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| >> Foreign Aid in the National Interest >> Chapter 1 |
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Jump to Chapter 1 Sections: By contrast, when governance is bad and undemocratic or only superficially democratic development pathologies inevitably have regional and global consequences. Poverty becomes entrenched through corruption and distorted, wasteful investment. Chronic fiscal deficits drain and then drive away international resources. The absence of the rule of law permits and poverty can drive wanton destruction of the environment. In the absence of state capacity and will to address public health problems, infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and new viruses proliferate, mutate, and spread across borders. The blatant venality and injustice of repressive regimes foster antimodernist and religious fundamentalist movements of rage against the West, especially the United States. In the fertile soil of a weak state and feckless legal system, organized crime networks take root, threatening the rule of law internationally through fraud, piracy, kidnapping, terrorism, counterfeiting, money laundering, and trafficking in arms, drugs, and people. The more inept, lawless, corrupt, and predatory governance is, the more likely it is to descend into the violent conflict and state failure that intensify all these factors and produce humanitarian crises civil war, famine, genocide, physical destruction of communities, and massive flows of refugees. Such crises destabilize entire regions and cry out for risky and costly international intervention. It is much safer and cheaper to build a well-governed, democratic state than to rescue a failed one. Indeed, the only way to prevent or reverse the threats that flow from bad governance is to foster stable, effective democratic governance. Promoting democratic governance is therefore vital to the national security of the United States and must be a central objective of any development assistance program. Advancing democratic governance is a huge challenge. Superficially, the global state of democracy appears encouraging. Over the past quartercentury democracy has steadily expanded around the world and is now the predominant form of government. But swirling beneath this expansion has been a dangerous countertrend a growing disenchantment among populations that increasingly view their political leaders as corrupt, selfserving, and unable to address their countries’ serious economic and social problems. In many developing and postcommunist countries people are losing confidence not just in elected officials but in democratic institutions. The rising cynicism of disaffected populations has much justification. In many new democracies governance is simply inadequate to meet the challenges of economic and political development. And in the typical authoritarian regime governance is even more corrupt, arbitrary, and exploitative. Unless governance becomes more open, lawful, accountable, and responsive and where formally democratic, more deeply so it will not deliver sustained development. Transforming governance will require more investment in democracy and governance assistance. It will also require a new, more comprehensive strategy to generate the most crucial ingredient and the one most often missing: the political will of leaders to risk difficult reforms. Global trends in democracy |
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