Is freedom failing?

By Peter Beinart

In 1999 Nigerians did something remarkable: they elected a President. After 16 years of military rule and four decades of political and economic failure, Africa's most populous country held a free election. "Globally, things are going democratically," a Lagos slum dweller told the New York Times. "We want to join the globe."

It was a good time to get on board. The percentage of democracies in the world had doubled since the 1970s, to more than 60%. Many of the remaining autocracies--pariah states like North Korea, Burma and Iran--seemed to be living on borrowed time. In ideological terms, as Francis Fukuyama famously declared, history was ending--and Nigeria didn't want to be left behind.

That was then. But when Nigerians went to the polls again last month, democracy lost. In an orgy of ballot-box stuffing and violence, punctuated by an attempted truck bombing of the electoral-commission headquarters, the ruling party won what some observers thought was the most fraudulent election ever in Nigeria--which is saying something. Once again, Nigeria is catching a wave. From Bangladesh to Thailand to Russia, political freedom is in retreat. In a book due out this fall, Hoover Institution political scientist Larry Diamond notes that "we have entered a period of global democratic recession."

What happened? Iraq, for one. The U.S.'s war on terrorism was always a mixed blessing for democracy. President Bush says spreading freedom is key to preventing future terrorist attacks, but his own policies have made reform much harder. For Middle East dictators who equate democratization with chaos, Iraq has been a godsend. With anarchy threatening to engulf the region, the U.S. now needs dictators like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah more than they need us, which leaves us little leverage to push reform. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went to Cairo in June 2005, she made Egyptian democracy the centerpiece of her trip. By the time Defense Secretary Robert Gates went there last month, he refused to discuss the topic at all.

Then there's oil. As Thomas Friedman has noted, the price of crude and the tide of freedom tend to move in opposite directions. Before 9/11, the price per bbl. fluctuated between $20 and $30. Now it hovers between $50 and $65. And that's not likely to change anytime soon, given rising demand from China and India. That gives oil-producing autocracies such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Sudan and now Nigeria more money to crush or buy off internal dissent. And it makes it easier for them to win friends and influence people around the world. A decade ago, authoritarian governments were largely on the defensive. Today Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is cloning himself in Bolivia and Ecuador. And Iran is on the verge of dominating the Middle East.

For democracy's future, these are real problems. But there's an even bigger one: democracy is not improving people's lives. In Bangladesh, among the most corrupt countries in the world, many were thrilled when the military seized power in January. By most accounts, Russians like how Vladimir Putin has ruled. And though Chavez is one of Latin America's least democratic leaders, he's also one of the most popular. In many countries that have embraced democracy since the cold war's end, free elections haven't reduced corruption, violence or poverty. When generals topple democratic governments or when autocrats like Putin or Chavez strangle them from within, they usually do so in the name of honest government and meat for dinner. And for people who have gone years without either, that sounds pretty good.

So, what should we do? The answer isn't to give up on democracy. It's to help democracy succeed. The Bush Administration talks a lot about freedom. But as an earlier generation of American leaders realized, if freedom doesn't put food on the table, people will embrace tyranny. That's why the Truman Administration conceived the Marshall Plan: to help the fragile democracies of Western Europe improve their people's lives. Today the rich world needs to do something similar--provide the debt relief, open markets and foreign aid that really make a difference in a poor country. A couple of weeks ago, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama led the way by proposing that the U.S. double its foreign-aid spending by 2012. In the wake of Iraq, sending more taxpayer dollars abroad doesn't exactly drive focus groups wild. But if Republicans really want democracy to endure, they should match Obama or raise him. "The true desire of all mankind," Obama said, "is not only to live free lives but lives marked by dignity and opportunity, by security and simple justice." In the slums of Lagos, I suspect they agree.

Beinart is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations