EA organizations are also less likely to be perceived as biased or self-interested actors.
I think this is unlikely. EAs disproportionately come from wealthy democratic nations and those who have reason to resist democratic reform will have an easy time painting EA participation in democracy promotion as a slightly more covert version of foreign-state-sponsored attempts at political reform. Further, EAs are also disproportionately from former colonizing states that have historically dominated other states, and I don’t think that correlation will be ignored.
This is not to say I necessarily think it is the case that EA attempts at democracy promotion would in fact be covert extensions of existing efforts that have negative connotations, only that I think it will be possible to argue and convince people that they are, making this not an actual advantage.
I basically agree with this, and was going to say something similar.
Though it does seem likely that EA organisations would be somewhat less likely to be perceived as biased or self-interested than US government agencies would be. And this post suggests that the US government is “Perhaps the largest single source of spending on global democracy promotion”. So it seems to me like:
it was fair for the OP to have raised this as an advantage
it’d be even better if the OP had also noted that the geographical distribution of EAs probably makes that advantage smaller than one might otherwise think, and means there may be no advantage at all compared to things like UN agencies or non-EA foundations
I think this is unlikely. EAs disproportionately come from wealthy democratic nations and those who have reason to resist democratic reform will have an easy time painting EA participation in democracy promotion as a slightly more covert version of foreign-state-sponsored attempts at political reform. Further, EAs are also disproportionately from former colonizing states that have historically dominated other states, and I don’t think that correlation will be ignored.
This is not to say I necessarily think it is the case that EA attempts at democracy promotion would in fact be covert extensions of existing efforts that have negative connotations, only that I think it will be possible to argue and convince people that they are, making this not an actual advantage.
I basically agree with this, and was going to say something similar.
Though it does seem likely that EA organisations would be somewhat less likely to be perceived as biased or self-interested than US government agencies would be. And this post suggests that the US government is “Perhaps the largest single source of spending on global democracy promotion”. So it seems to me like:
it was fair for the OP to have raised this as an advantage
it’d be even better if the OP had also noted that the geographical distribution of EAs probably makes that advantage smaller than one might otherwise think, and means there may be no advantage at all compared to things like UN agencies or non-EA foundations