The Backlash against Democracy Promotion

Bibliographic Data

ID3256285
AuthorsThomas Carothers (corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume85
Issue2
Pages55
Publication date2006-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueForeign Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-7120 • E-ISSN: 2327-7793
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/20031911
OpenAlexW2606447365
LanguageEN
Citations received120

IN JANUARY, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a controversial new bill imposing heightened controls on local and foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) operating in the country. The new legislation, which requires all NGOS in Russia to inform the government in advance about every project they intend to conduct, is another marker of the country's dispiriting slide back toward authoritarianism. The law is also a sign of an equally disturbing and much broader trend. After two decades of the steady expansion of democracy-building programs around the world, a growing number of governments are starting to crack down on such activities within their borders. Strongmen-some of them elected officials-have begun to publicly denounce Western democracy assistance as illegitimate political meddling. They have started expelling or harassing Western NGOS and prohibiting local groups from taking foreign finds-or have started punishing them for doing so. This growing backlash has yet to coalesce into a formal or organized movement. But its proponents are clearly learning from and feeding off of one another. The recent color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan and the widespread suspicion that U.S. groups such as the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute

Backlash · Democracy · Democracy promotion · Democratization · Development economics · Economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Promotion (chess) · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Russia and Soviet political economy

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