National Endowment for Democracy

Not to be confused with the "Great Society" National Endowments for Arts and Humanities programs.

National Endowment for Democracy
FoundedNovember 18, 1983 (1983-11-18)
FounderCarl Gershman
Allen Weinstein[1]
Type501(c)(3) non-profit
NGO
52-1344831
Location
OriginsU.S. Congress resolution H.R. 2915
Area served
Worldwide (outside United States)
Key people
Damon Wilson (President)
Websitewww.ned.org Edit this at Wikidata
The President of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Gershman (second from the left), presents an award to a Tunisian leader of the Arab Spring in November 2011.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization in the United States founded in 1983 with the stated aim of advancing democracy worldwide,[2][3][4] by promoting political and economic institutions, such as political groups, business groups, trade unions, and free markets.[5]

The NED was created as a bipartisan, private, non-profit corporation, but acts as a grant-making foundation.[2] It is funded primarily by an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress.[4][6][5] In addition to its grants program, the NED also supports and houses the Journal of Democracy, the World Movement for Democracy, the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the Reagan–Fascell Fellowship Program, the Network of Democracy Research Institutes, and the Center for International Media Assistance.[7][8]

Upon its founding, the NED assumed several former activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Political groups, activists, academics, and some governments have accused the NED of being an instrument of U.S. foreign policy helping to foster regime change.[9][10][11]

  1. ^ Ignatius, David (September 22, 1991). "Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved August 28, 2021.
  2. ^ a b Lowe, David. "History - Idea to Reality: NED at 30". National Endowment for Democracy.
  3. ^ Richmond, Yale (2008). Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey. Berghahn Books. p. 161. ISBN 978-0-85745-013-5. NED was founded at the initiative of a small group of Washington insiders, who believed that the United States needed a 'quango' (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization) to promote liberal democracy and counter communist influence abroad ... .
  4. ^ a b Otsuru-Kitagawa, Chieko (1998). "The Role of QUANGO in American Democratic Assistance". International Relations. 1998 (119): 127–141. doi:10.11375/kokusaiseiji1957.119_127. eISSN 1883-9916.
  5. ^ a b "About the National Endowment for Democracy". National Endowment for Democracy. Retrieved August 27, 2021. NED is dedicated to fostering the growth of a wide range of democratic institutions abroad, including political parties, trade unions, free markets and business organizations
  6. ^ Dominguez, Jorge I. (2013). The Future of Inter-American Relations. Routledge. p. 429. ISBN 978-1-136-68424-1. 13: On NED and other QUANGO programs...
  7. ^ "Center for International Media Assistance". Center for International Media Assistance. June 15, 2023. Retrieved June 27, 2023.
  8. ^ "NDRI Member Institutes". NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY. Retrieved June 27, 2023.
  9. ^ Shih, Gerry (December 2, 2019). "China announces sanctions against U.S.-based nonprofit groups in response to Congress's Hong Kong legislation". Washington Post. Retrieved February 4, 2024. China, echoing such governments as Venezuela and Egypt, has previously taken aim at the NED, established in 1983 and funded by Congress to promote democracy worldwide. The Foreign Ministry in August distributed a lengthy report that named the NED as a U.S. intelligence front and listed its 20-year history of funding political groups in Hong Kong
  10. ^ Kinzer, Stephen; Bednarz, Christine. "What Is the N.E.D.'s Mission? | Christine Bednarz". New York Review of Books. Retrieved February 4, 2024. The National Endowment for Democracy, which receives nearly all its funds from Congress, is a conduit through which the US government has given millions of dollars to political and other protest groups in countries from Albania to Haiti
  11. ^ Geoghegan, Kate (November 1, 2018). "A Policy in Tension: The National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Response to the Collapse of the Soviet Union". Diplomatic History. 42 (5): 772–801. doi:10.1093/dh/dhx088. Retrieved February 4, 2024. Ignatius's analysis illuminates an important but understudied development in the final years of the Cold War: the rise of private democracy organizations as tools of U.S. foreign policy