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Change was in the air, and it felt electric.

Former diplomat Mietek Boduszynski was posted to Libya in 2010, a year before an armed revolt would overthrow the regime of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. In the early days of the Arab Spring, there was the remarkable sight of people in Cairo's Tahrir Square having open political discussions, and Libyans excitedly discussed their future under a new leader.

"I saw young Arabs who wanted the same thing people want everywhere: to be able to voice their opinion on Twitter and Facebook, choose their leaders, and have them held accountable if corrupt," Boduszynski told The Week. "These are universal aspirations."

The Arab Spring uprisings began a century after Woodrow Wilson began a push to promote democracy abroad, believing this would foster world peace and stability. Over the last 100 years, the United States has supported democratization efforts in all corners of the globe, but the demand for free elections and judicial reform has cooled in recent years.

In his new book, U.S. Democracy Promotion in the Arab World: Beyond Interests vs. Ideals, Boduszynski, a politics and international relations professor at Pomona College, writes about the United States' stuttering advocacy for democracy. Like many past and present members of the foreign service, he is troubled by how the current administration is wielding power.

Boduszynski didn't set out to become a diplomat. He came to the U.S. as a political refugee from Poland when he was five years old, and his family ultimately benefited from President Ronald Reagan's general amnesty. While finishing his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, Boduszynski was torn between staying in academia or exploring the world with the State Department. He chose adventure, and went off to Albania for his first posting. His career would later take him to hotspots like Kosovo and Iraq.

The United States has always been selective about when and where it will promote democracy, Boduszynski says, with the consequences still felt today. In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. chose not to exact revenge on its enemies, but rather promote democratic institutions. Once the Cold War heated up, the U.S. became interested in one thing: countering Soviet influence. This maniacal focus resulted in the overthrow of democratically-elected regimes, such as the ones in Iran and Guatemala.

The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 gave the United States a chance to stop focusing on combating communism and start promoting democracy in Eastern Europe.

Take Ukraine. "Successive presidential administrations, Republican and Democrat, have made strengthening Ukrainian democratic institutions a goal of U.S. policy," Boduszynski said. "Pro-Western Ukrainian governments have been receptive to U.S. efforts, because they would like their country to be a member of the Western democratic community of nations."

That's one reason why he found President Trump's decision to freeze $400 million in security aid to Ukraine, which was the major impetus for the House of Representatives' impeachment vote, so alarming. Boduszynski said the kind of assistance Trump "chose to politicize was critical for [democracy promotion], and also critical to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression which is also in the U.S. interest. In other words, President Trump has distorted and undermined U.S. democracy promotion policy toward a country with fragile institutions that badly needs and welcomes American assistance, and in the process hurt U.S. national interests."

For every country like Ukraine that's willing to listen, there's another with an authoritarian leader posing a challenge. Presidents of both parties have cozied up to authoritarian regimes when it suits the United States' interests, particularly in the Middle East.

Indeed, for many decades, even as democracy promotion efforts expanded across the globe, the Arab world was the exception. Boduszynski said that in Washington, the general attitude was "these are societies that are not made for democracy. Having a strong person rule is the only way to prevent chaos and terrorism."

Then came the Arab Spring.

Boduszynski said the protests caught many off guard "because they were talking to regimes, not the people, and had been missing things." He worked for U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, who was killed in a 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Boduszynski's new book is dedicated to Stevens, whom he called "a wonderful representative of the United States. He was a believer that Arabs and people around the world deserve better than having to choose between chaos and authoritarians."

Boduszynski was supposed to be in Benghazi when the attack occurred; due to last minute logistical issues, he remained in Tripoli. In the wake of the disaster, 10 investigations were launched, including six by GOP-controlled congressional committees, with Republicans accusing members of the Obama administration, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of participating in a coverup.

"It was really sad for me to see how the attack in Benghazi became a political witch hunt in our politics," Boduszynski said. "[Stevens] never would have wanted our domestic policy held hostage because he was doing his job, and there were certain risks that went into it, like a police officer or firefighter. The biggest craziness in Washington was when Republicans decided to make this a way to go after Hillary Clinton, instead of what it was: tragic terrorism."

In the Trump administration, democracy promotion is seemingly on the back burner. On the left and the right, there are growing calls for isolationism, with the argument being that the United States cannot be the world's policeman. "We have a lot of domestic problems and people are tired of these endless commitments," Boduszynski said.

He's found that many people overseas think U.S. foreign policy involves "a small group of people getting together in a situation room, making decisions about the world." In fact, "it's very messy ... and reflects the democratic system." This misconception presents an opportunity.

"One way we should conduct our foreign policy is to focus on things that attract people to the U.S., but also recognize the difficult road of our own democracy," Boduszynski said. "The civil rights movement was just a few decades ago. It's important to tell our story overseas, about how we still have huge problems, but we became more inclusive and a better democracy over time."

Read more here:
What a former diplomat thinks about Trump, Ukraine, and America's role in promoting democracy abroad - The Week

Boris Johnson during a house session.

Denis MacShane, The Independent

For the last 300 years the world was changed by mass movements of people demonstrating and then as the franchise was extended, by voting. Not anymore. The age-old means of winning change no longer seem to be working.

2019 was the year of marches, rallies and demonstrations, with more people voting in elections than ever before. But nothing has changed. From Extinction Rebellion demonstrators disrupting London and other cities to almost the entire population of Hong Kong occupying its streets to demand democratic rights from their communist overlords in Beijing, from the mass protests in Lebanon to huge rallies in India against the nationalist anti-Muslim identity politics and Hindu supremacism of Narendra Modi, it seemed as if the world and especially the young world was on the move and demanding more democracy. And yet the year ended with the upholders of the status quo firmly in control.

Thousands of Russians have been arrested in anti-Putin demonstrations; Paris was disrupted by gilets jaunes protests and now by massive transport strikes; London saw two of its biggest ever demonstrations when up to one million people marched to demand a Final Say on Brexit. But the men running Russia, France and Britain are unmoved and still firmly in charge. Major general elections were also held in India, South Africa, Spain, Poland, Australia, Israel, Denmark and Switzerland, but voters, when they could be bothered to turn out, simply voted for the status quo.

The European Parliament had an election, but the hopes of European political groups that having a so-called Spitzenkandidat, a lead figure from the left, the centre-right or Liberals, would animate voters flopped too. Once the elections were over, the Eurocrats and national governments took over and installed at the top of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the EU foreign service and the European Parliament politicians nominated by national government who were never on any ballot paper in the European Parliament elections. The voters of Europe were told once again that it was the nation states of Europe who decided who would run the show.

The old 1968 graffiti If voting ever changed anything theyd abolish it has never been more true.

Commentators and academic analysts pour over these figures and gravely inform us that the left is finished, that some imagined liberal era is over to be replaced by populist identity politics. Some argue that voting systems are to blame. But, in 2019, the worlds many voting systems were made use of and they all produced the same result.

Voters are nervous of change and unconvinced by any of the political offers that imply a new start or a challenge to conventional thinking. It is the era when change began with some powerful, convincing new ideas argued by intellectuals, converted into campaigns with demonstrations, petitions and other mobilisations, then finally were either adopted by parties or gave rise to new political movements and even new parties, that is truly over.

International bodies such as the International Labour Organisation and Nato celebrated 100 and 75 years of existence in 2019, but workers have never been weaker with deunionisation (outside the protected public sector) now the norm in Britain, the US, most of Europe and elsewhere in the world. Vladamir Putin runs rings around Nato, while Donald Trump can barely conceal his contempt for it.

2019 finishes a decade in which less progress was marked than at any time since 1945. Democratic advance has stalled. Filling to streets and voting in the ballot box appears to change nothing. So what happens next? That is the question to which the 2020s must provide an answer.

Read the original post:
A year of democracy that changed nothing - Gulf Today

After the Citizenship Amendment Act became a reality in the middle of December, protests broke out across India. By now, about 25 people have been killed around the country, most of them falling to police bullets. Even in the Jayaprakash Narayan movement against Indira Gandhi in the mid-1970s and the subsequent Emergency, such massive nationwide protests and police killings did not take place.

Despite the governments claims that the Opposition is behind the protests, they mostly are spontaneous. Again, contrary to the governments suggestion, it is not just the Muslim community that is demonstrating. People of all religions especially students have participated in a big way.

The panicked Bharatiya Janata Party-controlled Central government has let the police loose on protesting students and general public in states ruled by the party. But the police baton-charges, teargas shelling and firing have failed to cow down Indians: to the contrary, they have resurrected the spirit of Indian democracy.

In Hindutva political theory, there is no discourse about citizenship of human beings in relation to state and society. The concept of citizenship first formulated by Aristotle in Greece. He defines citizen as a person who has the right to participate in deliberative or judicial offices of the state. According to him aliens and slaves have no citizenship rights.

This idea was developed by later European thinkers, who broadly defined a citizen as a person who could vote and receive the benefits for continuing life and making the life better in the process of living in a given state. Immigrants were given the right to ask for citizenship based on their contribution to that society and state through their labour power, not based on religion or creed, caste or race.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharitya Janata Party want to rely on ancient Indian literary sources for their understanding of the concept of the citizen. But there is no proper definition of citizenship in moar ancient Indian texts: they all support caste-based karma theory but not a rational theory of citizenship. Even Kautilyas Arthashastra, a treatise about statecraft, fails to define who a citizen is.

The only book that talks about the citizen, known as the nagarika, is Vastyayanas Kama Sutra. But it offers a rather perverted definition of the role: the nagarika is a householder and enlightened person. What should he do? According to Kama Sutra, having put his clothes and ornaments, [he] should during the afternoon converse with his friends. In the evening there should be a singing and after that the house holder, along with his friends should await in his room, previously decorated and perfumed, the arrival of a woman who may be attached to him.

The woman with whom the nagarika is supposed to engage with is a ganika a courtesan. But there is no discussion about the state and its membership in this text at all.

No democratic state should give citizenship to either migrants or to refugees based on their religious background. But the Citizenship Amendment Act provides a fast track to citizenship for undocumented migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh if they are not Muslim.

This is a theocratic law, to say the least. According to Hindutva theoreticians like Subramanyan Swamy, no Muslim is persecuted in these Islamic nations so they have no need to seek residence in India. If so, why mention religion in the Act at all and arouse the ire of Indias Muslims? The mention of religion in the Act provides serious grounds for Indian citizens belonging to that religion to be anxious that all of them could be rendered stateless. That suspicion has deepened now.

Even considering that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh discriminate against their minorities, why should a mature democracy like India, which has well-acclaimed Constitution, do the same? Our founding fathers would not have wanted this.

Assuming that the US decides tomorrow that illegal migrants of all religions will get citizenship, except if they are Hindu. Hindus who are already US citizens will realise that they are being told they are unwanted.Once such a law is enacted, how do they think that non-Hindus will treat them as good citizens? This is the main problem that the Indian Muslims will face with the countrys new citizenship law.

Even though India has functioned as a constitutional democracy for seven decades, our idea of human rights and citizenship remains underdeveloped. We need to evolve in our understanding of several matters, particularly how to negotiate between civil rights and religious faith. If the line between religion and civil rights is erased, our democratic system will collapse.

Though Indias ancient and medieval texts do not provide us a sophisticated theory of citizenship or on how democratic institutions should function, modern Indian thinkers like BR Ambedkar have provided some guidance on these matters. Still, to sustain democracy, we needs to read and re-read the western theories of human and civil rights.

The foundational principle of democracy is that though majority elects government, the minority that voted to the opposition should always feel secure in every institution of the nation. A government should never equate itself with nation, as the BJP-RSS are doing. That is self destructive.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author and the Former director, of the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad.

Read more:
CAA-NRC debate: If religion is allowed to colour civil rights, Indias democracy will be imperiled - Scroll.in

From one corner of what we used to call the Western world to another, democracythe notion that a free people can freely select their leaders and then trust them enough to give them the room to leadis in deepening trouble. Increasing shares of the population believe the system no longer works, that only dividing into tribes, flexing muscle and going way outside the box will protect "us" against "them."

Sometimes that works out, sometimes not. Israel is headed for its third election in a year. The United Kingdom finally has its Brexit champion in Boris Johnson, but at the risk of dissolving the U.K. and rekindling the hypernationalism that almost destroyed the world twice over. Closer to home: Chicago rejected conventional powers such as Toni Preckwinkle and Bill Daley in favor of a little-known former prosecutor who best represented change; Lori Lightfoot's mayoralty is a work in progress.

And then there's the impeachment of Donald Trumpin some ways the biggest challenge American democracy has faced in many decades. The challenge is stark as the division is reflected among this state's congressional delegation: Every Democrat voted "yes" and every Republican "no." And, in my view, both major political parties are failing the test.

I sympathize and largely agree with the Democratic dismay at the performance of Trump, both as president and as a person. Someone who would literally sell out the health of our planet to create a few jobs in coal country, someone who would hold the futures of more than a million young Dreamer adults hostage to satisfy the nativist fringe, someone who would suggest that late U.S. Rep. John Dingell of Michigan burns in hell because his widow backed impeachment, deserves no respect.

But changing that situation is the stuff of elections. Whether or not you or I like it, Trump was elected president.

In seeking to overturn the results of the 2016 electionand Republicans are right, that is the effect of impeachmentDemocrats need to have at least a semblance of national unity behind them, lest the GOP turn the tables next time a Democrat is president. But they don't. Though the Muller report found substantial evidence of an apparent cover-up, it did not make a case for alleged collusion with Russia by Trump and his inner circle. Though Trump in my view did try to shake down Ukraine to damage a domestic political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, the country is divided down the middle on whether proof of that is sufficient. The votes to convict are not there in the Senate.

The Democrats would have been better off to censure and not impeach. The unprecedented rebuke would help their 2020 nominee, and maybe divide Republicans, making a case for change to voters. Instead, they overplayed their hand.

If Democrats failed to listen to voters, however, Republicans are totally deaf.

Where is the GOP outrage that this president invited Russian and then Ukrainian interference in our election? Where is the objection when this president forbids from speaking aides who could give firsthand testimony about what occurred, testimony that congresses for two centuries have routinely received? Where is the recognition that members of a trial juryand that's what the U.S. Senate isneed to at least try to be impartial and not work as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has to coordinate everything with Trump's defense team?

I'm old enough to remember what happened when a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was impeached for hitting on a young White House aide and then lying about it. Though he wasn't convicted, leaders of his party here and nationally castigated him. He apologized for his actions. Where's the apology from Trump, the vow not to sin again? It doesn't exist. There is "nothing" to apologize for or express regrets about, only "perfect" phone calls, he says.

Perhaps all of this will be a distant memory in a few months. I fear not. The Trump impeachment has been a fiasco for democracy, on both sides.

See more here:
Trump impeachment is a fiasco for democracy -- on both sides - Crain's Chicago Business

ByDoug Donovan

The impeachment of President Donald Trump is playing out against a backdrop of troubling social conditions that have collided in previous eras of U.S. history to threaten the country's democratic principles, according to a Johns Hopkins University political science professor.

A new book by Robert Lieberman explores five eras when "American democracy has seemed fragile and at risk of backsliding" due to four critical threats: political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power.

In the book, Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, Lieberman and co-author Suzanne Mettler of Cornell University identify the presence of those four conditions in the 1790s, in the 1850s leading up to the Civil War, in the Gilded Age, during the Great Depression, and in the 1970s during the Watergate scandal.

The book, scheduled to be published in August, demonstrates that these conditions have existed in various combinations during moments when American democracy was threatened. "What is uniquely alarming about the present," Lieberman said, "is that all four of these conditions exist in American politics today. This combination of threats is the critical backdrop to the Trump impeachment. In particular, we're witnessing the lethal combination of executive power and extreme polarization."

The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted almost entirely along party lines to impeach Trump on two charges: abuse of executive power and obstruction of Congress. Trump is accused of threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine until its leader announced investigations that would benefit Trump politically by damaging a possible Democratic rival in the 2020 election, according to the impeachment articles.

Robert Lieberman

Professor, political science

Trump's administration has asserted executive privilege to refuse subpoenas that have been issued during the congressional investigation, a strategy that the impeachment articles characterized as obstruction. Republicans in Congress argue that Democrats have incorrectly elevated the facts to the level of impeachable offenses due solely to their partisan revulsion for Trump. The GOP says the Democrats have been seeking Trump's ouster since his victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

"Congressional Republicans have been unwilling to challenge the president and instead have used impeachment as yet another battle in the scorched-earth war against the Democrats," Lieberman said. "The result is that the checks and balances built into the constitutional structure, which are intended to prevent the excessive concentration of power in the hands of a single person or group, are breaking down in front of us. This, I fear, is dangerous for the future of the American regime."

He contrasts that extreme partisanship to the near impeachment of President Richard Nixon, who was also facing charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice. Nixon also faced a contempt of Congress charge for asserting presidential privilege when refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Nixon and his Republican allies were prepared to battle impeachment until the Supreme Court ruled that executive privilege did not protect White House audio recordings in which the president is heard conspiring to obstruct the Watergate investigation. Republican support collapsed when the transcript of the "Smoking Gun" tape was made public on Aug. 5, 1974. Nixon resigned four days later on Aug. 9, 1974.

"Watergate was bitterly partisan, but not to the extent where politics became a battle of mortal combat, as it seems to be today," Lieberman said.

Several Trump administration officials have invoked executive privilege by refusing to testify in the House impeachment investigation. Lieberman said it is possible that some Republicans could abandon Trump if the Supreme Court orders administration officials to testify. For now, though, the GOP-controlled Senate is set to clear Trump. Lieberman said it is worrisome that Republicans who do not contest the underlying facts of the impeachment case have done little to hold Trump accountable.

"There was a small number of Republicans who recognized that even though Nixon was a member of their party that he had abused his power," Lieberman said.

One of those Republican's was Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan's father, Congressman Lawrence Hogan. The elder Hogan was the only Republican member of the judiciary committee to support all three articles of impeachment against Nixon.

"That's inconceivable today," Lieberman said.

The impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 was also partisan, but less so than today, Lieberman added. The House passed two articlesperjury to a federal grand jury and obstruction of justice. But two others, a second perjury count and abuse of power, were defeated even though Republicans held a majority in the House. And the GOP-controlled Senate ultimately acquitted Clinton after a 1999 trial.

What is fascinating about the political climate today is that Trump's approval ratings have barely budged since he entered office, despite the turmoil of his tenure and impeachment, Lieberman said.

That was not true for Nixon, who was very popular when he won a landslide reelection in 1972. By the time Nixon resigned in 1974, his approval ratings had tanked.

During the November 1998 election, as impeachment of Clinton was advancing, the Republican Party lost five seats in the House and gained no seats in the Senate. Typically, the opposition party gains seats in off-year elections during a president's second term.

And Clinton's popularity reached a record high during the impeachment process and remained high through the end of his second term.

For Trump, Lieberman said, "none of this had made a dent in his popularity." His support, like the nation and Congress, is "highly polarized." Therefore, it is almost impossible to gauge how voters will respond as Trump seeks a second term in the 2020 electionsother than that voters are most likely to display the nation's deep partisan divide yet again.

"It's not clear what effect impeachment will have on the election," Lieberman said. "The people who liked Trump in 2016 still support him. Those who didn't still don't."

Read this article:
Contemporary politics hearken to past threats to U.S. democracy - The Hub at Johns Hopkins