Conditions in Zimbabwe, now in the 28th year of Robert Mugabe’s presidency, are continuing their downward spiral, despite the March 29 defeat of Mugabe by presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai in a national election. Because Tsvangirai failed to achieve the required majority (51 percent of the vote), a runoff election is scheduled for June 27.

Since March 29, when Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party lost its majority in parliament, violence and threats against supporters of Tsvangirai’s opposition party have been widespread. (See “Zimbabwe Government’s Theft of Children’s Aid Is ‘Unconscionable.’“)

America.gov received the following e-mail last week:

“I THINK THAT AMERICA AND SOME OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES SHOULD HELP ZIMBABWEANS OBTAIN THEIR FREEDOM EITHER BY ASKING THE FBI TO MONITOR ON THE RUN-OFF OR SEND TIGHT UN SECURITY TO STRONGLY MONITOR ON THE ELECTIONS BECAUSE WHAT WE KNOW IS THAT MUGABE IS GOING TO RIG AGAIN!THE UN SHOULD EVEN SEND SECURITY CAMERAS TO BE USED DURING ELECTIONS.

ZIMBABWE IS LIKE HELL THESE DAYS BECAUSE OF MUGABE WHO DOESN’T WANT TO RESIGN,ITS BETTER THE COUNTRY BE LED BY THE ARMY THAN MUGABE WHO HAS NO CONSIENCE!I THINK THE UN SHOULD ALSO SEND SOME SOLDIERS TO PROTECT PEOPLE IN THE RURAL AREAS BECAUSE THERE IS A LOT OF BLOOD SHEDDING BECAUSE OF MUGABE’S PEOPLE.

WESTERN COUNTRIES PLEASE HELP ZIMBABWEANS OBTAIN THEIR FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!”

What can or should the international community be doing for Zimbabwe? Is shining a light on the elections enough or are other efforts needed?

At a conference intended to renew international support for Afghanistan’s reconstruction, the issues of security, illegal drugs and corruption topped the agenda.

In Paris on June 12 Afghan President Hamid Karzai presented his government’s five-year national development strategy to the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan in hopes of surpassing the $10.5 billion in international aid pledged at the 2006 London conference to continue Afghanistan’s recovery.

But getting the pledges is only the first step; delivering that aid continues to be a challenge, with the road to Afghan recovery blocked by enormous potholes in the form of violence, narcotics trafficking and corruption of law enforcement personnel and government officials. (See “Afghan Government Charts Challenges.”)

Half a world away, at a different international meeting, that same set of problems got a different kind of attention as representatives to the General Assembly of the Organization of American States noted the dramatic progress Colombia has made against violence and narco-trafficking.

“We have witnessed a transformation of our hemisphere,” said Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, and “no country embodies this transformation more than Colombia.” (See “Western Hemisphere Meeting Showcases Progress in Colombia.” )

Are there lessons from Colombia’s experience that can be useful in Afghanistan, or is the situation – cultural, historical and political – too different for the same approaches to work?

A new article by Michael Mandelbaum, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, looks at the links between free markets and democracy. He says a free-market economy is not just an important component of democracy, but is an essential precursor to the rise of a democratic political system.

“The principal source of political democracy,” Mandelbaum says, “is a free-market economy. While there have been, and continue to be, countries that practice free-market economics but not democratic politics, no country in the 21st century that is a political democracy lacks a free-market economy.”

He makes what seems to be a good case that the tremendous expansion in the number of democratic countries during the 20th century is tied closely to the increased prosperity brought about by the spread of free markets.

But World on Fire, a 2003 book by law professor Amy Chua, raises some concerns about that happy confluence in a detailed examination of how the collision of free markets and universal suffrage in third-world countries can lead to serious problems, specifically an “ethnic backlash” when a newly empowered minority clashes with what she called a “market-dominant minority” in which most of the country’s free-market wealth is concentrated.

I’m wondering what this information means for the 21st century, specifically the 70 or so members of the United Nations that are not democracies, and who seem pretty entrenched in their non-democracy ways. Should groups (government and nongovernment) that are interested in promoting democracy focus more energy on economic reforms? And what about the risk of “ethnic backlash” that Chua raised? Can we find ways to keep the world from catching on fire?

Welcome to the Democracy Roundtable, an online forum dedicated to exploring the form of government that British statesman Winston Churchill famously described as the worst, except for all the others.

This site gives you a chance to weigh in with your ideas about democratic governance and see what representatives from nongovernmental organizations in a variety of disciplines have to say. I’ll be offering ideas, asking questions, and doubtless learning some interesting things, but this is your platform for your conversation.

Personally, I’m a product of the American brand of democracy and a fan of the U.S. political process, especially with how it plays out in political campaigns. (You can find out more about that on America.gov’s U.S. Politics page.) But in the Democracy Roundtable, I’m looking forward to hearing from you about the different faces and forms democracy takes in other nations.