Sharansky Endorses ADVANCE Democracy Act

From time to time, I provide updates on this site of the progress of the ADVANCE Democracy Act sponsored in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Frank Wolf and Tom Lantos, and in the Senate by John McCain and Joe Lieberman. For those unfamiliar with the bill, its purpose is to make the promotion of democracy the preeminent goal of American foreign policy.

It would do this in a number of ways by: establishing inside the State Department an Office of Democratic Movements and Transitions whose purpose is to foster and assist fledgling democratic movements in countries where dictatorship reigns; creating an Annual Report on Democracy, which would require the State Department to classify every country of the world as “democratic,” “partly democratic,” or “nondemocratic”; translating and posting to the Internet all reports relating to human rights and democracy into the native tongues of nondemocratic countries; developing plans to move all nondemocratic countries to democracy by 2025; creating a Democracy Promotion Advisory Board to conduct a study of the efficiency and effectiveness of United States monies spent on democracy promotion; hosting an Internet Site for Global Democracy, which would contain such documents as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, The Federalist Papers, and other critical documents in the dominant languages of nondemocratic nations; requiring chiefs of missions in American embassies to spend substantial amounts of time at the universities in the nation to which they are posted for the purpose of spreading democratic values; authorizing dissidents of nondemocratic regimes to meet inside American embassies; instructing foreign service officers in the fundamentals of non-violent protest and democratic organizing; making promotion of democracy in nondemocratic countries a factor in foreign service officer promotion and pay; establishing a Congressional Democracy Award for U.S. government employees that have made extraordinary efforts to promote democracy; authorizing $5 million for the purpose of building the headquarters for the Community of Democracies; authorizing $20 million for the purpose of creating a Democracy Transition Center; and authorizing substantial monies for the purpose of funding non-governmental organizations that publish books, create radio and TV programming, promote party building, cultural exchanges among students, and many other types of programs likely to promote democracy in nondemocratic countries.

This laundry list of methods, that the ADVANCE Bill would institutionalize to promote democracy, is at the heart of the Democracy Project’s own efforts to spread freedom across the globe. That's why it is so heartening to post this letter by Nathan Sharansky – the Russian dissident and Israeli politician who authored one of President Bush's favorite books, The Case for Democracy – endorsing the methods contained in the Advance Democracy Act.