DAVE LAWLER: Our first guest is the Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development Samantha Power. Administrator Power, welcome.
ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Good to be here.
MR. LAWLER: I want to start with the trajectory of democracy around the world. And as you well know, conversations on this topic over the past several years have tended to be pretty pessimistic. Freedom House says we've had 17 straight years of democratic erosion, but you recently wrote in Foreign Affairs that, "After years of democratic backsliding, the autocrats are finally on the defensive." Why do you say that?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, first, let me just say that even the language of erosion and recession and backsliding – there's a kind of passive voice to all of that, rather than I think something that we all need to embrace as a present day truth – which is it's not happening by some act of God. There are individuals who are attacking democracy from within and from without, and I think that's a conceptual shift that changes our mindset, but also changes our toolkit, which maybe we can come back to.
On your point about how to end the era of pessimism and, you know, are there bright spots out there that one can focus on, I think there are a couple dimensions to that. For starters, the Russian Federation, of course, in Ukraine in part, arguably, because of the system in place – Moscow really miscalculated, blundered very badly, has inflicted horrific pain, of course, on the Ukrainians. And that's the most important consequence of that. But also, you can see the features of such centralized control really depriving the Putin regime of access to information, dissent, deliberation of the kind that can actually achieve the desired results. In this case, of course, a horrific result is sought.
But Russia's on its back heel globally. You know, the fact that you have nearly 130 countries at the UN coming out to denounce it – people focus on who isn't voting with Ukraine, but I would focus on who is. As somebody who used to be a UN ambassador and knows how hard it is to get countries to get off the fence and stick their necks out, this is a very substantial show of Russia's isolation. And you know, with the PRC, which of course has made inroads in so many parts of the world through its Belt and Road Initiative, you also see with the handling of COVID – and the lack of transparency – results that are not what many were anticipating a top-down regime would achieve. And this has ebbed and flowed, you know, the question of the handling of COVID throughout the pandemic from the beginning, and the major questions around COVID origins, right through to the present in terms of how to handle lockdowns, and so forth.
But the bottom line is that both with that and with the amount of debt that many countries have incurred in inviting Belt and Road investments, which may have been very useful, let's say, in building a road, but have left so many countries saddled with high-interest payments that make it actually impossible to rebuild health systems, education systems, invest in agriculture. And so there's a lot of that buyer's remorse out there with countries saying, "Wait, really? Was this lack of transparent contracting in the interest of our citizens?" And citizens are rising up and saying, "Hey, if you did a bunch of those deals and our kids and grandkids are going to be paying the price and paying off these loans, you know, for decades into the future, maybe that kind of government that was in place doing things under the cover of darkness, maybe we need to look again at the importance of checks and balances, the importance of independent media, the importance of strong institutions."
So, I think there's a moment. I don't want to overstate it. You still see countries that are slipping when it comes to indicators around human rights, around democracy, but it is noteworthy that amid a 17-year slide – according to Freedom House – this year saw the slowest pace of decline. And indeed, while you had 35 countries backsliding when it comes to democratic indicators, you had 34 countries going in a positive direction, and that's the first time we've seen those kinds of numbers in a very long time.
MR. LAWLER: Yeah. And you raised this idea, that the authoritarian system doesn't necessarily deliver the kind of outcomes that the population is looking for in all of these contexts you just raised. But obviously, you've seen the numbers that I have, about dissatisfaction in a lot of countries with what democracy is delivering, you know. In terms of the work that you do, and just more generally, how do you counter that perception that democracy doesn't deliver what people hoped and expected it would?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, I'd say a couple of things. I mean, first, people are very alert to what is happening in their own lives. And so, this is easier said than done, but the absolute best way to respond when you see those trust numbers or those concerns about democracy's strength is to deliver. Again, easier said than done, and especially in polarized societies where you see, for example, even in the United States, you know, a lot of gridlock – where views on what should be done really break down on party lines – doing big things is harder, and that's true even in parliamentary democracies around the world.
But I will say there's been more learning, I think, over the last three or four years about the importance of concrete, tangible improvements in people's lives, to this question of trust, than there had been, I think, in the previous decade. I don't have the polling to back this up, or an empirical study to cite in this regard, but you can just feel – in policy circles – the conversations that used to be about democracy in the abstract, and elections, and political party strengthening, and even programming of the kind that USAID and other development organizations would do, is now shifting to seeing the connection between economic results and political legitimacy.
And again, that will sound obvious, maybe, to many. And what took people so long? But I think it's not that, you know, we weren't doing economic development, or strengthening the health sector, or trying to improve energy efficiency – all those kinds of programs occurred. But the democracy programs kind of existed over here in a separate space. And so now, when we see a political reform opening in a country – like the Dominican Republic or in Zambia, where, you know, the country has been saddled with debt to the PRC for infrastructure projects that haven't even really come to pass – to be able to come in as USAID, as the United States, but also as a broader democratic community, and say, "These are really interesting reforms that are afoot. How do we make sure that the private sector shows up at just that moment and potentially new jobs are created?"
You know, if there's a fertilizer initiative that USAID is undertaking – there's so much need for fertilizer around the world – well, if we have a place where democracy is on the march and the indicators are going in the right direction, I, as a steward of the American taxpayer's resources, have more confidence in a country that's fighting corruption, that that fertilizer is going to go to its rightful destination than I might in a country that is backsliding. So, just to see the ways in which that democracy dividend plays out in the real world, and anything catalytic we can do to ensure that those who are doing brave things in the political space – perhaps opening themselves up to checks and balances, being held accountable, letting the media be more critical, you know, allowing opposition rallies as now have been reauthorized in the country of Tanzania. When countries are doing those things, we want, as the United States, to be affirming that, and also really paying attention to economic delivery, which of course is what governments are primarily focused on in the first instance.
MR. LAWLER: And you talk about the link between economic development and democracy. When we sort of pull those things apart, you know, we've heard from some countries that they do want to talk about economic development. They certainly want to talk about investment. They don't necessarily want the U.S. to come into their country and talk about democracy and human rights, particularly at a time when the U.S. democracy has been under greater scrutiny than in recent years. You know, as someone who does travel around the world and talks about democracy, you know, and the links with these other issues, how do you navigate that tension?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, first, there's no one-size-fits-all. There's no "I got my playbook here in Washington, and I'm going to go take that on the road." I mean, it's so context specific. There is sensitivity around the world about perceptions that the United States, you know, is or could be in some world, you know, asking countries to choose – to turn their backs on investments from some countries in favor of investments from others. I think there are areas where choice is important – like in information infrastructure, 5G, et cetera – you know, the real ramifications when it comes to human rights of going in one direction versus the other direction. But by and large, I think what we do when we engage countries on the health of their democracies is we do so with a lot of humility. Everyone around the world knows what happened on January 6. Everyone around the world knows when they have an election that a major economy, a major superpower like the United States, you know, has residual issues with recognition of election results. Everyone knows that.
So, for us to, you know, kind of head into a country and deliver our talking points about their democratic institutions, or checks and balances without self-awareness about their knowledge of what's going on in our country and our struggles, which we seek to work through, you know, that would be tone deaf in the extreme. So, I think meeting people where they are, both in terms of how we convey the message, but also, you know, recognizing there are these empirical studies that are very telling on just how important accountability is to the proper expenditure of state resources.
In other words, you know, when policies are put in place that bury or shroud what a country is doing in secrecy, and there is no sunlight, when elections are stolen, or certain communities are not able to get to the polls, and thus you can't have representative governance, and thus those who are frustrated by particular policies, or programs, or see the corruption, and then can't have their voices heard, that means you're not going to root out the corruption. You're not actually going to create more effective policies. But that dialogue is very specific to specific places, and so, really digging into what the particular challenges are that the communities USAID works in, that the United States works in, that's a huge part of it.
MR. LAWLER: Right. Well, that's all the time we have. Administrator Power, thank you so much for joining Axios.
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you, David.
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