Opinion Pieces Examine Value Of Western Democracies In International Development, Amid COVID-19

Christian Science Monitor: The COVID-19 challenge: Good government
Ned Temko, correspondent and columnist for Christian Science Monitor

“It’s been a formidable, worldwide stress test. And the COVID-19 pandemic is placing particular strain on a model of government long seen as uniquely able to combine individual freedom and economic advancement: Western liberal democracy…” (10/13).

Global Health NOW: When Our Valuation of Democracy Wavers
Dalton Price, D.Phil. candidate in anthropology at the University of Oxford

“…[D]evelopment bureaucrats often coordinate economic activity inside nations and operate with little attention to on-the-ground realities. But there is an important need to make this practice strange and question the foundations of the contemporary international development industry. … The only rational explanation is that our valuation of democracy wavers depending on where it is applied. We claim to value democracy so much, but our actions indicate we only care about our own. Unfortunately, international development has always been an industry of wildly unequal stakeholders. We can no longer continue these practices under the guise of humanitarian action, and as a community, we must unabatedly denounce them every time they appear” (10/6).

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