Burma's military junta is petrified at the prospect of wide-scale foreign assistance coming into contact with victims of last week's devastating cyclone, and its fears are warranted. Disaster relief efforts and development aid can carry with them potent seeds of democratization, as Don Eberly describes in a new book, The Rise of Global Civil Society. Eberly saw the power of relief efforts to transform repressive society in the Banda Aceh region of Indonesia following the 2004 tsunami as he worked for the State Department coordinating private sector reconstruction efforts.

Shifts in patterns of assistance are transforming development strategy, empowering individuals, and changing societies. "Top-down approaches to social justice and empowerment are losing their value and appeal," writes Eberly, a civil society practitioner and scholar of more than two decades. "Civil society, combined with small-scale enterprise and trade, is poised to contribute much to the reduction of persistent and extreme poverty in the twenty-first century."

Twenty years ago, official development assistance constituted 70 percent of the resources flowing from the U.S. to developing countries, according to Eberly. Today America's official development assistance amounts to more than $20 billion in taxes, while private donations to the poor abroad are estimated at about five times that amount. In the case of the tsunami relief, Congress appropriated $657 million, while Americans privately contributed $1.6 billion.

But it's not so much about the money as it is about the culture spread by private sector relief and development, says Eberly. He calls compassion "America's most consequential export." The cultivation of the conditions, values, norms and habits that form democratic citizens and institutions are the key to truly sustainable development.

A civil society approach to development focuses primarily on cultivating the conditions for strong communities, rather than on treating the symptoms of poverty. It aims to empower the poor, viewing them not as clients but as citizens and helping them harness the power of latent assets. Ultimately, advancing democracy depends on individuals who think of themselves as citizens in a civil society. As Eberly concludes:

"[T]he only path to free and prosperous nations is by way of cultivating democratic citizens. Democracy as it is understood in Western political theory is not merely about politics and the state; it is about civil society and local community habits. … Building the seedbed for democracy requires promoting a global civic culture to incubate the attitudes and habits that produce healthy democratic societies."

Jennifer A. Marshall is director of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.