since sometimes, it feels that there are fewer optimists nowadays than i guess there were some time before. my own work is on the democracy promotion efforts of the center and eastern european countries, so those would be czech republic, slovakia, the baltic countries and this work has provided me with an unintended, but i still think a valuable perspective on the u.s. democracy assistance. so, what i'd like to do my presentation today is give you a quick sense of how the europeans are promoting democracy and what that teaches us about the effectiveness of the u.s. stance. and then what are the potential opportunities i see between eastern europe and the u.s. in the field of democracy promotion.

in some countries, it's hard to almost immediately after their own democratic breakthrough and it was championed by some of the same people who organized those domestic breakthroughs. civil society has played an important and driving role in terms of democracy promotion, both as implementers of such support abroad as well as champions and advocates for their states to invest in supporting democraticization abroad. they have leveraged their bilateral challenges as well as various citizen diplomacy forums to support democraticization abroad and have leveraged membership.

lastly, a number of eastern european countries have started to provide assistance, but more on the technical than financial side, so, in some, we have several of these countries that have -- they have exercised diplomacy and they're their efforts have tended to be limited in terms of the number of cpms and geographics recipients to a number of countries. those are points i'll come back to later in my presentation, so this point, you may wonder what role is u.s. has played in supporting promotion. in a number of of the conversations they have with key civic activists in eastern

europe,ing a common refrain, which is to use a quote from an interview. we have a debt to be b repaid. so, most of the people i talk to express the belief that they should themselves support democracy abroad because they've received such a number requests from the west and especially from the west. a number of resip yents -- h has mattered because it has had multiplier effects. now providing their own assistance for the east and southeast.

a second way of in which i've seen u.s. democracy promotion matter is in the specific activities they're undertaken by the center and eastern europeans. they seek to oftentimes in general, seek to build a reservoir of drak actors inry -n a more democratic direction at oper tune moments. in other words, it's much like the u.s. approach, except with less emphasis on elections. so, to the extent that the u.s. has again similarly build sought to build and empower political actors in central and eastern europe and we have a number of partitioners and academics

arguing that it has done that. have seen they've succeeded because the europeans who were themselves empowered by the u.s. in part and who are now seeking to share some of the best practices of their own democraticization experience including best practices that were developed by the u.s. they oftentimes shared that it was external and again primarily u.s. support that helped develop a whole set of actors in europe and those are actors that have probably been underdeveloped or missing because of the nature of their work and its opposition to powerful domestic, political and economic actors. so, again, stepping back, what that tells me is that -- has

also mattered because it has produced enduring dmoes domestic actors. the caveat here is that they are struggling to survive. with the u.s. support have become somewhat dependent on e.u. funding, but they are active and an important part of the domestic debate in those countries. the opinions about the u.s. role and thus, i did not give them an opportunity to give me a line that's my first to please you. it's evidence that i elected indirectly and that came up in

conversations about central eastern europe democracy promotion. just to highlight opinion has mattered and that it's an investment whose pafs go up and down, but it's an important investment. in conclusion, allow me to return to the limitations on the return to the limitations on the center of eastern europeans as democracy promoters. i talked 0 to recipients in their neighborhood. the recipients highlighted three important merits. the first, the dmokization that the europeans have. the individuals involved in this were the okayed break. and they come with what i call

recipes or sets of steps to implement certain reforms that could be, again, sets of steps that could be taken, to be tailored to needs of recipient, given the recipient stage of democratization which give the europeans about to democratization and allow them to approach the issues as peers, rather than accomplishments and centuries of democratic experience. and the last that was very important to recipients was the sustainability of central and eastern european efforts. as i said, the number of those countries have been active for the same number of recipients for more than two decades and however small their efforts might have been their impact has

accumulated over time. so, the limitations. i think the most important limitation that those democracy promoters have had is their limited capacity. the second most important limitation is that their democracy promotion efforts have had a certain geopolitical proponent which has undermined their impartiality. with that, i believe it's helped some democratization for eastern europe. it's helped opportunity, but unfortunately, their efforts

have not been enough to ensure or help the countries with sustainable impact. so i conclude here in sort of the second round of comments, i'll return to talk about the opportunities i see for cooperation between the u.s. and some of the new democracies that have developed around the globe in the last two decades. >> great. thanks very much. michael. >> thank you very much. >> first of all, many thanks to organizing this and kindly inviting me here it's a great honor. i'd like to say a few words about the united states when it comes to democracy and offer an opinion on that issue and i'm afraid i will differ from what tsveta has just said. and that europe has been changing greatly. the united states the most point

of reference for anyone striving for freedom under communist rule in eastern europe and the americans were the first to come after transition in 1989. even though in terms of quantity, the u.s. funding was quickly and by far exceeded by the european for transformation assistance. the u.s. protocol leadership and commitment greatly contributed to the information processes. many even felt kind of a special kinship had developed but after president obama, a certain bitterness appeared. certain prominent political figures from central and eastern europe responded in alarming mode to the changes of the administration. what we call a new approach to central european democracies, with vice president joe biden saying on the promise of your revolution, you're now in the position to help others to do

the same. exercise your leadership. as we just heard, i think the europeans mostly accepted the challenge. and started working on that. and however, what we could see, on the one hand, we could see the eastern european unions struggling with their own power in the past few years. on the other hand, we could see that there was -- despite what we heard in the morning, there was a lack of political accomplishment of the united

states towards eastern europe since 2009. and as a result, the entire region became more susceptible to force, they do not voice democracy well. we looked at political development in hungary and also a look at the czech government which might be a surprise for people in the future. the government works on changes its support of transformation in a way that way that might undermine the root concept of democracy in the regime. for example, the concept of the czech transformation policy will likely include a provision that any future assistance will be based on a conference of the official government, that it will seek the support, moderate of the set regime. and all i know all references to the term "democracy" are likely to be removed. there are popular emerging and despite the current high standing in europe.

systematic possible political opposition which is never good for democracy. i could go on and on with this, but i won't. but what i want to say, we're facing a very treacherous mix. and it was confirmed by the main speaker here today. the u.s. with the democracy in the eyes of the central europeans seem unwielding or unable to provide any political leadership, the europeans will comply with win over governance problems and the transitional difficulties. the west increasingly doubts that ideas of democracy can penetrate hearts and minds of people universally. under the ideologies that have been gaining ground around the world and in europe. at the same time, you might find

this quite desirable, we have the confronting view that liberal democracy does not have any serious contender in the global market of ideologies. as a consequence of these trends, democracy promotions became central in nonpolitical projects. these projects aim enormously to bolster civil societies and institutions and so on. these projects cannot realize the crucial issue and that is the level of thinking at the level of politics. working democracy requires a mind of practicing and aspiring politicians and we do not have that issue. therefore, any solution to these challenges must be a political one. but the very first step towards democracy must include the rise of singing hearts of effectiveness in the west. by singing hearts, i think the experts. i challenge the politicians to do the thinking. we need to make this political.

we have to start at home. even i agree that the u.s. is a leader democratization in third countries, i also you that we would like to see more engagement. that's where we're losing confidence. we have to find a joint way for national, comprehensive and political way in democracy. i'm afraid this cannot take place without a firm commitment and co-leadership of the united states. it's here where i see the central european region can contribute. despite the marked view that i offered moments ago there are elements of ideologies in central europe. ideologies that have a realistic

understanding of what's at stake. but there were times, for example, the west largely accepted division of europe for the sake of european establishment. and this was time when the central europeans had nothing but ideologies left. and leaders and others tirelessly argued that stability only aids to the first mapping of central europe. and now europe is undivided, and no major war. and no stability is cured. so they're probably right in their assessment. so there's plenty of people sensitive to trading democracy for that. what may be one surprising element of central european society that might be worth engaging say dialogue with -- with small and medium enterprise

owners. these are people whose fate is most linked with democracy. these are the people most endangered by making it an open society, not so much open anymore. to conclude, with suggestions regarding new approaches and instruments for democratization this morning. and i'm very happy i was able to be here. my contribution to business, instruments might work only if we're confident about our roles. and i do not see this confidence lately. we somehow see the 1990s as an illusion while we see the current as a reality. at the same time, a free and undivided europe with illusions in the 1980s. and they became a reality in the 1990s. my pragmatic american philosophy

of science if we believe there is nothing like an illusion or reality, therefore, i'm more afraid about the lack of confidence than disillusion. thank you. >> thanks very much. melinda, over to you. i'm also very grateful for the opportunity to be here this morning and delighted that we're having a serious conversation about reforming democracy. i prettily tied to understand the program. the program was meant to empower youth and women and these are two powerful constituencies. the thinking was if we were to empower these youth and women they might empower their friends to pick up trash and start computer center it's.

sounds good but hardly the stuff of great change. we would have been far better off by putting those funds in journalism azerbaijan, it's shown there's a serious problem with elite corruption and his 12-year-old son at the time owns nine water front mansions in dubai worth approximately $44 million. these are the kind of stories that will break the fear factor and inspire people to change their own society. i'm very critical of the democracy and bureaucracy. let me be clear, democracy promotion is too important an instrument of u.s. foreign policy to do badly. there are many programs we see discontinued today. and nothing will change.

we can do better. so today, i'd like to offer three recommendations and i'm not claiming these are perfect solutions. i want to start a conversation about how to reform u.s. assistance. i'd like to make a point on structure, strategy and transparency. i'm going to start with structure. like sarah said, not many scholars focus on the actual deliver riff u.s. assistance but it's very crucial. there are two main institutional models for delivering assistance in the united states. we have a field-based model and an independent grant-making model. the field-based model is primary headquartered -- it has a headquarters in washington and has field offices around the world. the independent grant-making model typically has a headquarters office but it works primarily through grants and local partners. the u.s. government overwhelmingly distributes its democracy assistance dollars to a field-based model. a couple names familiar to everyone, the international republican institute. the national democratic institute.

counterpart unusual. there are dozens of others. and they all operate roughly along the same kind of lines. they have a large office in washington that sets the strategy while field offices are scattered throughout the world in cairo and everywhere else. but field offices have two main disadvantages, and i'd like to get thinking about this and talking about this today. number one, field-based organizations are vulnerable to strong tactics by repressive regimes. look no further than moscow and baku. almost everyone has been pushed out of moscow and baku that were operated with field-based organizations. donor organizations without field offices are less vulnerable to pressure because they don't have local offices to shut down. the second obvious disadvantage i see that the field-based model is really inefficient. overhead costs including salaries, rent, and expatriate

participation with field offices can reach up to 70%. while overhead of an independent grant making organization like the national endowment for democracy is 16%. 70% versus 16%. when pressed on why we need an in-country presence and not free countries, organizations with field offices will argue their presence will enable them to seize opportunities when there's great political space. if political change comes to a place for uzbekistan where it has ruled for two decades without a wisp of democratization, with an authoritarian leader only tarnishes credentials. if it occurs in a place like uzbekistan is refuses to work in an organization. having relationship with a civil society like this not in field offices puts organizations in the best position to take

advantage of newly open space. i want to give you examples so you know -- i want to point to a couple examples. usaid spent $5.6 million from 2007 to 2011 to enhance the overall effectiveness of azerbaijan's parliament. i'm probably one of two azerbaijan experts. i'm going to cut to the chase and tell you that the parliament has never been elected. yet, you as taxpayers paid for an orientation program for these new parliamentarians, all of whom won elections. that the agency in baku described as not meeting international standards. it gets worse. the u.s. government rejected these elections and then they trained the winners. usaid even paid for a new website to make this illegitimate parliament more efficient. this is not farce. this is all publicly available in usaid's reports.

a final assessment carried out by two outside experts funded this parliamentary program, $5.6 million program did not change how parliament functions or how ordinary people in azerbaijan relate to or understand the parliament. since azerbaijan's independence, to make the country more democratic. it's becoming more and more authoritarian. the u.s. government presses on with multimillion-dollars programs in azerbaijan. in 2012, u.s. aid issued a $1.5 million call, i want you to listen to this. that would enable key society organizations to better respond to the president's vision and calls for more meaningful and state civil society partnership fulfilling the government's commitments to various international human

rights instruments, end quote. the idea of u.s. taxpayer dollars going to implement the supposed democratic vision of azerbaijan's authoritarian presence of foreign aid is a scam. i'll give you an example from kazakhstan. my examples from the region, usaid worked with the $1.5 million to increase the capacities of kazakhstan's leading organizations. well, there's a problem here, that presumes that kazakhstan -- that we were going to pump up the capacity of civil society organizations so that they could better represent the interests and reflect those of the government. the problem is kazakhstan has a parliament that does not derive its legitimacy from constituents.

they actively manipulate the elections. so the program makes absolutely no sense why does usaid continue to fund these misguided programs in authoritarian countries with no interest in reform? it's simple, bureaucratic interests and the assumption that more is always better. leaking in this waste with an emphasis on triage allocating more money where there's a chance for change. the model, a well-known model, does things very differently, it's from small grants directly around the world and it selects the most promising ideas from indigenous organizations. russians are trying to fix russian societies. there's a lot of wisdom in this model. in my opinion, it's an absolutely unique model and one that should be commended and bolstered. practically speaking the rule that i've come up with when speaking of division of labor, only operating in country where

is freedom is not free where usa i d should complement their skills. >> get to the conclusion. >> sure. my two other points i'm going to summarize them on strategy. on strategy, we ought to deploy our shrinking resources in places where democratic outcome is likely. so that means no multimillion-dollar programs in afghanistan, azerbaijan, uzbekistan or kazakhstan. these countries are not in transition. and we shouldn't fool ourselves thinking that they are. my final point is on competition. competition needs to be

encouraged. vital aspects of competition. there are noncompetitive mechanisms in the field and those need to be eased out. so in conclusion, i think that democracy assistance communities needs to have a tough conversation about the meaningfulness of the program. as a program officer i was appalled when i went through old files and saw that we've been implementing the same tired strategies for more than ten years. this needs to change. taxpayers deserve better as do aspiring democrats. thank you. >> thanks very much. let's have a round of applause, first of all, for our panel. they did the hard work up here. and now i would like to ask you all to very quickly sum up your conclusions of what we said so far. you each have three minutes. which is not very much. but let's keep it crisp. thank you. >> okay. there's a lot of interesting things that were just said. so i guess, i would just pick up on a few points that the other panelists made that really rez

resonated with me. and i'm learning a lat from them. i think one point that i'd like to hit on, i think some of the -- some of the structure problems that melinda identified with the field-based model, i think occasionally, some of the donors' interest concerns that i tried to emphasize and my presentation can be lurking in the background. i think that i have observed pretty similar legislative assistance programs -- large legislative assistance programs in countries like jordan, where, you know, there can be magnificent attempts to build the parliament's capacities. and while their parliament no longer exists because it's been dismissed by the monarchy, i think they originate from the same dynamics that melinda is talking about. but the most strategic are at play.

so i would just emphasize the continuing role of donors's interests. even as we look at the structural and competitive aspects that were highlighted. and i think the comments the idea that some actors have -- there's a debt to be repaid. a real ardent commitment. i think these are the donors that are willing to make the hard tradeoff against exceeding interests and financial pressure to promote democracy, and most likely to make change. i'm sure that is under my time but let me give it to my fellow panelists to finish their remarks. >> so, i'd like to return to

this idea of forming u.s. democracy promotion by encouraging its cooperation with actors, democracy promoters from other democracies around the world. again, i will speak for central eastern europe but i think there are important comparables. i think a democratic innovator, as well as its capacity are a good match for the first hand experience with democratization well knowledge and ties of a lot of those new democracies. some such cooperation has already begun, but i think there

is room for improvement so allow me to put forward four such ways in which i think this cooperation can be more fruitful which in part responds to some of the criticism that we're seeing about the democracy promotion efforts of new democracies. the first one is that a lot of u.s. engagement with those actors have been talked down. and it's mostly in the form my colleague talked about of u.s. diplomats putting pressure on those governments to do democracy works. and hungary is a great example a lot of investment from western europe in getting hungary to support democracy in its neighborhood, and that did not work. and we see that now for the balance of the neighborhood. but i think what is more important here is that what the u.s. can do instead is invest in organic bottom-up civic border cooperation. and political corresponding cooperation and local government solidarity and cooperation.

that brings me to my second point which i think part of the reason we talk is we have a different vision what democracy promotion should be like. for me democracy promotion is about solidarity, among actors who are interested in making this countries more democratic ones. oftentimes, that kind of solidarity is possible and especially important when both sides of the donor recipient are struggling with challenges to democracy at home. so to have that in central and eastern europe, at the moment, with a moment of disillusionment is not the moment to discourage democracy promotion. in fact, we've seen the efforts be activists or politicians who are pro-democratic sitting

together and what is it they can learn about each other. >> i'm terribly sorry -- >> okay, finishing up what we've seen from central and eastern democracy promotion, oftentimes, it's not about what the countries have done at home what they have done didn't work. >> great. thank you very much. what's your take-away, what stands out for you? >> well, one thing is i definitely agree that there's a lot to be done with the central european as they are -- they're relatively cheap to run, they are not corrupt too much. so there's definitely a lot. the problem is, there's a growing gap between those who would work for the ngos and the frustrated society at large. frustrated and apathetic. and there's a lot of losers but there are those who are attempting to use this frustration and to change it into over the society.

one question, i don't think you really -- that was the way you were heading but there was something about kind of pulling back money in the regimes. i completely agree with the logic. but how do make sure that, i mean, the societies are not monolithic, so how do you make sure that shows who are trying for democracy in those regimes, that these are alive? you know, or they have some money to distribute, whatever they have to distribute, how to

make sure is it to make sure it's going to happen? and one last remark, maybe coming back to the first panel, who did not address the fact that -- i mean, we use poland in central europe as a reference point for a good transition. but we didn't say that this happened when pro-democratic promotion was the highest priority of both the european and united states. there are structural elements in the society in the region and so that might help it. but we should realize that this is not the case anymore. i mean, the democracy promotion is not that close to our hearts as it it was in the 1990s. so we should not put everything on the society, but we somehow kind of scale back our own ambitions. >> melinda, maybe you can respond to that a little bit. >> absolutely. i'm going to do my take-away. on sarah's points, with the conditionality. the democracy promotion much

more difficult because we have a lot less conditionality. maybe we need to think more creatively to create more conditionality. i hear you on delivery. there's a tendency to focus on programs -- you want to give implementers enough room -- this is difficult work. it often takes years and year, i think there is attend to delivery. and tsveta, you didn't give the example today, i think it was a usaid-funded program. was trying to take that to ukraine, and it didn't fit in the context. and she said it would have been much better served if we took the polish model and applied in in ukrainian content. so i think there's a lot of

wisdom in that. and michael made good points. and carl set this morning, the political part of this is extremely important. and i as like michael's take on looking at small and medium-sized business owners. to answer your question, i see a division of labor. i don't think we should cut it off all to even very hopeless countries. we should continue to use the national endowment for democracy. to keep the flame alive, they now to work in authoritarian regimes better than anybody else. ambassadors also have small funds that they can give to that. >> we have a small amount of time, but let's open it up. this woman here, yes. >> melinda, thank you so much for bringing up azerbaijan.

i think is an interesting case study for a lost the themes that have come up here. first of all for the pole of europe, the europeans being such a great model. the idea that europe is not only a model, but the idea that membership can promote better democracy in the applicant countries. azerbaijan has carried out the worst crackdown ever. it has arrested dozens of activists. the best human rights people. the best journalists are in jail and this has happened while azerbaijan was the chairman of the council of ministers, council of europe. so it only works, europe, as a magnet, as a prize, can only work if europe is true to its values. if it enforces -- >> question? >> yes, so what do you think of that? is that a counterexample? and for you melinda, also on azerbaijan, with these people in jail, some of them have received funding from usaid from european donors. donors are already announced

grant competitions. with top people in jail there's an opportunity for government to bring up a whole bunch right now. what should usaid and europeans do with this? all the best are in jail. the commissioner announced a new $3 million competition. how should people handle it? >> melinda, i think that one's for you. >> i think the second part's for me. >> why don't you tackle it. >> i'll jump right in. i really share your concern, miriam. i can't believe that many of the people i've worked with in azerbaijan are behind bars. and tom was on this point that we need to use our political leadership to stand up to this. carl made this point, too. democracy isn't just a program.

it's also using our moral leadership to say you that can't get away with this. and holding a state to the commitments that they'd made. so i've seen azerbaijan and donors have more money. and i've seen a horrific program -- i think mostly aid-funded programs in uzbekistan and azerbaijan gongos. and you can't quote one to be taken seriously as a democratic reform. >> for those of you who don't speak the language. agongo is a fake ngo. >> and there's plenty of them in the rejoem. when there's no one to fund, put the money in countries where there's no openness, ukraine, moldova and georgia. does that cover it it --

>> i'm sorry, i think we'll have to move along. yes, this gentleman in the middle here. >> thanks. ira strauss i'm ahead of something called democracy international which is a legacy organization from the cold war era democracy promotion. i have a question with the connection of this with the first panel. they've been wonderful on the specifics of the democracy promotion efforts but there's been a question about multiple standards, double standards, multiple considerations in life. that said, it's a weakness of central european democracy promotion has strategic

purposes, i would say that's a strength. the first wave of democracy promotion has a clear concept in the '80s when communism collapsed. >> so the question? >> and the question is have we gone from doing more good than harm, we were controversial, have we gone from doing more harm than good because we forgot the constraints that could make us sometimes do more harm or good? >> who would like to tackle it. >> well, i would have elaborated on that point. the way i see the geo strategic take here is a double-edged sword. on the one hand if there's a clear rationale that backs democracy promotion it makes a country provide that they're resolved. and on the other hand the rationale serves to make it resistant because the countries are attempted to back the pro

guys, instead of watching out to improve the democratic process. to me, there's a tradeoff there, just as discussed in the first panel, it's something that the country has to educate the public about, and decide where on the continuum it's willing to sit. >> i actually some a question i'm going to ask very quickly. it's a question for michael. so we talked about hungary, but we sort of danced around it. the prime minister gave a speech where he said, we want a liberal democracy. we're tired of this liberal democracy stuff. so it would seem that western democracy efforts in hungary have failed, let's just say that. how did it fail? what did we do wrong? i realize the answer may be a long one but let's try that. >> well, first of all, we should also be clear about when the prime minister was announced liberal democracy. he kind of took parts of

liberalism here and there, but what he was attacking was democracy. i think that it was basically the stuff of my presentation, but i will say one more thing -- >> sum it up for us. one sentence. >> well -- >> he's an academic. >> my two sentences. i will say one more thing about the presentation, a famous historian said that history is like a pendulum. and we look up to the west and we are kind of hurt by never getting to those standards so we try to denounce. and this is the dynamic thing going on for ages, i'm afraid hungary is getting the pendulum back now. >> so it's really not our fault? >> well, it is our fault.

because we thought that the pendulum was never going to go back. so we set everything on autopilot. >> how about the gentleman in the second row from the end there. yes, thank you. >> hello. i'm probably one of the only africans in here. i come from zimbabwe, where all institutions as you know, and i see the community, including the united, supporting same progress. i think you talk about same progress. and being cast tig gaited for big too political. and we know that institutions will never reform but my question is on the role of the

neighboring countries, impeding democracy. particularly south africa, in the case of zimbabwe. on the one hand, south africa is supporting the political retribution by taking them in but it is aiding the regime. what do you think should be the role of the neighboring countries, particularly in the african context in promoting democracy within a country like zimbabwe? thank you. >> sarah, do you want to tackle that? no? >> i can say a word. maybe others will have something to say, too. one of the things i take from tsveta's comments neighbors countries have a lot to offer, but they don't seize the opportunity. knowing about this specific case, it's the same for

neighboring states to not take opportunity to play a constructive role with better insight, perhaps, into local and political dynamics. and one way to assume a lot of economic and other forms of leverage. so i would -- >> i think, again, i'm not the original expert, but what i've seen is that original actors have a very important role to play. and sometimes, it takes encouragement to realize that potential. sometimes, that encouragement is by the people in the recipient country that are striving for democracy. acting both solo activists, as well as politicians, particularly asking them to articulate the rationale why democracy should be in the country.

oftentimes it takes international actors or such as the u.s. to encourage the democracy promotion. the fact that it's turned from south africa and zimbabwe, i would not take as discouragement

program is faced through a field-based office needs to have certain pressures that will also kind of tame, as i would put it,

the program. so i think that the delivery makes a huge difference, but it's not the only factor that i would highlight. >> i would say having a field office is a real thing. country directors worry about -- especially in authoritarian, semi authoritarian countries. they worry about their staff and support staff. you get threatening phone calls. people are followed. i mean this is a real thing in countries like this. i have a completely different answer than sarah. this is a $3 billion industry. i can't see how you're going to raise $3 billion a year in private interests. i would also worry if the money is coming from, i presume, companies, unless it's a corporate responsibility program, companies have interests as well and we would be naive if we didn't recognize that. with corporate social responsibility programs a lot of these are oil companies or they're going to have interests that will probably produce the same kind of lame programs that we've identified.

>> the gentleman way in the back there, in the white shirt, please. >> i would like to play a little devil's advocate here. now, we all know that congress has a very low rating in this country. what, 15% or 14%, which is kind of a shame, because actually, democracy depends on congress, not on the president that we have here. finally, we've tried to spread democracy throughout the war on violence. somebody just mentioned some dictators use savage violence. we use supersavage violence invading afghanistan, invading iran, invading yemen. that does not bode very well that claims to be spreading democracy. and our own democracy is regressing, too, just as many

other countries. >> i'm terribly sorry, but we've got to get to the question. >> given that, what is the credibility, and most of all, also, 99% of our ngos also gongo you determined that especially, i was not aware of that term, given that, where are we going? >> who would like to tackle that? >> maybe just a few words. i would take this criticism very seriously and that's exactly what i do when i say we politically and what is wrong and why these are being presented at forums like these. this is something we take very seriously. the question of violence. i was very clear, whoever said it in the first panel, that democracy through violence is not -- is not a way.

and i think we discovered that. and we have to use that as a reference for not what to do. but i wouldn't use that as a reference for not making democracy help to flourish in different countries but once again, i think we really have to start at home. that was actually the whole point of my presentation. and to think hard about our own democracy and how -- what -- what are we ready to sacrifice for that and so on and so forth. i actually thank you for your critical remarks. >> i think we probably have time just for one more question. so this gentleman right in the middle. >> thank you. national endowment for democracy. i'm from afghanistan. initially, i was not interested to pose the question because the context was quite different but looking at that person's question, i'm interested to ask

melinda about her comments that she actually advocates for closing the cases of democracy in countries like afghanistan. i was just wondering, if you're going to support democracies in the countries where the grounds are paved like a piece of cake, you're ready to go there, then why you're not interested in supporting countries who are literally supporting and advocating for democracy looking at afghanistan it was originally civil approach. closing the program on democracy in afghanistan means you're just wasting billions of dollars in afghanistan. and it means that it it literally is calling it, a narrow-minded pakistani afghanistan. let them do it through the taliban approach which is totally not correct.

>> what's the question? >> my question is how are you going to -- how are you going to close the cases? why there are many interested and many sanctioning societal organizations and democracy activists in the field? of course, looking to ease the examples like ukraine which has open society, and georgia, your own example is quite a different history but why not support the countries who need the support? thank you. >> thanks very much. >> thank you for that question. so i want to get back to the question of division of labor. that's what my remarks were primarily about. i'm not saying that the u.s. should not give any assistance to afghanistan and to courageous democrats there. to the contrary, i definitely think we should be but i think that's a role for the national endowment for democracy and not for a multimillion-dollar program which been highly ineffective. there's lots of examples i can point to.

usaid programs. i view these as sunk costs. and as larry diamond will probably say during lunch, you have to have a state in order to do these programs. you have to have a functioning state. and that's a key part of this. and we haven't talked very much about that, i think most of us in this room would probably draw a large distinction between nation building and encouraging democratic transitions. and nation-building is something entirely different. that's -- i'm not an expert on nation-building, and i think it's extremely hard -- it's extremely difficult. and you have to be fully committed to it. i think my comments are mostly directed at encouraging democratic transition. >> and the biggest question comes up at the end. michael, you wanted to say something very quickly and then we'll go to the next -- >> okay. let's talk about that among ourselves then. so thank you very much.

i'm going to call him back up here and tell us what we're going to do next. >> i want to begin by thanking this panel so much. we were asked -- [ applause ] we were asked several questions at the beginning of this conference what is the future and what is the alternative in terms of democracy promotion. and i think we just learned a huge amount in terms of how to approach this issue. again, thanks to the panel. now we're actually going to move to lunch and hear what larry has to say about these issues. what i'd ask you to do, go across the hallway, grab your lunch, and then we'll keep going into the cafeteria, and hopefully, we'll be able to begin lunch by 12:40. thanks to all the panelists and participants in the first panel as well. and we move on to lunch. the 2015 cspan student cam

video competition is understo w open to all high school students and teachers. how the legislative or judicial branch of the government has him proved your community. for a listing and how to get started, go to student cam.org. tonight on cspan 3, it's american history tv in prime time. next a discussion with three medal of honor recipients who servinged in world war ii, 1r5u78 and after stang. that's followed by a formal conversation with nbc "nightly news" anchor tom brokaw, expressing his thoughts on today's news media. next, three medal of honor recipients reflect on their service