E-Notes

The Georgia Crisis and Continuing Democratic Erosion in Europe/Eurasia

by Adrian A. Basora and Jean F. Boone

October 2008

Hon. Adrian A. Basora is Director of FPRI’s Project on Democratic Transitions; he was U.S. Ambassador in Prague, 1992–95, and also serves as Past President and trustee of Eisenhower Fellowships. Jean F. Boone, Ph.D., Coordinating Research Fellow of the PDT, is a scholar whose work, in both academic and policy-oriented settings, has focused on the political economy of reform in the postcommunist region. She is an adjunct professor in Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies.

It is by now widely agreed that Moscow’s invasion of Georgia and virtual annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia represent severe setbacks for both democracy and for U.S. and Western European interests. Less widely understood is that the basis for this Western policy failure was evident long before August 8, 2008. It runs far wider and deeper than the immediate issues surrounding Georgia’s territorial integrity and political autonomy.

The Georgia crisis is in fact a dramatic new manifestation of the longer-term trends underlying the erosion of democracy and Western influence in the postcommunist region. Reversing these trends will require more than simply outmaneuvering Russia in Georgia. It will require bolstering the foundations of democratic governance and values throughout much of the postcommunist region.

Long before the Russians entered Georgia, democracy was clearly on the retreat in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia, as was the leverage of both the United States and the democratic European powers. Despite the extraordinary democratic breakthroughs that produced the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and continued through the Rose and Orange Revolutions of 2003-04, today only 30 percent of the people of the region live in countries identified by Freedom House as democratic, while 56 percent live in the resurgent authoritarian states of Russia, Belarus, and Central Asia.1 Critically hanging in the balance are four key countries – Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Bosnia – whose democratic transitions remain uncertain and whose persistent political weakness leaves them vulnerable to both domestic conflicts and external pressures.

The Georgian events are a wake-up call. The U.S. and its European allies must act now to provide leadership in restoring democratic momentum not only in Georgia but throughout the postcommunist region. For the U.S., this will mean replacing its now-discredited, unilateralist brand of “democracy promotion” with a new policy paradigm focused on broader democratic values and partnership: sustained partnerships with the regions’ civil society groups and elected officials, and renewed partnerships with key European allies to integrate the postcommunist nations into wider regional and international frameworks.

The Deeper Causes of Democratic Regression in Europe/Eurasia

Although the region’s movement towards market economies and democratic political systems accelerated throughout the 1990s and seemed to retain momentum even into the early years of the current decade, by 2004 this positive trend had peaked. Since then, a variety of factors have challenged further democratic consolidation and diffusion.

A resurgent Russia. With its energy wealth and re-centralized power, Russia is asserting potent economic and political influence along its periphery – and well beyond. Moscow is also proving adept at dividing Western Europe and at undercutting the U.S., while actively promoting its own alternative vision of “sovereign democracy,” even as its leaders systematically eliminate genuine democratic rights and freedoms at home.

Reduced U.S. credibility and resources. Since the Iraq intervention, the U.S. has lost much of the good will, credibility and leverage that it enjoyed in Europe/Eurasia from 1989-2001. Compounding the problem, Washington has downgraded its attention and cut back on resources in support of the postcommunist democratic transitions. Eleven USAID missions in Central Europe and Eurasia have closed since the late 1990s, the remaining missions have seen their budgets cut substantially, and U.S. democracy assistance spending under the Freedom Support Act dropped by 30 percent in dollar terms and much more in purchasing power terms.2

A weaker Western European role. For a full decade starting in the mid-1990s, the European Union exercised invaluable support for democracy in the former communist countries, largely through negotiations for EU membership. However, expansion fatigue has since set in, with the French/Dutch defeat of a new European constitution in 2005 and the Irish “no” vote in June 2008. Except for a few small Balkan countries, the EU no longer offers the lure of membership as a reward for deep and often difficult reforms. Furthermore, Brussels has so far failed to develop an effective alternative means of persuasion and partnership for its remaining Eastern neighbors.

Popular disillusionment and loss of trust. In many of the postcommunist countries, early hopes and expectations have been replaced by widespread disappointment in governments and living standards. This trend has been fed by incompetent or dishonest leaders; faulty or incomplete reform programs, including “nomenklatura privatization”; exploitative new oligarchies; widespread corruption; and non-responsive mechanisms of governance. As a result, even in the countries where democratic and market reforms have been most comprehensive, public participation is low and cynicism about democracy and market economies is high.

Weak democratic institutions. The new states of the region remain weakly developed, and their institutions are often unable to manage pressures from competing societal groups. These states suffer from unclear divisions of authority among parliament, the executive branch, and the judiciary; unstable coalition governments, often comprised of sharply differing or patronage-driven political parties; and weak mechanisms for public participation in policy development and for government accountability. Thus, political stagnation or instability are not uncommon, most notably in Ukraine, but even in new EU member countries such as Romania and Bulgaria.

Challenges to “nationhood.” Although the breakup of the Soviet Union took place with surprisingly little military conflict, the legacy of Stalinist administrative boundaries has continued to haunt many post-Soviet states. In Georgia and Moldova, the challenge of separatist territories has handicapped the fragile new states both economically and politically, breeding illicit trade, illiberalism, and inability to integrate into international associations. Unresolved ethnic and linguistic disputes also threaten to derail democratic political integration and nation-building with Bosnia as a prime example.

Economic pressures. Despite increasing growth rates, many in the former Soviet republics and Southeast Europe have yet to experience the economic prosperity promised by reform advocates and their supporters in the West. In Georgia, real GDP in 2007 stood at only 60 percent of its 1989 level; in Moldova, it remained even lower. In recent surveys, 60-80 percent of respondents in Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova felt their household wealth had deteriorated since 1989.3 While a few oligarchs have become billionaires and privileged elites have prospered, most people have in fact lost ground economically. These countries have also suffered in their trade relations, caught between punitive restrictions and reduced subsidies from Russia and higher EU tariffs imposed by their East European neighbors.

A New Paradigm Is Needed: From “Democracy Promotion” to Societal Partnership

Urgent action is necessary to regain the lost momentum of democratization in Europe/Eurasia and to restore U.S. and Western influence. To avoid snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, the next American president should restore the high priority and strategic focus accorded to the postcommunist region by both Republican and Democratic administrations in the 1990s. He will need to redesign and re-brand U.S. policy and reconstitute a bipartisan consensus on America’s long-term strategy towards Europe/Eurasia, drawing careful distinctions among the requirements for U.S. policy towards what is now a very differentiated group of nations.

The highest priority must go to supporting indigenous democratic forces in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Bosnia. In these fragile transitional countries, long-term U.S. security interests and our support of democracy strongly coincide. An increased investment now in helping to strengthen and consolidate these semi-democratic governments and incipient market economies will pay major dividends in the long term. Conversely, democratic failure in these countries would tilt the region’s balance of power decisively in the wrong direction with severe consequences not only for the democratic aspirations of the people of the region, but also for U.S. and European security, energy and other strategic interests.

For the Baltics, Central Europe, and the Balkans, we need to recommit to a continuing long-term involvement in order to help strengthen emerging democratic cultures, processes, and institutions, even when specific governments are unappealing. We should vigorously support local initiatives to reduce corruption, to build public trust in government and to improve the lot of transition’s losers so as to restore support for democracy in the region and to provide success models that can be emulated further afield.

For Russia and Central Asia as well as Belarus and the Caucasus, where political development has taken such a strongly authoritarian path, U.S. policy should realistically give major weight to security, energy and other global interests. While the U.S. has only limited opportunities to support democratic change directly in most of these countries, we should patiently build the foundations for future breakthroughs. Much as we did with the Helsinki process during the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. should pursue long-term engagement with these societies through trade, investment, people exchanges, an emphasis on basic human rights, and continuing dialogue on issues of global interest. Here, too, a highly differentiated country-by-country strategy is required – and one that builds on these countries’ emerging sense of national identity and destiny independent of Russia.

What resources and tools can the U.S. effectively bring to bear on these problems? U.S. and NATO military power can play an important role in providing the safe space and time in which these other developments can take root. But no amount of military firepower can substitute for the long-term, slow and patient work of building participatory societies, accountable governments, and strong linkages between them.

The prospect of membership or some lesser but still genuinely protective relationship with NATO can be part of the solution for some of the remaining transitional countries. But making NATO membership per se the centerpiece of U.S. policy for countries like Ukraine and Georgia could in fact complicate these fragile states’ efforts to consolidate democratic processes by heightening hostility from Russia, intensifying domestic dissension, and adding budgetary pressures through modernization requirements. While the U.S. and its NATO allies should certainly counter Russia’s attempts to undercut the territorial integrity and democratic reform movements in these countries, we would recommend that the next U.S. administration base its policies towards postcommunist Europe/Eurasia on the following central themes:

Reclaim the vocabulary of democracy. The United States needs to more effectively communicate the intrinsic appeal of democracy’s underlying values. We must emphasize concepts like rule of law, pluralism, responsive government, citizen participation, free media, robust civil society, truly fair electoral competition, and economic progress for all. And these concepts should be defended and promoted as universal values rather than as a U.S.-centered or Western ideology.
Support processes, not leaders. Our assistance will have a longer, more stabilizing impact if it is associated with building the processes of democratic governance rather than strengthening a particular, friendly leader. As we have seen, apparent supporters of democracy may not always carry through on their promises. Healthy institutions that provide checks and balances, and active mechanisms for public participation and oversight are the best guarantees of lasting democratic governance.
Support both state-building and society-building. A balance should be struck between assistance that contributes to a strong and capable state, including development of an effective legislature and mature political parties, a professional civil service, accountable but independent courts, strong financial management capabilities, and assistance aimed at building a well-developed civil society and culture of civic participation.
Work closely with European allies. It is also essential that we return to a much closer strategic and operational working relationship with the EU and with individual European allies, including Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, and other committed postcommunist democracies. Through joint action, the allies could strengthen old forms of association, such as the OECD and NATO’s Partnership for Peace, and create new ones, including perhaps an organization based on the model of the European Free Trade Association offering tangible benefits and benchmarks to those working to consolidate democracy even where full membership in the EU or NATO are not an immediate prospect.
Promote trade as well as aid. Both the U.S. and its European allies need to address market access and foreign investment incentives as components of support for this region’s development. Creating opportunities for increased trade with the U.S. and EU will contribute not only to the long-term prosperity of these countries, but also to their autonomy in the global market.
Sustained interest and attention by the United States can make a difference in restoring positive democratic momentum in the formerly communist area, but only if our programs are seen as demand-driven and non-intrusive. Rather than appearing to impose our own model of “democracy-promotion,” our appeal should be based on the prospect of building a better life for people in the transitional countries themselves. A close partnership with European democracies in this endeavor will not only add greater credibility to this approach but also will reinforce it through additional practical assistance.

In sum, while the U.S. must return to a position of leadership in support of democracy in formerly communist Europe/Eurasia, it must do so in new ways. Success will require a different, more collegial form of leadership that stresses close transatlantic ties and shared universal values.

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