Democracy Assistance Programs Research Articles

Can Sociology Help Democracy Assistance Programs?

Programs that encourage democracy in foreign countries have become controversial, in part because of problems in how they have been implemented. Sociological research has the potential to make them more effective.

Replicate, Facilitate, Disseminate: The Micropolitics of U.S. Democracy Promotion in Bolivia

In the wake of a massive 2003 uprising in El Alto, Bolivia, U.S. democracy assistance programs targeted the city, promising to address Alteños’ frustration with democratic institutions and to teach deliberative democratic skills. In this article I examine the position of civic education “replicators.” I use this term to describe people from the city of El Alto—many of them young adults—who were trained by U.S. democracy assistance programs to promote renewed and rehabilitated democratic practices among Alteños. I consider what the position of replicators reveals about the governance technologies, aid ideologies, and objectives of U.S. democracy‐promotion programs. I argue that despite these programs’ emphasis on producing subjects who are “governable,” replicators are engaged in complex negotiations regarding the form and content of democracy assistance programs, and many continue to enact political practices that donor representatives frequently characterize as outmoded, illiberal, and antidemocratic. Through the experiences of replicators, we learn that liberal democratic concepts, practices, and subjectivities are already mediated and refracted through lived histories and sociopolitical affiliations of the very people tasked with their duplication and spread. Attending to the microdynamics of replication exposes how that repetition itself helps create the conditions under which replicators come to question their endeavors and to articulate understandings of democracy that incorporate practices donors would likely reject. [democracy, foreign aid, political subjectivity, NGOs, Bolivia]

When and why is civil society support “made-in-America”? Delegation to non-state actors in American democracy promotion

One of the United States’ main strategies of democracy promotion involves supporting civil society abroad. According to original data, most of the money spent by the United States on that task supports American NGOs working abroad rather than local NGOs in transitioning and non-democratic countries. Yet there are also significant variations across countries in donor officials’ reliance on American NGOs. Why do American donor officials fund American NGOs as a strategy of aiding democracy abroad more in some cases than in others? This paper argues that donor officials find it easier to observe American NGOs than other NGOs and that American NGOs are more likely to share donor officials’ preferences. Donor officials are therefore more likely to pursue a strategy of “made-in-America” democracy support in countries that are salient for U.S. foreign policy. Evidence from a new data set of democracy assistance programs supports the argument. The findings have implications for the study of American foreign policy, foreign aid effectiveness, and NGOs in world politics.

Party relevance and party survival in new democracies

We argue that the move to free and fair elections is only the first step in a democratic transition. With this change, competition moves into the legislative arena, where interests are defined not in terms of support or opposition to the old regime, but over competing visions of what government should do. Thus, examining legislative behavior and legislative outcomes helps us to understand the long-term political and policy trajectory of democratic transitions. Building on game-theoretic analysis of majority-rule decision-making, our hypothesis is that, after controlling for factors such as seat share, party survival depends on party relevance—the organization’s influence over legislative outcomes. Using legislative roll call data from Hungary, Poland, Russia and Ukraine, we show that relevance is a major influence on party survival, even after controlling for seat shares and other factors. The last section of the paper discusses the implications of these results for democracy assistance programs.

US democracy assistance programs in Ukraine after the Orange Revolution

The 2004 Orange Revolution failed to skyrocket Ukraine into the ranks of consolidated democracies. Some previous research claimed that, in the similar case of post-Rose Revolution Georgia, its vague democratic perspectives can be explained by, among others, a negative impact of politically biased US democracy assistance programs. This article examines five groups of US programs (electoral aid, political party development, legislative strengthening, NGO development and media strengthening) implemented in Ukraine in 2005–2010, and concludes that US diplomatic support for the pro-Western “Orange” leadership did not translate into political bias of US-funded democracy assistance programs.

U.S. Security Interests and Democracy Assistance Programs in Georgia and Ukraine

Despite the high expectations associated with the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the persistence of the two democratic regimes remains far from certain. It is hypothesized in this article that U.S.-funded democracy assistance programs implemented in Georgia and Ukraine in the post-revolution period have been burdened by U.S. security interests in the region and partly accounted for disappointing outcomes of the color revolutions. To test the hypothesis, four types of democracy assistance programs – electoral aid, political party development, NGO development and independent media strengthening – are analyzed in a comparative manner. The findings confirm the retarding impact of some U.S.-funded programs but they reveal reasons other than U.S. security interests.

Evaluating democracy assistance

With the international community providing billions of dollars each year to promote democratic institutions/cultures in transitional and developing countries, rigorous evaluations have become essential for determining the effectiveness, as well as the future direction, of democracy assistance programs. Krishna Kumar provides a unique, practical guide to the on-the-ground tasks of evaluating and monitoring these programs, from planning to implementation to preparing and presenting evaluation reports. Kumar assesses virtually all of the evaluation and monitoring approaches currently in play, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each and suggesting alternative approaches where appropriate. Packed with valuable insights, his book will serve as an essential tool for those who are involved in democracy assistance programming and evaluation, fund it, or simply want to learn more about it.

Micro-Assistance to Democracy: Two Revolutions in Promoting Consolidation of Democracy in Developing Countries

Despite acknowledging the need for nurturing democracy from within, democracy assistance programmes have often been carried out in a top-down fashion. By starting from the limits of democracy assistance, this article outlines the notion of micro-assistance to democracy, which can be defined as support to local civil society organizations operating at the most grassroots level, and establishes a comparison between micro-assistance to democracy and the case of micro-credit in anti-poverty policies. Both micro-credit and micro-assistance to democracy share the same understanding of development (the former economic, the latter political) as a bottom-up process. In cases of democratic consolidation where it is deemed to be a feasible and effective approach, micro-assistance to democracy encourages the deepening of democratic practices and vertical accountability and responsiveness. Acknowledging the potential of micro-assistance to democracy would bring about two revolutions in the way democracy assistance has been traditionally conceived of. The first revolution is a Copernican revolution, since democratic consolidation comes to be understood as a mainly bottom-up process, radically opposite to the more traditional top-down rationale of the last decade of democracy promotion policies. The second revolution regards how to measure democratic advancement. Arguing that democracy assistance can more effectively be assessed at the micro-level of local projects, this analysis maintains that micro-assistance to democracy provides international donors with more reliable information on the impact of democracy assistance programmes. Since micro-assistance to democracy produces a regression to local democratic development as the first source of knowledge, this second revolution might be seen as a Cartesian epistemological reconstruction.

Micro-Assistance to Democracy: Two Revolutions in Promoting Consolidation of Democracy in Developing Countries

ABSTRACT Despite acknowledging the need for nurturing democracy from within, democracy assistance programmes have often been carried out in a top-down fashion. By starting from the limits of democracy assistance, this article outlines the notion of micro-assistance to democracy, which can be defined as support to local civil society organisations operating at the most grassroots level, and establishes a comparison between micro-assistance to democracy and the case of micro-credit in anti-poverty policies. Both micro-credit and microassistance to democracy share the same understanding of development (the former economic, the latter political) as a bottom-up process. In cases of democratic consolidation where it is deemed to be a feasible and effective approach, micro-assistance to democracy encourages the deepening of democratic practices and vertical accountability and responsiveness. Acknowledging the potential of micro-assistance to democracy would bring about two revolutions in the way democracy assistance has been traditionally conceived of. The first revolution is a Copernican revolution, since democratic consolidation comes to be understood as a mainly bottom-up process, radically opposite to the more traditional top-down rationale of the last decade of democracy promotion policies. The second revolution regards how to measure democratic advancement. Arguing that democracy assistance can more effectively be assessed at the microlevel of local projects, this analysis maintains that micro-assistance to democracy provides international donors with more reliable information on the impact of democracy assistance programmes. Since microassistance to democracy produces a regression to local democratic development as the first source of knowledge, this second revolution might be seen as a Cartesian epistemological reconstruction. 1. INTRODUCTION: TWO REVOLUTIONS IN SUPPORTING CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY Foreign actors have always influenced political changes in developing countries. During the Cold War, for instance, Western governments extensively promoted their political and economic interests in areas as various as Latin America, Africa and Asia, often by opposing democratically elected governments under the justification of countering the 'red danger' of quickly-spreading socialist ideals. Since 1990, with the apparent victory of liberal democracy over all possible alternatives, the promotion of democracy has become part of the foreign policy agenda of Western governments (Fukuyama, 1992; Diamond, 1992; Carothers, 1999). Not only did humanitarian interventions become common in several regions of the world, but international interference for promoting democracy and protecting human rights also came to be justified as duties of the international community. As one of several democracy promotion policies, democracy assistance differentiates itself from other instruments since it understands consolidation of democracy as an internal process that cannot be forced from the outside. However, despite acknowledging the need for nurturing democracy from within, democracy assistance programmes have often been carried out in a top-down fashion. Besides other intrinsic limits, this top-down approach has ultimately undermined the effectiveness of democracy assistance in most cases. Indeed, one of the challenges posed to many democratic consolidations stems from local democratic development: in practice this means that, despite that political elites have been socialised into the newly democratic regime, the majority of the population still lives under non-democratic power structures that resemble patrimonialism (O'Donnell, 1993; Mamdani, 1996). This element should also be regarded with concern when considered together with further problems such as the limited political responsiveness and accountability of representatives to the citizens, the high level of poverty that affects most of the population, and the difficulty of delivering policies due to poor institutional structures and scarce contact between the grassroots population and state institutions. …

Curbing ‘Anti-Systemic’ Tendencies in Peru: democracy promotion and the US contribution to producing neoliberal hegemony

Critical scholars and investigative journalists have developed a significant body of evidence demonstrating how US democracy assistance programmes undermine left and centre-left governments in Latin America. This article draws upon original research to examine how democracy promotion has sought to stabilise neoliberal polyarchy in Peru, a longtime regional ally of the US. It contributes to a neo-Gramsican theorisation of democracy programmes by examining how ‘soft’ tactics have contributed to the state's efforts at creating an inclusive neoliberal social order, a project which has ultimately failed. Particular attention is paid to the way in which US programmes were configured and carried out to respond to the rise of the ‘anti-systemic’ Peruvian nationalist party of Ollanta Humala, who won the recent presidential elections in June 2011.

Foreign Aid, Democratization, and Civil Conflict: How Does Democracy Aid Affect Civil Conflict?

It has been suggested that democratizing states are prone to civil wars. However, not all democratizing states experience domestic political violence. We argue that one of the key factors that “shelters” some democratizing states from domestic political violence is the receipt of democracy aid. Democratizing states that receive high levels of democracy assistance are less likely to experience civil conflict than countries that receive little or no external democracy assistance. During democratic transitions, the central authority weakens and uncertainty about future political commitments and promises among domestic groups increases. Democracy aid decreases the risk of conflict by reducing commitment problems and uncertainty. Using an instrumental variables approach that accounts for potential endogeneity problems in aid allocation, we find empirical support for our argument. We conclude that there is a potential path to democracy that ameliorates the perils of democratization, and democracy assistance programs can play a significant positive role in this process.

In search of the impact of international support for political parties in new democracies: Malawi and Zambia compared

Democracy assistance programmes have gradually included support for political parties in addition to support for civil society, parliaments and the electoral process. But, does international party assistance contribute to party and party system institutionalization? This analysis addresses the issue of impact of external support for political parties using the case of one donor, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) and the impact of its activities in Malawi and in Zambia. NIMD's stated objectives are to promote party system institutionalization as well as the institutionalization of individual parties. Its funds are spent to support parties in three ways: strengthening inter-party dialogue, strengthening party organizations, and improving party-civil society linkages. This contribution assesses what NIMD hoped to achieve with their party support programmes and how recipient party representatives in Zambia and Malawi evaluate the support provided by NIMD. The analysis suggests that there are significant challenges for international party support. While the political parties indicate a priority for bilateral support, NIMD views such bilateral support as less effective for their overall ambitions. The discussion shows furthermore that enhancement of civil society–party relations through external funding modalities may be particularly challenging.

Civil society, political stability, and state power in Central Asia: cooperation and contestation

This article develops a concept of civil society in Central Asia distinct from that which emerged from the East European communist societies of the late 1980s. Kazakhstan presents a case study of a civil society that conceptually can be located between the vibrant civil society of the Baltic democracies and the civil society of the strongly repressive environments of Belarus or Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan's authoritarian structures and cultural traditions make it difficult to develop strong independent civic organizations – cooperation tends to mark state-civil society relations more than contestation, which shaped much of Eastern Europe's experience. Even in a context of relative affluence where civil society organizations are allowed some space to engage in critical activities, contestation tends to be minimized. This is only partially related to state suppression and cooptation; a political culture that views democratic processes as potentially destabilizing is also a significant factor. Kazakhstan represents a distinct Central Asian model of civil society, comparable to Russia but qualitatively different from that found in either Eastern or Western Europe, where civil society is less willing to confront the state, more cooperative with the authoritarian system, and wary of the potential for civic activism to degenerate into instability. Differentiating types of civil society is important because a key component of Western democracy assistance programmes has been providing assistance to build and strengthen civil societies. By refining our understanding of distinct civil society patterns in Central Asia, we can enhance our knowledge of political processes in this critical region, and we may improve the effectiveness of democracy assistance programmes. The study is grounded in field research, interviews, civil society workshops, survey research, and government documents.

Democracy Activism and Assistance in Burma

The assistance community supporting democratic transition in Burma tends to contrast the relative importance of the political opposition Burma against the political opposition based of the country. In shorthand, this is called inside and outside work, and it carries normative and funding implications. Instead of that dichotomy, this article recommends of as an analytical approach better suited to understanding democracy activities and assistance in Burma. Pro-democracy activities supporting self-determination in Burma radiate from three primary sites of resistance: opposition from Burma, opposition in countries bordering Burma, and the international opposition. Democracy assistance supports democrats and their activities at all three resistance sites. The article describes each of them and concludes with a broad picture of what democracy assistance can and cannot do in the case of Burma.BACKGROUNDBurma has been ruled by a military dictatorship since 1962 and democracy assistance is based upon supporting transition to a democratic system. After nearly 20 years of democracy assistance there is no evidence of evolution towards democracy, although, as will be discussed below, gains have been made within the political movement and civil society. The evidence is that the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Burma's ruling military junta, has entrenched itself throughout its time in power, and that it has enriched its leaders and consolidated their hold on power/ The saffron protests of September 2007 highlighted the potential for a revolutionary means of democratic transition. Despite the brutal outcome, these protests reminded the world of widespread internal disapproval of the military regime and the latent ability of the population to rise up in protest. Despite the parliamentary election planned for 2010, there is nothing to suggest the military in Burma intends to hand to a democratically elected civilian government. Unlike other post-Cold War regimes, the state is not dissolving in Burma, but rather continues to consolidate and expand.2State expansion is contested in several ways. While the largest prodemocracy protests thus far occurred in 1988 and 2007, protests also occurred in 1962, 1974, and 1996. Each protest ended in a violent reassertion of control by the military government. In addition to the demonstrations led by civilians, armed groups have fought the government since 1948. Most of the armed resistance groups, which were founded initially in the struggle for independence, continue to fight for state autonomy in a federal, democratic Burma.3When the 1988 protests in Burma erupted, the country was isolated from the world and little information about the protests was available to of a small group of Burma watchers and scholars. Other international events - the fall of the Berlin wall, the Tiananmen Square protests, and the ending of apartheid in South Africa - captured international attention at the end of the decade. Approximately 8000 to 10,000 students fled to the borders of Burma after 1988.4 Many took up arms by joining existing ethnic revolutionary forces and the newly created All Burma Students Defense Force.Democracy assistance began in 1991, with American nonviolent struggle strategists from the Albert Einstein Institute and Nonviolence International coming to border areas. During these visits, they worked with the exiled opposition to develop a unified strategy of Burmese people power using nonviolent tactics. They also helped develop an international community component to press for diplomatic and economic strategies to weaken support for the regime.5 Over the past 20 years, democracy assistance programs have been implemented by numerous nonprofit organizations receiving funds from Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the United States, as weU as from private foundations. …

Experimenting in Democracy Promotion: International Observers and the 2004 Presidential Elections in Indonesia

Randomized field experiments have gained attention within the social sciences and the field of democracy promotion as an influential tool for causal inference and a potentially powerful method of impact evaluation. With an eye toward facilitating field experimentation in democracy promotion, I present the first field-experimental study of international election monitoring, which should be of interest to both practitioners and academics. I discuss field experiments as a promising method for evaluating the effects of democracy assistance programs. Applied to the 2004 presidential elections in Indonesia, the random assignment of international election observers reveals that even though the election was widely regarded as democratic, the presence of observers had a measurable effect on votes cast for the incumbent candidate, indicating that such democracy assistance can influence election quality even in the absence of blatant election-day fraud.

Democracy Aid, Democratization and Civil Conflict: How Does Aid Affect Civil Conflict?

It has been suggested that democratizing states are prone to civil wars. However, not all democratizing states experience domestic political violence. This paper investigates this puzzle. We argue that one of the key factors that “shelters” democratizing states from domestic political violence is the receipt of external democracy aid. States that receive democracy assistance are less likely to experience civil conflict than countries with no or little external democracy assistance. During democratic transitions, the central state weakens and uncertainty about future political commitments and promises increases. Democracy aid reduces the risk of conflict by bolstering state strength and reducing commitment problems and uncertainty. Using an instrumental variable approach that accounts for potential endogeneity problems, we find strong empirical support for our argument. We conclude that there is a potential path to democracy that ameliorates the perils of democratization and democracy assistance programs can play a significant positive role in this process.

Democracy and Security: Process versus Outcome in Assistance Policy?

The introduction to this issue on democracy and security frames the concerns about democracy assistance policy in terms of two important shifts. The first involved a shift in the policy goals attached to democracy assistance policy, and the ideas about what that policy could attain. As people began to view democratic government as facilitating other desired goals, such as peace and tractability, new security goals began to work through democracy assistance programmes, particularly as non-traditional security threats like terrorism began to loom large. The second shift occurred in the global context of regime transitions, from older cases in which cold-war dictatorships were replaced by the emergence of formerly marginalized societies, to those in which transitions more commonly occurred following conflict.

Linkage versus Leverage. Rethinking the International Dimension of Regime Change

Studies of regime change since the cold war have drawn considerable attention to the of democratization.1 Scholars have pointed to diverse forms of external influence, including diffusion, promotion of western democracy, multilateral conditionality, and the spread of new communications technologies and transnational human rights networks.2 Nevertheless, the relationship between the post-cold-war international environment and regime outcomes remains poorly understood. Recent evidence suggests that many of the most widely studied forms of international influence, including conditionality, U.S. policy, and democracy assis tance programs, have not had a consistent democratizing impact. Moreover, interna tional effects vary considerably across regions. They are stronger in Central Europe and Latin America than in Africa, East Asia, and the former Soviet Union. A new framework for analyzing the international dimension of regime change can help explain these patterns. The post-cold-war international environment, in this framework, operates along two dimensions: western leverage, or the degree to which governments are vulnerable to external democratizing pressure, and linkage to the West, or the density of ties (economic, political, diplomatic, social, and organization al) and cross-border flows (of trade and investment, people, and communication) between particular countries and the United States, the European Union (EU), and western-led multilateral institutions.3 Leverage in the absence of linkage has rarely been sufficient to induce democratization since the end of the cold war. Although external pressure at times succeeded in forcing elections or blocking authoritarian regressions, the more diffuse effects of linkage have contributed more consistently to democratization. Linkage has raised the cost of autocratic abuses by increasing their international salience and the likelihood of external response, enhancing the power and prestige of opposition forces, and expanding the number of domestic actors with a political, economic, or professional stake in adhering to international norms Cross-national variation in international influence on democratization is rooted in differences in degree of linkage and leverage. Where linkage is extensive, as in much of Central Europe and Latin America, international pressure is intense and consis tent, at times contributing to democratization even in countries with unfavorable domestic conditions. Lower levels of linkage create a more permissive international

Importing Democracy from Abroad: International Assistance for Civil Society in Romania

This study assesses the relation between foreign aid and the contribution of civil society to the consolidation of democracy in Romania. Drawing on questionnaire data as well as internal documents the study specifically looks at the impact of international assistance on the participation of advocacy groups in the governmental policymaking process. On the one hand, it is shown that international assistance enhances the capacity of NGOs to mobilize advocacy coalitions and this in turn increases the effectiveness of their participation in influencing policymaking. But on the other hand, democracy assistance programs have a rather paradoxical effect by impeding NGOs’ civic engagement with their domestic constituencies. Hence, international assistance has a mixed impact on the contribution of civil society to the consolidation of democracy: it fosters advocacy groups’ “link-up” to the governmental decision-makers while in the same time it hinders their “link-down” to ordinary people.

Assessing civil society impact for democracy programmes: Using an advocacy scale in Indonesia and the Philippines

Democracy assistance programmes have always been notoriously difficult to measure in terms of outcome, but the need to show their impact (or lack of it) remains critical. This article represents part of a continuing endeavour to develop a tool for measuring civil society programme impact in the form of an advocacy scale encompassing democracy's critical components of participation, accountability and contestation. The scale is tested in the context of USAID-assisted initiatives in the Philippines and Indonesia, where it demonstrates a capacity both to monitor donor assistance outcomes and to suggest future programme initiatives.