Revision as of 08:05, 11 April 2019

This page is an exercise in revising a massively plagiarized master's thesis by paraphrasing portions of the text that were either quoted without attribution (no citation) or quoted inappropriately (no quotation marks). In both cases we will re-write individual paragraphs and deposit the results here, by page number.

Here is a link to the New York Times article.

Instructions:

John Walsh plagiarism damage control

1. Type on your personal notebook a piece of text (paragraph) from the page represented in the New York Times article of July 23, 2014.
2. Edit to rephrase in your own words, avoiding close paraphrasing as much as possible.
3. Cut and past results into this document on the proper page in the proper order, if possible.
4. Do minor formatting or editing as needed.
5. BONUS. If you are editing a passage without attribution, insert the reference.

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During George W. Bush's time as president, few believed that he would focus on the advancement of democracy. During 2001, the Bush administration did not even address the issue of promoting civil societies, rule of law, free elections and open political processes as major issues of their agenda. Early on, Bush and his team made it evident that they would not put heavy emphasis on fostering democracy, but rather they would focus on "great-power realism." In Bush's next term, he began by expressing that there would be a great focus on foreign policy through a large push toward achieving world peace.

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This project will provide a valid argument that the United States must continue to pursue democracy in the Middle East as a key component of the National Security Strategy of the USA beyond January 20, 2009 when President Bush leaves office. Democracy is not a pure entity and the United States should not attempt to force democracy on other countries. (fn) The belief is that it is in the global interest for there to be more democratic countries. If the Bush doctrine is successful in laying the foundation for democracy in the region and elsewhere around the world, the spread of democracy in the Middle East will have to remain American policy beyond January 20, 2009. (fn) Patience is a must and if we have any hope of successfully promoting freedom as the alternative to tyranny and despair we must remain patient!

Defining Democracy

As the United States pursues democracy around the glove, it is important to understand the definition and concept of democracy. There are many disputes about the correct conceptual definition, about whether democracy is purely to elect leaders, about how we can calculate democracy, and the importance of the footwork for implementing democracy. (fn) Democracy

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While acknowledging that the basic elements of a democracy will be different based on the cultural, economic, and social systems found in a given society leaves room for some imprecision in the application of the definition, a working definition of democracy that is largely accepted by political scientists who endorse what is known as the Democratic Peace Theory amounts to: 1. The nation must hold competitive elections. To be defined as competitive, there must be at least two formally independent political parties (or similar groups). 2. 50% or more of the adult population must be allowed to vote. 3. Those in legislative and executive power must have been put into place by said elections. 4. There must have been at least one peaceful, constitutional transfer of power between independent political parties. Nations which do not meet all four conditions might be considered emerging democracies or republics, but would not be considered democracies until they met all four conditions.

While this definition of democracy is fairly strict, most nations that are considered democracies fit these criterion. Most nations that are not usually considered democracies, especially middle eastern nations, do not meet all of these criterion, and therefore can be considered protodemocracies. There are also some nations, for example North Korea, who do not meet any of these criterion.

This definition will also allow us to easily tell the difference between democracy and liberal democracy, under a liberal democracy the vast majority of adults must be eligible to vote, and freedom of political speech and press must be enshrined in the system of law. Thus the United States, for example, would not have qualified for "liberal democracy" status until the 19th amendment was ratified to give women the right to vote and it didn't fully meet the promises of liberal democracy until it guaranteed the franchise to blacks some 40 years ago.

A fundamental part of democracy is the ability of the people to elect and remove their leaders. This democratic movement has spread and now many countries hold such elections.

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The Links between Democracy and Security

In 1994 the Clinton administration endorsed and adopted the idea that there is a link between democracy and security. [23] In his 1994 State of the Union address President Clinton declared that "ultimately the best strategy to insure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democacy elsewhere." [24] A year earlier, Anthony Lake, then President Clinton's assistant for national security affairs, had called for replacing the Cold War strategy of containment with a "strategy of enlargement - enlargement of the world's community of market democracies." [25]

President Bush throughout his presidency has also consistently argued that there is an inextricable link between freedom and peace, and between democracy and security.

The Bush administration and its defenders contend that the push for Arab democracy in the Middle East will not only spread American values but also improve U.S. security. As democracy grows in the Middle East, the thinking goes, the region will stop generating anti-American terrorism. Promoting democracy in the Middle East is therefore not merely consistent with U.S. security goals; it is necessary to achieve them. [26]

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area will cease to create anti-American terrorism. President Bush has confidence that furthering and encouraging democracy in the Middle East, not only coincides with the goals of U.S. security, but is crucial to achieve these goals.

President Bush's confidence in the connection between lack of democracy and terrorism is not restricted to his administration. Throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, Senator John Kerry highlighted the need for more political change in the Middle East as an crucial part of the war on terrorism. Morton Halperin, a main policy figure in the Clinton administration, beliefs that the source of al Qaeda lies in the poverty and inadequate education of countries like; Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan, and were created by the oppressive nature of those countries and can be fought strictly through democratization.

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At present, Islamic democracy is, at least in theory, developed and functional. However, it is less effective in practice.

Authoritarian rulers such as Ja'far Numayri in Sudan and Zia al-Haqq in Pakistan initiated formal programs of Islamization of the law and political system in the 1980s with results that were not encouraging for democracy. A military coup brought a combination of military and civilian Islamists to rule in Sudan in 1989 and despite the proclaimed goal of creating an Islamic democracy, the regime's human rights record in terms of treatment of non-Muslim minorities and Muslim opposition groups is deplorable.^[1]

During its first decade, the Islamic Republic set narrow limitations on political participation. However, the end of the nineties saw the unprecedented presidential election victory of Mohammad Khatami, who had not been favored by the conservative religious establishment. He was reelected by an overwhelming majority again in 2001. Although there are continuing grounds for criticizing Iran in terms of its repression of opposition and minorities, increasing numbers of women and youth are voting in elections. Instead of "one man, one vote, one time," the "one man" is being joined by "one woman" as a voting force. ^[2]

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For this effort, Arab leader and Arab democracy reformers from the United States, Europe and India must work together.

Arab Support for Democracy

Since the 1970's "third wave" of democratization, a myriad of countries have been observed to have a surge in support for governmental democratic structures. Democracy in the middle east is no different from this observable trend.

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Sustaining New Democracies

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The United States as well as the rest of the democratic countries around the world has an important role to play in fostering democracy in the Middle East region, but the task will be slow and difficult given the lack of leverage over key governments in the region. This should not be entered into lightly however as former US interventions in countries to establish democracies have not all been successful and on occasion worsened the situation, such as the 1994 U.S. invasion of Haiti which have led to renewed repression, political chaos, and poor US-Haiti relations. While there are some cases which could be considered situations where U.S. intervention was a positive force in establishing democracies such as Panama where after Noriega was installed, politics in the region had achieved some amount of pluralism. However, it can be said that Panama already had experienced some amount of pluralism before Noriega. The hope with intervention is that the pressure of international response will attenuate the risk of bad actors plotting to overthrow democratic institutions.

In the Middle East

References

1. ↑ Ibid.
2. ↑ Ibid., 26.