This week’s Economist has an outstanding article on Freedom House’s 2010 edition of Freedom in the World.

Freedom House…in its latest annual assessment that liberty and human rights had retreated globally for the fourth consecutive year. It said this marked the longest period of decline in freedom since the organisation began its reports nearly 40 years ago.

The author (I have no idea who because The Economist does not carry bylines), goes on to discuss the various causes of the latest democratic recession:

…the worrying thing is that the cause of liberal democracy is not merely suffering political reverses, it is also in intellectual retreat…

there are some obvious reasons why Western governments’ zeal to promote democracy, and the willingness of other countries to listen, have ebbed. In many quarters (including Western ones), the assault on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and its bloody aftermath, seemed to confirm people’s suspicion that promoting democracy as an American foreign-policy aim was ill-conceived or plain cynical.

In Afghanistan, the other country where an American-led coalition has been waging war in democracy’s name, the corruption and deviousness of the local political elite, and the flaws of last year’s election, have been an embarrassment. In the Middle East, America’s enthusiasm for promoting democracy took a dip after the Palestinian elections of 2006, which brought Hamas to office…

But perhaps the biggest reason why democracy’s magnetic power has waned is the rise of China – and the belief of its would-be imitators that they too can create a dynamic economy without easing their grip on political power.

The article then makes one of the most concise, clear, and convincing arguments the importance of supporting democracy I have read in a long time. It methodically addresses all of the criticisms leveled against democracy and shows why they are wrong.

So how does the case in defence of democracy stand up these days?…Democracy may not yield perfect policies, but it ought to guard against all manner of ills, ranging from outright tyranny (towards which a “mild” authoritarian can always slide) to larceny at the public expense.

… all but two of the 30 least corrupt countries in the world are democracies… Autocracies tend to occupy much higher rankings on the corruption scale…

What about the argument that economic development, at least in its early stages, is best pursued under a benign despot?…For every economically successful East Asian (former) autocracy like Taiwan or South Korea, there is an Egypt or a Cameroon (or indeed a North Korea or a Myanmar) which is both harsh and sluggish…

Believers in democracy as an engine of progress often make the point that a climate of freedom is most needed in a knowledge-based economy..It is surely no accident that every economy in the top 25 of the Global Innovation Index is a democracy, except semi-democratic Singapore and Hong Kong.

China, which comes 27th in this table, is often cited as a vast exception to this rule…The determination of China’s authorities to impose their own terms on the information revolution was highlighted this week when Google, the search engine, said it might pull out of China after a cyber-attack that targeted human-rights activists…

Admirers of China’s iron hand may conclude that it can manage well without the likes of Google…But in the medium term, the mentality that insists on hobbling search engines will surely act as a break on creative endeavour…

What about the argument that autocracy creates a modicum of stability without which growth is impossible?…On the State Fragility Index…democracies tend to do much better than autocracies…

At the very least, a culture of compromise – coupled with greater accountability and limits on state power – means that democracies are better able to avoid catastrophic mistakes, or criminal cruelty. Bloody nightmares that cost tens of millions of lives, like China’s Great Leap Forward or the Soviet Union’s forced collectivisation programme, were made possible by the concentration of power in a small group of people who faced no restraint.

Liberal democratic governments can make all manner of blunders, but they are less likely to commit mass murder autocracies may be faster and bolder. They are also more accident-prone.

For all its frustrations, open and accountable government tends in the long run to produce better policies…Above all, elections make the transfer of power legitimate and smooth. Tyrannies may look stable under one strongman; but they can slide into instability, even bloody chaos, if a transition goes awry. Free elections also mean that policy mistakes, even bad ones, are more quickly corrected…

I often describe democracy assistance as a harm reduction strategy. This is a crucially important point that the development first crowd does not seem to understand.

The International Crisis Group has just released a frightening report on Sudan

Sudan is sliding towards violent breakup…Both parties want elections for the wrong reasons. The National Congress Party (NCP) wants votes in April 2010 that would allow it to regain the political legitimacy it needs both to protect President Bashir against the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant and to be in a stronger position to declare a state of emergency if needed, including in the event of a new war. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) is concerned that derailed elections might jeopardize its overriding goal of holding the referendum [on independence for southern Sudan] on schedule. It threatens to declare unilateral independence if pushed to accept a referendum postponement…

It is essential to move rapidly on a number of fronts, including to negotiate a Darfur peace agreement that allows all Darfuris to vote in national elections; to implement legal reforms necessary for a free and fair national election process; and to agree on the commissions for the South’s self-determination referendum…Time is also required to negotiate a framework for the negotiations over how two highly interdependent states will relate to each other…These processes require strong, united international facilitation, as well as support from other major political forces in Sudan…

If implementation again lags badly, it will be necessary to concentrate on achieving the minimum essential to prevent return to deadly chaos: namely ensuring that the South’s referendum is held on schedule, with a day-after arrangement is in place.

It is quite ridiculous to believe that international negotiators can solve all of these issues in four months.  Thus, we need “to concentrate on achieving the minimum essential to prevent return to deadly chaos.” I had a long talk with someone who works on Sudan, and asked whether the US government was rethinking its strategy and calling to postpone the election.  The answer, sadly but predictably, was no.  I guess we have learned nothing from Afghanistan and Iraq, so let me make this clear: holding an election when we think it will cause a civil war is not a good idea.

George Friedman at Real Clear World astutely observes the deep paradox of Obama’s foreign policy: wanting to improve the image of the US without substantively changing the policies that made the US unpopular.  Friedman notes that while Obama’s tone is different than Bush’s, Obama’s policies on Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq are fundamentally the same.  Will old policies in new wrapping paper be enough?

MA in Democracy and Governance co-director Dan Brumberg is pessimistic about Afghanistan.  Brumberg writes,

…can the White House achieve its goals with 30,000 to 35,000 more troops (including NATO)? Here there is reason for concern. The White House’s implicit optimism rests partly on the assumption that a U.S.-led military surge in Afghanistan will produce some of the security and political benefits that came with the previous surge in Iraq…the substantial differences between the two countries suggest that the gains achieved in Iraq will be hard to replicate in Afghanistan.

The main reason Brumberg thinks the analogy does not hold is that in Iraq, the majority Shi’ite supported the US and resistance came from a minority group, the Sunni.  By contrast, in Afghanistan, the largest ethnic group, the Pashtun, do not support the US.  Rather, ethnic minorities, such as Hazara and Uzbek, support the US.  Hence, in Iraq, victory for the US meant the majority defeating the minority, while in Afghanistan, victory for the US requires an alliance of minority groups defeating the largest group.  The latter is far more difficult than the former, according to Brumberg.  Sounds reasonable to me.

The Iraqi parliament passed a revised election law, following last week’s veto by Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi.  On the surface, this would seem like good news.  It is not.  Hashemi, a Sunni, vetoed the law because it did not give sufficient representation to Iraqis living abroad.  To address this concern, the new law allocates votes from Iraqis living abroad according to the province where they lived prior to leaving as well as increases the number of seats for Kurdish regions.  Both measures reduce the number of seats in Sunni regions.  The Sunnis walked out of the parliament in protest and the bill passed by a wide margin.  Hashemi has stated he will veto the law a second time.  However, parliament can override the veto with 60% majority, which a Kurdish-Shia coalition could easily provide.  Reider Visser at Iraq and Gulf Analysis argues sees this as a revival of sectarian tensions in Iraqi politics between the Kurds and Shia on the one hand and the Sunnis on the other.  Not good news.

Jack Santucci at the Democratic Piece has some good insights into the institutional foundations of Iraq’s current political impasse. Jack’s basic point is that the primary fear of minority groups in Iraq (Kurds and Sunnis) is domination by the majority Shia.  Thus, we should expect political leaders from these groups to use whatever means they have to prevent it. The big question is if can we get them to do it without violence. Jack analogizes what’s happening in Iraq today as a Game of Chicken and usefully reminds us that the car wreck is one outcome.

After months of bargaining, the Iraqi parliament passed an election law on November 8.  Yesterday, Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi vetoed the law because it did not offer fair representation for the Kurds and Sunni, minority groups in the Shia-dominated country.  The veto comes the day after Kurdish officials threatened to boycott the election for similar reasons.

The veto raises three problems.  First, the bill must now go back to parliament.  While in theory Parliament could simply write a new bill to address these concerns or over-ride the veto, Hashimi’s veto and the Kurdish threat suggest this is not a mere procedural issue, but relates to long-standing ethnic tensions in the country.  Second, it sets the stage for a potential constitutional crisis.  On the one hand, Iraq’s Constitution states that election laws must be in place at least sixty days before the election.  On the other hand, the Constitution also states that the election must take place before the end of January, 72 days from today.  This gives the Iraqis 12 days to pass a new law and signs indicate that many parliamentarians are more interested in exploiting the problem than solving it.  Third, there appear to be legitimate concerns about the legality of the veto.

Reidar Visser at Iraq and Gulf Analysis, an excellent source of information about Iraqi politics, has much more detail.