International,national or local? Explaining the substance of democracy promotion: the case of Eastern European democracy promotion

The EU is one of the most prominent democracy promoters in the world today. It has played an especially important role in the democratization of its Eastern European member states. Given the acknowledged success and legitimacy of EU democracy promotion in these countries, it could be expected that when they themselves began promoting democracy, they would borrow from the EU's democracy promotion model. Yet this paper finds that the EU's model has not played a defining role for the substantive priorities of the Eastern European democracy promoters. They have instead borrowed from their own democratization models practices that they understand to fit the needs of recipients. This article not only adds to the literature on the Europeanization of member state policies but also contributes both empirically and theoretically to the literature on the foreign policy of democracy promotion. The article theorizes the factors shaping the substance of democracy promotion—how important international ‘best practices’ are and how they interact and compete with donor-level domestic models and recipient democratization needs. Also, this study sheds light on the activities of little-studied regional democracy promoters—the Eastern European members of the EU.     

Beyond contestation: conceptualizing negotiation in democracy promotion

ABSTRACT

This article presents an analytical framework that guides the contributions to this special issue and, in general terms, aims at enabling a systematic investigation of processes of negotiation in the international promotion of democracy. It first briefly introduces the rationale for studying democracy promotion negotiation, offers a definition, and locates the general approach within the academic literature, bringing together different strands of research, namely studies of negotiation in international relations as well as research on democratization and democracy promotion. The larger part of the article then discusses key concepts, analytical distinctions and theoretical propositions along the lines of the three research questions that are identified in the introduction to this special issue. More specifically, the article (1) offers a typology that facilitates a systematic empirical analysis of the issues that are discussed in democracy promotion negotiations; (2) takes initial steps towards a causal theory of democracy promotion negotiation by identifying and discussing a set of parameters that can be expected to shape such negotiations; and (3) introduces key distinctions and dimensions that help guide empirical research on the output and outcome of negotiations in democracy promotion.     

Competing perspectives on democracy and democratization: assessing alternative models of democracy promoted in Central Asian states

This study examines alternative understandings of democracy and democracy promotion advanced by the US, EU, Russia and China in Central Asia using frame analysis. In the context of this study, ‘frames’ refer to the relatively cohesive sets of beliefs, categories and value judgements as well as specific ways in which these ideas are packaged for the targets of international democratization. The study assesses the implications of alternative representations of democracy promotion and competing models of governance for the prospects of democratization in Central Asia. It concludes that the substance of US and EU democracy promotion in Central Asia has neglected the cultural and political contexts of these states, while the Russian and Chinese models of governance and development have provided a better match to the interests of the ruling elites.     

Globalization,democratization, and the Arab uprising: the international factor in MENA's failed democratization

What explains the almost wholly negative impact of international factors on post-uprising democratization prospects? This article compares the utility of rival “diffusionist” and neo-Gramscian political economy frames to explain this. Multiple international factors deter democratization. The failure of Western democracy promotion is rooted in the contradiction between the dominance of global finance capital and the norm of democratic equality; in the periphery, neo-liberalism is most compatible with hybrid regimes and, at best, “low intensity democracy”. In MENA, neo-liberalism generated crony capitalism incompatible with democratization; while this also sparked the uprisings, these have failed to address class inequalities. Moreover at the normative level, MENA hosts the most credible counter-hegemonic ideologies; the brief peaking of democratic ideology in the region during the early uprisings soon declined amidst regional discourse wars. Non-democrats – coercive regime remnants and radical charismatic movements – were empowered by the competitive interference of rival powers in uprising states. The collapse of many uprising states amidst a struggle for power over the region left an environment uncongenial to democratization.     

Transnationalizing democracy promotion: The role of Western political foundations and think‐tanks

Promoting democracy has developed into a common activity performed by a variety of actors in the post‐cold war world. While it is states and international institutions that receive most of the attention devoted to this increasingly important issue‐area, other non‐state actors also engage in democracy promotion. This article examines the activities of two such actors: political foundations ‐ quasi‐governmental organizations established in a number of advanced states ‐ and think‐tanks ‐ private institutions traditionally engaged in research and policy advocacy. It argues that the role and impact of these actors deepen the transnationalization of democracy promotion, which has important consequences for the international politics of democratization and international relations more generally.     

India as a democracy promoter? New Delhi's involvement in Nepal's return to democracy

According to the theory of ‘democratic peace’, India, as the largest democracy in the world and as South Asia's predominant regional power, should be expected to promote democracy in neighbouring countries. However, New Delhi lacks any kind of official democracy-promotion policy, and its past record on democracy promotion efforts in the region is mixed at best. Against this background, the article analyses the substantial role India has come to play in the peace and democratization process in Nepal in the years 2005–2008, asking whether this constitutes a departure from New Delhi's traditional policy of non-interference in its neighbours' internal affairs and a move towards a more assertive approach to democracy promotion. However, the analysis shows that India's involvement in Nepal was the product of short-term stability concerns rather than being an indicator of a long-term change in strategy with the intention of becoming an active player in international democracy promotion.     

The noble west and the dirty rest? Western democracy promoters and illiberal regional powers

This conclusion summarizes the major findings of this special issue and discusses their implications for research on democratization and international democracy promotion. First, I compare the interactions between EU and US democracy promotion and the responses of non-democratic regional powers. In the cases in which Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China chose to pursue a countervailing strategy, I match the reactions of the US and the EU and explore how the combined (inter-)actions of democratic and non-democratic actors have affected efforts at democracy promotion in the target countries. The second part discusses the theoretical implications of these findings and identifies challenges for theory-building. I argue that the literature still has to come to terms with a counter-intuitive finding of this special issue, namely that non-democratic actors can promote democratic change by unintentionally empowering liberal reform coalitions as much as democracy promoters can unwittingly enhance autocracy by stabilizing illiberal incumbent regimes. I conclude with some policy considerations.     

War and Democratization: Legality,Legitimacy and Effectiveness

Promotion of democracy in post-war and post-conflict societies became a hot topic during the 1990s. External actors linked their peace-building efforts to the promotion of democracy. Four modes of promotion of democracy by external actors can be distinguished: first, enforcing democratization by enduring post-war occupation (mode 1); second, restoring an elected government by military intervention (mode 2); third, intervening in on-going massacres and civil war with military forces (‘humanitarian intervention’) and thereby curbing the national sovereignty of those countries (mode 3); and fourth, forcing democracy on rogue states by ‘democratic intervention’, in other words, democracy through war (mode 4). In this special issue we consider the legality, legitimacy, and effectiveness of the four modes where the international community of states not only felt impelled to engage in military humanitarian or peace-building missions but also in long-term state- and democracy-building. All cases analysed here suggest that embedding democratization in post-war and post-conflict societies entails a comprehensive agenda of political, social, and economic methods of peace-building. If external actors withdraw before the roots of democracy are deep enough and before democratic institutions are strong enough to stand alone, then the entire endeavour may fail.     

National democratization theory and global governance: civil society and the liberalization of the Asian Development Bank

Contributing to a growing literature on democracy beyond the nation-state, this article draws on aspects of national democratization theory in order to analyse empirical processes of democracy. By combining insights from transition theory and the theory of political opportunity structures, the article examines the case of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). While the ADB for a long time has been described as a closed, unresponsive and unaccountable international organization, a recent evaluation praised the Bank for its good practices concerning transparency, participation and accountability. The article uses the analytical framework to highlight the interaction between hard-liners and soft-liners within the ADB and explores the role of different transnational civil society actors in the processes that seem to have strengthened the democratic credentials of the ADB. While finding significant divisions within the ADB as well as amongst civil society actors targeting the bank, overall the article argues that transnational civil society actors, interacting with soft-liners within the ADB, have contributed to the implementation of reforms, which in turn create political opportunities for further civil society activism. The reform processes, however, are best described as processes of liberalization – rather than democratization.     

Conflict Resolution through Democracy Promotion? The Role of the OSCE in Georgia

This article qualitatively and empirically analyses the OSCE's efforts to promote democracy after intra-state war in Georgia. This regional organization is rooted in a comprehensive approach to security that directly links security to democratic values. Therefore, the OSCE is a particularly appropriate subject for studying the issue of democracy promotion in the context of conflict-resolution processes. Georgia provides a difficult environment for such a goal. Given that its two secession conflicts are ‘frozen’, democracy can, especially in this context, be considered a well-suited means to indirectly contribute to conflict resolution. By contrasting the democratic development in Georgia with OSCE activities since 1992, this article will assess OSCE democracy promotion efforts. When these efforts are measured with regard to progress in peace and democratic quality, the effectiveness of external democracy promotion by the OSCE has to be called into question. However, the article argues that democratization is a long-term process in which internal factors play a decisive role. The OSCE, like other international organizations, can only reach its normative goals to the degree of the reform orientation and political will of the target state's government. The potential for impact is limited, but can be increased by commitment and context sensitivity.     

Liberalization and Democratization in the Soviet Union and Russia

One of the principal challenges facing political science is understanding and explaining the changes occurring in the Soviet Union/Russia after 1985. This article argues that two concepts taken from the transition to democracy literature, liberalization and democratization, are useful for understanding the dynamics of change in this region. It argues that a policy of liberalization stimulated a process of liberalization, which in turn generated a process of democratization. However, this has not been carried through to its conclusion because of the circumstances prevailing within the political elite and because of the weakness of mass forces favouring a full‐blooded process of democratization.     

Can America Finance Freedom? Assessing U.S. Democracy Promotion via Economic Statecraft

Recent discourse on U.S. efforts to promote democracy has focused on military activities; especially the strategic and normative perils of democracy promotion at the point of bayonets. This paper explores the United States' use of economic statecraft to foster democratization, with particular attention to democracy incentive and assistance strategies. Incentive approaches attempt to promote democracy from the top-down, by leveraging aid and trade privileges to persuade authoritarian leaders to implement political reform. Assistance approaches aim to induce democratization from the inside , through funding and technical assistance to state institutions, and from the bottom-up , by providing support to civil society and elections. This study finds that while top-down incentive approaches can stimulate democratic change, this strategy tends to work only when aid and trade benefits are conditional; that is, when benefits are withheld until recipient states meet rigorous democratic benchmarks. Washington has historically eschewed democratic conditionality, however, and thus can claim very few aid-induced or trade-induced democratization events. Scant evidence exists to demonstrate that inside approaches—that is, institutional aid—possesses significant capacity to induce democracy. It is the bottom-up approach—empowering the masses to compel democratic change—that has registered the greatest number of democracy promotion successes.     

External Democratization after War: Success and Failure

In post-war societies external actors promote democracy within a broad framework of state- and nation-building, rule-of-law building, and economic development. But not all democracy promotion efforts succeed in an equal way. A closer look at cases of intervention and democratization since 1945 helps us to account for this variation. Cases of democratization can be differentiated according to their level of post-war socio-economic development, the level of social trust versus the level of inner-societal violence, the character of remaining stateness, the potential erosion of the nation, and the terms of peace. In order to explain the democratization successes of the post-World War II period on the one hand, and the apparent democratization failures of the 1990s and after 11 September 2001 on the other, the strategies external actors use in post-war transformation must be considered. Sometimes, external actors differ significantly in their ability and willingness to deal with the five issues mentioned above. Given differences in both structural conditions and actor engagement, external actors should be more careful when using some of the early democratization cases as blueprints for democracy promotion today.     

From Cold War to Arab Spring: mapping the effects of paradigm shifts on the nature and dynamics of US democracy assistance to the Middle East and North Africa

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has articulated and implemented explicit strategies of democracy promotion by providing assistance to governments, political parties, and other non-governmental groups and organizations all over the world. One particularly challenging region has been the Middle East and North Africa, where democratic development and democracy aid opportunities have been limited and constrained by a variety of factors related to social, economic, and political characteristics of the region and policy priorities of the United States. This article examines the impact of two major paradigm shifts – the end of the Cold War (1989) and the 9/11 episode (2001) – on the nature, purposes, and consequences of US democracy assistance to the Middle East. Examining democracy aid allocations, social, democratic and political factors in the region, and other variables, the analysis traces the shifts in aid strategies, purposes, and recipients generated by these paradigm shifts and assesses the impact of such assistance on the politics of the region. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for US democracy promotion policies and the impact of the Arab Spring events as a potential third break point.     

Democracy promotion between the “political” and the “developmental” approach: US and German policies towards Belarus

Following the end of the East–West conflict, the global spread of liberal democracy became an important strategic objective in world politics. Primarily, the foreign policy of the US and EU (states) demonstrated the relevance of democracy promotion abroad. While Western democracies' policy objectives regarding democracy promotion go well together, an obvious difference between their approaches in this area has often been shown: a largely “political” approach of the US vs a “developmental” one of European states. Accordingly, this article focuses on recent tendencies in democracy promotion by comparing US and German policies in the European post-Soviet space in order to investigate the expression of both approaches in a strategically important region. It thereby analyses the pivotal case of Belarus, which presents a great challenge to democracy promoters. The study concludes that external democracy promotion in that part of the world does not show a clear differentiation between the two approaches, and suggests a few potential explanations to be explored in future research.     

Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy?

Aid potentially can contribute to democratization in several ways: (1) through technical assistance focusing on electoral processes, the strengthening of legislatures and judiciaries as checks on executive power, and the promotion of civil society organizations, including a free press; (2) through conditionality; and (3) by improving education and increasing per capita incomes, which research shows are conducive to democratization. This study provides a multivariate analysis of the impact of aid on democratization in a large sample of recipient nations over the 1975–2000 period. Using two different democracy indexes and two different measures of aid intensity, no evidence is found that aid promotes democracy. This result is robust to alternative model specifications and estimation techniques, including the use of exogenous instruments for aid. Results are similar if the analysis is confined to the post–Cold War period (1990–2000), despite the reduced dependence of the U.S. and other donors on pro-Western authoritarian regimes among aid recipient nations.     

Is transition experience enough? The donor-side effectiveness of Czech and Polish democracy aid to Georgia

The article examines the democracy aid practices of the Czech Republic and Poland in Georgia. These two countries have recently emerged as promoters of democracy, and have argued that their own transition experience puts them in a unique position to support democratization and the consolidation of democracy in the European Union’s eastern neighbourhood. The article evaluates how these two countries provide democracy aid to Georgia along three criteria, derived from the aid effectiveness literature: supporting locally driven change, learning from results, and coordination. The results indicate that both countries have plenty of space to improve the way their democracy aid is delivered. Neither country has formal systems in place to ensure that they actually support Georgian priorities; evaluations are ad hoc and feedback loops missing; and there is significant scope to improve coordination with other donors. Nonetheless, there seems to be a general perception among stakeholders that the democracy aid provided by the Czech Republic and Poland is relevant to Georgia’s needs.     

The Moore thesis: what's left after 1989?

This article reconsiders the work of Barrington Moore and his critics on the historical emergence of democracy in the light of post-communist democratization. What are we to make of a region which violates Moore's dictum – “No bourgeoisie, no democracy”? Using the tools of comparative historical analysis, it makes sense of how democracy emerged in the region by developing a theory which both explains why this was possible and what social actors were essential to this outcome. With attention to patterns of social development in the region, the politics of elite alliance in the final phase of communism, the strength of civil society at extrication, and the role of the international system, it explains differences in regime outcomes across the region.     

The power of arms: rethinking armed parties and democratization through the Palestinian elections

This article examines the role of armed parties in democratization. Usually considered volatile and thus excluded from the democratic process, we argue instead that in certain circumstances, armed parties can have a productive role in elections aimed at democratization – most notably by contributing to the balance of power between incumbents and opposition, both before, during and after elections. An in-depth analysis of the 2006 Palestinian elections, placed in comparative context, shows how arms affect the calculus of voters, opposition elites, and incumbents to make elections more competitive and democracy more likely. The article then directly addresses the objection that postponing disarmament fosters civil war, arguing rather that postponing disarmament may actually help promote peaceful, democratic outcomes of states emerging from civil war. It concludes by discussing the implication of the analysis for the study of democratization and for policies aimed at democracy promotion.     

Military extrication and temporary democracy: the case of Pakistan

Pakistan's 1988 transition to democracy defies most of the conventional wisdom on democratization as well as the bulk of the literature on democratic transitions. This peculiar case can be understood as a case of ‘temporary democracy’, in which democracy emerges as a short-term outcome that is not likely to be sustained. Pakistan's military leaders chose to democratize because of the high short-term costs of repression coupled with the low long-term costs of allowing democracy. The authoritarian elite agreed to allow democratization knowing that the prospects of democratic consolidation were dim. In this sense, the same factors that made the consolidation of Pakistan's democracy unlikely made the transition possible.