{"id":13123,"date":"2021-05-28T07:55:51","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T05:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.prif.org\/the-eu-venezuela-and-democracy-promotion-a-rejoinder-to-elliott-abrams-comments\/"},"modified":"2021-05-28T07:55:51","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T05:55:51","slug":"the-eu-venezuela-and-democracy-promotion-a-rejoinder-to-elliott-abrams-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.prif.org\/en\/2021\/05\/28\/the-eu-venezuela-and-democracy-promotion-a-rejoinder-to-elliott-abrams-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU, Venezuela, and democracy promotion: A rejoinder to Elliott Abrams\u2019 comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog post has been originally posted as an EDP Wire<\/a>. In the following, Jonas Wolff responds to Elliot Abrams\u2019 critical comment<\/a> on an article Jonas Wolff published earlier this year with the European Democracy Hub<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

In his blog post \u201cThe EU and Venezuela: More Bad Advice<\/a>\u201d, published on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, Elliott Abrams critically reviews my thoughts on \u201cA New Framework for Dealing with Venezuela: From Democracy to Conflict Resolution<\/a>\u201d. His thorough and blunt examination of the arguments presented in my piece for the European Democracy Hub is most welcome, given that I would far from pretend to simply know what should be done. In fact, I don\u2019t. My much more humble suggestion was and still is that it might be worthwhile reconsidering an approach that has been tried without much success. In a nutshell, I argued that the EU should shift from what I call the \u201cdemocracy framework\u201d to a \u201cframework of peace mediation and conflict resolution\u201d. Abrams\u2019 comments give me the opportunity to clarify some issues and tease out key differences between his approach and the one I am arguing for.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cdemocracy frame\u201d and the question of democracy promotion<\/strong><\/h2>\n

To start with an important misunderstanding, or misinterpretation: While Abrams suggests that I see \u201cthe problem with EU policy in Venezuela\u201d in the fact \u201cthat it has been promotion democracy\u201d, this is actually not what I argue. The problem, I submit, is rather that the EU approach is based \u201con the premise that the challenge in Venezuela is either to save a democratic regime in the process of erosion or to help restore democracy after a temporary crisis\u201d. This is what I call the \u201cdemocracy framework\u201d. The alternative framework would, instead, recognize \u201cthat Venezuela now has an entrenched authoritarian regime confronted by a long-running intrastate conflict and a deep humanitarian crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that the (ultimate) goal should not be to promote democracy. My argument, however, is that the aim to promote democracy is simply not served by the types of policies that have been tried so far and that Elliott Abrams continues to advocate. Sure, recognizing the then president of Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly, Juan Guaid\u00f3, as the legitimate, and somehow legal, president of the country and supporting him through all kinds of means looked very much like doing democracy promotion. And the same may apply to the series of sanctions imposed on Venezuela. Yet, empirically, as far as I can see, neither of these activities has actually promoted democracy. Supporting inclusive dialogue with a view to reaching a negotiated political settlement, the alternative I favor, does not automatically and necessarily lead to democracy either. Still, as experiences from around the world show<\/a>, it can lead the way out of protracted stalemates and, thereby, pave the way for subsequent political reforms.<\/p>\n

The \u201cconflict resolution frame\u201d and the question of neutrality<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Probably the most important argument Elliott Abrams makes against the \u201cconflict resolution frame\u201d concerns the charge that it refrains from taking side in the intra-Venezuelan conflict but adopts a position of \u201cneutrality\u201d. His counter argument has both a domestic and an international dimension. With a view to Venezuelan domestic politics, Abrams sees a \u201cmurderous and repressive\u201d regime on the one hand and \u201cdemocrats hanging on desperately to their principles and their lives\u201d. In this conflict, the EU \u201cshould be backing negotiations [\u2026] and backing the democratic opposition in those negotiations<\/em>\u201c. This is also important, he suggests, because at the international stage the regime has \u201cthe backing of Russia, China, [and] Cuba\u201d. \u201cDemocratic nations\u201d, therefore, have to back the other side.<\/p>\n

This criticism of my position contains both another misunderstanding but, perhaps more importantly, also reveals a key distinction between the \u201cdemocracy frame\u201d and the \u201cconflict resolution frame\u201d.<\/p>\n

As to the misunderstanding: In my piece, I argue that under the current political circumstances in Venezuela, the quarrel over the democratic legitimacy or the democratic credentials of the different stakeholders, representatives and institutions is not particularly helpful. In contrast, given that external actors disagree on these questions, these debates have contributed to obstructing a coordinated international response. Notably, these disagreements do not simply reflect a divergence between democratic and non-democratic governments (like the above-mentioned Russia, China and Cuba). They also divide Latin American democracies and the EU itself.[1]<\/a> <\/sup>Also, whereas in Abrams\u2019 binary world view there can be no one else but either backers of dictatorship or genuine democrats, the reality \u2013 everywhere and also in Venezuela \u2013 is much more complicated. The two of us agree that the Maduro regime is authoritarian and repressive, and that there are currently no political institutions in Venezuela that can plausibly claim democratic legitimacy. But this does not mean that all those opposing the regime are \u201cdemocrats hanging on desperately to their principles\u201d, as Abrams has it. I think it is hard to doubt that the political opposition, and the wider range of sociopolitical forces that oppose the current regime, include a most heterogeneous range of individuals and groups. Some, for instance, supported the 2002 coup against then-President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez and\/or more recent attempts at a military upheaval or foreign invasion. Others supported Chavismo for a long time and, in one way of another, aim at recuperating the Bolivarian revolution (to just mention two subsectors). Now, one could engage in endless debates about which of these positions should be regarded as disqualifying the corresponding groups as part of the \u201cdemocratic opposition\u201d (and what about those parts of the opposition that continue to participate in Venezuela\u2019s existing institutions?). But this is precisely the type of controversy the shift from a democracy to a conflict resolution frame aims at overcoming. The test, in a nutshell, would not be about the democratic credentials or the democratic legitimacy of the different stakeholders but about their willingness to engage in meaningful negotiations.<\/p>\n

The result, then, is not a position of \u201cneutrality\u201d, but a position that judges and treats sociopolitical actors according to their behavior vis-\u00e1-vis negotiations and the overarching aim of peaceful conflict resolution. This can imply, as I explicitly emphasize, the use of sanctions. But while the EU envisages \u201ctargeted restrictive measures against those undermining democracy or the rule of law<\/a>\u201d, the conflict resolution frame would consider threats, sanctions and incentives as \u201cmeans to push the Maduro regime \u2013 or parts of it \u2013 toward meaningful negotiations<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the controversy at hand is not only about misunderstandings. There is also a crucial political difference between Abrams\u2019 position and the approach I defend. Understanding the Venezuelan crisis as a struggle between good (\u201cthe democratic opposition\u201d) and evil (the \u201cmurderous and repressive regime\u201d), Elliott Abrams favors a strategy that lends decided support to one side (the good guys, to be sure, which always happen to be simultaneously pro-democracy, pro-capitalism, and pro-US). While it is to be appreciated that he also argues in favor of a negotiated solution, the effects of this strategy in the case of Venezuela can be observed (and are hardly unexpected): External actors, by choosing clear-cut sides according to their respective preferences, inhibit any serious internationally coordinated strategy, tend to cancel out their respective strategies vis-\u00e1-vis the Venezuelan crisis, while jointly contributing to the deepening of intra-Venezuelan polarization. A conflict resolution frame, in contrast, would aim at reducing polarization in Venezuela, with a view to enabling the building of bridges between (parts of) the supporters and\/or members of both the regime and the opposition. At the same time, such an approach would try to bring together as many external actors as possible behind the joint aim to move negotiations forward (which, I happen to think, is not entirely futile with a view, e.g., to Cuba but also China, perhaps even Russia).<\/p>\n

Supporting democrats versus promoting democratization<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the end, I belief, the controversy at hand reflects two fundamentally different views on what \u201cdemocracy promotion\u201d can or should entail in the case of contemporary Venezuela. For Abrams, promoting democracy means supporting democrats against their opponents, be it through material and diplomatic support, covert operations, economic sanctions or open military interventions. In line with the broader neoconservative worldview, democratization occurs as a result of the struggle between good and evil and the key task is to shift the balance in favor of the former. The alternative view conceptualizes democratization as a messy and complicated process in which all sorts of actors, many of which are hardly genuine democrats, participate. Such a process becomes even more complicated when the question of democratization combines with the challenge of dealing with an at least partially violent intrastate conflict and a humanitarian crisis. While I clearly tend towards the latter approach, I would not necessarily argue that the former is always wrong. But in the case of contemporary Venezuela, I do continue to think that it might be worthwhile to try to adopt a \u201cconflict resolution frame\u201d that integrates democratization as a rather mid- to long-term goal.<\/p>\n

Editorial postscriptum<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Finally, an institutional clarification, only because Abrams presents my article as if it was an official statement by either the European Democracy Hub<\/a> or the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD)<\/a> (two different initiatives, by the way): As is explicitly stated on the respective website<\/a>, \u201cA New Framework for Dealing with Venezuela: From Democracy to Conflict Resolution\u201d represents my personal views only. And the same applies, of course, for this rejoinder.<\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/a><\/sup> Ironically enough, Elliott Abrams himself struggles with what to make of Guaid\u00f3. According to Abrams, Guaid\u00f3 is \u201cthe de jure <\/em>leader of the democratic opposition\u201d. If this is meant seriously, it implies that Abrams no longer considers the former president of Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly as the de jure <\/em>president of the country (because one individual can hardly be both at the same time), and de facto <\/em>Guaid\u00f3 is clearly not Venezuela\u2019s president. Again, in arguing that the EU (and other external actors) should \u201cmove beyond a focus on the status of Guaid\u00f3<\/a>\u201d, I don\u2019t suggest that he \u201cbe pushed aside<\/a>\u201d, as Abrams interprets my suggestion. But I just don\u2019t think that the cause of negotiations and, ultimately, democracy in Venezuela is served by the (potentially endless) quarrel about the legal status of a key figure like Guaid\u00f3 \u2013 a quarrel from which Abrams himself apparently doesn\u2019t find a way out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his blog post \u201cThe EU and Venezuela: More Bad Advice\u201d, published on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, Elliott Abrams critically reviews my thoughts on \u201cA New Framework for Dealing with Venezuela: From Democracy to Conflict Resolution\u201d. In this piece, I argued that the EU should shift from what I call the \u201cdemocracy framework\u201d to a \u201cframework of peace mediation and conflict resolution\u201d. Abrams\u2019 comments give me the opportunity to clarify some issues and tease out key differences between his approach and the one I am arguing for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":11144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1125],"tags":[1130,1186,1230,1375],"coauthors":[71],"class_list":["post-13123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-en","tag-democracy","tag-democracy-promotion","tag-european-union","tag-venezuela-en"],"acf":[],"views":358,"yoast_head":"\nThe EU, Venezuela, and democracy promotion: A rejoinder to Elliott Abrams\u2019 comments - PRIF BLOG<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.prif.org\/en\/2021\/05\/28\/the-eu-venezuela-and-democracy-promotion-a-rejoinder-to-elliott-abrams-comments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The EU, Venezuela, and democracy promotion: A rejoinder to Elliott Abrams\u2019 comments - PRIF BLOG\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his blog post \u201cThe EU and Venezuela: More Bad Advice\u201d, published on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, Elliott Abrams critically reviews my thoughts on \u201cA New Framework for Dealing with Venezuela: From Democracy to Conflict Resolution\u201d. 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In this piece, I argued that the EU should shift from what I call the \u201cdemocracy framework\u201d to a \u201cframework of peace mediation and conflict resolution\u201d. 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Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte sind Demokratie und politischer Wandel, soziale Proteste und Konfliktdynamiken sowie au\u00dfen- und entwicklungspolitische Fragen. Sein regionaler Schwerpunkt ist Lateinamerika. \/\/ Prof. Dr Jonas Wolff is Member of the Executive Board and Head of the Research Department \u201cIntrastate Conflict\u201d at PRIF and professor of political science at the Goethe-University Frankfurt. His research focuses on democracy and political change, social protests and conflict dynamics, and foreign and development policy issues. 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