More than just summit symbolism?
After four years of diplomatic isolationism under Donald Trump’s presidency, his successor Joe Biden has made a show of re-opening American eyes to the rest of the world. Case in point is the Summits for Democracy promised by Biden during his campaign to defeat Trump in November 2020, the second of which was held in Washington DC last week. It is still unclear whether these pro-democracy gatherings have any real impact beyond political symbolism.
The first democracy summit was held less than a year after the insurrection by Donald Trump’s supporters on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, and was followed, within three months, by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We are not seeking to define which countries are and aren’t democracies,” a State Department official briefed reporters ahead of the second summit in March 2023. However, those who did not receive invitations – Hungary and Turkey, whose governments have been accused of restricting political and media freedoms and judicial independence – certainly felt the snub.
Meanwhile, the presence of Zambia - one of the summits co-hosts – and Tanzania, whose reformist President Samia Saluhu Hassan was described by Vice President Kamala Harris as a “champion” of democracy, hints at growing United States (US) influence in two countries with close relations with China.
It may be a mistake to use the democracy summits as a geopolitical lever. Some countries like Pakistan are reluctant to participate in the summits because they do not want to be accused of picking sides in the geopolitical triangle between the US, China, and Russia.
A potential measure to assuage assumptions that the democracy summits are merely used as a projection of the US foreign policy could be another edition hosted by civil society groups or another government besides the US.
Nonetheless, current tangible policy results are not clear beyond a promise to spend $690 million that still relies on congressional approval in 2024, on programs for a range of pro-democracy initiatives. These include support for free and independent media and free and fair elections, as well as efforts to combat corruption, bolster human rights, and advance technology that improves democracy.
Additionally, the policy focus of the 2023 Summit was primarily on cyberthreats, surveillance, and commercial spyware.
To this end, the US signed a joint statement with Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom to deepen international cooperation on countering the proliferation and misuse of commercial spyware. This is backed by the White House’s announcement that the US Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency will partner with nine other countries to protect human rights and other activist groups that are at risk of facing transnational cyber-attacks.
For their part, the prime ministers of eight eastern European countries signed an open letter to the chief executives of major social media companies calling for them to be more aggressive in blocking the spread of false information on their platforms.
One of the reasons President Biden touted the idea of pro-democracy summits was the sense that the US needed to get its own house in order. The Biden Administration has so far failed to obtain congressional approval for legislation aimed at expanding voting rights, though extra staff has been brought into the Justice Department for this purpose.
To be taken seriously, the Biden Administration will need to do more to address voter suppression and foreign interference in the electoral process, an issue that is currently the subject of an inquiry committee in the European Parliament. The window of opportunity for action on this before the next election cycle is getting increasingly narrow.