Which type of international activity is most likely to lead an authoritarian state to democratize?
Note: I received a 50 for this essay. I love what I wrote.
I
Democracy is actively promoted by many democratic states and entities like the US, EU, and UK. To do so, there are in general two conventional types of international activities that are utilized to encourage authoritarian regimes to become democratized: leverage (external pressure from democratic regimes towards authoritarian regimes), and linkage (cross-border flows and the density of ties between authoritarian and democratic regimes). Given space limitation, I will focus on sanction as leverage and trade as linkage. However, facing COVID-19 and democratic backsliding, a new challenge for democracies is: Can the norms of liberal democracy triumph over other conceptions of democracy in authoritarian regimes? With this question in mind, I will argue that since sanction is ineffective and even counterproductive, while trade generates mixed results, the most effective means of democracy promotion is enhancing the appeals of ‘liberal democracy’ as a norm by focusing on internal affairs within democracies. This essay begins by introducing sanctions as a means of democracy promotion in North Korea and Cuba, two ‘communist rogue states’. Then, I will analyze the effects of trade in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, two Middle East and North Africa states. Later, I will explore how China and Russia, the two most powerful illiberal states, have resisted democratization by alleging the inferiority of liberal democracy. I will conclude by suggesting internal focus is needed in democracies to better encourage democratization externally.
II
Facing outrageous erosion of democratic norms, democracies could implement sanctions against the target states to stop such actions, but sanctions cannot easily bring about democratization and may even be counterproductive. As analyzed by Grauvogel and von Soest (2014, 647–648), the effect of sanctions is dependent upon domestic factors within authoritarian regimes, namely the existence of ‘compelling legitimation strategies’. In other words, if authoritarian regimes are capable of framing seemingly damaging sanctions as rationales for supporting the regime, sanctions would actually help them. Alternatively, even if authoritarian regimes lack such capacities, the effect of sanctions would still be questionable, because they are ‘sometimes lifted or lightened due to security concerns’ (Bermeo, 2016, 16). However, even a comprehensive sanction regime may still not be the ideal tool for democratization because they are ‘more detrimental to human rights than partial/selective sanctions’, which are already found to be worsening ‘government respect for physical integrity rights’ in authoritarian regimes (Peksen, 2009). This is alarming because if the end goal of sanctions is to stop the humanitarian crisis through democratization, they may actually be a self-defeating tool that can worsen the crisis. Therefore, theoretically speaking, it seems the effect of sanctions is not only dependent upon domestic factors, but can also prove to be counterproductive in promoting democracy.
I will now apply the theoretical argument to cases of democracy promotion in North Korea and Cuba through sanctions. First, North Korea’s attempts to boost the country’s nuclear capabilities have triggered a comprehensive international sanction regime (see UN, 2006). Although the primary concern is non-proliferation, human rights-related sanctions exist as well (Human Rights Watch, 2018), and both types of sanction encourage regime change in Pyongyang (Albert, 2019). However, Barannikova (2019) argues that sanctions have no influence because nuclear weapons are developed under them, while they have worsened the humanitarian crisis in North Korea by restricting, for example, agricultural machinery (Brockmann, 2020). Therefore, despite the comprehensiveness of an international sanction regime, it seems that sanctions against North Korea, a resilient authoritarian regime, have little or even negative impacts.
For Cuba, it faces ‘the oldest … US economic sanctions regime against any country in the world’ (LeoGrande, 2015, 939). The sanction regime’s objective is to overthrow the communist regime (see Haney and Vanderbush, 1999). However, the sanction regime against Cuba is framed as a ‘massive, flagrant and unacceptable violation of the human rights of the Cuban people’ (Rodríguez, 2020), which is even implicitly acknowledged by the US’s allies, such as the EU, as it is the largest trading partner with Cuba (World Bank, 2019a). Since Cuba has consistently stayed authoritarian despite sanctions (Polity IV, 2014a), it is fair to argue that US sanctions against Cuba have not promoted democracy. Comparing the loosely implemented sanction regime against Cuba and the strictly implemented one against North Korea, it seems neither has fulfilled its goal of promoting democracy, and can even harm the people there.
III
Apart from sanctions, democracies can utilize trade relations with authoritarian regimes to encourage democratization, but its effects are mixed. I will first examine why trade is utilized to promote democracy. The positive relationship between economic growth and the flourish of democracy has been popularized with Lipset’s (1959a) famous observation that the strength of democracy is positively associated with economic development. More specifically, Lipset (1959b) argues that authoritarian regimes are less likely to succeed facing a population with high living standards and level of education. Reflecting upon Lipset’s arguments, Przeworski and Limongi (1997, 177) have cautioned that only once democracy is established would the positive relationship between economic development and chances for the survival of democracy take place. Despite diminishing the applicability of the modernization theory, Przeworski and Limongi (1997, 178) believe it is too risky to simply leave authoritarian regimes be, and suggest that ‘with development, democracy can flourish in poor countries’. Then, this has supplied the theoretical basis for democracies to utilize trade as a tool to help develop authoritarian regimes economically, with the end-goal of strengthening the democratization process.
I will now analyze potential theoretical drawbacks with trade. For Levitsky and Way (2006), using linkage (e.g. trade) is a better form of promoting democracy than using leverage (e.g. sanction) because linkage, as a form of soft power, is an efficient mean of persuading authoritarian regimes to adopt to democracy. Through trade, non-state level commutations can take place between businesses and individuals, which leads to stronger interdependence between the authoritarian and democratic world. Then, through such communications, the domestic audience within authoritarian regimes can be exposed with appeals of liberal democracy, which would eventually translate external pressure to democratize into domestic ones. (Ibid., 396). However, it should be noted that this would be dependent upon authoritarian regimes’ capacity and willingness to defend existing illiberal norms. For example, Gandhi and Przeworski (2007) have found that authoritarian regimes that can broaden their basis of support through seemingly democratic institutions are more resilient to democratization. Alternatively, if they are willing to, authoritarian regimes can utilize brute force to crackdown pro-democracy protests. Therefore, theoretically speaking, trade as a democratization tool can be undermined if authoritarian regimes can adequately withstand the domestic pressure to democratize.
I will now apply the theoretical expectation into practice by analyzing Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. For Saudi Arabia, despite its largest trading partner being the US (Word Bank, 2019b), it has consistently been labeled as an authoritarian regime (Polity IV, 2014b). This is because Saudi Arabia is capable of resisting democratization by utilizing enormous resources to propagate the idea that ‘it is democratizing’, through public relations strategies such as hosting sporting events, to ‘white wash’ the lack of democratization (Michaelson, 2021). Moreover, while granting women more freedom, the regime has simultaneously arrested activists and even murdered dissidents like Jamal Khashoggi (Blanchard, 2021), a move that revealed its willingness to use brute force against democratization. For Tunisia, its biggest trading partner is the EU (World Bank, 2019c), who fosters intense bilateral non-state level communications on democracy. Appealed by liberal democracy, civil societies led by the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet contributed immensely in building a pluralistic democracy after the Tunisian Revolution of 2011 (Nobel Prize, 2015). Here, unlike their Saudi counterpart, the Tunisian regime was incapable of either pacifying the protesters with promises of democratization, or suppressing them with force (see Hassan, 2015), which eventually led to the democratization of Tunisia. Consequently, the effects of trade on democratization is dependent upon the authoritarian regime’s ability and willingness to maintain illiberal norms.
IV
In light of recent challenges democracies face, I will now propose an unconventional approach for promoting democracy: focusing on democracies, not authoritarian regimes. Democratic backsliding has become a much researched topic recently, as Bermeo (2016) notes a regression in democratization, which coincides with Carothers’s (2002) warning that democratization is not a one-way process. More alarmingly, scholars have found that democratic backsliding exists within developed democracies as well. For example, in the US, the Trump presidency ‘accelerated the erosion of norms that had long been a bulwark of democratic stability’ through a ‘Trumpian populism’ that utilizes mass anti-system appeals for political power (Kaufman and Haggard, 2018, 428). As a result, dissatisfied with the election results, some US citizens stormed the Capital building and called the then Vice-President Mike Pence a ‘traitor’, a phenomenon normally expected in authoritarian regimes (see Smith, 2021). Meanwhile, the COVID-19 crisis has exposed the unwillingness of developed democracies to protect their citizens in the name of liberty. In the UK, for example, the government is heavily influenced by libertarian think tanks that deem heavy restrictions as politically undesirable for libertarian values and business interests, resulting in heavy casualty for the UK due to COVID-19 (Bourgeron, 2021). As some of the world’s best democracies, if the US and UK are facing democratic backsliding and cannot tackle COVID-19 successfully under liberal democracy, then it would be hard to convince authoritarian regimes to democratize.
I will now examine how powerful authoritarian states like China and Russia have defended illiberal norms, to argue that democracies need to focus on themselves to enhance the appeals of liberal democracy. As a rising power, China, aware of the appeals of ‘democracy’, has continuously challenged ‘liberal democracy’ by promoting its ‘socialist democracy’ instead. For example, General Secretary Xi Jinping (2021a) emphasized the importance of ‘whole-process democracy’ by arguing liberal democracies only care about voters during the electoral process. Meanwhile, focusing on the Capital riot and shocking death toll due to COVID-19 in democracies, Xi (2021b) argues that China has ‘institutional supremacy [over democracies]’, which furthers Chinese nominal capacity to address domestic democratization pressures. Likewise, the Russian president Vladimir Putin (2019) has famously claimed that liberal democracy is ‘obsolete’ because an excessive amount of emphasis has been put towards protecting the illegal minority. Then, with a disdain of liberal democracy, Putin views foreign support for liberal democracy and criticism for Russian repression as ‘signs of hostile intent to weaken Russia by supporting anti-regime forces’ (Vershbow and Fried, 2020), instead of genuine attempts to make Russia better. Consequently, with the Russian and Chinese criticism over the liberal democracy, and since they have already been utilized to resist democratization, democracies then need to address domestic challenges first. Otherwise, it would be challenging to promote democracy abroad, especially in the world’s two most powerful illiberal states.
V
Since sanction is ineffective and can even be counterproductive, while trade generates mixed results, concerned about the challenges of democratic backsliding and COVID-19, I have argued that the most effective way of promoting democracy is to focus on building democracy within democracies, so that liberal democracy can be a more appealing norm. In Section II, I have contrasted loose sanctions against Cuba with strict sanctions against North Korea to argue that sanctions cannot effectively encourage regime change in authoritarian states that are capable of gaining legitimacy from sanctions, and can even harm the people. In Section III, I have introduced why trade is used to promote democracy, and offered the theoretical critique that it would be subject to authoritarian regimes’ capacity and willingness to defend illiberal norms, which is demonstrated with democratization success in Tunisia and failure in Saudi Arabia. In Section IV, I have presented the challenges democracies are facing, which are framed as the excuses for defending illiberal norms to counter democratization pressures in China and Russia. Consequently, democracies need to restrategize democratization approaches by focusing on themselves first. If liberal democracy is truly appealing, strong domestic pressure may even overwhelm the most powerful illiberal states.
