Larry Diamond will be visiting Williams to discuss his new book, Squandered Victory, which, for all you Central Asia people, reads much like The Devil and the Disappearing Sea, except that the scale (financially, geostrategically, historically, etc.) is exponentially larger, though it lacks Rob Ferguson’s wry humor.

Below are some draft questions I’m preparing for my interview with him. Please add your comments, suggestions, concerns, criticisms, etc. I’m hoping to have a good discussion about institutional vs. cultural strategies for democratization and the larger issues of US foreign policy. I’ll provide a wrap-up afterwards, so stay tuned.

• Your theory of democratic transition focuses on the development of civil society – non-governmental groups that check authority, organize people and advocate on particular issues. In Central Asia, these groups exist, but they are a creation of external donors, whom upon whom they are financially dependent. When I interviewed locals, they could not identify any such groups or describe their role in the national political process. Thus, it seems as though these groups largely do not contribute to the democratization of their country, since they do not have (or need) popular support. Do these groups qualify as civil society? If so, how can they establish popular support? What should donors’ policy be?

• The specter of Islam Karimov looms over all of Central Asia – a dictator able to maintain order at the cost of the liberties and, in several cases, lives of his own people. He represents one side of a zero-sum decision facing the governments of the republics – the stability of autocracy vs. the potential economic benefits of political liberalization. For many governments, particularly that of Tajikistan’s Emomali Rakhmonov, Uzbekistan presents a compelling example of the benefits of state control – Karimov held high-profile meetings with Putin and Hu Jintao after massacring hundreds of civilians at Andijan. How should democracy promotion programs (and their respective governments) respond to the threat of Karimov?

• In Squandered Victory, you say:

“Success in these difficult circumstances requires a substantial commitment of international human and financial resources, delivered in a timely fashion, and sustained over an extended period…Resources must reach the people of the society - ideally, with local participation and ownership.” (307)

How will you accomplish a sense of ownership in societies not founded on the rule of law? How do you prevent grant dependency? What about examples of corruption? (such as The Devil and the Disappearing Sea or, not to pick on the World Bank, the Dushanbe Water Supply Project, begun in at least 2001 - $17 million later, Dushanbe has no clean water).

• The book asserts that

“we cannot get to Jefferson and Madison without going through Thomas Hobbes. You can’t build a democratic state unless you first have a state, and the essential condition for a state is that it must have an effective monopoly over the means of violence.” (305)

How do states go from this “prisoners’ dilemma” situation to a Jeffersonian democracy?

• Who should take responsibility for democracy in a world of self-interested actors? What incentives should be provided to different actors within a country’s domestic political sphere?

• How can civic nationalism avoid the dangerous repercussions of ethnic nationalism or increased authoritarianism?

• What should the role of elections be in the overall democratic transition? How important are they?

Gleanings from the press:

• A follow-up on the previous note about Bush’s subtle signals: isn’t it a bad thing if you’re to the right of Genghis Khan?
• Also, GWB hit the airag, which is “sometimes likened to a mix of warm beer and buttermilk” (to put it generously). Will this affect Bush’s teetotaling image?

There’s a new op-ed from Elbegdorj in the Washington Post. A few reactions:
- “Welcome to freedom.”

- I’ll leave the discussion of whether bad governance = lack of freedom for another time.

-”Without a bullet being fired, without tanks in the streets, we laid the groundwork for building a new society”

- this is true and nontrivial, particularly vis-a-vis the Tajik Civil War and, more recently Andijan. Mongolian politics have been almost entirely devoid of the polarized/polemical rhetoric that marks the political sphere in other developing countries. Or, more precisely, there is a great deal of hostile talk between the parties, but nothing truly bad has come of it.

-”Our people are working hard to consolidate our freedom.”

- Who are these people? How many work outside of Sukhbaatar Square?

-”Without question among the greatest challenges facing our democratic institutions are poverty and corruption. Parliamentarians in both parties of our ruling Grand Coalition are working to provide the legal framework and resources to ensure that civil servants remain exactly that — servants of the people.”

- OK, who will take the first step beyond corruption? Who will risk their career to break the cycle of graft?

-”It is now not uncommon to see a satellite dish outside a herdsman’s ger — our traditional dwelling.”

- I did find this (and solar panels) a bit disorienting and surreal.

-”Further strengthening our development efforts is the inclusion of Mongolia in the Millennium Challenge program. When we sign our compact to begin project implementation, it will add a new level of transparency, ’sunlight’ and public participation to this critical poverty alleviation program by supporting economic growth.”

- An interesting construction that could be illustrative: Elbegdorj expects the MCC and/or the compact to add transparency rather than pledging to do it himself in anticipation of the MCC.

-”The mechanics of putting together our Millennium program have involved public input and solicitation of proposals from the people.” - Sort of. It was not exactly “grass-roots governance at its best”

- there was quite a bit of elite bargaining and referendum politics in order to achieve consensus in the process of developing the proposal.

- “perhaps there are already lessons for others in what we have accomplished.”

- I’m not so sure. Certainly the structures of Mongolian democracy are in place, but given the political stagnation of the ‘Grand Coalition’

With this I’m (hopefully) going to begin a semi-regular (or, rather, more frequent) series of wiritings tentatively titled “Alan Responds” (yes, I realize the title is unoriginal - let me know if you have a better idea). I’m now in the literature review part of my work, and I’m wrestling with how the major theories of democratic transition (Huntington, Lipset, Putnam, etc.) may or may not apply to Central Asia. I’ll be posting quotes from the authors and my response to them. Hopefully, there will be some dialog, as I’ll probably have misinterpreted the quote or taken it out of its proper context. Maybe there may even be a flame war or two. It should be fun!

A quick media review:
•In the style of COHA’s Welcome to Washington, Mr. President articles, we have Welcome to Ulaanbaatar, Mr. Bush, which fights stereotypes that I doubt Americans held about Mongolia.
•An interesting quote about the blame game, a common feature in donor politics:

“Every side is looking for a scapegoat instead of answering the question: What went wrong?'’ Enkhtuya Oidov, the general-secretary for Mongolia’s National Council for the MCC, said in an e-mail response to questions. “Rightly or wrongly Mongolians blame both — not only corrupt politicians but also donors who were so ignorant about where the money goes.'’(Source)

•Bush’s speech: an odd choice of a metaphor for the Mongolian-US partnership?

“There is a legend of a Mongolian woman who gave each of her five sons an arrow. She told each to break the arrow in his hand — which they did. She then tied five arrows together, and told each to try and break the bundle. None could do it. And she told them: Brothers who stand alone, like single arrow shafts, can be broken by anyone - but brothers who stand together, like a bundle of arrows, cannot be broken.” Hmmm….

Clearly, an important cause of the visit was Mongolia’s committment of troops in Iraq. What will be the effect of this trip? It will likely increase the legitimacy of the government. However, this would only help current politicians, who will be able to duck issues of corruption by clinging to the memory of the event. Symbolically, it represents an affirmation of the direction charted by the Mongolian government - one which, while clearly not bad, given the regional context, is far from ideal. Great opacity and bureaucracy combine to deny ordinary people access to the political process, and even NGOs, staffed by smart, engaged citizens, find it extremely difficult to make progress. Media is still very problematic. Hopefully, the ultimate message from the visit will be that Mongolia still has promise, but needs to accelerate the pace of political reform in order to qualify for MCC money - clearly the biggest carrot in the US’s toolkit.