Background

Democratic nations are more stable and peaceful than other nations and contribute to the welfare and prosperity of their own people, as well as to all humanity. Democratic regimes bring hope and stability to their people, allow their citizens to peacefully make changes in underperforming governmental operations, and encourage their people to look forward to a better future. Existing regimes in many of the developing countries lack the desire or ability to provide awareness to their citizens of the advantages of democracy that would bring positive changes to their lives. These governments often have the concern that they will lose power and control over their countries which, in many cases, produces more extreme governments that can destabilize an entire country or region.

The U.S. is left with few options in its relationship with radical governments: (1) boycott these regimes, (2) attempt to change these regimes if they constitute a threat to U.S. national security, or (3) support the regime for lack of a better alternative.

History has proven that spreading democracy by toppling a ruling government by force and replacing it with another can be very costly in lives and resources and can have a negative effect on public opinion. Pressuring a ruling government by isolating it from the international community can backfire. Boycotting Iran, for instance, made this government grow stronger and more averse to democratic principles. The last option, supporting regimes for the lack of a better alternative, affects the credibility, respect and popularity amongst the people who live under these regimes. Additionally, this option promotes feelings of discontent within the U.S. because our government fails to follow its own principles when dealing with these regimes.

Democracy should be introduced like a new religion that must be cultivated and grown gradually in the hearts and minds of the populations of these radical foreign regimes. Then the ordinary citizen will be the protector of his newly founded “religion” and follow a course to further democratic development in his country. This should be a long-term strategy that, when coupled with other existing foreign policy programs, can show positive results in 5 – 10 years.

Enhancing human rights and dignity, while reducing corruption, are prerequisites for any developing nation to move forward toward democratization. There is no doubt that many of the ruling governments in developing countries would like to achieve these prerequisites without impacting their agenda for long-term government stability. However, in most cases governments of developing countries lack the ability to implement real democratic changes and/or to emphasize these changes as a priority on their agenda in a strategy to minimize the rising influence of fundamental and radical parties. Much of the daily interaction between the citizens of developing countries and their own government, combined with widespread experience with corruption, results in a huge sense of reticence and disappointment that negatively affects their human dignity and their rights. In developing countries citizens cannot protest the underperformed government because of their fear of persecution. Lack of human dignity and rights lead to disengagement and disaffection of the citizens from the political process and make the status quo acceptable. Citizens without hope only satisfied with pointing fingers at their government as the sole reason for their problems and their government’s inability to foster positive changes. Additionally, governments of developing countries benefit by allowing their citizens to believe that their problems result from the actions of western countries. This distracts developing country citizens from examining their own system and trying to identify the real reasons for their failure. Many dictatorial governments capitalize on the negative feelings of their citizens and manage to direct their citizen’ anger toward western countries and thus avoid accountability over their own lack of leadership. However, this ploy virtually provides a temporary solution, and there is always a grave danger that people will resort to revolutionary acts against their government, which in many cases results in great chaos and paves the way for extremist groups to take over, as was evident with the Palestinian Authority and the rise of the Hamas group.

Current Approach for Democratization

A direct campaign targeting the public of developing countries with the aim of spreading understanding of the democratic system is a current approach often employed by many western governments. Such campaigns are always under the scrutiny of ruling regimes, and poses great difficulty in spreading an understanding of the benefits of democracy to a larger audience. Such efforts also face a counter campaign designed to discredit the goals of introducing democracy and discrediting any local citizens working with those trying to spread an understanding of democracy. Therefore, this campaign is quite costly and produces little progress.

The foreign visitor program at New Mexico Tech has shown that almost all foreign nationals visiting the U.S. admire the benefits of democratic systems, ranging from effective balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government to the daily interactions between U.S. citizens and their official government agencies on the state and federal levels. However, recent studies in developing countries have shown that these people still do not accept external power to force democratic changes within their home countries.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has the mandate to help many of the developing countries world-wide through specific strategic objectives based on the country and the region of interest. For example, the USAID has its largest mission outside the U.S. in Egypt since the late seventies after the peace accord between Egypt and Israel. The USAID mission in Egypt spent billions of dollars in supporting major projects on infrastructure development (Water, sewer, communications, agriculture, etc) as well as considerably large projects in the environment, education and health care sectors. The activities of the USAID in Egypt have had major impact on the economic prosperity in Egypt as well as on its political stability. Currently, the USAID includes democratization in Egypt as one of its strategic objectives, which has failed to make such impact on the society because of some of the obstacles mentioned earlier.

Therefore a new and novel approach for fostering democratization should be considered and implemented in an effort to expedite and maximize the impact of USAID initiative in promoting democratization. The new approach should take into account and steer clear of the obstacle listed earlier and direct the growing potential and resources of the developing countries toward meeting the prerequisites for democratization such as enhancing human rights and minimizing corruptions through scientific and engineering solutions. The new approach for democratization should take into account the sustainability of the prerequisite democratization efforts after redirecting U.S. funds toward development of the necessary human capacity and trained workforce which can maintain the initiatives, secure in-country and other donors’ resources and thus keep continuous communications with U.S. firms and universities.

Novel Approach for Democratization

A novel approach for fostering democracy in developing countries may be implemented by empowering their citizens without alienating their governments. The new approach would help the citizens of developing countries to gain an understanding of the prerequisites of democratic change, such as improving human dignity and rights while minimizing the level of corruption. The ruling régimes in developing countries believe that there is no one democratic model applicable to all nations. The new approach for democratization should address this fact and be flexible enough to accommodate the variables related to level of education, awareness, religious, cultural, and economic prosperity of each country.

Science and engineering can play a very important role in paving the way toward democratic changes in developing countries by identifying and developing new projects that enable the tools and technologies that enhance human dignity and reduce corruption. This new approach should be implemented in partnership with the ruling governments of the developing countries while also seeking active partnerships with non-government organizations and the private sector. The underlying assumption to this approach is that the ruling government of any developing country is trying to enhance the life of its citizens in order to maintain its leadership in the face of global changes and is trying to maintain a favorable position over opposition parties. This approach will help enhance the image of the U.S. and other western countries as peace-waging nations and will replace an existing understanding of war-waging countries.

Overseas Engineering Extension Offices

The new approach for fostering democratic changes in developing countries calls for establishing Overseas Engineering Extension Offices (OEEOs) in developing countries of special interest to the United States. These OEEOs will be implemented through a teaming effort between U.S. University coalitions and selected US Government entities such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID), the U.S. Department of State (DOS) and/or non-government organizations (NGOs). The OEEO program will be implemented by U.S. scientists and engineers and foreign young and highly motivated scientists and engineers who will have continuous interaction with their U.S. counterparts. A train-the-trainer approach will ensure the transfer of, not only the technical knowledge, but also the democratic culture to the foreign participants. The OEEOs will be in direct contact with an established network of technical centers and scientific institutes at various U.S. universities to support them in implementing their projects. They will target the in-country resources to serve in projects of importance to their citizens by using their own capital; by soliciting government and private support; and by sustaining their operation after funding ceases from the United States. Advantages of this OEEO approach include:

  • Increasing the presence of U.S. institutions in countries and regions of interest such as the Middle East. Currently, the European Union invests significant resources in Mediterranean countries and the Middle East through the Country Framework Project that allows a significant number of European universities and NGOs to be present in these regions. This approach has enhanced the image of Europe in the Middle East and has made it an essential partner in these regions.
  • Filtering foreign students before entering the U.S. U.S. universities will be able to extend their interactions in these countries and develop remote campuses overseas. A remote campus allows foreign students to obtain their undergraduate and post graduate degrees without being in the U.S. or to spend minimum time in the U.S. to finish their degrees. This approach will allow U.S. universities to handpick foreign students with good potential to finish their studies in the U.S., while avoiding students with extreme ideology.
  • Increasing cultural exchange and propagating democratic awareness. Increasing the presence of U.S. students and professors for extended times overseas will allow them the opportunity to mingle with the public and to transfer the democratic culture in a very subtle manner.
  • Engaging the science and engineering community to support U.S. foreign policies. U.S. universities are better equipped to support the development of OEEOs overseas because they are more affordable and accessible than private companies or U.S. National Laboratories.
  • Providing significant leverage to the U.S. budget for research and development. Working with foreign counterparts will provide access to a pool of well educated scientists and engineers overseas and access to their facilities at considerably reduced cost.
  • Minimizing language barriers and cultural ambiguity. Increasing the number of U.S. participants overseas provides the opportunity for more Americans to master foreign languages, which exponentially enhances communication skills, a benefit to U.S. decision making.

Egypt has good potential to test this OEEO approach. Egypt has a good infrastructure of scientists and engineers, and the ruling party is trying to adopt limited steps toward democratic changes. An OEEO in Egypt will interface directly with the different ministries of the local government and jointly define the projects that have quick and direct impact on Egypt’s citizens. The next part of this white paper will provide additional information on the proposed structure of the OEEO and the projects that can be undertaken to promote democratic changes in developing countries.

Overseas Engineering Extension Offices Program

Mission

The proposed OEEOs will develop a skilled and trained workforce that can enhance the public safety, security and economic growth of developing nation through technology enablement, training, technical assistance and emergency response. OEEOs will help transfer appropriate technologies to promote effective use of resources and will provide a safe, productive environment.

Vision

The OEEOs will be recognized as agencies that improve the lives of local people by helping provide safe communities, economic opportunity, and an enriched quality of life.

The OEEOs will use highly specialized engineers and scientists who will identify technologies used to enhance government services and the private sector, which can have a great impact on the lives of the people in foreign countries. Many examples can be found in the energy, health and environment sectors. They will help enable emerging technologies to solve existing problems in the public and private sectors. The OEEOs will also help develop awareness campaigns directed to benefit the public, as well as support government officials associated with providing many services and programs. The awareness campaign will be developed with the local language and will take into consideration the cultural and religious aspects of the society. They will help design retraining programs to adjust the workforce inside the government offices to be more productive and minimize the cost of the public services. For example, New Mexico Tech has already teamed with the DOS and trained many police force representatives from developing countries around the world on how to perform their jobs under democratic rule.

The OEEOs will provide public works training in highly diversified areas. Employees ranging from those in entry-level jobs through executive positions can take advantage of the OEEOs’ hands-on telecommunications, transportation, electric power, water/wastewater and environmental training programs. The OEEOs will also provide knowledgeable and experienced instructors to train people across the nation in areas such as electric power safety training, border protection, and detailed transportation engineering concepts. The proposed OEEOs will be recognized for their customized skills in training that meet customers’ specific needs at any training location. Additionally, OEEOs can develop advanced mobile training units which can train employees in their working environment, ensuring a better trained workforce at significant financial savings. The OEEOs will be able to raise additional in-country funds to leverage U.S. funds to sustain their mission in the long term. The OEEOs will be readily recognized because of their impact on the communities and people by providing better access to a clean environment, energy resources, skilled work force, and governmental services.

Visitors and Volunteers Program

The OEEOs will extend their capabilities and outreach by soliciting the help of retired American citizens to volunteer to spend extended periods of time (ranging from six months to a year) in developing countries. During their missions, the volunteers will have the chance to spend part of their time engaging with the local public, private, and NGOs sectors. The volunteers should possess extensive skills and background that would help the development of different governmental and public sectors in foreign countries. The volunteer program will be managed as a private enterprise, where the private, public and NGOs sectors in the foreign countries will be responsible for the accommodation of the visitors. The volunteer program would not replace or compete with the U.S. Peace Corp. The major difference is that the volunteer program would solicit the services of the retired and experienced citizens to support specific projects under the umbrella of the OEEOs. The main objectives of this program are

  • Cultural exchange between the west and the east. The visitors will interact closely with many local citizens on a personal level. These close interactions will greatly help with a better understanding of the local citizens and the visitor’s cultures. This firsthand knowledge will enlighten the U.S. public and help them to support their governments in executing their international polices. The close relationship between different cultures will help promote peace and reduce conflicts.
  • Bridge between civilizations. The OEEOs visitors program will be part of the overall activities that serve as a bridge between different civilizations and will help attract foreign funds for local economic growth. The OEEOs will integrate the U.S. and European activities in the countries of interest.
  • Small business growth. The OEEOs program will support the growth of small business companies overseas that would accelerate the growth of private sectors.
  • Knowledge base and technology transfer. The OEEOs will provide the base for knowledge and technology transfer.

In summary, the establishment of OEEOs will assist the developing nations selected to participate in the program, enhance the U.S. government’s reputation in those nations and foster the process of democratization.

Acknowledgment

The author would like to express his great appreciation to Dr. Dennis Morrison, Director of the Institute for Engineering Research and Applications (IERA) and Mr. David William Associate Director of the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC) for their valuable input and discussion. Also the author cordially appreciates the thorough review, comments, and addition of Dr. Daniel Lopez, president of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMIMT).