Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Follow Carnegie
- Search
- Global Resources
Global Centers
Languages
This is an important resource for policy makers and others forced to deal with countries where democratic change is both complex and protracted.
Several factors explain why a growing number of regimes are adopting outwardly more democratic political systems: the loss of appeal of socialist systems during the 1990s, the creation of newly independent states, and the corresponding need felt by an increasing number of governments to legitimize themselves in the eyes of their citizens and of the international community.
Western aid for civil-society development in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union needs to be evaluated from a past-present-future standpoint. It is also important to place the aid in the context of developments in the region.
In making assessments of Russia's behavior in the world, it is critical that we recognize that Russia is not a totalitarian state ruled by a Communist Party with a single, clearly articulated foreign policy. That state disappeared in 1991. Rather, Russia is a democratizing state, and Russia's foreign policy, in turn, is a product of domestic politics in a pluralistic system.
Much of the world sees Africa as one of two extremes. Either it is a continent beset by genocidal warfare, corrupt leaders, and rampant poverty or it is a region that is about to enter a renaissance. But Africa is neither on the verge of widespread anarchy nor at the dawn of democratic and economic renewal.
For lasting peace, the colonial powers must leave the warring nations of Africa to find their own solutions: most conflicts are about internal failure, not simple border quarrels.