Towards Sustainable Development and Peaceful Co-Existence: USAID and the promotion of Developmental Liberal Democracy in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Abstract

The main argument of this thesis is that external actors, notably the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), can positively nascent democratic tendencies in African states where conducive internal political factors exist. In employing the case study of post-genocide Rwanda, the country-specific factors and forces that are currently working for, or against, . Rwanda's democratic experiment are explored. The Rwandan Government of National Unity (GNU) has clearly and coherently specified the terms and conditions in which external actors may participate in Rwanda's post-genocide reconciliation and reconstruction. In so doing, the GNU has created an enabling environment where the democracy promotion activities of USAID have facilitated the promotion of a Rwanda-specific variant of liberal democracy. In aggressively pursuing developmental liberal democracy as the basis of its reconstruction effort, the GNU has been able to consolidate impressive political, social and economic gains in assuring sustainable development and peaceful co-existence as the basis of Rwanda's future stability. Ultimately, then, country-specific factors, along with the financial support of USAID, have put Rwanda on the road to liberal democracy.