opening trade and financial flows. So, this first dramatic movement towards a more economically free environment is not captured by the economic freedom subindex, which mainly shows what we could call a second wave of liberalization after the year 2000. This has been mainly driven by increasing women’s economic rights, which have clearly improved in some countries of the region, but certainly not all. Investment freedom has also improved in the last ten years, making capital movements more efficient. This is evident when you observe that there are no countries today in Sub-Saharan Africa with black market premiums above 20 percent.

Figure 1. Trade freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1970–2022

Note: Simple average of the scores of all countries in the region with available data in the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index, “Freedom to trade internationally”.

Property rights also show a mild improvement in recent decades, but the weak institutional environment portrayed by the legal freedom subindex probably represents the biggest constraint to further improvement nowadays. The very low and stagnant levels of all indicators of legal freedom, especially that of bureaucracy and corruption, impose a significant drag on Sub-Saharan Africa’s development. A critical aspect of legal freedom is security, a very unstable area in Africa. Religious and ethnic conflicts are always a risk in the region, and this generates a high level of uncertainty, which can have negative effects on investment and economic development.

The development of political freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa was not so great as economic liberalization, and the democratic institutional framework is rather weak in those places that transitioned to more inclusive political regimes. This is well captured by the fact that legislative constraints on the executive are significantly lower than the rest of the indicators of the political freedom subindex, and judicial independence is also low, suggesting that proper systems of democratic checks and balances are still not fully developed in most countries.

Overall, the story of the development of freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa has so far been very uneven, in two senses: First, there is large variability across countries in the region. Second, there is large variability among dimensions of freedom. Economic freedom really took off after 1980, but legal and political institutions have not really improved. And this situation imposes a constraint on development because there is complementarity among different areas, so reforms in one aspect need supporting reform in others if they are to be successful in the long run. Moreover, further progress in legal and political freedoms are not just means to achieving higher levels of material prosperity, but are in themselves a measure of well-being, which emphasizes the need for continuing liberalization in these areas.

From freedom to prosperity

The Prosperity Index shows a parallel evolution of the Sub-Saharan African region and the global average. Even if we would hope to see a stronger process of convergence, so that Sub-Saharan Africa would catch up with the rest of the world, parallel trends are already good news for the region. Compared to the situation before the 1980s, where Africa was significantly falling behind the global average, the fact that, in the last three decades, the region has been able to develop at a similar pace to other regions is a clear sign that the economic liberalization of the 1980–2000 period has paid off.

An extreme example of the trends of both freedom and prosperity is Ghana. Figure 2 shows what was happening with exchange rates and black market premiums over the last sixty-two years. By 1982, the real exchange rate had appreciated to a level that was more than one thousand percent higher than it is today. The black market premium on foreign exchange was also above a thousand percent. The consequences were disastrous. Ghana used to dominate the world market for cocoa. By 1982, Ghanaian cocoa growers were receiving only 6 percent of the world price, and cocoa exports had collapsed. Facing famine, Ghanaian leader Jerry Rawlins began reforms in 1984. The government devalued sharply the nominal exchange rate and thereby reduced the black market premium.

Figure 2. Black market premium and real exchange rate index in Ghana, 1960–2022

Source: Real Exchange Rate Index is the author’s calculation based on nominal exchange rates and consumer price inflation from World Bank World Development Indicators for Ghana and the United States. Black Market Premium is from William Easterly, In Search of Reforms for Growth: Stylized Facts on Policy and Growth Outcomes, NBER Working Paper, September 2019.

The economic liberalization coincided with a turning point for Ghana’s economy. As shown in Figure 3, Ghana experienced a sharp decline in per capita income from 1960 to 1983. After the reforms, Ghana registered a steady rate of economic growth that has continued ever since.

Ghana also undertook some political liberalization in 2000, and since then Ghana has had an unbroken series of competitive elections. This may also have contributed to Ghana’s steady growth in the new millennium.

Getting back to Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, indicators like health and environment show a very rapid improvement throughout the period of analysis. It is true that the starting point was really low, and thus there remains ample room for improvement in the future. Foreign aid, which has clearly been ineffective in other areas, may have helped improve health and sanitation conditions, especially in rural areas. For example, early life mortality has significantly decreased in recent times, which accounts for an important share of the progress in overall life expectancy.

Figure 3. Cumulative logarithmic growth in per capital income in Ghana since 1960

Source: Author’s calculation based on per capita growth from World Bank World Development Indicators.

Some progress has also been occurring in education, in terms of convergence with global averages in primary and secondary school enrollment. However, the education indicator of the Prosperity Index, which measures average years of education, does not fully show the region’s convergence towards the rest of the world. This may be due to faster expansions in college enrollment in other regions like Asia and Latin America compared to Sub-Saharan Africa. But the growth in the number of people enrolled in early levels of education in Africa is substantial. Nonetheless, another aspect of education not captured by the Prosperity Index is quality, and this is obviously an issue in Sub-Saharan Africa. When you consider quantity and quality, it is clear that there is still a lot of progress to be made.

The future ahead

The different dimensions of the Freedom Index very well identify the constraints and challenges of Sub-Saharan Africa’s development in the medium and long term. Economic liberalization has borne fruit lately, although further financial and trade integration of the region with the rest of the world should continue. But today the big challenge is to strengthen the process of democratization and institution building, and the necessary reforms in these areas are much harder to accomplish. The recent wave of military coups is not a promising sign, and there is ongoing conflict associated with Islamic movements in some areas. So, the situation regarding security and the maintenance of peace is a necessary condition for Sub-Saharan African development.

I think there is probably not going to be as much support for African development from international institutions and foreign countries as there was in the past (particularly in the 2000s), because there is a shift of focus towards other regions, like Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Also, I assume that the Israel-Hamas War will continue to focus attention towards the Middle East. Usually, things tend to go in cycles. I do not think that foreign support was all that successful in achieving economic growth, but aid probably deserves some of the credit for the progress on health and education, especially.

In relation to foreign influences in the region, I do not think that China’s Belt and Road Initiative will have very different results than the significant amounts of funds received by Sub-Saharan African countries from Western nations during the 1980–2010 period. Moreover, I think the same problems of debt repayment and default are likely to be repeated, this time with China’s investments. At the end of the day, for foreign investment and aid to successfully affect Africa’s economic development, it has to be directed to some productive uses. And this is not usually the case with this kind of heavily politicized financing.

Finally, the efforts to deepen economic and financial integration within the region are probably a good idea, as within-region trade is unusually low for neighboring countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. But it is certainly not an easy task, as the several unsuccessful attempts to promote free trade areas or common currencies in the region in the last several decades prove. This failure may be due to Africa’s burden of having too many countries, some of them very small states. This generates great difficulties in reaching agreements because there are multiple strong political interests. Institutional development and democratic reform may help in this sense, as deeper integration among African nations would probably benefit the majority of the population.

William Easterly is professor of economics at New York University. He is the author of The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (2014), The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (2006), and The Elusive Quest for Growth (2001). He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed academic articles.

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Foreword: Creating another wave of democracy

Daron Acemoglu — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Democracy and freedom are in crisis. Freedom House reports that democracy around the world has been in constant retreat for seventeen consecutive years.¹ In 2021, sixty countries experienced declines in their democracy score, while only twenty-five showed improvement. Today, the world is less democratic than it has been at any time since 1997. Concurrently, there has been a steep decline in support for democracy. In international surveys, 60 percent of respondents reported a positive view of democracy in the mid-1990s; the number now stands at 50 percent.²

The erosion of democracy is intertwined with a crisis of freedom. The most common path toward democratic decline is via the election of authoritarian leaders who then clamp down on media, dissent, and opposition forces.³ Censorship is on the rise and freedom of expression is in decline around the world, led by China, where government surveillance has intensified, aided by controls over media, social media, the Internet, and all kinds of nongovernmental organizations, including businesses.⁴ Similar trends are visible not only in countries like Iran and Russia, similarly recognized for their repressive regimes, but also in the Middle East, Hungary, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Mexico, and several countries in Africa. There is growing demand for Chinese technologies for surveillance, exports of which are growing around the world.⁵

The chapters in this handbook summarize these worrying developments in rich detail. While many of them also point in hopeful directions, there are reasons to worry that even worse times may be ahead for freedom and democracy. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have already intensified controls over free expression.⁶ The COVID-19 pandemic provided an excuse for many governments to further tighten the screws, and in several cases these controls have remained in place even after the pandemic subsided.⁷ All of this could be made worse if, as forecasted, refugee and immigrant flows increase rapidly as a result of global climate change and domestic politics in destination countries shifts further in a nativist-populist direction.

Even more worrying are two major economic and technological developments which will likely continue to push toward more intense authoritarianism. The first is the growing sense that millions (or even billions) of people are being left behind while a global elite are benefiting from economic growth and technological progress.⁸ This grievance has been central to the rise of left-wing and right-wing populist regimes in both established and nascent democracies, and this worrisome trend shows no sign of subsiding.⁹ The second is the rapid pace of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), which has been used for data collection on a massive scale by many governments and multinational corporations, and which has also enabled large-scale surveillance, as in China, Russia, and Iran. Although AI technology could be developed in less repressive ways, its current trajectory is concerning for democracy and liberty.

A simple framework

There is still much we do not know about the consequences for prosperity, inequality, and the future of democracy and freedom. I argue in the rest of this foreword that a simple framework—building on my 2019 book The Narrow Corridor, jointly written with James Robinson—may be useful to shed light on the problems of democracy and freedom, and point to pathways for developing institutions, norms, and practices for democratic rejuvenation.¹⁰

The main thesis of this framework can be summarized by Figure 1 below, which I borrow from the book.

This figure exposits some of the key social and political forces shaping state-society dynamics and their implications for democracy and freedom. The centerpiece of this approach is the relationship between the powers of the state and society. By the “power of the society,” which is depicted on the horizontal axis of Figure 1, we mean the ability of society to organize collective action, act according to its norms and values, and participate in politics, even against opposition and repression from state institutions and elites (by “elites,” we refer to groups that wield disproportionate economic or political power). The vertical axis depicts the power of the state, which represents the relative capacity of state institutions and the power of economic and political elites who control the state and command the key roles in politics and the economy. State power has a repressive element, as it enables state institutions and elites to overwhelm and silence opposition and society at large, but also some positive aspects—because a more powerful state may provide better public services, collect useful information, resolve disputes, and handle societal problems.

In our framework, state-society relations determine the nature of political power. This is summarized by the three regions depicted in the figure. The region on the left is the “basin of attraction” of the “Despotic Leviathan,” which signifies a state that is despotic in the sense that it can implement policies or impose its wishes without input from society. The implied dynamics, reminiscent of a simplified version of Chinese political history, are inexorably toward lower levels of societal power. This is the reason why the trajectory indicated there moves gradually toward the vertical axis, where society’s power against the state reaches a minimum.

The polar opposite of the despotic path is one where the state and its institutions are weak and society’s traditions and organizational capacity are strong. At first, this might appear as a remedy against state repression. In reality, it is also inimical to freedom. It impedes the development of political hierarchy, a precondition for the emergence and evolution of state institutions, including a legal system and regulatory rules that are essential for protecting individuals against predation, expropriation, and intimidation. Even when states do appear within this context, they are weak and, in fact, often absent from large parts of the territory they are supposed to control. James Robinson and I thus labeled them as “Absent Leviathans.” These dynamics lead toward even greater state weakness.

More interesting is the region in the middle: “the narrow corridor.” This corridor is defined by a balance of power between state and society. The trajectories in this region look very different than those outside of it. This, we argue, is the hallmark of a different type of state and different nature of political power. We label it the “Shackled Leviathan” to capture the notion that the state is still strong, but it is monitored, challenged, and controlled by society—and, ultimately, by democratic institutions.

The heart of our theory is that true democratic participation and liberty, as well as economic incentives encouraging innovation and experimentation, can only flourish within the corridor. The corridor itself, though precarious at the best of times, can be bolstered by societal mobilization and participation. Institutions matter, but neither a cleverly designed constitution nor the correct set of institutional guardrails are sufficient by themselves to protect the corridor, nor are they a true bulwark against threats to democracy. Put simply: democracy is seldom given to the people, and it is often taken; thus, democracy is almost always in need of defense by the people.

There is another important aspect to the corridor, emphasized by the direction of trajectories within it, contrasted with those outside. Outside of the corridor, historical dynamics are likely to weaken one party as they strengthen the other. Inside of the corridor, however, the capacities of both state and society can rise in tandem. There are two synergistic reasons for the mutually beneficial dynamics within the corridor. First, state and society are locked in a fairly balanced competition. As state institutions become stronger—for example, because of new exigencies—society strives to increase its own capacity in order to control the emboldened state. Second, when balanced in terms of their capacities, state and society can cooperate. For example, when institutions and societal mobilization mean that an upstart politician cannot immediately hijack the public budget or misuse information that state agencies collect, people will be more willing to allow greater taxation and information collection. The centerpiece of this state-society cooperation is a degree of trust between state institutions and the population at large.

Both the positive-sum state-society competition and the trust in institutions are fragile, however. Competition can easily spin out of control, and trust is easier to destroy than to build.

This framework also highlights why societal norms are so important. These norms determine the boundaries of what elites and the agents of the state are expected to do, and how much trust they can command. These norms also shape how society mobilizes and resolves its own differences in the service of organizing against elites and impositions from the state.

Norms themselves are shaped by broader cultural trends, and while The Narrow Corridor did not study cultural dynamics in detail, our more recent work has proposed a complementary framework for doing so.¹¹ This framework starts from the observation that no human society possesses an unambiguous and unchanging cultural structure. Rather, different human communities have a reservoir of “attributes,” which gel together in distinct ways to create different underpinnings of political and social behaviors. The importance of this perspective is that we should not think of culture as a hard constraint on democracy or freedom, but rather as the language through which ideas related to democracy, liberty, and inequality can be articulated. Nevertheless, there is persistence in culture. Once freedoms start to be sidelined, it becomes more difficult to build the cultural tools to defend them. Once trust between state and society is destroyed, it also becomes harder to generate the ideas and coalitions needed to rebuild it.

In The Narrow Corridor, James Robinson and I trace the history of many historical polities via these trajectories and explain what sorts of events can place a society inside or outside the corridor and what shapes its boundaries. Most importantly, the historical account reveals how the process of entering and traveling within the corridor is a slow, conflict-ridden process, and how trust between state and society develops gradually and often painfully over time—but also how this trust can be easily destroyed, and how competition can quickly turn zero-sum.

The eclipse of democracy and freedom

What does this framework imply for the current difficulties and future prospects of democracy and freedom? Two complementary processes can be identified. First, societies inside of the corridor have experienced weakening democracies and intensifying clampdowns on freedoms. Second, Despotic Leviathans outside of the corridor have become more adept at defending their nondemocratic regimes against the counterbalancing powers of society, thanks to China’s rise, the use of AI and related technologies, and also because democracies themselves have become weaker. I now focus on the first process, returning to the second process later in this foreword.

The fact that support for democracy among the people has declined—rather than authoritarian leaders merely clamping down on democratic rights and freedoms against the people’s wishes—provides an important clue about the problems of democracy and freedom. The causes of this deteriorating support for democracy are explored in my joint work with Nicolás Ajzenman, Cevat Aksoy, Martin Fiszbein, and Carlos Molina.¹² We find that people who have experience with democratic institutions tend to support them. Hence, a history of democracy should boost people’s willingness to defend the regime. But a more detailed look at the data reveals that the relationship between democratic experience and support for democracy is far from unconditional. It is only people who have experience with successful democracies—meaning democracies that deliver the kinds of economic performance, public services, and outcomes that they desire—that support democracy. In fact, we found that people who live under unsuccessful democracies do not increase their support for these institutions at all.

So, what is it that people want from democracies? Our results suggest several important dimensions of success: economic growth (democracies that get mired in economic crises do not garner support); peace and political stability (wars or instability are of course not what people want); control of corruption; good public services; and low inequality. These last three are particularly important, because they underpin one of the important pillars of trust between state and society, as emphasized by the framework in Figure 1. The cooperative, positive-sum relationship between state and society collapses when trust in democratic institutions is eroded. This becomes much more likely when democratic institutions malfunction, and especially when they enable malfeasance by public officials, fail to deliver basic public services, and cannot (or choose not to) control inequality.

I believe it is these dimensions in which democracies, and more generally societies, in or near the corridor, have failed in recent decades. There are several reasons for this failure. Some of them are technological, some of them economic, and some of them political. New technologies have favored the very well-educated elite both in industrialized and developing nations, and governments have not taken steps to redress these inequities. Economically, the rapid drive toward globalization, transmogrified by the rapid accession of China into the global trading order, has contributed to the same trends.

But even worse for democracy’s reputation has been the policy response to these trends. Neither technology nor globalization are acts of nature. They are choices that societies make about how to use existing scientific know-how, what types of new technologies to develop, and what kind of globalization to implement. In the case of industrialized nations, led by the United States, these were choices made by political and economic elites. Trust among the people was markedly undermined—especially for people who were not among the winners from these processes—because these decisions were made by an insular technocratic elite who kept claiming (with very vocal support from the mainstream media) that everybody would benefit from unlimited technological growth and expansive globalization. In the United States, nothing of the sort happened. For example, low-education households have seen their real incomes collapse since 1980. In several other industrialized nations, the trends are less clear-cut, but people in the bottom half of the income distribution did not receive much of the promised benefits. At the same time, the technocratic elite became more and more integrated with the business elite, convincing many that corruption was on the rise (whether this was true or not).

This collapse of trust in public institutions and public servants is inimical to life in the corridor, and it has been a major driver of eroding support for democracy. It has also been an important force toward declining respect for democratic rights and broader freedoms.

As democracy’s reputation has become tarnished in the West, this has created an opening for authoritarian regimes, led by China and Russia, to solidify control over their populations, with disastrous effects for freedom around the world.

If this account is correct, it is the failure of democratic institutions that is threatening the balance within the corridor. The corresponding declines in trust and support for democracy make the implications for future political regimes and myriad freedoms and rights especially dire.

Will it get worse?

There are at least three reasons to worry that the trends we are seeing could get worse.

First, there is no obvious end to the slide of democratic norms around the world. As democracies continue to perform poorly on many dimensions that their citizens care about and as powerful autocracies, such as China and Russia, expand their global reach and propaganda, it would be quixotic to hope for an immediate turnaround. Historical evidence is consistent with the idea that, once waves of democracy start, they go on for a while.¹³ Likewise, once the decline of democracy is underway, we may see further slides for quite some time.

Second, the key forces that have led to the benefits of prosperity not being shared equally are still present. As Simon Johnson and I argue in Power and Progress,¹⁴ the main factor leading to growing inequality and lack of wage growth around the world has been the use of digital technologies to drive workplace automation and worker disempowerment. With recent advances in generative AI, these forces may have gone into overdrive. While there is nothing inherent in the nature of AI that should make it always eliminate labor and increase inequality, our current technological trajectory is toward automation and a reduced role of labor across diverse sectors of the economy.¹⁵ If this technological trend continues, it will exacerbate the failure of democracies to create shared prosperity. Although certain aspects of globalization may have slowed down, the role of multinational corporations and other dimensions of global integration are likely to increase, which could create another set of forces toward unshared prosperity.¹⁶

Third, AI also has direct impacts on democracy, which will likely exacerbate democratic tensions in the years to come. As mentioned above, this is both because AI is being used increasingly skillfully by autocratic regimes to quell discontent and demand for democratic rights,¹⁷ but even more fundamentally, it is because AI is distorting political communication and discourse in electoral democracies around the world.¹⁸ The role of Facebook and other social media platforms in fostering filter bubbles and polarization and fomenting partisanship and misinformation during the 2010s is now well understood. There are concerns that, with advances in generative AI, even worse practices will take root in the new social media ecosystem.¹⁹

While several political, economic, and technological trends may augur hard times for democracy and freedom, there is one small silver lining suggested by the framework in The Narrow Corridor: leaving the corridor is not permanent, and countries that have recently lost the balance between state and society will also be the ones where this balance is still partly present. As conditions change, and as pro-democracy forces and measures strengthen the demand for democratic and civil rights, it is possible to reenter the corridor. For example, after the murderous, totalitarian Nazi regime in Germany, the country was able to rebuild a balance between state and society and develop fairly healthy democratic institutions in the postwar era.²⁰ The same perspective provides some hope that, even as we are witnessing the slide of democratic norms and institutions, rebuilding them is a possibility.

What to do?

Almost all of the chapters in this book suggest ideas to rejuvenate freedom. Let me add to these valuable insights by summarizing some perspectives from the framework presented here.

To put it simply, the best way to counter the current pernicious trends is to create another wave of democracy, similar to the one witnessed after the collapse of military dictatorships in Southern Europe in the 1970s. But how?

There is no surefire way of achieving something so ambitious. But I would like to briefly present a couple of ideas.

Rebuild support for democracy. Democracy is nothing without people’s support. The first step in improving the future of democracy and freedom is to rebuild support for democracy within democratically governed populations, then hope that these ideas will spread around the world. In my assessment, the only way this can be achieved is by democracy performing better, at least starting in a number of key places, such as the United States, Western Europe and Latin America. Democracies in these ideological battlegrounds need to show that they deliver in terms of economic growth, shared prosperity, control of corruption, and responsiveness to people’s needs and wishes. The role of shared prosperity here cannot be overemphasized. Democracy will continue to lose support if it is seen as the handmaiden of a two-tiered society in which a small group of elites benefits from economic growth and technological change while the rest become increasingly dependent.
Trust in institutions. Concurrently, democratic institutions need to foster people’s trust. This again starts with performance. But procedures matter too. One of the reasons why democracies started losing people’s trust and support is because of an error of “technocracy.” Increasingly, many segments of the population are becoming disillusioned with democracies because they think that, under the veneer of democracy, a small group of technocrats, in cahoots with economic and political elites, runs the show. This state of affairs is not conducive to trust in institutions or support for democracy. To get out of this situation is certainly not easy, especially after democratic norms have become weakened. Sidelining experts and expertise from policy making, or enabling the emergence of a tyranny of the majority that could damage civil rights and minority rights, would certainly be disastrous for broad freedoms. The solution then must be sought in democratizing procedures subject to well-articulated constraints. The alternative to technocracy should thus not be viewed as “mob rule,” but as institutions that are truly responsive to people’s needs and concerns. These institutions should be built and should function within well-defined and communicated constraints, set by constitutions, and a firm commitment to minority and human rights.
The right kind of empowerment for civil society. The framework in The Narrow Corridor puts special emphasis on the role of civil society. The weakening of democratic norms and freedoms around the world has coincided with civil society becoming either weaker, as in many autocratic regimes, or more polarized, as in the United States and Western Europe.²¹ We need the right kind of empowerment for civil society, which means civil society becoming a true bulwark in the defense of freedoms and democracy. This must start with civil society organizations (CSOs) themselves recognizing that they should not be an instrument to suppress rights and freedoms. The tragedy in much of Western Europe and the United States today is that several CSOs have become active participants in banning free speech or silencing alternative voices.²² The right kind of civil society empowerment must start with a strong commitment to freedom of speech. All other concerns, including the fact that some groups may feel uncomfortable when certain ideas are expressed, must be subservient to this principle. It is only then that CSOs can be a true force against state repression and elite dominance and can help rebuild freedom and democracy.

Daron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a fellow of NAS, APS, BAS, AAAS; the winner of BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award, Nemmers Prize, Global Economy Prize, A.SK Prize, CME Prize, and John Bates Clark Medal; and the author of New York Times bestseller Why Nations Fail (with James Robinson); The Narrow Corridor (with James Robinson); and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity (with Simon Johnson).

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1 Yana Gorokhovskaia, Adrian Shahbaz, and Amy Slipowitz. Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy. Freedom House: Freedom in the World 2023, March 2023, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2023/marking-50-years.

2 Daron Acemoglu, Nicolás Ajzenman, Cevat Giray Aksoy, Martin Fiszbein, and Carlos Molina, “(Successful) Democracies Breed Their Own Support.” Working paper, Review of Economic Studies, (2023, forthcoming). https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2023-10/Successful%20Democracies%20Breed%20Their%20Own%20Support.pdf; Daron Acemoglu, Nicolás Ajzenman, Cevat Giray Aksoy, Martin Fiszbein, and Carlos Molina, “Support for Democracy and the Future of Democratic Institutions,” VoxDev, December 19, 2023, https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/support-democracy-and-future-democratic-institutions.

3 Grzegorz Ekiert, Democracy and Authoritarianism in the 21st Century: A Sketch, Harvard Kennedy School, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Policy Briefs Series, December 2023, ash.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/democracy_and_authoritarianism_in_the_21st_century-_a_sketch.pdf; Larry M. Bartels, Ursula E. Daxecker, Susan D. Hyde, Staffan I. Lindberg, and Irfan Nooruddin, “The Forum: Global Challenges to Democracy? Perspectives on Democratic Backsliding,” International Studies Review, 25, no. 2 (June 2023); Robert R. Kaufman and Stephan Haggard, “Democratic Decline in the United States: What Can We Learn from Middle-Income Backsliding?” Perspectives on Politics, 17, no. 2 (2019), 417–32.

4 Sarah Cook, “Freedom of Expression in Asia: Key trends, factors driving decline, the role of China, and recommendations for US policy,” Freedom House, March 30, 2022, https://www.freedomhouse.org/article/testimony-freedom-expression-asia; Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument,” American Political Science Review 111, no. 3 (2017), 484–501; Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression,” American Political Science Review 107, no. 2 (May 2013), 326–43; Zhizheng Wang, “Systematic Government Access to Private-Sector Data in China,” International Data Privacy Law, 2, no. 4 (2012), 220–229.

5 Martin Beraja, Andrew Kao, David Y. Yang, and Noam Yuchtman, “AI-tocracy,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 138, no. 3 (2023) 1349–1402.

6 Anton Troianovski, Yuliya Parshina-Kottas, Oleg Matsnev, Alina Lobzina, Valerie Hopkins, and Aaron Krolik, “How the Russian Government Silences Wartime Dissent,” New York Times, December 29, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/29/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-censorship.html; Dasha Litvinova, “The Cyber Gulag: How Russia tracks, censors and controls its citizens,” Associated Press News, May 23,
2023, https://www.apnews.com/article/russia-crackdown-surveillance-censorship-war-ukraine-internet-dab3663774feb666d6d0025bcd082fba.

7 Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz, Democracy Under Lockdown: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Struggle for Freedom, Freedom House, October 2020, https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2020/democracy-under-lockdown; Richard Youngs, “COVID-19 and Democratic Resilience,” Global Policy, Policy Insights 14, no. 1 (2022), 149–56; Jacek Lewkowicz, Michał Woźniak, and Michał Wrzesiński, “COVID-19 and erosion of democracy,” Economic Modelling 106 (January 2022), 105682.

8 Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (Hachette, PublicAffairs, 2023).

9 Sergei Guriev and Elias Papaioannou, “The Political Economy of Populism,” Journal of Economic Literature 60, no. 3 (2022), 753–832; Dani Rodrik, “Why Does Globalization Fuel Populism? Economics, Culture, and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism,” Annual Review of Economics 13 (2021), 133–70.

10 Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (Penguin Random House, 2019).

11 Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, “Non-Modernization: Power-Culture Trajectories and the Dynamics of Political Institutions,” Annual Review of Political Science, 25 (2022), 323–39.

12 Acemoglu et al., “(Successful) Democracies Breed Their Own Support.”

13 Samuel P. Huntington, “Democracy’s Third Wave,” Journal of Democracy 2, no. 2 (1991), 12–34; John Markoff, Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change (SAGE Publications, Inc., 1996).

14 Acemoglu and Johnson, Power and Progress.

15 Acemoglu and Johnson, Power and Progress.

16 John G. Ruggie, “Multinationals as Global Institution: Power, Authority and Relative Autonomy,” Regulation and Governance 12, no. 3 (2017) 317–33; In Song Kim and Helen V. Milner, Multinational Corporations and their Influence Through Lobbying on Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, December 2, 2019, web.mit.edu/insong/www/pdf/MNClobby.pdf.

17 Martin Beraja, David Y. Yang, and Noam Yuchtman, “Data-intensive Innovation and the State: Evidence from AI Firms in China,” Review of Economic Studies 90, no. 4 ww(2023), 1701–23; Beraja et al., “AI-tocracy,” (2023).

18 Allie Funk, Adrian Shahbaz, and Kian Vesteinsson, “The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence,” in Freedom on the Net 2023, eds. Adrian Shahbaz et al. (Freedom House, 2023) https://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2023/repressive-power-artificial-intelligence; Daron Acemoglu, “Harms of AI,” The Oxford Handbook of AI Governance, eds. Justin Bullock, Yu-Che Chen, Johannes Himmelreich, Valerie Hudson, Anton Korinek, Matthew Young, and Baobao Zhang (Oxford University Press, 2024); Jessica Brandt, “Propaganda, Foreign Interference, and Generative AI,” testimony prepared for the US Senate Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum (Brookings Institution, November 8, 2023), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/propaganda-foreign-interference-and-generative-ai.

19 Jonathan Haidt and Eric Schmidt, “AI Is About to Make Social Media (Much) More Toxic,” The Atlantic, May 5, 2023 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/generative-ai-social-media-integration-dangers-disinformation-addiction/673940; Daron Acemoglu, Written testimony prepared for the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs hearing on “The Philosophy of AI: Learning from History, Shaping Our Future,” (November 8, 2023), https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/Testimony-Acemoglu-2023-11-08.pdf; Valerio Capraro et al., “The Impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Socioeconomic Inequalities and Policy Making,” SSRN Working Paper No. 4666103, December 15, 2023; Daron Acemoglu, Asuman Ozdaglar, and James Siderius, “A Model of Online Misinformation,” The Review of Economic Studies (2024, forthcoming).

20 Acemoglu and Robinson, The Narrow Corridor, Chapter 13.

21 Amber Hye-Yon Lee, “Social Trust in Polarized Times: How Perceptions of Political Polarization Affect Americans’ Trust in Each Other,” Political Behavior 44 (2022) 1533–54; Nicholas Charron, Victor Lapuente, and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, “Uncooperative Society, Uncooperative Politics or Both? Trust, Polarization, Populism and COVID-19 Deaths Across European Regions,” European Journal of Political Research 62, no. 3 (2022), 781–805; Shanto Iyengar, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra, and Sean J. Westwood, “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States.” Annual Review of Political Science 22 (2019), 129–46; Jennifer McCoy, Tahmina Rahman, and Murat Somer, “Polarization and the Global Crisis of Democracy: Common Patterns, Dynamics, and Pernicious Consequences for Democratic Polities,” American Behavioral Scientist 62, no. 1 (2018), 16–42.

22 Brenda Dvoskin, “Representation Without Elections: Civil Society Participation as a Remedy for the Democratic Deficits of Online Speech Governance.” Villanova Law Review 67, no. 3 (2022), 447–507; Robert Corn-Revere, “The Anti-Free Speech Movement,” Brooklyn Law Review 87, no. 1 (2021) 145–93; John Shattuck and Mathias Risse, Freedom of Speech and Media: Reimagining Rights & Responsibilities in the United States, Harvard Kennedy School, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, 13 (2021), https://www.carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/files/cchr/files/free_speech.pdf.

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The United States needs a new Iran policy—and it involves regime change, but not the traditional kind

Kelly Shannon — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 14:45:08 +0000

Ever since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iran’s leaders have believed that the United States seeks regime change to roll back the Islamic revolution and restore US hegemony in Iran. Yet the United States has not pursued this as a policy goal, nor has US policy appeared to include direct interference in Iran’s domestic affairs. Instead, in recent years, US policymakers seem to have assigned Iran—and the Middle East more broadly—a lower priority than other areas like Ukraine, and have pursued a policy of containment toward Iran so that US attention could be focused elsewhere.

This policy has clearly failed. The Islamic Republic has become increasingly confident in its international behavior and domestic repression, bolstered by the belief that the West—especially the United States—is too weak to stop it. The result is that Iran today is a significant threat to stability, peace, and human rights in the Middle East. The October 7, 2023, attack by Iran’s client Hamas on Israel and subsequent attacks on shipping by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen underscore two important realities: first, the crucial importance of Middle Eastern stability to global affairs; second, a dire need for the United States to overhaul its Iran policy. If the United States does not change its approach to Iran, the Islamic Republic’s behavior and regional stability will only worsen.

The time is ripe for policy change. Despite harsh international sanctions, the clerical establishment has not moderated its behavior and flouts those sanctions, such as when it sells oil to China. Limited US engagement with Iran has also failed to rein in Tehran’s worst impulses. Despite the successful signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, the unilateral US withdrawal from that agreement during the Donald Trump administration incentivized Iran to continue enriching uranium. The lack of consistency between US administrations makes a successful return to the negotiating table on nuclear issues unlikely. Meanwhile, Iran continues to engage in hostage diplomacy and flagrantly violates the human rights of its people. Its missile strikes against Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan on January 15 and January 16 also indicate the regime’s increasing willingness to use military force against its neighbors and project power outside its borders, which risks further destabilizing an already unstable region.

The world has changed since US policy on Iran was last set. An influential bloc of countries—led by Russia and China—has arisen to challenge the US-led international order. Iran has gained important allies by joining this bloc. Tehran’s growing partnerships with Moscow and Beijing provide it with diplomatic support, an economic lifeline, and increasing military prestige through its aid to Russia in the Ukraine war. Quite simply, the world today is far less united in its condemnation of Iran’s behavior—and its support for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law—than in previous decades. US policy must adapt to account for this geopolitical shift.

Yet Iran’s domestic situation has also changed dramatically in a way that could benefit US policy objectives. While Iran faced multiple waves of popular protest over the past two decades, the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising that began in September 2022 distinctly differs from earlier protests. While previous protests called for reform, many Iranians now declared that reforming the Islamic Republic is impossible. The current movement calls for nothing less than the end of the clerical establishment and the creation of a secular democracy. US policymakers should take note of this critical shift. Should a democratic Iran develop, it would solve most of the problems with Iran’s current behavior. A stable, democratic Iran would be greatly in the US national interest.

While the mass protests of 2022–2023 have died down, Iranian citizens, especially women, continue to defy the regime. The Iranian people are not likely to change their views on the theocracy, and the regime cannot survive in the long term in the face of such widespread domestic opposition. After four decades of an oppressive, corrupt, ineffective government, there is not much more for the Iranian people to lose but much to be gained by seeking radical change. However, the regime’s brutally violent crackdown on protesters and anyone who expresses the slightest hint of anti-regime sentiment indicates that mass protests alone will be insufficient to topple the government—the tactics of 1979 are not enough in the 2020s. Additional strategies are necessary, and international support will be critical to ensuring the success of any mass democratic movement in Iran.

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The United States should, therefore, develop a new policy aimed at supporting the Iranian people in changing their government system. This must not be a policy of regime change in the traditional sense. While the United States has historically had success in overtly or covertly overthrowing foreign governments—including ousting Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953—it has been bad at managing the long-term consequences of such actions. The outcomes of the post-9/11 US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are but the most recent examples.

Iranian history also proves that regime change cannot come from the outside. Any government imposed by a foreign power—or that even appears to be—will lack domestic legitimacy. Ever since Iran’s constitutional revolution in 1905–1911, ending foreign influence over Iran’s leaders has been a major reason why Iranians opposed—and toppled—previous governments, including the Pahlavi monarchy in 1979. Thus, any government that replaces the Islamic Republic must be understood by the Iranian people as entirely indigenous in origin. It can have foreign alliances, but cannot be installed by foreign intervention. The traditional US approach of using military intervention or a coup to accomplish regime change would irredeemably taint whichever government replaces the current theocracy.

Instead of traditional regime change, the United States should adopt a two-pronged approach to assist the Iranian people in their pursuit of democratic change. In the short term, US policymakers should continue to engage in difficult diplomacy and deterrence with the Islamic Republic to try to reduce Iran’s bad behavior as much as possible, while keeping in mind that genuine détente with the regime is not possible given its ideology, in which anti-Americanism is a core element.

In the long term, the United States should implement a policy of overtly and covertly helping the Iranian people create the conditions to build and sustain a successful mass movement to democratize Iran and align its behavior with global norms and the rule of law, especially regarding human rights. To achieve this long-term goal, US policymakers must resist the urge to take the lead; they must instead listen to anti-regime Iranians in the country, especially experienced women’s rights activists, and dissidents in exile, and help the Iranian people empower themselves to lead the change in their country.

Such a policy approach is rare in US history. Yet there are precedents when Americans supported positive change abroad by adopting a supportive role and genuine commitment to democracy and human rights that successfully secured US objectives and international security. Rather than direct intervention, subtle forms of US support for anti-communist movements in Eastern Europe during the late Cold War, especially the Solidarity Movement in Poland, helped those movements ultimately overthrow their communist governments on their own, build nascent democratic systems, and end the Cold War in 1989–1991. While the US government hesitated for decades to condemn the South African apartheid regime, the US public’s vocal support for the anti-apartheid movement and active participation in divestment helped the South African people end racial apartheid and build an inclusive democratic government led by Nelson Mandela in 1994. Updating these approaches for the twenty-first century could go a long way toward helping Iranians build an Iran that is no longer a threat to its own people or regional stability.

US policymakers could deploy various tools on multiple fronts to accomplish this objective, and the United States would need to do this in partnership with its democratic allies. Countries with no problematic history of dominating Iran—such as Ireland, South Africa, Mauritius, New Zealand, or Japan—would be best suited to this work. In essence, dissident Iranians need space, resources, meaningful international support, and a measure of protection to organize a powerful opposition movement. US policy would serve to support these suppressed voices in Iran.

To implement this policy, the United States would work covertly with Iranians and overtly to marshal international support for the Iranian people. In Iran, US policymakers should identify as many key in-country individuals with whom to work as possible. Ideally, these should be people with local or national influence who can get things done, show leadership potential, bring diverse perspectives to the table, and have clear ideas for what a post-Islamic Republic Iran should look like. Iran’s prisons are full of such leaders; many more are emerging across the country. The United States would work with this cohort to help create and run workshops for Iranians on democratic capacity building, strategic planning, governance best practices, and help with ideas for economic support for movement participants, as well as connect these Iranians with activists abroad with relevant experience. The United States should also find a way to provide reliable, safe internet access that is not easy for the regime to hack or trace, which will be essential for movement organizing and education efforts.

Along the way, US policymakers must resist the urge to anoint a particular opposition leader, avoiding another Ahmed Chalabi situation. The Iranian people will choose their leaders in a post-Islamic Republic future, which is as it should be.

The United States could, however, attempt to unify the Iranian diaspora. The unprecedented coming together of the diaspora in support of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement provided protesters on the ground with much-needed moral support and international amplification of their voices. When the coalition of diasporic leaders collapsed by late spring 2023, it was a major blow to the movement on the ground in Iran. Building solidarity and unity within the long-factionalized diaspora will be difficult. Still, a unified diasporic voice—and funding—supporting the opposition movement in Iran will be a key component in such a movement’s ultimate success.

At the international level, the United States and its allies must keep the world’s attention on Iran. There is already significant support for Iranians among the global public, as evidenced by the many worldwide solidarity protests during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Governments must align with this global public opinion. Just as the United States and its allies did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the international community must consistently and loudly condemn all human rights violations and political repression by the Islamic Republic. International condemnation of Iran’s behavior through unified statements by a coalition of anti-regime—preferably, democratic—governments, as well as unified rejection of Iran holding influential human rights-related positions in the United Nations or its representation at legitimizing international forums like the World Economic Forum in Davos, would help maintain international pressure on the Islamic Republic.

The regime is not immune to global pressure to moderate its behavior. US policymakers could also do much to encourage enhanced US public support for the people of Iran. International media, US policymakers, and democratic allies can use knowledge and truth as weapons; the Islamic Republic relies on lies and deception. Shining a harsh light on those lies and countering them with truth will be a valuable approach to combatting autocracy and oppression. Propaganda efforts to drive a wedge between Russia and Iran, as well as undermine its support by the rank-and-file within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and military, would also help weaken the regime.

If, as President Joe Biden has insisted, the greatest global challenge today is the war between autocracy and democracy, then Iran is a major front in that war. The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising is the most consequential mass democratic movement in the world today. Supporting the growth, maturation, and ultimate success of this movement is not only morally right, but a strategically logical position for the United States to take. This policy will require years of commitment and a redefinition of what regime change policy looks like, but helping the Iranian people end the Islamic Republic’s bad behavior would be a major victory for democracy, human rights, and, ultimately, global stability. Iranians have the will and capacity to create a brighter future. Will US policymakers choose to help?

Dr. Kelly J. Shannon is a 2023–2024 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell national fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and associate professor of history at Florida Atlantic University.

The post The United States needs a new Iran policy—and it involves regime change, but not the traditional kind appeared first on Atlantic Council.

How the prospect of a second Trump presidency is already shaping geopolitics

Frederick Kempe — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 14:00:00 +0000

In Davos last week, Harvard University’s Graham Allison was making waves talking about how former US President Donald Trump was already shaping allies’ and adversaries’ policy choices. With Trump’s New Hampshire primary victory this week, that influence will only increase.

“Some foreign governments are increasingly factoring into their relationship with the United States what may come to be known as the ‘Trump put’—delaying choices in the expectation they will be able to negotiate better deals with Washington a year from now because Trump will effectively establish a floor on how bad things can get for them,” writes Allison in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.

At the top of this list of foreign officials strategically watching the upcoming US election is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is calculating that his chances in the Ukraine war (which Trump has promised to end “in one day”) could improve dramatically. That expectation drives Putin to play for stalemate this year while wagering on European and American fatigue in addition to Trump’s election, which might set the Russian leader up for victory thereafter.

“Others, by contrast,” writes Allison, “are beginning to search for what might be called a ‘Trump hedge’—analyzing the ways in which his return will likely leave them with worse options and preparing accordingly.”

Count in this camp Ukraine and its European NATO supporters. There’s a healthy side to this, as European countries are looking for better ways to defend Ukraine and themselves.

The downside? Trump’s campaign website calls for “fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission,” so existing NATO members and new ones—Finland and soon Sweden—may find alliance security guarantees less secure.

Look around the world, and you’ll find dozens of examples of the Trump hedge and put—from climate-related issues to trade matters, where the former president describes himself as “the Tariff Man,” promising to impose a ten percent duty on all imports.

“This year promises to be a year of danger as countries around the world watch US politics with a combination of disbelief, fascination, horror, and hope,” writes Allison.

What he doesn’t write is that perhaps never in the past have the United States’ allies and adversaries begun to hedge and put this far ahead of our elections. The consistency of US foreign policy across the Cold War years is becoming a thing of the past.

What one national leader in Davos told me he misses most regarding relations with the United States is the degree of predictability needed to make his country’s own policies. “It’s not good or bad,” he said, “it’s just the reality that is our starting point.”

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points Today newsletter, a column of quick-hit insights on a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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To support Guatemala, the US should send a high-level delegation to Arévalo’s inauguration

María Fernanda Bozmoski — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 22:34:05 +0000

Guatemala’s presidential inauguration this Sunday is more than a routine handover of power. The world is watching Central America’s largest economy and most populous nation as Bernardo Arévalo is sworn in as president and Karin Herrera as vice president. This event marks not only a new chapter for Guatemala, but also an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate its commitment to democracy in the face of Attorney General Consuelo Porras’s efforts to prevent Arévalo from taking office, despite Arévalo’s victory in last August’s run-off election.

Indeed, this is a moment that demands an unequivocal statement of bipartisan unity in support of democracy by the United States. Moments like these require the United States to reach across the ideological divide and convene a high-level bipartisan delegation. Imagine the power of, for example, two former presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Guatemalan people and attending Arévalo’s inauguration.

One reason to dispatch such high-level, bipartisan representatives is geopolitics. Central America is a region where leaders are increasingly looking to China for more trade, engagement, and aid. Guatemala remains one of just seven countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that has full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which the United States must not take for granted. The United States must also remember Guatemala’s history, where the shadow of the 1954 Central Intelligence Agency-backed coup d’état still looms over the country. The inauguration, therefore, represents a chance for the United States to proactively support a nation still navigating the echoes of a complex history and politics.

The presence of a high-level, bipartisan delegation in Central America would symbolize a united commitment to democratic values at a critical time when authoritarianism is rising in the neighborhood.

Arévalo’s decisive victory in the run-off vote, which he won by a margin of 21 percent, signals a strong mandate from the Guatemalan people. His announcement that he will form the country’s first-ever gender-balanced cabinet symbolizes hope for a more inclusive future. Yet, his path to the National Palace has been fraught with challenges, led mostly by Porras, who stands accused of corruption by the United States. Traditionally, the United States sends high-ranking current officials—of the administration’s own party—to presidential inaugurations. But the extraordinary nature of Guatemala’s current political climate, the country’s strategic importance as a strong US partner in northern Central America, and its burgeoning economic potential warrant an exceptional response from the Biden administration.

So, what exactly is the message that a bipartisan delegation of two former US presidents would send? It would signal that the United States cares more about Guatemala and the region than it ever has before and that canned photo-ops no longer meet the moment for the people of Guatemala and the more than 1.8 million Guatemalans who call the United States home. The presence of a high-level, bipartisan delegation in Central America would symbolize a united commitment to democratic values at a critical time when authoritarianism is rising in the neighborhood. While neither Clinton’s nor Bush’s records in Latin America are without controversy, their combined legacies—centered on economic ties, immigration, and foreign aid—speak directly to the region’s current needs.

A bipartisan US delegation could also reignite discussions on critical issues like migration, narcotics trafficking, climate change, and citizen insecurity—which is much-needed as the recent developments in Ecuador forebode a potential regional security meltdown.

While Guatemala tests the resilience of its democracy, the United States faces its own test. The choice of who to send to Guatemala’s presidential inauguration, modest though it may seem, is the first part of that test. In the future, choosing to send such a high-level, bipartisan delegation would signal the United States’ dedication to democracy and international cooperation, conveying a powerful message to both domestic and international observers. At a time when the United States has been criticized for a lack of leadership in Latin America, such leadership by example is paramount. Such a delegation would showcase the United States as a united force championing democracy on the global stage, despite its internal divisions.

Maria Fernanda Bozmoski is a deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

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Charai in Jerusalem Strategic Tribune: The World in 2024 – Elections and the Demand for American Leadership

Atlantic Council — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 19:25:32 +0000

Original source

The post Charai in Jerusalem Strategic Tribune: The World in 2024 – Elections and the Demand for American Leadership appeared first on Atlantic Council.

EU aspirations and Russian realities: Georgia at the geopolitical crossroads

Zviad Adzinbaia — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 16:44:30 +0000

On December 14, 2023, the European Union made history by designating Georgia as an official candidate country. On the same day, the European Council also confirmed its decision to start accession discussions with Ukraine and Moldova. European Council President Charles Michel heralded this as “a clear signal of hope for our continent.” Joseph Borrell, the EU’s Chief Diplomat, praised the move as an “historic step toward a stronger European Family.”

This breakthrough in Brussels added to the festive Christmas atmosphere in Tbilisi, with celebratory billboards soon greeting Georgians with the message, “Happy Candidate Status!” With Georgia scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in the final months of 2024, this recent progress on the path toward European integration is likely to play an important part in shaping the broader political mood in the country during the year ahead.

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More than two decades after the landmark Rose Revolution, Georgia finds itself at a geopolitical junction. The period since 2003 has not only shaped Georgia’s foreign and domestic policies, but has also highlighted the country’s longstanding ties to European civilization. Despite centuries of efforts by the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union to dilute this European identity, Georgia’s commitment to a European future has proven durable.

The significance of the EU’s recent decision to grant Georgia official candidate country status cannot be overstated, especially in light of the present Georgian government’s ambiguous stance toward the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The authorities in Tbilisi have declined to join Western sanctions, choosing instead to maintain open borders with the Russian Federation and resume direct flights with Moscow. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, hundreds of thousands of Russians have flocked to Georgia.

Georgian attitudes toward Russia’s war in Ukraine reflect more than three decades of war and turmoil, including the 2008 Russian invasion of the country and ongoing Russian occupation of Georgia’s Abkhazia and Tskhinvali regions. The Georgian authorities have been accused of exploiting these social sensitivities to avoid adopting a firm stance in opposition to the attack on Ukraine. Some government officials have even accused the West of seeking to drag Georgia into the escalating confrontation with Moscow. Meanwhile, in spring 2023, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili made international headlines by blaming NATO for the invasion of Ukraine in comments that directly echoed Kremlin propaganda.

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The current geopolitical tensions in Georgia only serve to amplify the importance of the EU’s recent decision regarding candidate country status. Crucially, this move solidifies Georgia’s European identity while frustrating the Kremlin’s efforts to promote an alternative vision of Georgia as part of a Moscow-led Eurasian space.

It also represents a significant milestone in the European Union’s enlargement into the Black Sea region, a process that raises the prospect of a free, united, and peaceful Europe. This post-Cold War ideal has arguably never been more relevant than in the current security environment amid the continent’s largest invasion since World War II.

EU candidate status is particularly welcome as it goes some way to addressing the widespread frustration felt in Tbilisi at the lack of progress over the past fifteen years following NATO’s 2008 commitment to future Ukrainian and Georgian membership of the alliance. While the prospect of progress toward EU membership cannot replace the security guarantees provided by NATO, it does represent an opportunity to anchor the country more firmly within the Western community of nations.

Georgia’s geopolitical trajectory will be a key issue as the country prepares to vote in parliamentary elections toward the end of the current year. Since taking power in 2012, the present Georgian authorities have been accused of reversing pro-democracy reforms and seeking to monopolize power while cracking down on the country’s opposition and civil society. EU candidacy will now test Georgia’s readiness to embrace issues such as judicial reform and anti-corruption measures, while also meeting EU expectations on human rights, media freedoms, electoral reform, and more.

According to the National Democratic Institute, nearly 80% of Georgians have consistently favored EU membership for over a decade. This enduring support, despite Moscow’s attempts to manipulate public opinion, suggests a deep-rooted commitment to European values and institutions throughout Georgian society. Looking ahead, 2024 is shaping up to be a crucial year for Georgia’s European aspirations. This could have implications for the wider region, while also creating fresh challenges for Russia’s own imperial ambitions in Georgia and beyond.

Zviad Adzinbaia is a Ph.D. Fellow in International Security at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and co-founder of LEADx Change, an International Leadership Accelerator and Public Square Summit based in Tbilisi.

This paper aims to showcase why and how the authoritarian development model is inferior to that of free societies. The first section documents democratic backsliding and the reversal of freedom’s fortunes. The second section presents data on how authoritarian regimes have failed to deliver prosperity for their people. The third section outlines how free societies have done the opposite—delivered sustained prosperity for their citizens. The final section offers the conclusion that authoritarian regimes, despite their claims, cannot deliver democratic progress or prosperity for society at large.

Box 1: The Freedom and Prosperity Indexes¹

The Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes are two separate indexes that rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. All index measurements are weighted equally and the score for each index is simply the average of its component parts. Scores range between zero and one hundred, with higher values indicating more freedom or prosperity. The indexes are constructed using publicly available datasets produced by other prominent organizations and international institutions.

The Freedom Index ranks countries according to the equally weighted average of three subindexes: economic freedom, political freedom, and legal freedom. Legal freedom measures the degree to which a country abides by the rule of law. Political freedom reflects a country’s institutional framework for the selection of those holding executive political power and the limits and controls imposed on its exercise. Economic freedom measures whether the bulk of economic activity in a country is guided by the principles of free and competitive markets. We understand all three as necessary for a society to be considered fully free.

Countries are placed into four categories based on their scores: “free,” “mostly free,” “mostly unfree,” and “unfree.” For each given year, we use the range of scores for all countries in the sample (maximum score minus minimum score) and divide it into four equal parts. This procedure generates the thresholds used to assign categories for each country.

The Prosperity Index ranks countries according to the equally weighted average of six indicators: income, health, education, environment, minority rights, and inequality.

Countries are placed into four categories based on their scores: “prosperous,” “mostly prosperous,” “mostly unprosperous,” and “unprosperous.” For each given year, we use the range of scores for all countries in the sample (maximum score minus minimum score) and divide it into four equal parts. This procedure generates the thresholds used to assign categories for each country.

I. The end and return of history: Freedom’s emergence and decline

Over the past seventeen years , authoritarianism has been on the march. Autocratic regimes across the globe, including, but not limited to, China, Russia, and Iran have supercharged repression with the aim of consolidating control to benefit a small set of predatory elites. Other previously liberal democracies have also experienced backsliding, as neo-populist leaders hollow out institutions and tamp down dissent. Today, just 14 percent of the world’s population lives in free societies. This is in sharp contrast to the heady days immediately following the Cold War, where autocracy was largely defeated—or on the back foot—and liberal democracy on the ascent.

Various factors contributed to this reversal of freedom’s fortunes. China and Russia stepped up efforts to export authoritarianism—and undermine democracy—to make a world safe for autocracy and, therefore, their regimes. Citizens the world over increasingly doubted whether democracy can deliver for them and turned to populist leaders offering (often unsustainable) quick economic wins at the expense of political freedoms.

But all is not bleak. People power movements across the world are demanding accountability from their governments. From Poland to Ecuador, centrist political forces have dislodged populists and authoritarians through free and open political competition. Yet China and Russia continue making inroads with governments of developing nations who are deciding which path to pursue: the one rooted in centralized control or the one grounded in freedom. Across the developing world generally and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) actively exports and advocates its model of centralized state-led economic growth governed by authoritarian rule. Leaders of countries that China (and Russia) are actively engaging would benefit from examining the implications for prosperity—and their own political prospects—of heeding the CCP’s siren song.

This paper aims to undercut the argument that China, Russia, and some authoritarian populist firebrands make that prosperity requires sacrifices in freedom and turns this argument on its head by showing that the inverse is true: the surest path to citizens’ prosperity is through a political system that fosters and privileges political, economic, and legal freedoms.

II. The false promise that dictatorship delivers

Are authoritarian regimes more successful than free countries in offering prosperity to their people? The answer is undoubtedly no.

Authoritarian regimes oversee systems that benefit a powerful core of predatory elites and their clients. Autocratic systems might produce some initial economic successes, as seen in China in the 1980s and 1990s, but these advances are often short-lived, quickly give way to stagnation, and are never accompanied by broader social progress or political freedom.

From Venezuela to Russia, people residing in closed or closing societies characterized by already absent or receding freedoms enjoy far less prosperity than their counterparts in free countries. Comparing the prosperity of China and Russia to other countries in their respective regions—traced from the end of the Cold War to the present day—illustrates how freedom delivers prosperity and dictatorship does not.

For this paper we are using the concept of prosperity employed by the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. The Prosperity Index goes beyond the measurement of pure material well-being and includes additional social aspects that are necessary for a prosperous society. The Prosperity Index is formed by six components: income, health, education, environment, minority rights, and inequality.

China

Witness the markedly divergent paths taken by China, Taiwan, and South Korea starting in 1987, the year Taipei lifted martial law and South Korea held a transformational presidential election that marked the end of authoritarian rule. For Seoul and Taiwan, 1987 can be viewed as the starting point of democracy. Until this juncture, all three countries—China, South Korea, and Taiwan—were dictatorships overseeing largely low-income economies. China was a communist dictatorship without political or economic freedom. South Korea and Taiwan embraced capitalist economic policies but were military dictatorships; citizens enjoyed some economic freedoms but no political freedoms.

Since 1949, China has experienced overall economic growth despite very low freedom scores. During the Mao Tse-tung era (1949–78), Beijing was a centrally planned economy without private property and largely closed to the world. During this period, China had 6 percent annual growth, albeit from a very low base.

During the era of “Reform and Opening Up” begun by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China enacted reforms that opened the country to the outside world, including allowing private business and foreign investment. China retained its centrally planned structure and authoritarian governance under the dictatorship of the CCP. During this period, the country experienced 10 percent growth annually. After the massacre of protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, the CCP walked back much of the Deng-era liberalizations, returning to a predominantly state-driven economy.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping assumed office in 2013, the limitations of state control became even more apparent, as well as the CCP’s ability to enact needed reforms given Xi’s personal and ideological beliefs. Over the last decade, China has experienced 5 percent growth annually. Despite the continuing growth over several decades, Beijing has delivered only limited prosperity for its people because it has not closed the gap between the wealthiest and its lower- and middle-income citizens—the authoritarian system has worked exactly as intended, delivering huge wealth for a small set of predatory elites while failing to generate prosperity for society at large.

By contrast, during the same period, from the 1980s to present day, South Korea and Taiwan enjoyed enhanced freedoms because of, among other factors, the hard work by reformers, civil society, and the assistance of allies regionally and globally. Taiwan and South Korea escaped the middle-income trap in the 1990s (while China has not) and their economies—and people—have thrived since.

Free countries across all measures do better than authoritarian regimes in delivering prosperity for their people. Comparisons present this quite stark difference. As we see in the chart below comparing economic growth as measured by Gross National Income (GNI) per capita from 1962 to 2022, South Korea outperforms Beijing by several fold.

Figure 1. GNI per capita of South Korea, Taiwan, and China (1962–2022)

Source: World Bank and World Economics
Note: The line representing the middle-income trap includes a dotted segment before 1987 where data is unavailable and projections have been made by the authors. Please interpret this section with consideration for the speculative nature of the projections.

China remains well below South Korea, Taiwan, and other free societies in measurements of prosperity that go beyond gross domestic product (GDP). The Atlantic Council’s Prosperity Index conceptualized the term prosperity as a combination of access to education, income, health outcomes, inequality, environment, and respect for minority rights. This broader definition of prosperity captures the full breadth of quality of life experienced by people in each country.

According to the Prosperity Index, China is characterized as “mostly unprosperous,” ranked 119th, whereas South Korea and Taiwan are characterized as “prosperous” and rank thirteenth and twenty-sixth, respectively. China’s prosperity score, as noted in the analysis above of reforms since the 1940s, increased through the mid-2000s but has recently plateaued.

Figure 2. Prosperity scores of South Korea, Taiwan, and China relative to ‘free’ countries (1995–2022)

Differences in freedom scores explain this divergence in fortune. In the case of China, freedom scores stagnated—at an already low level—through the 2000s and decreased further under Xi. Economic decisions are made according to Xi’s ideological beliefs. Economists across the spectrum agree that a stronger social safety net in China would help boost consumer spending, helping the economy transition away from its bloated model of state-dominated investment. Unfortunately, would-be reformers must contend with Xi’s stated belief that handouts make people lazy. The country’s social safety net is also suffering from Xi’s drive to harden China’s economy and boost military spending with an eye on Taiwan. Lessening the burden on China’s women—who are often expected to hold down jobs while shouldering the entire burden of domestic care—would also boost the economy, but the longer Xi has stayed in office, the more regressive his views on women’s autonomy have become. Much the same applies to the government’s approach to opportunities for youth, where Xi’s determination to limit the political power of the private sector through harsh regulatory action has limited the sector’s dynamism and reduced opportunities for educated youth to find better-paying, higher-skilled jobs. The causal link between increased freedom and prosperity generally, and in this case specifically, is clear and evidence based. Again, the comparison with South Korea and Taiwan is instructive. Seoul and Taipei are both “free” and ranked thirty-fourth and twenty-seventh, respectively, in the Freedom Index, whereas Beijing, characterized as “mostly unfree,” sits at 144th.

Russia

By the late 1980s, the Soviet Union’s political survival depended on the communist regime’s ability to reform its stagnating economy, which, as the Prosperity Index shows, was undermining its competitiveness with free countries, and its superpower status globally. Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s unprecedented reforms targeted a cadre of predatory Communist Party officials whose corruption stood in the way of the USSR’s economic modernization. The anti-corruption campaigns against powerful political bosses controlling the Soviet republics unleashed a wave of popular anti-communist, nationalist movements. The Baltics were the first republics to declare their independence from the USSR in 1991.

Seizing their geopolitical moment, as the Soviet Union collapsed, the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—undertook a full-scale market restructuring of their communist economies. Strong long-term popular and political support for integration with Europe sustained the Baltics through an initial sharp economic downturn. A path to European Union accession for the Baltics, agreed to in 1995, required economic transformation and democratic reforms that align with the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index: economic freedom (market reforms), legal (independent judiciary), and political (multiparty system). The index shows the Baltic states’ corresponding increase in prosperity, which improved dramatically in the 1990s and 2000s to the level of other free states.

Figure 3. Prosperity scores of the Baltic states and Russia relative to ‘free’ countries (1995–2022)

Russia stands in stark contrast to the Baltic states. As constituent republics of the Soviet Union, they began in much the same place in terms of both freedom and prosperity. However, Russia’s acute economic downturn in the early 1990s (due to radical economic reforms) and its deformed democracy—the corrupt Boris Yeltsin regime instituted presidential rule by decree, and media and civil society intimidation campaigns—set the stage in 1999 for a transfer of power, orchestrated by Yeltsin and the oligarchs, that brought Vladimir Putin to power. Putin quickly re-centralized power within the executive presidency. Under Putin, Russia has become an authoritarian state that weaponizes the private and public sector and civil society in the service of the regime. The regime’s media shutdowns, criminalization of civil society, intimidation (and assassinations) of the political opposition, and suppression of basic political rights are represented in Russia’s freedom scores, which in 2022 fell precipitously to 42.1 due to internal political repression in Russia as the Putin regime launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine—less than half of the average score for the Balkans (87.2).

Figure 4. Freedom scores of the Baltic states and Russia relative to ‘free’ countries (1995–2022)

The decline in freedom in Russia has had a noticeable impact on every measure of its Prosperity Index. Putin’s re-centralization of political power has taken away representation from Russia’s ethnic minorities and power from its ethnic autonomous republics and regions. Russia has not successfully diversified its economy away from natural resources, a political decision by the Putin regime which relies on the distribution of rents to maintain political and social stability. While Russia still maintains a strong tertiary education system, the economic return on that education is low due to a stagnating market economy with few jobs requiring advanced degrees. Widespread corruption benefits the oligarchic class creating high levels of income disparity, which is increasing as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, after falling steadily since the 2008 financial crisis. The current regime’s stifling of debate and restrictions on data and information, combined with a policy of “economic development at all costs,” has resulted in significant levels and types of environmental damage: air pollution, industrial and radioactive waste, and endangered wildlife and ecosystems.

Yet, rarely has the “less freedom impact” on prosperity been as obvious as on the population of Russia, which The Economist cautions may be entering a “doom loop of demographic decline” due to “war, disease, and exodus.”² As the Atlantic Council’s Prosperity Index shows, Russia today is in a worse place, compared to countries in the “free” category, than in 1995 when its implementation of economic “shock therapy” caused the wholesale impoverishment of its citizens.

III. Fact-based promise that freedom delivers

Freedom is the surest path to durable prosperity. Free countries in general have a much higher prosperity score, as we see in the graph below. The characteristics of free societies are what enable prosperity.

Figure 5. Prosperity scores of countries (1995–2022)

Political freedoms mean that a plurality of actors participate in the political system, including citizens through free elections; autonomous social groups and civic organizations, which have political authority; and political representatives who are responsive and accountable to citizens. This power of the public depends on certain conditions such as universal suffrage, access to information alternative to that of the government’s, and freedom of speech and association. Health care, education, and environmental protections are stronger in free states where governments respond to citizens’ interest in a better quality of life for themselves and future generations.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s authoritarian, top-down controls—data secrecy, criminalization of criticism, coercive lockdowns, and invasive surveillance—violated human rights, jeopardized marginal communities, and caused severe economic hardship, while also resulting in unnecessary deaths when restrictions were fully lifted. In Russia, political power is so concentrated in the person that Putinism is its own brand of authoritarianism. Russia’s pandemic response laid bare the weakness of a personality-centric political system, which could not function without Putin’s direct management of the response.

Strong legal freedoms mean citizens and the government abide by the rule of law and that transparent processes are in place, which citizens and companies can trust are enforced by institutions or processes. Laws are accessible; they are publicly known, clearly articulated, and reasonable, and applied equally to everyone. Legal freedoms help marginalized groups extend their political freedoms. For example, in free countries, when women have the legal protection to pursue equality, all groups benefit. The Women’s Economic Freedom indicator in the Freedom Index correlates with general advancement in those societies.

In contrast, Hong Kong’s National Security Law, passed in secret by the Communist Party in 2020 , was applied retroactively, resulting in the arrest of pro-democracy activists for protests and demonstrations that were not crimes at the time they took place.³ The resulting shrinking of civil society space suppressed Hong Kong’s nascent feminist movement, as pro-democracy figures who advocated for gender rights were arrested, or their organizations disbanded. While the CCP endorses gender equality, the subordination of women to its brand of Chinese nationalism is key to its authoritarian stability: its laws on domestic violence are not fully implemented, gender quotas for women’s political leadership are not met, and the gender pay gap remains. In 2017, Russia decriminalized domestic violence in cases where injuries are not substantial, and the abuse occurs only once a year. The weaponization of the law is a characteristic of authoritarian systems.⁴

Economic freedom indicates that the majority of that country’s economic activity is guided not by centrally planned dictates, like those on offer from the CCP, but the principles of free and competitive markets. Free markets are more efficient in that they generate clear and transparent incentives for citizens on where to seek employment and channel investments. The basic foundation of a market economy is property rights that are clearly spelled out and protected.

Meanwhile, China’s crackdown on its technology industry beginning in 2020 was politically motivated, part of a larger government effort to curb private enterprise which had become too powerful for the CCP.⁵ The loss in value by tech companies is contributing to a greater economic slowdown that is hurting Chinese citizens. In Russia, before the war in Ukraine, significant levels of capital flight by oligarchs had decreased the overall well-being of Russian citizens.⁶ Why did the regime not crack down on capital flight? If wealthy oligarchs invested in Russia, they might have demanded political and economic reforms. The management of elite power in authoritarian regimes greatly distorts economic incentives in ways that negatively impact citizens.

IV. Conclusion

Much has been said about the ongoing contest between democracy and autocracy. Countries do not persist as authoritarian enclaves because the people residing within their borders want less freedom. Autocracies persist because the regimes ruling them benefit from centralized control and nearly nonexistent political freedoms. A small cabal of predatory elites thrives in these countries while the majority of their citizens struggle to get by. Autocracy results in prosperity for a select few and misery for most.

Russia and China have been aggressive in promoting the superiority of their political models to those of liberal democracies. The proof, they claim, is in the output; that their systems deliver on economics, national values, stability, and modernization in ways that democracies do not. In fact, China has gone so far as to claim that the CCP under Xi has reinvented and improved on the Western model of democracy as a “whole-process people’s democracy” that is focused on human development and prosperity for all.⁷ In China, this singular attention to development is not disrupted by the political processes that Western democracies observe—elections, changes in administration, etc. In Russia, Putin has defined democracy as a strong state that can deliver for its citizens and protect them from foreign influence and interference, referring to his ability to provide stability to citizens after the turbulent 1990s. His political vision is reactionary and not progressive.

The Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes demonstrate the inaccuracy of these claims to democratic progress and prosperity by China and Russia. As the indexes show, China has not delivered prosperity to its citizens, its primary claim to a superior governance model. Putin’s assertion that Russia is a better place than it was in the 1990s, especially relative to other former republics of the Soviet Union that have chosen freedom, is likewise false. An inherent weakness of authoritarian regimes is that they cannot even deliver on the mirage of democracy that they promote.

Joseph Lemoine is a director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center.

Dan Negrea is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center.

Patrick W. Quirk is the vice president for strategy, innovation, and impact at the International Republican Institute and a nonresident senior fellow with both the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and Scowcroft Strategy Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Lauren van Metre is a senior advisor for peace, climate, and democratic resilience at the National Democratic Institute and a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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1 Dan Negrea and Joseph Lemoine, Prosperity That Lasts: The 2023 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes, Freedom and Prosperity Center, Atlantic Council, June 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/FP-2023.pdf.

2 Economist, “Russia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse,” March 4, 2023, https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/04/russias-population-nightmare-is-going-to-get-even-worse.

3 BBC News, “Hong Kong national security law: What is it and is it worrying?” June 28, 2022https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52765838#:~:text=The%20details%20of%20the%20law’s,authority%20of%20the%20central%20government.

4 Kay Rollins, “Putin’s Other War: Domestic Violence, Traditional Values and Masculinity in Modern Russia,” Harvard International Review, August 3, 2022, https://hir.harvard.edu/putins-other-war/#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20the%20Duma%2C%20Russia’s,no%20punishment%20for%20the%20offender.

5 Economist, “China’s Tech Crackdown Starts to Ease: Firms can breathe more easily,” January 19, 2023, https://www.economist.com/business/2023/01/19/chinas-tech-crackdown-starts-to-ease?ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&gad_source=1&gclsrc=ds.

6 William H. Cooper and John P. Hardt, Russia Capital Flight, Economic Reforms, and US Interests: An Analysis, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, updated March 10, 2000, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL30394.pdf.

7 G.E., “What China means by ‘democracy,’” Economist, November 25, 2014, https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/11/25/what-china-means-by-democracy?ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&gad_source=1&gclsrc=aw.ds.

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The case for a new Ukrainian Constitution

Brian Mefford — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 20:20:32 +0000

No one expected the upstart American colonies to win a war of independence against the British Empire. However, after eight years of sacrifice, the underdog nation emerged victorious. The young country’s leaders then analyzed their weaknesses and realized that the existing framework for government needed changing in order to allow the nation to prosper. That led to the adoption of the United States Constitution, a document which has widely influenced the evolution of modern democracy over the last two centuries.

As Ukraine fights for its survival as a nation, it may be time for the country to adopt a new constitution of its own that matches current realities. Ukraine’s present Constitution was created in 1996 and was designed to supersede the 1978 Constitution of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Even though its adoption was a significant step forward in Ukraine’s state-building process, the influence of Soviet socialism was still clearly evident in the document as it was written in 1996.

In addition, it is worth underlining that when the current Constitution was adopted, the newly independent Ukrainian nation was in the midst of an identity crisis and was still struggling to define the nature of its post-Soviet relationship with Russia. It would not be until the Orange Revolution in 2004 that Ukraine established a truly independent identity.

Since 1996, revisions to the Ukrainian Constitution have created further issues. As part of the compromise reached during the Orange Revolution to bring about a peaceful transition of power, constitutional amendments were passed to create a weakened presidency and turn the country into a parliamentary republic. It is often forgotten that the primary author of these amendments was Viktor Medvedchuk, a man with close ties to the Kremlin who was facing treason charges even prior to Russia’s full-scale 2022 invasion.

This now looks particularly inappropriate. At a time when Ukraine is seeking to consolidate its European identity and distance itself from any remaining links to the Russian imperial past, why keep a Constitution shaped by one of the most notorious pro-Kremlin figures of modern Ukrainian history?

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Many of the more problematic aspects of Ukraine’s Constitution are not related to Medvedchuk’s involvement and can be traced to the document’s conception. For example, the Ukrainian Constitution attempts to cover every imaginable legal contingency and contains 161 articles. In comparison, the US Constitution contains a mere seven articles.

Another key complaint is that the Ukrainian Constitution essentially makes promises the government cannot keep. Citizens are assured of everything from free housing to free medical care and free higher education. In practice, this has proven impossible.

Its not uncommon for constitutions to promise and even guarantee such basic needs, of course. However, the countries that successfully meet these commitments tend to be mature Western democracies with advanced economies that can afford to pay for massive social support programs.

It should be noted that the US Constitution does not guarantee basic needs such as healthcare and education. Instead, provision is delegated to state, federal, or local governments. With a new constitution, Ukraine could similarly delegate social welfare to state agencies, parliament, oblast administrations, municipal authorities, or other government institutions which actually have the capacity to fulfill public needs.

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Crucially, Ukraine’s Constitution in its current form remains little known to the wider public. While the average American can often tell you why they like or dislike various different amendments, most Ukrainians are unfamiliar with the details of their country’s Constitution and know little about what rights it actually contains.

A June 2019 survey by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation showed that 47 percent of Ukrainians had never read their Constitution, while 67 percent wanted to have the Constitution amended. It would be fair to say that the current Ukrainian Constitution is hardly near and dear to the hearts of Ukrainians.

Ukraine is clearly not the country it was during the uncertain early years of independence in the 1990s. For that matter, Ukraine is also no longer the nation it was at the time of the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution. Russia’s ongoing invasion, which began in early 2014 with the seizure of Crimea and escalated dramatically in February 2022, has changed everything.

Today’s Ukraine is undergoing an historic transformation in the crucible of war. It has rejected the legacy of authoritarian empire, exited the geopolitical wilderness, and is now firmly set on a trajectory toward full integration within the European community of nations.

In the current circumstances, merely tweaking or correcting aspects of the existing Ukrainian Constitution is no longer an option. Instead, Ukraine requires an entirely new Constitution reflecting the magnitude of the changes that have taken place in the country over the past decade. This new Constitution should aim to capture the hearts and minds of Ukrainian citizens, while providing a practical framework for the modern European nation that Ukraine seeks to become.

Brian Mefford is the Director of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and has lived and worked in Ukraine since 1999.

Democracy’s decisive year—globally

Frederick Kempe — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 17:00:00 +0000

The Financial Times calls 2024 “the most intense and cacophonous 12 months of democracy the world has seen since the idea was minted more than 2,500 years ago.” Foreign Policy says the coming year “will see a global battle between democracy and autocracy play out literally, at the polls.”

That might sound hyperbolic. What’s undeniable is that the world will see more significant elections, embracing more democratic countries in the world, than I can ever remember. It’s also happening at a time when democracies have been on the defensive and autocracies (China, Russia, and Iran, to name three) have been acting more boldly.

Some two billion people will vote in 2024; that’s about half the world’s adult population, representing more than 60 percent of global gross domestic product, by Bank of America calculations. The FT reports that seventy countries will be holding elections, including eight of the world’s ten most populous countries.

That might sound like reason for celebration, underscoring the enduring attraction of democracy. Instead, it is more a time of peril, when democracies need to find ways to counteract a recession in democratic rights and freedoms that has been under way globally since 2006, according to Freedom House. This also comes at a time when innovative technologies like artificial intelligence can provide even more effective tools for surveillance and control.

Writes the FT’s Alec Russell in a compelling read on what lies ahead: “These elections take place against a backdrop of spreading illiberalism around the world, the weakening of independent institutions in a number of big democracies, and a creeping disillusionment among younger people about the very point of elections.”

There is no easy fix. The challenges democracies face are as diverse as the countries themselves. However, a good start would be to address the partisanship, hypocrisy, and ineffectiveness that turn off voters and erode institutional effectiveness.

Amid all the world’s voting in 2024, it will be the perceived health of US democracy that will be most decisive for the global democratic order. This year the world will ask, is the United States offering a model to emulate or to avoid?

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter @FredKempe.

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Belarus opposition are key allies in the fight against Russian imperialism

Tatsiana Kulakevich, Michael Berg — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 20:06:09 +0000

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine currently dominates Europe’s geopolitical agenda, but neighboring Belarus is also a critical battleground in the fight back against Vladimir Putin’s resurgent brand of Russian imperialism.

The activities of Belarus’s democratic opposition warrant greater international attention. This can help raise awareness of the many people currently incarcerated by the Belarusian authorities, along with the millions more who have been robbed of basic human rights by the Lukashenka regime. Crucially, amplifying the efforts of Belarus’s opposition movement also helps debunk efforts to claim widespread public acceptance of the existing political realities in the country.

It is now almost three and a half years since Belarus was rocked by nationwide pro-democracy protests following the country’s deeply flawed August 2020 presidential vote. Belarus’s autocratic leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka was eventually able to suppress this protest movement and remain in power thanks largely to backing from the Kremlin, but he emerged from the crisis more dependent than ever on Russia for his continued political survival.

Today’s Belarusian authorities are widely seen as puppets of the Kremlin, with the country playing a significant role as a junior partner in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, there are ample indications of ongoing resistance to the Lukashenka regime. Exiled 2020 presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is widely recognized as the leader of the country’s democratic movement and travels extensively to rally international support for political change in Belarus. In Ukraine, significant numbers of Belarusians are currently fighting against the Russian invasion in the Kastus Kalinouski regiment and other volunteer units.

Inside Belarus itself, the draconian policies of the Lukashenka regime make any public opposition extremely difficult. Thousands have been jailed on charges of “extremism,” while nearly 1,500 individuals in Belarus are currently considered political prisoners. Nevertheless, activists have found ways to protest the policies of the Lukashenka regime via cyber attacks and the disruption of Russian military traffic on the country’s rail network.

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Giving more attention to the activities of the Belarusian democratic movement is particularly important at a time when some European Union governments are still maintaining dialogue with Lukashenka. Any unconditional attempts to reengage with the current Belarusian authorities would risk legitimizing the widespread repression of opposition-minded Belarusians since August 2020. It would also ignore the country’s role in the war against Ukraine. Moreover, the normalization of relations with Lukashenka would send a dangerous signal to Putin that the West lacks strategic patience and prefers unsustainable compromises to conflicts.

An enhanced international media spotlight could help the Belarusian opposition to counter the Lukashenka regime’s domestic disinformation efforts. Belarus is currently recognized as one of the world’s most hostile countries for independent media, and was ranked 157th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2023 World Press Freedom Index.

Belarus’s official state media outlets promote Kremlin-friendly narratives while claiming that the vast majority of an estimated 500,000 Belarusians who fled the country since August 2020 now want to come home. In February 2023, Lukashenka even signed a decree creating a commission to work with citizens who wish to return to their homeland. Belarusian democratic forces have countered these claims by highlighting the detention of returnees. According to human rights organization Viasna, at least 58 Belarusians were arrested after crossing the border in 2022 and early 2023.

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Crucially, Belarusian democratic forces have been drawing attention to growing Russian control over their country, a process many observers have likened to a “creeping annexation” by the Kremlin. Since the watershed events of August 2020, Russia has expanded its economic and political influence in Belarus, while also dramatically increasing its military presence in the country. In February 2022, Putin used Belarus as a base for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More recently, Russian tactical nuclear weapons have reportedly been deployed in Belarus.

While the Kremlin’s tactics may differ, Russia is broadly pursuing the same imperial objectives in both Belarus and Ukraine. In addition to backing Lukashenka politically in Belarus, Moscow also supports the regime’s efforts to suppress the nation’s language and culture.

A December 2023 statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declaring the advancement of the Union State, a longstanding bilateral agreement which allows for deepening integration between the two states, indicates Moscow’s intention to further tighten its grip on Belarus in the coming period. Putin is widely believed to view control over Belarus and Ukraine as essential for his dreams of a revived Russian Empire.

It is abundantly clear that European security is impossible without peace in Ukraine. Stability throughout Europe is equally impossible without a free and independent Belarus. The Belarusian democratic opposition has been fighting for years to give voice to the aspirations of the Belarusian people and raise the alarm over Russia’s creeping takeover of the country. It is in the interests of the democratic world to support the Belarusian opposition and highlight their efforts whenever possible.

Tatsiana Kulakevich is an Associate Professor of Instruction at the University of South Florida School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies. Michael Berg is a project assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Geotech Center.

Looking ahead at this year, the Biden administration must continue to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian influence overseas and associated undermining of democracy in strategically important areas—and it must allocate more resources to do so. In addition, here are six strategic areas that the White House should focus on as part of a bolder democracy agenda. Further US leadership in these areas is necessary to address critical challenges around the world that affect core US interests.

1. Prepare resistance stakeholders for a post-conflict transition in Burma. Pro-democracy resistance forces are gaining momentum in Burma, while the junta continues to weaken, indicating that the ongoing revolution may be moving into a new and possibly final phase. With the country awash in weapons, teeming with historic and unresolved grievances, lacking a central authority to maintain order, and facing sky-high expectations, the post-revolution transition could be the most dangerous period in Burma’s history. The United States should urgently increase support for the interim government and for ethnic resistance organizations, with a particular focus on capacity building in transition planning. US support can also advance disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, as well as ceasefire and peace negotiations. This work can help establish local institutions to implement federal democracy in the country.

2. Shore up democratic champions across Asia that are preserving democratic space in closed societies (Burma, Cambodia, China, and North Korea) and in entrenched anti-democratic systems (Thailand and Bangladesh). Democratic activists in these difficult environments are often the only hope for preserving civic space and rights. The United States can help keep their cause alive by providing moral, technical, and financial support to those fighting for democracy and fundamental freedoms. This assistance should prioritize building connections between activists across the region to facilitate sharing of successful tactics and fostering support networks among activists—networks that activists routinely cite as crucial to strengthening their cause.

3. Support conditions for democratic reform in Guatemala by investing in political party development and consensus building. The incoming Arévalo administration will face obstacles to reform from a corrupt judiciary; from a legislature, in which its party is in the minority; and from the private sector, relations with which have been characterized by suspicion and mistrust. The new government will need sustained support, in the form of media protections and civil society oversight, to maintain stability and credibility in the face of these obstacles. The Semilla movement, which propelled Arévalo to victory, will also need assistance strengthening its own party structure and reaching consensus on reform priorities with other political parties, the private sector, and the citizens and protesters—including indigenous movements—that defended recent election results.

4. Support democratic governance structures in a post-Hamas Gaza. Forging a governance strategy for a post-Hamas Gaza is perhaps the most difficult political and security challenge facing the Biden administration. Some are looking to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank as part of a solution. Yet for more than a decade, attention to governance and civil liberties in the PA has slipped from the West’s lists of priorities, and with it funding and support for institution-building and rule of law. If Israel, the United States, and other powers determine that the PA is best positioned to help govern Gaza, then Washington should offer a robust package of democracy and human rights-strengthening assistance, coupled with engagement, focused on ensuring that democratic outcomes rank high on the list of Western priorities. Stringent safeguards must also be put in place to prevent misappropriation of these United States-provided resources.

5. Press for free and fair elections in Africa to reverse the deficiencies of 2023. From Nigeria to Eswatini, flawed elections in 2023 harmed democracy across sub-Saharan Africa. US attention and resources can help reverse this trend in 2024, when voters will go to polls in South Africa, Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal. Support should begin far in advance of election day, in order to strengthen the conditions for free and fair polls. Assistance should include a renewed focus on strengthening critical components of successful elections, including voter registration, campaign finance, election observation, polling agent capacity, and parallel vote tabulations.

6. Proactively counter Russian political influence in Europe, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Rampant corruption and political clientelism are undermining trust in democracy and driving the young and educated to emigrate from BiH. Separatist forces in Republika Srpska are reportedly colluding with Russia and undermining prospects for further integration with the West. The United States should strongly support pro-democratic forces and focus assistance on further strengthening political parties, thereby empowering these actors to address the root causes of corruption. With the help of the United States and European countries, BiH can enact reforms necessary for its Euro-Atlantic integration and help restore citizen trust in the political process. Greater support from partners should seek to assist democratic actors among the Bosniak, Croat, and Serb populations, and to prioritize longer-term investment in promising leaders—especially youth and women—in politics and civil society.

Biden has both an obligation and a political interest in showing that the United States remains the leader of the free world—with all the responsibilities and benefits that title entails. As 2024 begins, his administration must take urgent steps to put its pro-democracy rhetoric into action in key theaters around the world.

Patrick Quirk is the vice president for strategy, innovation, and impact at the International Republican Institute and a nonresident senior fellow with both the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and Scowcroft Strategy Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served as a member of the US secretary of state’s Policy Planning Staff as the lead advisor for fragile states, conflict and stabilization, and foreign assistance.

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Historic breakthrough for Ukraine as EU agrees to begin membership talks

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 21:46:52 +0000

European leaders have today agreed to officially start accession talks with Ukraine. This landmark decision is a big step toward Ukraine’s future membership in the European Union and a morale-boosting victory for Ukrainians as they defend their country against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

As news emerged of what was widely viewed in Ukraine as an historic breakthrough, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy led the country’s celebrations. In a series of social media posts, Zelenskyy said the decision to begin EU membership talks was a victory for Ukraine and for all Europe. “History is made by those who don’t get tired of fighting for freedom,” he commented.

Senior European Union officials in Brussels also shared in the celebratory mood. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who long been a vocal candidate of closer EU ties with Ukraine, said the step to open membership talks was “a strategic decision and a day that will remain engraved in the history of our Union.”

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The news from Brussels has provided Ukrainians with some timely cheer amid mounting gloom due to the military stalemate in the war with Russia and signs of a weakening in Western resolve to continue backing Ukraine into 2024 and beyond. In recent months, a major new US aid package for Ukraine has become hostage to domestic politics, while internal divisions have emerged within the EU over ambitious plans to provide Ukraine with a long-term support program. Meanwhile, pledges of new aid from Ukraine’s international partners have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the Russian invasion.

These negative signals have caused considerable alarm among Ukrainian audiences, and have fueled a wave of international speculation over the potentially disastrous consequences of a Russian victory if Ukraine is abandoned. Meanwhile, the mood in Moscow has become increasingly jubilant, with Putin boasting recently that Ukraine would have “one week to live” if Western military aid came to a halt.

The EU’s decision will significantly alter the optics around the Russian invasion while providing new impetus to Ukraine’s war effort. While the start of accession negotiations does not come with any guarantees of future EU membership, it represents a major milestone for Ukraine in a geopolitical reformation that first began decades ago and has gained unprecedented momentum against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion.

Since 1991, all of independent Ukraine’s political leaders have paid lip service to the country’s European identity. However, during the early years of independence, almost nothing was done to promote Ukraine’s EU integration. This lack of progress was highlighted in 2002 when European Commission President Romano Prodi suggested Ukraine was about as plausible a candidate for EU membership as New Zealand.

Things changed in 2004 when millions of Ukrainians took to the streets to protest a rigged presidential election and defend their country’s fledgling democracy. The Orange Revolution was to prove a watershed moment for Ukraine and the wider post-Soviet region. It marked an ideological parting of the ways with Putin’s increasingly authoritarian Russia, while putting Ukrainian integration on the EU agenda for the first time.

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In the years following the Orange Revolution, Kyiv and Brussels began negotiating a comprehensive EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. By the time this document was finally ready, pro-Kremlin politician Viktor Yanukovych had become president of Ukraine. Despite favoring closer ties with Moscow, Yanukovych had made an election campaign promise to maintain Ukraine’s European integration. However, just days before he was set to sign the Association Agreement, Russia pressured Yanukovych into a dramatic U-turn. This rejection sparked a repeat of Ukraine’s 2004 street protests. After months of heavy-handed crackdowns including the killing of dozens of protesters, Yanukovych was eventually deserted by his Ukrainian allies and fled to Russia. Days later, Russian troops began the invasion of Ukraine with the seizure of Crimea.

The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2014 has driven Ukrainian support for EU integration to record highs. Prior to 2014, opinion polls often identified similar levels of Ukrainian public backing for closer ties with both Russia and the European Union. However, the past decade of escalating Russian aggression has drastically reduced any lingering enthusiasm for a return to the Kremlin orbit. Instead, recent surveys consistently indicate that around eighty percent of Ukrainians back EU membership. This shift in opinion is mirrored across the EU, where support for future Ukrainian membership has grown considerably since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Over the past decade, Ukraine’s EU aspirations have come to represent the country’s dreams of a national transformation away from the authoritarian past and toward a democratic, European future. Russia’s increasingly violent response to these aspirations has served to convince more and more Ukrainians of the need to turn decisively away from Moscow and pursue EU membership.

This sentiment is now shared by a clear majority of European leaders, who have reached the conclusion that Ukraine can no longer remain in the geopolitical grey zone and must instead be integrated into the EU. The road ahead toward eventual membership remains long and challenging, but today’s decision is a big win for Ukrainians and a huge moment in Ukraine’s historic return to the European community of nations.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Nothing on Ukraine’s reform agenda is more important than judicial reform. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that Ukraine’s future prosperity and international position depend on the effective reform of the country’s legal system. This is well understood in Kyiv’s corridors of power. Against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing invasion, Ukraine continues to work with international partners to implement effective rule of law reforms.

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Judicial reform has been consistently close to the top of the government’s agenda ever since President Zelenskyy was first elected in 2019, and has remained so in the current wartime environment. Progress has included fulfilling the conditions set by the European Commission regarding the composition of the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges. Changes have also been introduced to the selection procedure for Constitutional Court judges in line with Venice Commission recommendations.

As part of efforts to counter the threat of politically motivated appointments within the Ukrainian justice system, Ukraine has taken the unprecedented step of involving the country’s international partners in the selection of members to serve on reformed judicial bodies. For example, selection committees have featured the participation of senior British and American officials with extensive experience in the UK and US justice systems. Following months of consultations and negotiations with the Venice Commission and the European Commission, legislation has also been adopted to create an advisory group of experts including international representatives charged with selecting potential judges for Ukraine’s Constitutional Court.

Advancing Ukraine’s unprecedented judicial reform agenda requires a careful balance between achieving meaningful change, protecting the rights of every Ukrainian citizen, and maintaining maximum transparency. Measures are in place to ensure Ukraine’s international partners are informed of any new initiatives, with the G7 group of ambassadors paying particularly close attention to developments and offering positive assessments of recent progress.

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While wartime advances in Ukraine’s judicial reform agenda are encouraging, many major challenges remain. For example, there are currently almost two thousand vacancies for judges in Ukraine. It is absolutely critical to fill these vacancies with the best candidates, who must be subjected to rigorous and competitive selection procedures that scrutinize both their professionalism and their integrity. The future of Ukraine’s judicial system depends on it.

As they defend their statehood and national identity, Ukrainians are acutely aware that they are writing a fresh chapter in the country’s history. Together with an international coalition of partner countries, they are building a new Ukraine that is already emerging as a trusted and valued member of the democratic world. A firm commitment to establishing the rule of law is absolutely foundational to this process.

Despite the uniquely challenging circumstances created by Russia’s ongoing invasion, there is currently reason for cautious optimism regarding the further reform of the Ukrainian legal system. For arguably the first time in the history of independent Ukraine, all the necessary elements are now in place to achieve lasting judicial reform. These include the requisite political will on the part of both president and parliament, along with the active participation of Ukrainian civil society and expert support from the country’s international partners. This helps make continued reform progress possible, even amid Europe’s biggest armed conflict since World War II.

Denys Maslov is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament with the Servant of the People party and head of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Legal Policy. Oleksandr Vasiuk is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament with the Servant of the People party and a member of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Legal Policy.

kyusko — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 20:46:53 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

On November 29, IPSI/GCH nonresident fellow Parker Novak published a piece via the Lowy Institute, titled “Timor-Leste’s uncertain future.” He wrote that “Timor-Leste has accomplished a great deal over the past two decades but faces headwinds that, if left unaddressed, could undo much of what it has achieved.”

On November 30, Novak also published an article titled “Timor-Leste faces uncertainty in every direction” in the Jakarta Post. In his piece, he explained that despite its status as “one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant and resilient democracies,” Timor-Leste currently faces a number of serious economic, environmental, geopolitical, transnational, and domestic political challenges.

Fellow

Parker Novak

Nonresident Fellow

Australia Democratic Transitions

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Putin debunks his own propaganda by disarming Russia’s NATO borders

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 20:34:23 +0000

For the past twenty-one months, Vladimir Putin has consistently blamed NATO for provoking the invasion of Ukraine. According to the Kremlin dictator, years of NATO expansion posed an escalating security threat to Russia that eventually left the country with no choice but to defend itself. This NATO narrative has proven far more persuasive among international audiences than Russia’s more outlandish propaganda about “Ukrainian Nazis” and “Western Satanists.” However, it is now being debunked by Russia’s own actions. From Norway in the Arctic north to Kaliningrad in the west, Russia is making a mockery of Putin’s claims by dramatically reducing its military presence along the country’s borders with the NATO Alliance. If Putin genuinely believed NATO posed a threat to Russia, would he voluntarily disarm his entire front line?

This rather obvious flaw in the Kremlin’s logic was thrust into the spotlight on November 26 when Britain’s Ministry of Defense reported that Russia had likely withdrawn vital air defense systems from its Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad to cover mounting losses in Ukraine. Many saw this as a particularly significant development as Kaliningrad is Russia’s most westerly outpost and is bordered on three sides by NATO member states. If Russian leaders were remotely serious about the possibility of a military confrontation with NATO, Kaliningrad is the last place they would want to leave undefended.

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The weakening of Kaliningrad’s air defenses is the latest in a series of steps that have revealed the reality behind Moscow’s frequent anti-NATO rhetoric. The first major indication that Russia was being less than honest about its NATO fears came in May 2022, when Sweden and Finland announced plans to abandon decades of neutrality and join the Alliance. Just a few months earlier, the Kremlin had paraded its NATO grievances in a bid to justify the bloodiest European invasion since World War II. In stark contrast, Russia now responded to the news from Stockholm and Helsinki with a shrug.

The complete lack of concern on display in Moscow was all the more remarkable given the fact that Finnish NATO accession would more than double Russia’s existing border with the Alliance, while Swedish membership would transform the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake. Nevertheless, Putin insisted Russia had “no problem” with this dramatic transformation of the geopolitical landscape in Northern Europe. He actively sought to downplay the issue, declining even to deploy the dark arts of Russian hybrid warfare or otherwise attempt to interfere in the accession process.

The Kremlin response to NATO’s recent Nordic expansion has extended beyond mere indifference. In the eighteen months since Finland’s announcement of impending NATO membership, Moscow has actively demilitarized the Finnish frontier and withdrawn the bulk of its troops away from the border zone for redeployment to the killing fields of Ukraine. Speaking in August 2023, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen confirmed that the border area was now “pretty empty” of Russian troops. “If we were a threat, they would certainly not have moved their troops away, even in a situation where they are engaged somewhere else,” she noted.

A similar process has been underway since February 2022 on Russia’s nearby border with NATO member Norway. Norwegian army chief General Eirik Kristoffersen revealed in September 2023 that Russia had withdrawn approximately 80% of its troops from the border zone. “Vladimir Putin knows very well that NATO is not a threat against Russia,” commented Kristoffersen. “If he believed we were threatening Russia, he couldn’t have moved all his troops to Ukraine.”

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Putin’s readiness to demilitarize his country’s borders with neighboring NATO members is damning evidence that the decision to invade Ukraine had nothing to do with an alleged NATO threat to Russia itself. This does not mean his attacks on the Alliance are entirely insincere, of course. The vitriol Putin frequently displays toward NATO is real enough, but it does not reflect any legitimate security concerns. Instead, Putin resents NATO because it thwarts his revanchist agenda and prevents Russia from bullying its neighbors in the traditional manner. In other words, NATO presents no danger whatsoever to Russian national security, but it does pose a very serious threat to Russian imperialism.

This has long been apparent to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, who clamored to join NATO following the fall of the USSR precisely because they sought protection against what was widely seen as the inevitable revival of Russian aggression. Indeed, while Putin equates NATO enlargement with Western expansionism, the post-1991 growth of the Alliance was in fact almost exclusively driven by fear of Russia among the many countries queuing up to join. Their concerns were shaped by decades and in some cases centuries of brutal subjugation at the hands of the Russian Empire in its Tsarist and Soviet forms. If Russians want somebody to blame for the current NATO presence on their doorstep, they would be well advised to look in the mirror.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now confirmed that these earlier fears of resurgent Russian imperialism were more than justified. Putin himself has openly compared the current invasion to Russian Tsar Peter the Great’s eighteenth century wars of imperial conquest, and has referred to occupied Ukrainian regions as “historical Russian lands.” He routinely denies Ukraine’s right to exist, while insisting Ukrainians are Russians (“one people”). Meanwhile, incitement to genocide has become completely normalized on Russian state television, with Russian soldiers in Ukraine acting on this genocidal rhetoric. The entire NATO narrative has served as a convenient smokescreen for what is a classic campaign of colonial conquest to destroy independent Ukraine.

The Kremlin knows very well that it has nothing to fear from NATO, and is evidently comfortable leaving its borders with the Alliance unguarded. Despite his anti-NATO posturing, Putin is actually motivated by a rising sense of alarm over the emergence of a democratic Ukraine, which he sees as an existential threat to his own authoritarian regime and a hated symbol of Russia’s post-1991 retreat from empire. As Ukraine has gradually slipped further and further away from the Kremlin orbit during Putin’s reign, his responses have become increasingly extreme, evolving from political interference in the 2000s to escalating military aggression since 2014. We have now reached the stage of open genocide.

With the invasion of Ukraine set to enter a third year, too many Western commentators and politicians are still laboring under the delusion that some kind of compromise with the Kremlin remains possible. This assumes the invasion of Ukraine is a conventional war with limited geopolitical objectives, which is clearly not the case. Instead, Putin is a messianic leader convinced of his own historic mission, who has staked everything on the destruction of the Ukrainian state and the reversal of Russia’s Cold War defeat. By pointing the finger of blame at NATO, Putin has sought to distract attention from this chilling reality, but a brief look at Russia’s recently demilitarized NATO borders should be enough to dismiss such claims.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Introduction

On October 26, 2023, the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative hosted its Second Annual Conference titled, “Balancing global engagement and domestic growth: Iraq’s future in and evolving landscape,” with an array of American and Iraqi experts, including former and current senior-level government officials and scholars. The event featured welcome remarks by Abbas Kadhim, Director of the Iraq Initiative at the Atlantic Council, and opening remarks by Olin Wethington, Founder and Chairman of Wethington International LLC.

This hybrid conference featured three panels: The first panel focused on creating a climate-resilient Iraq. It was moderated by Ahmed Al Qabany, Senior Climate Change Specialist, Climate Change Group at the World Bank, and included the following as speakers: Majid Jafar, Chief Executive Officer of Crescent Petroleum; Mishkat Al Moumin, Executive Director of Envirolution and Former Iraqi Minister of Environment; H.E. Fareed Yaseen, Climate Envoy of the Republic of Iraq; and Elfatih Eltahir, Professor at H.M. King Bhumibol.

The second panel focused on highlighting the youth’s perspectives on shaping a modern Iraq. It was moderated by Hezha Barzani, Assistant Director of empowerME at the Atlantic Council, and included the following speakers: Marsin Alshamary, Assistant Professor at Boston College, and Hamzeh Hadad, Adjunct Fellow at Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

The final panel highlighted Iraq’s growing role in regional affairs. It was moderated by Abbas Kadhim, and included the following speakers: H.E. Nazar Al-Khirullah, Iraqi Ambassador to the United States; David Mack, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs & US Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates; and Douglas Silliman, President of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, and Former US Ambassador to Iraq.

Opening remarks

Iraq is acknowledged for its crucial role in regional stability, combating extremism, and the potential of its energy resources to fuel prosperity within and beyond its borders. Notably, Iraq has successfully conducted five rounds of open parliamentary elections since 2004, each culminating in a peaceful transfer of power- a significant achievement that underscores its democratic progress.

In light of recent regional challenges, specifically the conflict between Hamas and Israel, Wethington affirmed that the United States remains committed to a partnership with Iraq to contain the conflict and address long term issues. He emphasized that while Iraq still faces foreign interference and security threats, it stands as a voice for moderation and democracy in the region. Wethington closed with three distinct observations from his September visit to Baghdad, highlighting Iraq as a functioning sovereign state with aims of addressing the practical needs of its people, needs for leveraging its substantial economic resources for future development beyond the oil sector, and emphasizing a focus on economic fundamentals, job creation, governance, service delivery, and social priorities such as education and health.

Panel Takeaways

I. Climate-Resilient Iraq

Iraq’s environmental challenges arise from a mix of global climate change effects and specific issues rooted in the nation’s unique geographical circumstances. Climate change acts as a threat multiplier, and when combined with conflict, the impacts intensify. Jafar mentioned that the war against Daesh alone resulted in the destruction of numerous towns and villages, producing over 50 million tons of debris. Iraq is particularly vulnerable due to its water scarcity and external control over its water sources. However, Yaseen reckoned Iraq is resilient and there is a growing national interest in climate change now.

Yaseen indicated that Iraq faces two main threats from climate change: direct impacts like increasing temperatures and indirect impacts from global economic shifts. Eltahir noted that Iraq, positioned northwest of the Persian Gulf and east of the Mediterranean Sea, faces the threat of extreme heat waves due to its geography. When looking at the Gulf area, Iraq stands out as one of the area’s most susceptible to heat stress that combine temperature and humidity. Particularly, the southern region around Basra will likely endure significant heat stress. In contrast, the northern and central desert regions of Iraq are most at risk of experiencing dry, extreme heat. According to Eltahir, agriculture is the primary sector impacted by climate change, as outdoor activities will be challenged by heat and water stress. Thus, there will be a need for major adjustments in Iraq’s economic activities, particularly when it comes to investing in green agriculture, given the water scarcity.

Iraq contends with significant water, land, and air pollution. Every day, the country discharges 5 million cubic meters of sewage into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Jafar stated that air pollution significantly affects citizens, as Iraq stands as one of the world’s top methane emitters, with substantial flaring evident in the South. In the Middle East, the primary issue isn’t coal but liquid fuels, but gas can still play a vital role in displacing these dirtier fuels. Jafar highlighted that Crescent Petroleum provides gas in the Kurdistan region that powers 85% of the area, benefiting 6 million citizens while avoiding over 5 million tons of CO2 emissions annually – notably, this is equivalent to the carbon emissions saved by all Tesla cars globally.

Al Moumin underscored the deep connections between climate change, education, security, and stability in Iraq. Approaching climate change solely as an environmental issue neglects the crucial areas of security and public education. She highlighted one environmental organization in Iraq, the Women and the Environment Organization, which successfully engaged and empowered rural women in Southern Iraq. Through educational sessions, these women realized their role in the environmental decision-making process.

II. Youth Perspectives on Sociopolitical Realities

Iraqi youth share significant similarities with youth in other Middle Eastern countries, indicating that Iraq is transitioning from being a unique case to facing more common regional challenges. Alshamary highlighted a notable shift in political terminology, in particular with the term “madani” (meaning civil). It represents a form of secularism without the western-associated non-conservative undertones that secularism tends to have in the Middle East. Many Islamist parties in the region are now portraying themselves with a conservative democratic image, emphasizing their appeal to a conservative society without a strict foundation in Islam. She explained that this shift signifies the active role and influence of youth in societal transformations.

Historical challenges have also shaped the perspectives of Iraqi youth, notably when it comes to the failure of ISIS in destabilizing the 2003 state. Hadad noted a significant political shift within the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The KRG, which once held more power than the weaker federal government in Baghdad, now finds itself in a reversed dynamic, with Baghdad gaining strength and the KRG weakening. However, he highlighted that this shift may not be permanent, given the 20-year history of both governments not adhering to constitutional mandates and focusing on power dynamics instead.

Baghdad’s does not want to eliminate the KRG, rather, it wants to debilitate it because a takeover would be overly intricate. This approach stipulates the potential for a more balanced relationship between Baghdad and the KRG. Hadad underscored that achieving a realistic equilibrium between the two governments will be a time-consuming process. The KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) are undergoing internal changes. Hadad asserted that an explicit understanding of their leadership is preliminary for a stable, rules-based federalist state. As the country moves towards greater stability, Hadad remains hopeful for the youth to constructively tackle issues like federalism, public employment, and constitutional debates.

Hadad and Alshamary acknowledged the significant role of social media. Hadad criticized Iraqi politicians for their overreliance on social media and urged a shift back to more traditional forms of dialogue to mitigate the rising tribalism and creation of echo chambers, akin to Western trends. Hadad stresses that while social media brings benefits, the challenges it presents in Iraq mirror those in other countries, with a nuanced difference in freedom of speech, especially post-Tishreen, where individuals face risks for their online expressions. Alshamary added concerns about the alarming levels of misinformation on Iraqi social media and the decline of traditional media. She pointed out that the Iraqi state news channel remains the lone credible source, with other channels viewed skeptically due to perceived party affiliations and biases. Notably while Twitter is popular for showing trends, it is not the preferred platform for most Iraqis.

III. Foreign Policy and Economic Trajectory

Over the years, Iraq has worked on building an independent foreign policy as part of refraining from partaking in regional divisions. Al Khirullah pointed out that Iraq recognizes that cooperation within the region is currently underdeveloped compared to other continents due to the challenge of building and maintaining trust among the region’s governments. This led to the fruition of the Baghdad conference to address challenges facing the region as a whole including terrorism, climate change, and energy cooperation, as noted by Al-Khirullah.

Silliman highlighted that foreign policy is essential for Iraq due to its strategic geopolitical location. Indeed, building effective foreign relations can provide economic, security, and political benefits, and can specifically address domestic issues like energy shortages and water problems, while also stimulating trade and tourism, and generally improving the political and economic prospects of the Iraqi youth. Mack noted that Iraq has been instrumental in fostering regional dialogues, such as the discussions between Riyadh and Tehran. However, Silliman pointed out that Baghdad is perceived to have excessive Iranian influence, complicating Iraq’s role as an impartial mediator.

Nevertheless, Mack observed Iraq’s growing competence in managing its affairs with historically intrusive neighbors, particularly Turkey and Iran. Iraq’s strategic deepening of relations with the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, and Egypt holds significant potential for regional transformation. Mack contended that Iraq could emerge as a pivotal transportation and energy nexus, potentially drive economic growth and stability in a historically volatile region. This carries the promise of infrastructural enhancement, greater diplomatic influence, and a more interconnected Middle East.

Al-Khirullah and Mack both asserted that the relationship between Iraq and the United States has evolved beyond just security and defense. Economic relations have become a primary focus, and there’s an aim to attract American companies back to Iraq. Although there have been challenges on both sides, Al-Khirullahunderscored the ample economic opportunities to be explored since Iraq places significant value on not just large American companies, but also small and medium-sized enterprises. Also, Al-Khirullah recognized Kuwait as a significant supportive partner when it comes to investment opportunities, albeit Kuwait has only expressed interest thus far.

Recommendations

Building a climate-resilient Iraq

Yaseen suggests establishing climate-smart agricultural villages for arid environments, and to collaborate with countries like the United States and Australia who have expertise in managing water-stressed areas.
Al Moumin and Jafar recommend embedding environmental awareness into early stages of academic curriculums and management. Al Moumin also advocates for a scholar-practitioner strategy to harness local knowledge and involve communities in decision-making processes.
Eltahir recommends investing in agricultural research and technology for Iraq to be able to navigate water and heat shortages challenges. He also suggests adopting water-saving technologies, along with implementing an appropriate pricing system that could incentivize people to switch to using those systems technologies.

Changing the youth perspectives on sociopolitical realities

Alshamary urges an increase in youth engagement. She highlights that it is essential to actively involve youth in policymaking and implementation processes. She proposes that Iraq should encourage youth to venture into the private sector and entrepreneurial endeavors, leading to diversified economic growth and job creation.
Hadad recommends adopting successful economic systems from other countries, leveraging the tried-and-tested strategies to foster economic diversification. This will can enable youth to sidestep common errors, and craft policies suited to Iraq’s needs.

Foreign Policy and Economic Trajectory

Al-Khirullah recommends fostering partnerships between Iraq and foreign private sectors.
Silliman recommends adopting a technically driven diplomatic approach to tackle water-sharing issues, especially with Turkey.
Silliman and Al-Khirullah urge the need to highlight Iraq’s civilization, culture, and traditions to improve its international standings, and to realize its rich resources and potential for development in various sectors, including education and culture.
Mack suggests Iraq continues strengthening its democratic institutions and processes by leveraging its regional relationships. He supports Iraq’s current direction, including its maintenance of electoral democracy amidst regional engagement and internal challenges.

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Wartime Ukraine is making historic progress toward EU membership

Mark Temnycky — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 14:05:15 +0000

In early November, the European Commission recommended that EU accession negotiations begin with Ukraine. EU leaders are now expected to confirm this decision in mid-December. This would represent a major milestone in Ukraine’s long quest for European integration that would reflect the historic changes taking place throughout Ukrainian society and in the country’s political arena.

In the last week of November, Ukraine marked ten years since the start of protests in late 2013 over then president Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to turn away from an association agreement with the European Union. When thousands of Ukrainians flooded into central Kyiv’s Independence Square (“Maidan Nezalezhnosti”) to oppose this sudden U-turn, Yanukovych responded with a heavy-handed crackdown that transformed a protest movement into a revolution. By the time the Euromaidan Revolution was over three months later, dozens of protesters had been killed and Yanukovych had fled to Russia.

In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Russia launched a military operation to seize control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. This was to prove the first act in ten years of escalating Russian military aggression against Ukraine that would eventually lead to the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

Russia’s use of force has caused untold suffering but it has failed to reverse Ukraine’s historic pivot toward Europe. On the contrary, Ukrainian public support for European integration has surged over the past decade to record highs, while enthusiasm for closer ties with Moscow has evaporated.

Political developments have mirrored this historic shift in Ukrainian public opinion. In summer 2014, new Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko reversed his predecessor’s rejection and signed a landmark association agreement with the EU. Following the successful implementation of anti-corruption reforms and other measures to bring Ukrainian legislation more into line with European Union norms, Ukraine secured visa-free EU travel in 2017.

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In the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy officially applied for EU membership. The move was a clever piece of political theater that drew attention to Russia’s war aim of derailing Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration and robbing the country of its independence. European leaders certainly seemed to recognize the significance of the moment. Four months later, they officially granted Ukraine EU candidate nation status.

Candidate status was accompanied by a list of seven recommendations Ukraine needed to address before it could be considered for full EU membership. Tasks included judicial reform and progress in the fight against corruption along with measures to tame the influence of oligarchs, improve press freedoms, and protect national minorities.

Ukraine’s progress over the past year on these seven points was deemed sufficient by the European Commission to recommend the opening of official membership talks. This progress included steps to reform appointments within the judiciary and measures targeting graft. Meanwhile, new legislation has imposed restrictions on the ability of oligarchs to influence Ukrainian politics. The European Commission responded by stating that Ukraine had implemented “important measures to curb the oligarchs’ grip on public life.”

Significant challenges remain. The recent European Commission report recommending membership talks called on Ukraine to further revise existing legislation protecting the rights of national minorities. This has long been a point of contention, particularly as EU member state Hungary has stated its determination to block Ukraine’s EU integration until its demands regarding Ukraine’s Hungarian minority are met.

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While multiple obstacles lie ahead, Ukraine’s reform efforts have drawn praise from senior EU officials in Brussels. “Ukrainians are deeply reforming their country, even as they are fighting a war that is existential for them,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a recent address. “Ukraine has completed well over 90 percent of the necessary steps that the Commission set out last year in its report.”

Ukrainians are now looking forward to the next EU summit in December and are optimistic that European leaders will back the opening of official accession negotiations. This would be a genuine geopolitical breakthrough for the country, although it would not guarantee Ukraine’s future place among EU member states. Advancing toward membership would still take time, but the start of talks would provide some very welcome momentum to Ukraine’s European integration drive, while also acknowledging the considerable progress the country has made toward meeting the reform requirements set out by the European Union in summer 2022.

Ukraine has defied expectations by implementing ambitious and comprehensive reform measures in the most extreme of wartime conditions. This reflects Ukraine’s commitment to a European future and underlines the importance of EU integration for Ukrainians at a time when they are fighting for their country’s survival.

The Ukrainian authorities have made clear that they view EU membership as a strategic priority and are fully committed to pursuing this goal, even while defending themselves against Russia’s ongoing invasion. It is now up to EU leaders to make history in the coming weeks by officially opening accession negotiations.

Mark Temnycky is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 21:21:36 +0000

The European Commission has this week recommended opening EU membership negotiations with Ukraine. The recommendation, which featured in the Commission’s annual enlargement report, was accompanied by a number of conditions regarding further progress on issues including minority rights and the fight against corruption. The stage is now set for official confirmation when EU leaders gather in December.

The European Commission’s decision was welcomed in Kyiv as a major milestone in Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy toasted the news as “a strong and historic step that paves the way to a stronger EU with Ukraine as its member.” Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry posted that the country was now returning to its European roots.

The start of accession negotiations does not mean Ukraine is now guaranteed EU membership, of course. On the contrary, a long road lies ahead marked by numerous bureaucratic obstacles and demands regarding Ukraine’s continued adoption of EU norms. Nevertheless, this week’s green light for membership talks represents genuinely historic progress at a time when Ukrainians are fighting to defend their independence and their right to choose a European future.

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2014 in the immediate aftermath of Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution, which saw millions of Ukrainians protest against a Kremlin-backed turn away from European integration. Since the onset of Russian aggression almost ten years ago, Ukrainian public support for EU membership has surged to unprecedented highs, while enthusiasm for a return to the Russian sphere of influence has dwindled to negligible levels.

The Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service asked a range of Ukrainian politicians and academics for their thoughts on what the European Commission’s recommendation means for today’s Ukraine and for the country’s future.

Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy: We consider ourselves part of the European Union family and are sincerely grateful for this week’s European Commission decision to recommend accession talks. This is just one of many important steps, but it is a significant signal which gives us hope.

There is still a lot of joint work ahead to confirm Ukraine’s position as a fully-fledged member of the European family and to make the Ukrainian economy part of the single European market. To achieve this, we will continue working on a wide range of reforms. This includes the reform of public administration, justice systems, the fight against corruption, and economic reforms. Ukraine is on a path toward great improvements in the coming years that I hope will deepen the country’s EU integration.

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Kira Rudik, Ukrainian MP, leader of Golos party: The European Commission’s recommendation to open EU accession negotiations with Ukraine is not just a formal green light for our path toward EU membership. It is also of huge importance for every Ukrainian. This decision is a source of motivation for our defenders; it is essential for them to know that while fighting continues along the front lines of the war with Russia, many people in the rear are actively working to bring us closer to our goal as a nation.

This is a chance to secure a democratic European future for our children, many of whom have become used to studying and sleeping in bomb shelters. Ultimately, this is an opportunity and at the same time a challenge for all of us as a state. When I am asked what the journey toward EU membership means for Ukrainians, I usually say that we are on our way home.

Lisa Yasko, Ukrainian MP, Servant of the People party: The European Commission decision is a crucial step that confirms the EU is serious when it speaks of Ukraine as a future member. I believe this decision is also highly significant for the EU itself, as Ukraine’s European integration has the potential to become a success story that will strengthen the image of the entire bloc.

The allocation of 50 billion euros is a further clear signal that Europe is ready to partner with Ukraine right now to achieve the country’s European future. I am particularly happy to see that our European partners are objective in their approach toward Ukraine and recognize our achievements including progress in constitutional justice, anti-corruption efforts, and the fight against money laundering.

It is important to stress that the European Commission’s report also contains recommendations for further steps in the reform process, such as rebooting the Bureau of Economic Security, developing a new Customs Code, and criminalizing smuggling. This is not just a question of having the requisite political will to continue these reforms; it is an existential issue for all Ukrainians. We must now keep working to bring EU membership closer, because Europe without Ukraine is unthinkable and Ukraine is unthinkable without Europe.

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Oleksiy Goncharenko, Ukrainian MP, European Solidarity party: It has now been almost 10 years since the Revolution of Dignity when Ukrainians first declared that Ukraine belongs in Europe. We have already proven ourselves by protecting democratic values on the battlefield. We are paying the highest price possible for our right to be a democratic and free country.

Support for EU integration within Ukrainian society has never been stronger than it is today. We are grateful that the European Commission recognizes our efforts and recommends the start of accession talks. This decision has sent an extremely valuable signal that Ukraine is part of Europe. The European Commission has confirmed that it is not a question of “if” but “when” Ukraine will join the EU.

At the same time, we understand that there is still much work to be done on the path toward future membership. Upcoming EU summits in December 2023 and next year will provide a better understanding of what the next steps will be. We have already demonstrated that we are capable of carrying out reforms in wartime conditions and have no intention of stopping. On the contrary, we will proceed with reforms for the sake of our country’s future development and will continue to advance toward the goal of EU membership.

Volodymyr Dubovyk, associate professor, Odesa Mechnikov National University: The European Commission’s recommendation is good news for Ukrainians in general. It confirms that Ukraine belongs in the European family of nations.

This decision is important feedback that recognizes Ukraine’s strenuous efforts to meet key EU membership criteria, including requirements that have been outlined during the extreme wartime circumstances of the past twenty months. It directs Ukraine to conduct further reforms while offering the clear incentive of a realistic EU membership perspective rather the vague talk of future integration. This should give new impetus to meaningful change in Ukraine.

The start of accession talks will deepen ties between the EU and Ukraine, including in terms of trade relations. This might help resolve certain tensions with some of Ukraine’s neighbors. EU security assistance will also be enhanced, with the EU becoming an even more important partner in this sphere than at present. In other words, this is a sign of deepening commitment by both sides. Crucially, it is also a very welcome development for Ukrainians living with the reality of an existential war, which proves that their fight is not in vain.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Peace is impossible while Vladimir Putin denies Ukraine’s right to exist

Taras Kuzio — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 15:25:32 +0000

Recent comments by Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, claiming that the war with Russia has reached a “stalemate,” have sparked fresh calls for a negotiated settlement. While this desire to end the bloodshed in Ukraine is perfectly understandable, anyone advocating a peace deal with Vladimir Putin must first reckon with the genocidal reality of Russia’s invasion. Putin himself has repeatedly made clear that he denies Ukraine’s right to exist and is determined to extinguish Ukrainian statehood. Unless he is defeated, any compromise agreement would merely set the stage for the next phase in Russia’s campaign to wipe Ukraine off the map.

Putin’s obsession with Ukraine and his rejection of the country’s historical legitimacy were on full display recently during a November 3 address to Russia’s Public Chamber. “There was no Ukraine in the Russian Empire,” he declared. The Russian dictator went on to repeat many of his most notorious historical distortions, including the claim that Ukraine had been artificially created by Vladimir Lenin and the early Soviet authorities “at the expense of southern Russian lands.”

Such arguments are not new. Indeed, Putin has been weaponizing history to delegitimize independent Ukraine for nearly two decades, with this trend escalating dramatically during the build-up to the current full-scale invasion. In July 2021, Putin published a 6,000-word essay attacking Ukraine as an artificial state and arguing that Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”). This chilling treatise was widely circulated throughout the Russian military and has since come to be viewed as the ideological basis for the invasion of Ukraine.

Months after the outbreak of hostilities, Putin compared his invasion of Ukraine to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great while claiming that he was “returning Russian lands.” During subsequent ceremonials marking the “annexation” of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, he declared these regions would be part of Russia “forever.” On the first anniversary of the invasion, Putin told crowds in Moscow that Russia was fighting for its “historical lands” in Ukraine.

Putin’s historical illiteracy and duplicity were once again on display in spring 2023 when he publicly inspected a seventeenth century French map depicting the lands of Eastern Europe including today’s Ukraine. The Russian dictator pointed to the map as supposed proof that “no Ukraine ever existed in the history of mankind,” despite the fact that Ukraine was clearly indicated by name on the map.

If he had been paying more attention, Putin would have noticed that the map did not contain any references to the Russian Empire, which was at the time known as Muscovy. Nor did it feature his own hometown, Saint Petersburg, which was not founded until the beginning of the eighteenth century. In contrast, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is thought to date back over 1500 years, making it far older than Russia’s leading cities.

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Putin is not the first Russian ruler to deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation. On the contrary, Ukraine denial has been a central pillar of Russian imperial policy for centuries. The Russian Empire consistently refused to acknowledge Ukraine precisely because the repression of Ukrainian national identity was regarded as essential for the survival of the Czarist regime. Instead, Ukrainians were labelled as “Little Russians” by the Czarist authorities, who banned the Ukrainian language while declaring, “a separate Little Russian language never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.”

Putin’s insistence on Ukraine’s alleged lack of legitimacy reflects Russia’s deep insecurity about its own past. Generations of Russians have traced their national story back to Ukraine and the Kyivan Rus state of medieval Europe. However, many historians regard today’s Russia as the successor to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which first rose to regional prominence as a vassal state of the Mongol Empire long after the decline and fall of the Kyivan Rus.

Despite these tenuous ties to the Kyivan Rus era, Russian rulers since the seventeenth century have laid claim to Kyiv’s historical legacy in order to justify the colonization of Ukraine and strengthen their European credentials. Putin has continued this tradition, unveiling a huge monument to tenth century Kyivan Rus ruler Prince Volodymyr the Great in central Moscow in 2016, despite the fact that the Russian capital city was not founded until more than a century after Volodymyr’s death.

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Following the 1991 collapse of the USSR, growing international awareness of Ukrainian history has raised awkward questions about many deeply engrained aspects of Russia’s national narrative dating back to the Czarist and Soviet eras. This helps to explain why Putin and other members of the Russian establishment regard the consolidation of Ukrainian statehood as an existential threat to their own authoritarian empire. Independent Ukraine’s embrace of European democratic values has only served to heighten this sense of danger within the Russian elite.

Putin has sought to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a crusade for historical justice and the return of ancestral Russian lands. In reality, it is an old-fashioned colonial war that echoes the worst excesses of European imperialism. His mythologized version of Russian history is utterly incompatible with the notion of a separate Ukrainian nation; he is therefore obliged to deny its existence entirely.

This denial is now fueling a genocide in the heart of Europe. Russian troops have already killed thousands of Ukrainians and have deported millions more. Throughout the regions of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, the Russian occupation authorities are openly engaged in the methodical eradication of Ukrainian identity and the forced russification of the remaining population.

In such circumstances, international calls for a compromise peace are deeply disingenuous. It should be crystal clear to all objective observers that unless Ukraine can achieve a decisive victory, any pause in hostilities would merely provide the Kremlin with breathing space to rearm and regroup before renewing hostilities. Putin has weaponized history to justify the destruction of a neighboring state that threatens his dreams of a new Russian Empire. Until this imperial ideology is decisively defeated, the war will continue.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He is the winner of the 2022 Peterson Literary Prize for the book “Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War: Autocracy-Orthodoxy-Nationality.”

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Discussions over a possible EU-Ukraine association agreement first began following Ukraine’s landmark 2004 Orange Revolution, a popular uprising that represented the country’s first post-independence attempt to exit the Kremlin orbit and reintegrate with the wider European community. By 2013, both Ukraine and the European Union were poised to sign off on a deal that would take the bilateral relationship to a new level. However, Russia intervened at the eleventh hour, forcing Ukraine’s then president Viktor Yanukovych to perform a dramatic U-turn.

Thousands rallied in downtown Kyiv against Yanukovych’s decision. When they were brutally dispersed by riot police, these street protests escalated into a national uprising. What became known as the Euromaidan Revolution lasted from November 2013 until February 2014. By the time it was over, dozens of Ukrainians had been killed and Yanukovych had fled to Russia. Days later, Russian troops invaded Crimea and began a war that would eventually lead to the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

Throughout the past decade of escalating military hostilities with Russia, EU membership has become something of a talisman for Ukrainians, symbolizing their commitment to a democratic form of government and a European future. At a time when the Putin regime’s imperial aggression has poisoned attitudes toward Russia, more and more Ukrainians have embraced their country’s quest to join the European Union, with polls now consistently indicating 80 percent support or higher.

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Following the Euromaidan Revolution, Ukraine initially struggled to make any major progress in its bid to move closer to the European Union. The much-hyped EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was duly signed in summer 2014, but this highly technical document was then implemented in stages over the coming few years, leaving many observers distinctly underwhelmed. The only truly historic breakthrough came in summer 2017, when Ukrainians were granted visa-free access to the EU, ending years of widely resented visa restrictions that had often served as a physical barrier to European integration.

Ukraine’s EU membership bid has gained considerable momentum in the twenty months since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Four days after the start of the invasion, President Zelenskyy made headlines by signing an official application to join the EU. This clear stance on Ukraine’s European future was echoed by EU leaders, who were among the first to visit the Ukrainian capital during the early months of the war. In June 2022, Ukraine was granted official EU candidate country status in a move that was hailed as “historic” in both Brussels and Kyiv.

This week’s news of the latest potential milestone toward future Ukrainian EU membership comes at a time when Ukraine’s European partners are playing an increasingly prominent role in the international coalition supporting the country’s efforts to resist Russia’s ongoing invasion. By September 2023, Europe had “clearly overtaken the United States in promised aid to Ukraine.” In early October, this commitment was underlined when all 27 EU foreign ministers traveled to Kyiv in an unprecedented show of support for Ukraine.

Even if Ukraine moves closer to joining the European Union in the coming weeks, Kyiv will still need to win the war against Russia and reach comprehensive security agreements that will deter the Kremlin from repeating the current invasion. Few believe the EU is capable of providing such guarantees. Even so, further progress toward future EU membership will bring a range of practical advantages while providing Ukrainians with a timely morale boost and a clear indication that their country is moving in the right direction.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

It is also important to further strengthen Ukraine’s electoral system for parliamentary elections by removing loopholes for political corruption and tightening campaign finance regulations. If the regulation of money in politics is insufficient, it will keep the door open for illicit influence from Russia and from domestic oligarchs. That door needs to be effectively shut.

Another critical change will be replacing the current framework that pegs representation in parliament to the turnout of regions rather than to the size of the population in the regions. If Ukraine’s next parliament is represented in proportion to local turnouts, Ukrainians in the east and south of the country may be gravely underrepresented and alienated from the political process. Future elected representatives should represent the entire nation, not only the voters who turn up at polling stations on election day.

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The stakes could not be higher for getting postwar elections right in Ukraine. A failed election can jeopardize all other areas of reform, from combating corruption to advancing the rule of law and beyond.

Among its broader prewar electoral reform successes, Ukraine’s peaceful and well-administered transitions of power, notably parliamentary and presidential elections in 2019 and local elections in 2020, were regarded by international observation missions as demonstrating considerable progress. The European Parliament, Freedom House, and The Economist’s Democracy Index all recognized these elections as core indicators of the nation’s democracy.

While elections are currently on pause, and with good reason, Ukraine anticipates a torrent of elections once Russia’s all-out war of aggression ends. By prioritizing electoral reform now, Ukraine can lay the groundwork for a postwar era that is not just about recovery but also about resurgence, resilience, modernization, and a renewed commitment to the democratic ideals that define today’s Ukrainian nation and its fight for freedom.

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The sooner electoral reforms are initiated, the better. Meaningful and inclusive reform takes time. The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission recommends at least 12 months between major electoral reforms and election day. Experts, civil society, government, and lawmakers need time to convene, discuss, write, check, test, amend, adopt, and implement.

If reform is not conducted now, Ukrainian lawmakers will be forced to rush through significant reforms after the war. A hurried process will likely be neither transparent nor inclusive. With electoral reforms ready and refined, Ukraine can swiftly move toward holding free and fair elections and transition from wartime governance to democratic civilian rule.

A sufficient gap between reforms and election day ensures that political parties (including emerging political parties) and candidates have enough time to adjust to new rules. Voters inside and outside of Ukraine will also need time to update themselves on how, where, and when to register and vote, functions that will evolve given the need to enfranchise millions of forcibly displaced Ukrainians inside and outside the country. This is important as it will ensure that all citizens, including women who are disproportionately represented among the forcibly displaced, and all the Ukrainian men and women serving in the military, will have a say in the future of their country.

Notably, Ukraine will also need to train tens of thousands of election administrators, members of law enforcement, judges, observers, staff at its diplomatic missions, and other stakeholders on election procedures that will need to change. Prioritizing electoral reform now will position Ukraine for postwar democratic resilience and will underscore the nation’s dedication to sustaining and improving its democratic traditions, even in the face of great adversity.

Peter Erben is the principal advisor for IFES and senior country director for IFES Ukraine. Gio Kobakhidze is the deputy country director for IFES Ukraine.

According to the same logic, critics say failure to hold elections would discredit efforts to portray Ukraine as an emerging democracy defending itself against autocratic Russia, thereby weakening one of the central narratives underpinning Western support for Ukraine. Needless to say, Moscow can be expected to exploit any Ukrainian hesitancy in order to fuel skepticism toward Ukraine throughout the democratic world.

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So far, President Zelenskyy has responded cautiously to calls for wartime elections. He is clearly reluctant to dismiss the idea outright for fear of being labelled undemocratic, but has stressed that Ukraine would need considerable international support in order to organize elections in what are extremely challenging circumstances.

The logistical obstacles to holding elections in wartime Ukraine are formidable. Approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory is currently under Russian occupation. Many millions of Ukrainians are living outside the country as refugees, with millions more displaced internally. It would take considerable time and resources, to say the least, to create a credible electoral register.

The safety issues raised by a nationwide election campaign amid Russia’s ongoing invasion are similarly immense. How could soldiers fighting on the front line effectively participate in the campaign? Can politicians hold public meetings or campaign rallies without fear of being targeted by Russian air strikes? Aside from Kyiv, most Ukrainian cities have only limited air defenses. The prospect of holding any sort of public meeting in such conditions is fraught with danger.

The many safety concerns related to campaign meetings would apply equally to polling stations on election day. A single Russian attack on a polling station during voting hours could easily result in dozens of deaths. Russia’s track record for bombing civilian targets and public gatherings during the current war means there can be little doubt the Kremlin would seek to attack election-related events.

It is also reasonable to question the wisdom of exposing the country to a period of intense internal political competition amid a war of national survival. How could national unity be sustained through a three-month election campaign?

Clearly, technical innovations could be found to address some of these concerns. Perhaps Ukraine could deploy digital solutions for both campaigning and voting. Ultimately, however, the arguments against holding elections are compelling if not overwhelming. Any attempt to organize Ukrainian elections in today’s wartime conditions would be profoundly impractical and unsafe. Millions of refugees, displaced people, service personnel, and those living in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine would all potentially be unable to vote. It would amount to a dangerous as well as dubious exercise in democracy.

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Jason Marczak: A step forward for quiet diplomacy

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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While some in the West seem to think holding elections in wartime Ukraine is a good idea, the British government of 1940 would certainly not have agreed. One of the most striking aspects of the debate within the British parliament during World War II over the postponement of scheduled elections was the fact that there was almost no debate at all.

This lack of debate is underlined by the fact that Hansard (the British record of parliamentary debates) appears to record only one instance of Prime Minister Winston Churchill being asked about postponed elections in the course of the entire war. The pressing and obvious need to extend the life of the existing parliament until the defeat of Nazi Germany was clear to everyone.

Ukrainians can draw a number of lessons from past British practice during their own war of national survival. Notably, British politicians during World War II recognized that organizing elections amid a major war is likely to imperil the objective of victory. This was so self-evident to the British of the early 1940s that parliament hardly saw the need to discuss each of the five annual prolongation bills tabled by the Churchill government. It is also worth underlining that nobody attempted to criticize Britain’s position on wartime elections as “anti-democratic,” either at the time or in subsequent decades.

When a country is engaged in a war of national survival, the top priorities must be the prosecution of the war with maximum vigor and the maintenance of national unity. Any attempt to stage elections in today’s Ukraine would almost certainly distract from these two objectives. Crucially, millions of Ukrainians would be excluded from any wartime voting, while the authorities cannot possibly guarantee the safety of those who would theoretically be able to participate.

The utter impracticality of holding elections in wartime Ukraine would have been immediately apparent to Churchill and others from his era. Unfortunately, some Westerners from today’s far more comfortable generation do not appear to understand the terrible reality that Ukraine now lives with.

Dr. Alan Riley is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Geoff Ramsey: The opposition got significant concessions. Now comes the hard part.

Ellen R. Wald: Heartening progress for freedom, but no quick fix for Venezuela’s oil industry

David Goldwyn: A new direction for US sanctions on Venezuela comes not a moment too soon

William Tobin: Rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry has a hefty price tag

A step forward for quiet diplomacy

The restart of negotiations between the Venezuelan government and the opposition is a significant development that brings renewed, but cautious, hope for an eventual peaceful and democratic resolution to the systemic injustices in the country. Reports of an agreement by the United States to progressively ease certain sanctions in exchange for concrete democratic guarantees is a pragmatic step forward—though vigilant monitoring of any deal will be essential, as Maduro is not one whose words can be trusted.

This development, reached in Barbados in the presence of representatives of twelve countries and the European Union, comes amid news that last year’s major United Nations humanitarian accord to benefit the Venezuelan people will finally be implemented—an accord that we at the Atlantic Council have sought to advance since its signature. Releasing political prisoners and ensuring competitive conditions for the upcoming 2024 presidential elections are vital steps toward an inclusive process that can be internationally recognized. But these steps must mean all the international pre-, post- and day-of electoral conditions for a free and fair process be respected, including allowing the opposition to run a candidate without restrictions.

The road to reconciliation and genuine democratic progress remains a challenging one. Much work will be necessary to ensure vigilant monitoring and enforcement of any agreement to ensure that Maduro upholds his side of the bargain. The United States and the broader international community will have to keep a watchful eye, holding Maduro accountable for his promises and actions moving forward.

The resumption of talks is a step forward for quiet diplomacy and comes after months of groundwork. The global community should offer its support and assistance to democratic actors at the negotiating table in any way possible to help ensure that these negotiations lead to lasting peace and a brighter future for Venezuela. This calls for optimism and international cooperation, but also realism and greater multilateral coordination as we wait to see if this marks a potential turning point.

—Jason Marczak is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

The opposition got significant concessions. Now comes the hard part.

In the agreement signed Tuesday in Barbados, opposition negotiators managed to secure some very significant concessions, including a commitment from the government to hold next year’s presidential elections in the second half of 2024—giving the opposition more time to prepare—and a commitment to allow credible international electoral observation. They also obtained key technical conditions that are vital to making the vote more competitive, including an audit of electoral systems and an update of the voter registry.

By signing this agreement, the opposition has managed to force the government to budge ever so slightly. Now it’s up to the opposition, with the help of the United States and international community, to use this wiggle room to put Maduro off balance. The opposition, in its upcoming primaries on October 22, has a chance to reconnect with voters who have grown weary of politics in the absence of change. What Maduro fears most, more than any one political opponent, is a disciplined opposition that is popular, organized, and ready to mobilize its base in 2024. The prospect for renewed mobilization, in combination with the conditions achieved by the opposition in Tuesday’s agreement, create a golden opportunity.

In some ways, the most important agreements are still private. It’s an open secret that the Biden administration will announce some form of sanctions relief in response to Tuesday’s agreement and resumption of talks with the opposition. And reports indicate that the Maduro government will free multiple political prisoners in the coming days. These developments, if they occur, are unlikely to be isolated exchanges. The past few months of quiet backchanneling, in coordination with opposition negotiators, will almost certainly produce further agreements as the US-Venezuela relationship keeps shifting.

Now comes the hard part. Moving forward, the White House will have to monitor compliance and implementation in order to ensure that Maduro holds up his end of the bargain. But questions remain about whether and how the United States can snap back the pressure if the regime veers off course.

—Geoff Ramsey is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Heartening progress for freedom, but no quick fix for Venezuela’s oil industry

Although it is heartening to see progress towards freedom in Venezuela, the likelihood that these developments will materially impact the oil market is negligible. The troubles faced by the Venezuelan oil industry predate US sanctions and will continue to plague the country long after sanctions are eased. Even if sanctions were eased immediately, Venezuelan oil output might only increase by a mere 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). According to S&P Global, Venezuela produced only 770,000 bpd in September 2023. This is actually much improved since Venezuela hit a low of 500,000 bpd in 2020 but still far below the 2.6 million bpd Venezuela produced in 2005.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves of any country in the world, but most of that oil is a sludgy, heavy, sour crude that is locked in the Orinoco belt. To increase Venezuela’s oil production and bring that oil to market will require huge amounts of investment and expertise. Venezuela’s heavy oil must be run through upgraders that mix it with diluents just to transport it through pipelines to ports. Many of the companies that used to work with Venezuela’s state oil company, PdVSA, will likely be hesitant to reinvest their money and manpower in Venezuela given the likelihood that sanctions could be reimposed or that foreign nationals could be imprisoned. Even if the Maduro government does meet the Biden administration’s conditions and the sanctions are eased, there is no quick or easy fix for Venezuela’s oil industry.

—Ellen R. Wald is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center and the president of Transversal Consulting.

A new direction for US sanctions on Venezuela comes not a moment too soon

The Venezuelan-led political agreement reached in Barbados, and its subsequent joint statement, will now open the door to a long overdue redirection of the current US sanctions regime against Venezuela.

The series of economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, a “maximum pressure” strategy intended to dislodge the Maduro regime beginning in 2017, have had the perverse effect of causing both significant humanitarian distress inside Venezuela and undermining US strategic interests in the region and elsewhere. The sanctions, which prohibited trade in Venezuelan crude oil and products, even in exchange for debt owed by the regime, have been deeply unpopular with the Venezuelan public including those opposed to the regime because they caused enormous privation throughout Venezuelan society.

As a result, Venezuela has been short of crucial fuel supplies—fuel to transport food from farms to tables, fuel to power the electric grid, and gasoline essential for public mobility. The sanctions have not dislodged the regime, of course, but they have had the effect of increasing migration pressure on Venezuela’s neighbors as well as on the United States at a time of already significant immigration challenges in US cities.

Meanwhile, the sanctions have led to the redirection of nearly all exports of Venezuelan crude to China (at significant discounts) and created a major role for Iran as supplier of condensate needed to produce domestic gasoline. Deprived of access to Venezuelan crude, countries such as India (also barred from importing Iranian crude) saw increased demand for Russian crude, which matches the grade and quality their refineries require for domestic consumption. While China and Russia have been able to retire a significant part of the Venezuelan debt owed to them and improve living conditions in Venezuela, US and European creditors have been barred from doing so. Although Chevron has been allowed to resume operations to produce crude oil under conditions that provide minimal benefits to the regime, current US sanctions prohibit companies in France, Spain, and Italy from doing the same. Importantly, these countries have been key diplomatic partners in the effort to ensure the Venezuelan opposition can compete in legitimate elections in 2024, and they share the wider strategic goals and interests of the United States.

A refresh of the US sanctions program thus comes at a crucial moment—and not a moment too soon. Importantly, this revision should not be seen as a concession to the Maduro regime. Rather, it is a timely effort to mitigate the humanitarian crisis inside Venezuela and reduce migration pressure to the United States and its allies in Latin America. Furthermore, this necessary revision will enable Western companies (those which act with integrity) to return to Venezuela and increase crude oil production, which can be used to repay the debt owed to them. All of this is possible while also depriving China of discounted crude oil and potentially lessening demand for Russian crude oil as well. This change in posture has notable benefits to Venezuela’s developing country neighbors such as Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad has just received an amended license from the United States that will allow it to pay Venezuela in cash for the natural gas it will import from Venezuela’s Dragon Field. This gas will keep Trinidad’s ammonia and liquefied natural gas industries afloat and support its role on regional food and energy security.

If the sanctions revisions come to pass, allowing trade in Venezuelan oil and products as long as Venezuela keeps its electoral commitments, there is great potential to relieve humanitarian distress inside of Venezuela and throughout the region. At the same time, Washington will have redirected its policy to one that serves US interests as well as Venezuela’s.

—David L. Goldwyn is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and co-chair of the Caribbean Energy Working Group at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center’s Caribbean Initiative. He is the president of Goldwyn Global Strategies, an international energy advisory consultancy.

Rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry has a hefty price tag

The Venezuelan National Oil Company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PdVSA), is poorly positioned to bring anything but cursory relief to tightening global oil markets in the near term.

The company has been subjected to a mass flight of technical and commercial expertise, epitomized when President Hugo Chávez fired 19,000 employees in 2003 following a general strike, filling vacant positions with regime loyalists. This purge comprised 55 percent of the company’s highly skilled professional and technical workers—including engineers skilled in the specialized extraction of the extra heavy crude found in Venezuela’s Orinoco basin—and 70 percent of the company’s executives, according to reports at the time.

Since these interventions, PdVSA has declined from a world-class oil and gas operator and the third-largest supplier of crude oil to the United States as recently as 2013 to an inkling of its former self. Its crude production has declined by 70 percent over the past decade.

Persistent underinvestment due to sanctions and a fledgling economy have left PdVSA’s production infrastructure in disrepair. To restore Venezuela’s oil industry to 1998 levels, when production totaled 3.4 million barrels per day (versus 730,000 barrels per day in August 2023), it is estimated that an investment of fifty-eight billion dollars would be required, perhaps more.

Most of this funding would need to be sourced from the international private sector. In any case, foreign investment and technical cooperation will be necessary to restore the country’s economic engine. This could yield both humanitarian and environmental benefits. In 2022, Venezuela’s oil production was the most carbon-intensive globally, and its “leakiness” pollutes local communities—a problem fixed only by reinvestment in the country’s infrastructure.

—William Tobin is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, where he focuses on international energy and climate policy.

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Did Polish voters just set a new course toward centrism?

Daniel Fried — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 00:39:57 +0000

Warsaw may have just edged closer to Brussels. According to exit polls released Sunday, opposition centrist and progressive parties led by the Civic Platform Party appear to have gained enough seats to form a coalition and oust Poland’s ruling right-wing nationalist Law and Justice Party, which has led the country since 2015. Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk declared victory based on the exit poll results for these parliamentary elections, which saw the highest turnout in the country’s post-communist history. Below, former US Ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried, the Atlantic Council’s Weiser Family distinguished fellow, answers crucial questions on how this election will shape the country’s future.

What message are the Polish voters sending with these results?

According to exit polls, Poles seem to have voted for centrist, liberal, and leftist alternatives to the rightist ruling Law and Justice Party. Law and Justice came in first by a significant margin but may lack the parliamentary numbers to form a coalition. A liberal/centrist/left coalition appears slightly more likely at this preliminary point. Despite a pro-government slant by the Polish state-owned television network TVP, the Polish electorate seems to have voted for a change of course.

What can we expect as Law and Justice tries to form a government?

Law and Justice leader and Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski is a skilled politician who excels at just the sort of inside negotiations that forming a parliamentary majority will require. But he will likely face an uphill battle. If the exit polls are accurate, Law and Justice will win two hundred seats in the Sejm, the lower and more powerful house of Poland’s parliament. A majority requires 231 seats. The potential governing coalition among the liberal Civic Platform, the centrist Third Way coalition, and The Left appears set to gain 248.

Nevertheless, President Andrzej Duda (who was not running in these elections) will almost certainly give Law and Justice the first chance to form a parliamentary majority in the coming days if it has, as seems likely, come in first among all the parties. It may take weeks before we know the shape of the next government. The precise distribution of Sejm seats may make this a faster or slower process.

What impact do you see in these results on Poland’s support for Ukraine?

The hard-right Konfederacja Party, the only explicitly anti-Ukraine party that will enter parliament, did poorly, finishing last among the parties that entered parliament (again, if exit polls are accurate). The Polish Peasants Party, part of the centrist Third Way coalition, will maintain strong objections to allowing Ukrainian grain to be sold in Poland. This issue aside, the other major Polish political parties support Ukraine and oppose Russian aggression; this consensus policy is likely to remain intact.

Will these results move Poland closer to the European Union?

The Law and Justice Party has made accusations against Germany a staple of its campaign and has been in a prolonged fight with the European Union (EU) over its efforts to reform (opponents say politicize) Poland’s judiciary. Much of the party’s political profile is based on styling itself as a champion of Polish national interests in opposition to European bureaucrats. A coalition led by the Civic Platform Party would almost certainly seek to improve Poland’s relations with the EU. Its leader, Tusk, served as president of the European Council from 2014-19.

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Menendez’s case coverage is relatively muted in Egypt. That might be intentional.

Shahira Amin — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 13:31:02 +0000

The September 22 corruption indictment of Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in a sweeping bribery case—allegedly involving the Egyptian government— has caused uproar in the United States, forcing him to step down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hours after the news broke. At the same time, the US mainstream media continues to aggressively cover the unfolding developments of the case.

This is in sharp contrast to Egypt, where reactions to the bribery accusations leveled at the Egyptian leadership have been largely subdued. Egypt’s predominantly pro-government media has chosen to either dismiss altogether or downplay the allegations. This comes as no surprise in a country where the state largely controls the media. Most Egyptian journalists do not dare question nor uncover the corruption within higher power echelons. Doing so would put journalists at risk of earning the wrath of the authoritarian regime.

Tens of journalists languish behind bars for far smaller “crimes,” such as publishing posts that are critical of the government on their social media platforms or expressing alternative viewpoints that run counter to views accepted by the mainstream. The situation has become even more restrictive with Egypt’s 2024 presidential election scheduled for December 10-12. Recently, Ahmed Bendary, the Head of the Egyptian Elections Authority, warned that those who doubt the upcoming elections’ integrity will be punished.

That is precisely why there’s been a near-total blackout in Egypt on the Menendez case, in which US federal prosecutors are probing the possible involvement of high-ranking officials from within the country’s intelligence services. Coverage of the case has been restricted to a news show broadcast on the state-owned “Al Qahera News Channel.” On September 23, the show’s presenter stated that Reuters had alleged that Senator Menendez and his wife were being accused of receiving bribes from three New Jersey businessmen to enrich the latter and benefit Egypt.

Not only did the news anchor avoid any mention of the alleged involvement of the Egyptian leadership in the bribery case, but she also failed to make any reference to the fact that one of the businessmen, Wael Hana—a co-defendant in the case—was an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian with a lucrative monopoly over the certification of halal meat—imported by Egypt from the US—granted to him by the Egyptian authorities.

Meanwhile, Ramy Gabr, Al Qahera’s correspondent in Washington, downplayed the bribery allegations, portraying them as part of the power struggle between Democrats and Republicans ahead of US Congressional elections. Gabr asked Joel Rubin, the former Deputy Assistant US Secretary of House Affairs for the State Department, about the rivalry ahead of the US Congressional elections and whether Rubin saw a connection between the elections and the Menendez corruption case. By focusing on the elections rather than the case itself, Gabr tactically steered the conversation away from Egypt and the US prosecutors’ accusations of bribery.

Rubin replied, “Right now, we are in the silly season in the United States with electoral campaigns underway in full throttle; anything can happen in US politics.” He went on to explain that it was a tight race and added that, with US presidential elections due next year, failure by the Democrats to garner majority seats in the Senate would have catastrophic implications for them. As a result, Republicans were stopping at nothing in their quest to attain power, Rubin added.

Egyptian analysts interviewed by the Middle East News Agency (MENA) also dismissed the case as “a US internal political matter” and “part of the wider power struggle between Democrats and Republicans ahead of the US presidential elections slated for November 2024.

Some officials lamented that it was a deliberate attempt to defame the Egyptian leadership amid tensions between the US and its once-staunch ally.

In comments to MENA on September 23, Ambassador Mohamed El-Orabi, Egypt’s former foreign minister and current chairman of the Egyptian Foreign Relations Council, cautioned that the accusations leveled at Senator Menendez were still under investigation.

“It would be inappropriate to comment on the case at this early stage,” he said. Orabi urged Egyptians to reject and resist attempts to tarnish Egypt’s image and drag the country into an internal political dispute between opposing parties in the US, noting that “there has been no official statement from the Biden administration on the case so far,” he told MENA.

Tarek Fahmy, a professor of Political Science at Cairo University, also downplayed the bribery accusations. He explained that such allegations against senators and other US politicians are common in US politics.”

“Involving Egypt in a case that is still under investigation may be linked to recent calls by certain pressure groups within the US Congress to withhold military aid to Egypt,” Fahmy said, in an apparent reference to demands by lobbyists in Washington and rights groups that US lawmakers withhold a further $235 million in military aid to Egypt.

In mid-September, the Biden administration announced it would withhold $85 million from the $1.3 billion the US designates for US security assistance to Cairo yearly, citing human rights concerns.

Some rights groups, such as Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), have gone further, calling for a temporary freeze on all aid to Egypt until the investigations are completed.

Ironically, despite the tight restrictions on Egyptian media and heavy censorship, it was an article published in the Egyptian independent news site,, Mada Masr, in 2019 that questioned the monopoly of the New Jersey-based IS EG Halal Certified—a hitherto little-known company—over the multi-million dollar business of halal meat certification in the US, that may have been the first spark that ignited suspicion and paved the way for the Menendez probe.

Nada Arafat, the reporter who authored the piece, wrote that “the Egyptian government licenses several certifiers around the world whose job is to ensure that exporting slaughterhouses comply with halal (Sharia law) requirements. She continued, “In May 2019, the Egyptian Agriculture Ministry abruptly disqualified all halal certifiers eligible to operate in the United States, except for one newly licensed company—IS EG Halal Certified.”

Through her investigative reporting, Arafat discovered that the company had been established just two years earlier and had no prior experience in halal certification nor any pre-existing ties to the US beef industry. Arafat further noted that days after it became the exclusive certifier, the company raised certification fees in North America, translating into millions of dollars of extra revenue, according to calculations made by Mada Masr.

It is worth noting that Mada Masr is one of hundreds of news sites blocked by the Egyptian government since 2016. In other words, Arafat’s piece was off-limits to most Egyptians, but tech-savvy readers could use circumvention tools like VPNs to access blocked news sites.

The investigation by Mada Masr also revealed that IS EG operates alongside another private business with close links to a sovereign entity—a term often used in Egypt to refer to high-level security institutions.

Despite the low-key coverage of the shocking corruption scheme by the mainstream Egyptian media, the bribery case stirred controversy on Egyptian social media platforms. Government supporters perceived the alleged recruitment of a senior US official to further Egypt’s interests as “a win” for the Egyptian government. Meanwhile, an opposition activist lamented that “we (Egyptians) learn about the (leadership’s) scandals from the international press.” He cited as one example the recent Zambian plane saga in which the country’s notorious security agencies were suspected of implication in a botched attempt to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars and gold bars out of the country. Zambian authorities seized the plane on arrival at Lusaka Airport, and the suspects were arrested.

Another activist lamented via his X account, formerly known as Twitter, that “corruption and bribery have become so normalized in our psyche, they are not shocking anymore.”

Others, however, questioned the timing of Menendez’s indictment with Egypt’s presidential elections scheduled for December 10-12. They suspect the US administration may use the case to pressure President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to hold free and democratic elections. But, with the bulk of Egyptians left in the dark about the case—particularly Cairo’s alleged involvement in the corruption scheme—it appears highly unlikely that the Menendez case will cast a pall over the upcoming presidential election in Egypt.

Shahira Amin is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and an independent journalist based in Cairo. A former contributor to CNN’s Inside Africa, Amin has been covering the development in post-revolution Egypt for several outlets, including Index on Censorship and Al-Monitor. Follow her on X: @sherryamin13.

The post Menendez’s case coverage is relatively muted in Egypt. That might be intentional. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Anti-corruption progress in Ukraine and Moldova is vital for EU integration

Olivia Yanchik — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 18:05:12 +0000

Ukraine and Moldova stand at a crossroads as both countries seek to strengthen their institutions to stamp out corruption and accelerate their integration with Europe.

In the midst of Ukraine’s current fight for national survival, the country’s government continues to implement ambitious anti-corruption policies to strengthen the integrity of its public institutions and maintain a strong trajectory amid recovery and reconstruction. Meanwhile, Moldova is proceeding with its own ambitious anti-corruption agenda as the country champions comprehensive reforms and builds locally-led efforts on transparency and oversight.

Anti-corruption reforms are crucial for both countries as they seek to meet the conditions for EU membership. Ahead of next month’s European Commission evaluations on the progress of both countries, the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and USAID hosted a panel moderated by Ambassador John Herbst with senior government officials and civil society representatives from Moldova, Ukraine, and the European Union to discuss key anti-corruption reforms in both countries and the role of the international donor community in supporting these reform efforts.

In advancing these initiatives, USAID has been a key partner in supporting anti-corruption in Ukraine and Moldova. Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming at USAID, explained, “One approach we are taking is really trying to constrain the opportunities in the first place for corruption, and secondly, when corruption occurs, to raise the cost of corruption.” According to Coleman, costs can be raised by “investing in the institutions of anti-corruption, so that there can be more robust prosecution of corruption when it occurs.”

Coleman also underlined the importance of robust civil society engagement, so civil society actors can track procurement contracts and other processes vulnerable to corruption. She underlined the importance of “strong, vetted, qualified leadership able to prosecute crimes and deal with corruption when it arises.”

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Nicu Popescu, Moldova’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, cited the malign influence of corruption on the development of the wider region. “Corruption over the last 30 years in our part of the world has been one of the factors facilitating and actually driving our region to this moment in our tragic history,” he said.

Popescu cited the pre-vetting of judges as an area where his country is now making progress. Working with Moldova’s partners, they have returned an important airport to public control as part of their de-oligarchization initiatives, and have also introduced sanctions against corrupt individuals accused of trying to destabilize the country.

Ukraine’s Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska highlighted the importance of transparency within Ukrainian society and noted that his country presently has many initiatives to streamline reforms and make recovery as transparent as possible. Maliuska cited digitalization and privatization as key means of decreasing state influence over resources and reducing the market share of state-owned enterprises in Ukraine, which he views as a route to decreasing corruption and optimizing the country’s civil service. “Anti-corruption efforts are a huge priority for our country in line with EU accession,” he said.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Alongside state reforms, the role of civil society remains paramount. Moldova’s civil society is active in contributing to maintaining government accountability at the central and local levels. “Civil society organizations in my country are involved in policy processes, in decision-making processes, in contributing with expertise, and supporting reform efforts,” said Iulian Groza, Director at the Institute for European Policies and Reforms. “We know how corruption is affecting or has affected our country’s institutions, and how it makes us more vulnerable to malign aggression,” he commented.

Amid efforts to rebuild the Moldovan justice system and other anti-corruption institutions, Groza cited the importance of civil society in facing the challenges presented by the lingering influence of loyalists from previous kleptocratic regimes, arguing that civil society plays an important role in bridging gaps of understanding and reaching out to communities. “It’s very important to understand that the justice system in my country has been made vulnerable for years,” he states.

Groza described how crucial it was for international stakeholders, including the EU and the US, to reinforce anti-corruption institutions to combat security threats, as corruption within the country continues to be used as a tool of hybrid aggression. It is very important to ensure a balance “between preserving democratic values, rule of law, and efficient anti-corruption efforts, while at the same time addressing security concerns,” he said.

Andriy Borovyk, Executive Director for Transparency International Ukraine, stated that “fighting corruption and building good governance is always a process.” Commenting on the rise of technological solutions to increase transparency and accountability, Borovyk noted that technology was only one piece of a broader puzzle to eliminate corruption. “Behind every IT solution are people,” he observed.

USAID’s Coleman spoke to the need for continued assistance to Ukraine, even as it confronts the scourge of corruption. “There are huge flows of money, but we know that they are going directly to pay teachers, to pay healthcare workers, to pay first responders,” she said. “These are funds that are actually going to help keep the government of Ukraine intact as it wages this war for survival.”

In her concluding remarks, Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for Home Affairs, stressed the importance of the anti-corruption reforms taking place in both countries and underlined the EU’s commitment to further support. “The fight against corruption is a life or death struggle for Ukraine,” she noted, as Putin exploits corruption to advance his interests. “One day, both Ukraine and Moldova will become EU member states.”

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

As in democracies throughout the Western world, Ukraine’s laws correctly recognize that a nation cannot have free, fair, and safe elections during an all-out war. This recognition led democracies like France and the United Kingdom to postpone scheduled elections until after victory during both of the world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. It also led over 100 Ukrainian civil society organizations to recently publish a statement against holding elections during war.

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Elections are clearly fundamental to democracies and Ukraine should return to its regular electoral schedule as soon as it is possible to provide the basic conditions for free, fair, inclusive, and safe votes. However, before this can happen, a number of preconditions must be met that are currently absent.

The key issue is security. For Ukraine to hold democratic and safe elections, Ukrainians, including the millions whom Russia has forcibly displaced and those fighting on the front lines, should be able to safely participate as candidates and voters. Moreover, international and domestic observers should be able to monitor the process without risk to life.

It is difficult to see how these conditions could possibly be met in the present security environment. Nearly 20 percent of Ukraine is currently occupied by Russia, while a further 20 percent is within immediate reach of Russian artillery. Civilians across the entire country are regularly terrorized by Russian drones and missiles flying far beyond the battlefield. In such conditions, it would be impossible to guarantee the physical safety of voters and election officials.

Russia has been targeting and attempting to influence Ukrainian elections for decades. In a state of all-out war, it is reasonable to anticipate that the aggressor would continue to maximize efforts to disrupt any symbols of democracy in Ukraine. This could include attacks on campaign events, voter registration offices, queues of voters, election administrations, and polling stations.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Any elections in wartime Ukraine would also need to adhere to basic democratic standards. For a democratic election to take place, candidates and society should be able to focus on a free and vibrant political contest and not on staying alive while under daily attack. Candidates and parties must be able to campaign widely, raise funds, speak freely, and have equal access to the media.

Ukraine is currently under a state of martial law, and rightly so. Democratic elections and martial law do not mix. Under martial law, democratic nations temporarily limit certain rights that are essential for free and fair elections. That is why the authoritative Venice Commission has noted that it is allowable, even advisable, to postpone elections until after a state of emergency.

In summary, Ukraine should hold its next elections at a time when the country can guarantee the security and democratic standards of those elections. While this cannot be guaranteed during the current all-out war, Ukraine can reconfirm its deep commitment to democracy by restarting its electoral reform process immediately. Ukraine should make every attempt to thoroughly prepare, legislate, and equip itself well in advance for the best possible and least disruptive elections when the Russian invasion ends. The goal must be elections that allow for a well-managed, free, fair, inclusive, and secure contest that will contribute positively to the country’s recovery. Ukraine’s robust civil society and its citizens would expect nothing less.

Ukraine’s commitment to democracy is not in question. Ukrainians continue to fight for their freedom and for the democratic values that define their nation. The faster the international community expands its military and economic support for Ukraine’s victory, the faster the nation can get on with democratic elections for all its citizens.

Peter Erben is the principal advisor for IFES and senior country director for IFES Ukraine. Gio Kobakhidze is the deputy country director for IFES Ukraine.

The United States and like-minded allies have made important strides in addressing challenges from fragile states and appropriately prioritizing democracy and governance as a part of the solution. This includes, most recently, the United States creating its Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (SPCPS), as mandated by the 2019 Global Fragility Act (GFA). In it, the United States argues for the importance of democracy and governance to addressing fragility: “Our efforts through the Global Fragility Act will advance the President’s call to action … to demonstrate that democratic governance and respect for human rights deliver for all people; that this approach is the best way to reduce fragility, advance sustainable development, and mitigate risks of violent conflict and instability. … We will therefore work with partner governments and communities to foster legitimate, inclusive, transparent, and accountable political systems that reduce fragility.”

In line with this focus, the strategy’s country plans for Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and Coastal West Africa (Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo) rightly reference strengthening democracy and government accountability as a mechanism for promoting stability. The strategy and plans also improve on prior US efforts by mandating that the country plans are on a ten-year (as opposed to shorter) time horizon and requiring rigorous monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

To complement these US efforts, we look at why and how advancing freedom (political, economic, and judicial components) is the surest way to advance sustainable stability and associated prosperity and offer recommendations to achieve this aim.

Patrick W. Quirk is vice president for strategy, innovation, and impact at the International Republican Institute and a nonresident senior fellow with both the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Owen L. Myers is an intelligence officer in the US Army and a graduate of Georgetown University’s Democracy and Governance graduate program.

Report Jun 15, 2023

Prosperity that lasts: The 2023 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

By Dan Negrea, Joseph Lemoine

Africa Americas

Report Mar 28, 2023

Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave: A playbook for countering the authoritarian threat

By Hardy Merriman, Patrick Quirk, Ash Jain

This report seeks to catalyze support for nonviolent pro-democracy movements fighting against authoritarian rule by proposing new approaches and tools to support civil resistance movements, advancing a new international norm — the “Right to Assist” pro-democracy movements — and developing strategic and tactical options to constrain authoritarian regimes.

Americas Civil Society

Issue Brief May 23, 2022

Toward a framework for transatlantic cooperation on non-state armed groups

By Lauren Mooney and Patrick Quirk

This policy brief examines how transatlantic cooperation regarding NSAGs can be strengthened. It describes the proliferation of NSAGs and the threat they pose to stability in the Sahel specifically. It then explores US-European policies toward engaging NSAGs, highlighting how these frameworks remain underdeveloped on both sides of the Atlantic— pointing to opportunities for greater coordination.

Africa Europe & Eurasia

The post Less freedom, weaker states, more conflict: can that cycle be broken? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The quest for freedom and prosperity in the Middle East and North Africa

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Despite their different trajectories, every country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has faced successive cycles of instability and upheaval throughout their post-independence years. Hardly a year has passed since the 1950s without major crises or episodes of sub-regional turbulence. Throughout these years, the longing for freedom and the quest for economic well-being have been the twin drivers of protest movements.

The most recent wave of unrest, which occurred after 2010, was not properly addressed nor well understood by the region’s ruling regimes. Home-grown uprisings shook these authoritarian systems to the core and ultimately ushered in processes which were supposed to lead to the overhaul of the old order in the Arab world. In other countries, no uprisings took place and the status quo was maintained against all odds. All in all, aspirations for change evolved differently from one country to another, depending on local conditions and their level of progress—in terms of institution building and social advancement—since independence.

More than sixty years after gaining their independence, most Arab countries found themselves lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of political openness, public freedoms, good governance practices, and the rule of law.

Divergent visions of the Arab Spring

For years, two divergent visions as to the best way to improve the lives of the majority competed for the hearts and minds of the region’s elites: authoritarianism and liberal democracy.

Autocrats in power since the 1960s, some of whom are still at the helm of Arab governments, have repeatedly faced off with various contending groups, including liberal activists, who had long struggled in opposition or at the political periphery, with very few assuming any real power.

Authoritarians have always favored strong government as the best way to project “national sovereignty,” impose their self-serving notion of security, and promote an economic growth model that often involved nepotism and clientelist networks. Their narrative was that centralized authority did not hamper liberty and that once the countries reached a sufficient level of development, including a “middle-class threshold” and an adequate ratio of literacy, a smooth transition to democracy could begin. But there was no illusion about their countries ever reaching this elusive level of development or about the authoritarians’ intent to allow any other scenario but their indefinite stay in power. Liberals, on the other hand, argued that economic openness combined with effective rule of law and political participation are fundamental prerequisites for a vibrant economy and shared prosperity. They maintained that democracy could better ensure checks and balances, free media, and rule of law. Experience, they pointed out, has proven that there is no durable prosperity without accountability, unfettered initiative, and willingness to dismantle inhibitive restrictions.

When Tunisian protesters took to the streets in 2010–11, clamoring for change, their slogan “jobs, freedom, and dignity” enunciated the hopes of many people across the region.¹ However, strong aspirations for a better life and rule of law ended up, in most cases, in chaotic transitions that ensured neither.

Countries such as Libya and Yemen, which suffered from the absence of solid institutional legacies, were not able to sustain political and economic transitions. The sudden fall of old regimes left both countries with a complete institutional vacuum that led to chaotic situations. Alongside Syria, they fell into endless spirals of civil strife—and civil war—while their populations struggled for mere survival. Gripped by these violent cycles, Libya and Yemen sought the support of the international community to help them craft a new system that would enable them to settle their disputes and achieve stability. International goodwill notwithstanding, forms of foreign interference, added to the lack of peaceful dispute settlement tradition, made the objective of peace and rebuilding impossible to achieve.

Regime change in Tunisia and Egypt

In the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, though both quite different from a historical perspective, the early phase of transitions after 2011 proceeded in a more orderly fashion. Both countries opted for regime change based on transitional processes aimed at installing new representative governments and anchoring democratic institutions. Both countries adopted new constitutional frameworks, elected new governments immediately after the demise of old regimes, and set in motion new reform processes.

Tunisia, which had enjoyed a period of relative economic growth until 2010 and which boasted a solid civil-service tradition since independence, was in a better position to address most of the challenges it faced after the fall of the Ben Ali regime. It elected a constitutive assembly and adopted a new, broadly based constitution in 2014, which despite some loopholes and politically self-interested interpretations, set up functioning institutions premised on the principle of checks-and-balances.

The new legal frameworks, coupled with internal dialogue between actors, created the conditions for three general elections and a peaceful transfer of power. The Quartet of groups that supervised the national dialogue through this period even won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2015.² However, the lack of a deeply entrenched democratic culture, and the neglect by the new political system of the urgently needed social and economic reforms, planted the seeds of economic and political crises, and frustrated the people’s aspirations for sustainable prosperity and better living conditions. The resulting deterioration of the socioeconomic situation ultimately jeopardized the gains in terms of freedom and democracy building.

Lack of economic reforms stunted growth and led to increased poverty and unemployment. Tunisia’s GDP per capita decreased from US$4,355.62 in 2010 to US$3,688 in 2017.³ Socioeconomic decline eventually planted the seeds for neo-authoritarian and populist trends, which played on fears of the lower classes that plain liberalism and disengagement of the state from economic production could lead to further deterioration of their living conditions. In this context, populist narratives, which included disdain for political parties and “the elite,” gained favor with the population. Liberal economic reform became synonymous with painful and unacceptable pressures on the poor and with subservience to foreign diktats.

The experience of Tunisia shows that democratic transitions that do not meet the social and economic needs of the population, and where politicians are disconnected from the country’s realities, can lead the public to lose confidence in the democratic process altogether—even if the people remain strongly attached to their freedoms. A curious contradiction can even emerge between attachment to freedom and scorn for democratic processes. Labeling Tunisia a “free country” (scoring 78 out of 100 in the 2017 Freedom House report) did not, in fact, translate into better standards of living or more prosperity for the Tunisian population.⁴

Unsurprisingly, growing distrust and disillusionment lent growing support to populist movements and neo-authoritarian trends while liberal elites were sidelined and electoral choices blurred, with the whole process jeopardizing the future of democracy.

As far as Egypt is concerned, the election of a new ideologically driven Islamist government, that aimed to reshape Egypt’s society and politics based on its partisan agenda, sparked fears within the population and much of the elite. This accelerated the collapse of the nascent democratic process and stirred up a strong reaction from the army, which found the moment propitious to seize power. In a net reversal of the political process, authoritarianism was restored, with the army controlling and distorting much of the economic production process. Once again, state interventionists used the social argument to guarantee a continued role of the state in the economy, enacting or keeping in place restrictions that inhibited free enterprise. It came as no surprise when the new leadership introduced measures that fettered freedom of thought and expression.

Avoiding reforms

In the face of the popular push for freedom and political participation across the region, monarchies and oil-rich countries were able to resist the wave of change and preserve the old autocratic system, with minor adjustments. While some had to introduce dozens of political and economic reforms to appease their young populations, others such as Qatar, with majorities of expatriate populations (primarily migrant workers) and ample financial resources, had an easier task preserving the status quo.

For many countries in the region, oil and gas revenues have been useful for replenishing state coffers. But in most cases this fossil-fuel income has not been used to institute new systems that ensure equitable distribution of wealth and consolidation of freedom and good governance practices.

Wealthy stakeholders acted preemptively outside their borders to shore up neo-authoritarian power structures and prevent the emergence of a new mode of government that could have better met the hopes of the populations for more freedom and economic opportunity. In certain cases, as in Tunisia and Egypt, they were helped by domestic actors—mainly politicians and media representatives—who opportunistically sought dividends from outside interference at the expense of their own democratic processes and sound governance.

Nowadays, the Middle East and North Africa seems perhaps even more alarmingly fractious and divided than in 2011. Most countries went through major structural and political transformations but regrettably none can claim today to have built a new representative system driven by good government practices and free market principles.

Following the 2011 uprisings, politicians were tempted by two models: One sought a radical break from the status quo ante by dismantling old institutions and political systems, and launching a process aimed at establishing a different mode of government based on transparency, the rule of law, and judicial independence. The second model was more gradualist in nature, opting for a pragmatic approach to accommodate people’s aspirations for greater political participation while upholding the basic structures of old regimes.

Twelve years after the Arab Spring, neither model has helped any country in the region to achieve political, economic, and legal freedom levels described by the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes.⁵ Lack of realism or inexperience—if not both—combined with score-settling and zero-sum-game mindsets, undermined the processes.

The quest for freedom doesn’t have to be radical

Radical movements from the left and the right of the political spectrum pulled together their forces in order to transform what was a legitimate peaceful longing for freedom and dignity into counterproductive and sometimes violent processes of change with vindictive agendas against old regimes. They insisted on scrapping constitutions and electoral laws, embarking on rapid and comprehensive structural overhauls, and revamping entire governmental and institutional frameworks.

In most cases, the countries that chose to totally and suddenly break with the old systems failed. Abrupt change led either to the collapse of state institutions and descent into civil war, as was the case in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, or to a situation where the whole transitional process stalled, such as in Tunisia. In the case of Egypt, the brief democratic experience collapsed after a showdown between dogmatic Islamism and military authoritarianism, pushing the country to a status quo ante situation.

In Tunisia, hard-earned political freedoms (including freedom of expression and freedom of conscience) were enshrined in the constitution. But liberalization did not extend to investment and free enterprise laws and practices, which could have helped ensure the creation of wealth and improve the standard of living of the population. Unsurprisingly, political reforms were not matched by economic achievements during the past decade; and most people felt disconnected from the whole democratic process.

In Tunisia, successive governments were handicapped, to varying degrees, by political instability as well as by their own lack of vision as they averted structural reforms. The economy remained mired in a permanent slowdown while endless strikes and social unrest caused a drastic drop in economic productivity, not to mention the inhibitive impact that the turmoil had on political leaders.

In Libya and Yemen, the uprisings accelerated total collapse of the already shaky and weak institutions. Led for years by autocratic leaders, both countries’ regimes—long built around tribal structures—were not able to withstand the fallouts of the uprisings and adequately channel the yearning for freedom and change among the population toward constructive projects. Interference by regional and international powers further complicated matters.

In Libya, the dictatorship of Muammar al-Qaddafi was forcefully removed by outside military intervention with no exit strategy, leaving the country prey to unrest, social strife, and growing chaos. Governmental instability and political division within Libyan society, combined with the proliferation of armed militias, did not promote political progress or economic revival.

Despite government efforts to continue the regular payment of salaries to civil servants, overall living conditions in Libya deteriorated and the country faced sporadic shortages of consumer goods and failure of public services, as well as cyclical collapse of the security situation. The country’s already fragile state institutions became weaker still and oil revenues, instead of being put to use in rebuilding the state, became part of a spoils-driven struggle for power.

Developments in Libya in fact showed how instability and violent strife can endanger freedoms and human rights, while making economic stagnation worse. They also showed how oil production, when hostage to internal feuds, could become a source of corruption and further violence, and encourage retreat from the rule of law and freedom.

Yemen, on its part, has been through successive cycles of civil war through the past decade. The country, which was already in complete shambles before 2011, is today simply a failed state. UN and international mediation efforts did not succeed in bridging the wide schism between Yemeni factions and could not help forge a permanent ceasefire that could pave the way for calm and stability in the country. No effort to improve good governance, expand freedom or revitalize the economy is possible in a fragmented society and a divided state subjected to endless foreign interference and regional meddling.

In the case of Syria, where a civil war has been raging for more than a decade, state institutions continued to operate within the confines of the old political and economic system, despite the ongoing hostilities and the devastating effects of extremist attacks. Isolated and no longer in control of large parts of its national territory, the Syrian regime was able to survive with aid from Russia and Iran. All traditional prosperity parameters are in decline and political freedom is obviously in regression. Any hope for the restoration of stability, democratization of the system, and resumption of economic growth will require a new political process that does away with the old anti-democratic practices, and allows for the disengagement of foreign troops, the reunification of the country, and the normalization of relations with its neighbors.

Egypt is a case study in its own right. The country, which followed the path of Tunisia in 2011, opted for radical change: removal of the old regime, adoption of a new legal and constitutional framework, and the appointment of a new government. The election of an Islamist president—Mohamed Morsi—and the appointment of a conservative government accelerated the collapse of this burgeoning, if flawed, democracy and ignited widespread popular protests in 2013. After a brief, tumultuous transition, a military coup that same year reversed Egypt’s course, effectively reverting the country to the pre-revolution system.

Efforts to streamline Egypt’s economy through the adoption of a new investment law in 2017—offering new incentives, guarantees to foreign investors, and implementation of major infrastructure projects—did draw important inflows of hard currency. Investment came mainly from the Gulf countries, keen to back a like-minded authoritarian regime, but this did not translate into a substantial increase of per capita income or the betterment of the daily lives of Egyptians. Prosperity remained elusive and according to the World Bank’s annual Doing Business report, Egypt ranked 114 out of 190 in “ease of doing business.”⁶

According to Freedom House’s annual study of political rights and civil liberties worldwide, Egypt is considered “not free.”⁷ Political parties are legal, but in practice they do not constitute a meaningful opposition to existing power structures. On the legal front, the president, as head of state, has exclusive powers in hiring and firing most of the senior civil service hierarchy, as well as government, military, and judicial personnel.

Gradual reform as the best route to freedom and prosperity

A number of countries opted for a more pragmatic and gradualist approach to address people’s grievances and respond to the wave of protests that followed the Arab Spring uprisings. Such an approach yielded better results when applied preemptively, that is, before local protests could swell to full-scale revolution.

Countries like Morocco and Jordan were swift to act, before and immediately after the uprisings started in Tunisia and Egypt. Spurred by domestic protest, and spiraling events abroad, they moved to accommodate people’s demands for political and economic reforms. Salaries were also raised, food and consumer goods prices lowered, and new laws were adopted to improve governance, restrain monarchical powers, and introduce transparency in managing public funds.

However, no major institutional shake-up occurred in either country. The two monarchies broadly maintained the status quo, while introducing a set of reforms to liberalize the political system and enlarge participation in public life.

Oil-rich Gulf countries also made preemptive concessions. They improved the standards of living of their populations, developed first-rate infrastructure, and further opened up their economies to foreign investment. The result was relative stability and economic growth in these states (to varying degrees), as well as enhanced influence at regional and international levels. However, the overall impact was limited as these measures did not lead to systemic changes in governance, nor to increased accountability, nor to greater participation of the local population in political life.

The ongoing war in Ukraine is also having its own effect on the region, giving more clout to energy-producing countries and adversely affecting the standards of living of the populations in non-oil-rich nations. In these countries, soaring prices, lack of opportunities, and increasing poverty are boosting populist movements and curtailing liberties.

In Morocco, political and economic reforms have proceeded relatively smoothly. Following a televised speech by King Mohammed VI in June 2011, a referendum was organized to amend the constitution. The new text included a chapter on “Fundamental Rights and Freedoms,” which considered the opposition an “essential component” of the parliament and specified that “the King appoints the Head of Government from within the political party arriving ahead in the elections.”⁸

But the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) considered that the structures and mechanisms established by the 2011 constitution would increase the control of the executive branch over judicial matters, erode public confidence in the system, and compromise the effective administration of justice.

On the economic level, Morocco introduced a number of reforms which improved the attractiveness of the country to foreign investment. Foreign direct investment into Morocco reached a record level in 2018 (US$3.6 billion) and although it had fallen back to US$1.7 billion in 2020, it remained high compared to that of neighboring countries.⁹

Located in a very volatile region, Jordan remained dependent for its stability on relations with its neighbors, namely Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Palestinian territory, and Israel. Like Morocco, Jordan refrained from a radical overhaul of the old system, but it did set up an independent electoral commission to supervise the parliamentary electoral process and to administer and supervise all other elections. But reforms intended to bolster the independence of the judiciary fell short of international standards: there were no explicit provisions guaranteeing total independence of the High Judicial Council from the executive branch or granting this body control over the administrative and financial management of the judiciary.

Jordan’s economic growth has been adversely affected by exogenous factors, namely the dwindling of foreign aid, especially from the Gulf region, the temporary closure of the country’s borders with Iraq and Syria, the end of Iraqi oil supplies at preferential prices, and the interruption of energy imports from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the economic burden of accommodating large numbers of Syrian and Palestinian refugees continued to exert heavy pressure on the economy.

Despite some encouraging experiences in the co-management of water resources, closer relations with Israel did not impact positively on people’s daily lives in Jordan. Nor did they generate the expected prosperity heralded by the Jordan-Israel peace treaty, signed in October 1994. The current hard-right shift in Israeli politics could jeopardize existing agreements.

Jordan’s economic concerns were also compounded by domestic factors. High energy prices triggered strikes and protests in southern cities at the end of 2022. Tribal discontent and feuds within the royal family added to the instability, as did rumors of widespread corruption, which reverberated throughout the kingdom.

Foreign influence impacts the quest for freedom and prosperity

Transitional processes in the Middle East and North Africa since the Arab Spring have been shaped equally by domestic and foreign factors.

Regional and international powers remained attentive to the course of events in the countries affected by the uprisings. Some, genuinely encouraged by the magnitude of change, wanted to support popular aspirations and contribute to the emergence of democratic systems in North Africa and the Middle East. They provided financial and technical support to help government authorities draft new constitutions, enact new laws, and proceed with major political and economic reforms to address people’s demands for better participative political life and improved standards of living. Others, animated by ideological or geopolitical goals, tried to shape the outcome of the transitions in a way that met their own national interests.

In some cases, foreign interference exacerbated domestic schisms among feuding factions and made it even more difficult to reach peaceful solutions to violent conflicts. In Libya, while the UN was trying, through its representatives, to help find a political settlement to the complex conflict, foreign powers—especially those from the MENA region—were engaged in fierce competition for influence in order to maintain their foothold in the country or secure their share of reconstruction projects. In some instances this competition evolved into proxy showdowns, using local warring factions to expand their economic and geopolitical influence and consolidate their presence in the country.

Syria and Yemen are two other cases where foreign regional interventions complicated the crises and exacerbated the suffering of local populations.

In the case of Tunisia, foreign partners pledged financial support and provided technical and logistical assistance to meet immediate economic needs and improve security readiness in the fight against terrorism. US assistance was substantial and decisive in enhancing the operational capabilities of the security forces. The EU, Tunisia’s primary trading partner, expressed from the outset its strong support for the democratic transition; but practical assistance did not go beyond the existing provisions of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The assistance equated Tunisia’s needs with those of other southern Mediterranean partners, without giving specific consideration to the potential impact that a successful Tunisian democracy, and a thriving economy, could have on the whole region. Indeed, Tunisia already possessed many of the ingredients to succeed in building a democratic system as well as anchoring a vibrant and open economy: a large middle class, established rights for women, a relatively high level of education, and abundant human resources.

Although it provided relatively important financial support, the EU never acquiesced to Tunisian demands for trade advantages and access to European structural funds similar to those granted to Eastern and Central European countries before their accession to EU membership. The EU had acted then as a driving force for its European neighbors when they emerged from the Soviet era, a kind of a regional locomotive that pulled these countries out from old autocratic regimes, economic despair, and institutional weaknesses. The European Commission secured financial support and helped these nations implement political and economic reforms, while NATO membership provided a security umbrella for the concerned countries. None of this occurred with Tunisia, which found itself going through democratic apprenticeship, fighting terrorism, and facing the social and political aftermath of its revolution almost alone. The impasse was just waiting to happen.

Khémaies Jhinaoui is a diplomat and former minister of foreign affairs of Tunisia. He is president of the Tunisian Council for International Relations.

1 It is worth noting that the unemployment rate in Tunisia reached 13.05 percent in 2010, rising to 18.33 percent in 2011; “Unemployment, Total (% of Total Labor Force) (Modeled ILO Estimate) – Tunisia,” World Bank, accessed February 8, 2023, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?end=2011&locations=TN&start=2010. Regarding freedom of the press, Tunisia ranked 164 out of 178 countries in 2010; “World Press Freedom Index 2010,” RSF, Reporters Without Borders, accessed February 8, 2023, https://rsf.org/en/node/79180

2 A group of four civil society NGOs known as the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet: the Tunisian General Labor Union; the Tunisian Union of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League.

3 “GDP Per Capita (current US$) Tunisia: World Bank National Accounts Data, and OECD National Accounts Data Files,” World Bank, accessed February 8, 2023, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2021&locations=TN&start=1965.

4 “Freedom in the World 2017: Tunisia,” Freedom House, accessed February 8, 2023, https://freedomhouse.org/country/tunisia/freedom-world/2017.

5 Dan Negrea and Matthew Kroenig, “Do Countries Need Freedom to Achieve Prosperity? Introducing the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes,” Atlantic Council, accessed February 9, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/do-countries-need-freedom-to-achieve-prosperity.

6 Doing Business 2020: Comparing Business Regulation in 190 Economies (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2020), accessed February 9, 2023, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/688761571934946384/pdf/Doing-Business-2020-Comparing-Business-Regulation-in-190-Economies.pdf, p. 4.

7 “Freedom in the World 2022: Egypt,” Freedom House, accessed February 9, 2023, https://freedomhouse.org/country/egypt/freedom-world/2022.

8 “Morocco’s Constitution of 2011,” Articles 60 and 47, accessed February 9, 2023, https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Morocco_2011.pdf.

9 World Investment Report 2021: Investing in Sustainable Recovery, (New York, NY: UNCTAD, United Nations Publications, 2021), accessed February 9, 2023, https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/wir2021_en.pdf, Annex table 1. FDI flows, by region and economy, 2015–2020.

The post The quest for freedom and prosperity in the Middle East and North Africa appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Mexico “Mostly Free”? Mexico “Mostly Prosperous”?: Uncovering shades of gray in the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

Vanessa Rubio-Marquez — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Debate over the relationship between economic and political freedom and the prosperity of a society is not new. Scholars and policymakers have long questioned whether prosperity is the fruit or the seed of a free society. Are the two mutually determinant? In the long run can countries attain prosperity without freedom? Can freedom lead to an unprosperous society? In this context, the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes are a powerful empirical tool, allowing us to consider these questions using reliable and comparable data. The Indexes have strengthened debate and interest over the relationship between freedom and prosperity in countries as varied as China, which they currently catalog as Mostly Free in economic terms but Unfree in political terms, and India, which is Mostly Unprosperous despite being Mostly Free in political terms. In these discussions the Indexes serve as key reference points to inform real-life policy debates and policy making.

Still, there are cases in which our understanding of the prevailing conditions in a given country can benefit from additional information. This essay uses the 2022 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes (“the Indexes”) to analyse the case of Mexico, a country currently catalogued as Mostly Free and Mostly Prosperous. It attempts to demonstrate how the Indexes do not yet capture certain dimensions of democratic retrenchment and institutional deterioration now being seen in countries across the globe. Some of these dimensions are easy to see, while others are more subtle. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the benefits of and need for an early warning system that can enable a more accurate analysis of the decline in freedom and prosperity in certain countries. To that end, this paper attempts to provide a qualitative extension to the Index data, drawn from recent developments in Mexican politics, in order to examine essential nuances that lie beyond the country’s current categorization. This exercise is particularly relevant as Mexico has, since 2018, experienced a wave of populism and polarization that has proven detrimental to political and economic freedoms and, ultimately, to democracy itself.

It is important to note that Mexican democracy was far from perfect prior to 2018, the year in which the current government entered office on a single six-year term without the possibility of reelection. The country was facing profound challenges in the form of a culture of privilege, corruption scandals, and brutal inequality. However, it also enjoyed low but sustained economic growth, strong and well-managed public finances, and a clear route to unlocking higher productivity and achieving its full growth potential through sectoral reforms. But despite the expectations of many, Mexico has since 2018 seen a weakening of the rule of law and checks and balances, increased militarization of state functions, a lack of economic growth, and increased poverty levels. These trends in themselves constitute a worrisome backsliding of both freedom and prosperity.¹

By analysing the Mexican case, I will provide support for a better understanding of the correlation between these two factors and the potential risks to freedom, particularly in many countries that are considered Mostly Free.

The case of Mexico suggests that the Indexes’ methodology is indeed useful in identifying and weighing the elements that make a country free and prosperous, and in providing a sophisticated standard to compare countries around the world. However, it also highlights the need to understand and assess additional rele-vant trends in order to deepen the analysis beyond the Indexes’ primary results. Qualitative analysis of factors that point to the potential for an erosion of freedoms can enrich the definition of the Freedom Index’s four categories (Free, Mostly Free, Mostly Unfree, Unfree). For example, a Mostly Free country—the most common category among the 174 countries included in the Index—might very well be on the brink of becoming Mostly Unfree due to circumstances that are best understood when the Index is complemented with qualitative information.

Freedom, in the end, is fragile. Moreover, backsliding in democracy and freedom could well lead to a significant reduction in prosperity, whether as a result of a deterioration in the certainty that comes with clearly enforced laws and robust institutions, the diminished state capacity that institutional deterioration implies, or both. A closer look at a country’s particular features at specific moments will help us to better interpret the Indexes and render them even more useful. In sum, this essay aims to shed light on the shades of gray within the classification of Mostly Free countries of the Index and encourage analysts and policymakers to pay closer attention to countries when alarm bells over the future of freedom and prosperity start to sound.

Mexico: Shades of gray in freedom

Mexico ranks 82nd among 174 countries in the freedom component of the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes and is categorized as a Mostly Free country, with 58.2 points. But that aggregate score doesn’t tell the whole story about economic, political, and legal freedoms in Mexico today. When broken down by category, the Index ranks Mexico as 52nd in economic freedom (77.3 points), 88th in political freedom (60.8 points) and 122nd in legal freedoms (36.4 points).² A complementary qualitative analysis of recent political developments in Mexico allows us to better understand the processes taking place behind the scenes of the Index’s aggregate data. Facts on the ground suggest that freedom in Mexico is at risk due to an overt attack on institutions, checks and balances, and the rule of law. The Mostly Free tag should thus be interpreted with caution. To better understand why, it is necessary to look closely at the change of government in 2018, and what has happened since.

In July 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, widely referred to as AMLO, was elected president after three decades of political activism that turned him into the most well-known social leader in the country. While he was elected on the promise to “end corruption” and deliver well-being, or bienestar, he notably did not promise to protect individual freedoms or emphasize the importance of the rule of law. In fact, his view of checks and balances had been revealed years earlier in what became a common refrain in his speeches and at campaign stops, referring to what he called the “abusive and neoliberal” administrations of the past: “To hell with their institutions!”³

As president, López Obrador has also increasingly resorted to a narrative that minimizes the importance of economic growth and instead emphasizes the relevance of “happy people.”⁴ In his binary milieu—characteristic of populist leaders—there are “the people” on one hand, who he says he represents and defends, and the political and economic elites on the other, who he characterizes as “conservative,” “neoliberal,” “racist,” and “classist.”⁵

It is important to recognise that AMLO came to power in a social environment marked by profound disenchantment with democracy and the political and economic elite that had governed the country for the previous thirty years. The period between 1988—when Mexico’s democratic transition began—and 2018 was driven by a strategic vision shared by successive governments that consisted of integrating the country with the world economy (mainly via North America); allowing privatization in key sectors such as banking and telecoms; developing independent and technical bodies to provide checks and balances; and framing a nascent multi-party and pluralistic democracy based on institutions, laws, and regulations.

Although Mexico did indeed profoundly reform its economic, political, and social landscape for the better, a series of significant failures that excluded large portions of the population from prosperity and allowed ample space for corruption and abuse created both enormous disparities and widespread resentment.

AMLO’s polarizing discourse capitalized on built-up anger and frustration, and he won a landslide victory in the 2018 presidential election. López Obrador gained more than twice as many votes as his closest challenger, with a record-breaking 30 million votes in a country of 130 million inhabitants and 56 million voters.⁶ The scale of the mandate allowed AMLO to deploy an ambitious government plan that has, in many ways, negatively affected the environment for freedom and prosperity.

A first step came before AMLO came to power. On October 29, 2018, the then president-elect announced that he would cancel the ongoing construction of a new airport in Mexico City, a flagship project of the previous administration that, according to López Obrador, embodied the corruption of the “neoliberal” regime.⁷ To support the cancelation, AMLO’s party, MORENA (National Regeneration Movement), organized a public consultation to ask citizens if they agreed with the decision. This marked the beginning of the administration’s habit of disregarding existing laws and regulations, and it happened before López Obrador was even sworn in on December 1. For its survey, MORENA decided not to abide by the Federal Law on Public Consultations which, among other things, mandates that public votes be conducted by the National Electoral Institute (INE) in order to be binding. Instead, a “citizen council” was put in charge of the vote, with funding left to “voluntary contributions,” mainly from legislators loyal to the president-elect. Despite the fact that less than 1 percent of Mexicans participated in the exercise, the future government proclaimed that “the people” had spoken in favor of canceling the airport.

The political goal of the episode was to send a strong message that previous economic and political elites were no longer in charge, and that even large-scale and well-advanced projects could be canceled at the new regime’s whim, without concern for existing laws or market expectations. The cost of canceling the airport—which had been under construction for at least four years by that point—has been estimated at 126.7 billion Mexican pesos (approximately US$6.3 billion).⁸That doesn’t include the opportunity costs in terms of development potential that such a large-scale project could have delivered for a globally integrated economy such as Mexico’s, the fifteenth largest in the world. Before changing any law and prior to assuming power, the new government had already seeded uncertainty and damaged trust among domestic and international private sector actors. This event, on its own, will have lasting and damaging effects on investment decisions for Mexico, a key determinant of present and future prosperity. The cancelation of the airport was likely one of the reasons that in 2019, López Obrador’s first year in office, Mexico’s long-term trend of low but constant economic growth was disrupted. The country’s economy contracted by 0.2 percent that year, even before COVID-19 started to affect the situation. Moreover, by throwing away public resources already invested in the airport and demonstrating that contracts could be broken at will, it became clear from the start that the rule of law in Mexico was under serious attack, and that economic uncertainty would be the order of the day. It should come as no surprise that, according to data from INEGI—Mexico’s National Statistics Institute—private investment in the country has stagnated since 2018, as fixed gross investment was 11 percent above its 2013 level in July 2018, and it now stands 12 percent below.⁹ The downward trend started well before the pandemic hit and the country’s investment has not yet recovered.

After the new government took office in 2018, a process to capture or diminish the power of autonomous institutions, the main checks and constraints on presidential power, began. Over the course of Mexico’s democratic evolution, a number of autonomous and technical institutions have been created to serve a wide range of functions and goals: quality statistical and geographical information (National Institute of Statistics and Geography, INEGI); the organization of free and fair elections (Federal Electoral Institute, now INE); safeguarding human rights (National Human Rights Commission, CNDH); ensuring transparency and accountability (National Institute for Transparency, INAI); regulating markets with technical autonomy (Federal Economic Competition Commission, COFECE; Federal Telecommunications Institute, IFETEL; and the Energy Regulatory Commission, CRE, among others); and ensuring purchasing power stability (Central Bank, Banxico, which was granted autonomy in 1994). The new regime well understood that these institutions were put in place to limit power, to create boundaries for government action, and to offer technical considerations for the regulation of markets. To weaken many of these and other autonomous agencies, López Obrador has used his legislative majorities to appoint unfit loyalists to lead some of them or fill vacancies on their boards, hobbling their institutional and decision-making capacity.

These steps have already had significant effects. For example, a truly independent Human Rights Commission¹⁰ would have scrutinized the creation of a new Guardia Nacional (National Guard), under the command of the military, meant to control public safety. This key project of López Obrador’s contravenes the civilian nature of the Mexican state and is now being challenged in court as unconstitutional.¹¹ As a further example, López Obrador has de facto eliminated private sector investment in the energy sector, especially in clean energy and oil exploration and extraction partnerships, a move that is being challenged by the United States and Canada within the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) dispute-settling mechanism.¹² This could have been prevented if COFECE and CRE had been allowed to maintain their autonomy, independence, and respect. Another strategy to prevent the proper functioning of independent agencies has been to leave vacancies open without making new appointments. In fact, in November 2022 the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the failure to name candidates to lead COFECE was in violation of the constitution.¹³

The administration’s efforts to either eliminate or co-opt the sources of control on its power are evident enough,¹⁴ but perhaps too subtle to capture on a quantitative index. Changes in the way institutions are formed and operate affect the way freedom is experienced on a daily basis by both the Mexican people and stakeholders with interests or investments in the country. But these issues are often not reflected in constitutional or legal changes that can be easily identified. Instead, they are part of a series of new practices, and a political environment that favors discretion and personal politics over the predictability of laws and institutions.

Furthermore, the relationship between Mexico’s three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) suggests that checks and balances on presidential power are weakening across the board. AMLO has attacked the autonomy of the Mexican Supreme Court, made questionable appointments to the bench, and even publicly acknowledged that he has exerted pressure on the court on a range of issues in an effort to tip the scales in favor of the government’s interests and vision.¹⁵

Meanwhile, MORENA and its allies, the Labour Party, Green Party, and Social Encounter Party, have enjoyed a comfortable majority since 2018 that allows them to modify laws and regulations and to approve the annual budget without support from the opposition. Mexico’s legislature had actively served as a check on presidential power since 1997, when Ernesto Zedillo became the first president whose party did not have a majority in Congress. Today, it has been relegated nearly to the role of rubber-stamping the administration’s proposals. The most consequential pieces of legislation over the last four years have been drafted by the government and approved by Congress “without changing a comma,” in accordance with López Obrador’s wishes.¹⁶ The only backstop has come in the Senate, where the president lacks the supermajority needed to change the constitution without help from opposition legislators.

In the context of scarce and increasingly expensive capital to finance development projects, which are essential for the creation of prosperity, the budgetary freedom that the government enjoys as a result of its congressional majority has enabled it to prioritize three pet projects: the Tren Maya, the Refinería Olmeca, and the AIFA airport. All three projects merit serious scrutiny in terms of their financial sustainability, contract transparency, and environ-mental impact.

The Tren Maya (Mayan train), originally budgeted at US$6 billion, is now expected to cost around US$15 billion and rising¹⁷ and has raised concerns over the potential destruction of the Mayan rainforest, significant environmental damage to its ecosystem, and the threat it poses to both local communities and travelers, given the fragile underground system of caves and rivers that lies under the Yucatán peninsula.¹⁸ Despite the fact that the train project lacks legally required environmental assessments, and that the courts have ruled in favor of suspending construction on several occasions, the government has used legal sleights to continue building. Compounding the problems, a number of private investors withdrew their support for the project, assessing it to be financially unviable. This is why Tren Maya has become a “pet project,” funded by tax resources.¹⁹

The Refinería Olmeca (Olmec refinery), an oil processing facility built over a swamp in the president’s home state of Tabasco, was inaugurated before it started to function, and has flooded every time a strong storm washes over the region. As of October 2022, the project was 46 percent over budget and has yet to refine a single drop of oil.²⁰ The AIFA airport (Felipe Ángeles International Airport), meanwhile, was built by the military with little to no transparency, was exempt from public procurement regulations, and is a long way from proving itself either operationally and economically viable.

When looking at how free Mexico really is, the significantly increased role of the military in public life is also worth consideration. Giving the armed forces the power to participate in a wide range of productive activities, in addition to control over domestic security, is in direct conflict with Mexicans’ fundamental freedoms. For almost the last century, Mexico’s military has been in charge of national security and helping respond to natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. This has been in keeping with the role assigned by Mexico’s constitution to the country’s Secretariat of Defence (SEDENA) and Navy (SEMAR). Starting with President Felipe Calderón (2006–12) and through President Enrique Peña Nieto’s term (2012–19), the military also collaborated with civilian authorities in limited ways to ensure public safety, especially in operations to capture drug kingpins and destroy drug labs or plantations. This was done under a temporary legal exception, the constitutional support for which was questioned by advocacy groups that were hopeful the military’s role in public safety would end under AMLO’s leadership. However, despite running a campaign that promised to “return the military to the barracks” and “strengthen civil police and security agencies,” the president has dramatically changed his position since coming to office.²¹ The military has taken over responsibility for public safety through the newly created Guardia Nacional and has expanded its influence into other areas that were previously reserved either for the private sector or the government. Today, the military controls ports, customs screenings, and airports; builds infrastructure projects such as the Tren Maya and the AIFA airport (the latter is also operated by the military); has built over 1,000 community bank branches; distributes gasoline, gas, and fertilizers; prints textbooks for public schools; detains migrants from Central America on their way to the United States; and may soon be running a commercial airline company “to lower costs.”²² And these are just some of the dozens of functions assigned to the military that have been documented by civil society organizations and which are legally intended to be in the hands of civilian agencies.²³ Moreover, given the secrecy that protects so-called security tasks from scrutiny, the military has been able to withhold important information about all its activities, including its budget allocations. The military has thus operated with little to no accountability, affecting the rule of law. Here the Mostly Free tag clearly starts to crack.

When faced with criticism and questions from the media and civil society, the president has resorted to direct, personal attacks questioning his critics’ legitimacy and intentions. He has called out journalists by name, and even exposed the confidential tax information of those who confront him.²⁴ Before the administration assumed office, Mexico was already one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.²⁵ But the intimidating environment for media and critics has only gotten worse. Those who oppose the government are referred to as “adversaries,” or “los conservadores” (the conservatives), and deemed ultimately corrupt, delegitimizing them as valid interlocutors. Time and time again, those who do not subscribe to the president’s thinking have been referred to as “enemies of the people,” “racist,” “classist,” “aspirational,” “hypocrites,” “angry,” and even “fascists.”²⁶ This level of confrontation on a daily basis (the president addresses the media every morning in rambling press conferences) has a clear “chilling effect” on freedom of speech.

Mexico: Shades of gray in prosperity

Given all the above, it is clear that the Indexes do not fully account for the fragility of freedom in Mexico—and all the ways it has been undermined in recent years. A similar, though less extreme, dynamic can be seen in the Indexes’ view of Mexico’s prosperity. Here, Mexico is considered a Mostly Prosperous country, ranking 53rd out of 174 countries. Broken down by category, Mexico ranks 64th in income, 69th in environment and 78th in health. So where does the 53rd position come from? Mainly from happiness.

According to the Prosperity Index’s measurement, Mexicans are relatively happy, with a score of 71.4 (37th out of 174 countries). This result is not surprising, considering historical measures of happiness in the country derived from culture, social structures, and family safety nets.²⁷ But again, disaggregating the elements of prosperity helps shed light on important nuances.

The pandemic hit the world’s economy in an unprecedented way, and Mexico was no exception. But Mexico’s decline in growth began before the pandemic, as did the negative follow-on effects of that lack of growth, including increased poverty, reduced access to healthcare, and decreased private investment. On most indicators, Mexico has not yet returned to its pre-pandemic levels.

Source: Compiled by the author with data from INEGI (“Producto Interno Bruto Trimestral,” Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), https://www.inegi.org.mx/temas/pib) and CONEVAL (“Pobreza en México,” Consejo Nacional de Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social (CONEVAL), https://www.coneval.org.mx/Medicion/Paginas/PobrezaInicio.aspx).

As is usually the case when approaching social science questions, proving causation here may not be feasible. Are the negative outcomes a direct result of the erosion of the rule of law and the environment of uncertainty that Mexico has experienced since 2018? It is difficult to prove. But if wealth creation is a prerequisite for better wealth distribution, the negative average growth rate of the last four years would suggest that increased poverty levels—and thus a lack of prosperity in absolute terms—are at least in part the product of a deterioration in individual freedoms, democratic retrenchment, and the resulting damage to government capacity and private sector certainty, both of which are essential for social progress and economic prosperity. The government has tried to blame the pandemic,²⁸ the war in Ukraine, inflation as a “global phenomenon,”²⁹ and even the Mexican Central Bank³⁰ for sluggish growth and the increase in poverty during its administration. But what is clear is that the country is today less prosperous than before December 2018.

To be sure, this worrying trend is also revealed by a wider look at variation in the Indexes over time. Mexico’s freedom score in 2021 was 58.2, down from 59.4 in the previous measurement (2016). Mexico’s prosperity score in 2021 was 58, down from 60.7 in 2016. Hence, even if Mexico is categorized as a Mostly Free, Mostly Prosperous country, it is on a downward trajectory, and one that could worsen abruptly over the next few years if the rule of law continues to deteriorate and if an increasingly authoritarian regime advances further. When compared with the rest of the world’s economies, Mexico is a clearly middle-income country, the fifteenth largest economy in the world, and a member of reduced-membership organizations such as the G20 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But a closer look at relevant data—economic growth, inequality, income, extreme poverty, poverty, and access to basic rights and services, such as food and nutrition, health, education, social security, housing, and housing quality and services (electricity, water, sewage, overcrowding)—also supports the notion that prosperity in the country is deteriorating.

Populism pills for Mexico?

At first sight, it appears that Mexico’s light green colouring on the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes map is a positive sign. In digging deeper into recent political and economic trends, this paper aims to ask new questions raised by additional qualitative information. The Indexes are more relevant than ever, not only for Mexico but for the world. When accompanied with an in-depth analysis for each country that can add a prism through which to view the Indexes’ numbers, they can serve as even more powerful tools for analysis, decision making, and advocacy. Given the reality of what is taking place in Mexico, in analysing the country one needs to ask not just how prosperous or free it is today, but how likely it is that the country could fall into the Mostly Unfree and Mostly Unprosperous categories in the near future.

Mexico is a large economy that is now fully integrated into North American value chains and, from there, with the world’s value chains. Its public finances are strong, and its fiscal stance is on a sustainable trajectory with a debt-to-GDP ratio below 50 percent. Macroeconomic variables look good despite obvious economic stagnation. Mexico is also a resilient democracy, with relatively free and fair elections organized by a still independent electoral authority, though this could become significantly weaker following reforms passed by the government at the end of 2022, which will be contested at the Supreme Court of Justice. But Mexico, like many other countries, is trapped by polarization and populism. And while populism might be producing immediate relief for some—as can be seen in the high approval rates of the president and high happiness measure in the Prosperity Index—these conditions will ultimately lead to long-term structural damage that will take decades to overcome. Constant deterioration of the rule of law and the concentration of power since 2018 has put Mexico on a slippery slope on which the norms and institutions that have sustained our economic and political freedoms could suffer deeper damage.

Still, one needs to reckon with the fact that 60 percent of Mexicans approve of López Obrador’s actions.³¹ Despite the weakening of the institutional and democratic landscape and poor economic performance (this government is in fact likely to be the worst performer in terms of growth in the last forty years), many people are unbothered by the negative results because they have taken populism’s “poisoned pill”: an appealing narrative that vindicates those who have been left behind, those who legitimately aspire for a better life for themselves and their families, those who are rightfully distrustful of the government given historical wrongs, and those who now receive larger subsidies from the government. AMLO is an exceptional social leader capable of speaking to a wide audience, and he connects emotionally with his political base like no other Mexican president in recent history. People relate to his simple “us vs. them” dichotomy. While there are strong arguments pointing to the current government’s shortcomings in terms of performance, few can deny that the president is quite a successful politician.

What is worrisome is that more and more leaders around the world have been elected in free and fair democratic processes, only to incrementally undermine institutions, consolidate power, and grow more authoritarian once in office. This is precisely why further data and analysis of trends and nuances are often a necessary complement to the Indexes. While Mexico is still classified as a democracy—and still is one—there exists a latent risk of the country becoming just a democratic facade in front of an autocratic regime. For anyone looking at the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes in the future, the lesson this paper intends to share is that, for many countries, freedom and prosperity are still fragile ideals that depend on a series of conditions that must be constantly upheld. Some of these might be obvious, but others are quite subtle and evolve in ways that are barely visible to an outside eye. It is thus important to complement the Indexes with layers of qualitative analysis that better detect when significant fractures are appearing in a system, before a country and its citizens suffer significant reversals in freedom and prosperity, or a return to the dark era of authoritarianism. We need to measure in order to understand, understand to advocate, and advocate in order to change for the better.

Vanessa Rubio-Márquez is a former senator and deputy minister in the Mexican government.

1 Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer and Kenneth F. Greene, “Is Mexico Falling into the Authoritarian Trap?,” Journal of Democracy 32, no. 4 (October 2021), 56–71.

2 Dan Negrea and Matthew Kroenig, “Do Countries Need Freedom to Achieve Prosperity? Introducing the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes,” Atlantic Council, accessed February 9, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/do-countries-need-freedom-to-achieve-prosperity.

3 Kathleen Bruhn, “‘To Hell With Your Corrupt Institutions!’: AMLO and Populism in Mexico” in Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy?, ed. Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 88–112.

4 Guillermo Castañares, “Importa Más el Bienestar del Pueblo Que el Crecimiento Económico, Afirma AMLO en Informe,” El Financiero, September 1, 2022, https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/economia/2022/09/01/importa-mas-el-bienestar-del-pueblo-que-el-crecimiento-economico-afirma-amlo-en-informe.

5 Gabriela Frías, “AMLO Llama ‘Traidores a la Patria’ a Quienes Apoyan Queja de EE.UU. y Canadá por el T-MEC,” CNN, July 22, 2022, https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/video/amlo-traidores-a-la-patria-eeuu-canada-tmec-sector-energetico-redaccion-mexico.

6 Azam Ahmed and Paulina Villegas, “López Obrador, An Atypical Leftist, Wins Mexico Presidency in Landslide,” New York Times, July 2, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/americas/mexico-election-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador.html.

7 Elisabeth Malkin, “Mexico’s Incoming President Plans to Cancel Giant New Airport Project,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/world/americas/mexico-incoming-president-cancel-airport.html.

8 Luis Guillermo Woo Mora, Las Consecuencias del Pecado Original: Costos Económicos y Distributivos de la Política Populista en México, Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias, December 2022.

9 “Inversión Fija Bruta,” Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), accessed December 6, 2022, https://www.inegi.org.mx/temas/ifb.

10 “¿Quién es Rosario Piedra Ibarra, la Próxima Presidenta de la CNDH?,” Aristegui Noticias, November 11, 2019, https://aristeguinoticias.com/1111/lomasdestacado/quien-es-rosario-piedra-ibarra-la-proxima-presidenta-de-la-cndh.

11 “ONU Derechos Humanos preocupada Porque la Guardia Nacional de México Pase a Estar Bajo Control Militar,” Noticias ONU, United Nations, September 9, 2022, https://news.un.org/es/story/2022/09/1514201.

12 Ana Swanson, “The Biden Administration Will Challenge Mexico’s State Control of its Energy Industry,” New York Times, July 21, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/business/mexico-energy-usmca.html

13 Rolando Ramos, “Dan 30 Días Naturales a AMLO Para que Envíe Candidatos a la Cofece,” El Economista, November 28, 2023, https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/politica/SCJN-da-a-Lopez-Obrador-plazo-de-30-dias-para-enviar-sus-propuestas-de-comisionados-de-la-Cofece-20221128-0072.html.

14 “Todo Fue una Farsa, una Simulación: AMLO Sobre los Organismos Autónomos,” 24 Horas, June 13, 2022, https://www.24-horas.mx/2022/06/13/todo-fue-una-farsa-una-simulacion-amlo-sobre-los-organismos-autonomos.

15 Claudia Guerrero and Antonio Baranda, “Amlo Reconoce que Presionó a la Corte, REFORMA,” REFORMA, September 6, 2022, https://www.reforma.com/aplicacioneslibre/preacceso/articulo/default.aspx?__rval=1&urlredirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reforma.com%2Famlo-reconoce-que-presiono-a-la-corte%2Far2465598%3Freferer.

16 Roberto Garduño and Fabiola Martínez, “AMLO: Ni Una Coma Debe Cambiarse a la Iniciativa Eléctrica,” La Jornada, February 10, 2021, https://www.jornada.com.mx/notas/2021/02/10/politica/amlo-ni-una-coma-debe-cambiarse-a-la-iniciativa-electrica.

17 Jesús Vázquez, “Costo de la Obra del Tren Maya Aumenta 150%,” El Economista, August 8, 2022, https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/estados/Costo-de-la-obra-del-Tren-Maya-aumenta-150-20220807-0077.html.

18 Maria Abi-Habib and Alejandro Cegarra, “Over Caves and Over Budget, Mexico’s Train Project Barrels Toward Disaster,” New York Times, August 28, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/28/world/americas/maya-train-mexico-amlo.html.

19 “Grupo México y AMLO ‘Hacen las Paces’: Llegan a Acuerdo por Tramo 5 del Tren Maya,” El Financiero, November 29, 2022, https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/nacional/2022/11/29/grupo-mexico-y-amlo-hacen-las-paces-llegan-a-acuerdo-por-tramo-5-del-tren-maya.

20 “AMLO Reconoce Aumento del 46% en Costo de Refinería Dos Bocas,” El Financiero, October 8, 2022, https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/nacional/2022/10/08/amlo-reconoce-aumento-del-46-en-costo-de-dos-bocas.

21 Lidia Arista, “‘Cambié de Opinión’: AMLO Explica Por Qué No Regresó a Militares a Los Cuarteles,” Expansión, September 6, 2022, https://politica.expansion.mx/presidencia/2022/09/06/cambie-de-opinion-amlo-explica-por-que-no-regreso-a-militares-a-los-cuarteles.

22 Aldo Munguía, “Gobierno Cierra Compra de Marca Mexicana de Aviación por 816 mpd,” El Financiero, January 6, 2023, https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/empresas/2023/01/06/gobierno-cierra-compra-de-marca-mexicana-de-aviacion-por-816-mdp.

23 Sara Elena Velázquez Moreno, Estefanía Álvarez, Catalina Pérez Correa, and Alejandro Madrazo, “Inventario Nacional de lo Militarizado (2021),” Política de Drogas, accessed December 6, 2023, https://politicadedrogas.org/site/proyecto/id/27.html.

24 “Inai Ordena Sancionar a AMLO por Exhibir Datos Personales de Loret de Mola,” El Economista, August 18, 2022, https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/Inai-ordena-sancionar-a-AMLO-por-exhibir-datos-personales-de-Loret-de-Mola-vy202208180004.html.

25 Nina Lakhani, “Mexico World’s Deadliest Country for Journalists, New Report Finds,” Guardian, December 22, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/22/mexico-journalists-deadly-cpr-press-freedom.

26 “‘Retrogradas, Hipócritas y Fascistas’: Así Calificó AMLO a Legisladores que Van Contra Iniciativa del PRI,” Infobae, September 14, 2022, https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2022/09/14/retrogradas-hipocritas-y-fascistas-asi-califico-amlo-a-legisladores-que-van-contra-iniciativa-del-pri.

27 “¿México Es un País Feliz? Esto Dice el Informe Mundial de la Felicidad 2022,” Expansión, March 22, 2022, https://expansion.mx/mundo/2022/03/22/mexico-es-un-pais-feliz.

28 “‘Se Nos Cayó la Economía, Pero Ya Estamos Saliendo’, Dice Amlo en Cuarto Informe de Gobierno,” El Financiero, September 1, 2022, https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/nacional/2022/09/01/se-nos-cayo-la-economia-pero-ya-estamos-saliendo-dice-amlo-en-cuarto-informe-de-gobierno

29 Jatziri Magallanes, “Inflación es Producto del Covid-19 y Por la Guerra en Ucrania: AMLO,” MVS Noticias, May 14, 2022, https://mvsnoticias.com/nacional/2022/5/14/inflacion-es-producto-del-covid-19-por-la-guerra-en-ucrania-amlo-552424.html.

30 Mónica Valladolid, “López Obrador Critica Nuevamente la Labor de Banxico Porque Sólo Ha Buscado Controlar la Inflación,” Forbes México, November 11, 2022, https://www.forbes.com.mx/lopez-obrador-critica-nuevamente-la-labor-del-banco-de-mexico.

31 “Aprobación Presidencial,” Oraculus, last updated February 7, 2023, https://oraculus.mx/aprobacion-presidencial.

The post Mexico “Mostly Free”? Mexico “Mostly Prosperous”?: Uncovering shades of gray in the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Freedom and prosperity in Eastern Europe

Dan Negrea, Joseph Lemoine, Yomna Gaafar — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:00:00 +0000

An earlier version of this paper was published in November 2022 by Aspen Romania in a collection of essays entitled A World in Flux: Towards a New European Architecture, ed. Alina Inayeh (Aspen Institute, 2023).

It is one of the most important development questions of all time: Do countries need freedom to achieve prosperity? Our paper explores this question by analyzing the evolution since the early 1990s of a select group of Eastern European countries.

The countries we studied shared many similarities in the early 1990s. Politically, they had all been under Communist rule until the late 1980s, and some had never even been independent countries before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Economically, they were at a comparable development level at the time of the democratic revolutions that swept Eastern Europe in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

But by 2021 the group was no longer homogenous: they had different levels of freedom and some experienced robust prosperity while others stagnated. Using the scoring and ranking analysis of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes,¹ and other measurements, we show that the countries that experienced more political, economic, and legal freedoms enjoyed greater prosperity. Conversely, those that made less progress on the path of freedom are also less prosperous.

The context

The question of the correlation between freedom and prosperity is always worth studying. But the war in Ukraine gives the debate over development models new timeliness.

Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 was preceded by an internal crisis in Ukraine. When President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a deal for greater integration with the European Union (EU), Russia backed Yanukovych’s violent attempt to put down protests by Ukrainian citizens who disagreed with his decision. Russia did not want Ukraine to become prosperous and democratic. This would have contrasted with the economically moribund and politically oppressive authoritarian regimes in Russia and Belarus, and might have inspired the peoples in these countries to ask for change. The 2022 Russian invasion was an attempt to finish the job started in 2014. Putin is trying to keep Ukraine in the Russian sphere of influence, and have it resemble Russia, politically and economically.

In its essence, the Ukraine war is about two visions for Eastern Europe: Will Russia succeed in using political subversion and military force to impose its authoritarian model? A model in which democratic opponents are imprisoned and killed, and economic activity is rife with corruption and arbitrary interventions by the dictatorial elite. Or will the peoples of Eastern Europe be able to choose their own political and economic system without interference and adopt the democratic and free market model represented by the EU?

This is a pivotal moment of change for Eastern Europe, similar in significance to that of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Examining the progress made by several former Communist countries over the past thirty years can provide useful lessons for the countries of the region and elsewhere.

The analysis

We started by selecting, from among Europe’s formerly Communist countries, a group with a comparable level of economic development in 1996, the first year for which World Bank data are available for all post-Communist countries. We selected only countries that were categorized as lower-middle income, according to the World Bank’s classification for that year: Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine.

We excluded from our analysis higher-middle income formerly Communist countries: Poland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovak Republic, and Slovenia. These countries were more developed at that time and were on a different trajectory than the selected countries.

For best comparability, we also excluded low-income formerly Communist countries: Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Because of the catch-up effect, low-income countries tend to grow faster, which would have distorted the results of our analysis.

We then ranked the selected countries using their 2021 scores in the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index. This Index assigns scores to 174 countries on their economic, political, and legal freedoms, the latter reflecting the strength of the rule of law in a country. Depending on their score, countries are then categorized as Free, Mostly Free, Mostly Unfree, and Unfree.

We then created two groups of countries. Group 1 includes all countries in the selected group that are in the “Free” category of the Freedom Index. Group 2 includes all other countries in our selected group.

Next, for countries in both groups, we compared their GDP per capita levels in 1996 and 2021, and calculated GDP growth multiples for each country and for both groups.

We also checked which countries had escaped the “middle-income trap” by 2021. This term refers to the fact that, over the years, many developing countries succeeded in advancing from the World Bank’s low-income to the middle-income category but did not cross the threshold of the high-income category.

The final element of our analysis was to look at 2021 measures of development, in addition to GDP per capita. We used the Atlantic Council’s Prosperity Index, which measures health, the environment, happiness, and government treatment of minorities in addition to GDP per capita (Table 1).

The results

In 2021, the countries in Group 1 had a freedom score 40 percent higher than that of the countries in Group 2. The average freedom score for Group 1 was 82, which compares favorably with the average of OECD countries in this Index at 85. The freedom score average for Group 2 was only 57.
By 2021, the countries in Group 1 were more prosperous than those in Group 2. Looking at GDP per capita, Group 1 countries grew 32 percent faster (GDP per capita increased threefold, on average) than those in Group 2 between 1996 and 2021 (Table 1 and Figure 1). In Group 2, only Albania and Montenegro reached growth levels similar to those of Group 1 countries. Although belonging to the lower-middle income group, their respective GDP levels were the lowest of the two groups in 1996. This confirms that, other things being equal, economic growth is faster when a country starts from a lower level.

^a For Montenegro, the 1996 GDP value is for 1997, the earliest available.
Sources: Scores and categories are from the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index and Prosperity Indexes (Dan Negrea and Matthew Kroenig, “Do Countries Need Freedom to Achieve Prosperity? Introducing the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes,” Atlantic Council, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/ do-countries-need-freedom-to-achieve-prosperity.) GDP per capita data are measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), constant 2017 international dollars: data from the World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD. The high-income threshold (middle-income trap limit) for 2021 was set by the World Bank at $13,205 GNI per capita, Atlas method, current US dollars (different scale from the GDP per capita values in Table 1).

The gap between the two groups consistently increased over time (Figure 1). Freedom takes time to materialize, but the benefits compound.
All countries in Group 1 escaped the middle-income trap. None of the countries of Group 2 did so.
All countries in Group 1 also tend to rank better in the broader Prosperity Index than those in Group 2. Serbia is the only Group 2 country to achieve a prosperity score within three points of the Group 1 average. Although Serbia’s GDP growth multiple is consistent with those of the other countries in Group 2, it outperforms them on the environment and happiness indicators in the Prosperity Index, thus raising its total prosperity score.

Source: Data from World Bank.

Another way to explore the performance of the two groups of countries is to use the scores in the Freedom Index and the Prosperity Index for the past fifteen years (Figure 2). Over that period (2006–21), the Group 2 countries improved their average score in both the Freedom Index and the Prosperity Index by 2 percent. But the Group 1 countries improved their scores on each index by 5 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

Source: Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes.

Higher and improving freedom scores are associated with countries that also achieved increased prosperity. Such situations create virtuous cycles of mutual reinforcement in which more freedoms build a prosperous middle-class citizenry that demands yet more freedoms that in turn perpetuate more human flourishing.

Policy implications

Our data suggest that countries that want to increase their prosperity should increase their economic, political, and legal freedoms, with legal freedom being defined as an impartial rule of law; transparent, corruption-free, and effective political institutions; and good governance.

Our analysis also points to a positive role for the EU. All the countries in Group 1 are members of the EU, as is Bulgaria, the Group 2 country with the highest freedom score and second highest prosperity score in that group. All the other countries in Group 2 are candidates to EU membership, with two exceptions: Russia and Belarus. These two countries have the worst freedom scores and the second and third worst prosperity scores in our sample.

The source of the appeal of EU membership is clear. In 2021, the average freedom score of EU member countries was 82, which compared with 62 for our group of EU candidate countries, or 32 percent higher. The respective prosperity scores were 75 and 55, or 37 percent higher. Using a narrower measure of prosperity, the respective 2021 GDP per capita numbers were $44,024 and $16,851, or 161 percent higher.

Former Soviet Bloc countries that joined the EU left behind the Communist world of political repression, inefficient centrally planned economies, and corrupt judicial processes. Instead, they entered a world of political and economic freedom, respect for the rule of law, and prosperity. The EU offers these countries a free trade area for their companies pursuing business growth, and freedom of movement for their citizens seeking educational and work opportunities.

During the long years of preparation for EU accession, candidate countries have had to implement many profound reforms and show perseverance in their progress away from their Communist past. Corruption, in particular, was a pervasive problem. The current EU membership candidates will need leaders with strong political will, who are prepared to push meaningful reforms—especially in their national judicial and law-enforcement systems.

Some analysts and public commentators in Western democracies complain that the EU’s leadership is unelected and unaccountable to voters, that the EU is overly bureaucratic and growing more so, and that it is often insensitive to the cultural traditions of member countries. To a majority of the Brexit referendum voters in the UK, a developed country with a long democratic tradition, these and other perceived disadvantages of EU membership outweighed its benefits.

But for Eastern Europe’s former Communist countries, the EU’s many rules and standards catalyzed a national consensus for the profound reforms needed in order to leave behind the malevolent and malfunctioning Communist political and economic system. Today, EU support and guidance for reform in candidate member states, towards their EU membership, contributes to more freedom and prosperity in these countries.

Which leads us to Ukraine, whose strong desire to join the EU, and the free world in general, was one of the main reasons for the Russian aggression against it, both in 2014 and in 2022. The Ukrainian people have heroically proven their firm determination to be forever free from domination by the Russian state, which is still beset by many of the Soviet Union’s pathologies in its political and economic structure.

In 2022, Ukraine asked for accelerated consideration of its EU membership, and the EU granted it candidate status. But Ukraine has a long way to go to meet EU standards. Its standing in the Atlantic Council’s Indexes makes this very clear: in 2021, before the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine had the third lowest freedom score among Group 2 countries and the lowest prosperity score.

In time the war will end, and Ukraine will rebuild. Ukraine will need profound societal reforms as part of its rebuilding process, especially regarding corruption. Its people will have to show in this task the same courage and determination as they are showing in the war. But they are very clear about their choice. They believe that greater economic, political, and legal freedoms are the surest path toward prosperity. And that the EU has an important role to play in helping them along the way.

Dan Negrea is the senior director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council.

Joseph Lemoine is the deputy director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council.

Yomna Gaafar was an assistant director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council.

1 Dan Negrea and Matthew Kroenig, “Do Countries Need Freedom to Achieve Prosperity? Introducing the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes,” Atlantic Council, accessed February 9, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/do-countries-need-freedom-to-achieve-prosperity.

The post Freedom and prosperity in Eastern Europe appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Introduction: The continuing debate about freedom and prosperity

Dan Negrea, Brad Lips, Kris Mauren — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:00:00 +0000

The freedom and prosperity debate at the end of the twentieth century

The essays in this book address development economics questions that have been often asked over the centuries: Does freedom lead to prosperity or does the causation go the other way? Or, to use the words of Vanessa Rubio-Márquez in her essay, is prosperity the seed or the fruit of freedom? Or is there perhaps a virtuous cycle in which more freedom leads to a more prosperous society in which the citizenry demands yet more freedoms, and freedom and prosperity mutually reinforce each other?

The answers to the above questions have real-world implications because if more freedom leads to more prosperity, it behooves governments to adopt freedom policies if they care about the welfare of their citizens.

At the end of the twentieth century, the debate appeared to have been settled. Two authoritarian models had been tried during that century in Europe and they had both failed spectacularly: fascism and communism. And the whole world saw it.

Mussolini and then Hitler had introduced state-directed public works and other economic policies to increase economic growth and employment during the Great Depression. But their unchecked absolute power ultimately led to the Second World War, horrendous crimes against humanity, millions of deaths, and the violent end of their regimes. The allure of fascism was gone after that, and no new fascist regimes were formed in Europe following the Second World War.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union assumed power through the 1917 revolution and later imposed Communism by force in the Eastern European countries it had occupied after the Second World War. Communist parties in several countries on other continents also assumed power after the Second World War, most notably in China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba.

The Soviet Union achieved many impressive successes: it transformed Russia from an agrarian country to an industrial one; eradicated illiteracy and created a successful higher education system; and established a health system that was an improvement over the tsarist one. The Soviet Union also achieved stunning successes in science: it launched into space the first satellite, the first man, and the first woman; became a leading nuclear power for both civilian and military purposes; and developed a world-class aeronautic and military technology industry.

But these successes came at a grievous price in human suffering. Millions of people were murdered in Stalin’s purges and thousands in the Soviet Union’s military interventions in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1979.

And these successes were also limited: industrialization is not the same as development. The Soviet Union’s industrialization emphasized heavy industries and de-emphasized consumer products, leaving its citizens disappointed in their aspirations of a more comfortable life.

The story was similar in the other European Communist countries: many initial successes in industrialization, education, and health came at the price of great suffering under authoritarian regimes that imprisoned and killed political opponents and allowed no freedom of religion or expression.

After a few decades, economic growth in the Soviet Union and the Communist European countries plateaued. The plans of these authoritarian regimes to have their countries catching up to the level of development of the free Western European countries proved to be unattainable dreams. There were multiple causes for this economic failure, but one stands out: these oppressive regimes and their centrally planned economies in which the state owned all the means of production were not conducive to efficient investment, did not incentivize people to innovate, and did not create wealth or lead to increased productivity.

The Soviet Union failed economically before it also failed politically and militarily. The inability of these Communist regimes to offer increased prosperity to their peoples, especially when compared to the living standards in the United States and Western Europe, was plain for all to see. Even those in the repressive apparatus stopped supporting these regimes and all European Communist regimes collapsed.

The fall of the European Communist regimes started with Poland in 1989 and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. When people in these countries were subsequently allowed to vote freely, they did not vote a Communist party into power in any of these countries. Most of the former Communist European countries have since made the profound democratic and free-market reforms required to become candidates for membership of the European Union, and many have been accepted.

Not only Communist authoritarianism but authoritarianism in general has been discredited in the former European Soviet bloc countries, except for Russia and Belarus. All the other European post-Communist countries have chosen democracy and free markets, albeit with varying levels of success.

Seen from the vantage point of the end of the twentieth century, even the People’s Republic of China (PRC) seemed to be moving away from its Communist governance model. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao had assumed power in 1949 and Mao maintained absolute power in a cult-of-personality regime until his death in 1976. He practically closed China to most of the rest of the world and led it according to strict Marxist-Leninist principles: there was no private ownership of the means of production, the economy was centrally planned, and there was no political, religious, or personal freedom for citizens. Between 1952 and 1978, China started industrializing and expanding education and healthcare, and real annual GDP growth was about 6 percent. But Mao’s personal dictatorship caused political turmoil, economic mismanagement, and harsh oppression of political dissent, whether real or imagined. During this period tens of millions of people died in prisons and labor camps, through executions, and from starvation directly linked to Mao’s policies.

One of history’s darkest chapters was then followed by one its most astounding success stories. Under Deng Xiaoping, local markets were allowed to emerge, and then reforms were put in place to open China to the world. The role of the CCP in economic planning was reduced, elements of free markets and private ownership were introduced, and term limits and other limitations on politicians’ power were put into place. The result: between 1980 and 2020, real annual GDP growth was almost 10 percent. In the positive environment created by the free-market reforms, the PRC was becoming a major global industrial power and was also achieving successes in science and technology.

As shown in a study by the PRC and the World Bank, between 1980 and 2020, the number of people in China with incomes below US$1.90 per day—the World Bank’s defining line for global extreme poverty—has fallen by almost 800 million.

At the end of the twentieth century the verdict seemed to be very clear: authoritarianism had been definitively discredited in Europe—no country was following its path on that continent. The same seemed to be true even outside Europe: Communist China, the largest authoritarian country in the world, appeared to be moving toward free markets and more political freedom.

The spirit of the times was captured in 1992 by Francis Fukuyama in his highly influential book The End of History and the Last Man: liberal democracy had triumphed in its ideological struggle with Communism and had “emerged as the final form of human government.”¹

The freedom and prosperity debate today—the China development model

But the debate is not over. The CCP is now offering its current development strategy as a model for developing countries anywhere in the world.

The example of China was followed by several Asian economies, most notably Vietnam. Vietnam’s leaders too have attempted to develop a quasi-market economy, opened to international trade while maintaining a strict one-party system of political governance. Vietnam’s poverty-reduction story is compelling, with progress in social indicators like education and children’s health rivaling those of upper-middle-income countries.

A number of countries in Central Asia, South Asia, and Africa that had followed the Soviet model to some extent—for example Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania—looked at parts of the China model as worthy of consideration. China encouraged such potential followers through the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, which finances projects in resource-rich economies. At its peak before the COVID-19 pandemic, OBOR investment proposals totaled US$150 billion—more than the combined official development assistance provided by advanced democracies.

The China development path had a dual appeal: First, financial resources seemed available outside the Washington consensus network of international development institutions and their conditionalities. Second, it promised a faster way to prosperity.

Xi Jinping became the leader of the CCP in 2013 and has since reversed many of the reforms inspired by Deng Xiaoping. In the political sphere, collective leadership at the top of the CCP has been replaced by Xi’s absolute power and a personality cult resembling that of Mao; high-tech government surveillance of citizens is becoming ubiquitous; and the CCP has waged a brutal and widespread oppression of China’s Uighur minority.

In the economic sphere, the Xi era has seen an increase in the control of the CCP in the economy and a preference for state-owned enterprises over private ones. International economic relations have suffered because of sharp practices sanctioned by the Chinese authorities, such as forced transfer of intellectual property and preferential treatment for Chinese companies over foreign ones doing business in the PRC. The country has also attracted international criticism for the extensive damage it is causing to the environment as a price for its economic growth.

Xi Jinping has been clear that he opposes a development model based on political freedom and free markets, and that he favors the PRC’s authoritarian model based on the leadership role of the CCP. In a February 7, 2023 speech, President Xi rejected the idea that “modernization means Westernization.” He touted China’s “new modernization model” that is “different from the West” and that “expands path choices for developing countries.” He made clear that the leadership role of the CCP is key and that the CCP will decide the “ultimate success or failure” of China’s effort to develop.

President Biden is keenly aware of the reopening of the debate and considers this an important matter. In his February 2021 address to the Munich Security Conference he noted:

We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future and direction of our world. We’re at an inflection point between those who argue that, given all the challenges we face – from the fourth industrial revolution to a global pandemic – that autocracy is the best way forward . . . and those who understand that democracy is essential – essential to meeting those challenges.

President Biden sees this as the defining issue of our time: “It is clear, absolutely clear . . . this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies,” Biden said. “That’s what’s at stake here. We’ve got to prove democracy works.”

In December 2021, President Biden hosted a Summit for Democracy, attended by over 100 countries. Notably, the PRC was not invited. In his opening remarks he noted that the world’s complex challenges are exacerbated by autocrats that “seek to advance their own power, export and advance their influence around the world, and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today’s challenges.” But, he added, “History and common sense tell us that liberty, opportunity, and justice thrive in a democracy, not in an autocracy.”

Quantitative evaluation of the Chinese development model

How can we evaluate the performance of the PRC in increasing the freedom and prosperity of their people relative to other countries?

One way is to use the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes of 164 countries. The Freedom Index takes a broad view of freedom, measured through sub-indexes of economic, political, and legal freedom. This approach allows a separate exploration of the effect of each of these freedoms on prosperity. The Legal Freedom sub-index measures the strength of key institutions on which the other two freedoms depend; it ascertains, for example, if the government and judiciary are effective and free of corruption.

The Prosperity Index also takes a comprehensive view. It measures not just the GDP per capita of a country, but also its performance on several other criteria such as health, education, the environment, inequality, and the treatment of minorities.

We thought it edifying to compare the performance of the PRC against that of Taiwan and South Korea, two other highly successful Asian countries that were at a development level comparable to that of the PRC at the end of the Second World War, and against that of the developed countries belonging to the Organ-isation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD average only includes data for the 1995 member countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, UK.

At the end of the Second World War, China, South Korea, and Taiwan were all poor. In 1962, the gross national income (GNI) per capita for the PRC, South Korea, and Taiwan was $70, $120, and $163 respectively. But their political and economic paths were different. From the end of the Second World War to the early 1990s they were all autocracies: the PRC was a dictatorship of the CCP, while Taiwan and South Korea were military dictatorships. But in the early 1990s, both Taiwan and South Korea became democracies, while the PRC did not change.

Figure 1 has a narrow focus and explores just the relative performance of the GNI per capita for these three countries. It shows that the PRC, South Korea, and Taiwan had a similarly low starting point in 1962. The two countries that had free markets at the beginning of this period and maintained it, and also chose democracy in the early 1990s, grew much faster than the PRC. By the early 1990s, South Korea and Taiwan had escaped the “middle-income trap”: they had crossed the World Bank’s threshold between middle-income and high-income countries. The PRC remained below this threshold in 2020.

Source: “GNI Per Capita, Atlas Method (Current US$),” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD;
National Statistics, Republic of China (Taiwan), https://eng.stat.gov.tw.

Figure 2 explores the PRC’s relative performance over time in the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index—which measures economic, political, and legal freedom—from 1995 to 2022. In 1995, the PRC’s freedom score was less than half that of the OECD average. Over this period, the OECD freedom score remained stable and the PRC score decreased by more than 2 percent. The ratio between the two remained just as large at the end of the period. But South Korea increased its freedom score by 9 percent over this period and improved its relative ratio from 1.16 to 1.07. Taiwan’s freedom score increased by 28 percent and its relative ratio improved from 1.33 to 1.03.

Source: Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes.

Figure 3 explores the PRC’s relative performance in the Prosperity Index. The PRC started behind the OECD in 1995, increased its score by 16 percent, and closed the ratio-gap somewhat, from 1.71 to 1.58. South Korea started very close to the OECD score and exceeded it by the end of the period, increasing its score by 10 percent. Taiwan already outperformed the OECD on prosperity in 1995 and increased its score by another 1 percent over the period. The OECD countries improved by 8 percent.

Source: Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes.

The discussion above is not meant to minimize the successes of the Chinese Communist Party in leading the development of the People’s Republic of China. Just like the Soviet Union decades earlier, the PRC has been transformed from a poor and backward country to one of the most consequential countries of the world due to its industrialization and progress in many other aspects of its society. Its rapid economic development and accomplishments in education, science, and healthcare are undeniable.

But it is very important to note that this has been achieved in the context of an authoritarian regime that denies basic freedoms to its citizens and deals harshly with dissent. One of the questions this raises is whether the repression and suffering were a price worth paying for the rapid economic growth and if this was the only way to achieve development.

Taiwan and South Korea show that neighboring countries—from a comparable level of development sixty years ago—were able to achieve more economic growth than the PRC over that period. Both Taiwan and South Korea ensured relative economic freedom throughout those years, combining this with political freedom for the latter thirty.

A related key question is whether the PRC’s economic success is durable. This question is certainly relevant in light of the recent reversal of the freedom reforms of the 1980s that caused the PRC’s 10 percent growth. The PRC’s growth is currently at 5 percent and trending downward.

Can the innovation and entrepreneurship needed for economic growth blossom in an authoritarian regime? There are very few examples of countries with both advanced economies and authoritarian regimes for extended periods of time. Singapore, with a population of just 5.5 million, is perhaps the most prominent outlier. It blossomed under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew for thirty-one years as prime minister and for another twenty-one in which he served as a cabinet minister. The two prime ministers that followed him were also effective.

But there is no guarantee that a system without effective checks and balances will continue to produce good leaders. Democracy, despite all its imperfections, has proven itself the form of government that is best at producing good leaders and removing bad leaders, and thereby leading to durable prosperity.

This volume’s reflections on freedom and prosperity

The question of whether people should live in freedom or not deserves careful study given the enormous consequences it has for history and human well-being. The aim of this book is to offer essays on various aspects of the relationship between freedom and prosperity and how they can be achieved.

In his foreword, Juan José Daboub reflects on his experience as a former minister of finance and chief of staff to the president of El Salvador, and as former managing director of the World Bank Group. He recalls El Salvador’s impressive economic gains after it adopted free-market reforms in the late 1990s. The author argues that an imperfect market will always be better than a perfect bureaucrat telling people what to do. To achieve freedom, the role of government should be that of a referee that maximizes competition and minimizes regulation.

Some of the essays examine theoretical questions.

In chapter 1, Ignacio P. Campomanes points out that democracy can (and should) be defended on ethical and moral grounds, as the system that best upholds the dignity of every citizen, but that the case for democracy can be strengthened significantly if we can rigorously show that free societies are also superior to autocracies in producing higher overall prosperity. He posits that, in order to make progress in the empirical assessment of the freedom-prosperity relationship, we need to dig deeper into the constitutive attributes of free societies. In his essay, he assesses the theoretical soundness of the analytical framework proposed by the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes that measure separately economic, political, and legal freedom, and provides preliminary evidence of the empirical relevance of this division.

In chapter 2, Markus Jaeger argues that historically oriented, qualitative studies can help shed light on the often complex and complicated interactions among structural factors (e.g., geography, demographics), institutions (e.g., political freedom, free markets), and policies and their contribution to successful economic development. He points out that free societies and market-based economic systems are important factors underpinning productivity and prosperity, particularly once countries reach middle- and high-income levels.

In chapter 3, Michael Klein explores the various mechanisms that drive development. He discusses how societies need freedom to prosper, while firms and markets need cooperation to reach their full potential. Finding the right balance between freedom and cooperation is not always easy, and the author talks about finding a “good mix” of rules, discretionary power, and freedom.

In chapter 4, Vladimir Fernandes Maciel, Ulisses Monteiro Ruiz de Gamboa, Paulo Rogério Scarano, and Julian Alexienco Portillo examine the relationship between freedom and prosperity around the world by using the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes and a neo-institutionalist analysis approach. They find a symbiosis between freedom and prosperity: a virtuous cycle (higher levels of freedom and prosperity lead to more freedom and prosperity) and a vicious cycle (lower levels of freedom and prosperity lead to less freedom and prosperity), with these cycles tending to reinforce each other.

In chapter 5, Jamie Bologna Pavlik, Benjamin Powell, and Andrew Young provide evidence that economic freedom not only correlates with prosperity, but that it is also an important predictor of prosperity. The authors apply the Mahalanobis Distance Matching method to the Atlantic Council’s Economic Freedom sub-index to analyze the causal statistical relationships between improvements in economic freedom and subsequent prosperity. The researchers find that meaningful increases in economic freedom led to large increases in GDP per capita over a five-year time horizon, supporting Adam Smith’s assertion that increased economic freedom is an essential precondition for greater prosperity.

In chapter 6, Luis Ravina Bohórquez discusses the role of elites in a country’s prosperity and development. He defines elites to include politicians, government officials, and other people with influence in civil and economic circles. He argues that the elites have a responsibility to foster strong institutions and government policies, including those that prevent nepotism and corruption. Bohórquez highlights the role elites played in Kenya in promoting investment in good education and how education helped the country’s development.

In chapter 7, Elakiya Ananthakrishnan looks at the impact of the informal economy on countries’ overall prosperity. She also reviews the main reasons leading citizens to conduct business outside of regulated markets, especially the avoidance of taxes and social security contributions. Other reasons include escaping government bureaucracy or regulatory burdens, and bypassing corruption, all of which relate to inefficient public institutions and weak rule of law.

In chapter 8, Julio Amador Díaz López looks at innovation and misinformation as they relate to economic development. He argues that the Western system—characterized by risk taking, a diverse population, and less restrictive policies—is better suited for promoting innovation than the authoritarian model, which is more restrictive and risk averse. Protecting rule of law, free markets, and diversity of people and ideas remain essential to harnessing new technologies—the key to prosperity in our time.
Other essays offer reflections focused on certain countries and regions.

In chapter 9, Khémaies Jhinaoui examines the ongoing struggle for freedom and prosperity in the Middle East and North Africa region. The author argues that the lack of realism and the inexperience of the region’s regimes hindered social progress following the Arab Spring. The author suggests three lessons: that the quest for freedom does not have to be radical; that gradual reform is more effective; and that foreign influence shapes the pace and intensity of the struggle for freedom and prosperity in the region.

In chapter 10, Mohamed M. Farid examines Egypt’s development over the last fifteen years and the effects of extensive government intervention in the economy. Farid argues that to increase prosperity, Egypt must reduce the role of the state in the economy, implement free-market reforms, and focus public investments in human capital.

In chapter 11, Sergio M. Alcocer and Jeziret S. González examine the decrease in press freedom in Mexico and how this might result in less prosperity. The authors review current Mexican policies to protect journalists and they recommend improvements. They argue that prosperity cannot be achieved without freedom of the press.

In chapter 12, Vanessa Rubio-Márquez investigates the use of the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes in real-life policy debates and policy making. The author finds the Indexes useful in identifying the factors which make a country free and prosperous, and in providing benchmarks for comparisons with other countries. But she also calls for alertness to signs of freedom retrenchment and institutional deterioration not yet captured by the Indexes.

In chapter 13, Prashant Narang and Parth J. Shah examine India’s current economic situation and its rankings on the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. To identify areas where India can improve, the authors compare its performance to the global averages, to that of countries in the same income category, and to the South Asia regional averages. They also identify improvement opportunities for India.

In chapter 14, Clara Volintiru, Camelia Crişan, and George Ștefan assert that achieving long-term prosperity and stability in Eastern and Central Europe requires strategic engagement by Western allies. The authors argue that economic resilience is crucial to Eastern Europe’s security strategy and propose three overlapping lines of effort: increasing European integration; transitioning to a new economic model; and engaging all societal actors in the pursuit of sustainable and shared prosperity.

In chapter 15, Danladi Verheijen explores the government’s role in assuring economic and legal freedoms in Nigeria. The author suggests that the Nigerian government should be less involved in the economy and more involved in providing security.

In chapter 16, Dan Negrea, Joseph Lemoine, and Yomna Gaafar investigate freedom and prosperity trends in a group of Eastern European countries since the early 1990s. Using the scoring and rankings of the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes, the authors find that countries that instituted more political, economic, and legal freedoms since the 1990s enjoy greater prosperity today.

We hope that the essays in this book will be a useful tool for those promoting improvements in freedom and prosperity around the world.

Dan Negrea is the senior director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council.

Brad Lips is the CEO of Atlas Network.

Kris Mauren is the co-founder and president of Acton Institute.

1 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).

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Belarus dictator weaponizes passports in new attack on exiled opposition

Hanna Liubakova — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 23:25:00 +0000

Belarusian diplomatic missions will no longer issue new passports to Belarusian citizens residing abroad and will not renew expired personal documents, according to a decree signed by Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka on September 4. Instead, Belarusian citizens living abroad will be required to return to Belarus in order to access passport services. The new regulations will also make it difficult for Belarusians residing outside the country to sell real estate or other assets.

These changes are being interpreted as a fresh escalation in Lukashenka’s campaign against Belarusians who left the country following the mass pro-democracy protests of 2020. Thousands fled Belarus in late 2020 and sought refuge elsewhere in Europe after suffering arrest or facing criminal charges for their involvement in a nationwide protest movement that aimed to overturn a rigged presidential election and bring 26 years of increasingly dictatorial rule to an end. Many of the current exile community also experienced human rights abuses while in custody including torture.

The cancellation of consular services now places exiled Belarusians in a precarious position. Unless they return to Belarus to renew expired passports, they could find themselves without their primary identification document and unable to access a wide range of essential services in their current countries of residence. However, returning to Belarus could result in arrest and prosecution in connection with their earlier involvement in anti-regime protects.

The leader of Belarus’s democratic forces, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has urged exiled Belarusians not to return to Belarus if they face the risk of persecution. She has promised to raise the issue with officials in countries where Belarusians reside, while also seeking to secure international recognition for an alternative passport initiative launched recently by the country’s opposition movement in exile.

“Denying passports to Belarusians abroad is yet another ploy by Lukashenka,” tweeted Tsikhanouskaya. “It’s not just the regime’s revenge against those in exile but also an attempt to pressure the democratic nations hosting them. Encouraging Belarusians to return is an obvious trap. We won’t fall for it.”

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There is no precise data available for the number of people who left Belarus over the past three years. Estimates vary significantly, while official figures do not differentiate between those who left Belarus as political exiles and others who have moved abroad since 2020 for professional or personal reasons.

The latest Eurostat report on migration to the European Union stated that Belarusian nationals received approximately 309,000 EU residency permits in 2022, representing almost 9% of all permits issued. Research by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe indicates that as many as half a million Belarusians may have left the country since 2020. It is reasonable to assume that hundreds of thousands of Belarusians could now potentially face difficulties as their passports come up for renewal.

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The new restrictions on consular services are not the first example of Lukashenka targeting exiled Belarusians. In early 2023, he introduced new legislation making it possible to deprive Belarusians living abroad of their citizenship if found guilty of “extremism.” Meanwhile, a number of opposition leaders have been tried in absentia, with Tsikhanouskaya receiving a 15-year prison sentence.

Belarusians in exile have also been prevented from exercising their democratic rights as citizens. During a controversial February 2022 referendum on changes to the Belarusian Constitution, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to open polling stations at Belarusian embassies, citing Covid-related safety concerns and staffing shortages. Instead, Belarusians residing abroad were encouraging to return to Belarus in order to cast their votes.

Nobody within the exiled Belarusian democratic opposition movement is under any illusions regarding the dangers of returning to their homeland. Human rights watchdogs have already raised the alarm over mounting instances of returning Belarusians being detained. In some cases, detainees have been forced to record video confessions admitting their involvement in pro-democracy protests.

For the past three years, Lukashenka has consistently sought to downplay the significance of Belarus’s 2020 pro-democracy uprising while attempting to frame it as a foreign plot. He has publicly encouraged exiled citizens to return home and has even established a government commission to aid in the process. However, few appear ready to take him at his word. Instead, they view the recent ban on passport renewals as further confirmation that the Belarusian dictator still seeks to punish citizens who he earlier branded as “fugitives” and “traitors.”

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council. She tweets @HannaLiubakova.

By the early 1970s, when the Helsinki Accords were negotiated, President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had settled on a Cold War strategy with the following elements: the containment of Soviet power, including resisting communist expansion; arms control, to reduce the risks of superpower confrontation; and, framed by the first two elements, a general relaxation of tensions with the Soviet Union, commonly known as détente. Taken together, these elements constituted a long-term “structure of peace,” as Nixon put it.

Nixon developed his Cold War strategy in the context of the United States’ struggles in the Vietnam War and its parallel effort to improve relations with China, then at odds with Moscow. It made sense at the time. Détente gave the United States greater tactical flexibility in dealing with Moscow and Beijing, and it reduced the danger of a general US-Soviet war, both considerable achievements.

Implicit in the Nixon-Kissinger structure of peace, however, was a tacit acceptance of Soviet domination over Eastern Europe. Nixon made that nearly explicit: “We are aware,” he wrote to Congress in 1970, “that the Soviet Union sees its security as directly affected by developments in [Eastern Europe] . . . It is not the intention of the United States to undermine the legitimate security interests of the Soviet Union.” This view reflected an assumption, nearly universal if often unspoken within the US foreign policy community, both in and out of government, that the line of the Iron Curtain, imposed by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in and after 1945, was permanent; that the “satellite countries” of Central and Eastern Europe were doomed to remain dominated by Moscow; and that efforts to change that fate, whether through revolt as in Hungary in 1956 or reform as in Czechoslovakia in 1968, would end in failure.

For Moscow, détente offered strategic parity with the United States; limited competition beyond Europe that the Soviets could intensify as opportunities arose; some US and much more Western European trade, loans, credits, and investment; and acceptance, however disguised, of the Soviet Union’s European empire, the imposition of which had been the original cause of the Cold War. This was the best deal the Soviet Union ever got from the United States, which explains the persistent Soviet (and later Russian) affection for the Nixon administration.

These were the conditions under which the CSCE process began. The Helsinki Accords, the eventual product of the CSCE’s negotiations, consisted of three “baskets.” Basket one gave political backing to the post–World War II European borders and, by implication, to the status quo of divided Europe. The Soviets liked that part a lot. Basket two included economic cooperation, which they liked as well. But basket one also contained references to human rights and fundamental freedoms. Moreover, Helsinki’s basket three, with equal standing, upheld an agenda of social and cultural contacts and access to information.

The Soviets had resisted the inclusion of human rights in the Helsinki package, but in the end agreed to it as a necessary price for a document that seemed to enshrine Europe’s territorial and even its political status quo. From a Soviet perspective this risk was acceptable: the Helsinki Final Act’s language about human rights might well have proven as meaningless in practice as had the words of the Declaration of Liberated Europe that Stalin had agreed to at Yalta. The Helsinki Final Act seemed to be a pretty good deal for Moscow.

Many on the political right in the United States reached the same conclusion—that the Helsinki Accords ratified the division of Europe and legitimized the Iron Curtain—and attacked Kissinger and then-President Gerald Ford for having signed them.

The Final Act’s lasting impact

As it turned out, however, the provisions on human rights became the most lasting elements of the Helsinki Final Act. Rather than being consigned to a junk heap of empty rhetoric, the Helsinki Final Act’s language on human rights became the most dynamic part of the lengthy document. This was due to the shift on the ground in the Soviet Union and Europe east of the Iron Curtain, an unanticipated and welcome byproduct of détente.

Under conditions of détente, feeling relatively confident and seeking to deepen the benefits it implied, the Soviets cautiously widened the possibilities for contacts with the West. US-Soviet student and cultural exchanges expanded. US journalists were able to spend time in Moscow and Leningrad under somewhat more open conditions. Traveling US government exhibits of US culture toured the Soviet Union. A generation of young US Soviet specialists, including future Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, future Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, future US Ambassador to Moscow John Beyrle, and many others, myself included, had the opportunity to gain access to Soviet society in ways unthinkable for an earlier generation of Soviet specialists like George Kennan.

US and Western European journalists, students, scholars, and young diplomats in Moscow were able to develop contacts with an emerging generation of Soviet dissidents. Russians, especially in Moscow and Leningrad, had outlets and contacts with Westerners their parents couldn’t have dreamed of. This opening went even further in communist-ruled Central and Eastern Europe, where US and Western European journalists, students, and scholars started meeting dissidents who were becoming more outspoken and even organized in underground and semi-underground fashion, especially in Poland. US embassies in the region started assigning diplomats to “human rights” portfolios, with the job of maintaining contacts with unofficial, independent thinkers. All this meant that the Soviet Union and its empire were no longer abstractions to the West; dissidents’ ideas were entering the consciousness and vocabulary of journalists, students, diplomats, and scholars. The numbers of these dissidents were tiny but their influence was outsized.

In the aftermath of the adoption of the Helsinki Final Act, “Helsinki Committees” or “Helsinki Watch” groups sprang up in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe, monitoring the application of the Final Act’s human rights principles, sometimes detailed, to which their governments had recently agreed. Thanks to détente, the habits and means of contact between them and the West were in place. An infrastructure of human rights groups grew in the West and, albeit under conditions of repression, east of the Iron Curtain.

This human rights activism in the Soviet Union and especially Eastern Europe, boosted by the use to which activists put the Helsinki Final Act, continued through the 1970s, just as Soviet and eastern bloc economic fortunes began their terminal decline. The Soviets of the Brezhnev era sought Western economic support—Western technology legally or otherwise obtained, credits, investment, and loans—to boost productivity and obviate the need for deep economic reforms that communist rulers rightly feared would weaken their political control. Some of this economic support was forthcoming, especially from West Germany. But there was not enough of it to compensate for the deepening sclerosis of the communist system.

By the end of the 1970s, democratic dissent was on the rise, especially in Poland, while the communist economies were sagging. Communist regimes were on the defensive. The harbinger of the fall of the Soviet empire took place in Poland in 1980, with the rise of Solidarity, simultaneously a trade union and mass political movement that united democratic dissidents with Polish shipyard and factory workers. The communist system in Poland never really recovered and in 1989 the entire communist system in Eastern Europe collapsed.

The Helsinki Final Act did not cause the end of communist rule in Europe. Yet, although originally intended to be the underpinnings of détente and thus the status quo in Europe, it may have encouraged and accelerated the trends that helped end that status quo. Kissinger may not have had this result in mind when advancing the Helsinki Final Act negotiations as part of his policy of détente. Indeed, he later wrote of the CSCE process: “Turning points often pass unrecognized by contemporaries.” Fifty years later, it is easier to recognize the CSCE and the Helsinki Accords it produced as a turning point for the advancement of human rights in Central and Eastern Europe.

Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former US ambassador to Poland.

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Russia is losing in Ukraine but winning in Georgia

Giorgi Kandelaki — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 20:58:50 +0000

With attention at NATO’s July summit in Vilnius firmly focused on Ukraine’s membership prospects, the absence of Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili received relatively little attention. And yet this absence reflected an ongoing geopolitical shift in the wider Black Sea region with potentially major consequences for international security. While Russia is losing in Ukraine, there are growing indications that the Kremlin is winning in Georgia.

Weeks before this summer’s NATO summit, Georgian PM Garibashvili sparked international headlines by blaming NATO for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This statement reportedly caused the alliance to deny Garibashvili a place at the summit, according to German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Garibashvili’s comments were controversial but hardly exceptional. Indeed, they reflected the Georgian government’s broader turn away from Euro-Atlantic integration and toward the Kremlin.

In July 2023, Georgia signed a strategic partnership with China, signaling a further shift away from the West amid growing signs of Beijing’s tacit support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Georgian government has not only embraced Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative, but has also indicated support for other Chinese foreign policy ventures that appear designed to counterbalance the West in general and the United States in particular. This trend should be on the radar of all Western policymakers.

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Western leaders should know that downplaying the geopolitical changes currently taking place in Georgia is short-sighted. The West’s weak response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia is now widely seen as a major strategic blunder that emboldened Vladimir Putin and set the stage for the genocidal invasion of Ukraine. Fifteen years on, the revival of Russian influence in Georgia is helping to convince Putin that despite major setbacks, he will ultimately be able to achieve his goals in Ukraine.

While the Western world has united in opposition to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Georgia has stood aside and has instead adopted a range of Kremlin-friendly policies. Crucially, the Georgian authorities have flatly refused to join international sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, Tbilisi recently restored direct flights with Russia, despite calls from the EU and US not to do so. Government officials have also echoed Kremlin propaganda accusing the West of attempting to pressure Georgia into attacking Russia.

Meanwhile, critics have accused the Georgian authorities of embracing anti-democratic policies similar to those adopted by Russia in recent decades. In spring 2023, the ruling Georgian Dream party attempted to implement new laws that closely mirrored existing Russian legislation targeting civil society organizations as “foreign agents.” This initiative was eventually blocked by large-scale public protests, but efforts to demonize civil society and the country’s political opposition have continued.

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The impact of Russian propaganda in the Georgian information space is another problematic issue that is particularly evident in the rehabilitation of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. For years, the Putin regime has promoted a revisionist approach to Stalin, portraying him a strong leader whose role in securing victory over Nazi Germany outweighs his crimes. Among Georgian audiences, Russia has successfully utilized Stalin’s Georgian roots, with the Soviet dictator emerging as a figurehead for an anti-Western strain of Georgian nationalism that aligns closely with Kremlin narratives.

In recent years, 11 new statues to Stalin have been erected in Georgia, while one recent Georgian opinion poll found almost 46% of respondents agreed that “patriotic Georgians should be proud of Stalin.” This change in attitudes toward Stalin has yet to attract much attention in the West, but it serves to highlight the vulnerability of Georgian society to Russian information warfare.

Failing to address Georgia’s slide into Russia’s geopolitical orbit would be a costly mistake. To avoid this outcome, Washington and Brussels need to adopt clear policies. Time is of the essence. As Russian influence continues to grow in today’s Georgia, Western leverage is inevitably diminishing. It is vital that the West puts its legitimate leverage to work without delay to demonstrate that further steps toward Moscow will come with considerable costs. This would help the Georgian people to democratically reverse the country’s dangerous current trajectory.

The alternative would be disastrous for Georgia, Ukraine, and Western interests. If Putin is able to reassert Russian dominance over Georgia and derail the country’s Euro-Atlantic ambitions while continuing to occupy twenty percent of the country, he will be encouraged to believe that a similar outcome will eventually prove possible in Ukraine. That would prolong the current war and pave the way for further acts of Russian aggression.

Giorgi Kandelaki is a former Georgian MP and a former Chair of the Georgian Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. He is currently a project manager at the Soviet Past Research Laboratory (Sovlab), a think-tank dedicated to researching Georgia’s totalitarian past and countering the weaponization of history.

Ukraine’s fight against Russian imperialism is Europe’s longest independence struggle

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 01:28:01 +0000

There are few more meaningful public holidays on the 2023 calendar than Ukrainian Independence Day. However, with the country locked in a brutal fight for national survival, few are in the mood to celebrate. Instead, this week’s thirty-second anniversary of the 1991 declaration of independence is an opportunity to reflect on the deep historical roots of the war that is currently raging on Europe’s eastern frontier.

Russia’s February 2022 invasion shocked the watching world, but it was actually anything but unprecedented. On the contrary, the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin eighteen months ago is merely the latest chapter in a dark saga of Russian imperial aggression against Ukraine that stretches back centuries. The Ukrainian people may have officially achieved statehood more than three decades ago, but they are still battling to defend their country against a far larger and more powerful neighbor who refuses to accept the reality of an independent Ukraine.

Many international observers appear unable to grasp the colonial context underpinning today’s Russian invasion of Ukraine. This reflects an even more fundamental failure to recognize that modern Russia remains an almost entirely unreconstructed imperial entity. Unlike the great European empires of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Russia never experienced a decisive break with the imperial past; nor did it fully relinquish its claims to neighboring nations. In terms of both domestic and foreign policy, today’s Russian Federation is still guided primarily by the politics of empire.

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Throughout his 23-year reign, Vladimir Putin has enthusiastically embraced this imperial identity. Soon after taking office, he signaled his intentions by reintroducing the Soviet national anthem and consciously reviving the gold-plated splendor of the Czarist court. More recently, he has emphasized the continuity between the imperial past and his own regime by lamenting the fall of the USSR as the “disintegration of historical Russia” and vowing to reclaim “historically Russian lands” from Ukraine.

Putin’s bitterness over the break-up of the Soviet Union has fueled an unhealthy obsession with Ukraine that has come to symbolize his increasingly messianic brand of Russian imperialism. Among the many perceived injustices of the Soviet collapse, it is the emergence of an independent Ukraine that rankles Putin most. He insists Ukrainians are really Russians (“one people”), and claims the entire notion of a separate Ukrainian national identity is an anti-Russian plot hatched by foreign agents. During the build-up to the current war, the Russian dictator published a 5,000-word essay questioning Ukraine’s right to exist, and described Ukraine as “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”

Such posturing is nothing new. Russian rulers have been denying Ukrainian national identity and suppressing Ukraine’s statehood ambitions for more than three hundred years. This grim history of oppression is studded with atrocities such as the 1708 Baturyn Massacre and the artificially engineered famine in 1930s Soviet Ukraine, which left millions dead and is now recognized by more than 30 countries as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation. These unpunished crimes helped fuel a sense of imperial impunity that laid the ideological foundations for the current invasion. Almost a century after the horrors of the Holodomor famine, Russia is once again accused of committing genocide in Ukraine.

Throughout the Czarist and Soviet eras, Russia’s many landmark crimes in Ukraine were accompanied by relentless waves of russification in every sphere of Ukrainian life. This took place alongside the slow but steady suffocation of Ukraine’s national aspirations under layer upon layer of restrictions and bureaucratic bans. Perhaps the single most succinct example of Russia’s pathological refusal to acknowledge the existence of a separate Ukrainian identity remains the Valuev Circular. This 1863 Czarist decree banning the publication of Ukrainian-language literature declares: “a separate Ukrainian (“Little Russian”) language never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.”

Disinformation has always played an important part in Russian efforts to suppress Ukrainian identity. Long before the era of social media fakes and Kremlin troll farms, Russian agents were actively destroying or rewriting ancient chronicles to fit imperial orthodoxies and remove anything that could strengthen Ukrainian claims to a national narrative of their own. Indeed, it is somewhat fitting that the term “Potemkin Village,” which is used to denote acts of shameless political deception, can be traced back to the artificial villages allegedly erected by Czarist officials in the Ukrainian countryside for the benefit of visiting Russian Empress Catherine the Great.

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The dawn of Ukrainian independence did little to dampen Russia’s imperial ambitions, with Moscow continuing to treat post-Soviet Ukraine as a vassal state. The turning point came in late 2004, when attempts to rig Ukraine’s presidential election in favor of a Kremlin-friendly candidate sparked massive street protests in Kyiv that came to be known as the Orange Revolution. This was to prove a watershed moment in Putin’s reign. The Orange Revolution sparked painful memories of his own experience as a young KGB officer in East Germany as the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Empire in Central Europe crumbled. Putin became convinced the West was plotting a similar pro-democracy uprising in Russia itself, and began to view Ukraine not just as an accident of history but as an existential threat to his own regime.

After the Orange Revolution, Putin’s policies toward Ukraine grew increasingly aggressive while his rhetoric became openly imperialistic. When years of energy cutoffs, trade embargoes, and attempts to subvert domestic Ukrainian politics all failed to force the country back into the Russian orbit, he eventually resorted to military force with the 2014 occupation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. This proved counter-productive, fueling a surge in Ukrainian patriotic sentiment and dramatically accelerating the nation-building processes that had been underway in Ukraine since the early 1990s. Faced with the prospect of losing Ukraine entirely, Putin made the fateful decision to launch the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

Amid the horrors of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russia’s imperialistic objectives have become increasingly obvious. Kremlin officials routinely deny the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state, while genocidal anti-Ukrainian outbursts have become completely normalized on Russian state TV channels. Meanwhile, Putin himself has proudly compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Peter the Great.

The actions of Russian forces inside Ukraine more than mirror this imperialistic rhetoric. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed, with millions more subjected to forced deportation. Those who remain in occupied regions are being pressured into accepting Russian passports as part of a ruthless russification campaign. Time and again, survivors of Russian captivity have recounted the especially brutal treatment reserved for anyone considered a Ukrainian patriot.

None of this is entirely surprising to Ukrainians, who have spent much of their lives in the shadow of Russia’s imperial pretensions and are painfully aware of their colossal neighbor’s longstanding disdain for Ukrainian statehood. While many Ukrainians were admittedly taken aback by the ferocity of the Russian onslaught, few were genuinely shocked to witness yet another manifestation of the imperial aggression that has shaped their country’s history for generations. This familiarity helps to explain why an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians are so determined to fight on until their country is fully liberated. They understand the futility of trying to compromise with the Kremlin and recognize that any attempt to strike a deal would be interpreted by Putin as an invitation to go further.

As Ukrainians defend their statehood on the battlefield, they are also attempting to remove any remaining symbols of Russian imperialism from the country. In the past year, high profile departures have included Odesa’s Catherine the Great monument and the giant Soviet crest adorning the shield of Kyiv’s iconic motherland monument. In everyday life, more and more Ukrainians are opting to switch to the Ukrainian language, exploring different aspects of Ukrainian culture, and expressing an interest in Ukrainian history. A war of independence is taking place along an 800-mile front and in the minds of millions of individual Ukrainians.

An understanding of Russian imperialism in Ukraine is essential for anyone seeking to make sense of today’s war. Putin has attempted to blame the invasion on everything from nonexistent Nazis to imaginary NATO security threats, but at heart it is an old-fashioned colonial war of extermination. In words and deeds, Russia has made clear that it seeks to destroy the Ukrainian state and erase Ukrainian identity. Asking Ukrainians to negotiate with this genocidal agenda is absurd and grotesque. Instead, the goal must be a decisive Ukrainian victory over Russian imperialism. Until Europe’s longest independence struggle reaches a successful conclusion, a sustainable peace will remain elusive.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

The launch of this new textbook is worthy of particular attention. As an officially sanctioned guide to Russian history that is clearly designed to shape the world view of young Russians, it highlights many of the key messages at the heart of modern Russian imperialism and lays bare the Kremlin’s efforts to weaponize history in order to justify its own wars of aggression.

Unsurprisingly, the textbook glorifies centuries of Russian imperial expansion and whitewashes the crimes of the Soviet era, while dehumanizing Ukrainians as Nazis and portraying the West as implacably hostile to Russia. It defends the Russian invasion of Ukraine and places Putin alongside other leading Russian imperialists such as Peter the Great and Stalin as a “gatherer of Russian lands.” Meanwhile, setbacks such as the collapse of the USSR and the loss of Russian influence in the post-Soviet space are portrayed as part of a long-term Western anti-Russian conspiracy.

One of the key threads running through the new textbook is the notion of Russian victimhood. Russia is consistently portrayed as a victim of Western intrigues and is never the aggressor. Needless to say, there is no thought for the entire nations subjugated or destroyed by Russian imperial aggression. In this highly distorted and hopelessly partisan reading of history, the largest nation on the planet is also the world’s biggest victim.

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The messianic view of Russian history outlined in this newly published textbook is part of a long tradition of Russian exceptionalism dating back to Czarist times that portrays Russia as a nation on a sacred civilizing mission. With Russia depicted as an unquestionably positive force for good in the world, the use of force in pursuit of this role becomes easily justified. Such twisted logic remains prevalent today and helps to explain the popularity of otherwise absurd arguments framing the invasion of Ukraine as an attempt to rescue Ukrainians from themselves.

This embrace of exceptionalism encourages Russians to romanticize the violence that has defined much of their country’s history. It also reinforces a sense of continuity linking the Czarist and Soviet past with the Putinist present. For millions of Russians, post-Soviet military campaigns including the frozen conflict in Moldova, two Chechen wars, the invasion of Georgia, the seizure of Crimea, and the intervention in Syria are all part of a expansionist tradition stretching back centuries.

Putin himself has spoken of the USSR as “historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union.” He has directly compared his Ukraine invasion with the imperial conquests of Peter the Great, and has made clear that the goal of today’s war is to reclaim “historically Russian lands.” No doubt Putin’s Czarist predecessors would find these imperial ambitions immediately recognizable.

In line with Putin’s claims to be restoring historical justice in Ukraine, the new textbook rejects the idea of Russia as a colonial power and instead speaks of “reuniting” territories or liberating neighboring nations from oppression. Meanwhile, those who have dared to condemn or fight against Russian expansionism are depicted as agents of the West or nationalist extremists. The incorporation of new territories by Russia is portrayed as beneficial for the people being incorporated, regardless of whether they themselves agree.

The recent publication of Russia’s new history textbook is a comparatively minor event at a time when the Kremlin is waging a genocidal war of imperial conquest in the heart of Europe. Nevertheless, it should serve as a wake-up call for anyone still laboring under the delusion that Putin is a rational leader pursuing limited geopolitical objectives. On the contrary, he presides over a regime and a society that openly embraces a brand of imperialism which most Europeans assumed had been consigned to the ash heap of history generations ago.

This imperialistic mindset represents perhaps the greatest single obstacle to a sustainable peace in Europe. Even if the invasion of Ukraine ends in military failure, the underlying problem of Russian imperialism will remain until Russians are forced to confront their country’s long history of imperial aggression. This will likely be a painful process, but it is unavoidable if Russia is to eventually emerge as a modern state and reintegrate into the wider community of nations.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and author of the recently published “Fascism and Genocide. Russia’s War Against Ukrainians.”

#AtlanticDebrief – Where is Europe headed politically? | A Debrief from Jon Henley

jbatchik — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 13:02:39 +0000

IN THIS EPISODE

To what extent are we witnessing the rise of the far-right in Europe? What is driving European voters to support far-right candidates? As we gear up for the European Parliament elections next year, what do these political shifts mean for the European project as a whole?

On this episode of #AtlanticDebrief, Rachel Rizzo sits down with Jon Henley, the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, to discuss to what extent the far-right is becoming more politically mainstream in Europe today.

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Afghanistan’s next generation must rise above the Taliban’s ‘reality’

Nasir Andisha — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 19:44:46 +0000

This month marks the second anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s military takeover of the country. The devastating images of Kabul in mid-August 2021 depicting despair, chaos, and abandonment are still vivid in our memories. These images also symbolized the collapse of democracy in Afghanistan. Despite evident shortcomings, this democratic state, for which I served as deputy foreign minister from 2015 to 2019, unleashed an unprecedented era of socioeconomic progress in Afghanistan’s history.

For the majority of Afghanistan’s new generation—those who worked, fought, and aspired for a free, democratic, and prosperous country—it has been a harrowing two years. It has been two long years of processing grief and overcoming the anguish of abandonment and collapse, but also two years of engaging in self-reflection, reorganization, and resistance.

The country is in a deep crisis; the status quo is not sustainable. The challenges ahead are enormous and multidimensional, but all is not lost. Afghanistan’s most precious asset, developed over the past two decades, is its professional and well-connected youth. More than 60 percent of Afghanistan’s population is under the age of twenty-five. The burden of resolving this crisis by spotting and exploiting opportunities amid this calamity falls on this generation. They are slowly but surely rising to the task.

The Taliban reneged on the promises they made during the Doha negotiation process to form an inclusive government and provide women and girls with access to education.

The challenges ahead are indeed colossal. Afghanistan faces a deeply divided society, a demoralized elite, a broken economy, an exhausted civil society, and an extremist ethnoreligious group in control of the country. The Taliban reneged on the promises they made during the Doha negotiation process to form an inclusive government and provide women and girls with access to education. Instating exclusively male and essentially Pashtun mullahs, they failed to gain domestic and international legitimacy. They continue to impose draconian and regressive laws, which are pushing the country into a downward spiral in every socioeconomic, human-rights, and fundamental-freedoms index. After systematically erasing women and girls from public life, the Taliban administration is on the brink of being designated as a gender apartheid regime by United Nations–appointed rights experts. Its symbiotic relations with foreign terrorist groups, drug production and trafficking, and systematic promotion of violent extremist ideology pose imminent threats to the immediate region and beyond.

The international community, weary and incoherent in its approach to the crises, has retreated to the background, only to engage in narrow humanitarian diplomacy. With each new edict from the Taliban’s reclusive leader, the bar on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms lowers further. International demands for an inclusive and representative government are confined to written reports. International leaders have dropped democratization from their talking points on the Taliban regime altogether.

Yet members of Afghanistan’s new generation—inside the country and in exile—have not given up, neither on their country nor on their hope and aspiration for the creation of a free, rights-based, and prosperous state that can serve as a home to all its citizens. Only two days after the Taliban’s military takeover, women and girls took to the streets of Kabul and other major cities to demand their fundamental rights. The call by women for “food, work, and freedom” ignited the first sparks of a civil resistance movement in the cities. Similarly, despite the chaotic disintegration of Afghanistan’s national security forces, some soldiers and officers have laid the foundations of a national resistance front in the rural mountains of Afghanistan. Afghan diaspora communities have organized protests and launched advocacy campaigns for the restoration of rights and dignity around the world.

Afghans’ struggle for a better Afghanistan entails standing against the brutality of a formidable foe but also enduring the selective amnesia of retreating friends.

The most excruciating challenge of all is the spread of a self-deprecating narrative among certain circles outside Afghanistan that there is no alternative to the Taliban government and that it is the “reality” that Afghans have to live with. This narrative is wrong and lazy. The Taliban are not and never were an acceptable alternative to a democratic state in a pluralistic society such as Afghanistan. While they are a part of the country’s “reality,” this does not mean that the people of Afghanistan shouldn’t rise above and aspire for better. Hence Afghans’ struggle for a better Afghanistan entails standing against the brutality of a formidable foe but also enduring the selective amnesia of retreating friends.

More serious than often-cited tribal or regional rifts—Durrani versus Ghilzai or east versus south—are the inherent internal contradictions in the Taliban attitude toward contemporary governance, education, economics, and foreign affairs. The concept of equality of treatment and opportunities for citizens and long-term peaceful coexistence with the outside world, the two prerequisites of enduring stability in Afghanistan, are not ingrained in the movement’s DNA. Their dogmatic, anti-Enlightenment, and misogynist ideas and practices are not only a nuisance for the developed world, but also a threat to the new wave of modernization in Muslim-majority nations.

History has shown that dogmatic regimes defy the normative principle of diplomatic engagement. Concessions don’t lead to counter-concessions but to the strengthening of power. The Taliban’s behavior during the peace talks and after their assumption of power vindicates this argument. They are running in the opposite direction of the caravan of human progress. International engagement should prioritize containment and damage control rather than offering more concessions.

The international community’s nonrecognition of the Taliban regime has created an enabling environment for Afghanistan’s civil and political forces to coalesce around common values and principles and demand the restoration of human rights, fundamental freedoms, and an inclusive and representative government. International civil society, parliamentarians, academic institutions, women’s rights groups, associations of veterans, and friends of Afghanistan are actively supporting these endeavors. Taking note of the Taliban’s intransigence and regressive policies, their failure to gain international legitimacy, and the emergence of a civil resistance movement, many Afghans inside the country have not settled with the Taliban and do not perceive them as a legitimate and permanent government.

A realistic assessment of the above challenges points to opportunities to positively engage all relevant stakeholders. Afghanistan’s professional and emerging political forces, journalists, and academics are rapidly establishing themselves as units of a mass resistance and reform movement. It is these Afghans, particularly among the youth, who must unite to save the country.

Nasir Andisha is the ambassador and permanent representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations in Geneva. He is a former vice president of the Human Rights Council (2020) and deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan (2015-2019).

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Getting Venezuela’s historic humanitarian accord up and running

Geoff Ramsey, Ignacia Ulloa Peters — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Introduction
Venezuela’s social agreement
Delayed implementation and mixed messaging
Policy recommendations
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
About the authors

Introduction

Venezuela’s political, economic, and humanitarian crisis has generated one of the largest and most complex emergencies around the globe today. By implementing a historic humanitarian agreement reached between the Venezuelan opposition and the Maduro government, the United States has a unique opportunity to address human suffering on the ground while also working to advance a political solution. While the situation in Venezuela may have fallen from international headlines in recent years, the United States and its allies across the Americas have a clear interest in working to resolve the humanitarian and political emergency in Venezuela, which has generated an exodus of 7 million refugees and migrants and allowed US geopolitical rivals to deepen their influence.

In recent years the international community has reached a consensus that the best way to resolve Venezuela’s crisis is by incentivizing negotiations between the government of Nicolás Maduro and the democratic opposition. Progress has not been easy. Since Maduro came to power in 2013, four internationally backed attempts to encourage negotiations have begun and ended with no significant breakthroughs.

The current process, however, has proven to be an exception. Unlike previous attempts at negotiations, this round of talks has resulted in substantial agreements between the Maduro government and the opposition. Negotiations began in August 2021, when two nine-member delegations representing the Maduro government and the US-backed opposition Unitary Platform coalition met in Mexico City to agree to discuss an ambitious agenda to resolve the crisis—including addressing humanitarian needs, free and fair elections, restoring constitutional order, and reparations for victims. Since then, the parties have remained in regular communication behind the scenes, and negotiations are ongoing in Caracas with Mexico City serving primarily as a platform where the delegations announce finalized agreements reached in the process.

The most recent formal agreement in the negotiations, announced on November 26, 2022, marked a historic breakthrough. After years of protracted crisis, the Venezuelan negotiators signed the “Second Partial Agreement for the Protection of the Venezuelan People.” The accord has major ramifications for millions of Venezuelans experiencing the consequences of the country’s humanitarian crisis, including the 7.7 million that the UN estimates are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The agreement also has significant implications for the future of negotiations. If this humanitarian deal is not implemented, it will likely spell the end of current efforts to advance dialogue towards a political solution and raises the prospect that the Maduro government could access funds through other means that may be diverted by corruption and mismanagement. The stakes are high, and the international community faces a historic opportunity that could be lost unless the accord is implemented successfully.

In this context, the United States has an urgent opportunity: It can and should work to reinvigorate the Mexico City process by facilitating the creation of a United Nations-managed trust fund, fulfilling a November 2022 agreement, and helping to build trust between government and opposition negotiators.

Rescue members observe collapsed houses after heavy rain caused flooding in the low-income neighborhood 23 de Enero, in Caracas, Venezuela, October 25, 2022. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria

The accord, referred to by the negotiating parties as the Social Agreement, established the basis for creating a series of humanitarian and development assistance programs funded by Venezuelan assets that have been frozen abroad by the United States’ financial sanctions. While no set amount is mentioned in the public version of the agreement, opposition sources close to the negotiations claim that the full implementation of the projects that are outlined in unpublished annexes of the deal would require approximately $3.2 billion. This amount was aspirational from the beginning, under the recognition that not all of the funds would be available at once. In theory, this amount could be gradually unfrozen and channeled into a UN-managed trust fund, referred to as the “Social Protection Fund,” which would benefit the Venezuelan people. In practice, however, the process of identifying, unfreezing, and transferring funds will take time, so US officials have cautioned that initial contributions to the fund will be significantly smaller.

In the initial agreement, humanitarian and development programs would be implemented with the participation of United Nations agencies and monitored by two newly created bodies made up of three representatives each from both the government and the opposition. The first, named the Mesa de Atención Social, or the Social Attention Roundtable, was set up to oversee specific aid efforts, while the second, the Grupo Especial para la Atención de los Efectos del Sobrecumplimiento or the Special Group to Address the Effects of Overcompliance, was tasked with identifying and evaluating the effects of overcompliance with US sanctions in the international financial system. Since these initial talks, the conversation has evolved and the parties have now accepted an alternative structure of the fund that would be more in line with the UN’s traditional multi-donor trust fund model.

While US sanctions have included carveouts for humanitarian assistance, banks and other financial institutions have been traditionally risk-averse to doing business in Venezuela since the first sectoral economic sanctions were issued in August 2017. This has had a documented impact on humanitarian organizations in Venezuela, which have dealt with frozen transactions, bank closures, and other complications as an indirect result of sanctions.

The public-facing text of the Social Agreement outlined five key areas of focus for the assistance programs, each of which is connected to specific projects that have been designed and agreed upon by the parties and which are detailed in private annexes. These are:

restoring the public health system
rehabilitating the country’s broken electrical grid
addressing malnutrition with an emphasis on children in need
improving public education infrastructure
providing relief for victims of recent floods in central Venezuela

These initiatives would be funded by Venezuelan assets frozen abroad and implemented with the significant involvement of agencies within the United Nations system, including the World Food Programme (WFP), the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

It is difficult to overstate the importance of this agreement. It represents a significant step in the negotiations process—one that could help build momentum to progress the remaining items on the negotiating agenda, such as electoral and judicial agreements. But the agreement also matters in more direct and tangible ways to Venezuela’s struggling population. For 2023, the United Nations Venezuela Humanitarian Response Plan is asking for roughly $719 million to fund all of its humanitarian activities across the board. The UN Humanitarian Response Plan has never received more than 40 percent of its funding, so the potential for additional resources through the Social Protection Fund could be life-changing for those suffering from a lack of basic necessities in Venezuela.

Delayed implementation and mixed messaging

In the months since the signing of the Social Agreement in November, progress in the transfer of funds or the implementation of assistance programs has been slow. Much of the initial delay appears to be due to bureaucratic hurdles within a range of institutions.

On one hand, the United Nations is concerned about the reputational risk of implementing a program that has drawn comparisons to the controversial Oil for Food Programme in Iraq—a program that was rife with mismanagement and corruption. Moreover, UN officials want guarantees of where the funds are, how the US and international community can help shield them in the transfer process, and how they can exist within the United States financial system in line with internal United Nations financial regulations.

On the other hand, there have been delays on the US side as well. In December 2022 the United States State Department sent a demarche to the United Nations that signaled that the US government could not fully guarantee that the Social Protection Fund could exist in the United States in ways that shielded it from creditors with claims to Venezuelan debt. Since then, the United States has reversed course, and in May 2023 the Biden Administration sent a second letter to United Nations representatives, this time guaranteeing that the fund could exist in the US financial system and that indicated the risk from creditor claims was minimal in order to benefit the Venezuelan people. US officials have also begun working with European banks to identify frozen funds for the agreement.

Understanding that the implementation of the fund will take time should not come as a surprise. The parties involved in signing the accord agreed that progress on broader negotiations “can not be conditioned, suspended, or delayed by any aspect derived from the execution of the present agreement.” This suggests that the parties recognized that the implementation of the Social Agreement would not be immediate. However, the United States and the international community should proactively look for avenues to help advance its realization.

This issue brief highlights five key recommendations for policymakers and civil society leaders in the United States and abroad to help shape the way for the successful and efficient implementation of Venezuela’s Social Agreement—in both the short and long term.

Recommendations

Assist in identifying and unfreezing Venezuelan assets held abroad. Until the Fund is created, authorize direct transfers to United Nations agencies.
Establish and commit to a unified strategy and joint messaging to facilitate the implementation of Venezuela’s Humanitarian Accord.
Encourage the United Nations to build on its success in managing multi-donor trust funds to ensure transparency and oversight of the Social Protection Fund.
Ensure that creditors’ valid legal claims to repayment do not prevent assistance for the Venezuelan people.
Ensure coordinated international support for the negotiations process, reinforcing the need for the Maduro government to reach significant political agreements with the opposition.

Recommendation 1: Assist in identifying and unfreezing Venezuelan assets held abroad. Authorize direct transfers to United Nations agencies

Starting with low-hanging fruit could be the best way to move forward in implementing the Social Agreement. There are large quantities of money in frozen assets held at financial institutions across the world that could be transferred to United Nations agencies efficiently and securely. While this short-term approach is a quick fix for delays currently weighing on United Nations and government agencies, it does send a message of support for the larger obstacles ahead.

However, transferring hundreds of millions of dollars worth of frozen funds is exponentially more complex than a regular wire transfer. First, each account needs to be located and the funds within them accurately estimated. While the Maduro government and opposition each have attempted to map out where and how much Venezuelan funds have been frozen by sanctions, estimates vary widely.

Once the figures are recognized, the United States Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) should help financial institutions reduce the risk associated with transferring frozen funds by issuing detailed licenses and comfort letters guaranteeing that such transactions will not violate US sanctions.

However, outreach from OFAC should go beyond this as a measure to avoid over-compliance. Financial institutions that hold portions of Venezuelan assets respond to shareholder interests like any other business. In most cases, these interests include banking with an institution that does not finance autocratic regimes. Unless properly communicated, engaging in money transfers to Venezuela could generate adverse effects on investor holdings and consumer demand for banking services due to a decrease in public trust.

To avoid this scenario, OFAC should engage directly with local authorities to ensure they echo the authorization of the transfers, providing tranquility to shareholders and thus avoiding over-compliance concerns.

A final, and arguably difficult step is getting the Maduro government to formally request the funds to be transferred to the United Nations. As the nominal account holder of many of these bank accounts, the Maduro government would have to request that the money be transferred to the UN-established trust fund, even after such transfers are greenlit by US and local governments.

Recommendation 2: Establish and commit to a unified strategy and joint messaging to facilitate the implementation of Venezuela’s Humanitarian Accord

The successful implementation of Venezuela’s Humanitarian Accord depends entirely on the efficient and streamlined coordination of a variety of global stakeholders including the Maduro government, Venezuelan political parties, the United States government, the United States Treasury, the United Nations, financial institutions, and countries holding frozen funds.

While coordinating all these actors could be considered one of the greatest challenges for the successful implementation of the Social Fund, the need for internal coordination within each body adds a layer of complexity. Most of these institutions still disagree on what the correct approach to the crisis should be. In the United States alone, opposing views among Congress, State Department, US Treasury, and the White House have slowed down the country’s ability to display joint advances toward implementation policies.

Establishing a unified strategy that all actors commit to requires precise efforts to ensure that the greatest number of relevant voices are heard and incorporated into the process, including government agencies, Congress, banks, and smaller actors like Venezuelans in the diaspora and the families of people illegally detained in Venezuela. The United States, from its unique position as a key player, should spearhead coordination efforts by creating systematized mechanisms for fund identification, financial institution assurance, and official fund requests from within Venezuela.

A unified strategy offers multiple benefits beyond efficiency measures. Firstly, it provides an opportunity for the Unitary Platform and the international community to develop a robust messaging campaign aimed at educating the Venezuelan public about the fund and the specific programs that would be supported by the incoming capital. This communication campaign would not only celebrate the creation of the fund but also emphasize the victory of the opposition negotiators in obtaining it.

Furthermore, increased awareness of and engagement with the Social Agreement would generate critical buy-in from local and international communities, particularly as the regime faces incentives to claim sole credit for the incoming funds. By implementing a joint strategy and messaging approach, the opposition can generate broader buy-in, effectively demonstrating their ownership over the negotiation process while convincing third-party actors of its legitimacy.

Finally, adopting this strategy helps move the negotiations forward, but also highlights the potential consequences of inaction for the Maduro government. It could encourage them to pursue political advances, release political prisoners, engage in political dialogue, make democratic progress in terms of elections, and demonstrate goodwill toward other relevant actors.

Demands put forth through these channels would signal the international community’s commitment to supporting a credible and meaningful negotiation process in Venezuela, which could expedite the implementation of the agreement before its deadline.

The United Nations is well-suited to oversee the Social Fund. Since the controversy over the Oil for Food Programme in Iraq, the UN has drastically increased its transparency standards, creating a set of financial rules and regulations to avoid a repetition of the corruption, fund mismanagement, and illegal surcharges identified throughout the Iraq program.

The Financial Regulation and Rules portion of the United Nation’s Finance and Budget chapter establishes a framework for decentralizing decision-making, aligning authorities with responsibilities, strengthening accountability, and delegating necessary managerial authority to heads of entities for effective mandate delivery. Similarly, the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, Monitoring and Evaluation (PPBME) provides financial and budgetary directives for all activities and programs undertaken by the United Nations. The instruments used to successfully manage funds ensure coordination, accountability, and adequate resource utilization.

With these new regulations, planning, programming, budgeting, and evaluation become an integral part of the United Nation’s general policymaking and management process. Regulation 4.2 of the PPBME in particular stipulates that a project’s objectives and strategies should be derived from policy orientations and goals set by intergovernmental organs that reflect Member States’ priorities. This regulation ensures alignment with legislative mandates and enhances the organization’s responsiveness to global challenges.

Moreover, the United Nation’s established procedures, governance mechanisms, grant-making processes, and experience in managing trust funds make it a reliable option to oversee the Venezuelan Social Protection Fund. Trust funds within the UN system are established through General Assembly resolutions or by the Secretary-General and adhere to financial regulations and rules. Governance of trust funds involves boards or steering committees comprising independent experts, UN agency representatives, donor countries, and civil society organizations. The secretariat for each fund, typically housed within a relevant UN agency, handles administrative services such as proposal evaluation, grant awards, disbursement, monitoring, and evaluation.

Over the years and with these new financial regulatory systems, the United Nations has gained extensive experience managing pooled financing mechanisms like multi-donor trust funds (MDTFs), which are a specific modality used to channel donor contributions to multiple implementing entities for country-specific programs. They offer flexibility in implementation procedures, minimizing delays and transaction costs.

MDTFs are managed by the Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) Office, which is administered by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The MPTF Office currently manages nearly 100 pooled financing mechanisms, representing over 95 percent of all funds channeled through UN-administered programs. While administering a multi-billion-dollar trust fund as envisioned in the Social Agreement would be a massive undertaking for the United Nations system, the UN should be encouraged to build upon its existing experience managing trust funds.

Recommendation 4: Ensure that creditors’ valid legal claims to repayment do not prevent assistance for the Venezuelan people

One of the most widely discussed challenges of implementing Venezuela’s Humanitarian Accord is the risk of funds being redirected to donors and creditors to service existing debt obligations.

If creditors file claims against the funds being transferred, ongoing transactions are frozen until the legal dispute is resolved, which often takes years to settle. A series of delays such as this would have dire consequences on the steps being taken to ameliorate Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. While creditors should have their debts resolved promptly, the international community needs to establish pathways that safeguard money destined for the Social Protection fund against debt obligations, including through the creation of fiduciary funds. Fiduciary accounts protect funds from donors and creditors by ensuring that they can only be accessed by a principal, in this case, the United Nations. The reality is that as an international organization, the UN has comprehensive immunities that complicate lawsuits.

While groups of creditors such as the Venezuela Creditor Community have shown signs of good faith asserting they will not make claims to the Social Fund, it is important to be proactive to avoid delays in the case that claims are made. These creditors’ valid claims should be addressed, but ideally in a way that does not hinder funding for humanitarian purposes.

Recommendation 5: Ensure coordinated international support for the negotiations process, reinforcing the need for the Maduro government to reach significant political agreements with the opposition

The United States can do more to coordinate with allies in Latin America and Europe in order to maximize the potential for free and fair elections in 2024. Building off of the closing statement of the April 25 international conference on Venezuela held in Bogota, which highlighted a wide international consensus in favor of negotiations. The conference also ended with a commitment for an undisclosed number of participating countries to send representatives to Caracas to meet with the government, as well as with “opposition parties and sectors, and civil society, [and share] the results of the conference for their evaluation and comments.” This creates an opportunity for US diplomats to ensure consistency in the messages that are transmitted to Venezuelan political actors.

One way to do this is to conduct active diplomacy with key allies across Europe and the Americas in order to identify a shared sense of benchmarks needed ahead of 2024. The Biden administration should seek further high-level engagement to discuss Venezuela-related issues, including with governments that have different approaches. In recent years, governments ranging from the Petro and Lula administrations in Colombia and Brazil to president-elect Santiago Peña of Paraguay have begun to re-engage with the Maduro government directly after years of participating in a US-led isolation campaign. The European Union, while remaining supportive of a return to democracy in Venezuela, has begun to explore natural gas opportunities in Venezuela given the shifting energy markets after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Communication with Caracas can be strategic but should reinforce efforts to press for negotiations that lead to free and fair presidential elections in 2024. Latin American and European governments should also be encouraged to support the opposition’s negotiating team in their deliberations with the Maduro regime. Publicly expressing support for the timely implementation of the Social Agreement is a vital way to boost the negotiating team’s credibility, and to ultimately ensure that Maduro faces the right incentive to continue to engage with the opposition negotiators.

Discrediting the team or supporting alternate negotiation pathways can undermine the opposition’s authority, weaken its position at the negotiating table, and provide the Maduro regime with bargaining power stemming from engagement alternatives.

Communication with Caracas can be strategic but should reinforce efforts to press for negotiations that lead to free and fair presidential elections in 2024.

The head of the opposition delegation of Venezuela Gerardo Blyde Perez talks to the media accompanied by other delegates, in Mexico City, Mexico November 26, 2022. REUTERS/Henry Romero

Conclusion

The agreement reached between the Maduro regime and the opposition in Venezuela represents a significant milestone in the ongoing negotiations to address the political, economic, and humanitarian crisis in the country. The initiatives described in the Social Agreement aim to address critical areas such as public health, electricity, malnutrition, education, and flood relief. If fully implemented, the agreement has the potential to bring about massive change and improve the lives of millions of Venezuelans who are in dire need of assistance.

However, the implementation of the agreement has faced bureaucratic hurdles and challenges on various fronts. While the United Nations has been cautious about ensuring transparency and avoiding mismanagement, the United States government has raised concerns about the protection of the funds from creditors with claims to Venezuelan debt.

This issue brief proposes a series of recommendations to expedite the implementation of the Social Agreement. These include assisting in identifying and unfreezing Venezuelan assets held abroad, establishing a unified strategy and joint messaging among relevant stakeholders, encouraging the United Nations to utilize its expertise in managing multi-donor trust funds for transparency and oversight, ensuring that creditors’ legal claims do not hinder assistance for the Venezuelan people, and providing strong and stable support for Venezuela’s opposition negotiating team.

By taking proactive steps to address these recommendations, the international community can help advance the realization of the agreement and provide much-needed support to alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan population. The successful implementation of the Social Agreement could not only improve the humanitarian situation in Venezuela but also create momentum for progress in other crucial areas of the negotiations, such as electoral and judicial reforms.

Acknowledgments

This issue brief was informed by a series of consultations with representatives from the public and civil society sectors. We thank the many individuals and institutions who contributed to the research process, including the Venezuelan opposition, the United Nations, the US State Department, US Congressional Offices, and others. We are deeply grateful to our colleagues at the Adrienne Arsht Latina America Center (AALAC) team who helped produce this report, particularly Jason Marczak, senior director of AALAC for his guidance and editorial support. Our gratitude extends to the Atlantic Council Editorial team, including Cate Hansberry, Mary Kate Aylward, and Nancy Messieh, for their diligent editorial work and exceptional design skills. Most importantly, we thank all those who believe in the power of transnational cooperation for the benefit of millions.

About the authors

Staff

Geoff Ramsey

Senior Fellow

Former Associate Director

Civil Society Democratic Transitions

Former staff

Ignacia Ulloa Peters

2. Did the coup in Niger just succeed?

Democratic Transitions Latin America

Geoff Ramsey is a Senior Fellow at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and a leading expert on US policy towards Venezuela and Colombia. His work has been published and cited in Foreign Policy, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Economist, and other major media outlets.

Ignacia Ulloa Peters is an Assistant Director at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center where she focuses on Venezuela, Mexico, and the southern Andes. Her work on Venezuela focuses on advancing transatlantic nonpartisan engagement on Venezuelan issues while promoting a deeper understanding of the complex crisis.

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Did the Niger coup just succeed? And other questions answered about what’s next in the Sahel

Atlantic Council experts — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 21:35:22 +0000

It’s tough to tell which is more important: what did or did not happen. First, what happened: On August 10, a military junta declared a new government in Niger. This came after the junta, led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, seized power on July 26 from Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, who remains under house arrest.

Then there is what did not happen. On July 30, Bola Tinubu, the Nigerian president and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) chair, gave the coup leaders a one-week ultimatum to restore the country’s previous leadership or face a military intervention from the regional bloc—a deadline that came and went with no action. On August 10, ECOWAS leaders met and issued a statement with a mixed message: it ordered the activation of a “standby force,” but also resolved to “keep all options on the table for the peaceful resolution of the crisis.”

Below, Atlantic Council experts answer the crucial questions these developments raise for policymakers in the Sahel, Europe, and the United States.

Click to jump to a question:

1. Why has ECOWAS backed away from its ultimatum?

3. What is at stake for France and the European Union?

4. Should the United States now get more involved?

5. Have Burkina Faso and Mali come out stronger by supporting the coup?

6. What does this reveal about Nigeria’s regional leadership?

1. Why has ECOWAS backed away from its ultimatum?

Tinubu is politically weak and facing significant pushback domestically, including from major northern Nigerian Muslim leaders. He was only recently elected after a contested election, and his recent decisions aimed at improving Nigeria’s economy, above all his move to end Nigeria’s fuel subsidy, are unpopular and causing disruption to the economy. At the same time, Nigeria is struggling with its own insurgencies in northern Nigeria, and northern Nigerians and southern Nigeriens are more or less the same people. There is a great deal of cross-border movement and commerce, which sanctions disrupt. While many Nigerians, northerners included, appreciate that the coup hurts their neighbor’s stability and security, they also appreciate the harm done by sanctions and have a difficult time rallying to the idea of a military intervention.

In addition, in practical terms, marshaling a military force requires more time and planning than Tinubu probably realized. These countries tend not to have significant rapid reaction forces; they can’t just drop battalions wherever they want on short notice, as France and the United States can. What exactly would Nigeria and ECOWAS do if they could put together the required forces? But the longer it takes, the more politically untenable any military intervention becomes.

ECOWAS’s failure to effect any change will be a blow to its influence. There will be important ramifications in terms of ECOWAS’s relations with Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali, which all have juntas that ECOWAS has been pushing to transition to civilian rule. ECOWAS has forced them to accept “transition timetables” for holding elections and has been trying to push these juntas to comply. ECOWAS’s ability to do so is much reduced by this affair. The region’s juntas, I am sure, feel emboldened.

—Michael Shurkin is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Besides setting an initial deadline that gave the putschists time to consolidate support within the Nigerien military and rally the Nigerien population, especially among the youth, against what it could point to as outside interference, ECOWAS violated the first rule of diplomatic engagement: never make a promise or a threat unless you are prepared to follow through. ECOWAS has never successfully intervened to reverse a coup. (The case of Senegal’s intervention in The Gambia in 2017 is a unique circumstance that does not really count. The Gambia is a very small country surrounded on three sides by Senegal, whose army was the force mandated by ECOWAS to intervene in a case where a president was refusing to accept an election loss.) Moreover, ECOWAS has not prepared for an intervention in Niger. In the end, only two members, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, would even say that they would support a military intervention with forces and they offered no specific commitments.

This elementary mistake was compounded by another one by Nigeria: never make an international commitment unless you have broad domestic support. Tinubu soon found that the Nigerian senate, where his party holds the majority, would not back intervention and both the main Muslim umbrella organization led by the sultan of Sokoto and the Nigerian Catholic Bishops’ Conference came out against the use of force.

—J. Peter Pham is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. Previously, he served as the first-ever US special envoy for the Sahel region.

I am not sure that ECOWAS has backed away from its ultimatum. The last news I read was calling for a meeting of the chiefs of staff of the member states. Nevertheless, I do agree that a military intervention is highly unlikely for a simple reason: the lack of military capabilities, especially for the transportation of troops. At a minimum, logistical support from the United States or France would be a requisite, and I doubt the two countries would be ready to provide it. A de facto blockade of Niger may be the decision by default, even if its effectiveness would be limited.

—Gérard Araud is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and a former ambassador of France to the United States (2014-2019).

The ultimatum was conceived as a negotiation strategy rather than a timetable to prepare for an intervention. ECOWAS hoped to push the junta to back off. If the likelihood of the intervention decreased with time, though, Niger is still not off the hook. Coastal ECOWAS countries understand that much is at stake and if putschists in Niamey aren’t put in line, their own political survival is at risk. Successful examples are appealing. That’s why ECOWAS decided at today’s meeting to retain intervention as an option on the table. However, it’s still more likely that ECOWAS would rather exercise its pressure through sanctions, which have an even greater potential to bite than in the case of Mali or Burkina Faso.

—Petr Tůma is a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

2. Did the coup in Niger just succeed?

Yes, the coup succeeded, as France decided not to intervene in its first hours. Now it is too late.

—Gérard Araud

In terms of popular opinion, yes, although Niger’s decline over the long term only compounds their own problems.

—Michael Shurkin

No. Despite getting some publicity for chest-thumping, especially from Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the head of the junta in Burkina Faso, their own inadequacies showed even more clearly. At the end of the day, for all the talk of declarations of war and standing by Niger, all they could do was send a joint delegation in “solidarity.” This is no surprise since both countries have enough of a challenge fighting extremists in their own territory and no capacity for even getting forces deployed abroad even if they had them.

—J. Peter Pham

Yes, Mali and Burkina Faso may see the coup in Niger, the closest partner of France in the region, as a political success and the confirmation of popular support for their policies. It may also have an echo elsewhere in the region.

—Gérard Araud

I don’t believe so, especially from a long-term perspective. Both countries are economically dependent on cooperation and aid coming from abroad. Their behavior, which contributes to instability in the region, will certainly make their partners and donors more reluctant, and working with Russia will not make up for it. Their project is not sustainable in the long run, especially amid the spread of terrorism, which is likely to follow the current turmoil.

—Petr Tůma

6. What does this reveal about Nigeria’s regional leadership?

It shows that Nigeria’s leadership is limited by its own domestic problems, as well as the popular sentiment that views it and ECOWAS as instruments of Western powers, however irrational that view is.

—Michael Shurkin

The problem with Nigeria’s foreign policy has always been its domestic limitations, but it also suffers from the dismal state of its military forces, as has been shown in United Nations peacekeeping operations.

—Gérard Araud

The ongoing crisis—with a new putschist alliance being shaped in the region—creates an even stronger demand for leadership among ECOWAS countries. It will depend on how the situation evolves, but there’s a good chance that it’ll further strengthen Abuja’s position in the region. There are still plenty of options for pressuring Niger’s junta beyond military intervention and Nigeria is well-positioned here.

—Petr Tůma

A “work-in-progress” would be a generous characterization.

—J. Peter Pham

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What Niger’s coup means for West Africa’s geopolitical contest

Rama Yade — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 16:19:31 +0000

On Thursday, August 3, a day that marks Niger’s independence from France in 1960, hundreds of Nigeriens gathered in Independence Square in Niamey to voice their support for the ongoing coup. Over the past week, Africans and their Western partners have seemed surprised by the events in Niger. Many in France are shocked, having not seen it coming. The country is evacuating its nationals just days after Catherine Colonna, the French minister of Europe and foreign affairs, said the evacuation wouldn’t happen and denied that the coup had any “final” success. The violent attacks against the French embassy have pushed French leadership to change their plans.

In Africa too, the ongoing coup in Niger seems to trigger a harder reaction than the previous ones in Mali and Burkina Faso. After earlier sending Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby to Niger to lead mediation talks, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)—under Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s leadership—threatened to use force if the coup leaders don’t reinstate Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum by August 6 and announced new sanctions, harder than those used for other junta-led Sahelian countries. That is predicted to deal a blow to Niger, a country that depends on external aid. This unusual firm answer can be explained by several reasons:

First, there is a strong fear that the region may collapse now that the G5 Sahel—a regional group of countries promoting development and security—is led by four juntas. Among the five members, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Chad have recently experienced an undemocratic transition; Mauritania remains. Niger is the fifth country in West Africa to experience a coup d’état over the past three years.

Second, despite numerous African Union and ECOWAS sanctions over the past few years, the regional coup leaders seem to taunt the African organizations for whom this recent coup in Niger is an ultimate test of credibility.

Third, Nigeria—which chairs ECOWAS and shares a one-thousand-mile border with Niger—needs a win in this moment, as Tinubu just assumed presidential office a little over two months ago.

The coup in Niger seems to have been triggered by a very light justification: Bazoum was reportedly going to remove the military head, which is far from the typical reasons—or excuses—given for coups, such as security or governance failures. Even while the country faced attacks coming from groups ranging from the local branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to Boko Haram, Bazoum was doing better than his neighbors (but obviously not enough) to remain in power—his ability to remain in power was surprising given the weakness of his security guard and his support base. The alarm signaling that weakness had been blaring even before Bazoum’s inauguration, as a group attempted a coup just two days before the then president-elect’s swearing-in ceremony in March 2021. One of the sources of that weakness may have been his attachment to his partnership with France, as his internal opponents vocally criticized his France-friendly policy.

A total withdrawal from Niger would be a disaster for France, which is why the coup has occupied the French attention.

For Paris, a lot is on the line. Its remaining influence in the Sahel is collapsing. As of earlier this summer, 2,500 of its troops were based in Chad and Niger—France’s last two key strategic partners in the region. The troops were left without any clear roadmap after Operation Barkhane ended in 2022 and France withdrew from Mali after ten years of presence; French-commanded European troops under the Takuba Task Force also withdrew from Mali at the time, while French troops who were part of Operation Sabre withdrew from Burkina Faso less than a year later. A total withdrawal from Niger would be a disaster for France, which is why the coup has occupied French attention. France’s vital interests in Africa have been hit.

The French government has seemed to run out of solutions to the region’s challenges. But critics are wondering why France thinks it needs to get things under control in Africa; even before the coup, those critics wondered why a military answer to the problems in the Sahel (an answer that has already failed) is still and exclusively on the table. And in finding new answers to this problem, it isn’t just about adjusting aid to the region: France needs to change its paradigm. A growing part of the French population, including experts in military and security circles, are aligned with these views and are requesting changes.

There is still time for the French government to do things differently. It can renew old networks and reshape its Africa policy for its approach toward Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Gabon (its other West African partners), countries that have been shaken by demonstrations questioning French presence. At this point, these countries are still in the situation to welcome the French troops without risking domestic political turmoil.

Africa has deeply changed; the new generation, with a politically conscious middle class, has demands. They won’t accept double or low standards when it comes to Africa. This motivation is stronger than the generation’s so-called attachment to Russia, a geopolitical player that opportunistically wants to advance its interests in the region by raising its flags at demonstrations. That scene unfolded last week in Niger as the Russia-Africa Summit kicked off over five thousand miles away in St. Petersburg, without Bazoum in attendance (he had already planned not to attend the summit). Of course, speculation was rife about Russia’s involvement in the coup given this timing, even though Russia recently condemned the coup.

Most Africans don’t explicitly want to oust France or other Western partners from their countries: Instead, they are seeking a renewed partnership on a healthier and more equal basis.

This coup and others that have taken place across West Africa in recent years reflect significant geopolitical changes underway, from France’s retreat to Russia’s angling for opportunity, but also the need of West African governments to be better supported by their partners and allies. Most Africans don’t explicitly want to oust France or other Western partners from their countries: Instead, they are seeking a renewed partnership on a healthier and more equal basis. When it comes to the war against jihadists, Africans expect more wins than a ten-year military presence. To renew their partnerships globally, African governments are diversifying their roster of international partners, adding countries such as China, Turkey, Israel, and India to their lists. Niger itself has worked with China for years on oil exploration—which has included work on a pipeline that runs from Niger to Benin—and it has worked with Western allies such as Canada on uranium.

As these geopolitical changes have unfolded, Niger has seen many domestic challenges, including coups—experiencing four since its independence in 1960—in addition to other attempts to cut back on the government’s power such as Tuareg rebellions. In recent years, the country has also seen terrorist attacks launched by ISIS affiliate groups, al-Qaeda affiliate groups, and Boko Haram. As a landlocked and desert country with a population of about 26 million people (about half of whom live below the poverty line) and with the highest birth rate in the world, hardships are accumulating in Niger; the region’s coups and terrorist activity make those hardships even worse.

Knowing the severity of these hardships, and knowing that a few officers abandoned the Nigerien government in the hours leading up to its fall, one may wonder on what basis these regimes rested: the much-vaunted popular vote or the police? If a military leader tried to bring down a government every time he or she had personal concerns that contradicted elected leaders—whether it be France’s General Pierre de Villiers or US General Mark Milley—many governments based on the popular vote would have already fallen apart. This problem is much deeper than a simple dispute; it is about the strength of the institutions. The Sahelian governments don’t have such strong institutions, as they face pressure from terrorist movements that aim to see institutions crumble.

Russia is quick to lend its support to countries under coup leadership, solidifying its role as a partner to these countries. But the West, in striking contrast, tends to stick with old paradigms, easily exploited by Russia in its misinformation strategy. At times, Western partners—who know at least one way to save threatened regimes (via defense agreements)—seem no longer able to find their satellite navigation quickly enough to rescue government leaders held in their residences (such as Burkina Faso’s Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, Mali’s Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, or Niger’s Bazoum). Caught between inefficient strategies and noninterference, Africa’s Western partners are leaving these presidents to face their downfall without any strategy that would help them to connect with the civilian populations and their request of renewed partnership.

Russia, determined to prove that it is not isolated after the international response to the war in Ukraine, has been able to use Africa to circumvent Western economic sanctions and rebuild its forces via the Wagner Group, which is active in the Central African Republic and Mali. There, the countries’ gold, diamonds, and sugar serve as bargaining chips for the security services of the private militia. The United States, meanwhile, has redirected its focus to the European continent to support Ukraine and also to protect its strategic interests. But the Niger events show that US strategic interests still run through Africa.

However, while the field may be wide open for Russia, it may not be so easily navigable. After all, Russian troops are blamed, along with Malian forces, for the terrible March 2022 massacre in Moura, which will haunt the Sahel for a long time. And Russia is starting to appear weaker globally, especially after Wagner Group leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed the leaks in the Russian defense apparatus. The redeployment of Wagner’s forces to Africa following their ousting from the Ukrainian ground was also negatively perceived in African circles.

Even the Russia-Africa Summit has revealed a weakened impression of Moscow: This year’s convening in St. Petersburg gathered only seventeen heads of state, whereas the first convening in Sochi in October 2019 gathered forty-three heads of state—as Russia was just beginning to re-engage with the continent for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia’s recent suspension of the agreement to export grain from Ukraine only accelerated the weakening of its image on the continent. Clearly, Africa remains a challenge for Russia, too.

Rama Yade is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and a senior fellow at the Europe Center. She is a professor at Sciences Po Paris and Mohammed 6 Polytechnic University in Morocco. She was a member of the French cabinet, serving as deputy minister for foreign affairs and human rights and ambassador to UNESCO.

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Gulf engagement in Tunisia: Past endeavor or future prospect?

Sebastian Sons — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 15:52:03 +0000

Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar regard Tunisia as an important foreign policy partner within their regional sphere of influence. They also welcome Tunisia’s current autocratization under President Kais Saïed. However, Gulf states no longer pursue strategic goals there. As the region is undergoing a geopolitical shift toward more conflict management and reconciliation, the Gulf states consider Tunisia as a partner of choice in regional stability but no longer as a partner of necessity in terms of economic investment or development cooperation.

Three phases of Gulf engagement in Tunisia since the “Arab Uprisings”

In the last decade, Gulf Arab engagement has gone through three phases in Tunisia that have been characterized by different priorities and motivations. The first phase started in the direct aftermath of the “Arab Uprisings” and the fall of Tunisia’s longtime autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, resulting in what could be defined as the “Gulf moment.” This was characterized by increased political, developmental, and economic involvement of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and, above all, Qatar. During this phase, Tunisia became a theater of inter-Gulf rivalry after Qatar, under the leadership of then Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (r. 1995-2013), initiated a largely ideologically motivated regional policy that included support for Islamist groups such as the Ennahda Party in Tunisia. The counter-revolutionary regional forces of Saudi Arabia and the UAE viewed this pro-Islamist policy of regional power projection as a direct threat to their own autocratic-monarchical system of rule. During Ennahda’s reign, Qatar rose to become the second-most important investor for the Islamist government in the form of budget support and investment in Tunisian infrastructure, providing some political stability. At the same time, Saudi Arabia and the UAE reduced their political support to a minimum, which also affected their economic and development activities in Tunisia in the medium term.

The second phase was characterized by intensifying inter-Gulf competition, in particular during the “Gulf crisis” between June 2017 and January 2021. This rivalry between the “blockading quartet” (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt) on the one hand and Qatar on the other also played out in Tunisia, which emerged as a hotbed for inter-Gulf competition. Similar to other countries, inter-Gulf regional tensions in Tunisia caused an increasing polarization of the public discourse, as certain media defamed and demonized the respective conflict parties, thus intensifying political fragmentation within Tunisia’s heterogeneous political system. At that time, ties between Qatar and the Islamist government grew whereas Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman faced public protests during his 2018 visit. In the wake of this rivalry, the UAE and Saudi Arabia increased their efforts to reduce the Islamists’ political relevance, indicated by the surveillance of Rachid Ghannouchi, senior member of Ennahda.

As most Gulf states are undergoing a fundamental socioeconomic transformation, they are strongly interested in regional reconciliation as a prerequisite for economic progress. They need to preserve their specific business models, and are thus inclined to less ideological conflict and more tactical pragmatism. Against this backdrop, the current agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomatic ties in March 2023exemplifies the kingdom’s shift in regional policy from competition to coexistence, occurring after five rounds of talks among Iranian and Saudi security officials starting in 2020 and facilitated by Iraq and Oman. Additionally, Syria was reintegrated into the Arab League in May 2023, twelve years after its membership was suspended, which again indicates the Gulf interest in conflict management. Conflict theatres such as Yemen, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, and Iraq have become more important for the Gulf states in recent years, resulting in enhanced political and economic engagement.

Accordingly, Tunisia has become less relevant during the current third phase: Since ties among the “blockading quartet” and Qatar were resumed in January 2021, the inter-Gulf polarization has decreased. Furthermore, the turn toward more authoritarianism is welcomed by both Saudi Arabia and the UAE and considered as a cornerstone of Tunisia’s stability. Saïed’s power consolidation thus serves the Gulf states’ aspirations to restore the pre-Arab Uprising status quo. For example, the dissolution of Tunisia’s parliamentwas endorsed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while Qatar has largely ceased its support for the Islamists: Saïed had traveled to Qatar in November 2020 to discuss intensifying economic cooperation with Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. During the growing intra-Tunisian protests, both leaders spoke on the phone to explore possibilities for Qatari mediation among the conflicting parties, again demonstrating Qatar’s new pragmatic positioning in the Tunisian power struggle. In addition, the Gulf states did not publicly criticize Ghannouchi’s detention in April 2023.

Limited political, financial, and economic engagement

From the Gulf states’ perspective, the return of authoritarianism under Saïed has been a success that needs to be preserved—but not at all costs. As other regional conflicts deserve greater attention and effort, the Gulf investments in Tunisia on political, financial, and economic fronts are limited. Politically, Saïed is officially promoted as a partner in regional stability; he participated in the summit of the Arab League in Jeddah and enjoys conciliatory ties with Gulf governments. Nevertheless, his government does not play an influential role in the regional powerplay.

While the “politicization” of Gulf aid was essential in the Gulf economic statecraft vis-à-vis Tunisia in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings, volumes were significantly low in comparison to those of other main recipients of Gulf humanitarian assistance such as Yemen. Between 2013 and 2017, Tunisia ranked as the tenth-most-important recipient state of Gulf Arab support, largely due to Qatar’s substantial contribution. However, assistance to Tunisia accounted for only 1.6 percent of total aid during this period and appears to have declined even further since then. Between 2012 and 2022, official development assistance (ODA) from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and Qatar to Tunisia amounted to US$29.9 million (from in total $105 million in ODA). Most of the aid for Tunisia has been provided by the Gulf monarchies in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of their “vaccine” and “health diplomacy.” This engagement was particularly evident in the case of the UAE in 2021 and 2022, with ODA exceeding $22.5 million. At a time of economic diversification, the Gulf states’ development assistance is undergoing a significant shift. The provision of unconditional aid has become more unlikely as the Gulf states are more interested in return on investment and long-term business-development relationships that serve their national economic interests. This trend was outlined by Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan in January 2023. In Davos, he said that “we used to give directs grants and deposits without ‘strings attached’ and we’re changing that…. We’re taxing our people, so we’re expecting others to do the same. We want to help but we want others to do their part.” In his statement, he referred to the introduction of a 5 percent value-added tax in the kingdom, which was increased to 15 percent in July 2020. In light of this shift, financial aid provision to Tunisia is likely to decline further.

Economically, if put into a regional perspective, Tunisia plays only a minor role in Gulf Arab investments. With a population of about twelve million, it remains a small market that is mainly dependent on imports from European countries such as Italy (14 percent of all imports in 2021) and France (12 percent), but also China (11 percent). The same year, Tunisia’s main export partners were France with 26 percent, Italy at 20 percent, and Germany at 14 percent. In contrast, imports from the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries accounted for only 0.59 percent in 2021, with Saudi Arabia as top trading partner with a share of 2.2 percent of all imports. Regarding exports, Tunisia supplies goods with a share of only 0.21 percent to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman. The top GCC export partner is the UAE with 0.61 percent. Despite the low trade volumes, Qatar in particular has established itself as the second-most-important investor in Tunisia after France. Qatar’s proximity to the political leadership under Ennahda at the time and its pragmatic and business-friendly relationship with the current government are helping it to expand its investments in the country. Since 2015, the Qatar Investment Authority has provided economic support to Tunisia with substantial investments in real estate, tourism, banking, media, telecommunications, and petrochemicals and in 2016, Qatar’s emir announced support to the crisis-torn Tunisian economy of $1.25 billion. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are mainly engaged in prestigious infrastructure and real estate projects such as Tunis Sports City in which the Emirati Bukhatir Group is invested. In addition, the Tunisian government has contracted UAE company AMEA Powerto implement a 100 megawatt solar project in Kairouan with a total budget of $100 million.

New areas for Gulf engagement in Tunisia

In times of shifting geopolitical priorities and ongoing domestic economic diversification, the Gulf states’ engagement with Tunisia will most likely focus only on specific areas to preserve authoritarian stability in the country. While financial assistance and economic investment will remain limited and mainly attached to political motivations, other sectors such as education, green entrepreneurship, and capacity development could become more relevant. For example, development policy projects are intended to promote job creation and educational opportunities to improve social crisis resilience in Tunisia. Already, in 2015, the Qatari philanthropic institution Education Above All (EAA) implemented two projects, “Jendouba Works!” and “My Education … My Hope.” In recent years, Qatar’s Silatech has provided financial and technical support to Tunisian start-ups and companies working in microfinance. Based on these already established networks, private-sector and philanthropic initiatives could help to promote Tunisian entrepreneurship and start-ups in the future, thus strengthening the investment environment. In particular, green entrepreneurship could become a driver for the Gulf monarchies’ future engagement with the country: As Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman are investing in renewable energies such as hydrogen, Tunisia could become an interesting partner for bilateral cooperation and knowledge transfer. Saudi Arabia could potentially promote collaboration in climate action with Tunisia as part of the kingdom’s Middle East Green Initiative. In light of the UAE’s climate diplomacy efforts, indicated by its hosting the twenty-eighth United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), Emirati stakeholders could also extend their interest to promote joint projects related to environmental sustainability with Tunisian partners such as the national development cooperation agency Agence Tunisienne de Coopération Technique. Finally, Qatar’s EAA has recently launched Education for Climate Action increase its focus on environmental education for school children, which could represent another interesting field of joint collaboration with Tunisia.

Sebastian Sons is a senior researcher a the Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient (CARPO)

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Report Oct 7, 2022

The MENA region’s uneasy path towards reforms

By Karim Mezran, Valeria Talbot, Alissa Pavia, Lorenzo Fruganti, Eleonora Ardemagni, Andrew Farrand, Alessia Melcangi and Hafsa Halawa

Decade-old geopolitical transformations have impacted the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states’ efforts to implement socioeconomic reforms. More recently, the Ukraine war’s reverberations are also likely to affect the MENA countries’ paths towards such reforms.

Middle East North Africa

In-Depth Research & Reports Jul 12, 2022

Evolving MENA power balances: What is next for US engagement in the region?

By Karim Mezran, Valeria Talbot, Jonathan Panikoff, Sanam Vakil, Maha Yahya, Mark N. Katz, Gangzheng She, and Julien Barnes-Dacey

US President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s upcoming visit to the Middle East provides an opportunity to assess what role the United States will play in the Middle East and North Africa in the future. With the war in Ukraine further diverting US attention from the region, the big question is whether the region is entering a ‘post-US’ era.

Energy & Environment Middle East

Report Aug 29, 2022

North Africa’s transatlantic relations amid change and continuity

By Karim Mezran, Roberto Menotti, Alessia Melcangi, Emadeddin Badi and Alissa Pavia

The purpose of this report is to identify a potential role for Italy and its diplomacy to play in North Africa, in full agreement and collaboration with the United States and the other main European actors.

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Libya: Back to the future?

Karim Mezran and Alessia Melcangi — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 15:51:13 +0000

The current Libyan situation is undoubtedly the product of many factors that would be too long to list and discuss in this paper. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the conditions in which the 2011 Libyan revolution occurred are among the main causal determinants. That the revolt was considered a revolution of a whole people against a dictator and a few mercenaries was utterly wrong. It is clear now that the Muammar Gaddafi regime still had a meaningful consensus. Therefore, the revolt could be considered more of a civil war rather than a revolution. This misunderstanding caused the international community and the new Libyan elite to focus on elections instead of beginning a national reconciliation effort to rebuild consensus among the population and write a new social contract.

The focus on elections did not bring the establishment of a new political regime but, by crystalizing differences among the forces on the ground, caused the perpetuation of the same civil war, which is still ongoing today, albeit in a different form.

The other big mistake was the enactment, on April 11, 2013, of the General National Congress’s Political Isolation Law “with the aim of removing former [Gaddafi] personnel from the country’s political, economic, educational, and security institutions. This law represented a purely punitive instrument, without any of the conciliatory measures that have proved instrumental” The enactment of this law—barring individuals from holding government positions or participating in Libya’s political life if they had supported or been involved to any extent with the previous regime—caused the definitive break between old and new elites and the system’s polarization.

The rest of Libya’s more recent history is the continuance of this dynamic with relative differences among actors and players. The fragmentation of the country in various diverse and antagonistic poles occurred in all the milestones of today’s Libya’s history, such as the clashes in 2014 between General Khalifa Haftar’s militias in the Eastern part of Libya (what is historically known as Cirenaica) and a set of mostly Islamist militias dominant in the western part operating under the name of Libya Dawn. It became clear that the political fragmentation that caused the proliferation of militias and warlords and determined the paralysis of the Libyan system was the inevitable outcome of the previous structural socio-political conditions described above.

The intervention of external actors, in particular those regional and international powers that have projected their national interests onto the country, should be added to the conditions that led to this internal situation . A geopolitical confrontation soon turned into full support for rival Libyan local political factions and/or armed militias, heightening internal fragmentation. For example, the maintenance of a division between an eastern region dominated by General Haftar and his militias and another area in the west under the United Nations–recognized government of Fayez Serraj is the result of strongly Egyptian and Emirati support for Haftar versus Italian, Turkish, and Qatari support for Tripoli.

For a long period, the situation in Libya was considered a de facto proxy war. Deeper studies showed this was only partially the case; it was evident that the domestic actors were not simply proxies but maintained a relative degree of independence and the capacity to manipulate the foreign backers according to their interests.

With the passing of time and the lack of oversight and control from a central government, the various militias turned into gangs while the international community stood idly by and discussed phantasmal disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration and army training programs. Little by little, the gangs entrenched themselves in diverse territories, primarily through illegal means such as extortion and racketeering, beyond their increasing involvement in the various smuggling trades.

After the failure of the attack by General Haftar’s forces against the city of Tripoli in 2019, the international community, led by Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Libya Stephanie Williams, devised and planned for the election of a government of national unity (GNU) to be elected by an assembly of Libyan representatives selected by the United Nations, the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF). This assembly, formed by seventy-five members representing multiple constituencies, elected a three-person Presidential Council headed by President of the Presidential Council Mohamed Mnefi and Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

The government’s task was mainly to prepare the country for a round of presidential and parliamentary elections. For multiple reasons, the GNU failed in doing so. The parliament in Tobruk, the House of Representatives, demanded the resignation of Dbeibah. At his refusal, they proceeded to appoint Fathi Bashaga as the new prime minister. However, Bashaga never succeeded in entering Tripoli and assuming the role of prime minister. Dbeibah was elected by bribing some of the voters in the LPDF and continued to govern the country through a vast system of corruption and cooptation.

This allowed the various gang-like militias to entrench their positions further and strengthen their grip on the local territories. While Libya remained formally divided, very recently, behind-the-curtain deals among Haftar’s sons and relatives of Dbeibah seem to lead to an agreement to form a new Dbeibah-led reshuffled government. The main purpose of this new government would be to lead the country to elections. However, according to most, it will only be a continuation of the previous one—which means a continuation of corruption and pillage of the country’s resources by these ruling groups.

This most probable outcome of the Libyan process—the progressive creation of a mafia-like state in the middle of North Africa—seems to be the most certain outcome. Such an end could hypothetically be avoided by a military intervention by a more substantial power, such as Turkey or Egypt, that conquers the country and exercises overwhelming power to establish the rule of law. It is a possibility but not highly probable. The alternative, constituted by the potential agreement among healthy Libyan elites, is also improbable as there is no sign of these elites. Another possible scenario could be a conscious decision by a Western country to exercise pressure and other means to force Libyan elites to follow a direct path to election, creating a shared government of national unity and the slow progressive establishment of a pluralistic modern system.

However, almost none of these scenarios will likely bring a positive outcome. All the pain and suffering that the Libyan population has been enduring since 2011 could have been avoided had the international community and the new Libyan elite paid more attention to the reconstruction and rebuilding of the state rather than the conquest and appropriation of power.

Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Initiative and resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council

Alessia Melcangi is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs, associate professor of contemporary history of North Africa and the Middle East at the Department of Social Sciences and Economics at the Sapienza University of Rome.

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Report Oct 7, 2022

The MENA region’s uneasy path towards reforms

By Karim Mezran, Valeria Talbot, Alissa Pavia, Lorenzo Fruganti, Eleonora Ardemagni, Andrew Farrand, Alessia Melcangi and Hafsa Halawa

Middle East North Africa

In-Depth Research & Reports Jul 12, 2022

Evolving MENA power balances: What is next for US engagement in the region?

By Karim Mezran, Valeria Talbot, Jonathan Panikoff, Sanam Vakil, Maha Yahya, Mark N. Katz, Gangzheng She, and Julien Barnes-Dacey

Energy & Environment Middle East

Report Aug 29, 2022

North Africa’s transatlantic relations amid change and continuity

By Karim Mezran, Roberto Menotti, Alessia Melcangi, Emadeddin Badi and Alissa Pavia

Italy Libya

The post Libya: Back to the future? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine is finally freeing itself from centuries of Russian imperialism

Taras Kuzio — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 20:07:23 +0000

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the very different developmental paths the two countries have chosen following the collapse of the USSR three decades ago. Although Vladimir Putin continues to promote Soviet-era propaganda depicting Russia and Ukraine as “one people,” it is obvious to independent observers that the divide between the neighboring nations has never been wider. Since 1991, Ukrainians have done much to shake off the shadows of authoritarian empire and regain their agency; in contrast, Russian society remains firmly trapped in the imperial past.

There are a number of key factors behind Ukraine’s post-Soviet transformation from totalitarian society to a more recognizably European identity. At the grass roots level, Ukraine has experienced three revolutionary protest movements that have empowered the public and redefined the relationship between the state and society. The 1990 Granite Revolution, 2004 Orange Revolution, and 2014 Euromaidan Revolution all championed the fundamental democratic principles of individual human rights and the rule of law. Nothing comparable has taken place in Russia, hence the passivity and almost complete lack of agency that characterizes modern Russian society.

Ukraine has also experienced an extended period of democratization. With the exception of the 2004 presidential vote, every single Ukrainian election since 1991 has been recognized by international watchdogs as free and fair. The consolidation of Ukraine’s democratic culture has been supported by the country’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations, with both the EU and NATO setting reform benchmarks that have helped to build a genuinely durable democracy. Unlike Ukraine, Russia struggled to establish a credible democratic system during the early post-Soviet period and is now once more a dictatorship.

Since regaining independence in 1991, Ukraine has slowly but steadily sought to distance itself from the country’s imperial inheritance by removing symbols of the totalitarian past. Beginning in the early 1990s with policies that were often enacted at the local level, this process gained momentum following the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution and the 2015 adoption of decommunization laws, which brought Ukraine closer into line with similar legislation already in place in the three Baltic states and much of Central Europe.

Under Putin, Russia has moved in the opposite direction. The Putin regime has built modern Russian national identity around the quasi-religious veneration of the Soviet role in World War II, and has actively rehabilitated Stalin. While most Ukrainians hold negative views of the Soviet dictator, a majority of Russians regard him positively. Crucially, Ukraine’s anti-totalitarian legislation targets both the Soviet and Nazi regimes, while Russia has criminalized any attempts to compare the two. Ukraine’s laws equating Nazi and Soviet crimes reflect resolutions adopted earlier by European bodies including the European Union, the OSCE, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

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In response to the full-scale Russian invasion of February 2022, Ukraine’s decommunization drive has broadened to embrace derussification in a more general sense. This focus on the legacy of the Russian Empire in Ukraine was perhaps long overdue. After all, Putin himself has spoken openly of the continuity between the Czarist and Soviet empires, which he and many others in modern Russia regard as different chapters in the same imperial history. Indeed, in a December 2021 documentary, Putin specifically lamented the fall of the USSR as “the disintegration of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union.”

With Russian troops now waging a genocidal war in Ukraine and Putin declaring occupied Ukrainian lands to be “forever Russian,” Ukrainians have responded by seeking to remove all symbols of Russian imperialism from their country. Place names have been changed and statues of Russian generals, politicians, and literary figures have been dismantled. The most striking example of this process was the removal of a major monument honoring eighteenth century Russian Empress Catherine the Great from the heart of Ukrainian Black Sea port Odesa, a city which had formerly been viewed as a bastion of pro-Russian sentiment in independent Ukraine.

The societal shift away from Russian influence in wartime Ukraine is also immediately apparent at street level. In protest at Putin’s weaponization of the Russian language, many Ukrainians have chosen to switch from Russian to Ukrainian in their daily lives. Ukrainian radio stations no longer play Russian pop music, while Ukrainian TV channels have stopped broadcasting the Russian dramas, comedy shows, and soap operas that once dominated the country’s broadcasting schedules. Even the Russia-aligned branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has scrambled to distance itself from Moscow.

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Ukraine’s rejection of the authoritarian past and embrace of democratic values helps explain why the country has been able to resist Russian military aggression so successfully. The vibrant civil society and dynamic culture of volunteerism that have evolved in Ukraine over the past three decades have played key roles in the fightback against Russia’s invasion.

The differences between modern Russia and Ukraine are also very much in evidence along the front lines of the war. The Russian army is still dominated by rigid hierarchies that stifle battlefield initiative, and is marked by a culture of submissive deference to authority characterized by frequent video addresses by soldiers appealing personally to Putin. In contrast, the Ukrainian military displays high degrees of mobility and adaptability that reflect the comparative freedoms of modern Ukrainian society. A Russian officer from the Czarist or Soviet eras would feel instantly at home in Putin’s army, but he would find that he had very little in common with his Ukrainian counterparts.

The momentous events of the past eighteen months have confirmed the historic shifts of the previous three decades. It is now beyond any reasonable doubt that Ukrainians have decisively rejected the imperial past and have instead chosen a European future. By the time Russia’s full-scale invasion began, a majority of Ukrainians had already become confident in their ability to shape their own future and no longer clung to the paternalistic comforts of the authoritarian era.

A May 2023 poll by the Razumkov Center found that a record 87% of Ukrainians rejected the restoration of the Soviet Union. This number is likely to climb even higher as any lingering nostalgia for the authoritarian past fades away amid a mounting catalog of Russian war crimes and the passing of the last fully-fledged generation of Soviet Ukrainians. If Putin hoped his invasion of Ukraine would signal the dawn of a new Russian Empire, he could not have been more mistaken.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. His latest book is “Genocide and Fascism. Russia’s War Against Ukrainians.”

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Concerns are now growing over the wartime performance of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies. In December 2022, courts in Chernihiv suspended the mayor of the city over a supposed conflict of interest. Vladyslav Atroshchenko had been a fixture in local politics in the city for 20 years, serving as governor and member of parliament before finally becoming mayor. The court ruling to suspend him from office has raised questions over the role of Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies.

What was the reason for Atroshchenko’s removal? With Chernihiv on the front lines in the first days of the Russian invasion, the mayor used a car belonging to the municipal authorities to send his wife to safety in Poland while he stayed to help with the defense of the city. The car was later returned, but the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) issued an administrative protocol claiming the mayor had failed to report this alleged “conflict of interest.” A Ukrainian court then ruled to remove the mayor from office on this technicality.

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There are similar concerns in Rivne, where a judge recently suspended the city’s 36-year-old mayor Oleksandr Tretyak on the grounds that he also failed to disclose an alleged conflict of interest. Once again, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies are involved. In February 2023, the NAPC issued an administrative protocol against the mayor for a technical “conflict of interest” related to the payment of a bonus to an employee who had made a donation to Tretyak’s election campaign some years earlier while working as a campaign volunteer.

This charge is particularly contentious because bonuses are widely used throughout the Ukrainian government to retain key staff, reward hard work, and discourage the taking of bribes as public officials typically receive low salaries. Nevertheless, the NAPC accused the mayor of failing to inform them of a “conflict of interest.” Critics have alleged that this as an example of unreformed courts working together with anti-corruption agencies to secure politically motivated verdicts. The case is on appeal with an uncertain outcome.

With so many Ukrainians currently making huge sacrifices to ensure the country’s survival, accusations that anti-corruption agencies are being misused to target reformers and political opponents could have a significant negative impact on morale. This alarming trend risks undoing the progress of the past nine years and undermining Ukraine’s chances of achieving further Euro-Atlantic integration. If it remains unaddressed, it could see Ukraine trapped in the geopolitical gray zone and vulnerable to further Russian aggression.

Corruption has long been seen as a critical element of Russian efforts to retain control over Ukraine and prevent the country from decisively exiting the Kremlin orbit. In other words, Russia wins when Ukrainian corruption continues, regardless of the outcome on the battlefield. Ukrainian victory will only come when both Russia and corruption are decisively defeated.

Brian Mefford is the Director of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv. He is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and has lived and worked in Ukraine since 1999.

Oleksii Antoniuk — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 11:22:00 +0000

There is currently no end in sight to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the debate over Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction is already well underway and continues to gain momentum. Attention is focused primarily on the challenge of physically rebuilding the country’s shattered infrastructure, with war damage currently estimated at over $400 billion. At the same time, it will also be vital to repair and strengthen the central pillars of Ukraine’s democracy.

Many of Ukraine’s public and private sector institutions have performed remarkably well since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Despite facing the largest war seen in Europe since 1945, the Ukrainian state did not collapse, contrary to the expectations of Russian President Vladimir Putin and many others. Indeed, one recent nationwide poll found that most state institutions have approval ratings of over 50 percent.

This remarkable resilience cannot completely disguise the damage done to many of the institutions that are critical to Ukraine’s democracy. Political parties, local government, civil society, and the media will all likely emerge from the current war in a significantly weakened state. Addressing this issue will be critical for Ukraine’s further Euro-Atlantic integration.

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Ukrainian civil society, which powered the country’s democratic progress throughout the first three decades of independence, has been hard-hit by the war. Around a third of Ukrainian civil society organizations (CSOs) paused their operations or completely shut down following Russia’s invasion, according to a nationwide CSO survey. Meanwhile, three-quarters of organizations that did continue operating refocused away from their usual fields and switched to humanitarian and defense initiatives. Around 80% of CSOs say they will need new skills to effectively participate in Ukraine’s reconstruction.

The suspension of politics-as-usual during wartime could also have a negative impact on the democratic system in post-war Ukraine. With many political parties in disarray and nationwide networks disrupted as a result of the invasion, it will likely take some time before the country’s political climate can regain the structure and competitiveness of the prewar years. The relationship between parliament and the presidency will also need to be revised. This must include a reappraisal of wartime measures which have handed some powers from parliament to the executive.

Similar challenges face Ukraine’s independent media, which will have a crucial role to play as the forum for much-needed public debate about the country’s reconstruction. As a mandatory wartime measure, most of Ukraine’s major TV channels have ceased independent broadcasting and joined the government-run “United News” platform. During the postwar period, these channels will need to undergo the time-consuming work of reintegrating journalists, training new reporters, and adapting their brands to the new realities in the country.

In postwar Ukraine, local government authorities across the country will need to reclaim some of the powers devolved to central authorities on national security grounds in the wake of the Russian invasion. Centralization is an especially acute issue in front line municipalities, where reconstruction is most urgent. Although local governments have generally performed well during the war, they will need to have the necessary authority to lead rebuilding efforts. It will be even more difficult to restore local governance in areas currently occupied by Russia. With Russian occupation forces systematically murdering, imprisoning, or deporting local Ukrainian officials, there will be major personnel challenges to face.

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