Dr. Howard Wiarda Identifies the Dominican Republic as a Successful Example of Democratic Transition

On Tuesday, January 7, Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD), in partnership with the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in Washington, DC, presented the program “The Dominican Republic 50 Years After Trujillo,” with Dr. Howard Wiarda at FUNGLODE Headquarters in Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Dr. Wiarda was introduced by Dominican historian Bernando Vega. The scholar affirmed that the Dominican Republic of today can provide lessons to the world on the challenges of achieving democracy following a period of prolonged dictatorship. Wiarda asserted that the country can teach other emerging democracies that the quest for democracy is a prolonged process that spans two or three generations and forms a continual transition.

Wiarda described Dominican society of today – the society he first encountered in the 1960s while conducting his master’s thesis – as sophisticated, globalized and international. He underscored the critical contribution of President Leonel Fernández to this process, who has been democratically elected three times to office.

Wiarda cited various statistics to illustrate the country’s strong
transition towards democracy. The island nation once claimed a per capita income of 300 dollars and now boasts one of 5,000. Furthermore, he commented on the growth of civil society in the fifty year period following the Trujillo dictatorship, stating that the political party system in the Dominican Republic is now one of the strongest in Latin America.

He also highlighted the country’s recent infrastructure development, which has been pivotal in
converting the Dominican Republic from a rural to an urban country.

Wiarda also boar testament to the Trujillo dictatorship, and injected many anecdotal stories of his experiences in the country as young scholar. He cautioned that the Dominican Republic could have ended up as a very different country, fraught by revolutionary movements and social upheaval, alluding to the War of April and the overthrow of President Juan Bosch.

Wiarda
conveyed that as a social scientist, he has traveled to many countries, including Russia and Yemen, evaluating democratic stability, and identifies the Dominican Republic as evidence that democratic transition requires time to achieve.

A moving moment came at the end of the conference when Dr. Wiarda presented to President Fernández the three volumes that comprised his doctoral thesis, Dictatorship, development, and disintegration: Politics and social
change in the Dominican Republic. President Fernández graciously accepted the 1,900 publication, which will be available for reference in the Juan Bosch Library.

In his final words, Dr. Wiarda also referred to his experience having President Fernández as a young pupil in one of the courses he instructed in the Dominican Republic years ago, mentioning the political potential that he saw in the young Fernández at the time.

Dr. Howard Wiarda is the Dean Rusk Professor of International Relations at the University of Georgia and Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Dr. Wiarda is a distinguished expert in contemporary Latin American history, with a specialization in political systems and fragile democracies in the
twentieth century.  Read full biography