NED..Can external actors press regimes to democratize? http://www.demdigest.net/blog/2013/08/waffle-vacillate-fail-can-external-actors-press-regimes-to-democratize/#sthash.JapMt0no.dpuf
“In just the last few weeks, the Russian government has used a show trial to silence a prominent activist, Egypt’s junta (US BACKED) has massacred protesters, Turkey(US BACKED) has cracked down on peaceful dissent, and the rulers of Cambodia and Zimbabwe have stolen elections (on those stolen ellections,see,  Mugabe’s Shadowy Israeli Election “Fixers” http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/08/03/mugabes-shadowy-israeli-election-fixers/  ) — again,” notes a leading observer. “In each case, the Obama administration’s … seeming indifference has infuriated human rights and democracy advocates, who are dismayed by the mismatch between the president’s occasional stirring speech and his everyday lack of action,” Foreign Affairs editor Jonathan Tepperman (cfr's ''paid'' tool) writes in the New York Times. But experts say the likely impact of external pressure is hard to assess, because there is “no comprehensive social science research on whether pushing regimes to democratize or respect human rights,” he observes: The first point these experts emphasize is that strong language — naming and shaming — doesn’t do much on its own. [[[Rhetorical condemnation from Washington, like that aimed at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, can comfort local dissidents.]]]]] And sometimes it changes a regime’s bad behavior in the short term…. According to Larry Diamond* (zionist agent,see. http://thenakedfacts.blogspot.com/2012/10/looking-to-be-western-agent-for-regime.html  http://thenakedfacts.blogspot.com/2013/01/keep-exposing-yourselves-zionists-and.html http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Larry_Diamond ), a Stanford professor and a renowned (scoundrel) expert on democratization, these can include threatening to reduce or suspend aid, downgrade diplomatic ties, or cut back cooperation on things like military exercises. These measures may work if several conditions are met.First, … the target country has to be small and poor, so that losing aid would cause it serious pain. …Diamond argues that it also helps to have lots of connections to the regime in question. …. The more contacts there are between the local government and the outside world, the more levers there are to pull or points on which to apply pressure. Myanmar, meanwhile, which was finally convinced to liberalize by  (waging genocide on muslims and displacing them off mining rich regions) the promise of improved diplomatic and trade ties , shows the value of positive inducements: carrots as well as sticks. “Yet the political scientists who study these questions hasten to point out that you can meet all of these conditions and still fail to effect change,” Tepperman notes. “If the target regime is willing to withstand a lot of pain and wreck its country rather than yield (Zimbabwe), or if it’s rich, powerful and well entrenched (China, Russia, Venezuela), or if it knows that the United States needs it as much as it needs U.S. aid (Saudi Arabia) — then even the harshest forms of inducement are unlikely to accomplish anything.”  RTWT Or, he might have added, if the regime has alternative sources of assistance that minimizes or neutralizes the impact of pressure from the US, EU or other democratic states. While many Western states are committed to promoting (overthrow of ) democracy, authoritarian regimes and other illiberal actors are increasingly engaged in defending autocracy or advancing anti-democratic agendas, from Chavista promotion of authoritarian populism to Gulf states and charities funding Islamist groups across the Middle East (and beyond).  RTWT * by Co-chair of the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies Research Council and co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.