Contact: Cara Santos Pianesi, 202/939-2211, csantos@ceip.org
Critical Mission: Democracy Promotion
New Book by Carnegie Expert Delivers Practical Knowledge On How To More Effectively Promote Democracy Around the World
The wars on terrorism and in Iraq have pushed democracy promotion front and center on the international stage. President Bush has called Middle East democratization, "a focus of American policy for decades to come." Demand for information on how the United States and other countries can more effectively promote democracy worldwide has never been higher. A new book from the Carnegie Endowment by Thomas Carothers, one of the world’s leading authorities on democracy promotion, addresses this need. Visit www.ceip.org/files/publications/CriticalMission to read the introduction, table of contents, and advance praise for Critical Mission: Essays on Democracy Promotion.
Beyond the Middle East, political malaise and blacksliding are now common in many parts of the developing and postcommunist worlds where political freedom and pluralism made earlier gains. Democracy promoters face the stark challenge of trying to stimulate a democratic trend in the Middle East while supporting an embattled trend in other parts of the world. The United States and Europe spend an estimated annual $2 billion on democracy building projects, and the array of organizations involved in this endeavor continues to grow. Yet, despite the steady increase in interest and resources, the store of practical learning about democracy promotion remains limited.
Critical Mission bridges this gap by drawing together a wide-ranging set of Carothers’s many seminal, widely cited essays, organized around four vital themes: the role of democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy; the core elements of democracy aid; the state of democracy in the world; and the new U.S. push to promote democracy in the Middle East. These essays are informed by Carothers’ extensive fieldwork, focus on local realities, and realism with regard to the impact of externally sponsored democracy building efforts.
Thomas Carothers is the founder and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment. He has written or edited five books on democracy promotion, including Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Carnegie, 1999).
September 2004 / c. 304 pp.
$24.95 / paperback: ISBN: 0-87003-209-7
$50.00 / cloth: ISBN: 0-87003-210-0
To order: 1-800-275-1447 or 202-797-6258 or visit www.CarnegieEndowment.org/CriticalMission