“Around the world, the fundamental rights of individuals are under attack, and democracy is being threatened by an authoritarian resurgence,” wrote Senator Marco Rubio (FL-R) in a letter to NDI president Kenneth Wollack earlier this month. “In this difficult environment, it is more critical than ever that the United States plays a leading role in safeguarding human rights and democracy around the world.” Senator Rubio, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women’s Issues, was inviting Wollack to testify at the February 16 hearing, “Democracy and Human Rights: The Case for U.S. Leadership.”

In his opening remarks, Wollack presented the case for democracy assistance and the leadership role that the United States must continue to play abroad:

“The notion that there should be a dichotomy between our moral preferences and our strategic interests is a false one. Our ultimate foreign policy goal is a world that is secure, stable, humane, and safe, where the risk of war is minimal. Yet, the reality is that hotspots most likely to erupt into violence are found, for the most part, in areas of the world that are nondemocratic -- places that have been defined by the Defense Department as the ‘arc of instability.’ These are places that experience ethnic conflict and civil war; they generate refugee flows across borders; they are places where terrorists are harbored and illegal drugs are produced.”

Despite the “decade of democratic recession” the world has experienced, Wollack and his fellow witnesses, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) President Carl Gershman and International Republican Institute (IRI) President Mark Green, shined light on the success stories that keep the promise of democracy alive, even in challenging places like Ukraine and Syria.

Wollack also addressed the “decade of democratic recession” in more detail when Ranking Member Senator Robert Menendez (NJ-D) asked the witnesses to explain the phenomenon. There are two factors at play, according to Wollack. First, authoritarians are learning from each other. They used to be isolated, but now there is a network of autocrats who seek to curtail the spread of democracy. IRI’s Green added that repressive regimes also have new tools, like disinformation and propaganda, against which we must push back.

Second, in new democracies, elected leaders inherit from their predecessors all the societal problems that existed under the former regime as well as weak or nonexistent institutions bound to fail. Those who care about stability and freedom, therefore, must both support “small d democrats” in non-democratic places as well as nurture new, young democracies who will likely have a difficult time getting off the ground.

The Senators present agreed that supporting democracy around the world is consistent not only with U.S. values, but with the interest of its economic stability and national security.

See Kenneth Wollack’s full testimony here.