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NFL Public Forum and NCFL L-D Release

May 05 2011 by PD Staff

Tags: democracy, democracy promotion, democracy promotion disadvantage,

[Download the release]

The resolutions

NFL PF: Resolved: That the United States should intervene in another nation's struggle for democracy.

CFL L-D: The United States has a moral obligation to promote just governance in developing nations.

Although the resolutions are different, The NFL Public Forum topic and the NCFL L-D topic deal with almost exactly the same idea – should the US provide assistance to strengthen democracy in other countries.

What’s the tie in?

The NFL topic asks if the US should “intervene” in the democratization efforts of other countries. “Definitionally,” intervention is not limited to military intervention, but includes all efforts to promote democracy, including democratic institution building –

Nicolas Bouchet is a doctoral candidate at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Barack Obama's democracy promotion at midterm

The International Journal of Human Rights Volume 15, Issue 4, 2011, Pages 572 – 588

In this article, democracy promotion is defined as the widest possible range of actions that one state can take to influence the political development of another towards greater democratization. These potential actions can be thought of as different points along a DP scale, the range of which is delimited by the degree of interventionism on the part of the promoter. In theory, at least, this can go from the low interventionism of DP by diplomacy, exhortation and example, to - very controversially - the use of military power abroad, with much more common intermediate policies such as democracy assistance (i.e. various forms capacity-building support to different actors and institutions abroad), political conditionality, economic sanctions or direct support for democracy actors abroad between the two extremes. [DP=Democracy Promotion]

As explained in this US Agency for International Development (USAID) web page (^{http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/technical_areas/governance/index.html), “governance”}assistance includes efforts to strengthen democratic governments/institutions in other countries, so both topics include democratic capacity building.

Also, while not stated literally in the L-D resolution, “just governance” arguably refers to democratic governance – at least that is how most L-D debaters will interpret it.

Now, this does not mean that the two topics are identical.

The NFL Public Forum topic about support democratic transitions includes debates about military interventions, political conditionality, and economic sanctions that the NCFL L-D topic does not necessarily include. If L-D debaters limit the interpretation of supporting just governance to typical governance assistance, these measures will be excluded. If, however, any actions to support “just governance” are part of the debate, then all of the arguments in the NFL release apply. And the NCFL L-D topic includes debates about anti-corruption assistance that the NFL Public Forum topic does not, though I don’t know how many of the L-D debates will end up focusing on anticorruption assistance. Regardless, there is substantial overlap between the two topics on the debates about assistance to promote democracy and the desirability of spreading democracy itself. Many of the kritiks/philosophical arguments apply to both. And given this, I strongly encourage you to download the NFL Public Forum release if you are debating L-D at NCFLs.

The Arguments

There are three key sets of arguments against intervening to promote democracy.

First, there are arguments related to the workability of proving assistance to those transitioning to democracy. Pro arguments include the following –

-Technical/institution building is necessary to promote democratic institutions and consolidate democratic transitions

- Military intervention is necessary to prevent governments from murdering and intimidating their citizens

- Western action to promote democracy correlates with increases in democracy

Con arguments include the following –

- Western action, particularly military action, undermines local efforts to instill democracy

- Western support for indigenous groups actually reduces support for these groups

- There is no correlation between Western action to promote democracy and its growth

- The growth of democracy in different regions occurred when there was no Western involvement

Second, there are arguments about the desirability of the spread of democracy. Proponents of democracy argue that it promotes freedom, reduces the risk of war, and increases environmental protection. Opponents argue that there is no relationship between democracy and war, that transitions to democracy are incredibly violent, and that democratization will empower radical Islamists that will not only reverse democratic progress but will also threaten US interests.

There is some evidence in the release related to the desirability of democracy in the release, but comprehensive coverage is available in the Democracy Strategy Guide and other files that are available at our site.

Third, there are philosophical (kritik-style) objections to US efforts to promote democracy. Some argue that democracy promotion is imperialist and others argue that promoting democracy is inconsistent with Realism, an international political theory that argues that strong states are critical to power balance, that states ought to only act to protect their own interests, and that the type of regime is irrelevant to how states behave in the international system because states will always act to protect their own interests regardless as to regime type.

The realism and imperialism debates are covered comprehensively in the release on NFL Public Forum topic. We also have a number of realism files and imperialism files available.

A Couple Notes on the NFL Resolution

First, while I think the resolution intends to assume that the intervention that is being referenced occurs on the side of those supporting democracy, there is nothing in the resolution that requires this. The US could intervene on the side of the autocratic government, and it has done so many times in order to avoid instability in particular countries. I strongly believe that a “topical” Public Forum case could support intervention on the side of a government to oppose democratization in a particular country.

Second, the “intervention” that could occur is probably much broader than what has been covered in this release. While I think most “casual conversations” would take “intervention” to mean the policies that are discussed here, any type of economic or military support could be considered “intervention” that could help democracy, since many scholars think that sustainable economic growth is critical to the development of democracy.

A Note on the NCFL L-D Resolution

The question of whether or not states should act morally is also covered in the NFL L-D release.

More to Come

The NFL L-D topic on human rights promotion, the NFL PF topic on democracy assistance, and the NCFL L-D topic on all related and feature many overlapping arguments. Given this, we will be producing a second release by Monday, May 9^th that is useful to all of the topics.

We also have a back file that was produced by Minh Luong of Yale University on democracy promotion as well as some other back files. Minh is preparing an essay and file on the NFL L-D topic now.

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NFL Public Forum and NCFL L-D Release

May 05 2011 by PD Staff

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