Post-communist democracy promotion has been most important in “borderline” countries, which had less favorable structural conditions than the East-Central European frontrunners, but where a domestic democratic constituency nevertheless existed and could benefit from Western support. External democracy promotion efforts have ranged from “soft” diplomatic pressure to economic and military sanctions and have acted through a variety of channels: (1) promotion of democratic attitudes among citizens yearning for Western integration, (2) political incentives for elites (in government and in the opposition), (3) domestic power balance shifts in favor of democratic politicians, and (4) promotion of better democratic governance through incentives for public administration reform. The most effective approach to democracy promotion thus far, however, has been the combination of political conditionality with significant political/economic incentives, best exemplified by the European integration process. Furthermore, the success of any strategy hinges on its fit with the geopolitical and domestic environment of the country in question. In particular, external actors must be more sensitive to the national sovereignty implications of such interventions, which can be easily exploited by domestic antidemocratic actors to undermine democracy promotion efforts.
For example, according to recent surveys by the author, the majority of Romanians (54 percent) and Bulgarians (67 percent) are opposed to having Roma neighbors, and almost three-quarters of Bulgarians were opposed to daily Turkish language programs on Bulgarian national TV.
2.
Of course, such calls for “original democracies”—issued among others by Romania's first president, Ion Iliescu, and more recently by Russia's Vladimir Putin—often include elements that are hard to reconcile with genuine political competition and freedom.
3.
See Ute Gabanyi, “Moldova im Spannungsfeld zwischen Rußland, Rumänien und der Ukraine,” Bericht des BIOst, 16 November 1996.
4.
The Orban government backed away from a plan to issue identity cards and provide extensive rights to ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia and Romania, after the European Union issued a warning in this respect.
5.
For a more detailed account, see Milada Anna Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, and Integration after Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 151-159.
6.
Vachudova, in ibid., 161-79, illustrates this mechanism with respect to EU integration incentives in Eastern Europe.
7.
See Mark R. Beissinger, “Promoting Democracy: Is Exporting Revolution a Constructive Strategy?”Dissent, Winter 2006, 84-89.
8.
See Antoaneta Dimitrova, “Enlargement, Institution-Building and the European Union's Administrative Capacity Requirement,”West European Politics25:4(2002): 171-190.
9.
See, for example, Dani Kaufmann, Aart Kraay, and Pablo Zoido-Lobaton, “Governance Matters” (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 2196, Washington, D.C., 1998).
10.
See, for example, Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990); and Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).
11.
The figures refer to the proportion of respondents who reported being “not at all satisfied” or “not very satisfied” according to the 2004 Candidate Countries Eurobarometer surveys.
12.
See Grigore Pop-Eleches, “Transition Fatigue: The Changing Fortunes of Post-Communist Anti-Establishment Parties” (Presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, December 2004).
13.
For a similar argument regarding the double standards of existing EU members regarding minority policies, see Andrew Moravcsik and Milada Vachudova, “National Interests, State Power, and EU Enlargement,”East European Politics and Societies17:1(2003): 42-57.
14.
Frank Schimmelfennig“The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union,”International Organization55:1(Winter 2001): 47-80.
15.
For example, the Afghan crisis made several authoritarian Central Asian countries into strategic U.S. allies in the war on terror (see Pauline Jones Luong and Erika Weinthal, “New Friends, New Fears in Central Asia,”Foreign Affairs82:2[March/April 2002]: 61-70), whereas the looming Iran crisis may do the same for Azerbaijan.
16.
For an elaboration of this argument, see Peter Andreas, “Criminalizing Consequences of Sanctions: Embargo Busting and Its Legacy,”International Studies Quarterly49 (June 2005): 335-360.
17.
See David Chandler, “Bosnia: The Democracy Paradox,”Current History100 (March 2001): 14-19.
18.
For example, following a statement by NATO Ambassador Nicholas Burns that a Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) victory in the 2002 elections could endanger Slovakia's efforts to join NATO, Meciar promptly replied that “I am glad our guest reminded us of the rules of democracy, and I would like to ask him to respect those rules himself” (RFE/RL Newsline, vol. 6, no. 42, pt. II, March, 2002).
19.
After the U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, Ralph Johnson, had criticized the Slovak electoral law prior to the 1998 elections, Meciar compared Johnson to Stepan Chervonenko, the Soviet ambassador to Prague at the time of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact (CTK National News Wire, 1 July 1998).
20.
Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 117-117.
21.
A telling example in this respect comes from a Slovakian MP during the Meciar government, who lamented that “we are advised by all as jerks, enlightened as fools, taught as illiterates, judged as recidivists, scolded as delinquents, given tasks as the retarded, frightened, threatened as some criminals” (cited in Alexander Duleba, “Democratic Consolidation and the Conflict over Slovakian International Alignment,”Columbia International Affairs Online[1997]).
22.
For the ongoing academic debates about the relative effectiveness of different aspects of European Union conditionality, see for example, Vachudova, Europe Undivided; Judith Kelley, “International Actors on the Domestic Scene: Membership Conditionality and Socialization by International Institutions,”International Organization58:4(2004): 425-457; Wade Jacoby, The Enlargement of the European Union and NATO: Ordering from the Menu in Central Europe(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Frank Schimmelfennig, “Strategic Calculation and International Socialization: Membership Incentives, Party Constellations, and Sustained Compliance in Central and Eastern Europe,” International Organization 59:4(2005): 827-60; and Heather Grabbe, The EU's Transformative Power: Europeanization through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
23.
On the dangers of institutional monocropping, see Peter Evans, “Development as Institutional Change: The Pitfalls of Monocropping and Potentials of Deliberation,”Studies in Comparative International Development38 (Winter 2004): 30-52.
24.
For a more detailed overview of the post-revolutionary democratic disappointments in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, see Mark R. Beissinger, “Promoting Democracy: “Is Exploring Revolution a Constructive Strategy,”Dissent, Winter 2006, no. 7.
25.
Gerald Knaus and Marcus Cox, “Whither Bosnia?”NATO Review48 (Winter 2000/2001): 6-11.
