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Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rices book, Democracy: Stories From the Long Road to Freedom, published in May, focuses on the merits of democratic systems of government and the need for the United States to remain active in promoting democracy around the world. It could not have come at a better time.

It is the most readable book on U.S. and Western democracy promotion since Natan Sharansky published The Case for Democracy more than ten years ago. Rice makes the case that the United States must continue to leverage its national example, diplomatic power, and international foreign assistance budget to strengthen and spread democracy. I do not know Rice, although I served in the George W. Bush administration, but I strongly support her focus on democracy promotion. I have voted with my feet on this issue by sitting on the bipartisan board of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems a democracy promotion organization funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other bilateral aid donors.

Rices book comes after more than a decade of limited success for the democracy project. The folks in the business call this limited progress the democracy recession. One can count on one hand the big wins for democracy in recent years. Myanmar is the country that comes to mind. At the same time, she reminds the reader that although democracy has been in recession for the last 15 years, we should recognize the great progress that has taken place over the last 50, 100, or 200 years. She includes a number of maps of the world to make that point. She also rightly references that, according to Freedom House, there are around 150 free and partly free countries out of about 200 countries in the world. This is a sign of major progress.

The book is thoroughly researched and includes country case studies that provide snapshots of various stages of democratic development. Rice covers Poland, Kenya, Colombia, Ukraine, Russia, and various countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Iraq, Tunisia, and Egypt. In each of the case study, Rice brings personal anecdotes from her time as national security adviser or secretary of state. The studies of Russia and Ukraine benefit from her decades of exposure to that part of the world. The fact that she speaks fluent Russian and was a Sovietologist (my Microsoft Word does not recognize this as an actual word, which says something) provides even greater insight.

Perhaps what makes the book most interesting is its constant return to the American experience. She includes a chapter about American democratic development, and reminds readers that women did not get the vote in the United States until 1920 and that African Americans were not fully given the right to vote until the 1960s. Her experiences as an African American woman in various parts of the world including in Alabama provide some important insights and perspective. Strikingly, she mentions that she has never missed an opportunity to vote because it would be an insult to her ancestors who did not have the chance to vote. Why does she use the American experience? One of the key messages of the book, and an observation that she tries to drive home, is that democracy takes a long time to build and that progress is not linear.

The book offers an implicit defense of the Bush administrations Freedom Agenda, outlined in Bushs second inaugural address in 2005. She discusses the halting progress in Afghanistan and Iraq, but notes that both countries have held multiple elections and have a variety of functioning, albeit weak, institutions. She remains optimistic that, in the long term, these countries will become democracies. Rice also takes on one of the usual critiques of the democracy agenda, which points to the successes of places such as Singapore and China. She spends significant time looking at China and ultimately concludes that China will also become more democratic over time.

What about the upheavals in 2016, such as Brexit and the surprise election of President Donald Trump? She gently disagrees with those who say these outcomes put the system at risk. She says that these events represent voters seeking to make change peacefully. She defends the rule-based international order set up after World War II, but also signals that many people have either not benefited from globalization or see many of the changes ushered in by globalization as threats to traditional ways of life or traditional values. Those who seek to promote globalization need to account for those threatened by it. She also makes the case that we need to be brought together and not be sliced and diced into ever smaller groups, each with their own interests. In summary, she suggests that the voters have given policymakers and politicians a series of strong messages, and that they should listen to the voters.

Rice makes the case that democracy promotion is unambiguously in Americas interest. Democracies are much less likely to go to war, much less likely to participate in terrorist attacks, and much less likely to tolerate human trafficking than nondemocratic countries. Many global problems are caused by authoritarian regimes (often weak and failed states, I would add). So democracy promotion is not only a values proposition, but also in our enlightened self interest over the long term.

In some ways, Rices book is welcome not only because of the democracy recession, but also because of the perceived reluctance of the Obama and Trump administrations to prioritize democracy promotion. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush each supported different dimensions of the democracy promotion agenda. Giving credit where credit is due, Myanmars opening happened under the Obama administrations watch, and the United States played a critical role in helping birth its young democracy.

Rice likely wrote this book in part to prepare current and future policymakers for the long slog ahead. The bad guys have gotten a lot better at countering the use of social media (for example, the Great Firewall of China). Russia and its partners are very aggressive about closing civil societys space. In addition, a number of the unfree countries look like pretty hard dictatorships to crack from the outside. Rice and Sharansky would argue that we cannot know for sure if change is coming to these societies. Sharansky argues that dictatorships are actually quite brittle because of the way those societies are organized. Who, for example, would have said the Soviet Union was going to collapse less than ten years after 1982?

Finally, one of the last chapters in the book is titled, They will look to America. Will we be ready? Many observers worry that the Trump administration has already deemphasized the democracy agenda. They point to Trumps so-called skinny budget, which decreases funding for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and zeroes out the Democracy Fund. At the same time, the skinny budget does not reflect what Congress will appropriate and Congress has a large number of democracy promotion champions on both sides of the aisle. Critics also point to Secretary of State Rex Tillersons unusual absence from the release of the annual Human Rights Report by the State Department, a report that is traditionally presented by the secretary of state. All of the above makes democracy advocates around the world nervous.

On the other hand, Mark Green is the new administrator of USAID, which is a major funder of democracy promotion activities by the U.S. government. Green is a former member of Congress and the former head of the International Republican Institute, one of the four National Endowment for Democracy institutes. Also, the Trump administration has rightly raised concerns about democracy and human rights in Cuba, Syria, and Venezuela, among other countries. I recently asked a prominent democracy promotion advocate if he was worried about whether the United States would engage in democracy promotion under Trump. He told me, I am not worried because of Article One of the U.S. Constitution and the naming of Mark Green as USAID administrator.

Photo credit:ROB KIM/Getty Images

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Condoleezza Rice's Book on Democracy Could Not Have Come at a ... - Foreign Policy (blog)

America has two democracies, one political and the other free market. The concept of a political democracy dates back to Plato and his Republic.

Ludwig von Mises and my mentor Dr. Bill Peterson (a student and colleague of Mises) wrote extensively about our market democracy. Both of these great men are now just a memory but their legacy defines America. The political class dominates the news, while the market provides the solutions chosen by our citizens.

Plato described the political democracy as full of disorder. Today, the political democracy provides a spectacle of unpleasant news and often nastiness. Fights endure about historic statues, taxes, wars, foreign influences, and the size and reach of government. Politicians are often brutish, unpleasant, and uninformed individuals who ignore history, cater to special interests, and place selfish motives as their highest values. Only on rare occasions do these politicians reflect the heart of so many great Americans, who are kind, generous, fair, and God fearing.

Thankfully, in spite of the daily circus, our political democracy has largely achieved freedom, order, and the opportunity for our market democracy to prosper, as envisioned by our founders. We all owe an extreme debt of gratitude to our founders for their extraordinary vision, understanding of human nature, and willingness to sacrifice their lives for this amazing country. The United States of America was divinely inspired and our freedoms are embedded into the greatest constitution in the history of the world.

Americas other democracy, as Dr. Peterson liked to call our market democracy, is a continuous plebiscite of every citizen. It is supremely fair and must please the users or fail. Bad actors are weeded out in real time, quickly and adroitly. New ideas and companies are constantly entering the market with their only goal the desire to please the voter (buyer).

Our modern democratic market is a marvel catering to every need and whim of the citizens. Government has a measure of control over business, but the ultimate control and outcome is determined by the minute-to-minute decisions of the buyers, users, and customers.

The market also reflects the values of our citizens including fairness, equal opportunities, and the widest range of choice as companies compete. Citizens hold the fate of every business in their hands (iPhones) with a plethora of buying prerogatives. Buying habits, and thus the market, are rapidly changing as users abandon department stores in favor of online ordering and delivery without ever leaving the home. Even food and grocery providers now participate in this new landscape with cooked meals delivered at the precise location and time desired, as dictated by the buyer.

America continues to demonstrate the wisdom of our Founders, exhibiting an extraordinarily high standard of living and decency in our society. Our private institutions and businesses solve most of the challenges that our political democracy fails to resolve.

Private education and homeschooling are blossoming, creating a wide variety of choices for families and students. Private boards lead and manage public charter schools. Private companies provide drugs and health care technologies that save lives and solve complex medical challenges. MOOCs and distance learning (online universities) are becoming the norm, disrupting the expensive and lethargic colleges and universities.

Our political democracy will always be chaotic, but thankfully we have Silicon Valley (a proxy for American ingenuity) and our market democracy transforming every industry from information technology, transportation, and education to communication and manufacturing. This process is disruptive and challenging but it continually improves the standard of living and quality of life of every American.

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America's Two Democracies - American Spectator

Dr. Martina Klicperova-Baker, a senior researcher from the Institute of Psychology & Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic, spoke at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Tuesday, Aug. 22.

She opened her presentation on the state of democracy in Europe by referencing her own experience of living with, and losing, democracy in her own country.

Thank you for sharing with me your solar eclipse, Klicperova-Baker said. The day of the Soviet invasion [of the Czech Republic] in 1968 was the day of the eclipse. It is a day ingrained in our memory. It began an age of totality that lasted 20 years.

Klicperova-Baker was invited by the universitys Czech and Global Studies programs to utilize her specialties in the psychology of democracy, the transition to democracy and political psychology to discuss democracy in Europe.

She began the program by discussing the institution of democracy.

Quoting Madeleine Albright, Klicperova-Baker said, While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run it is the most fragile.

Despite the permanent tension of democracy, Klicperova-Baker said its the regime that best secures the rights and self-actualization of its citizens.

Democracies are killing fewer of their own citizens than other regimes, Klicperova-Baker said. And real democracies do not wage war with each other.

Klicperova-Baker pointed to democracies around the world, such as Canada and Australia, as examples of secular democratic systems in which citizens enjoy a high quality of life, yet conceded that, while democracy is imperfect, we dont have anything better.

The more we approach [an ideal democracy], the more it is running away from us, Klicperova-Baker said. It is always on the horizon.

Klicperova-Baker said the number of people living in democratic institutions around the world is growing, but the number of those in autocracies remains stable.

She attributed the difficulty of maintaining a healthy democracy as a reason autocracies remain prominent.

Humans are not necessarily naturally predisposed to a positive democratic coexistence, Klicperova-Baker said. The human psyche is, to a great degree, selfish and self-serving.

Klicperova-Baker then moved to the structure of democracy, breaking it down to its simplest values by alluding to the French Revolutions motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

Liberty, or freedom, is exemplified by less frustration and, in turn, less aggression, Klicperova-Baker said. Equality, or vertical closeness, appears when the gap between the law and popular sovereignty is small. Fraternity, or horizontal closeness, is apparent in humanism, civic culture and civility.

Expanding on her final point of civility, Klicperova-Baker said, Civility is the most important aspect of democracy. Benevolence and respect: that is the cushion, that is the buffer to the permanent conflicts.

According to Klicperova-Baker, the Velvet Revolution and the Velvet Divorce are two events in Czech history that feature the importance of civility.

They were not even stepping on the grass, Klicperova-Baker said. It was a moral revolution, more like a cultural festival.

The Velvet Revolution was a number of peaceful protests in the late 1980s that ultimately led to the split that created the Czech Republic and Slovakia, also known as the Velvet Divorce.

Klicperova-Baker closed by examining the state of democracy in Europe, stressing the importance of looking at specific groups of people rather than entire nations.

To summarize her speech, Klicperova-Baker said, What is important? We found democrats, whether religious or secular, in every country. We cannot forget about the minority, the people who have it very tough in those countries.

How does one remember the minority? According to Klicperova-Baker, The democrats have to stand their ground; they have to fight for free and honest media.

To call this era post-factual or post-truth we must not accept that, Klicperova-Baker said. We cannot let that kind of language win.

news@dailynebraskan.com

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Czech researcher speaks at UNL on Europe's state of democracy - Daily Nebraskan

Polish prosecutors on Tuesday said they were looking into whether freedom icon Lech Walesa gave false testimony regarding allegations he collaborated with the communist secret police in the early 1970s.

Walesa, who co-founded the independent Solidarity trade union and then negotiated a bloodless end to communism in Poland in 1989, is a vocal opponent of the governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which he says is harming Poland.

The state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which prosecutes crimes from the Nazi and communist eras, said in a statement that it has been probing the Nobel Peace laureates testimony since June 29.

The new proceedings concern statements by Lech Walesa, who notably... described as inauthentic secret police documents that suggest he had collaborated, the IPN said.

The IPN said earlier this year that handwriting analysis proved the 73-year-old former president had signed a collaboration agreement and receipts for payment from the secret police using the code-name Bolek.

Walesa has always denied the allegations, which have dogged him for years.

The president stands by his statement that the documents are fake and werent authored by him, Walesa associate Adam Dominski told the Polish news agency PAP on Tuesday in response to the IPN statement.

He added that the handwriting analysis was expert analysis, not proof.

A special vetting court ruled in 2000 that there was no basis to suspicions that Walesa had been a paid regime agent.

But the allegations resurfaced last year after the IPN seized previously unknown secret police files from the widow of a communist-era interior minister.

Walesa enigmatically admitted last year to having made a mistake and in the past said he signed a paper for the secret police during one of his many interrogations.

A book published by the IPN in 2008 alleged that while the regime registered Walesa as a secret agent in 1970, he was cut loose in 1976 due to his unwillingness to co-operate.

Poles in general have mixed feelings about Walesa. His boldness in standing up to the communist regime is still widely respected, but the combative and divisive tone of his later presidency earned him scorn in many quarters.

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Polish prosecutors probe whether democracy icon Lech Walesa gave false testimony in spy case - South China Morning Post

During the past few months, many in the media, as well as a number of political figures, have pushed the idea that Americans have a binary choice between communism and white nationalism. In Charlottesville, Virginia, some outlets portray Antifa and other communists as some sort of protector and savior against evil white nationalists. Other figures argue that even though white nationalist ideology is despicable, that people should side with them in the situation. However, ultimately, there isnt a good side with either of them. In essence, they are two sides of the same coin, desiring basically the same thing. And by giving such an enormous amount of attention to one another, they both gain what they really want- attention to both sides that then accomplishes their primary goal of just burning everything to the ground to start over. As long as they both clash, they create a choose your side scenario for a good many people.

At their core, fascism and communism have the same basic goal to eliminate the idea of the individual and focus instead on the collective. Fascists have an idea of a protected class of people in mind that can be based on race or national identity. Communists have a protected group of people in mind based upon economic station. Both, in search of protecting their chosen class of people, desire to eliminate individual identity in favor of a group identity. If you do not belong to their chosen protectorate group, then you must be driven down to a subjugate status, driven away from the national borders, or in an extreme case, eliminated entirely. The end result of both is a ruling authoritarian regime that includes favoritism for their chosen class of people, viewed through the lens of a group identity where everyone else is an enemy.

Collective thinking is a dangerous game. Once people are deemed to be identified as groups of people rather than as individuals, it becomes easier to see them as less human. People wonder how Hitler could have so callously murdered millions for the sole reason of their perceived race, or how Stalin could have purposefully starved millions to death in the name of the greater good. Its because once people no longer have their individual identity, the group to which they belong becomes a faceless mass that portrays more animal than human. It becomes far easier to ignore an individuals humanity in favor of serving the protected class. The thinking becomes, Either we survive as a group identity or this other group of people will overtake us. So, the murders and death camps begin.

The reason people fall prey to collectivism is because it is so seemingly enticing in the beginning. A group of people is shown to be downtrodden and victims of a larger group or class of people. Instances of a larger, almost conspiratorial, movement against them are demonstrated in the rhetoric of either fascists or communists and the roots take hold. Its easy to blame a faceless mass for your problems, because without focusing on individuals, there isnt a way to tie things directly to any one person. If you come to believe you are a victim of a group of people rather than situations or specific individuals, then collectivism easily sets in. The progression from the idea that you are a part of a group suppressed by another group (or groups) easily leads to a path of wanting to either separate from, subjugate, or destroy the other group. Collectivism is easy individualism is difficult, but far more rewarding.

Americans, as well as much of the world, are being pulled into a sham debate. One that pits fascists against communists and asks which is the lesser evil. The sham is that both are evil and that there is a very attractive alternative. The binary option is not fascism vs. communism. It is individualism vs. collectivism. Most people like neither fascists nor communists and cannot conceive of aligning themselves with either one. So, ignore the rhetoric being spouted by the main stream of media and political discussion. Dont allow fringe groups to burn our system to the ground. By giving them the attention and platform to spread their hatred, their groups grow in number. Avoid the group think of the collective. Focus on what is best for individuals as individuals. The most minor, underserved, and unrecognized class of people in the world is the individual. When you find yourself not siding with either evil, then side with the people who support individualism.

This post was written by Danny Chabino.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

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Red Dirt Liberty Report: Communists vs. Nazis - Being Libertarian