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At the Community of Democracies Meeting, the Biden Administration Downgraded Its Support for Democracy
In a blog post on March 30 about Biden administration policy toward Venezuela, I noted that the administration had talked big. To repeat what I said then:
Once upon a time, the Biden administration talked a lot about human rights and democracy. "President Biden is committed to a foreign policy that...is centered on the defense of democracy and the protection of human rights, Secretary of State Blinken said in 2021. "We will incentivize democratic behavior," he said that year in another speech.
In 2022, a reporter in a press conference said "The Biden administration has promised to put human rights at the center of its foreign policy" and asked if that had happened. Blinken replied "As you said, very rightly, first, it’s something that President Biden felt very strongly about putting back at the center of our foreign policy, and we’ve done that. We’ve done that in shining a spotlight on human rights abuses. We’ve done that in rallying other countries to speak out, stand up, and take action against these abuses. We’ve done that in the actions that we’ve taken ourselves."
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In 2023 he said "President Biden has made promoting and defending human rights a priority for our foreign policy, and it’s a priority for this department. It’s a priority in every – in every bureau of this department, in every part of the world."
It has become very clear over the past three and a half years that this was just rhetoric, and in the last week there has been another sad example of this fact.
On June 9, the Department of State put out a press release entitled “United States to Chair Community of Democracies’ 38th Governing Council Meeting,” about the Community of Democracies meeting that was then two days away—to take place on June 11 in Warsaw.
What is the Community of Democracies? Its web site says:
The Community of Democracies (CoD) is a global intergovernmental coalition comprised of the Governing Council Member States that support adherence to common democratic values and standards outlined in the Warsaw Declaration. The CoD is represented in the international fora by the elected Secretary General.
Born as a common initiative of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Polish Foreign Minister Bronisław Geremek, the Community of Democracies was founded at the Ministerial Conference held in Warsaw, Poland, where high-level delegations from 106 countries adopted the Warsaw Declaration Toward a Community of Democracies.
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So: annual meeting, leading pro-democracy group, co-founded by a Democratic Party secretary of state, and this session was (by rotation) chaired by the United States.
Now look again at those quotations in which the Biden administration tells us that democracy is at the center of its foreign policy and is a top priority, and who do you think the administration sent to chair the meeting? The Secretary of State? The Deputy Secretary of State? The Undersecretary of State? An assistant secretary of state? The USAID administrator, or UN ambassador….well, I could go on.
Nope. As State’s press release reports, “Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Allison Peters will lead the U.S. delegation.” With all due respect to Ms. Peters, an acting deputy assistant secretary?
In 2021 the administration made a big deal out of its support for democracy, hosting a “Summit for Democracy” where President Biden spoke. But there seems to have been a bit of a downgrade since then. The administration could not send the assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor, because the post is vacant. If Ms. Peters is an acting deputy assistant secretary, that means a deputy assistant secretary post is vacant too (and because those posts do not require Senate confirmation, there is nobody to blame for the vacancy but the State Department itself).
In some previous blog posts and articles, I’ve argued that the Biden administration should desist from its performative and rhetorical support for democracy when its policies (in Venezuela and elsewhere) do not actually provide such support. Uh-oh. Perhaps they are following this advice and pulling back from apparent and symbolic as well as from real support. Democracy back "at the center" of our foreign policy? "Priority" for our foreign policy? When the United States chairs the Community of Democracies Governing Council meeting and the Biden administration sends an acting deputy assistant secretary of state to represent the United States and chair the meeting, few in attendance will have missed the very different message.