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This article explores why multilateral democracy protection in the Americas has been so ineffective in the Venezuelan crisis. The author contends that the state of hemispheric order can either help or hinder regional efforts to defend democracy. The current Venezuelan crisis has unfolded at a difficult moment when the Western Hemispheric order has undergone a particularly turbulent form of regional order transition that the author calls order upheaval. While serving as a structure of opportunities and constraints for both the defenders and transgressors of Venezuelan democracy, this order upheaval has impeded regional cooperation, the provision of democracy protection as a public good, and the ability for the Americas to serve as an effective filter or container for regional problem solving and against the incursion of extra-regional actors in Venezuela's crisis.
Este artículo explora por qué la protección multilateral de la democracia en las Américas ha sido poco efectiva en la crisis venezolana. El autor plantea que el estado del orden hemisférico puede ayudar u obstaculizar los esfuerzos regionales para defender la democracia. La actual crisis venezolana se ha desarrollado en un momento difícil, en el que el orden hemisférico occidental ha experimentado una forma de transición particularmente turbulenta, a la cual el autor llama conmoción del orden. A la vez que ha servido como un marco de oportunidades y restricciones tanto para los defensores como para los transgresores de la democracia venezolana, esta conmoción del orden ha impedido la cooperación regional, la provisión de protección a la democracia como un bien público y la capacidad de las Américas de servir como un filtro o contenedor eficaz para la resolución de problemas regionales y contra la incursión de actores extra-regionales en la crisis venezolana.
Journal Article
Monitoring democracy
In recent decades, governments and NGOs--in an effort to promote democracy, freedom, fairness, and stability throughout the world--have organized teams of observers to monitor elections in a variety of countries. But when more organizations join the practice without uniform standards, are assessments reliable? When politicians nonetheless cheat and monitors must return to countries even after two decades of engagement, what is accomplished? Monitoring Democracy argues that the practice of international election monitoring is broken, but still worth fixing. By analyzing the evolving interaction between domestic and international politics, Judith Kelley refutes prevailing arguments that international efforts cannot curb government behavior and that democratization is entirely a domestic process. Yet, she also shows that democracy promotion efforts are deficient and that outside actors often have no power and sometimes even do harm.
Analyzing original data on over 600 monitoring missions and 1,300 elections, Kelley grounds her investigation in solid historical context as well as studies of long-term developments over several elections in fifteen countries. She pinpoints the weaknesses of international election monitoring and looks at how practitioners and policymakers might help to improve them.
eBook
Potomac Fever
After a highly successful career in investment banking with his own firm and a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, J. William Middendorf became restive and looked for new challenges. Having \"learned how to make money,\" he writes in this memoir, he \"wanted to learn how to make a difference.\" Thus he became actively involved in politics, first at the local level in Connecticut and then with the presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964 and as treasurer of the Republican National Committee. There followed a series of challenging public service appointments: ambassador to the Netherlands, Under Secretary and later Secretary of the Navy, ambassador to the Organization of American States, and ambassador to the European Community. Middendorf is a first-rate storyteller and has many tales to share--from his World War II Navy service, to his first job wearing a string of pearls in a bank vault, to a failed effort to bring a U.S.-style constitution to post-Soviet Russia. He recounts tales of villains and heroes, of narrow legislative victories on vital programs, of efforts to forestall war in the Falklands and to counter growing Communist control of the island of Grenada, as well as how the Navy won narrow but vital victories on such important programs as the Aegis missile system and the Trident submarine. Writing with the authority of someone who held a number of key government positions, his lively and revealing memoir is filled with many behind-the-scenes stories of critical events of the Cold War.
eBook
Historical Antecedents and Post-World War II Regionalism in the Americas
After World War II, the US-led international security order exhibited substantial regional variation. Explaining this variation has been central to the debate over why is there no nato in Asia. But this debate overlooks the emergence of multilateral security arrangements between the United States and Latin American countries during the same critical juncture. These inter-American institutions are puzzling considering the three factors most commonly used to explain divergence between nato and Asia: burden-sharing, external threats, and collective identity. These conditions fail to explain contemporaneous emergence of inter-American security multilateralism. Although the postwar inter-American system has been characterized as the solidification of US dominance, at the time of its framing, Latin American leaders judged the inter-American system as their best bet for maintaining beneficial US involvement in the Western Hemisphere while reinforcing voice opportunities for weaker states and imposing institutional constraints on US unilateralism. Drawing on multinational archival research, the author advances a historical institutionalist account. Shared historical antecedents of regionalism shaped the range of choices for Latin American and US leaders regarding the desirability and nature of new regional institutions while facilitating institutional change through mechanisms of layering and conversion during this critical juncture.
Journal Article
A matter of survival
Ever since the Cuban Revolution of 1959 Cuba has faced hostility from its northern neighbour, the United States. An unrelenting US campaign led to Cuba’s expulsion from the now discredited Organisation of American States, and it has faced an economic, commercial and financial blockade since 1962. This policy has failed. Cuba has developed a global and strategic foreign policy which with limited resources allows it to be a very active component of the international scene. Cuba’s foreign policy is independent and active in defending just causes and the right of each country to adopt its own decisions, without external interference.
Journal Article
Settle or litigate? Consequences of institutional design in the Inter-American system of human rights protection
Why do states engage in settlements with victims of human rights violations? Although the friendly settlement procedure has been on the books at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights since 1992, states did not begin utilizing the procedure in earnest until nearly ten years later – why? I argue that state behavior – the choice to settle or litigate – at the Inter-American Commission is driven in part by two features of the institution’s design: (1) optional jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court and (2) a 2001 rule change that reduced the level of discretion over submission of cases to the court. Using an original dataset of petitions at the Inter-American Commission, I show that states engaged in more settlements in response to the increased cost of litigation, but that these changes are limited to states under the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction. Moreover, as a positive, perhaps unintended, consequence, states’ levels of compliance with the Commission’s non-binding recommendations also increased after the rule change. My findings indicate that it is possible for institutions to achieve more desirable or efficient outcomes by changing the rules of the game.
Journal Article
Costa Rica's Oversized Role in Latin American Sexual and Reproductive Rights Lawfare
Abstract Costa Rica's reputation as a stable democracy and champion of inter-American human rights law makes it both beacon and bellwether for sexual and reproductive rights in the American continent. The Costa Rican government brought cases involving in vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which issued historic decisions expanding reproductive and sexual rights across Latin America. In response, a transnational coalition of self-proclaimed pro-life and pro-family organizations has targeted the Organization of American States and its system of inter-American human rights law, calling on the OAS to respect national sovereignty concerning life and family matters. This chapter traces Costa Rica's key role in Latin American sexual and reproductive rights lawfare as well as the resulting backlash. Resumo A reputação da Costa Rica como uma democracia estável e defensora da atuação da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos torna o país uma referência no tema dos direitos sexuais e reprodutivos no continente americano. O governo da Costa Rica levou casos que envolviam fertilização in vitro e casamento de pessoas do mesmo sexo para discussão na Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos, a qual emitiu decisões históricas, ampliando os direitos reprodutivos e sexuais para toda a América Latina. Em resposta, uma organização autoproclamada pró-vida e pró-família colocou a Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA) e o seu sistema interamericano de direitos humanos como alvo de ataque, pedindo que a OEA respeite a soberania nacional em matérias sobre família e vida. Este artigo apresenta o papel da Costa Rica na disputa dos direitos sexuais e reprodutivos por meio do lawfare na América Latina e seus resultados reativos.
Journal Article