This report seeks to more fully enumerate the nature of China’s impact on democracy in LAC. It posits two independent but correlated mechanisms through which China contributes to democratic backsliding. First, the PRC propagates its model of authoritarian governance through its soft power engagements in media, education, and people-to-people diplomacy, as well as through its security assistance, which often features tools enabling mass surveillance and the curtailment of civil and political rights. Second, China protects regimes undergoing democratic backsliding by providing economic and diplomatic cover even as these governments become increasingly isolated from the rest of the international system, in effect extending these governments beyond their natural lifespan. Having recognized the specific risk vectors China’s engagement poses in LAC, the report seeks to articulate the beginnings of a democracy-first grand strategy for the United States to pursue. Such a strategy should proceed along the lines of the “insulate, curtail, compete” framework outlined in a previous CSIS report. by Ryan C. Berg and Henry Ziemer. Full Text -> CSIS

Fully one-third of the nations of the world today have been consistently run by electoral autocracies, including countries as geopolitically significant as Russia, Egypt, Venezuela, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia and Nigeria, Matovski noted. “By mimicking democracy – allowing multiparty elections, oppositions and somewhat free markets and media – they quite literally kept authoritarianism alive in most places across the world, effectively extending the average life of dictatorships to over 20 years,” he said. “And they turned out to be the most effective way to subvert existing democracies.” By Matthew Schehl. Full Text -> DViDS

Traducción de cortesía ->

Hoy en día, un tercio de las naciones del mundo han estado dirigidas por autocracias electorales, incluidos países tan importantes desde el punto de vista geopolítico como Rusia, Egipto, Venezuela, Turquía, Pakistán, Malasia y Nigeria, señaló Matovski. “Al imitar la democracia, permitiendo elecciones multipartidistas, oposiciones y mercados y medios algo libres, literalmente mantuvieron vivo el autoritarismo en la mayoría de los lugares del mundo, extendiendo efectivamente la vida promedio de las dictaduras a más de 20 años”, dijo. “Y resultaron ser la forma más efectiva de subvertir las democracias existentes”