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Events
Andrew Light Speaker Tour in Europe May 14, 2013 / Berlin, Germany; Brussels, BelgiumGMF Senior Fellow Andrew Light participated in a speaking tour in Europe to discuss opportunities for transatlantic cooperation on climate and energy policy in the second Obama administration.
In this podcast, GMF Vice President of Programs Ivan Vejvoda discusses last month's historic agreement to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
Anchor Elaine Reyes speaks with Andrew Small, Transatlantic Fellow of the Asia Program for the German Marshall Fund, about Beijing's potential role in brokering peace between Israel and Palestine
Events
GMF hosts discussion on U.S. and European democracy promotion November 02, 2006 / Berlin
On November 2 and 3, GMF Berlin hosted the first event in its EU/G8 Series, in cooperation with AEI and Freedom House. This was the second of a four-part series of workshops on American and European approaches to democracy promotion.
The opening statement was delivered by Dr. Martin Ney, Deputy Director General, Department for Global Issues, United Nations, Human rights and Humanitarian Aid at the German ministry of foreign affiars. Ney highlighted the success of American democracy promotion and regime change in Germany in 1945, but under special and non-replicable conditions. He outlined five positions: ownership by the local population, effective performance by the new regime, security arrangements with neighboring countries, sustained development aid from outside, and integration into international multinational structures. American participants said that ‘glacial change' was not an option for volatile regions such as the Middle East.
On November 3, the topics switched to Ukraine and Egypt, American and German approaches to democracy promotion, and the democracy pushback phenomenon. On the Ukraine panel, participants pointed out that democratic gains have been made, but no framework exists to shepherd Ukraine into multilateral institutions which could help stabilize those changes. On Egypt, the United States was criticized for pushing elections as a process rather than as an agent for substantive change. Diplomatic participants said the United States was now moving towards conditionality in all aid agreements, and that Egyptian officials are now far more willing to talk about human rights, while non-diplomats remained politely skeptical.
The discussion then shifted to the differences between American and German approaches to democracy promotion. The American model has government agencies working directly with civil society partners, political party foundations play a central role in the German system. Finally, GMF's Pavol Demes and Reinhard Sohns of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation discussed the pushback problem, pointing out that Americans and Europeans alike have not yet found an effective way of shoring up fragile new democracies against the rollback efforts of authoritarian regimes.
To view the conference agenda, please click on the link below:
U.S.-EU Democracy Promotion Agenda (PDF-80KB)
