Democracy Promotion to Latin America

Contributors
Nae Edwards
Roberto Fernandez
Lincoln Garrett
Gen Hackman
Tommy Snider
 Case for Latin America
This paper consists of four sections: 1. why the debate community should debate about Latin America, 2. why
democracy promotion is an appropriate mechanism, 3. which countries should be considered for inclusion, and 4.
evidence that demonstrates proof of concept.

The case for debating Latin America is straightforward. The college debate community has not had a resolution
pertaining to Latin America since the 1980’s. Debaters can tell you a lot about Russia, China, North Korea and
Europe, but there is an expertise gap relating to Latin America.

Literature about Latin America is vibrant for two main reasons. First, a large number of articles are responding to
Russia and China’s perceived growing influence in the region. Second, several countries are undergoing political
transitions. Opposition to Maduro in Venezuela, Obama’s opening and Trump’s closing to Cuba, peace negotiations
in Colombia and a new right-wing government in Brazil have generated the literature base typical of strong college
debate resolutions.

The articles related to recent events combine well with a long history of analysis concerning foreign policy and
Latin America, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. When literature bases have historically grounded themes that
can be applied to contemporary events, it produces strong resolutions because it better secures core ground for both
sides. These debates typically concern unilateral intervention vs regionalism or unconditional vs conditional
assistance. On the critical side there is a core debate relating to imperialism and exporting Western models of doing
things.

It became quickly apparent to those working on this paper that there was something to this area that could sustain a
year of debates. The question quickly turned to the most manageable way to access it.
 Democracy Promotion
Two things shaped our thinking at the beginning. The first was that the high school experience with economic
engagement could be improved. This led to a fairly broad search through foreign policy mechanisms. The second
was finding a mechanism could support a passive voice writing of the resolution.

One theme of foreign policy mechanisms that became apparent was that they can largely mean anything. That is
because foreign policy is generally goal-driven, not means-driven. The debate community’s usual high bar for a
term of art with inclusive and exclusive definitions was a tough to one to meet.

Foreign aid and foreign assistance were explored, but largely meant nothing. Same thing for engagement. Economic
engagement and its corollary, development assistance, are somewhat narrower, but are very large and hard to
distinguish from the status quo, posing problems for the Neg. Constructive and diplomatic engagement also have
somewhat clearer definitions, but generally pertain to “adversarial countries” which applies to some countries in
Latin America, but not enough for a year’s worth of debates.

That led to a turn towards democracy promotion. There is obviously a centuries-long conversation relating to the
US, Latin America, foreign policy and democracy. So total literature base in a vacuum was not an issue. Folks first
reaction is likely “democracy promotion can also mean anything.” Hopefully this paper can assuage some concerns.

One metric through which people judge mechanisms is whether it lets the AFF depart from the status quo in a way
that generates meaningful ground? Democracy promotion as an expansive mechanism clearly allows that.

The flip side of an expansive mechanism is when devilish 2A’s produce affirmatives that defend very small changes
to the status quo and topicality does not adequately safeguard the Neg. The democracy component of the mechanism
helps the Neg in this respect. Small Affs that relate to governance, administration, or the economy would lose to the
“Democracy PIC.” This occurred on the 2011-2012 topic about democracy and provided the Neg with sufficient
ground to win while retaining educational value. The literature about US/Russia/China in Latin America concerns
relative influence and governance models which is a broad theme that can be ratcheted down to particular countries
and areas depending on how they fall on the liberal/illiberal governance spectrum. The Aff would still be an outside
intervention into a foreign political situation which creates critiques and “X says no” arguments for the Neg.

The heart of the debate seemed to concern the problematic history of US foreign policy as it relates to drugs, coups,
and counter-revolutionary action, as well as the ability for domestic government to produce governance and
representation in a way that could decrease crime, environmental damage, and instability which would facilitate
growth and the jockeying for influence between the US, Russia and China. Democracy promotion was one of the
few mechanisms that allowed the Aff to tackle these issues across countries while retaining a core set of Neg
arguments and room for innovation.

The above complexity is why democracy assistance is not being suggested. 2011-12 proved the mechanism too
narrow. It generated contrived advantages that the Aff couldn’t do enough to solve, while leaving the Neg little to
say that could survive the fact that the US gives democracy assistance often (it doesn’t really work, which wasn’t
great for the Aff, but wasn’t great for DA’s either).

Democracy promotion is not the direction of the status quo. That helps any topic. Democracy is still a vibrant point
of academic interest. That is the goldilocks zone. Applying old literature to new situations, literature bases
refreshing themselves throughout the year, and you won’t wake up the week before GSU to news of Trump doing
your Aff.

Can democracy promotion mean anything? The answer is most likely no, it cannot. Here is an example, more later
on:
Philippe C. Schmitter 99, “Conceptualizing, Researching & Evaluating Democracy Promotion & Protection,”
http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/id/995/
1. Defining Democracy Promotion & Protection Democracy promotion & protection is a subset of activities in what has been labeled as the international context or
international dimensions of democratization, i.e. all external actors and factors that affect the political regime situation in a specific country. Democracy promotion &
protection can be defined as follows: Democracy promotion & protection consists of all overt and voluntary activities
adopted, supported, and (directly or indirectly) implemented by (public or private) foreign actors explicitly
designed to contribute to the political liberalization of autocratic regimes, democratization of autocratic
regimes, or consolidation of democracy in specific recipient countries. This definition excludes, among other things,
covert activities by external actors (e.g. “quiet” diplomatic efforts or activities of secret services) as well as indirect
activities (e.g. literacy campaigns, improving a population's health, generic forms of propaganda, or promoting
economic development). Their exclusion from the definition of DPP should not be interpreted as implying that they
have no impact on political liberalization, democratization, or consolidation of democracy, but just that they are qualitatively
different in intent and origin. Moreover, the effects of these activities upon regime change are generally very hard or impossible to observe and
analyze. The definition also excludes activities adopted, supported and implemented exclusively by domestic actors. In
addition, it excludes a number of factors of the international context “without agency” that could positively
influence democratization, i.e. all forms of imitation, contagion, learning that emerge from the “normal” transactions
between persons and countries. Our definition of DPP does include a large variety of activities, such as sanctions,
diplomatic protests, threats of military intervention when they are used conditionally upon the democratic behavior of
recipients, activities to promote the observance of human rights, to educate to civic norms, and the transfer of
institutional models - such as supreme courts, legislatures, and electoral and party systems.

The Aff can easily produce a card that says democracy promotion can be anything, however the Neg should be able
to prevail in a T debate with more limiting evidence that divides ground in a better way. These type of T debates that
are not solely settled by interpretation evidence can be good. It easily could be better than the climate and executive
power (substantially increase restrictions leads to so many Affs) or NHI (people had to scrape to get others to allow
2 or 3 Affs compared to just 1) T debates.

The last issue with democracy promotion is its bidirectionality. This will require further research and debate. On the
surface, it may not be the end of the world to let there be a give aid to Venezuela Aff and an invade Venezuela Aff.
The latter being a good idea is doubtful, but maybe it is not. Let’s debate about it.

The topic could be split between positive and negative by writing that into the resolution. That easily could be a
resolution option. It may not be necessary. Give aid but not for democracy, hands off the region and let
China/Russia win in Latin America are all non-politics-based objections that should apply to any Aff that give the
Neg enough ground.
 Passive Voice
In the past many debaters, coaches, and the like have made convincing arguments for why the United States federal
government should no longer be the only acceptable actor for a resolution. In order to address this imperative, this
section will attempt to describe and justify a passive voice rendition of the resolution, which we think will
incentivize argument innovation and take debates in a new interesting direction that does not favor any one side.

What is passive voice?

A grammatical voice describes the relationship between the verb and subject/object of a sentence. In the active
voice, the subject of the sentence is the agent of the action described by the verb. In the passive voice, the object of
the sentence is the recipient of such an action.

For example, “The United States Federal Government should substantially increase statutory and/or judicial
restrictions on the executive power of the President of the United States in one or more of the following areas…” is
written in the active voice. “The USfg” is the subject of the sentence, “increase” is the verb, and “restrictions” is the
object.

In the passive voice, it would be: “Statutory and/or judicial restrictions on the executive power of the President of
the United States should be substantially increased [by the United States federal government] in one or more of the
following areas.” Here the order of the object and subject is reversed, and the subject of the sentence may be omitted
without loss of the statement’s coherence.

Past and possible wordings

Some examples of passive voice resolutions from collegiate debate’s past, among many others, include the
following:

Resolved: That the penal system in the US should be significantly improved. (Fall 1972)
Resolved: That “victimless crimes” should be legalized. (Fall 1973)
Resolved: That compulsory national service for all qualified US citizens is desirable. (1979-1980)
Resolved: That increased restrictions on the civilian possession of handguns in the US would be justified. (Spring
1989)
Resolved: That throughout the United States, more severe punishment for individuals convicted of violent crime
would be desirable. (Fall 1994)
Resolved: That United States military intervention to foster democratic government is appropriate in a post-Cold
War world. (Spring 1994)

These instances indicate that it is possible to craft a passive voice resolution that is not inherently under-limiting. For
this particular topic, we would suggest a wording similar to these:

Resolved: Democracy promotion provided by the United States should be [substantially] increased in one or more of
the following:
Resolved: Democracy promotion enacted by the United States should be [substantially] increased in one or more of
the following:
Resolved: Democracy promotion implemented by the United States should be [substantially] increased in one or
more of the following:

Ground on a passive voice topic

Aff Ground:

Since the subject of the verb is omitted from these wordings, the agent of the affirmative need not be the United
States federal government. We have already seen resolutions like those of the legalization and military presence
topics that similarly implied this by specifying the “United States” as the agent. In addition, by deciding between
terms such as “provided,” “enacted,” or many others, the wording of the resolution may be tailored to address
certain needs or concerns.

This would mean that acceptable agents for advocacy texts are those that are based in the United States (or a part of
the nation rather than state) and capable of substantially increasing democracy promotion. This would include the
USfg but may also extend to NGOs, United States armed forces, and international organizations (such as the WTO,
UN, etc.).

This writing would incentivize affirmatives to endorse methods that restrict the object of the resolution, with actors
that are predictable and debatable (rather than being tangentially topical or atopical affirmatives, a primary incentive
for these affirmatives is that they lend themselves to impact turning framework standards). Affirmative could align
with movements or methods that do not advocate for governmental action while maintaining a meaningful stasis
point that makes Affs germane to increasing democracy promotion in Latin America. This would reduce the quantity
of framework debates surrounding the USfg as an actor and push the negative towards engaging kritikal debate.
Requiring the Aff at least increase the object of the resolution guarantees the Neg could run various counterplans
and kritiks that compete with the Aff as well as intrinsic DAs and specific net benefits. Most if not all of these
arguments would apply to many affirmatives with little to no changes.
An example could be the affirmative drawing ties between the legacy of maroonages linked between the US
and countries such as Brazil as an alternative means of organizing that criticizes current democratic
structures in both places and alternatively affirming the proliferation of maroon communities as a form of
true democracy.
Blesdoe’17 (Ph.D. Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2016 M.A. Geography, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2013. “Marronage as a Past and Present Geography in the Americas” pgs. 34-47.
2017 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/650801/pdf) NAE
In Brazil, maroon communities were called “quilombos,” a word of African origin that came to have significance
across the whole of South America’s largest colony. The ubiquity of quilombos was the result of the fact that slavery
in Brazil extended throughout the entirety of the colonial and national territory (Moura 1993, p 5–6). Found
wherever there was slavery, quilombos represented some of the greatest fears held by the slave-holding elites of
Brazilian society (Fiabani 2005). The reality of quilombo communities was so formidable that a 19th century
Brazilian slave owner described the settlements as “a plague spread to every corner and without remedy. . .[where]
neither adventurers nor discoverers could penetrate” (Moura 1993, p 5 my translation). This quote evidences one of
the central features of quilombos—the ability for these communities to defend themselves against systemic, racist
violence. The “adventurers” and “discoverers” mentioned in the quote were those actors whose activities led to the
usurpation of indigenous lands and the enslavement of Blacks in the mines and plantations of pre-abolition Brazil.
That quilombos were spaces that prevented the spread of these relations is indicative of the significance that
quilombos had for the oppressed sectors of society. Quilombos provided an alternative to the brutality and
domination that typified pre-abolition Brazil. That quilombos were so common further meant that “the black
maroon, the quilombola, therefore, appeared as a signal of permanent rebelliousness against the system that enslaved
him [sic]” (Moura 1993, p 11 my translation). While quilombos were widespread across the Brazilian landscape,
they were all unique in their composition, spatial extent, and subsistence practices. Mountain ranges, swamps,
forests, and arid plains all comprised quilombo topographies, while Clóvis Moura names seven “fundamental” types
of quilombos: agricultural, extractivist, mercantile, mining, pastoral, service, and predatory settlements (Moura
1993, p 32–33). Nevertheless, it is true that some quilombos remain more famous than others, even in the present.
Specifically, Palmares is generally held up as the quintessential quilombo. Palmares, located in the present-day
states of Alagoas and Pernambuco, was founded somewhere between 1600 and 1606, lasted until 1695, and is
estimated to have had upwards of twenty-thousand inhabitants at its peak (Kent 1965, p 173). Aside from its
longevity and high number of members, Palmares is famous for its military prowess and ultimately tragic end.
Facing constant aggressions from both Dutch and Portuguese militaries, the people of Palmares were forced to
constantly defend their territory, such that from 1672–1694, the quilombo was facing a Portuguese military
expedition every fifteen months. In 1695, Palmares was defeated by a Portuguese force of six thousand soldiers who
laid siege to the quilombo for forty-two days, thus ending the existence of the famous community (Kent 1965, p
162). Despite the variability present among the different quilombos, what remained constant throughout all of them
was the intransigent insistence on living life free from the violence and domination that typified slave society. By
bringing together runaway slaves, free Blacks, indigenous peoples, and poor whites, quilombos created territories
that were fundamentally at odds with the hierarchies created in Western society and imposed on the Brazilian
landscape. These communities showed that the most oppressed components of Brazilian society were both willing
and able to create ways of life that rejected the violent ordering to which Brazilian elites sought to subject the
masses. In short, what all quilombolas sought was a radical break with dominant Brazilian society and the creation
of a new way of relating to the world. By demonstrating that the “invisible” sectors of society could create viable
territories, quilombos ushered in some of Brazil’s first Black Geographies. During the late 20th century, Black
Brazilian activists drew on this legacy of struggle to articulate their dissatisfaction with the ingrained racism of
Brazilian society, to demand explicit rights in the new Constitution of 1988, and to create a common language of
territorial struggle among the oppressed sectors of society (Covin 2006). marronage’s significance in 20th century
brazil In the late 1970s and 1980s, the Brazilian Black Movement—a coalition of disparate social movements and
activists— mobilized against the country’s Military Dictatorship, which had seized power in a 1964 coup d’état. The
Military Dictatorship prided itself on the idea of the Racial Democracy—the notion that Brazil was a land of racial
tolerance and harmony.3 The government sought to propagate this notion to the extent that it forbade discussion of
race or racial inequality under penalty of sedition (Alberto 2011, p 249). Despite the government’s insistence on
domestically and internationally projecting the image of a racially harmonious nation, Brazil’s Black Movement
sought to address the realities of racial violence in the country. In their efforts to create momentum behind their
demand that Brazil, as a nation, confront its systemic racism, the Black Movement drew on figures of Black struggle
to whom Brazilians could look and with whom they could identify. The Movement attempted to unite Black
Brazilians behind a common identity rooted in the memory of slavery and resistance to its continuing effects (Rios
2012, p 55). Rejecting the fallacy of the Racial Democracy, which they saw as serving to silence discourse on racial
inequality, this movement argued that Brazil remained steeped in racism. The Movement demonstrated these
problems by pointing to the empirical violence faced by Afro-Brazilians, such as police harassment, access to and
treatment within the workplace, access to education, and political representation. Not content to simply critique the
problems faced by Black Brazilians, the Black Movement sought to celebrate Black struggle and highlight both the
potential for, and reality of, Black political subjectivity. They drew on the spatial figure of Palmares—Brazil’s most
famous quilombo— to re-define Brazilian history and who they considered true national heroes. By acknowledging
Palmares as a quilombo community and historical figures like Zumbi (Palmares’ last leader) and Luiza Mahim (a
Muslim slave leader and participant in the famous 1835 Malê Revolt) as Black heroes, the Black Movement
celebrated territories and individuals that lived and died fighting anti-Black violence (Rios 2012, p 53–54). By
commemorating the struggles of those that gave their lives fighting racial domination and constructing autonomous
Black spaces, the Movement demonstrated the continued relevance of Black resistance and creativity amidst a racist
society. Like Palmares, Zumbi, and Luiza Mahim, the Black Movement argued that Black Brazilians needed to
continually fight the racist elements of society. Quilombos and quilombo leaders provided a legacy on which Black
Brazilians could draw nearly a century after slavery had been abolished. A new kind of national Black identity was
formed in Brazil during this time. This identity at once called attention to the inherent racism of the Racial
Democracy and Brazilian society and created a language around which Blacks from all around Brazil could
organize. Brazil’s Black Movement used a variety of methods and media through which to defend and valorize
Black life. From the “black protests,” which sought to take back public space and make the lived realities of Afro-
Brazilians visible to the country (Rios 2012, p 43), to the focus on rural Black communities who evidenced unique
forms of subsistence and governance (French 2006, p 341), to the demand that the newly emerging Brazilian
government recognize the legacies of structural racism in the country, Brazil’s Black Movement of the late 20th
century made Black life a central issue in Brazilian society. Abdias do Nascimento—a leading figure in the Black
Movement—named this approach “quilombismo,” which he defined as the “erection of a society founded on justice,
equality and respect for all human beings; on freedom; a society whose intrinsic ature makes economic or racial
exploitation impossible” (Nascimento 1980b, p 160). For Nascimento, quilombismo took account of the violence
and destruction done in the name of progress and modernity and rooted itself in the liberation of those peoples that
suffered as a result of this devastation (Nascimento 1980b, p 148). In short, quilombismo signified creating spaces
of life and freedom through the active agency of those considered subhuman. 20th century quilombismo was the
continuation of the Black Geographies initiated centuries prior. This required paying attention to the plight of
indigenous groups as well as recognizing that Brazil defined itself on de-valorizing the country’s African heritage
(Nascimento 1980b, p 141–142). Above all, this meant establishing spaces and subjectivities that not only
celebrated, but propagated Black life. Through the organizing efforts of the Black Movement and placing the
language of quilombismo in national discourse, the idea of the quilombo came to have significant effects for
Brazilian Blacks as Brazil transitioned to civilian rule.
Neg Ground:

Topicality arguments revolving around the other words in the resolution would be sufficient to safeguard the
negative from affirmatives that refuse the terms of the resolution or specify nontopical agents (such as sovereign
nations other than the United States, persons, corporations, etc.). T-“increase” and T-“democracy promotion” are
more than sufficient to check tangentially topical or atopical affirmatives. T-“substantially”/“provided by”/“United
States” check nontopical actors. In addition, presumption and extra/effects topicality arguments would provide
substantive and relevant debates about the mechanisms of an Aff.

Core negative ground such as intrinsic DA’s would be preserved since the affirmative is obligated to increase
democracy promotion in one of the topic areas. This would exclude certain iterations of the Politics DA, but we
believe the benefits may outweigh the costs. Beyond preserving core topic ground, this wording also opens the floor
to plenty of specific DA’s regarding the consequences of actions carried out by agents other than the USfg.

CP debates may be the most exciting field created by this wording. Alongside a version of the states counterplan, the
Neg would have more room to run creative counterplans that will engender discussions about which mechanisms
(not limited to those of governments) are most capable of solving the Aff’s advantages. This wording preserves
ground for process, advantage, and agent CP’s that the teams can predict and prepare in the preseason as well as
innovate in over the course of the year.

Kritik debates would not change much from the perspective of the negative. One notable change would be that there
would be fewer state good/bad debates. They may still occur, given the Aff could still specify the USfg as the actor,
but they would be less frequent and, in their place, we would see nuanced debates about the merits and history of
various actors that could increase American democracy promotion in Latin America. We believe that these debates
would breathe new life into clash debates that have become relatively stale to judges, coaches, and debaters.
Kritikal teams have a large variety of neg ground that critiques the forms of liberalism and democracy as a whole
present in places such as Brazil thus building a much more robust liberalism good/bad debate more specified to the
countries chosen due to the amount of robust literature. This piece of evidence shown below indicates literature
indicting democracy promotion from multiple perspectives such as anti-blackness, capitalism, and securitization all
of which becomes even more prominent under a topic that situates the negative as always being allowed to indict
democracy from whichever perspective.
De Silva 14 (Denise, Professor and Director of The Social Justice Institute (the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice) at the
University of British Columbia. Before joining UBC, she was an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, at the University of California, San Diego
and, from 2010 to 2015, she held the inaugural chair in Ethics, at the School of Business and Management and the directorship of the Centre for
Ethics and Politics, at Queen Mary University of London., “No-bodies: law, raciality and violence,” Meritum – Belo Horizonte – v. 9 – n. 1 – p.
119-162 – jan./jun. 2014, http://www.fumec.br/revistas/meritum/article/viewFile/2493/1483)NAE
Anyone who lived in the city of Rio de Janeiro’s economically dispossessed areas (favelas and housing projects), in
the 1960s and 1970s grew up in spaces where the forces of law enforcement – Rio de Janeiro state’s civil and
military police – had a more consistent presence than the state’s biopolitical apparatuses. Because the armed
resistance to the military dictatorship recruited primarily among the educated middle class, none of us ever imagined
that the state’s self-preserving forces (army, air force or navy), even under a state of emergency, would be deployed
in our neighbourhoods. Not until recently, that is. Over the past few years, the Brazilian army has been called to act
as an agent of law enforcement on a number of occasions. In early 2006, it happened because some time in early
March or late in the previous month, weapons were stolen from an army facility in Rio de Janeiro. A few days later,
without a declaration of emergency, the Brazilian army was deployed in the city – about 1,600 troops occupied ten
favelas in Rio de Janeiro. After less than two weeks, the federal troops departed the city, with the stolen weapons,
leaving at least one person dead, publicly denigrated in the national press but without any public calls from the left
for a revolutionary response or from the left or the right for the return of the rule of law.40 Under what authority
could the self-preserving forces of the state ‘legitimately’ be deployed within national boundaries without an official
suspension of the rule of law, a public declaration of the state of emergency? Whether a ‘global society’
(cosmopolitan or fragmented) or a new empire describes the present global configuration, there is no question that,
in the past 20 years or so, states have been busy assembling the neoliberal juridical-economic program that governs
all of them. The directives of this ‘global contract’, or the global mandate, found in the agreements setting up the
multilateral bodies (such as the APEC, Mercosur or the European Union), have instituted the global free
marketplace: economic reforms (de-regulamentation, elimination of trade barriers and stimulus to private
investment); inclusive democracy (measures that expand citizenship rights through mechanisms that promote the
inclusion of women, people of colour and other socially excluded groups, and the protection of human rights); and
security architectures (such as Plan Colombia and the Merida Initiative, which includes military [financial,
personnel, weapons, and intelligence] aid).41 The contradictions of neoliberal capitalism are both more elusive and
more complex than classical historical materialism could have anticipated. For instance, when looked separately it is
impossible to imagine how, for instance, working-class black youth in Brazil might benefit from inclusive
democracy (such as affirmative action policies) if the economic reforms had not created a situation of precarious
(‘flexible-’, sub-, or un-) employment for their parents. Furthermore, the same activists and intellectuals that attack
economic reforms also celebrate the inclusive democracy measures, such as recognition of indigenous land rights,
the creation of institutional means to address the effect of gender subjugation and recognition of the rights of
children. More importantly, because economic reforms have received more scholarly and media attention, much of
the reshaping of ignored. How the global mandate functions as new configuration of the global political scene only
becomes evident, I think, if one looks simultaneously at the intersection of the three moments. Unfortunately, I do
not have space to develop this argument here. Let me just say that it speaks directly to the fact that, in Latin America
and the Caribbean and elsewhere, the number of young men and women in the sphere of narco-trafficking has grown
exponentially over the past 20 years. Perhaps the least exposed dimension of the neoliberal program is the fact that,
while the state everywhere has dramatically reduced their presence in the economy, the assembling of the juridical
architecture of free trade has also included measures that allow it to play a large role in law enforcement. For almost
eight years, the architectures and procedures of national security have become an unescapable fact in the United
States. Built under the claim that it was necessary for protection from foreign threats, this enormous apparatus –
which is a good example of how the state has not shrunk under the global mandate – has recently shifted its targets
from the phantasmagoric ‘terrorist’ toward the ubiquitous ‘undocumented immigrant’, which it seeks along the
country’s borders, in rural areas, and in large and small cities. Following the security turn, the Brazilian government
began building a ‘homeland security’ apparatus of its own with the launching of the National Program of Public
Security with Citizenship (Programa National de Segurança Pública com Cidadania, or PRONASCI), which
includes 94 projects to be managed in partnerships formed between the federal, state, city governments and
economically dispossessed communities. According to the Ministry of Justice, the program is a unique ‘initiative in
the confrontation with criminality in the country. The project articulates security policies with social initiatives; [it]
prioritises prevention and seeks to reach the causes of violence, without relinquishing the strategies necessary to
ensure social order and public security.’ On the website, the highlights (what the Ministry of Justice probably finds
most attractive to the public) of the project include two social actions: ‘Women of Peace’, designed to train women
to educate their communities about the ills of violence and ‘Protejo’ (Project for the Protection of Youth in
Vulnerable Territories), which ‘focuses on citizenship formation … through sports, cultural and educational
activities’. Most of the mentioned initiatives, which include the National Security Force (Força Nacional de
Segurança Pública), an elite squad created in 2004, are directed to the training and protection of police officers and
other law enforcement agents.42 What justifies this conflation of law enforcement (state-level policing) and self-
preserving (national security) forces? When commenting on actions by drug dealers in January 2007, Brazil’s
president, Luis Inacio (Lula) da Silva, deploys the familiar trope of the ‘enemy within’ to justify this reconfiguring
of the country’s forces: ‘This … cannot be treated as common crime. This is terrorism and it should be treated with a
strong political gesture and the strong hand of the Brazilian State.’ How do the actions themselves, the killing by
drug dealers of favelas’ residents, authorise the elimination of the distinction between ‘crime’ and ‘terrorism’ – a
distinction that holds because the latter has been usually circumscribed to attacks that target the state? While
President Lula did not find it necessary to fill in the blanks, to specify how the distinction between ‘crime’ and
‘terrorism’ was breached, he mentions all-too-familiar sociological explanations for crime to describe what he calls
‘terrorist actions’: If there is disaggregation in the family, if the father and the mother don’t get along, everything
will be difficult … This violence results from accumulated historical errors by the whole society, it should take
responsibility and help the state, local, and federal government to find a definitive solution. The solution he
introduces in this speech was the creation of a National Security Force, a federal police force, the function of which
is to help Rio de Janeiro’s state police. Why? ‘Because,’ the Brazilian president states, ‘we have to guarantee the
right of free and honest men to leave their homes in the morning and return in the evening. We cannot allow
disturbance at home, disturbance in the states. This is not a man’s, a party’s task. This is the task of the whole
nation.’43 What he articulates is the moral mandate of the nation and the charge of the state to protect ‘free and
honest men’ from drug-related violence of the ‘criminals’, which he attributes, as if a good sociologist, to the
‘disaggregation of the family’. The problem, however, resides in how this distinction between ‘free and honest men’
and the ‘marginal’ already justifies the existence and the deployment of the forces of law enforcement – the task of
which is to protect citizens from one another. What, then, explains the excess, the creation of an extra arm – the
National Security Force – when increasing the numbers of law enforcement officers would be enough? This excess,
I think – the deployment of the self-preserving forces of the state in the favelas – is prefigured in sociological
rendering of raciality, which produces favelas – any community, neighbourhood or country, for that matter – as
affectable (pathological) territories, as moral regions ruled by necessitas. The same field of studies that provides us
with crime statistics, usually used in claims for more state (juridico or biopolitical) presence, has also provided us an
account of racial subjugation that writes cultural (moral) difference as an expression and producer of the ‘social ills’
or ‘social dislocations’ (‘crime’, ‘female-headed households’, ‘unstable families’, ‘drugs’, ‘welfare dependence’,
etc) found in these territories. From Gunnar Myrdal’s use of Richard Wright’s ‘Bigger Thomas’ to describe the ‘a-
social’ social subject, he found ‘walking the streets unemployed; standing around on the corners; or laughing,
playing, and fighting in the joints and poolrooms everywhere in the Negro slums of American cities’, and
demonstrate ‘a general recklessness about their own and others’ personal security and property, which gives one a
feeling that carelessness, asociality, and fear have reached their zenith’.44 From mid-1940s sociological studies,
through William Julius Wilson’s neo-liberal trilogy,45 into the latest writings on criminology and ‘gang’ activity,
this ‘marginal’ figure has been consistently written as a product of the social conditions found in the places
inhabited, as Kenneth Clark states, by ‘the pathologies of the ghetto community [which] perpetuate themselves
through cumulative ugliness, deterioration and isolation and strengthen the Negro’s sense of worthlessness’.4 Not
only is the pathology of the ghetto self-perpetuating, but one kind of pathology breeds another. The child born in the
ghetto is more likely to come into a world of broken homes and illegitimacy; and this family and social instability is
conducive to delinquency, drug addiction, and criminal violence. Neither instability nor crime can be controlled by
police vigilance or by reliance on the alleged deterring forces of legal punishment, for the individual crimes are to be
understood more as symptoms of the contagious sickness of the community itself than as the result of inherent
criminal or deliberate viciousness.47
 Which Countries
Typically, topics aren’t planned enough around things going wrong. They are written under enormous time pressure;
the internet is big and scary. Things can go sideways. Hedging one’s bets is advisable. Which is a long way to say:
enough time has not been dedicated to know for certain if a country is a great, good, fair or bad fit for a democracy
promotion mechanism.

The next phase of the process if this controversy is selected would revolve around two things. One, are qualifiers
needed to narrow democracy promotion? Two, further vetting of the countries.

Countries that were explored during the writing of this paper: Cuba, Mexico, the Northern Triangle, Brazil,
Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Haiti. Evidence for some is provided below.

A rough ranking of the countries based in not enough research at this point:
Tier 1 (likely worthy of inclusion): Venezuela and Cuba
Tier 2 (probably worthy of inclusion): Brazil, the Northern Triangle, Colombia
Tier 3 (more ambiguous): Haiti, Mexico, Argentina
Tier 4 (most likely leave out): Bolivia, Peru, Chile.
 Areas of Controversy
Rule of Law
Recent trends in many Latin American countries are beginning to disrupt a long period of stability and democratic
consolidation. Democratic norms and institutions are facing opposition that threaten many democratic countries to
backslide in to authoritarianism. The first institution that gets challenged and eroded is the rule of law. While the
literature about the relationship of Latin America and democratic rule of law are both deep and historic, the most
recent literature focuses on two primary themes that generate ground: judicial independence and organized crime.
First, Judicial Independence – One of the most significant contributors to the reduction of inequality in Latin
American was the creation, and strengthening, of judicial institutions. The autonomy and authority of judicial
institutions played a major role in the positive trends towards equal economic and legal inclusion. Judges were able
to uphold and protect key issues such as minority rights, sexual and reproductive rights, and social rights. Recent
trends towards authoritarianism have allowed various leaders to exploit deficiencies with the judicial system and
begin the process of capturing the judiciary. The result has been a process of diluting judicial power and rolling back
progress made in social and economic spheres.
Affirmatives will be able to garner advantages based on both general protection/creation of democratic institutions,
but also the strengthening/creation of specific country’s judicial institutions. Some of the implications of these
advantages include, but aren’t limited to structural violence, exercising of power, consolidation of authoritarianism,
and the legitimacy of state-based institutions (beyond just the courts). The central roles played by the judicial
institutions allow for a diverse amount of possible internal link scenarios that don’t compromise limits.

Second, Organized Crime – The precarious position of democracy in Latin America has presented an opportunity
for organized crime to flourish. The recent trend towards backsliding has significantly eroded several state’s ability
maintain the security of its populace. Criminal organization of varying size and structure engage in activities that
range from local extortion to transnational drug and human trafficking. These organizations have not only secured
“turf,” but they have also functionally taken territory away from governments. Some criminal organizations go so
far as to capture state activities and run them themselves. This has resulted in the state losing its monopoly on force
within their territory. Without maintaining a monopoly on force, the state is unable to investigate and sanction crime
within it’s borders, which undermines the foundation of the rule of law.
Affirmatives will have the ability to garner advantages from both specific organizations (cartels) or organized crime
throughout a specific country. The immense size and reach of organized crime will allow for debates to be more
specific than generic “cartels bad” scenarios. Some of these scenarios include, but aren’t limited to systemic
violence experienced by populations, corruption, human trafficking, kidnapping/murder/intimidation of activist (the
systemic murdering of environmental leaders in 2017), and drug trafficking.
Some of those scenarios involve the War on Drugs, which some people may worry overlaps too much with the
2014-2015 legalization topic. There are two reasons to not be too concerned about this. First is having the topic be
focused on Latin America will force a more nuanced debate. Second is the recent rise of strategies of, and increase
in the use of, state capture.

Spheres of Influence
Historically, the United States has been the most influential country in Latin America. However there have been two
recent trends that could cause a fundamental shift in Latin American influence: the retreat of the United States and
the rise of competition by other great powers. China is the primary challenger to the United States in Latin America.
Initially, China’s engagement in the region emphasized investment and trade. As the economic relationship between
China and Latin America grew stronger, China began to position itself as an alternative to the United States.
Recently, Russia has begun to join in the competition for influence in Latin America. That said, competition
between the United States and China will have the largest influence in the future of Latin America. While this great
power competition is taking place across the region, recent events in Venezuela is a clear example of how the
competition can manifest. China has provided economic, and political resources to maintain the Maduro regime.
Russia has allegedly established a military base in Venezuela to deter the United States from militarily intervening
against Maduro.
Evidence
 Generic Things about DP
Progressive defend democracy promotion
Rosa Brooks 12, Georgetown law professor, Winter, “Democracy Promotion: Done Right, A Progressive Cause,”
https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/23/democracy-promotion-done-right-a-progressive-cause/
Democracy: A Human Fail-Safe
The events of the last year make this as good a time as any to ask ourselves (again) what place democracy promotion should have in our foreign policy. Can
democracy promotion be saved, in the face of all our mistakes, all our inconsistencies, all our false starts,
hypocrisies, and hesitations? I think the answer is yes. Democracy promotion should remain a vital part of our
foreign policy—not despite our mistakes, inconsistencies, false starts, hypocrisies, and hesitations, but because of them. We should
embrace and promote democracy not because it is perfect or because we are perfect, but because democracy remains
the only political system yet devised that builds in a capacity for self-correction. Start by going back to first principles.
Democracy is premised on an idea that remains radical in many parts of the world: the idea that every human being
counts, that we all have a right to participate in making the decisions that will affect us, that no person or group has a permanent
monopoly on political wisdom. Political theorists can debate whether civil and human rights require democracy to protect them or whether democracies must protect
civil and human rights in order to sustain themselves. For our purposes, it is probably enough to say that the idea of democracy carries with it at least some minimal
assumptions about rights and the rule of law: Democracy cannot thrive without at least some degree of freedom of expression and assembly, and it requires at least
some minimal institutional arrangements to sustain it (courts, legislatures, and so on). How much free expression (or judicial independence, or parliamentary power) is
“enough” is hard to say; certainly, reasonably stable and contented democracies have answered this question in different ways. But the basic contours of
the idea remain both clear and sound. If everyone counts, then everyone must be allowed to speak and organize and
assemble with others; everyone must have a shot at arguing with and persuading others. This is how ideas emerge,
struggle for life, gain prominence, and are tested. Some survive; some vanish; some fade for a time and re-emerge
again later on. Democracy is a vision of governance that rests equally upon the conviction that worthy ideas can
come from anyone, and upon the conviction that humans are inherently fallible . Pernicious ideas can also come from anyone, and
there will be times when pernicious ideas will dominate our politics and our policies. We will get things wrong, repeatedly. And this is why we need democracy.
Only if we build into our political systems a capacity for change and self-correction, a capacity for new ideas to
emerge and old ones to be rejected, can we hope to make it through the inevitably recurring dark periods. This is
why progressives should care about promoting democracy: not out of any triumphalist conviction that we
(America, the West) are the best of the best, but rather out of humility. We—and our American democracy—
are manifestly imperfect. We more or less wiped out our continent’s indigenous population and marginalized the
survivors. We enslaved millions of our fellow human beings, denied women the right to hold property and vote, and
withheld basic civil rights from African Americans. We have made progress, but it has been slow and uneven, and as a nation we’re hardly out
of the woods. We incarcerate a higher percentage of our population than any other country, and felony disenfranchisement laws continue to deny the vote to millions
of mostly black men. We have not yet found a way to solve the problem of money in politics; as wealth inequalities grow, we increasingly inhabit a democracy in
which some are distinctly more equal than others. Here, ironically, our own free-expression doctrines have come back to bite us; in 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that
limits on corporate campaign spending amount to infringements on the free-expression rights of corporations. Our democracy remains deeply flawed,
and continues to produce bad policies with impressive regularity. The Bush Administration’s pursuit of democracy through military force
was one of those bad ideas our democracy managed to produce. Our (thankfully brief) official embrace of torture was another. Our democracy enabled all
of it—but our democracy also ultimately enabled its repudiation. Democracy, after all, has allowed us to change our
Constitution repeatedly over time to create a more inclusive polity. Democracy has enabled and empowered political
extremism, but it has also allowed us to protect moderates and minorities. Democracy let us start foolish wars, but it
also let us elect leaders capable of stopping them. In this sense, democracy is an inevitable concomitant to a belief in human fallibility. And it
is on this basis that progressives should champion democracy: because democracy is the only form of governance to
enshrine the capacity for self-correction, debate, and argument. Democracy is what lets us struggle through our
mistakes and learn. Democracy is no guarantor of wise political decision-making, but lack of democracy correlates
with stagnation and conflict. There is ample empirical evidence for this claim: Democracies are far more likely
than autocracies or failed states to be prosperous, stable, and safe. Democracies form the backbone of the international institutions
that, while imperfect, have helped minimize and manage conflict since World War II. Democracies produce and export far fewer violent extremists than repressive
societies. This understanding of democracy suggests that promoting democracy abroad can be both principled and pragmatic. Democracy is a human fail-safe. Things
can go badly wrong in democracies, but it is hard for them to go badly wrong forever. A Humbler, More Patient Power This
approach to democracy
promotion is the polar opposite of Bush-era triumphalism, and it has certain practical corollaries. If we support
democracy because we’re imperfect, it follows that the project of promoting democracy abroad needs to be
undertaken with honesty, humility, patience, and realism. Honesty involves acknowledging our own past mistakes and hypocrisies, and
admitting that we will make new mistakes in the future. Humility is related—we still have not solved all our problems here at home, and it would indeed be hubristic
to imagine that we can solve someone else’s problems with speed or ease. This point has been made before by many thoughtful commentators, but it bears additional
repetition. To put it bluntly, when it comes to fostering democracy abroad, we really don’t know what we’re doing much of the time. What sort of democracy is best?
What sort of electoral and party system? What checks and balances? What rights, for whom, how understood? What role does support for civil society play, and how
shall we identify and define “civil society”? What role do legal and judicial institutions play in buttressing nascent democracies? Can we create that most elusive thing
of all, “political will”? How should these challenges be prioritized? We often offer an a-cultural, technocratic approach to these and a multitude of other issues, and
yet we know remarkably little about what is useful and what is not. There is no one more thoughtful on these issues than Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, who concludes ruefully in his book, Critical Mission: Essays on Democracy Promotion, that “we are still largely groping in the
semi-darkness, bumping into a lot of things, gradually discerning the outlines of the major pieces of furniture in the room, and hoping to do more good than harm.” I
would add that we usually do most harm when we are most convinced we are doing good. (Consider Latin America in the 1980s, or Iraq in 2003.) Progressives’
approach to democracy promotion also needs to be more patient. Too often, we fall into one of two equal and
opposite errors when contemplating undemocratic societies. Either we fool ourselves into thinking that a decade or
so of carefully tailored aid packages, diplomacy, and technical assistance will produce “democracy” in short order
(which virtually never happens), or we become cynical and despondent when things fail to change on schedule, and
conclude instead that the society at issue is somehow “not ready” for democracy (the powerful will resist it; the
powerless don’t want it), so we might as well give up and simply accept the repressive status quo. It’s worth recalling that
our own democracy was hardly created overnight. American democracy didn’t come about in a decade or two thanks to generous aid from foreign benefactors. It
didn’t develop as a result of ten years of technical assistance supplied by well-meaning international bureaucrats or nicely packaged loans from the World Bank. On
the contrary. It was a long hard slog from ancient Athens to the Magna Carta, from the English Bill of Rights to the Declaration of Independence, from abolitionism to
the Nineteenth Amendment. It’s still a long hard slog today, full of backsliding. And if it took centuries of struggle to get to the messy and imperfect form of
democracy we have now, why imagine that other societies can transition or transform into democracies overnight? Granted, modern communications and
transportation technologies have accelerated the pace of cultural change, but enduring change is still harder and slower than we like to think. The World Bank’s 2011
World Development Report offers some cautionary numbers: Looking at the time it took the twentieth century’s “fastest reformers” to achieve “basic governance
transformations,” the report concludes that on average, it took the 20 fastest-performing states 27 years to begin to get a serious grip on corruption, 36 years to achieve
basic government effectiveness, and 41 years to achieve a basic rule-of-law culture. If we care about promoting democracy, we need to accept that gradualism isn’t
necessarily a cop-out (though it can be); much of the time, it’s a simple recognition that rushing democracy sometimes ends up undermining it. Finally,
our
approach to democracy promotion abroad needs to be realistic with regard to domestic constraints as well. Our own
democracy has produced, at most, a fickle consensus in favor of democracy promotion. Pragmatically speaking, this
has meant that political will has been uneven, and funding inconsistent. We may recognize that promoting
sustainable democratic societies abroad is a long-term and expensive project, but we must also recognize that our
own democracy has shown little talent or appetite for long-term, expensive projects. On one level, everyone knows this; but on
another level, our democracy- promotion apparatus, and the people who work within it, consistently ignore it. We routinely plan programs that we know will require
multiyear funding to be sustainable, even when we also know perfectly well that such funding is unlikely to materialize. This is counterproductive, and has left many
fledgling democratic societies strewn with the wreckage of abandoned projects: prisons dependent on electronic security measures that fall apart when foreign
benefactors stop paying for a steady supply of power; legislative reform efforts that produce volumes of complex new commercial codes that no one has the money to
print and distribute; and so on. These abandoned projects often end up wasting time and money, and they leave behind bitterness and cynicism, not hope or new
capacities. Principles Into Practice Truly
accepting the low likelihood of sustained funding would lead to a very different
approach to democracy-promotion projects. We would abandon resource-intensive projects and focus instead only
on those about which we can affirmatively answer a very simple question: If this project runs for a year and is then
abandoned, will it still have done more good than harm? Sometimes—such as when a project focuses on providing
local personnel with key skills—the answer may be yes. Other times, it will be no, and we should cease and desist.
Being unable to do something ourselves doesn’t mean we can’t help others do something themselves, of course.
Diplomacy, both private and public, remains a powerful and relatively low-cost tool for supporting democratic
reforms. The American private sector can also play a useful role. But we do need a more thoughtful and principled
approach for deciding when and how we should get directly involved in democracy promotion in a particular
society, and when we should remain in the role of sympathetic bystander. So how’s Obama doing? The Bush Administration largely
made a hash of democracy promotion, despite recent revisionist attempts to claim credit for the Arab Spring. Has Obama done any better, so far? On the whole, yes. It
took a while—at first, the Administration’s approach to democracy promotion could be most generously characterized as mendacious avoidance—but by the late
spring of 2011 Obama had found his way to a sober, principled stance: It’s not America that put people into the streets of Tunis and Cairo—it was the people
themselves who launched these movements, and it’s the people themselves that must ultimately determine their outcome. Not every country will follow our particular
form of representative democracy, and there will be times when our short-term interests don’t align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region. But we can, and
we will, speak out for a set of core principles… [We oppose] the use of violence and repression… [support] a set of universal rights… [and] support political and
economic reform. Obama’s May 2011 speech was a good one—an excellent one, in fact—though its subtler messages were almost entirely overshadowed by a brief
reference to the appropriate borders for a Palestinian state. Putting our principles into practice will be an enormous challenge—and so far, the jury is still out on
whether the Obama Administration is truly serious about the project. It should be—it can be. But will it be?

Realists talk about it

Stephen M. Walt 16. Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University, 4-25-2016.
"Why Is America So Bad at Promoting Democracy in Other Countries?." Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/25/why-is-america-so-bad-at-promoting-democracy-in-other-countries/
So if promoting democracy is desirable, but force is not the right tool, what is? Let me suggest two broad
approaches. The first is diplomacy. When there is a genuine, significant, and committed indigenous movement in
favor of democracy — as was the case in Eastern Europe during the “velvet revolutions” or in Myanmar today —
powerful outsiders can use subtler forms of influence to encourage gradual transitions . The United States has
done this successfully on a number of occasions (e.g., South Korea, the Philippines, etc.) by being both persistent
and patient and using nonmilitary tools such as economic sanctions. In these cases, the pro-democracy movement had
been building for many years and enjoyed broad social support by the time it gained power . Relying on diplomacy may not
be as exciting as the “shock and awe” of a military invasion, but it’s a lot less expensive and a lot more likely to
succeed. The second thing we could do is set a better example. America’s democratic ideals are more likely to be
emulated by others if the United States is widely regarded as a just, prosperous, vibrant, and tolerant society, instead
of one where inequality is rampant, leading politicians are loudmouthed xenophobes, the prison population is the
world’s largest, and airports and other public infrastructure are visibly decaying, yet no one seems able to do much
about it. When millions of qualified citizens are excluded from voting, or when a handful of billionaires and other moneyed interests exert a
disproportionate and toxic effect on U.S. politics, it is hardly surprising that other societies find America’s professed ideals less appealing than
they once were. Add in Guantánamo, targeted killings, Abu Ghraib, overzealous NSA surveillance, and the reluctance
to hold powerful people accountable for their misdeeds, and you end up with a pretty tarnished brand. In short,
the United States will do a better job of promoting democracy in other countries if it first does a better job of living
up to its ideals here at home. The necessary reforms are not going to be easy — and I have no magic formula for achieving
them — but reforming the United States should be just a tad easier than trying to create a robust democracy in
Afghanistan, Yemen, or any of the other places where we’ve been flailing for a decade or more. Building a
better America would also permit more Americans to lead prosperous, proud, secure, and bountiful lives . Maybe I’m
dreaming, but might doing more to improve the lives of Americans here at home also be the best way to enhance
democracy’s prospects abroad?

There will be a debate about domestic reform and credibility impacting the effectiveness of
the plan
Rob Jenkins 17, Professor of Political Science, Hunter College & The Graduate Center, City University of New
York., 1-19-2017, "Regrettably, America’s Foreign Aid Program Must Exit the Democracy-Promotion Business,"
Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, http://www.roosevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu/?forum-
post=regrettably-americas-foreign-aid-program-must-exit-democracy-promotion-business
Enacting major public policy changes in the first hundred days of a new administration is usually a more difficult feat than those who propose
such reforms acknowledge. But President-elect Trump has demonstrated a decided lack of patience for drawn-out procedures. He plans to repeal
his predecessor’s signature piece of legislation, Obamacare, immediately upon taking power – even without having specified what will replace it.
So it is not inconceivable that in its first hundred days, the new administration could initiate, and substantially
execute, a major change to America’s foreign aid policy – one that Mr. Trump’s arrival in office will have all but
necessitated: the U.S. government must cease operating foreign-assistance programs for the promotion of
democracy and good governance in aid-recipient countries. Existing funding for these initiatives should be
redirected to more conventional development activities, such as support for primary education, agricultural
development, disease-prevention, and so forth. The case for scaling back U.S. assistance for democracy
promotion and governance reform under Trump is purely pragmatic . Research has consistently shown that
reform programs in developing countries are most effective when aid-recipient governments “own” and genuinely
believe in the policy agendas their donors have urged them to adopt. And a crucial influence on this level of
commitment is the credibility of donor governments with respect to the reform measures they promote .
Denmark’s assistance to social-protection and gender-equality initiatives is regarded credibly by developing country
governments because Danish national policy has shown itself committed to both objectives in practice . Germany’s
success with industrial apprenticeship programs has lent credibility to its efforts to promote technical and vocational
education reforms in recipient countries. Not surprisingly, the same logic applies to the democracy and governance
sector of international development: how aid-recipient governments regard their donors’ records matters. The
British government’s police-reform programs in several post-conflict countries have been generally well received, if
not always fully effective, because of Britain’s positive record of humane policing. Unfortunately, when it comes to
democratic governance, the United States under President Trump will lack this crucial element of credibility .
Trump’s campaign and his transition team have contradicted virtually every key element of the United States
Agency for International Development’s 2013 “Strategy on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance.” USAID
support for elections, for instance, stresses the need to promote fair rules for determining voter eligibility and for
impartially administering elections. And yet, the election that brought Trump to power took place after
strenuous efforts by state-level authorities controlled by his party to restrict citizens’ ability to exercise their
franchise. That such efforts were directed at localities where minority voters are concentrated was noted by a federal
appeals court, and yet the US judicial system appears incapable of preventing the spread of these practices. This is
all on top of the norm-violating practices engaged in by candidate Trump : encouraging violence at campaign
rallies, threatening to jail his opponent, and stating that he might not abide by the election results. Had these actions
occurred in a country such as India, where election rules prohibit the incitement of inter-communal conflict,
Trump’s slurs against Muslim-Americans and Mexican-Americans, among others, would have been ruled out of
order by India’s assertive (and fiercely independent) Election Commission, whose oversight of elections is undoubtedly
a better model for other developing countries than anything the U.S. can offer by way of example. The
cognitive dissonance between USAID’s good governance principles and likely U.S. practice under President Trump
is perhaps greatest in the area of public-sector transparency. On this count, President-elect Trump has flouted
longstanding tradition by not releasing his tax returns, and while those of his appointees who must be confirmed by
the senate will be forced to be more forthcoming, the example being set is one of brazen opacity . A similar problem
besets USAID’s support for conflict-of-interest rules to improve the integrity of public decision-making in
aid-recipient countries. While no American administration has fully lived up to this ideal, President-elect Trump
has indicated through his actions – and inactions – a willingness to completely disregard the norms that have
underpinned conflict-of-interest rules. Trump has nominated ExxonMobil’s CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, despite the
firm’s clear interest in many key diplomatic decisions, including sanctions against Russia. Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary is fast-food
magnate Andrew Puzder, despite the patently anti-labor practices of much of the fast-food industry and Puzder’s own extreme views on worker
rights. Worse, the Trump transition team and its allies in the Republican-controlled Congress have sought to short-circuit the process by which
the business and investment entanglements of these and other appointees are subjected to scrutiny by government ethics offices. But most
alarming of all is the appalling example set by Trump himself. Rather than liquidating his holdings and having
his assets placed in a blind trust, Trump intends merely to remove himself from active “operations” in the companies
that bear his name, leaving his children in charge of his business interests. As citizens of many aid-recipient
countries know all too well, it is through the misdeeds of family members engaged in wide-ranging business
ventures that corruption can be most damaging to democracy and good governance. The cases of recently deposed leaders
such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Sri Lanka’s Mahinda Rajapaksa demonstrate how the actions of family members who exploit their proximity
to power undercuts public belief in the rule of law. For the U.S. government to continue providing technical assistance on
“open government” to countries already ravaged by pervasive political nepotism of the sort that appears likely to
take hold under the incoming administration would be both offensive and counterproductive. Finally, there is the
example of USAID’s support to civil society, widely regarded as crucial to holding public officials accountable
and entrenching a culture of democracy. American foreign assistance has included funding to train journalists and
to promote regulations and institutions to protect the independence of media organizations. President-elect Trump,
however, has vehemently and consistently denounced the “mainstream media” – that is, organizations that undertake
investigative reporting and fact checking. Trump has promoted figures such as Steve Bannon, whose Breitbart “news” service wantonly
disseminates false and misleading information. Perhaps more worryingly, candidate Trump promised to take action to reform
America’s libel laws to curb the vitality and independence of the media. The Trump administration will be an
equally untenable advocate on behalf of USAID programs that promote civil society organizations that, in
theory, can act as both monitors of government performance and vehicles for philanthropic giving by better-
off citizens of poor countries. It is doubtful that such programs can be effective when the Donald J. Trump Foundation remains under
investigation by the New York State Attorney General for potentially illegal practices, including the use of the charity’s funds to settle lawsuits
brought against Mr. Trump personally. To be sure, there has always been a gap between the vision of democracy and good
governance advocated by America’s foreign aid program and the illiberal practices in which public authorities in the
United States have sometimes engaged. Every revelation of institutional racism has dented America’s democratic credentials; each case
of corruption by a U.S. public official has taken its toll on the country’s reputation for accountable governance. What makes the Trump
administration different, however, is its open contempt for the basic principles underlying democratic
governance and the rule of law. It is this disregard for accepted norms that makes it regrettably necessary for
the U.S. to bring to an end the democracy-promotion initiatives that have been a key part of U.S. foreign aid
for more than three decades. The glaring contrast between what the U.S. promotes in countries to which it
provides aid, and the positions adopted (and practices undertaken) by its incoming President, risks undermining
through association the many essential development activities supported by USAID. One alternative to simply
ending America’s democracy-promotion efforts would be to divert the resources expended in this area to
international organizations, such as the United Nations Democracy Fund or the governance programs
operated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Given President-elect Trump’s
dismissive comments about the United Nations, and his bias against “nation building” – including the promotion of
democracy and improved governance – subcontracting these functions to international bodies seems highly unlikely.
Under such circumstances, and in light of the high probability that America’s crisis of democracy will worsen under
the Trump administration, reallocating USAID’s democracy-promotion funds to traditional development sectors is
the least bad alternative.
 Brazil?
Democracy + Brazil
Eric Farnsworth 18, heads the Washington office of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. He served at
the State Department, USTR and the White House. He was a senior adviser in the office of the special envoy for the
Americas from 1995 to 1998., 10-29-2018, "All Over but the Shouting: Engaging Brazil after the Elections,"
National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/all-over-shouting-engaging-brazil-after-elections-34602
Elections have consequences, and Brazil’s elections on October 28, 2018, are particularly consequential. By an overwhelming
margin, Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro, who is often described as a far-right, law and order populist, to lead Latin
America’s largest democracy, now deeply polarized, through turbulent economic times. His resounding defeat of
Fernando Haddad of the left-wing, deeply corrupt Workers Party (PT) gives a mandate to the president-elect and his
vocal supporters to yank Brazil onto a different social path, while emphasizing a strong hand against corruption and
a fierce attack on the overwhelming crime wave that has overtaken major urban areas. The candidate appears to
hold views that can charitably be described as anti-democratic. A former military officer and long-time if
undistinguished legislator, Bolsonaro has mused publicly about the benefits of a return to dictatorship, spoken in
favor of torture, and threatened the national Congress. Just prior to the election his son suggested it would be easy to
close the Supreme Court. At a rally in the campaign’s final days, Bolsonaro said in reference to his Worker Party opposition, “We’re going
to have a cleansing . . . and wipe these red thieves off the map. Either they leave the country, or they go to jail.” His greatest hits as a legislator
include dedicating his vote to impeach a previous president to the jailer who tortured her. Among other morsels, he also claimed that a fellow
legislator was too unattractive for rape. While there is clearly a difference between campaigning and governing, the
overheated, intemperate rhetoric cannot be easily ignored or discounted. In fact, much of it actually occurred
before Bolsonaro was even an announced presidential candidate. There is a pattern of speech and behavior
going back many years. As a result, Washington’s engagement with Brasilia going forward could be fraught.
Initially, at least, the temptation will be to develop strong ties with the new administration . After all, Bolsonaro has said
he wants to have close relations with the United States. After two years of strategic patience awaiting the end of the
outgoing Temer administration, Washington would love to reboot relations from pragmatic to truly cooperative
with Latin America’s largest nation. And Bolsonaro has suggested foreign-policy priorities that in some way
mirror U.S. interests. He wants to rethink Brazil’s relationship with top trade partner China , which was
elevated to strategic in the BRICS context. This is significant to Washington and could have geostrategic
implications, depending on the concrete nature of his actions. He promises to take a more assertive posture
toward Venezuela, which is collapsing in real time on Brazil’s northern border with direct implications for
Venezuela’s neighbors. He wants to open Brazil’s economy wider to other trade partners while re-working the
commitment to regional trade grouping MERCOSUL, a trade partnership which locks in relations with Brazil’s
traditional rival Argentina, and which one previous president called Brazil’s “destiny.” He has also made noises about
moving Brazil’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He has expressed skepticism about climate change, a very
significant development given Brazil’s critical position as the guardian of the Amazon. Such actions would begin to
unwind Brazil’s more traditional foreign-policy priorities, which have been jealously guarded from one
administration to the next by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also known as Itamaraty . From Washington’s perspective, it
could potentially be the first time in a generation where the United States and Brazil will be singing from the
same hymn book in addressing issues of mutual interest. Therein lies the dilemma. From a transactional perspective,
deepening relations with the Bolsonaro administration may well serve a number of short-term policy goals, as
defined by the Trump administration. But there is much more at stake. The core tenet of U.S. foreign policy in the
Western Hemisphere since the end of dictatorships and authoritarian rulers at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s
has been democratic transition and strengthening. Purposefully, the United States acts differently within the Americas
than in other regions of the world. In the Americas, effective policy has been built on a bipartisan basis in support of
democratic institutions and shared values. It’s an imperfect record to be sure, but it served as the driving vision for
Washington’s regional interests. Or at least it did. The pragmatic accommodation of populist leftist regimes from
Venezuela to Argentina earlier this century caused the Bush administration to pull back on the full-throated support
for regional democracy, even when governments, such as Venezuela, began to go seriously off track . It culminated
in the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations with the Cuban dictatorship without Havana having
done anything to democratize or to improve human rights. Washington’s muscle memory for regional democracy
promotion has waned and the muscles themselves (e.g. the tools available to deploy) have atrophied. The
Trump administration appears belatedly to be attempting to renew them, but, in the meantime, other actors such as
China have aggressively entered the region. Without a broadly positive agenda underwritten by enhanced trade
and economic relations, coupled with the soft power of democracy promotion enhanced by the power of example,
Washington is re-learning Simon Bolivar’s dictum that democracy promotion in Latin America often seems
like “plowing the sea.” Now, Brazilians have elected as their next president someone who has shown undemocratic
tendencies at best. Of course, Bolsonaro may well govern in a fully democratic manner, and if so the impulse will be to
jump in the same canoe and row together toward the horizon, as distasteful as his previous rhetoric and actions have
been. It’s the same scenario that faced the United States on the first election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela . The
United States will have to make hard choices. Brazil is not Venezuela, but the vigilance of the international
community will nonetheless be required. Our long-term interests demand a firm commitment to democracy and
the Inter-American Democratic Charter that all nations in the Americas except Cuba signed in Lima, Peru, on
September 11, 2001. Holding fast to those commitments, even at some short-term cost, will pay rich dividends
for policy in the Americas, differentiating the United States, for example, from China’s overtly mercantile,
transactional activities, and showing to skeptics that it really is about democratic principles first, not whether
governments are left or right or pro- or anti-American. It’s easy to resist those regimes that despise us. It’s more
difficult—and more meaningful—to stand for democratic values to the extent they may be challenged by
allies. As Brazilians celebrate yet another democratic transition in the Planalto Palace, this is the scenario that
Brazil’s friends, including the United States, may soon have to face.
 Domestic CP/Neg arg
Domestic first
Thomas Carothers 16, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a leading
authority on international democracy support., 1-27-2016, "Look Homeward, Democracy Promoter," Foreign
Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/01/27/look-homeward-democracy-promoter/
Since then, the deficiencies of democratic governance in the United States have snowballed in number and
intensity, from the inability of the two main political parties to work productively together to the capture of the
legislative process by elite interest groups to glaring shortcomings in the criminal justice system. Much more than
many Americans seem to realize or admit, the image of the United States as a global beacon of effective
democracy is greatly out of date. As a result, many people on the receiving end of U.S. democracy aid are
questioning why Americans believe they have the answers to others’ democratic shortcomings . What solutions,
they rightfully ask, does the United States have to offer for overcoming, for example, a dysfunctional national
legislature that commands little public respect, intolerant political populism, crippling polarization, problematic
campaign financing, voter registration disputes, low voter turnout, or rights violations by security forces? (The same
questions are also raised about Europe’s credibility as a democracy aid provider, given the continent’s own
democratic woes.) In my own experience, most recipients of democracy aid are struck by how similar our problems are
to their own. Americans still tend to talk about many countries outside North America and Europe as “new” democracies that are grappling
with basic political building blocks. But many countries, like Chile, Estonia, Ghana, Indonesia, Mongolia, and Romania,
have moved past the initial post-authoritarian phase of setting up democratic institutions. They now have democratic
constitutions, regular elections, alternation of power, elected parliaments, active civil societies, and a good amount
of political openness. They are fighting to make their political institutions and processes work well. They are
trying to improve the quality of political representation, lessen state capture by vested interests, avoid intolerance
from surging populists, and engage politically alienated citizens. In short, their political challenges are often very
much like those of the United States. Moreover, there are examples of these new democracies undertaking more
vigorous reform initiatives than the United States has done — and doing better at reaching solutions. A recent
report by the Electoral Integrity Project, a multinational research group that assessed the integrity of elections in
many countries between 2012 and 2014, ranked U.S. elections in the “moderate” integrity range, below elections in
Mongolia, Rwanda, and South Africa. There are many success stories. In Romania, thanks to an innovative citizen movement and
energetic independent investigators, many corrupt mayors, national legislators, and ex-ministers have been prosecuted and jailed. The success of
Latvia’s Corruption Preventing and Combating Bureau in monitoring dubious party financing and holding powerful business figures to public
account compares favorably to the performance of U.S. institutions responsible for addressing such issues. The ability of some Philippine civic
groups to challenge wrongdoing by national politicians exceeds that of many of their U.S. counterparts. As the Asian Development Bank notes,
“Philippine civil society organizations are widely seen as some of the most vibrant and advanced in the world.… and many believe that if civil
society has contributed to democratization anywhere, it is in the Philippines.” Gerrymandering, that bane of reformers, is a more
significant problem at the state level in the United States than in various large federal democracies in the developing
world, such as in Argentina, Brazil, and India. The United States ranks in the bottom half of the world in terms of
the representation of women in its politics, while legislatures in various developing country democracies like
Bolivia, Mexico, Namibia, and Senegal have more than double the representation of women than the U.S.
Congress. Of course, some newer democracies are beset with far more severe political problems than the United States. Many are struggling to
get beyond terrible authoritarian legacies or are mired in civil conflict. Nevertheless, a fundamental assumption on which 30 years
of Western democracy aid has been based — that there is a basic divide between the established democracies and
the non-Western countries who are struggling to become democratic — no longer holds. The similarities of
democratic challenges across all regions of the world are much greater than the differences. This new situation
compounds the problem of credibility that U.S. democracy promotion has long faced. Credibility questions
have traditionally arisen from negative perceptions of U.S. foreign policy, especially concerning the inconsistency of
the United States’ commitment to its stated goal of advancing democracy. Why, doubters ask, has the United
States spent millions of dollars a year on democracy promotion directed at Iran but not at Saudi Arabia?
With the United States’ domestic political realities now adding to the credibility issue, many foreign observers
conclude that the United States should get out of the business of trying to help others improve their
democracies and focus on getting its own house in order. More than a few Americans feel the same. But this is
not the right answer. The United States can still make important contributions to helping other countries strengthen
their democracies. A country doesn’t have to be politically trouble-free to be able to help another improve its own
political life. U.S. democracy aid shouldn’t end — but it should change. Limited positive evolution has already
taken place. Some democracy promoters stress to their foreign counterparts that they offer not a U.S. model, but
useful comparative knowledge to help them achieve progress in their own ways . When the National Democratic
Institute engages with foreign parliaments, for example, it does not hold out the U.S. Congress as a model. It and
some other U.S. groups are making greater use of non-American trainers and experiences. These are helpful steps. But they
represent only very partial change. A great deal of U.S. democracy assistance still embodies the traditional idea of “you
have problems, we have answers.” U.S. experts travel to other countries doling out advice on democratic “best
practices” drawn from the U.S. experience; American staffs make key decisions on project management and
funding; Americans serve as expatriate directors of field offices in countries that have a wealth of well-trained local
people; and boards of directors are largely, even exclusively, made up of Americans. Reforming these traditional
features is crucial. But sharper change is needed. The United States needs to break the mold of democracy
assistance as something people “over here” do to people “over there.” Assistance should be redesigned and
presented publicly as a common enterprise aimed at alleviating democratic deficiencies both here and there,
highlighting the value of mutual learning and flows of knowledge in both directions. To move in this direction, U.S.
democracy aid organizations should find ways to apply their expertise to the problems of democracy at home.
U.S. democracy groups that are expert in troubled legislatures, for example, should engage on reform efforts with the
U.S. Congress and state legislatures. U.S. organizations adept at helping other countries foster electoral integrity should try to help
American state and local bodies achieve that same goal. Those trying to help other countries reform campaign finance should take on the
challenge of doing so in the United States as well. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) might be a place to start
such a change. It is the smallest of the three large funding sources of U.S. democracy assistance (much larger flows
of such assistance come from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of
State). Yet is has a high global profile. Also, since it is a private (though government-funded) organization, changes
in its mandate would be somewhat simpler to make than in the official aid bureaucracies. The NED’s mandate
could be expanded to include U.S. democracy. New funding for this could be sought from private sources or
domestic parts of the U.S. federal budget. Finding a way to shift some of the democracy support sponsored by
USAID and the State Department to problems in the United States would be more complex both legally and
practically. It would require opening up what is, in fact, a badly overdue larger debate about the whole enterprise of
foreign assistance. That enterprise was built on the idea that there are clear lines between developed and developing countries and between
established and new democracies. But those lines have significantly faded in the last ten to fifteen years, raising questions about the basic
structures and methods of foreign aid, which were built more than a half century ago for a very different world. Waiting for some new
configuration of domestic political forces to arise that would make it possible to pry open the rusted legislative door
of U.S. foreign assistance and undertake deep structural reforms is likely to be a study in frustration. Positive
change may have to be pursued in more limited ways. Rather than carrying out programs at home themselves, U.S.
democracy aid groups might seek funding, whether public or private, to establish partnerships with groups that
already work on political reform at home, adding on their comparative experience and expertise. It was a useful step
forward when Freedom House, a non-profit dedicated to political rights and civil liberties, issued for the first time in 2008 a probing report on the
state of freedom in America to complement its usual focus on the state of freedom “out there.” The fact that Human Rights Watch relentlessly
scrutinizes the state of rights in the United States is fundamental to its credibility as a witness to rights abuses abroad. The German party
foundations, such as the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which are among the
largest European democracy support organizations, carry out programs to bolster German democratic life alongside
their work all around the developing world. The private American foundations with the largest reach overseas and
reputations for innovation — such as the Gates Foundation, the Open Society Foundations (OSF), and the Ford
Foundation — all combine their overseas work with substantial amounts of domestic activity. And in recent years
they have begun to integrate some parts of their domestic and international agendas, focusing on problems
that are common to the United States and other countries. OSF’s work on Internet freedom and Ford’s work on
reducing inequality are two examples. An opportunity to advance new thinking and action along these lines has
recently presented itself. Last summer, the United States assumed the two-year chairmanship of the Community of
Democracies, a global initiative aimed at bolstering democracy around the world that the United States helped
launch in 2000. Officials at the State Department and White House who work on the Community of Democracies have been looking for a
way to inject new ideas and energy into the U.S. chairmanship. Introducing a plan to fuse America’s commitment to
democracy abroad with work aimed at democratic renovation at home would meet that need . None of this will
magically solve the credibility problem facing U.S. democracy assistance. But it would help. U.S. democracy
groups would be able to assure foreign counterparts that they are part of an undertaking that involves
tackling the same kinds of problems in the United States that they are attempting to solve abroad . This would
be a much more compelling message to people abroad about how the United States views its own democracy in
relation to others. Adding a domestic dimension would highlight to the broader U.S policy community the
sensitivities of politically related assistance and help it understand better the wave of resistance to such work abroad.
Imagine the touchiness that would arise among U.S. politicians if an aid group funded by the U.S. government sought to help overcome partisan
gridlock in Congress, increase the representation of women in elected offices, or bolster the technical solidity of U.S. electoral processes. Being
forced to navigate such political currents at home might help aid groups learn to do so more effectively abroad. If a
U.S. senator argued, for example, that it is not the job of the government to sponsor legislative strengthening
programs, the question would naturally follow: if not, then how is it the U.S. government’s job to sponsor them in
other countries? Taking down the geographic wall in democracy aid would open the door to ideas, examples,
and talent relating to democratic innovations flowing into the United States from abroad . If U.S. democracy
groups turned some attention to problems at home, they would be able to draw on their networks of activists and
experts engaged in the same issues abroad and bring them into U.S. debates and reform activities . A striking
feature of debates over democratic deficiencies in the United States is their insularity from comparative
experience. And to the extent that Americans do sporadically look beyond their borders for innovative approaches
from abroad, they rarely look farther than Canada or Europe, missing out on the enormous pool of valuable practices
and progress in other parts of the world. Of course, this change in the scope in U.S. democracy aid would not, in itself,
be enough to overcome the deep-seated American resistance to political learning from abroad. But it would at least
create some institutional channels for opening U.S. doors and minds to the possibility. Making such a
fundamental change in U.S. democracy aid would ruffle feathers and raise various practical issues . The ideas for
doing so outlined above only scratch the surface. The structures of democracy aid have changed so little for so long that we’re
out of the habit of thinking differently in this domain. But this fact should be an argument in favor of some
experimentation and innovation, not a foreclosure of it. The world on which U.S. democracy assistance was
built a generation ago has changed fundamentally, and the entire enterprise of democracy support is in
question, both abroad and at home, in ways it never has been before . If it is to survive, it must move with the
times. Breaking down the old wall between democracy “out there” and democracy at home would be a powerful
way to start.

More ev
Jones and Taussig 19
(Bruce, Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute; AND, Torrey,
Nonresident Fellow of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institute, “Democracy & Disorder: The struggle for
influence in the new geopolitics,” https://www.brookings.edu/research/democracy-disorder-the-struggle-for-
influence-in-the-new-geopolitics/, Snider)
The interplay between internal strains and external efforts to exacerbate them has weakened the leverage of the
political West. The phase when the United States and other like-minded states could enlarge the democratic
community through democracy promotion efforts with manageable domestic and international pushback has ended.
The global financial crisis and the rise of China have triggered a deep level of introspection within the political
West. The world’s most important shaping power, the United States, is in strategic disarray and appears to be
withdrawing from its commitment to supporting and exemplifying democratic standards. The European Union, the
other bulwark of the liberal order, has turned inward, facing domestic instability caused by characteristics inherent
to a more open order, including economic integration, low trade barriers, and the free movement of people. The
authoritarian powers, briefly scared by democratic uprisings in the Arab world and then Ukraine, have gained
confidence that they can both suppress dissent at home and build competing networks of influence abroad, with
limited effective resistance from the major democracies.
As a result, regions of contestation have emerged across the developing and industrialized world. It is a competition
of influence that involves political, economic, and military tools—and it is increasingly digitalized.
In the developing and emerging countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, investments in infrastructure, energy,
and technology are turning from tools of G-20 cooperation into tools of great power competition—with the West
losing ground. In the Middle East, there has been a return to the kind of proxy warfare that so devastated the “third
world” during the Cold War. In Europe, China’s increasing economic engagement is softening the continent’s
resolve, especially at a moment of American unilateralism, and Russia has found vulnerabilities to exploit and to
advance its direct political interference. In East Asia, China has shifted from a strategy of constraining American
dominance to one of asserting Chinese hegemony. Geopolitics in the region, defined increasingly by Sino-U.S.
rivalry, will test the strength of both consolidating democracies and advanced democracies.
Globally, tools for digital authoritarianism implemented by Russia and China present Western states with a new set
of challenges, and ones that represent the future of competition. Moscow continues to deploy non-conventional tools
such as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns throughout Europe and in the United States. China’s focus is
primarily domestic, employing powerful digital tools to control and surveil its domestic population. But Beijing in
the future may seek to export an authoritarian model, which is increasingly backed by technologies for digital
censorship and monitoring. Advancements in artificial intelligence will only make the challenges more formidable
in the years ahead.
 It matters now – Democracy
Democracy UQ
Scott Mainwaring 18, Jorge Paulo Lemann professor for Brazil studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School, 10-22-2018,
"Democracy Is In Crisis In Latin America. Brazil May Be The Next Trouble Spot.," Washington Post,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/10/22/democracy-is-in-crisis-in-latin-america-brazil-
may-be-the-next-trouble-spot/?utm_term=.d7407e474c22
The United States no longer supports democracy One of our key findings is that U.S. embassies — together with
broader U.S. democratic promotion programs — supported every transition during the third wave of democratization
that started in 1978. Furthermore, American foreign aid — a proxy for U.S. support for democracy — is closely
associated with democratization during this wave. This is no longer true. As recent reports have discussed, the
long-standing policy of democracy promotion has been virtually abandoned by the current administration. Last
year, the State Department considered removing democracy promotion from its mission statement. This year,
the Office of Management and Budget tried to slash funding for the National Endowment for Democracy,
considered jointly with USAID and the State Department, one of the three key organizations that promote
democracy.

Democracy uq
https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/10/01/can-u.s.-democracy-policy-survive-trump-pub-77381

Recent progress in Latin America are in jeopardy because of democratic backsliding

Botero 19
(Catalina, Dean of the law school at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia and founding partner of
DeJusticia Colombia, “The Rule of Law in Latin America: From Constitutionalism to Political Uncertainty,” chapter
2 of “Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,” published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
In its most robust version, such as many Latin American countries envisaged after transitioning to democracy, the rule of law ought
to guarantee the rights and entitlements of all citizens. This duty entails a state obligation to confront the
multidimensionality of poverty and inequality. As George Gray Molina writes in chapter 4 of this book, the socioeconomic
dimension is but one factor behind inequality in Latin America. Gender, native or Afro-descendant status, age, and
place of residence are also core components of inequality. These often overlap and feed on one another, resulting
in wide-ranging inequality in matters of access to rights. While chapters 4 and 5 by Gray Molina and Augusto de la Torre and Alain
Ize respectively review the impact of economic and social policy, this chapter focuses on inequality as the unfulfilled promise of the rule of law.
As Gray Molina shows, from 2002 to 2014, Latin America made significant headway in terms of poverty reduction. The
advent of leftist governments shifted the development policy agenda toward inclusion and social issues, driving a
significant increase in social spending. However, a new international scenario, slumping commodity prices, and the
collapse facing countries implementing this agenda (Nicaragua, Venezuela) have revealed that any progress that was
made did not come from stable, robust institutions capable of sustainably managing such policies. Inequality
persists, at least in part, because of the weakness or absence of long-term policies capable of fostering stable
institutions that are free from political cronyism and ensure the rights and interests of all sectors affected by these
structural issues. The reality is that Latin American political elites of all stripes seem more preoccupied with
acquiring and holding onto power than with guaranteeing universal access to rights. In accounting for the lack of
policies addressing structural inequality, another equally relevant factor is the lack of effective mechanisms for
representation and participation in public policy making and accountability . Significantly, most constitutional
reforms have preserved the traditional highly concentrated, top-down forms of exercising power. Where these
did contemplate mechanisms for participation and social control, as in Bolivia and Ecuador, chief executives made sure to
thwart them. The connection between constituents and representatives is thus tenuous and outlets for deliberation
and participation, especially in remote regions, few and far between . Furthermore, the models adopted failed to
include functional transparency and accountability systems . In short, while some efforts to address inequality were
made, especially during the commodity bonanza of the early 2000s, they were not part of a larger policy design capable of
building up long-term social citizenship and state capacities. Social benefits often remained tied to the whims and electoral goals
of the government of the day, or, as in Venezuela, were wielded as a political tool while the basic institutions of the rule of law were dismantled.
Absent more adequate mechanisms for representation and participation, it often fell to the judiciary to ensure
adoption of social policy and compel governments to fulfill their social mandate under the constitution; so-called
“structural determinations” are a prime example. Many social movements chose strategic litigation over working
through channels of representation. Court decisions, however, face democratic and material constraints. When
matters involve redressing structural inequality, the justice system simply cannot offer adequate, long-term solutions
to issues the political system chooses to ignore.

And because the United States is withdrawing from LA and democracy

Botero 19
(Catalina, Dean of the law school at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia and founding partner of
DeJusticia Colombia, “The Rule of Law in Latin America: From Constitutionalism to Political Uncertainty,” chapter
2 of “Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,” published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
Accurately isolating the root causes of the growing democratic backsliding is not an easy proposition, but some
explanations seem plausible. First is the state of the economy. In a report recapping 20 years (1995–2015) of measuring public
opinion, Latinobarómetro (2015) found a clear link between economic health and satisfaction with democracy. From 2002 to 2008, Latin
Once
America lived through a virtuous cycle of sustained growth that lifted per capita income and substantially boosted support for democracy.
the cycle was over and per capita income growth weakened, support for democracy declined. Another factor is the
growing incidence of voter fraud and the overt abuse of the rules of the game by incumbent presidents intent on
staying in office. Indeed, inconsistent social agendas, ineffective public security policies, corruption scandals, and
neglect of outlying regions have led many to feel that rulers govern to benefit themselves, not society. Compounding
this feeling is the crisis facing political parties as channels of representation and the rise of charismatic leaders
promising to address demands for justice and security while disparaging checks and balances such as the courts and press
freedom. In addition, the new world scenario, with Donald Trump becoming president of the United States as Russia and
China are in the ascendant, has induced a bewildering lack of interest—to say the least—in democratic backsliding in
Latin America. As a result, democracy has ever fewer champions at a time when societies seem ever more
disenchanted. Finally, there is a shift in political discourse that cannot be emphasized too strongly: the rise of
increasingly intolerant echo chambers unwilling to check their beliefs against the available evidence . Samuel Huntington
(1991) once wrote that waves of democracy are often followed by a decline that puts gains to the test. In the past five
years, the test has cost Latin America dearly in terms of the consolidation of its democratic institutions. Maybe the
time has come to call the decline for what it is: a dire, real challenge to the rule of law.
 It matters now – Spheres of Influence
Regional future dictated by recent power dynamics internationally and regionally
Malamud 19
(Andrés, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. A recurring Visiting
Professor at universities in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and Spain, he has been Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck
Institute of International Law in Heidelberg and the University of Maryland, College Park, “Latin America and the
World: Dependency, Decoupling, Dispersion,” chapter 6 of “Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,”
published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
Indeed, the low-savings, commodity-exporting countries of Latin America display a pattern in which economic
performance “is highly determined by fluctuations of commodity prices and of international interest rates. Economies
boom when commodity prices are high and international interest rates are low. Crises are more likely to happen when the opposite occurs”
(Campello 2014). Economic stability requires that at least one of these two variables move in a favorable direction, as
occurred between 2012 and 2017 with interest rates but not commodity prices. Although political outcomes also depend on
domestic factors and leadership skills, even gifted leaders have struggled to survive hard economic times. Four
preliminary conclusions stand out. First, it is unlikely that favorable conditions for effective multilateralism will
prevail in the coming years. Second, although external conditions depend on markets rather than agents, they are
mostly determined by two countries: the United States (since the Federal Reserve sets the pace of international interest rates) and
China (whose growth rate mostly determines commodity prices). Third, Latin American states will continue to diverge
according to their natural resource endowment and their ensuing chief international relationship, either with the
United States or China. Like it or not, the short-term future of the region is tied to the political and economic
evolution of the two world giants. Over the longer term, the emergence of new global powers, such as India, may
add to the mix. Fourth and last, Latin America is unlikely to become a significant global actor. Rather, a changing
combination of states may emerge over some periods and goals, but there will be no common regional strategy.
Divergent national interests and calculations will continue to carry the day.
 Democracy – Horizontal vs Vertical Democracy
Horizontal vs Vertical
Mainwaring and Mainwaring 19
(Scott, Jorge P. Lemann Professor of Brazil Studies and the Faculty Co-chair of the Harvard Brazil Studies Program;
AND, Luis, PhD candidate in political science at the University of Notre Dame, “US hegemony and regime change
in Latin America,” Democratization, Volume 26, 2019 - Issue 2, Snider)
The scholarship on democratic transitions and breakdowns has proposed myriad explanations for the consistent
finding that international influences and actors have an important effect on regime change. More than 20 years ago,
Lawrence Whitehead suggested that authors converge on three recurrent international mechanisms, which he
labelled “consent,” “contagion,” and “control.” 1 Since then, other scholars have proposed new typologies2 but none
has taken hold definitively. (See online Appendix I for a summary of the literature). Several classifications propose a
useful basic distinction between horizontal and hegemonic mechanisms.
Horizontal mechanisms emphasize bottom-up processes that take place among units that are relatively equal in
formal status (that is, two or more independent countries). Most research on international influences in the field of
comparative democratization focuses on them.3 Yet hegemonic mechanisms are frequently highly important in
international politics, where power matters a great deal.
Hegemonic mechanisms are vertical or top-down mechanisms involving coercion and/or consent in which powerful
states with vested interests in the proliferation of a particular regime type play a central role. Because of their
superior power capabilities, hegemons can affect regimes in a wide variety of ways, from externally imposing them
to supporting a certain outcome. Yet these mechanisms are often difficult to disentangle from horizontal factors. If
hegemonic influences push in the same direction as horizontal diffusion, the former could be confounded with the
intermediary role of smaller states, non-state actors, or institutions, and thus incorrectly attributed to diffusion.
Conversely, hegemons could be simply intervening in an already moving process or triggering such a process
involuntarily. Therefore, scholars need to disentangle hegemonic and horizontal influences before claiming or
rejecting their presence.
 Sphere of Influence – China
China tryna ball up
Malamud 19
(Andrés, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. A recurring Visiting
Professor at universities in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and Spain, he has been Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck
Institute of International Law in Heidelberg and the University of Maryland, College Park, “Latin America and the
World: Dependency, Decoupling, Dispersion,” chapter 6 of “Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,”
published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
In Latin America, the degree to which the world is viewed as an opportunity or a threat is a central theme of political
debates. While there has been a marked tendency toward greater global engagement, the path has by no means been
linear, as evidenced in cases such as Brazil, which in 2010 was a visible player on the global stage and in 2018 has a far diminished role.
Foreign policy strategies have tended to swing to the rhythm of votes, commodity prices, and interest rates . Therefore,
to anticipate the evolution of Latin America’s international relations, it is necessary to understand the dynamics that
are shaping the global scenario. The most notable development in Latin America over the past two decades has been
the expanding role of China, chiefly based on trade, investment, and , increasingly, financing for major infrastructure projects.
This shift is, of course, not only evident in the region, but throughout the world. Deepening Chinese engagement in Latin
America has posed an unprecedented challenge to the United States, which has long been the most influential
external actor in the region. To some degree, the United States’ indifference to Latin America in recent years—
which has been accentuated by the Trump administration—has left an opening for China and other external players to
deepen their relations in the region. But Latin American countries have so far been unable to develop a strategy to
deal with China’s assertive approach.

China $$$
Malamud 19
(Andrés, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. A recurring Visiting
Professor at universities in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and Spain, he has been Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck
Institute of International Law in Heidelberg and the University of Maryland, College Park, “Latin America and the
World: Dependency, Decoupling, Dispersion,” chapter 6 of “Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,”
published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
As a new power such as China emerges, Latin American countries are finding an opportunity to overcome or
mitigate U.S. hegemony. Some Latin American policy makers have designed strategies of diversification to guide
their foreign economic and political relations. Nevertheless, “if relationships between the challenger and the hegemon
turn to open conflict, they are pushed to choose sides, a position that they find uncomfortable, except when there are
specific internal political projects that clearly support one option over the other ” (Paz 2012, 33). China’s global rise has
taken two visible forms in Latin America— trade and investment—and two less obvious forms—financial
cooperation and political influence. Trade in goods between China and Latin America peaked in 2013 and then fell
and stagnated. Although it is expected to recover, it will not reach the growth rates experienced up until 2012. This decreasing dynamism has
asymmetric consequences. Latin America lost weight in China’s foreign trade while China displaced the EU as the second trading partner for
Latin America. Most countries—chief among them Mexico and several Central American states— run trade deficits
with China. Latin American trade with China is less diversified than with the rest of the world, concentrated mainly
in agriculture, metals, and energy. Concentration is also evident in trade partnerships, as two-thirds of China’s imports from Latin
America originate in Brazil and more than 95 percent when Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay are added. Such a skewed trade pattern highlights the
region’s vulnerabilities. Chinese direct investment increased notably in 2010 but stabilized thereafter. Official data do not
capture the real magnitude of investments though, since a large part is channeled through third countries or
territories such as Hong Kong. China’s four commercial banks—the China Construction Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of
China, the Bank of China, and the China Communications Bank—have expanded their presence and range of services in key countries, and
China’s two policy banks—the China Eximbank and the China Development Bank—remain among Latin America’s top lenders.
Chinese companies are behind large infrastructure projects, some under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI), a massive infrastructure program from through which China is pouring billions of dollars throughout the world. As the BRI makes
inroads in Latin America, the region can expect more support from Chinese financial institutions . Remarkably, the BRI
functions with a geographic scheme that is neither fixed nor bounded by conventional world regions. On the contrary, the reference to economic
corridors, transit areas, economic hubs, and technical ecosystems will undermine existing regional organizations. As Margaret Myers and
Kevin Gallagher (2018) point out, the challenge is for Latin America to become a shaper, rather than a taker, of
investment from China. The drawback is that Latin America lacks central strategic coordination, and none of its
individual countries has the capacity to shape China’s policies. From China’s perspective, Latin America—particularly
South America—is chiefly a commodity producer, a fact reflected in its foreign direct investment . Between 2010 and 2014,
90 percent of all Chinese investment in the region was channeled toward natural resources, as opposed to 25 percent of all non-Chinese foreign
direct investment. Despite the much-abused South-South label, China–Latin America relations show signs of being
center-periphery reloaded. Natural resources can be extracted, like mining, or produced, like agriculture. China
invests in both types, with an emphasis on mining in the Pacific countries and agricultural products in Argentina and
Brazil. The four largest Chinese oil companies are present in all Latin American countries that export hydrocarbons
with the exception of Bolivia and Mexico. In contrast, mining investments are more concentrated and have provoked socio-
environmental conflicts. In many cases, China’s money arrives in the form of loans (to companies or governments) rather
than direct investment; this strategy is aimed at stabilizing returns and minimizing risks. Chinese investment in
agriculture and industrial sectors remains limited but shows a growing trend , although large investment projects have not yet
materialized. Reciprocal flows are minimal, as Latin American investment in China remains incipient. A recent report by the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean draws attention to the three challenges that Latin America faces relative to Chinese direct
investment: increase the amount; diversify target countries and economic sectors; and make it socially and environmentally sustainable,
especially regarding extractive activities (ECLAC 2016). Overall, China’s ties with Latin America remain concentrated in a few
countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Trade will continue to be the foundation of Sino-
Latin American ties, but there is room for diversification along the six areas delineated by Chinese president Xi Jinping in his 2014
“1+3+6 cooperation framework”: energy and resources, infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, scientific and technological innovation, and
information technologies. The ensuing policies will need to include measures on mitigation strategies and damage
control, mostly regarding the environment, where potential grievances come from civil society. Security issues are
likely to remain off the agenda to avoid upsetting the United States .
 Rule of Law – State Monopoly on Force
Maintaining the state monopoly on force is key to the rule of law
Botero 19
(Catalina, Dean of the law school at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia and founding partner of
DeJusticia Colombia, “The Rule of Law in Latin America: From Constitutionalism to Political Uncertainty,” chapter
2 of “Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,” published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
It used to be that the regional debate on the rule of law did not include public security, one of the most critical issues
on today’s agenda. Indeed, absent territorial control and a state monopoly on the use of force, there is no rule of
law. In other words, the endemic public security crisis facing Latin America is directly connected to our topic. With
barely 8 percent of the global population, in 2017 Latin America accounted for 38 percent of all murders. Of the 50
most violent cities in the world (based on murder rates), 41 are in Latin America (Alvarado and Muggah 2018). As Robert Muggah
notes in chapter 3 of this book, the emergence of organized, well-coordinated criminal groups operating throughout the
region is raising concerns about state ability to guarantee territorial control and a monopoly on force, without which
there can be no rule of law. While vast portions of Colombia were long controlled by criminal groups that , all told, led
to over 8 million victims (Alsema 2018), Colombia is no longer the region’s sole case of macro-criminal violence. Starting in the year
2000, drug lords began to fight the Mexican state for control of extensive border zones . As their Colombian counterparts
lost their hold on drug shipments to the United States, the powerful Juárez and Gulf cartels moved in. Soon their reach extended
throughout Central America’s Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) and is now spreading to areas of
Colombia vacated by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas demobilized in 2016. Now more
powerful than ever, drug cartels run hemispheric networks that have diversified into the capture of state rents, arms
trafficking, drug precursors, smuggling, and human trafficking. All of these activities are fueled by the war on drugs,
which has turned the drug trade into the world’s most lucrative industry and the cartels into sophisticated enterprises
capable of wresting territory from the state. Other players include groups less structured but just as violent as the
cartels, such as MS-13 or the Mara Salvatrucha. These groups are organized in stand-alone gangs which answer to
local bosses and control vast vulnerable neighborhoods. This form of gang activity is growing throughout El
Salvador (one of the world’s most violent countries, second only to Venezuela in the region), poor Venezuelan neighborhoods, and
the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. In many countries they also run the prisons, relegating the state to perimeter control. These
groups wield absolute power over residents under their control. A new and growing criminal undertaking involves
illegal mining, oil extraction, and logging activities. These groups often intimidate and murder environmental
leaders, a practice that in 2017 reached epidemic proportions in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Once criminal gangs secure their
turf, they set up regional networks that attempt to neutralize or capture state activities. Territorial control is usually
facilitated through tacit cooperation or non-aggression pacts with local or central officials. Some of these
arrangements are based on acts of corruption or mutual interest; others are the result of state inability to
take action. The most successful of all state capture experiments is taking place in Venezuela, where officials across
the board—including the military—are involved in drug, fuel, currency, food import, and smuggling cartels, leaving
criminal gangs to handle street violence, neighborhood enforcement, and prison control (InSight Crime 2018). The
inability of Latin American institutions to prevent, investigate, and sanction crime is staggering, as is the
resulting neglect facing millions of people. Other than the promise of the “citizen security” initiatives Robert Muggah
notes in his chapter, effective prevention policies remain conspicuously absent. Regional impunity rates stand among the
world’s highest, ranging from 50 percent to 92 percent. The 2014 Ayotzinapa case in Mexico, in which 43 students were forceably
disappeared after an alleged encounter with police forces, is a powerful example. Years after the incident took place, there have been no
convictions, and the Mexican state has been accused of purposely derailing the judicial investigation. Millions of residents of outlying
areas are subject to violence from illegal groups and often from poorly trained security forces. The lack of territorial
control prevents institutions from operating adequately and limits their ability to deliver quality goods and services
to communities facing a plight that García-Villegas and Espinosa (2016) have labeled institutional apartheid, or the
absence of the right to have rights due to state weakness and the dominance of violent groups. As such, the debate about the rule of law
cannot overlook the security crisis and the state’s inability to tackle it. Since a complete overhaul of the global drug
control policy that is fueling the violence is not realistic at present, it is imperative to at least think about a
comprehensive security policy that goes beyond law enforcement’s anti-violence campaigns. For any such policy
to succeed, it must strengthen fragile state institutions and engage communities without compromising safety.
It must also improve the delivery of goods and services, including infrastructural, to outlying areas; revise campaign
financing rules; and control the use of public funds. Also crucial are mechanisms for regional cooperation and
mutual legal assistance, and reinforced prosecutorial independence and autonomy. Reverting high impunity rates can offer
redress to victims and is the most effective way to prevent recurrence.
 Minority Rights and the Rule of Law
Women
Molina 19
(George, consults on poverty, labor markets and social protection, and public policy reform in Latin America and
was the former Chief Economist at the Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations
Development Programme, “Latin America’s Social Development: Mountains and Valleys,” chapter 4 of
“Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,” published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
Three trends on the economic, political, and security dimensions of gender inequality in Latin America are
highlighted here.4 First, women’s participation in the labor force increased throughout the 2000s in Latin America,
rising significantly from only 44 percent in 1990 to 53 percent in 2014 (Novta and Wong 2017). Between 1992 and 2014, the labor
participation gap between women and men aged 25 and older decreased from 43 to 28 percentage points. As a result
of these gains, the percentage of women without their own sources of income has dropped from 42 to 29 percent in
this same time period, thereby strengthening women’s economic autonomy. At the same time, problems of labor
quality, pay gaps, and hours of care for dependents continue to be an obstacle for alleviating gender inequality in the
workforce (UN Women 2017). To start, over twice as many women as men lack their own sources of income (28 percent
versus 12 percent). Further, although the pay gap between men and women improved in the region—from 28 to 22 percentage
points between 1997 and 2013—it is still high in comparison to other middle-income countries in the world. And access to
the labor force does not mean decent income. In 2013, 24 percent of women with their own income lived under the poverty line,
compared to only 10 percent of men. Finally, beyond remunerated work, women continue to spend a disproportionate amount
of time on care activities and domestic work in the household—about three times as much as men, in the regional
average. Women perform 71 percent to 86 percent of all unpaid work required by households , depending on the country. In
all countries in the region for which information is available, women in poor households have the heaviest burden of unpaid work. Second,
women’s political participation rates have improved over the past 10 years but are still far from parity. Despite
recent progress, only 30 percent of positions within public decision-making spaces—in the executive, legislative, and judicial
branches, and at the local level—are filled by women (ECLAC 2017). In 2015, women held an average of 28 percent of the
seats in Latin American legislative bodies, making the region a world leader (IPU 2018). Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico,
and Nicaragua are the regional outliers, with female parliamentary representation rates of over 40 percent. Access to
public office seems harder for women at the local level: the percentage of female mayors has increased less than the percentage of
women in public office at the national level. In most countries, less than 15 percent of mayors are women; the regional average is only 12 percent.
Nicaragua, where 40 percent of mayors are women, is the only country with a representation rate over 30 percent. Third, violence against
women continues to rise despite accelerated social and economic progress in Latin America , as Robert Muggah points out
in chapter 3 of this volume. According to the official figures reported by the countries of the region to the Gender Equality
Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),
2,554 women from 25 countries were victims of femicide in 2017. Women are also particularly at risk of being the
victims of internal and international human trafficking. The United Nations Development Programme reported approximately
45,000 victims of human trafficking per year in Latin America (UNDP 2013). According to the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime, 26 percent of all detected victims of human trafficking in Central America and the Caribbean
were adult women, and 60 percent were girls. In South America, those numbers were 46 percent and 29 percent, respectively. Moreover,
in Latin America and the Caribbean, sexual exploitation represented more than 55 percent of detected forms of
exploitation (UNODC 2018). Latin America’s multiple gender gaps in political decision making, physical security, and
economic autonomy persist despite economic growth, dynamic labor markets, and increased access to services. In
retrospect, the key problems were not simply access to or availability of services, but enduring normative and
cultural barriers to political, economic, and physical security rights. The move to equity aimed at leveling the
playing field for women has increasingly been adopted by other policy makers facing exclusions by ethnicity, race,
migrant status, sexual orientation, and identity.

Afro-Descendants and Indigenous Peoples

Molina 19
(George, consults on poverty, labor markets and social protection, and public policy reform in Latin America and
was the former Chief Economist at the Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations
Development Programme, “Latin America’s Social Development: Mountains and Valleys,” chapter 4 of
“Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,” published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
According to the last round of censuses from 2010, there are approximately 42 million indigenous people in Latin
America and the Caribbean, nearly 7.8 percent of the total population. Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru have
the highest absolute and relative shares of indigenous populations, comprising 80 percent of the regional total, or
approximately 34 million people. Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela have the smallest
proportions of indigenous populations, of which El Salvador and Costa Rica have the smallest absolute numbers: 14,000 and 104,000 respectively
(World Bank 2015). Countries in the region have increasingly adopted self-identification as the main criterion for
statistical recording. The use of native languages as a criterion in collecting demographic data is in decline,
inasmuch as it can create fixed divides on fluid and evolving social identities. The loss of indigenous languages is
generally associated with poverty, social exclusion, and lack of political participation ; and this trend is accelerating
with urbanization and globalization, particularly among economically vulnerable communities (World Bank 2015). Two
policy issues stand out regarding indigenous peoples. First, is the contested application of the “free, prior, and
informed consent” (FPIC) principles adopted to ensure a sphere of self-determination in territories recognized legally
under indigenous jurisdiction. A comprehensive mapping of socio-environmental conflicts in indigenous territories,
commissioned by the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, identified 226 ongoing conflicts for 2010–13. These
conflicts refer only to mining and hydrocarbon-extractive industry projects. The scope of conflicts has pushed
discussions up through the court systems and has attracted the attention of ombudsmen and other public agencies .
Measures taken include multistakeholder negotiations in various countries, including some of the most widely known cases in Baguas in Peru,
Tipnis in Bolivia, as well as the Shuar-Explorcobres conflict in Ecuador. In this respect, the recent Escazu Agreement on Access to
Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean has moved the FPIC agenda
forward in the region. It includes specific binding provisions for the protection and promotion of individuals, groups,
and organizations that promote and defend human rights in environmental matters . Negotiated under ECLAC auspices, it is
the only binding treaty stemming from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) (OHCHR 2018). The second policy
challenge deals with ensuring political participation of indigenous peoples in parliaments and subnational
governments across the region. The six countries with the highest proportional and absolute numbers of indigenous
population—Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru—had 71 indigenous congressional representatives (of
whom 22 were indigenous women) of a total 1,134 congressional seats . Bolivia, the country with the highest political
representation, instituted special indigenous districts and ran candidates through traditional indigenous organizations, as recognized by the
Constitution of 2009 and new electoral laws. There are 133 million Afro descendants currently living in Latin America and
the Caribbean (World Bank 2018), representing about 21 percent of the total population in the region. Ninety-eight
percent of the Afro-descendant population lives in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela. Two
key issues are at the forefront of current policies on Afro descendants in the region. The first concerns persistent
disparities in education and income with respect to non-Afro-descendant populations in the region. This includes youth at
risk and associated high rates of both teenage pregnancy and criminal prosecution against Afro descendants. According to the World Bank,
regionally, Afro descendants are over 2.5 times likelier to live in chronic poverty than whites or mestizos. Their
children are, therefore, born with unequal opportunities and have disadvantaged access to services. The poverty rates
of Afro-descendant communities in Latin America are all higher than those of non-Afro descendants, with the largest
gaps in Brazil (26 percent to 12 percent, respectively) and Uruguay (13 percent and 4 percent). At the regional level, 64 percent of Afro
descendants complete primary schooling (compared to 80 percent of non-Afro descendants) and represent 12 percent of adults with a degree in
higher education. Eighty-two percent of Afro descendants live in urban areas but are more than twice as likely to live in slums or shantytowns
than non-Afro descendants. The policy response has focused mostly on leveling the playing field within the labor market with an array of
antidiscrimination laws and regulations in force in the 2000s. The second issue is political representation. The increased self-
declaration of Afro-descendant heritage both in racial and political discourse since the 1990s has not been matched ,
so far, by an increase in Afro-descendant political representation. The five countries with the highest number of Afro-
descendant people show only a negligible increase in Afro descendants in the 2000s : Brazil has 17.4 percent Afro-
descendant representatives, for a population with a 50 percent Afro-descendant share on the one end; and Uruguay has 0.8 percent Afro-
descendant representatives for a population with a 7 percent share on the other end. The exception to this pattern is the election of
Latin America’s first Afro descendant, Epsy Campbell, as Costa Rica’s vice president in the 2018 national elections.
Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Uruguay have each introduced legislation and affirmative action policies to improve
the political representation of Afro descendants in the region. This continues to be a pending challenge to equal
representation.
 Neg – Regionalism > US Action
LA can “share a neighborhood, but not a house”
Malamud 19
(Andrés, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. A recurring Visiting
Professor at universities in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and Spain, he has been Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck
Institute of International Law in Heidelberg and the University of Maryland, College Park, “Latin America and the
World: Dependency, Decoupling, Dispersion,” chapter 6 of “Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,”
published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
That the world has become more multipolar and has witnessed the rise (and fall) of new powers has complicated
Latin America’s global relations. Further, multilateral institutions that formed the bedrock of the global order have
become weaker and more ineffective in recent times. The United Nations (UN) seems as toothless as ever, the World Trade
Organization remains unable to reach any meaningful agreement, and a global environmental regime is unenforceable at best
and unraveling at worst. The rise of new powers has not leveled the playing field but increased power differentials
globally. The larger the gap that separates great powers from secondary powers the more likely it is that the former will try to conduct business
among themselves. As a result, international governance takes the form of a G-world (G7, G8, G20), while emerging powers
come together in groupings such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Notably, both strategies have
tended to cluster around issues rather than regions. In sum, the global situation is more complex and fluid than it has
been in the past. Contrary to what some analysts expected, the new multipolar landscape has not translated into
enhanced multilateralism or effective regional coordination. Emerging powers—Brazil, just like India or Turkey—were expected
to gain dominance over their regions, which would then become the building blocks of global governance. Yet
regional capacities to act with one voice in international affairs have not developed signific antly beyond Europe, and even
there, they are endangered. Organizations such as the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), softly modeled on the European Union (EU), still
survive, but most of them have been unable to consolidate internal rules or institutionalize external ties. Further eroding regionalist
strategies, global powers, such as the United States and China, now offer secondary regional powers alternative
policy options to their regional hegemons. Thus, in Latin America, the two largest economies —Brazil and Mexico—
have seen their influence over their neighbors impaired . As a consequence of eroded followership, these putative leaders have
turned their sights outwards, and each has adhered to an extra-regional grouping—respectively, BRICS and the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA, now renamed the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement [USMCA]). Furthermore, each has done so with complete
neglect of the other. A multipolar landscape has not led to effective multilateralism because differences among countries
have become more, not less, pronounced, making consensus more elusive. This problem can be seen in contemporary
debates about global trade, climate change, and even local crises such as those in Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela. But it has not
fostered effective subregionalism either, where just a few players could have made cooperation easier. In Latin
America, states acknowledge they share a neighborhood, but not a house: they might join forces to mow the front
garden but will not sign the same lease. It remains unlikely that they will unite to face global challenges, and
even regional cooperation seems doomed by political polarization and scarce state capacities.

More ev
Malamud 19
(Andrés, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. A recurring Visiting
Professor at universities in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and Spain, he has been Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck
Institute of International Law in Heidelberg and the University of Maryland, College Park, “Latin America and the
World: Dependency, Decoupling, Dispersion,” chapter 6 of “Unfulfilled Promises: Latin America Today,”
published by Inter-American Dialogue, Snider)
In addition, the dramatic policy shift and opening up of Cuba under President Barack Obama in 2014 was widely
cheered in Latin America. Also under Obama, there was increased focus on the governance crises of Central
America’s Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras), in an attempt to tackle the root causes of
migration to the United States. In 2017 U.S.-Mexican relations took a sharp turn for the worse, as Donald Trump
exploited the two issues that propelled his candidacy for president in 2016: trade and immigration. In this regard, Washington’s Latin
American agenda is arguably more driven by domestic politics today than it was in recent decades . Of course, for some
Latin American governments, the United States is indeed a priority—even if Washington does not see it that way.
Cuba and Venezuela consider that the United States poses a threat to their national security; while others, such as
Colombia, regard it as a vital, strategic ally. Mindful of Washington’s interventionist past and uncertain present, the future of inter-
American relations can be classified in three broad policy areas: security, economy, and transnational issues that may require a regional
governance architecture. Although the security question is unlikely to occupy the top of the inter-American agenda, it
may exacerbate conflicts that are rooted in other areas. Three subdimensions are worth exploring: territorial
conflicts, terrorism, and the intervention of an extra-regional power. Some territorial conflicts, either inter- or
intrastate, are likely to develop sporadically. Conventional wars should not be expected, and militarized interstate
disputes will rarely take place, but state failures and collapses should not be ruled out. Haiti fits this category and,
increasingly, so does Venezuela, but Cuba also looms large in case of regime breakdown. Causes of conflict may range from
natural disasters through “Dutch disease” to bad governance up to secessionist attempts, and their potential legacies are
failed states incapable of enforcing public order and border control. Apart from massive violence at the national
level, there is potential for contagion through economic and , above all, migratory spillover. Promoting domestic
stability to avoid civil wars or power vacuums may become one of the greatest challenges for inter-American
diplomacy. Democracy promotion, however, will not be well served by direct U.S. intervention. Yet, the idea of
intervention by the United States in Venezuela has sporadically entered the policy debate, given the gravity of the situation and the migration
crisis that affects neighboring countries (paradoxically, while closer countries resent the massive arrival of refugees, more distant countries such
as the Southern Cone’s will benefit from qualified Venezuelan migration). Initiatives that exclude the United States, like the 1980s
Contadora Group dealing with Central America or the current Lima Group focused on Venezuela, are better equipped to deal with rogue
Latin American governments. Similarly, the Organization of American States could be more effective if members
other than the United States take the lead whenever a diplomatic quarrel with a Latin American country emerges .
 CP -- International Actor
International CP
Jones and Taussig 19
(Bruce, Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute; AND, Torrey,
Nonresident Fellow of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institute, “Democracy & Disorder: The struggle for
influence in the new geopolitics,” https://www.brookings.edu/research/democracy-disorder-the-struggle-for-
influence-in-the-new-geopolitics/, Snider)
At a time when global democracy is challenged, the majority of those living under democratic governance live
outside the West. Protecting the democratic character of the international order will therefore require new coalitions
of democratic states beyond the traditional trans-Atlantic core.
To preserve the prospects for democracy in a changing international order will require serious effort along four
lines:

Democratic renewal: A shared international agenda. Instead of a posture of “democracy promotion,” the West
should join with other democracies in a shared agenda of domestic renewal both to shore up the essential
foundations of democracy and to strengthen its international appeal. This requires a clear focus on economic
inclusion.
Detoxifying identity politics and migration debates. As part of this agenda of democratic renewal, governments and
civil society must find ways to detoxify identity politics. This requires open debates on migration and a focus on
local and urban integration, as well as eschewing the hateful rhetoric that ties migration to terrorism and violence.
Defending democracy in Europe and Asia. To defend the space for democracy in both Europe and Asia,
democracies need to push back on authoritarian powers’ interference, respond firmly to illiberal developments
within alliances and institutions, and build democratic cooperation across the Indo-Pacific. Given the centrality of
Asia to the global interplay between democracy and order, we also propose a new “Dialogue of Democracies in
Asia.”
Deepening cooperation with non-Western democracies. Across the board, but particularly in terms of support to
nascent or emerging democracies in the developing world, both Western and non-Western democracies should
advance democratic cooperation on aid, infrastructure, governance support, and crisis management, joining forces to
compete more effectively with development models advanced by China that may prove to have adverse effects on
democratic governments.
While the question of democracy in the Middle East and West Asia remains fraught with ever-changing instability
and complexity, critical areas of focus include support for basic democratic institutions such as civil-military
relations, parliamentary procedures, and free media in stable countries. While the legacy of America’s Middle East
wars and Russia’s move toward proxy warfare may make this impossible in the short term, a strategy that puts
ending civil wars at the heart of Western policy would, over time, increase the odds of stability and eventual
progress toward government accountability and governance reform.
The trajectory of democracy and the state of the international order are two issue areas often debated separately, but
they are intimately linked. If in the coming phase of contested international order, leading and emerging democratic
states renew their political institutions and social contracts and forge a wide coalition for action, then we could see a
period when strategic competition with China and a firm pushback against Russia will be blended with economic
growth and focused cooperation. If not, we will enter a period characterized both by democratic retrenchment and a
more turbulent, even violent clash between models. A new Cold War is not the worst potential scenario ahead of us,
nor should it be the ceiling of our ambition. Between them, the world’s democracies still have the intrinsic strength
to shape and judiciously advance a values-based order that protects democratic freedoms.
 Cuba -- End Sanctions/Embargo
Ending sanctions boosts Cuban industries and American soft power
Ramona N. Khan 2016, master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York, “NORMALIZATION
POLICIES WITH CUBA: IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC REFORM”,
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2499&context=gc_etds
ADVANTAGES OF AN ENGAGEMENT POLICY In many ways one could argue that the embargo has been a success and a
failure, depending on which side one views it from. Success for the U.S., in part, because of the negative impact the
isolation policy and economic punishment has had on the Cuban economy for over fifty years . There has been no
doubt that the U.S. embargo has been successful in achieving its partial goal of crippling the Cuban economy . On the
other hand, failure because Cuba’s political system remained unaltered in spite of economic punishment . The
policy of isolation toward Cuba has had the opposite effect for the U.S. It has allowed Cuba to rally and gain
support for its cause against a hegemonic (imperialist, in their view) power . These policies have done more
damage to the Cuban population that high ranking officials. With new policies in place, the United States can
have the influence in Latin American and Western Hemisphere it once possessed; one that seeks to promote
American values and democracy. But with a new normalization on the horizon, will the Cuban people benefit? Ever
since modifications were made to the trade sanctions (TSREEA) in 2000, leading to a resumption in some exports to
Cuba, there has been an estimated $3.8 billion worth of products exported from the U.S. Most of the exports went from
southern states and with the recent effort to ease travel and finance restrictions, a study by Texas A&M University, estimates that
southern exports could increase even more by $122.1 million a year . The study found that if these restrictions are
eased, then rising demand for agricultural products made in the south could increase, since Cuba is known to
be a strong market for U.S. agricultural products. Also, tourism is one of the major avenues for foreign exchange,
which means an increase in travel will surely bring a boost to the economy. 164 In fact, the CIA World Factbook
explains that Cuba’s incremental reforms have allowed Cubans to purchase electronic appliances and cell phones,
sales of used and new cars, stay in hotels, and open up retail services for those seeking self-employment.165 In
addition, open relations with Cuba could benefit Americans in the medical field and also boost our economy in
the agricultural sector. In 2005, Daniel Griswold gave a speech at Rice University suggesting that dollars Cubans earn from U.S.
tourists could potentially come back to the U.S. to buy American farm goods and products . He pointed out that
losses from the embargo “costs American firms a total of $700 million to $1.2 billion per year . Farmers in Texas
and neighboring states are among the biggest potential winners.” But he also acknowledged that real change could only come about if
serious market reforms are implemented in Cuba.166 . Arguments that negotiating with the Cuban government will
weaken the United States’ status internationally does not stand up since the U.S. negotiates with other nations
that have similar political systems (China, Russia, Iran, to name a few). As part of the ongoing process, challenges will
present themselves, but it seems that the benefits will outweigh the costs. Ending the trade embargo could create thousands
of jobs for Americans in farming and other areas. Lifting the sanctions will help Cuba to reintegrate into the world
community and be able to compete globally. It will bring Cuba out of political and economic isolation while
ensuring the United States’ economy benefits. The United States will be able to rebuild its geopolitical
influence in other Latin American countries as well. 167 The U.S. embargo and its support for Cuba’s exclusion
from the Summit of the Americas have resulted in broken relationships with the Latin American region . Regaining
influence seemed to be a determining factor for the normalization policy within the Obama administration . Restoring
relations allowed the United States to present itself as country willing to engage in mutual partnerships within the
Caribbean region. Any backpedaling to this policy could impede on Cuba’s reintegration into the inter-
American community and have the U.S. face backlash in the form of uncooperativeness within the Latin
American and Caribbean region.168 Continuous criticism from the Latin American region have created
isolation for the United States. A Brookings Institute report in 2009 concluded that U.S. policy toward Cuba have
had the opposite effect, namely, “undermining the well-being of the Cuban people and to eroding U.S. influence in
Cuba and Latin America.”169 Failure of the United States to require Latin American countries to uphold sanctions on
Cuba is a testament to the loss of influence in this region. Almost every Latin American country has diplomatic
relations with Cuba. Once the Organization of American States (OAS) lifted its sanctions in the 70’s, almost all of Latin America resumed
trade with Cuba. These trade agreements have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars for the region. With Cuba’s
generous support in humanitarian aid (doctors) to Latin America and the Caribbean, Cuba is viewed as an “international leader in establishing
coalitions among developing nations.”170 Of course, one could argue that Cuba’s generous humanitarian aid to the Caribbean
and Latin America is not based on altruism but on maintaining influence and economic benefits from trade relations
within this region. With continued political pressure from the Cuban people, the United States and the international
community, it seems likely that lifting the economic embargo will drive Cuba into a direction of political
change. Change seems inevitable and ending the trade sanctions would benefit the United States, Cuba, and
the international community.

Normalizing relations creates a slow transition towards Democracy

Ramona N. Khan 2016, master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York, “NORMALIZATION
POLICIES WITH CUBA: IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC REFORM”,
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2499&context=gc_etds
Cuba’s present position as a state in transition signals that it could undergo major political shifts within the next few
years. Raul Castro, the current leader after Fidel Castro’s retirement, has instituted reforms, such as liberalizing some sectors formerly under
tight state control, and allowing the small private sector to expand gradually, which has resulted in an increase in self-employed workers. There
are also many more tourist visa granted to U.S. citizens and more direct air travel to and from the U.S. In addition,
some U.S. corporations are being allowed to expand information technology and internet access across the island.
Normalizing relations between the two countries will also provide opportunities for improvement in medicine
and medical research in Cuba. Further, Cuba has been willing, on humanitarian grounds, to share its own medical
advances and personnel with countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. These measures and exchanges are
only the first steps on the road toward more abundant exchanges once normalization is fully realized.
However, that most of Cuba’s economy remains state owned and controlled, confirms to those opposed to the new
engagement policy that lifting the embargo will not guarantee many benefits for private citizens there. In fact,
most imports are still required to go through Cuba’s government operated agency – ALIMPORT. For the U.S., that
is the exclusive negotiating and procurement agency for all purchasing, documentation and other logistics related to
agricultural products. It appears that for now, at least, it might be the officials within the Cuban government who are
the primary beneficiaries for the changes taking place. The lack of complete and immediate transformation of
Cuba’s systems at the inception of the normalization policy should not be seen as a failure but the result of a slow
transition in a wary relationship of long standing. Despite the relative slow progress, maintaining the current
process is likely to lead to further reaching and mutually beneficial results, both economically and politically. Yet,
despite reasons for optimism, it is important to note that policies implemented President Obama and subsequent
presidents pursuing their own foreign policy and economic agendas, might not ultimately produce the results in
Cuba that many at present are hopeful and impatient to see. This is in no way should deter or derail the process.
Rather than maintaining an isolationist policy, it behooves U.S. political leaders to promote changes that
stand the best chance of being mutually beneficial, including and perhaps especially the political freedom and
right to self-determination of the Cuban people. It holds more potential for benefit to make Cuba a partner and
ally in the Western Hemisphere than to isolate them. That is reason enough to be steadfast in pursuit of
normalization now that it has begun.
uq
Siddhartha Mahanta 16, former associate editor at The Atlantic, 12-3-2016, "The Case for the Cuba Embargo,"
Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/robert-menendez-cuba-castro-embargo/509366/
Obama has made the argument against the ongoing embargo, which he says did little to change the behavior of the
Castro regime, or compel economic or political liberalization. “Instead of supporting democracy and opportunity for
the Cuban people, our efforts to isolate Cuba despite good intentions increasingly had the opposite effect—
cementing the status quo and isolating the United States from our neighbors in this hemisphere,” he said in July
2015. But in an interview on Thursday, the senator defended the embargo as a measure that had created a sense of
“economic necessity” for the Castro regime, and argued that it had in fact forced Cuba into substantive changes
such as reducing the size of its military. The regime’s capacity to support anti-colonial revolutions in Latin
America, the Congo, Angola, and elsewhere, was reduced as well . And the U.S. dollar, which was illegal in Cuba
until 1993, is now openly traded. All of this, Menendez said, was made possible by the economic hardship the
embargo created for the regime despite never being fully enforced thanks to various loopholes available to
international subsidiaries of U.S. companies. “I think we would all say these are good things for the Cuban people to
some extent, and certainly for the people of the hemisphere in terms of greater stability,” Menendez said.
Obama’s diplomatic rapprochement with Cuba, premised on what he called the failure of the previous policy, in
Menendez’s view failed to take into account changes in the international environment that could have made
that policy work better. Cuba’s longtime regime patron Venezuela, which has provided oil in exchange for Cuban
doctors, along with security and trade assistance to Havana, has experienced its own economic and political crisis in
recent years, which could have further degraded the Castro regime’s position, making it more susceptible to U.S.
pressure for real change, Menendez argued. He also pointed out that the number of Cubans seeking to come to the
United States has continued to grow since Obama’s opening. “[If] things were so great two years after this new
opening, people would be staying, not coming,” he said. “I have talked to those who are presently residing in Cuba and who
struggle every day within the belly of the beast to try to create change in their country. ... The Ladies in White have told me about the difficulties
and the challenges, the beatings and the arrests and the torture, and have told me that, in the last two years, things have only gotten worse.
Because the regime’s message is, ‘We only care about doing business. We don’t care about human rights and
democracy because we hardly talk about it anymore.’ [Cubans] feel, in that [sense], abandoned.” Critics of
America’s long-standing policy of isolationism towards Cuba often point out that the country has, in fact, thrived in
certain key respects under the Castros, including healthcare and literacy. As Menendez has suggested in the past, the
better approach in Cuba would’ve resembled something closer to Obama’s strategy with Burma. There, in Menendez’s
words, the president said, “‘You want to have a relationship with [the United States], then you have to release political
prisoners. … You have to hold legislative elections. You have to permit the UN special rapporteur for human rights
to come in, and then you can have a relationship with us.’ And guess what? All those things happened.” Burma’s
democratic reforms are still fragile, however, and the country could easily backslide. Now, with the death of Fidel
Castro, “the intellectual leader of first a revolution and then a dictatorship,” comes “a symbolic end from the leader
of the movement that enslaved the Cuban people,” Menendez said. This, in turn, opens up an opportunity for
Washington to steer Cuba away from a state-controlled economy that seems poised to enrich members of the
Castro family. “When we do business, allow business to take place and engage with [Cuba], we strengthen the
regime that oppresses its people, not the people themselves.” (Menendez is doesn’t see much potential for change under Raul.
“Raul Castro has more blood on his hands than Fidel did,” he said at his press conference.) To help the Cuban people, Menendez pointed to
things like Title II of the LIBERTAD Act of 1995, which he helped write, that were designed to engage Cuban civil
society. “We used to have programs of parliamentarians from former communist blocks or dictatorships who
transitioned to democracy to talk about how they did it, and go visit with human-rights and democracy
leaders inside of Cuba. We used to … help Cuban democracy and human rights movements … communicate
with each other on the island, which in and of itself is an incredible challenge for them. We could use our
surrogate transmissions into Cuba through radio and television Marti to allow the voice of the Cuban people to be
the voice that gets transmitted back, not just our broadcasting.” Yet it’s unclear how much political and economic
reform in Cuba actually matters for America’s interests. After all, Cuba hasn’t posed a serious threat to the
United States since 1962, and its influence in the Western hemisphere has, as Menendez pointed out, been
waning for decades. Menendez argued that democracies are, largely, less likely to go to war with other
democracies, and more encouraging of open markets. “They create greater stability. And so that would be true for
Cuba as well. It is in the national interest and security of the United States to have a country in the Western
hemisphere that is democratic, creating greater opportunities for its people. Because it’s the command and control
economy of the Castro regime that really creates the desperateness of the Cuban people.”
 Cuba – Other Proposals
Use Helms-Burton Act to pressure Cuba
Ramona N. Khan 2016, master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York, “NORMALIZATION
POLICIES WITH CUBA: IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC REFORM”,
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2499&context=gc_etds
2.8. Justification for Maintaining the Embargo Many critics have argued throughout the years that the embargo is justified and
should continue to be used as leverage to put pressure on the Cuban government to improve and address human
rights abuses and repression facing opposition groups and dissidents . But if the embargo is lifted, would that deter the
Cuban government from seeking a more open and transparent political system and end its political prosecution of
human rights groups? A Human Rights Watch World Report on Cuba 2015 states that Cubans are prosecuted if
they criticize the government in any format . They are not granted due process and are subject to criminal
prosecution. Human rights groups do not have access to prisoners and in spite of Cuba releasing 53 prisoners as part
of the renewed diplomatic relations, there are still dozens more that are estimated to be in prison . The government also
refuses to recognize any form of human rights monitoring agency and “denies legal status to local human rights groups. Government authorities
harass, assault, and imprison human rights defenders who attempt to document abuses.” The report also notes that even though Cuba had
agreed, as part of the 2014 agreement, to allow the International Committee of Red Cross and UN human rights
monitors, it had not stuck to its part of the bargain by the end of the year .76 A 2015 Freedom House Report on Cuba also
documented similar findings, noting, the government “increased its systematic use of short-term “preventive” detentions-along with harassment,
beatings, and “acts of repudiation” – to intimidate the political opposition, isolate dissidents from the rest of the population, and maintain political
control of all public spaces.” The report revealed there were a record number of these detentions in 2014. Short-term detentions have also
increased and the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported that there were 8,899 more short tern detentions in
2014 while 6,424 were reported in 2013.77 In addition, Freedom House reports that the CCDHRN estimates there could be over 100 political
prisoners. Government watch groups, such as Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, has engaged in vigilante tactics and intimidation to
silence opposition groups. Freedom of expression and the right to assemble is heavily restricted and often results in imprisonment for years. Not
surprisingly, Cuba is rated a 7, with 7 ranked as “the worst” on the Political Rights scale on Freedom House.78 In a
March 2016 article by 14ymedio.com, it was reported that 209 activists were arrested for protesting and demanding release of political prisoners,
addressing human rights abuses and repression. Most of the arrested were part of the opposition group, Unión Patriótica de
Cuba (UNPACU) which is considered one of the largest opposition organizations in the country. And quite a number of
activists were not allowed to leave their homes during police activity.79 Obviously, Cuba will need to have a change in its
political system before the embargo could be lifted. So far, lack of political participation, freedom of
expression, human rights abuse and repression and travel restrictions only hurt the Cuban people . Given
these setbacks, the Helms-Burton Act seems like a perfect leverage to put pressure on the Cuban government to
respect these rights and have a change in political system. Sec. 9 of the findings state “The United States has shown a deep
commitment, and considers it a moral obligation, to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms as
expressed in the Charter of the United Nations and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”80
Amend LIBERTAD, AT: domestic first
Marcia Narine Weldon 2017, Lecturer in Law at the University of Miami School of Law and previously worked as
a compliance officer and deputy general counsel for a Fortune 500 multinational company and as a consultant on
issues related to export controls and OFAC compliance, “YOU SAY EMBARGO, I SAY BLOQUEO—A POLICY
RECOMMENDATION FOR PROMOTING FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND SAFEGUARDING
HUMAN RIGHTS IN CUBA”, Emory International Law Review, http://law.emory.edu/eilr/content/volume-
32/issue-1/articles/embargo-bloqueo-promoting-foreign-investment-human-rights-cuba.html#section-
5f1239a9c373fc24c7466332a94500c2
The U.S. embargo remains in effect notwithstanding the efforts by the Obama administration to chip away at the
restrictions. During this “thaw,” or “deshielo,” and during the Trump administration’s increased pressure on the
Castro regime, the U.S. government can, and should, require more from Cuba and U.S. businesses regarding
human rights prior to lifting the embargo completely . Although advocacy groups, 279 members of Congress, 280
and the United Nations 281 support lifting the embargo immediately, I support lifting it with caveats, in keeping
with the policy behind the UNGPs. However, prior to lifting the embargo, the United States needs to examine its own
record on human rights and how it treats other violators, otherwise it will have no credibility with the Cuban
government. The U.S. Congress demands human rights reform in Cuba but has not been consistent in its own business dealings with other
authoritarian or socialist regimes. For example, although the U.S. Department of State has criticized Cuba’s human rights record, China, another
communist country with a poor human rights record, 282 is the United States’ third-largest trading partner. 283 The United States lifted its
trade embargo with Communist Vietnam twenty years ago, and major U.S. companies now operate there today even
though the U.S. government has leveled some of the same human rights criticism against Vietnam as it has against
Cuba. 284 The communist government of Laos did not fare much better than Cuba in human rights state department
reports, but the U.S. government actively promotes potential investment opportunities there. 285 This inconsistency
in approach to human rights violators diminishes the U.S. government’s integrity in negotiating with Cuba .
Tellingly, in its 2017 World Report, Human Rights Watch, a respected NGO, warned of the dangers of the Trump
administration from a human rights perspective. 286 This hardly puts the U.S. in a strong bargaining position with
Cuba when discussing the conditions on lifting the embargo. But the United States can, and should, lift the
embargo, keeping in mind the human rights of the Cuban people. The U.S. government will not force the Cuban
government to make drastic differences in its understanding of or respect for human rights . Perhaps Congress
should amend or repeal LIBERTAD, something beyond the scope of this Article. The U.S. government can
ensure that U.S. investors do not exacerbate suffering in Cuba through its investment trade policy . Accordingly, any
Cuba-U.S. BIT must include specific human rights language and should incorporate a clean hands doctrine so that
companies that are complicit in or perpetuate human rights abuses will not get the benefit of the already favorable
investor-state dispute resolution protection. As a former member of the U.N. Human Rights Council that
unanimously endorsed the UNGPs, Cuba should agree to terms that require the state and TNCs to protect
and respect human rights. The U.S. government should also entrench these ideals in a revised NAP. Cuba and
the United States sit ninety miles away from each other but have spent over fifty years in a stalemate over human
rights. The embargo, or “blockade” as the United Nations and other nations label it, has caused economic harm to
the Castro regime that allows Cuba’s leaders to deflect from the shortcomings of its own socialist system . But now
that the deshielo has begun, it is time for both nations to come to an acceptable agreement on a workable
definition of human rights to ensure the protection of both investor and stakeholder interests.
 Cuba – Neg/Sanctions Good
Sanctions enforcement can help with Venezuela
Ana Quintana 19, Senior Policy Analyst, Latin America and the Western Hemisphere, 3-5-2019, "Trump’s Cuba
Sanctions Are a Solid Step in Cracking Down on Maduro Regime’s Enablers," Heritage Foundation,
https://www.heritage.org/americas/commentary/trumps-cuba-sanctions-are-solid-step-cracking-down-maduro-
regimes-enablers
The Trump administration on Monday took the historic step of implementing Cuba sanctions. Specifically, the
administration is temporarily permitting U.S. citizens whose property was stolen by the Castro regime to pursue
legal action. From March 19 to April 17, Americans will be able to sue 205 Cuban companies that are owned and/or
operated by the Cuban military, intelligence, and security services. Penalizing the Cuban regime serves two
purposes right now. It addresses the longstanding issue of uncompensated claims, and it also punishes the
regime for the destabilizing role it has long played in Venezuela. The Cuba sanctions were originally codified in
1996 under the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, but since its enactment, U.S. administrations have
suspended enforcement of the sanctions component of the law, known as Title III. Full enforcement of the law
would permit Americans whose property was seized without compensation by the Castro regime to bring legal
action against any foreign company operating inside of Cuba. Monday’s actions constitute a partial enforcement, as
legal action can only be brought against Cuban regime companies on the U.S.’ Cuba Restricted List. According to
the State Department, every one of these companies is “under the control of, or acting for or on behalf of, the Cuban
military, intelligence, or security services or personnel with which direct financial transactions would
disproportionately benefit such services or personnel at the expense of the Cuban people or private enterprise in
Cuba.” Valued at nearly $8 billion, Cuba’s illegal confiscation of American property and assets is considered to be the “largest uncompensated
taking of American property by a foreign government in history.” The total value of assets stolen by the regime is even higher, as those figures
don’t include American citizens who were Cuban nationals at the time their property was taken. The timing of Monday’s
announcement should send a strong message to the regimes in Cuba and Venezuela, and to the international
community working to resolve Venezuela’s crisis. Havana has played a key role in Venezuela’s collapse. In
exchange for oil and other resources, Cuba has provided Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Caracas with a world-class
police state. Throughout Venezuela, Cuba has protected Maduro with a network of intelligence officers, political
advisers, and security officials. The Cubans have shared their “best practices,” which have enabled their own
regime’s longevity. Some falsely believe that the slow trickle of defections from the Venezuelan military
indicates continuing strong support for Maduro. The more probable explanation is rooted in Cuba’s extensive
counterintelligence system within Venezuela. Defections and betrayals come at a high cost, not only to the military officials, but to the
families left behind. Venezuela currently has the most political prisoners of any country in the Western Hemisphere—even more than Cuba itself.
Despite the danger in doing so, nearly 600 soldiers and 11 diplomats have defected. They now publicly recognize the legitimacy of interim
President Juan Guaido. Getting Maduro to step aside requires making it more costly for Cuba to continue enabling his
dictatorship. The recent U.S. actions demonstrate U.S. policy is correct in linking both issues. It’s now time for
international partners and allies to ratchet up the pressure as well.
Increasing pressure is the only way to lead to democratic improvements, Obama-style
approach fails
Elliott Abrams 18, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, 4-2-2018, "Time
to Tighten the Screws on Cuba?," Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/time-tighten-
screws-cuba
With President Raul Castro’s impending retirement, the United States should consider stepping up pressure on Havana,
relenting only when new leadership grants the Cuban people real democratic gains. Obama’s Ill-Conceived Gamble
President Obama began to ease decades-old restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba soon after his
inauguration. Under his changes, Cuban-Americans were permitted to send unlimited amounts of money to relatives on the island, and
Americans were permitted to travel there as individuals rather than in educational or religious groups. In 2014, during Obama’s second
term, he and Raul Castro restored full diplomatic relations and reopened U.S. and Cuban embassies. In 2016, the
president made a historic visit to Cuba, allowed commercial flights between the countries to resume, and permitted cruise ships departing from
U.S. ports to dock in Cuba. However, despite the Obama administration’s efforts, the U.S. embargo on Cuba remained in place, impeding
attempts to expand trade. Obama argued this normalization with Cuba was required because the previous U.S. policy
“was not working.” In a speech during his 2016 visit to Havana, he called for a real political opening in Cuba. “I believe citizens should be
free to speak their mind without fear, to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not
include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights,” he said. “And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose
their governments in free and democratic elections.” Weak Returns What was the impact of Obama’s policy changes?
U.S. remittances and tourism to Cuba rose substantially, but trade—limited by the embargo—did not follow suit.
Rather, it actually declined: U.S. exports to Cuba (there are almost zero imports from the island) fell from
approximately $533 million in 2009 to $283 million in 2017, Obama’s last year in office. No doubt removal of the
embargo, which would require U.S. congressional action, would have spurred trade, but there is no reason to think
it would have led to political changes. In fact, the increases in tourism and remittances and the opening of official
diplomatic ties during the Obama years did not spur gains for Cubans on the human rights and political front .
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an independent nongovernmental
organization, found that in 2016 Cuban authorities detained 9,940 individuals, a record number. There were
5,155 detentions reported in 2017, but there were likely many more prisoners of conscience. Internet censorship
has not diminished nor has access expanded. There have, of course, been no free elections. In its latest report on
Cuba, Amnesty International stated, “The Ladies in White, a group of female relatives of prisoners detained on
politically motivated grounds, remained one of the primary targets of repression by the authorities. During
detention, the women were often beaten by law enforcement officials and state security agents dressed as
civilians.” Obama’s Cuba policies may have actually undermined U.S. objectives there . Former Florida Governor Jeb
Bush wrote in 2016 that “prominent leaders of Cuba’s peaceful opposition believe President Obama’s concessions to the Castro regime have been
counterproductive to the fight for freedom.” A One-Sided Bargain Obama’s policies failed for several reasons. On trade, Cuba
simply has few products to export to the United States and little money with which to buy U.S. exports. On human
rights, the Obama administration failed to demand any improvements from Cuba in exchange for the various
diplomatic, trade, and travel concessions it granted Havana. So Cuba’s rulers took what they were offered, but
felt little pressure to change. It’s a mystery, in fact, why Obama believed his concessions would inspire any
changes in a country with the Communist Party and Raul Castro entirely in charge . Trump’s Half Measures The Trump
administration has left most of Obama’s major changes intact, despite the new president’s tough rhetoric . “The
previous administration’s easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people—they only enrich the Cuban regime,”
President Trump said in June 2017. Under Trump’s leadership, the United States has restricted commerce with Cuban entities
owned by the military and security services, such as hotels owned by the Cuban army, and it has ended individual
travel. The State Department also warned Americans not to visit Cuba following attacks first reported in 2017 on U.S. diplomatic personnel
there that left two dozen with serious and unexplained health problems. However, Trump has not altered regulations covering
commercial flights and cruises to Cuba or travel by tour groups. It is too early to judge whether Trump’s policies will have a
significant commercial impact. Cruise ship passenger arrivals appear to be rising, but multiple airlines have canceled flights from the United
States due to low demand. The net effect on U.S. citizen travel to Cuba will have to be calculated after another year or two. On the human
rights side, it is not too soon to conclude that Trump’s policy has had no positive effect. There has been no
movement by the Castro regime toward the fundamental U.S. goals of freedom and democracy. Looking Past the
Castros That neither the Obama nor Trump administration has made much headway on improving Cuba’s political
and human rights situation might suggest that U.S. influence in Cuba is small. That is, the island has been
governed since 1960 by a Marxist regime whose internal policies are determined solely by its ideology, not by the
rising or falling of U.S. tourist and commercial dollars or by changes in U.S. rhetoric. In this sense Obama was right in
saying the U.S. embargo was “not working” to induce change in Cuba, but wrong in thinking that ending the embargo would
“work” any better. A vigorous push by the Obama administration for major human rights improvements in
exchange for an end to the embargo might have put the regime under serious pressure. Instead, Obama’s
policies provided the regime legitimacy while bringing no benefits to Cubans struggling for freedom and human
rights. The Trump administration will soon face a Cuba that looks different—if Raul Castro retires in April as planned, there
will be no Castro running the country for the first time in nearly sixty years. But whether the island’s next government will be
different is another question, for the Communist Party will remain in full contro l—and Raul Castro will remain the party’s
top official. All of the likely candidates for president, including First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, rose through party ranks.
Given the failure of previous efforts, the United States should maintain or heighten pressure on Cuba for at
least two reasons. First, U.S. policy should reflect American values. The United States should refuse to relax any
trade policies that will bring economic gains to the regime unless there are tangible benefits for the Cuban
people. U.S. actions in multilateral forums such as the Organization of American States (whose hemispheric
summit in Lima, Peru, on April 13 will be attended by Trump) and the United Nations can help build
international pressure. At the very least, the United States should avoid any words or actions that assist the regime
in maintaining its tyranny or undermine the morale of Cubans working peacefully for change. Second, Cubans, as
well as the international community, will expect improvements with the end of the Castro period . The United
States should press hard for change once Raul is out because it’s unclear if the regime will be able to keep its
monopoly on power and deny political and human rights progress.
Being strong on Cuba is key to actually give the US leverage
José R. Cárdenas 17, assistant administrator for Latin America at the U.S. Agency for International Development
in the George W. Bush administration, 6-14-2017, "Trump is Right to Reset U.S.-Cuba Policy," Foreign Policy,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/14/trump-is-right-to-reset-u-s-cuba-policy-obama/
Reports are coming in that this Friday, in a Miami speech, President Donald Trump will unveil his revisions to
former President Barack Obama’s controversial policy to normalize U.S. relations with the Castro dictatorship in
Cuba. While no specifics have as yet leaked, it is largely expected that Trump will tighten certain aspects of
the myriad executive orders Obama issued to circumvent the U.S. embargo, primarily in the areas of
liberalized tourist travel and other commercial exchanges with the island (the embargo was codified by
Congress in 1996). Trump is also expected to make the case for more reciprocity in the relationship — in that
Obama’s deal was woefully one-sided, with the Castro regime accruing windfall economic benefits from increased
U.S. trade and travel without conceding anything in terms of its one-party state, closed economy, and repression of
human rights. It is a point that President Trump has driven home previously. During the campaign last October, he called the Obama
administration’s negotiations “a very weak agreement.” As president-elect in November, he tweeted, “If
Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a
whole, I will terminate the deal.” Media reports are suggesting the Trump administration may also specifically
target commercial dealings with entities controlled by the Cuban military. That’s because under Obama policy, the
military has been steadily expanding its reach into all facets of the tourist industry, among other sectors of the Cuban
economy. Its holding company, GAESA (Enterprise Administration Group), owns the best hotels in Cuba and most retail outlets, rental car
companies, and import entities. It is run by Raúl Castro’s son-in-law, Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas, one of the most powerful men
on the island. Estimates are that GAESA companies account for more than half of the business revenue generated in Cuba — and that number is
rising. Blocking transactions that serve only to reinforce the regime’s control over the Cuban people would
restore badly needed integrity to U.S. policy. (It should be noted, however, that even the supposed “private
enterprises” in Cuba — such as home restaurants, rentable apartments, taxis, and so on — are known to be so
thoroughly penetrated by the regime that the line between ordinary Cubans and regime is impossible to discern.) In
the past, I have written that in reassessing Obama’s policy towards Cuba, one need only to hold it to the standard his administration set for itself:
namely, whether it works to “ improve the lives of the Cuban people.” Thus, all executive orders issued by Obama and
commercial deals struck under the Obama administration ought to be judged according to whether they help the
Cuban people or whether they buttress the Castro regime. Any activity found to be sustaining the regime’s
control rather than directly benefiting the Cuban people should be scrapped. That, and restoring common cause
with Cuba’s beleaguered human rights and dissident communities, should be front and center of a reconfigured
U.S. Cuba policy. As far as broader commercial transactions with the Castro regime, the Trump administration
should consider resurrecting the Arcos Principles for Foreign Investment in Cuba, named after the late revolutionary
fighter-turned-dissident and inspired by the Sullivan Principles, which sought to govern commercial transactions
with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Essentially, it would mean urging any commercial entity doing or
looking to do business in Cuba to commit to promoting human rights and fair-labor hiring and employment
practices. For example, U.S. companies engaged in Cuba should demand that wages be paid directly to Cuban workers
in convertible pesos known as CUCs. Current practice is that Cuban workers earn a few hundred dollars a week,
paid to the regime, which then pays workers in worthless Cuban pesos, known as CUPs . Defenders of Obama’s
policy assert that it was not meant to produce change overnight, that the pre-Obama approach was an
ignominious failure, and that changing policy now would only hurt the Cuban — as if it is the responsibility of
the United States and not the Castro regime to provide for the Cuban people’s welfare . (It is a particularly odious aspect of
the Castro regime that it has always tried to leverage the suffering of the Cuban people for sympathy and concessions from abroad.) Moreover,
these advocates have no special claim to being frustrated over the lack of change in Cuba; everyone who cares about
Cuba is frustrated. That doesn’t mean we all have to agree that the appropriate policy response is to open up
trade and travel with the Castro dictatorship and then hope for the best. Still, no one is expecting that President
Trump’s reset of U.S.-Cuba policy is merely going to be a return to the status quo ante. As stated, a defensible U.S. Cuba
policy is one that supports the Cuban people with as little support to the regime as possible. President Obama professed to want to help average
Cubans have a better day; a more fitting U.S. policy is to stand with those Cubans who want a better future.

Lifting the embargo won’t do anything

Dawn Brancati and Javier Corrales 2016, Visiting Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace
Studies at Columbia University AND Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College,
11-29-2016, “Trump has threatened to rip up the “deal” with Cuba. Would that work?”, The Washington Post,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/30/the-u-s-embargo-didnt-push-cuba-toward-
democracy-neither-will-its-end-so-whats-the-point/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4842c74f7a1f
We’re skeptical that lifting the embargo will bring about instant change But lifting the embargo will do little to
end what some have described as Cuba’s “second embargo” — onerous Cuban regulations blocking initiative
and entrepreneurship. Cuba’s government allows citizens to work for themselves in only 201 professions, most
with low skills. Labor continues to be shackled with restrictions: for instance, workers don’t get to decide whom
they can work for, and if they are lucky enough (or communist enough) to be allowed to work for a foreign firm,
they cannot get paid in foreign currency. Cuba’s second embargo also applies to foreign direct investment (FDI).
Joint ventures in Cuba, despite enjoying monopolistic environments, still confront onerous regulations: high taxes,
opaque and arbitrary rule enforcement, no control over labor contracts, no protection of property rights.
Consequently, FDI to Cuba “has fallen short” of its potential. Cuba’s second embargo is especially strict when it
comes to information. While Cubans can own smartphones and computers, and buy Internet access, information in
Cuba remains significantly “bootstrapped.” Access is too expensive (1 Cuban convertible peso per megabyte, in a country where the
average salary is 25-30 pesos per month). Choice is too limited (Facebook is allowed but Skype, YouTube, and WhatsApp are not).
Cuban online surveillance is not that sophisticated, but it is strong enough to deter most Cubans from using their
devices for political ends. Just because more U.S. firms deliver more Internet does not mean that Cubans will
engage in more political online surfing.
Lifting the embargo isn’t effective democracy promotion
Dawn Brancati and Javier Corrales 2016, Visiting Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace
Studies at Columbia University AND Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College,
11-29-2016, “Trump has threatened to rip up the “deal” with Cuba. Would that work?”, The Washington Post,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/30/the-u-s-embargo-didnt-push-cuba-toward-
democracy-neither-will-its-end-so-whats-the-point/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4842c74f7a1f
Will there be a “Cuban spring”? Lifting the embargo is unlikely to spark massive protests like those seen in the Middle
East and North Africa five years ago. It won’t change the economy much, and it won’t necessarily change the
most important factors blocking protest in Cuba: state repression, social vigilantism, and exit. No research
shows that trade softens repressive regimes, unless treaties stipulate that ongoing trade depends on human
rights practices and unless trade is rescinded when governments do not meet promised human rights
standards. There’s another reason the Cuban regime survives: its citizens collaborate in keeping the government
alive. Every street in Cuba has a Committee for the Defense of the Revolutio n. Cubans still spy on each other because the
incentives are attractive. Either the government rewards volunteers for reporting anything suspicious, or volunteers can
bribe neighbors who are caught doing something illicit. Either way, vigilantism and repression win. Finally,
there is the exit option. Leaving Cuba is neither easy nor inexpensive, but it is not impossible. Those who are truly
discontent spend more energy figuring out how to leave the island than how to overthrow the system. Lifting the embargo is also
unlikely to change the position of the military . Research on the Arab Spring shows that when the military sides
with protesters, regimes can change. But in Cuba, the military remains fully aligned with the government . That’s partly
because the military is perhaps the only sector that has been exempted from Cuba’s second embargo. The military can engage in a number of
economic activities, including deals with foreigners. As the most important winner from the status quo, the military is therefore its most ardent
defender. So what happens next? Democratization, if it comes, will probably come from domestic demands and potentially
from protests from below – but not from the U.S. lifting its embargo . The embargo has had little effect on either
hardening or softening the Cuban regime. Lifting it will have just as little influence. And this is perhaps the
best argument for lifting the embargo: in the end, it is too costly for both U.S. businesses and ordinary Cubans —
while being mostly inconsequential for democracy.
 Cuba – Unilateral CP
We should lift the embargo without human rights concessions, solves best by transitioning
Cuba to a more open market
Kevin J. Fandl 2018, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Strategic Global Management at the Fox School of
Business, Temple University. Ph.D. (2010) George Mason University; JD/MA (2003/2000), American University;
BA (1998) Lock Haven University, “TRADING WITH THE ENEMY: OPENING THE DOOR TO U.S.
INVESTMENT IN CUBA”, Georgetown Journal of International Law,
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/international-law-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2018/08/GT-
GJIL180020.pdf
In this Article, I set out to explain the trade relationship between the United States and Cuba and how we ended up where we are today. And I
have shown that despite a significant amount of rhetoric around the edges of this relationship, very few substantive
changes to trade policy have taken place since 1959. This is bad news for potential U.S. investors and worse news
for the Cuban economy. Cuba is a small market in terms of U.S. trade relationships, and a complete lifting of the
economic embargo would be barely noticeable in our global balance of trade. On the contrary, the United States,
prior to the economic embargo, was Cuba’s principal export destination, so removal of the embargo could
substantially impact Cuban economic growth opportunities and help the island nation reinvigorate its largely
stagnant economy. The economic embargo on Cuba has done little if anything at all to facilitate a transition to
democracy on the island. And as I have argued elsewhere, the changes taking place in Cuba since 2008 toward a more
open economy reflect the first real opportunity not to force democracy on the island, but to allow it to peacefully and
slowly grow naturally out of the economic development process.275 Economic growth and international trade are
often accompanied by an interest in a government that represents the interests of the people.276 With trade comes
the possibility of improved governance. If Cuba is given the chance to engage again in the global economy by
trading with its former key trade partner, as well as others interested in doing business on the island, the intent of
the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba might just be achieved . At worst, Cuba may follow the path of China and
become a free market communist state that operates within the rules of the world trade system. But no matter what
path Cuba ultimately follows post-embargo, as a sovereign state that poses no threat to the United States
economically or politically, it must be given the chance to decide that free of U.S. interference.
 Colombia – Laundry List Proposals
The US should sustain assistance to Colombia to help with transition
Paul J. Angelo 18, PhD Candidate at the Institute of the Americas, University College London. From 2010 to 2011,
he served as a U.S. military adviser to the Colombian Ministry of Defense under Plan Colombia. He previously
completed an MPhil in Latin American Studies as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford and is a Foreign
Area Officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, 5-31-2018, "In Colombia, false positives are a false start for peace," Global
Americans, https://theglobalamericans.org/2018/05/false-positives-are-a-false-start-for-peace/
From pariah to preferred partner Renewed scrutiny of Colombia’s human rights record comes at a pivotal time
for the country’s international reputation. Just last week, President Juan Manuel Santos announced Colombia’s
entry into the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and affiliation with the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Admission to these elite multinational bodies is a symbolic recognition of
the country’s progress in adhering to democratic principles and in tackling extreme poverty. Colombia has
also made remarkable strides in reducing crime and violence. From 2012 to 2016, Mr. Santos negotiated a hard-won peace deal
with the country’s largest insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The costly price tag for the implementation of
the accord totals at least $44 billion over ten years, and the international community has demonstrated its resolve to assist the Colombian state by
sponsoring a United Nations verification mission and by donating nearly $1 billion to date. The FARC and the Colombian government
made good on these investments in 2017, when Colombia reported its lowest homicide rate in 40 years.
Notwithstanding these advances, the specter of impunity for war crimes will continue to weigh heavily on the
Colombian government as it tries to reshape its global image until those responsible are brought to justice. To this
end, the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump should extend a helping hand to Washington’s long-
time ally. An ally for peace Building on the perceived success of Plan Colombia in helping bring the FARC to the
negotiating table, the administration of President Barack Obama committed $450 million to the implementation of
the peace accord—a modest but encouraging sum from Colombia’s wealthiest ally. On the contrary, Mr. Trump’s State
Department, loath to endorse gestures that fail to put “America first,” has proposed an aid reduction for
Colombia to $251 million for the 2019 fiscal year. Such reductions risk undermining U.S. geo-strategic
interests in the region and squandering the momentum of peace helped by decades of U.S. investment. Instead,
the U.S. should sustain and reorient assistance for the Colombian military, which in the wake of the 2008 scandal
started its own a process of reorganization and transformation. Accusations of human rights violations have dropped dramatically,
and the military’s endorsement of the FARC peace agreement demonstrates a resolve to improve its badly damaged public image. The U.S.
military, which was a key partner in the implementation of Plan Colombia, has both the credibility and influence to
bolster the reformist instincts of the Colombian army’s leadership by facilitating efforts to tackle corruption and
retool the military for post-conflict roles. The U.S. government should also channel assistance to judicial
authorities to investigate and expedite justice for extrajudicial murders . Since 2005, the U.S. Embassy has
helped retrain Colombian prosecutors, judges, and investigators as Colombia transitioned to an accusatory legal
model based on oral, transparent trials. Although the new legal code has reduced overall processing times by 76%, the justice system’s
sluggish pace in handling “false positives” undermines post-conflict reconciliation. The FARC have committed to coming clean
about abuses committed during the conflict in a transitional justice tribunal. Their willingness must be matched by
state actors implicated in similar crimes if peace is ever to take hold. Robust U.S. assistance on these fronts can
help ensure that peace and justice remain priorities for the Colombian government regardless of the shifting
political winds afoot. On June 17 Colombians head to the polls to vote in a hotly contested presidential runoff that is partly a referendum
on the FARC accord. Any reduction in U.S. aid would serve only to embolden potential saboteurs of the peace process,
including frontrunner Iván Duque. Mr. Duque, who is backed by former president Uribe and his conservative coalition, has promised to
make “structural modifications” to the peace pact, which he believes confers too many judicial and political advantages to former guerrilla
fighters. His closest advisers have repeatedly encouraged the dissolution of the accord and have attempted to protect the military from
independent investigations into the “false positives” scandal. He will go head to head with former Bogotá mayor Gustavo Petro, a progressive
firebrand and former insurgent from the long-disbanded M-19 guerrilla group. Mr. Petro has promised not only to carry out the FARC peace deal
but also to overhaul Colombia’s social welfare system by raising taxes on the wealthy. His polarizing candidacy, while a safe bet for those in
favor of the existing peace agreement, has managed to isolate Colombia’s political elite and the large block of centrist voters who compare his
ambitions to the disastrous left-wing regime in neighboring Venezuela Regardless of who comes out on top in next month’s contest, Colombia
and its benefactor to the north cannot afford to sacrifice the country’s tremendous progress—or to ignore
growing demands for justice for state-sponsored abuses. The U.S. government, by sustaining its aid to the
Colombian security and justice sectors, can help the country stay its course. In doing so, it would not only
double down on the gains made to date but also send a compelling message that the U.S. is as much a
champion of peace as it was of war.
Random stuff we could help Colombia with
Daniel Runde 2018, served in the George W. Bush administration at USAID. He also worked at the World Bank
Group (IFC). He currently holds the William A. Schreyer Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
4-13-2018, “Here’s How the United States Can Help Colombia Thrive”, Foreign Policy,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/13/heres-how-the-united-states-can-help-colombia-thrive/
But Colombia has made unbelievable progress in the last 20 years, and the country’s progress is irreversible. The
United States has supplemented Colombia’s efforts through Plan Colombia and Peace Colombia. Colombia is
on the verge of becoming a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, proving its
social and economic mobility. In 2000, Colombia’s population living below the national poverty line was
approximately 50 percent. Today, it is 28 percent. In 2000, Colombia’s gross national product was $100 billion.
Today, it’s more than $275 billion. The country has emerged as a regional leader. Beyond its role as the new Latin
American power, Colombia is also a key trading partner for the United States. In an age where the U.S. government
wants to increase exports, Colombia is a promising market as it is already the third-largest export market for the
United States, after Mexico and Brazil.
Looking ahead, one can see the contours of what post-peace partnership between the United States and Colombia
could look like. The United States should:
Realize the promise of the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. The United States has become
Colombia’s largest trading partner. The two countries signed a free trade agreement in 2006 and implemented it in
2012. However, it has been largely a disappointment: In 2007, the United States traded a modest $18 billion or so in
combined imports and exports with Colombia, and in 2017, that figure reached $22 billion. China is growing as a
Colombian trading partner.
Help Colombia become a mini-Brazil in terms of agriculture. In a state of peace, Colombia could make full use
of its land, the soil, and climate, which is similar to that of the famous Cerrado region of Brazil. Colombia’s vast
agricultural landscape is underutilized, with approximately 35 percent of its agricultural land in use. Transforming it
into a Brazil-style breadbasket would require a revolution in Colombia’s road networks.
Focus on oil and energy. Oil production is falling in Colombia. Colombia needs to reform its energy sector and
create rules to make fracking possible. Colombia has significant offshore gas, but the rules make it difficult to
access. The current regulations deter investment in Colombia’s energy sector. Localities have the ability to challenge
permits on investments, even once they have started, as demonstrated in a recent scandal that halted a 14-year-long
project.
Focus on infrastructure. One of Colombia’s more important initiatives is $70 billion worth of infrastructure
projects, focused on a range of transportation improvements. The cost of transport has been one of the most
problematic factors for doing business in Colombia, and its quality of domestic transport was ranked 103 out of 122,
according to the World Economic Forum’s 2013 Human Capital Index. Accomplishing the so-called 4G
infrastructure initiative, which aims to improve some 5,000 miles of roads, will be one of the pillars to peace and
transforming Colombia’s economy as it promises to connect cities across the country, which hold 77 percent of the
total population. It would be good if U.S. companies won some of the contracts or U.S. banks helped finance much
of this work.
Help Colombia become a mini-Mexico in terms of U.S. tourism. Bogotá is not much further from Miami than
Mexico City is. Yet U.S. tourists continue to favor Mexico. Last year, Mexico received around 40 million tourists,
and more than half were from the United States, while Colombia received about half a million U.S. tourists. Tourism
accounted for 5.8 percent of Colombian GDP in 2016, compared with 7.4 percent in Mexico.
Teach English. The lingua franca of this age is English. Colombia’s English-speaking population accounts for less
than 10 percent of the total population and is among the lowest in the world. It needs to increase that number if it
wants to move up the development curve further. Colombia should do more in education to promote learning
English because it will be an important asset as the country emerges in the global market.
Share regional burdens. Colombia is going to carry a heavy load from Venezuela’s ongoing crisis. It currently
hosts more than 550,000 Venezuelans, who mostly arrived over the past several years. This figure is comparable to
the 530,000 Syrians who have arrived in Germany and the well over 680,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar
who arrived in Bangladesh since 2017. Colombia will likely need international assistance to deal with the overspill
that could impact stabilization efforts within Colombia.
Deepen science and technology partnerships. Colombia’s science and technology industries will be an important
component to economic growth and competition. The country has increased its capacity for information technology
companies to lay roots in recent years and has made efforts to improve university programs in the technology and
innovation sectors.
Create an endowed U.S.-Colombia foundation. The United States and Colombia ought to jointly fund a
permanent foundation similar to the Luso-American Development Foundation or the German Marshall Fund of the
United States, both set up by governments to deepen the partnership between America and another country. A U.S.-
Colombia foundation would enable interpersonal ties and fund projects that deepen the U.S.-Colombia relationship.
Americans needs to consider what kind of partnership they will have with Colombia in the future. Even as
the Unites States helps Colombia with its current struggles, Washington should prepare for an era of peace
and prosperity.

Laundry list of possible engagements

Roy Blunt and Ben Cardin 2017, Senators, The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, “A
Roadmap for US Engagement with Colombia”, Atlantic Council, http://publications.atlanticcouncil.org/colombia-
roadmap/assets/report.pdf
Almost two decades after Plan Colombia was created to protect US interests, Colombia’s democratic institutions are
increasingly strong, but need continued strengthening. While Colombia faces undeniable challenges, including
consolidating the rule of law and combating resurgent coca cultivation, it has become a successful, entrepreneurial
country that, in a decade, could well become one of Latin America’s first higher income nations. Today, a strong
partnership with Colombia represents not just a chance to manage ongoing challenges but to seize opportunities.
Growing economic, diplomatic, and governance capacity makes it an attractive partner for the United States.
Having accompanied Colombia in hard times, an engaged United States stands to profit from Colombia’s emergence
in a number of ways. But, it will require more than just business as usual. What is needed is a renewed long-term
investment in the US-Colombia partnership, focused on four areas: robust peace accord implementation; security,
counter narcotics, and transnational organized crime; enhanced economic cooperation; and collaboration on US
geopolitical interests. Such an investment, detailed in this report’s recommendations, will position the United
States to seize a number of strategic opportunities.
Work against transnational crime
Roy Blunt and Ben Cardin 2017, Senators, The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, “A
Roadmap for US Engagement with Colombia”, Atlantic Council, http://publications.atlanticcouncil.org/colombia-
roadmap/assets/report.pdf
The first opportunity is renewed momentum in the fight against transnational networks of organized crime.
Colombia’s past success and more recent challenges in combating coca cultivation serve as a reminder that progress
is possible but not inevitable. Colombia remains at the epicenter of a global cocaine trade that fuels organized
crime across the Americas, in the United States, and beyond. The peace accord presents a platform to weaken the illicit
drug trade in and beyond Colombia. But this is only possible if the Colombian government has the political will and
resources to do so. It must quickly invest in post-conflict areas, prevent the National Liberation Army (ELN) and
successors to illegal paramilitary armed groups from seizing former FARC territory and its illicit businesses
(including drug trafcking, human trafcking, and illegal mining),12 enlist former FARC members in counter narcotics
activities, and enforce the FARC’s commitment — as required by the peace accord — to turn over assets and
provide full information about criminal operations. Accomplishing these objectives would provide the United
States with an unprecedented opportunity to disrupt the broader global trafcking of illicit drugs . Yet, part of
the controversy over the peace accord is whether the ex-FARC leadership will abide by their commitment to
terminate involvement in the lucrative drug trade and surrender the funds derived from criminal activiti es. On balance,
this task force believes that the opportunities outweigh the dangers. Following Ronald Reagan’s admonition to “trust but verify,”
the United States must closely monitor the milestones in the implementation of the peace accords to ensure
that both FARC and government are complying with the spirit and letter of the agreements.
Can help with Venezuela
Roy Blunt and Ben Cardin 2017, Senators, The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, “A
Roadmap for US Engagement with Colombia”, Atlantic Council, http://publications.atlanticcouncil.org/colombia-
roadmap/assets/report.pdf
Of particular relevance is Colombia’s potentially critical role in addressing the economic, governance, and
humanitarian crisis in next-door Venezuela. Colombia’s equities with Venezuela are broad and complex,
including border security, migration, and the ELN peace negotiations . Nonetheless, Colombia will have an essential
role to play in responding to the deepening humanitarian catastrophe in Venezuela, as well as galvanizing a more forceful
regional response to President Nicolás Maduro’s attacks on human rights, civil society, and democratic institutions and the devastation inflicted
by food and medicine shortages and violence. More broadly, the Colombian example is an undervalued source of soft
power for the United States and a powerful counter example to failed, authoritarian, anti-American governments
like Venezuela. The United States has a deep stake in Colombia’s continued progress. But success will depend in
large part on meeting the challenges and seizing on peace implementation to generate market-based sustainable
growth, extend economic opportunity to the poor and excluded, create jobs and social mobility, formalize the
economy and improve tax collection, and strengthen the rule of law to fight corruption, crime, and violence.28 Led by
a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and carrying out a peace process that enjoys near universal international support, Colombia’s international standing
has arguably never been higher than it is today. A close diplomatic partner of the United States appears poised to become a
more formidable regional and international player. At a moment of unprecedented challenges on the global stage —
and in a world seemingly plagued by bad news — a deepening partnership with an increasingly capable and
democratic Colombia is of growing strategic value to the United States.
Laundry list of actions
Roy Blunt and Ben Cardin 2017, Senators, The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, “A
Roadmap for US Engagement with Colombia”, Atlantic Council, http://publications.atlanticcouncil.org/colombia-
roadmap/assets/report.pdf
2 Recognize that robust peace accord compliance and implementation is critical to US national security interests and
regional stability. Assistance and monitoring by US authorities are necessary to help Colombia meet concrete
benchmarks, including expanded state presence in post-conflict areas, credible transitional justice processes and
victims’ protections, and the verifiable disarmament, demobilization, and reincorporation of former FARC members .
These actions are imperative to enhanced democratic governance, rule of law, and to realizing a lasting peace .
• Technical assistance should be provided to prevent other armed and criminal groups from appropriating FARC
territory. This will require supporting the timely and verifiable disarmament, demobilization, and reincorporation of
former FARC members, and scaling up eforts to quickly bolster state presence, democratic institutions, and
investment in areas most impacted by the conflict. Put pressure on Colombia to make headway in these areas if
momentum lags. • Security and economic development in post-conflict areas should be strengthened by continuing
to partner with Norway to lead the Colombia Global Demining Initiative . Seek continued United Nations Security Council
support for the UN Special Political Mission to Colombia. • Credible transitional justice processes should be promulgated for
FARC combatants and state actors to ensure meaningful justice for the worst conflict-related crimes and glean
maximum information for ongoing law enforcement eforts. Continue to call for compliance with national and international legal
and human rights obligations, providing technical assistance for the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdiccion Especial para la Paz), and tying
congressional conditionality to Colombia’s compliance with such standards on an achievable timeline. In fact, 20 percent of the funds
appropriated for FY17 under the Foreign Military Financing Program may be obligated only if the Secretary of State certifies and reports to the
Committees on Appropriations on the independence of the Peace Tribunal, its attention to the victim’s rights and the sentences it carries out for
perpetrators of gross human rights violations on all sides. The Task Force encourages Congress to encourage the administration to strictly apply
such measures. • Maintain support for the Victims Unit and Land Restitution Unit in order to continue building
Colombia’s capacity to provide reparations to conflict victims, particularly those most impacted by the conflict such
as women, Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, and IDPs. • The protection of human rights defenders and
peace advocates is essential in safeguarding the peace process from potential spoilers. The United States must
contribute to this efort by institutionalizing the Ambassadors with Defenders program, continuing to support
the National Unit for Protection, and delivering the technical assistance contemplated in the peace accord.
The US should engage with Colombia to aid in agreement with FARC
José R. Cárdenas 16, Director at Visión Américas, an international consulting firm. He has served in several senior
foreign policy positions during the George W. Bush administration (2004–09), including at the Department of State,
the National Security Council, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, 12-16-2016, "Securing the
Peace in Colombia," Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2016-12-16/securing-peace-
colombia
THE U.S. ROLE As Latin America’s fourth-largest economy and largest recipient of U.S. assistance, what happens in Colombia
matters to Washington. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the United States has
provided more than $10 billion in aid to Colombia since 2000 to combat drugs and drug-related violence. The
Obama administration has supported the Santos government throughout its negotiations with the FARC, even
dispatching a special envoy, Bernard Aronson, to monitor the talks and advise Colombian negotiators. When the revised
deal was announced, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry remarked that “After 52 years of war, no peace agreement can satisfy everyone in every
detail,” but that the United States and Colombia, “will continue to support full implementation of the final peace agreement.” The
administration also had pledged some $400 million in further assistance under a new framework called Paz
Colombia (Peace Colombia) to help implement the peace plan, including the demobilization of guerrillas, demining,
and expansion of alternative development programs in the conflict zones. Some Republicans in the U.S. Congress, however,
are hesitant to dramatically increase aid to Colombia amid the uncertainty surrounding the deal’s implementation. They are concerned that the
agreement will undermine long-standing U.S. counter-narcotics efforts in Colombia and argue that the FARC, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist
organization, was unworthy of concessions. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has not spoken about Colombia since his election,
but with so much blood and treasure invested there by the United States over the past 15 years, it is unlikely he will
walk away from a strategic ally. His administration—along with skeptical Republicans—should recognize the
need to secure the peace so that the hard-fought gains of the past decade are not lost. There will remain
profound suspicion of the FARC and likely heightened oversight of U.S. assistance to ensure that it is used
creatively and purposefully on behalf of Colombian efforts to develop licit economies in areas once controlled by
the FARC. The United States should also continue to provide intelligence and technical assistance monitoring
FARC leaders (not to mention assisting Colombia in helping to uncover FARC assets hidden abroad if need be) to
ensure they are complying with their commitments to abandon criminal activities and are not otherwise
playing a double game. In short, the United States’ common cause should be with the millions of Colombians who also have deep
reservations about peace with the FARC, but are willing to try one more time. The U.S.–Colombian strategic partnership has been
one of the most successful U.S. foreign policy initiatives since the end of the Cold War. A country that was
bordering on failed-state status in the late-1990s is once again being hailed as a stable, vibrant democracy. But
that could easily fall apart. Maintaining the peace will mean that the Colombian government will have to
accomplish things it has never achieved in its history: for example, establishing a government presence throughout
its entire territory, including in regions previously controlled by the FARC . Providing the marginalized Colombians
who live in these regions with government services and economic opportunities will determine the success or failure
of an enduring peace. Developing infrastructure, creating markets, building schools and clinics, modernizing local
governance, and providing public security will not be cheap; Colombian estimates place the cost at some $30 billion.
It will also not be accomplished overnight. Yet this is what is ultimately necessary to achieve a lasting and
durable peace in Colombia. For 50 years, the FARC has made these marginalized Colombians either recruits or victims. Empowering
them and providing them a stake in their country’s future will, in the end, do more to ensure domestic peace than 1,000 Nobel Peace Prizes. But
first you have to reach them, and that requires a disarmed and demobilized FARC no longer in a position to spoil the effort.
 Colombia – Neg
Plan Colombia sucked
Lauren Carasik 16, clinical professor of law and the director of the international human rights clinic at the Western
New England University School of Law, 2-9-2016, "OPINION: Washington should avoid repeating Plan
Colombia’s failures," http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/2/washington-should-avoid-repeating-plan-
colombias-failures.html
On Feb. 4, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and President Barack Obama celebrated the 15th anniversary of Plan
Colombia, a controversial U.S. aid program to Bogotá signed in 2000 to fight the so-called war on drugs and
enhance internal security. The Colombian government is expected to sign a long-awaited peace agreement with
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas in March, ending the country’s 50-year conflict, in which more than
220,000 people — mostly civilians — were killed. Washington has provided nearly $10 billion in aid to Colombia since 2000,
71 percent of which has been allocated to security forces. U.S. officials say the initiative was instrumental in moving
the peace process forward. But glowing reviews of Plan Colombia obscure its ineffectiveness and the
devastating human costs of the country’s militarization. The crackdown has led to massive upheaval, with more
than 4 million people internally displaced since 2000 . Of those, most were women and children, with Afro-
Colombian and indigenous people disproportionately affected . The staggering number — about a tenth of the
country’s nearly 50 million people — adds to those previously dispossessed, leaving Colombia second only to Syria
in terms of internally displaced people. The National Unit for the Integral Attention and Reparation of Victims has registered more than
6 million people seeking restitution for harms inflicted during Plan Colombia’s operation. The crackdown was also accompanied by
egregious human rights abuses. Since the plan’s inception, more than 1,000 trade unionists and at least 370
journalists have been killed; at least 400 human rights defenders were murdered, with many more activists tortured,
disappeared, kidnapped or detained; and nearly half a million women were subjected to sexual violence from 2001
to 2009. To burnish claims of the plan’s success, security forces killed more than 5,700 civilians from 2000 to 2010,
many lured to their deaths by the promise of jobs. Military members later staged combat scenes to make it appear as if the deaths
were caused by warfare. Impunity has been widespread. Out of some 3,500 killings investigated by Colombia’s prosecutor general, only 402
resulted in convictions, mostly of low-level forces. Last year, Prosecutor General Eduardo Montealegre announced that 22 generals are being
investigated, but their long overdue prosecution is far from certain. In fact, some top officers associated with the scandal have been nominated for
promotions. Human rights groups have criticized the demobilization of right-wing paramilitary groups
operating under the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia coalition, which was closely allied with
Colombia’s armed forces. The paramilitaries were among the worst violators in the conflict, responsible for most
of the killings, and were the primary beneficiaries of a massive land transfer that led to forced displacement of
locals. The group’s members were offered reduced sentences in exchange for telling the truth and reparations, but
most have yet to face justice, since the process has moved at a glacial pace . And some formed criminal gangs dubbed bacrims,
which continue to operate with the cooperation of U.S.-backed Colombian security forces. Parts of Colombia, particularly the southern
Pacific coastal area, have experienced a troubling recent spike in paramilitary activities . The bacrims remain active
in the increasingly violent port city of Buenaventura. The economy is more stable, yet poverty and inequality
have been exceptionally stubborn in rural areas. But Plan Colombia mostly benefited the country’s elites. Aside
from the catastrophic humanitarian toll, crediting Plan Colombia with paving the way for peace by weakening
FARC and forcing the insurgents to the bargaining table is misleading. In fact, the militarization prolonged the bloodshed by
helping derail peace talks from 1999 to 2002 between then-President Andrés Pastrana and FARC. U.S. investment in the military buildup helped
embolden his government to reject a negotiated settlement in favor of a battlefield victory. Santos is now seeking an increase in U.S.
aid for post-conflict reconstruction. As Washington commits to additional funding, it should take stock of the
plan’s abysmal failures, which have contributed to incalculable misery. For one, Plan Colombia’s raison d’
être — fighting drug trafficking — has failed. Bogotá is still the world’s top producer and exporter of cocaine.
Cultivation has been rising since 2012 and is nearing the level in 2000. Second, the effect of Colombia’s
militarization extends far beyond its borders. Thanks to its well-funded military forces — trained by the U.S. in
counternarcotics and counterinsurgency — Colombia has evolved into a security exporter, providing training to
foreign military forces throughout the rest of South America, the Caribbean and West Africa. U.S.-funded
international training programs are seen as a way of capitalizing on the skills acquired under Plan Colombia and
providing secure employment for demobilized Colombian troops. Key details of U.S. assistance and logistical
support for the training programs remain shrouded in secrecy. For example, it is unclear who is conducting the
training, which forces are being trained and whether they are being properly vetted for compliance with human
rights norms. Without transparency, the programs cannot be subject to proper monitoring and assessment. It
is ironic that Santos is now exporting the militarized and prohibitionist aspects of the war on drugs, the logic
and effectiveness of which he has openly questioned. Ravaged by decades of conflict, Colombia faces the monumental
task of rebuilding its institutions and dismantling the conditions that gave rise to the conflict, including dramatically
unequal land distribution. But the threat of continued violence will not evaporate with the peace deal,
prompting some observers to call for ongoing vigilance and the importance of treating the next phase as post-
accord rather than post-conflict. Last month FARC and Santos’ government asked the United Nations to
provide an unarmed peacekeeping mission to verify a bilateral cease-fire and disarmament. The focus will
now turn to winning the support of war-weary Colombians, who must approve the deal through a referendum, and
securing funding necessary to implement the plan. Costs of post-conflict reconstruction are estimated to be more
than $90 billion over the next 10 years to cover development aid, especially for rural areas, and to assist in
demobilizing and reintegrating FARC fighters. Obama announced that he will seek more than $450 million — a 25 percent increase
from the year before — from Congress under a new plan called Peace Colombia. Colombia needs international support to achieve a lasting peace.
But before committing to additional aid, Washington must critically assess the harmful effects of Plan Colombia and adopt a nonmilitarized
approach, designed with the broad participation of civil society, to help rebuild the country.