Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Spring 2005
Growing Pains
Despite the impressive record, Carnegie Corporation’s achievements
did not come easy. There were persistent concerns, both internally and
externally, that the fixation on preventing “high consequence”
events, such as stemming nuclear leakage and ethnic wars, crowded out
“high probability” issues on the agenda concerning the strategic
impact of conventional arms proliferation, potential dampening effects
of civil and ethnic tensions on regional interstate conflicts and the
modalities of regional and ethnic autonomy within post-Soviet federal
structures. Early projects aimed at strengthening democratic institutions
came under particular scrutiny for overemphasizing elite and macro-level
projects while neglecting developments on the ground in different Russian
and NIS localities and civil society. Emphasis on promoting a “grand
democratic bargain” also tended to circumscribe support for exploring
likely alternative futures for Russia, including the prospects and strategic
implications for carving out stable but incremental (and even dysfunctional)
paths to political and economic transition. That said, given the stakes
and intense uncertainty at the time, the initial preoccupation with averting
nuclear war and expediting democratization was warranted, if not imperative.
Moreover, it is clear that the Corporation board and program staff were
initially cautious about investing too heavily in a “big bang”
approach to democratic change, and as revealed in the ensuing PDC and
IPS programs were open to modifying the Corporation’s grantmaking
strategy to keep pace with the changing landscape.
Another set of challenges and hard lessons pertained to the distribution
and sustainability of the Corporation’s grants. A common criticism
leveled against the programs was that they were too “top-heavy”
in engaging elites, political insiders, and leading academic institutions.
Projects tended to solicit interest among senior U.S. officials who were
removed from events on the ground, at the expense of enlisting mid-level
bureaucrats who directly “worked” the main issues of U.S.-Russian
relations. Grant clusters also were concentrated overwhelmingly in “top-flight”
American universities and research centers that were prone to limit project
collaboration and were slow to transition from training to partnership
relations with former Soviet institutions. This also effectively limited
the geographic scope of Russia-related training, research and exposure
within the U.S. Similarly, grants were heavily skewed toward contending
with the challenges faced by Russia and its capital cities. Although over
time there was growing support for projects concerning the South Caucasus
and Central Asia, there was far less attention to Ukraine and Moldova,
where the possibilities of domestic conflict and failed demo-cratic transitions
loomed large. Within Russia, the Moscowcentrism arguably detracted from
further cultivating and engaging local leaders and experts with independent
stakes in upholding, monitoring and sustaining project objectives throughout
the country. At times, it seemed that the Corporation’s sponsored
activities in both countries were too close to sympathetic political administrations
and liberal establishments, and too far removed from more skeptical leaderships
and constituencies. Notwithstanding these idiosyncrasies, the Corporation
was not insensitive to casting a wider net in the region, as evidenced
by HEFSU’s subsequent effort to support universities and academic
communities in Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and the South Caucasus. Ultimately,
the programs operated within the constraints of the Corporation’s
charter (that proscribed direct grants to former Soviet institutions)
to prompt diverse American and Eurasian partners to think critically and
persistently about fundamental peace and security issues that transcended
the fluid political terrain.