Democratic Aid Research Articles

The unaccounted effects of digital transformation: participatory accountability in a humanitarian organisation

PurposeThis study explores the evolving dynamics of participatory accountability within humanitarian contexts, where digitally connected crisis-affected populations demand better accountability from aid organisations, and as a result, shift traditional hierarchies and relationships between humanitarian agencies and beneficiaries.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a case study approach, focussing on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to investigate how participatory accountability manifests outside formal practices and re-emerges in social media spaces. The study analyses internal organisational challenges and explores the implications of digital platforms on humanitarian practices. The authors employ Chouliaraki and Georgiou's (2015, 2019, 2022) networks of mediation, particularly intermediation and transmediation, to understand how digital expressions translate to offline contexts and reshape meanings and actions.FindingsThe study reveals that social media platforms enable beneficiaries to demand participatory accountability beyond traditional practices, democratising humanitarian response and challenging power structures. These effects are multifaceted, introducing enhanced democratic and inclusive humanitarian aid as well as new vulnerabilities. Digital intermediaries and gatekeepers play pivotal roles in curating and disseminating crisis-affected voices, which, when transmediated, result in nuanced meanings and understandings. Positive effects include capturing the potential of digital networks for democratic aid, while negative effects give rise to moral responsibilities, necessitating proactive measures from the ICRC.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by highlighting the impact of digital technology, particularly social media, on participatory accountability. It expands the understanding of the evolving landscape of accountability within the humanitarian sector and offers critical insights into the complexities and dual purposes of participatory accountability in contexts of resistance. Employing Chouliaraki and Georgiou's networks of mediation adds depth to the understanding of digital technology's role in shaping participatory practices and introduces the concept of transmediation as a bridge between digital expressions and tangible actions.

The Challenges of Civil Society Organisations: NGO-isation of Resistance in Malaysia?

Numerous academic studies asserted the positive contribution of Malaysian civil society organisations in national policymaking and democratisation. Nonetheless, several issues have recently posed significant challenges to civil society organisations, including NGOs. These include, for instance, reported sexual harassment incidents and controversies of purported democratic aid or funding to the NGOs. Meanwhile, the phrase “uncivil society” and the relevant definition are ambiguously applied to the existing Malaysian NGOs, as past scholarly works solely concentrated on investigating civil society. The current study aims to explore the concept of “uncivil society” in Malaysia and its relevance to the NGO-isation of resistance. Specifically, this study reviews literature on the existing concepts of civil-uncivil society, the NGO-isation of resistance, and the development of CSOs and NGOs. This study revealed different experiences of individuals, who collaborated with four different NGO types, namely human rights, women, education, and the environment. Resultantly, three main concerns regarding “uncivil society” and NGO-isation of resistance are identified. The three identified concerns, namely undemocratic work culture, the NGO establishment motive, and ineffective resistance, could occur in Malaysia.

The democratic embargo: regime type and proxy war

Democracies rarely fight interstate wars against one another, but democratic dyads frequently engage in hostile acts short of war, such as militarized interstate disputes and the backing of coups. Do democracies wage proxy war against other elected regimes by aiding rebels with weapons and other assistance? Scholars have found that democracies generally avoid doing so—a phenomenon we term the “democratic embargo.” However, the democratic embargo remains under-theorized. Using both datasets and close examination of purported instances of democratic aid to rebels fighting other democracies, we show that the democratic embargo is stronger than first thought. In addition, we explain the democratic embargo by arguing that strong democratic institutions prevent elected leaders from engaging in proxy war against sister regimes, and embargo violations tend to occur when democratic institutions are weak. We test our theory in two ways. First, using large-N qualitative analysis (LNQA), we examine all potential exceptions to the democratic embargo between 1945 and 2011 to establish the external validity of our claim. Second, we use case studies of the Irish decision not to aid rebels fighting the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland and Pakistan’s decision to support rebels fighting India in Kashmir to assess the internal validity of our theoretical logic. The results provide clear support for our institutional explanation of the democratic embargo. Our argument has significant implications for the democratic peace theory, the study of proxy wars, and the capacity of democracies to fight rebellions.

Opening the black box of international aid: understanding delivery actors and democratization

Donor states may delegate to other actors to deliver aid through partnerships. We ask whether some partnerships are more effective than others with democratization aid. We identify five actors, arguing that they can affect the recipient’s democracy outcomes via the fungibility of the funds. We hypothesize that organizations that have relationships of accountability and dependency to the donor are most likely to use aid for its intended purposes (least fungible), making them the most likely to see positive effects on democratization. Those that do not have these relationships may use the money for other purposes, making them the least likely to see positive effects on democratization. We test these with data from 32 OECD countries and 126 recipients from 2004 to 2018. Using the electoral indicator from the Varieties of Democracy project, we find that NGO- and IGO-delivered aid is associated with significantly larger increases in a democracy than aid delivered by corporations.

What is Media Assistance and (Why) Does It Matter? The Case of Polish Foreign Aid to the Media in Belarus and Ukraine

The paper offers an analysis of media assistance, as a specific form of foreign aid, that Poland offers to strengthen media development in Belarus and Ukraine. It shows if Poland tailors media assistance according to the local context and existing challenges for democratic changes of recipient countries’ media systems. The study builds on the literature concerning the media, development and democratization, in particular looking at media assistance as both democratic aid and public diplomacy. It reveals that Poland’s approaches to media development in Belarus and Ukraine do differ: Poland mainly provides autocratic Belarus with technical support for media established outside of that country, while clearly focusing on media capacity development in democratizing Ukraine. The findings show that Polish media assistance, however, is unlikely to boost media freedom in Belarus as is usually expected as an outcome of democratic aid and is under-financed in the case of Ukraine.

Review: Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times, by Manal A. Jamal

Review: <i>Promoting Democracy: The Force of Political Settlements in Uncertain Times</i>, by Manal A. Jamal

On the Impact of the Occult on State Legitimacy and Democratization Aid in Africa

The impact of occult belief on legitimacy of the state and on aid for democratization in Africa: Among politicians and development experts in Africa alike there is a growing awareness of the never decreasing importance of the belief in magic and witchcraft on political decision making since pre-colonial times. Demonstration of the control of occult forces as a means of enhancing legitimacy of traditional or charismatic rule had been considered for over a century to be the prerogative of traditional chiefs and their marabouts; now it proved to be effective for the modern political elite and the state as well. An increasing number of African states officially recognized the existence of magic and witchcraft, and they adapted the imposed colonial law accordingly. In addition magic-religious belief systems, as represented by the vodun or African independent churches (e.g. the Kimbanguists), boasting to control witchcraft, are promoted by African political leaders to enhance legitimacy both of the political class and of state governance. At the same time, development experts tried to take into account the socio cultural dimension of development; they called for an of development aid. This call was justified, because endogenization should be considered as a pre-requisite of sustainable aid; however, under certain conditions it may be ambiguous and dangerous as well. Concerning the consideration of occult belief it may lead to the promotion of illegitimate rule and violation of basic human rights.

The Effect of Civil Society Organizations and Democratization Aid on Civil War Onset

A growing literature identifies both situations where aid promotes peace and those where aid encourages violence. Specifically, research shows lower probability of conflict onset in democratizing states receiving high levels of democracy assistance. However, theorizing has overlooked important actors who have agency in spending such aid: civil society organizations (CSOs). We posit that the status of civil society within recipient states conditions the effect of democracy aid inflows on conflict probability. Using an instrumental variables approach to account for endogeneity between aid allocation and conflict propensity, we find that democracy aid is destabilizing when directed to environments where CSOs are weak and poorly connected to the regime and thus are less willing and able to seek change through peaceful means. When civil society is stronger and more institutionalized, however, larger democracy aid flows pose less threat.

Assessing international aid for local governance in the Western Balkans

This article investigates the impact of international efforts to cultivate effective and authoritative local governing institutions in the Western Balkans, a prime testing ground for democratization aid to post-war states. It explores three hypotheses, each of which argues that a particular approach of international actors toward domestic officials best improves the quality of local governance. The study's gathering of interview and survey data from field-based actors enables it to evaluate local government reforms' impact on domestic communities. This investigation arrives at three findings. First, in the view of Western Balkan peoples, local governance reforms do not produce benefits when they are either imposed or ignored by international authorities. Secondly, reforms produce benefits for local communities when they are designed to meet domestic concerns. More specifically, reforms valued by local communities are designed in ways that respond to domestic, rather than international, concepts of good local governance that emphasize socioeconomic aspects and produce tangible benefits. Well designed reforms also include significant aid targeting local governance that is coupled with the promise of a larger political settlement that is attractive to powerful domestic elites and contingent on clearly articulated local governance reforms. Thirdly, such aid best characterises European Union efforts only in Macedonia.

DEMOCRATIC AID AND THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF RECIPIENTS

We investigate whether democratic aid flows, which are directed toward the democratization of recipients by covering democracy‐related programs and government and civil society activities, affect the future political regime of recipient countries. We introduce a multinomial multivariate logit model and we use 5‐yr averaged data covering the period 1972–2004 for 59 democracy aid‐recipient countries categorized into three broad classes according to the prevalent political regime. We find strong evidence that democratic aid flows are positively associated with the likelihood of observing a partly democratic or a fully democratic political regime in democratic aid‐recipient countries and that this result is robust to the potential endogeneity of democratic assistance.(JEL D70, F35, C25)

Democratic Aid and the Democratization of Recipients

We investigate whether democracy aid flows, which are directed towards the democratization of recipients by covering democracy-related programs and government and civil society activities, affect the future political regime of recipient countries. We introduce a multinomial multivariate logit model and we use 5-year averaged data covering the period 1972-2004 for 59 democracy-aid recipient countries categorized into three broad classes according to the prevalent political regime. We find strong evidence that democracy aid flows are positively associated with the likelihood of observing a partly-democratic or a fully-democratic political regime in recipient countries and that this result is robust to the potential endogeneity of democracy assistance. We also find some evidence that democracy aid works better jointly with economic liberalization.

La Géorgie post-soviétique : lost in transition ?

Les changements politiques en Georgie sont souvent, dans les analyses, correles a l’importance de l’aide a la democratisation. Celle-ci a en effet permis la naissance d’une societe civile qui a joue un role d’autant plus grand que l’Etat etait faible. L’etude de la reception des programmes d’aide, ainsi que des usages locaux des opportunites et des ressources octroyees par les organisations internationales, met en lumiere une autonomisation de la societe civile. En depit d’une forte dependance envers les bailleurs de fonds etrangers, les acteurs locaux ont la capacite d’agir aussi selon leur propre agenda et l’impact d’une democratisation exogene doit etre nuance.

Is Democracy Promotion Effective? Comparing Conditionality and Incentives

Many studies suggest that conditionality is a more effective democracy promotion strategy (DPS) than incentives. This paper confirms the validity of this hypothesis by demonstrating that conditional pre-accession political reforms, required from the eastern and central European applicants by the European Union, have substantially progressed from 1998, while the impact of incentives democratic aid programmes carried out by donors since l994 has proved to be either very modest or non-existent. Then it explains these unequal performances by synthesizing insights provided by the analysis of both DPS processes of implementation, interviews conducted with the European Union Eastern Enlargement negotiators and literature devoted to democratic aid programmes, international co-operation and compliance of states with international institutions norms and rules. On the whole, the study challenges the endogeneous theory of comparative politics according to which 'democracy is a domestic affair par excellence'.