The Disconnect between Stated Goals and Actions Done

(The following is a paper I wrote for grad school, and I thought was an appropriate entry for this blog. Yeah, it's gonna be a lot different than my usual posts, I get it :D Of course, the pictures are added for this entry only, I didn't put them in the paper.)
 
           A never ending and ever changing part of U.S. foreign policy is which countries the U.S. give military/economic/political aid to. These gifts and transactions of goods and services are done either based on a set of principles and norms that supposedly the U.S. and the foreign country share, or, they are done to further the United States’ interests abroad. Some of these principles and norms include democracy, defense of human rights, wanting their citizens to be prosperous, and respect for international law. What is disturbing is, in many cases, the U.S. gives this aid to a foreign country that is openly hostile to these principles and norms. Policy makers in the U.S. government say that’s not the case, yet by all standards, a rational analysis of the country, records of breaking international law in relation to these principles, and reports done by human rights organizations, the foreign country does not share the principles and values that the U.S. claims to hold. Other times, the United States’ stated interest runs contrary to the values it says that it proclaims. That leads to an observation that the stated interest really is not going to establish or strengthen democracy in the foreign country. This review will demonstrate the positive results of giving military/economic/political aid to a country that does want to uphold democratic values, without bending the rules due to race, religion, or radical self-interest groups. 

             

          The first article is titled “Democratization of the State: A Global Perspective and South African Case Study” by Richard Harris. It talks about how to establish a democracy that is free to all in a country that was previously authoritarian. This is relevant because most of the United States’ military aid goes to countries that were/are authoritarian and that the United States’ supposedly wants them to become more democratic. The author says in simple terms that the way to establish democracy in a country is to establish democratic norms; to show the people in that country that these norms are the best way to do certain processes. Do not force them to do these norms, because that will just push them away from doing them, even from something that may benefit them. Show them, by example and logical/rational reasoning that these norms are what it takes to protect human rights, reduce corruption, etc.

            An important term that the author introduces in this article is “low-intensity democracy,” a term that describes a government that uses formal democratic institutions as a cover for continued authoritarian rule and/or foreign domination. This relates to a point made earlier that U.S. officials claim the countries they are giving military aid to are democratic, or at least trying to be democratic. The fact is, most of them aren’t. They’re simply low-intensity democracies. U.S. officials point to the formal democratic institutions as the basis of their claim that these countries are democratic, but upon further inspection, it is evident that these governments are corrupt, authoritarian, and extremely violent towards civilians for political gain, (terrorism).

            The second journal reviewed is titled “Compound Democracy and the Control of Corruption: A Cross-Country Investigation” by Alok K. Bohara, Neil J. Mitchell, and Carl F. Mittendorff. The journal talks about the effect democracy has on corruption. The study focused on four countries: India, Nigeria, Sweden, and Japan. It included various aspects of the countries and their governments such as GDP per capita, amount of government intervention in the marketplace, and amount of trade the country does with other countries. An important point from the journal is that the larger a government gets, the more opportunities for corruption there are. This supports the claim that less government is better for the people. Therefore, according to the article, if the American government wants to decrease corruption around the world, its policies must focus on reducing the size of government. American military support, economic support, and political support should revolve around this principle.

            Another important point is that the greater amount of government intervention in the marketplace also increases the opportunities for corruption. This point supports the same claim as stated in the paragraph above. Also, democracy helps countries win wars. The reasons for this is because the political culture of a democracy is better suited for warfare, the public’s consent is more powerful in a democracy vs an autocratic state, and the leader is accountable to the voters. The logical conclusion from this point would be that if the United States truly wants to help protect other populations’ human rights, it’s policies must support democracy around the globe because when a country can win a war, it can defend itself from aggressive wars and potential foreign occupation. Both of these types of conflicts trample on a multitude of human rights.

            The most important point this journal had was that corruption in a country’s government prevents other countries from coming to help that particular country. Any economic aid that comes to a corrupt government just gets taken by the corrupt officials, and hardly any, if any, actual aid comes to the poor population of that country. Military aid would just give more might to the army to oppress and kill their citizens for trying to exercise their basic human rights. So if the United States wants to help a country that is corrupt, it cannot give aid to the government to do so. It must identify opposition parties that are not corrupt, or other NGOs/human rights organizations/moderate secular rebels, (whatever the case may be in that particular country), and pinpoint which ones are in line with true American values, the ones this country was based on. That way, the American people would know that their hard-earned taxpayer money would be going towards an organization that was not in conflict with American values. 

             The links and commonality of these two articles is that they are two steps to understanding democracy. The first article talks about how to establish it, and the second article talks about what its effects will be once it is established. Stating how they are common also illustrates how they are different: they represent two different time periods on the road to democracy i.e. one has to happen before the other.

            The third article continues on this linear concept of democracy establishment/implementation, even though it is entirely possible to go backwards in this process. The article is titled “Implications of Globalization in the Teaching of Public Administration in Africa: The Case of Nigeria” by Robert Dibie. Its title is a clear statement on what it is about. Countries have to develop their own way of education that fits their specific needs. Simply borrowing a system from a rich Western country will not work. The author says “It became apparent in the nation that it is wrong to undermine all that is indigenous in favor of all that is western.’  

            The article answers the question “Why does Nigeria have a lack of qualified teachers and inadequate resources to have a decent public administration program to better itself?” The three answers are because of low salaries, inadequate infrastructure, and lack of security. If the U.S. goal is to help Nigeria have a decent public administration program, its policies have to solve these three problems. If it’s policies help contribute to these problems, then it cannot claim that it wants Nigeria to have the program.

            What this third article has in common with the previous two articles is that is illustrates how U.S. policy can (has) deviated from its stated goal, and has created situations that it publically says that it is against. It points to a necessary revaluation of U.S. foreign policy related specifically to the main topic of this review: U.S. military/economic/political aid and support, because by the results of the studies done in these three articles, the U.S. policies are not achieving their stated goals. It provides a starting point from which U.S. policy makers can create new policies. The articles do not say specifically what these U.S. policies are, but that is outside the scope of this review. However, a short amount of time invested in research, having the background that these articles provide, would result in finding these U.S. policies without a problem. 

            The fourth article is titled “Governance in a Globalizing World” by Jamil Jreisat. It talks about the very same issues as the third article: Governance and how globalization affects it. It specifically focuses on what are the consequences of a global power “going rouge,” so to speak. Such actions that would fall under this category would be changing the international commerce rules to benefit itself at the expense of weaker, poorer countries, making up false pretexts as an excuse for a war of aggression, and trampling on peoples’ (whether its own citizens or others), basic human rights. The article states that a constitution is the basis for democracy and protecting citizens’ human rights. No democracy does not have a constitution, whether written or un-written, although it points out that there are some authoritarian governments that do have a constitution. In other words, a democracy has to have a constitution, but just because it has one doesn’t mean it is a democracy.   

            Globalization brings many benefits to a country, including more trading opportunities, closer economic ties that can foster closer political ties, and the sharing of best practices, lessons learned, etc, in all areas of public administration. However, globalization can be severely reversed if a strong, world power country goes rogue, doing some of the actions listed in the previous paragraph. Globalization cannot happen if a powerful country has an “empire-building approach with imperial authority to put down challenges rather than to persuade and to negotiate agreements.” This means that if a world power such as the United States wants to foster more globalization between itself and other countries, it must refrain from committing actions that would severely reverse globalization. If the U.S. continuingly commits actions, on purpose, that guarantee the reversal of globalization, then one must question if the U.S. truly wants to foster more globalization or not.

            Both the third and fourth articles talk about the latest step in the establishment of democracy, but the fourth article talks about the concept in wide, non-tangible descriptions that are not specific to one country or region, while the third article focuses just on South Africa as its example. Together, they provide a solid basis for understanding how globalization affects democracy. One without the other would not be as effective in explaining this concept. If just the third article was presented, a reader might be left wondering how the lessons learned in South Africa could apply to any other country experiencing the same problem. If only the fourth article was presented, the reader could possibly be confused as to how these abstract, non-tangible practices would actually look on the ground in a country.

            The fifth and final article is titled “Introduction: Benefit of U.S. Educational Assistance

in the Eastern European Transformation” by James McCollum and Niles Schoening. The basic premise of this journal is that the more education a country has, the more democratic it becomes. There are very few highly educated socialists and fascists. Communism, in of itself, has inherent deficiencies. The authors suggest that the U.S. should only offer educational assistance to organizations/countries that believe in democracy. Communists, or other people that believe in tyranny, would only use that education to further control and subjugate people. Therefore, offering educational assistance to them would not further the U.S. goal of spreading democracy. The last point the journal makes is that any educational program that the U.S. sends to a foreign country has to be sensitive to the local culture; it is not a one size fits all. This is the same point that the 3^rd article, the one about globalization in Nigeria, mentioned, when it said that simply using a Western educational model in a non-Western country will not work.   

            The significance of this last article in relation to the other articles goes back to the concept of democratization as a process that was talked about when linking the other articles together. To recap, the first article talks about how to establish democracy. The second article talks about the situation right after establishment: what effects democracy will have and how it will reduce corruption. The third one talks about what effects globalization will have on this young democracy, (which globalization is inevitable at this point in history, unless one is a state like North Korea). The fourth article talks about how to govern with globalization happening all around one’s country. This is very similar to the third article’s main point. And finally, the fifth article talks about the role of education, that could happen before, after, or in-between any of these points. That observation points to the value of education: it can light the spark to create democracy, it can help a fledgling democracy once it is established, and it can help a democracy combat the ill side effects of globalization at any point of the country’s level of globalization.

            In conclusion, these journals do not directly spout policy recommendations to the United States government in relation to its efforts to spread democracy throughout the world, as that is not the journals’ goal. Their goal is simply to state the facts in way that would help ignite U.S. policymakers to think in a rational, logical, and non-biased manner: “If I want to achieve goals XYZ, how would I do that?” Such policies that would come out of such a brainstorm or discussion would be: Not to give military aid/training to fascist regimes or governments that support terrorism, identifying and helping organizations that are democratic within a despotic or tyrannical country, and not breaking these policies due to the lobbying of radical self-interest groups or racial or religious bias. The government must have principles and stick to them no matter what in order to make sure their democratization efforts are effective overseas. These journals, when read together, also show what are the consequences when there is a disconnect between a country’s stated goals and actions committed in order to achieve that goal. It is outside of the scope of this journal review to directly command “The United States must do XYZ.” Instead, it focuses on a specific aspect of the U.S. foreign policy. It provides the basis for the conversation of “If the United States says that it wants to achieve XYZ, yet commits actions that will certainly not achieve XYZ, these are the consequences that will follow.” 

Works Cited

            Alok K. Bohara, Neil J. Mitchell, and Carl F. Mittendorff, (2004). Compound Democracy and the Control of Corruption: A Cross-Country Investigation. The Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2004.

            Robert Dibie Ph.D. (2004) Implications of Globalization in the Teaching of Public Administration in Africa: The Case of Nigeria, International Journal of Public Administration, 27:3-4, 151-169.

            Richard L. Harris (2004) Democratization of the State: A Global Perspective and South African Case Study, International Journal of Public Administration, 27:13-14, 1061-1100.

            Jamil Jreisat (2004) Governance in a Globalizing World, International Journal of Public Administration, 27:13-14, 1003-1029.

            James K. McCollum & Niles C. Schoening (2004) Introduction: Benefit of U.S. Educational Assistance in the Eastern European Transformation, International Journal of Public Administration, 27:11-12, 821-827.