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This paper criticizes the epistemic foundations of democratic state-building, which are derived from a model of political transitions according to which liberal democratic institutions will transform a hitherto authoritarian and troubled country into a more prosperous and stable society and, therefore, foreign interventions to establish these institutions are realistic and worthy investments, provided they are properly planned based on knowledge of what has worked elsewhere. This expectation is based upon two epistemological premises. The first premise, linearity , is that social and institutional change exhibits identifiable input–output relations connecting socioeconomic conditions and outcomes. The second premise, ergodicity , is that these relations, inferred from past samples, provide reliable probabilistic projections about future outcomes, which can guide the focus of policy interventions. Drawing from the study of complex systems, the paper indicates why these two premises offer a flawed conception of political transitions and why radical and large-scale interventions, such as state-building, will tend to generate unintended consequences rather than the planned effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international community invests heavily in democracy promotion, but these efforts sometimes embolden leaders not interested in true democratic reform. We develop and test a formal model explaining why this occurs in the context of electoral system reform—one of the most important signals of democratic quality. Our formal model characterizes leaders as either truly reform minded or pseudo-reformers, those who increase electoral system proportionality in order to receive international community benefits while engaging in electoral fraud. We hypothesize that the international community will be more (less) likely to detect fraud when leaders decrease (increase) proportionality, regardless of whether there is evidence of numerical fraud. Using a mixed-methods approach with cross-national and case study data from post-Communist states, we find that the international community is generally less likely to detect fraud following an increase in proportionality and vice versa. We suggest that democracy promoters over-reward perceived democratic progress such that pseudo-reformers often benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a new phase in democracy promotion in Central and Eastern European countries that recently have faced the process of shrinking civic space and democratic backsliding. In our case study, we analyse systematically the voices and strategies of Polish NGOs involved in democracy promotion at home and abroad as a response to these new challenges. Our empirical findings suggest that advocacy NGOs devoted to democratic quality and sustainability can continue their mission and promote or defend democracy, albeit with new incentives, strategies and goals that also depend on the existing political opportunity structures. The threat of shrinking civic space, paradoxically, has mobilized NGOs in Poland to strengthen their mission and resources, and seek wider support in society. This was possible due to new response strategies in three major areas of their operation: access, funding and networking. Understanding these actions has immediate policy implications, as it can help actors who are seeking to support democracy figure out how to play a more supportive role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International democracy promotion has been facing various challenges for a while. Among those are the decline of democracy and the rise of populism in donor countries. To date, however, there is little knowledge about their impact on democracy promotion. This article introduces a Special Issue that explores these challenges. After a general overview of the topic and consideration of the thematic focus of most contributions to the Special Issue, the introductory article elaborates in more detail on the relationship between populism and democracy promotion. Based on reviews of the debates about populism and democracy on the one hand and populism and foreign policy on the other hand, the article outlines three pathways through which populists may influence democracy promotion: (1) individual states, (2) international organizations and (3) civil society. In addition, the article summarizes the main findings of the contributions to the Special Issue and draws some general conclusions and perspectives for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know surprisingly little about the impact of democratic decline in the EU on foreign policy and on democracy promotion efforts in particular. We examine qualitative and quantitative changes in aid allocation for democracy promotion alongside declining levels of democracy in the EU and its members. Focusing on decision-makers' perspectives, we explain these changes with strategic and constructivist approaches. We analyse multilateral and bilateral aid flows from the EU and its members to Central Asia with data from OECD and IATI from 2000 to 2018. We identify quantitative changes in aid promoting democracy in Central Asia, which can be partially attributed to the donors' increasing challenges for democracy at home. While the overall aid levels remained stable, we also identify qualitative shifts in allocation patterns favouring government institutions rather than civil society organisations. Our findings address the impact of democratic decline on foreign policy towards non-democratic states outside the European neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The credibility of democracy promotion provided by countries experiencing democratic backsliding has raised many doubts lately. The goal of this exploratory paper is to examine Poland's efforts to promote democracy through foreign aid in Ukraine. I find that after winning the elections in 2015, the populist government in Poland started to transform democracy aid both at the level of development cooperation policy and in practice in Ukraine, one of the biggest beneficiaries of Polish aid. Rather than explicitly questioning or limiting aid as an instrument of democracy promotion, support for civil society and human rights has been reduced, and the involvement of Polish NGOs, especially those strongly committed to transferring democratic values abroad, declined. Such changes are perceived as another layer of Poland's democratic backsliding rooted in the anti-pluralism of the Law and Justice party. Thus, this paper enriches the debate on populism by showing the latter's effects on democracy promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Western donors allocate billions of dollars each year to democracy assistance, the role of such assistance in democratization processes remains contested. This paper is the first to capture the influence of European Union-led democracy assistance projects across 126 recipient countries. Using panel data, the analysis carried out employs democracy assistance data extracted from the OECD Crediting Reporting System for all the available years at the time of writing, i.e. 2002–2018, and data from the Varieties of Democracy Institute to capture democracy levels. The study finds that EU's democracy assistance positively impacts democracy levels of recipient countries. The EU is one of the largest and most credible promoters of democracy worldwide, and I argue that its democracy assistance can be successful because it is coupled with political conditionality and monitoring mechanisms in the beneficiary countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU's institutional, civic and social as well as economic norms enjoy comparably high levels of support in Tunisia. However, there are differences with regards to how individual of these three sets of norms resonate with different parts of Tunisian society and elites. This article examines their acceptance, modification and contestation by Islamists, secular conservatives and secular progressives within Tunisia. It finds that almost all EU norms are supported by some parts of Tunisian society and elites, but are also all, to some extent, contested by others. This is strongly shaped by previous domestic experiences and by ideas that evolved within Tunisia. The article thus argues that the extent to which external norms are adopted in law and practice primarily depends on local agency. Moreover, the extent to which EU norms are accepted as well as the openness to competing norms are linked to output legitimacy. Perceived inabilities of Tunisia's post-2011 system to deliver socio-economic gains, improvements to the security situation or legislation that reflects peoples' preferred values tend to go hand in hand with contestation of the model promoted by the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the conditions under which international democracy support contributes to protecting presidential term limits. As autocratisation has become an unwelcome global trend, researchers turned to the study of the toolboxes of would-be autocrats, including their attempts to circumvent term limits. Through a paired comparison of failed attempts in Malawi (2002) and Senegal (2012), we find that external democracy support can assist domestic actors and institutions in deflecting challenges to term limits. We offer a novel qualitative analysis that posits that international democracy support can only be effective if sustained by popular democratic attitudes and behaviours of actors in the recipient state. On the one hand, a mix of conditioning relations with the incumbent government while capacitating pro-democratic opposition is a successful strategy in aid-dependent political regimes with a minimum democratic quality. On the other, societal attitudes factor into decision-making at domestic and international levels. Our results suggest that popular pro-democratic attitudes encouraged international democracy support during critical junctures in the two countries, ie when incumbents attempted to circumvent term limitation. Donor investments had positive results when donors had directed resources towards building up civil society organisations long before any attempts at circumventing term limits were made. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.2000855. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disinformation and other forms of post-truth politics are clearly a threat to global democracy. One way to better understand this post-truth moment is to re-examine the recent history of how political actors have tried to build or defend democratic institutions. This article turns to the field of international democracy promotion to examine the problem of legitimacy and trust in democratic institutions. While it has evolved from its late Cold War roots in pro-democracy propaganda campaigns, democracy promotion has increasingly become a field of expert knowledge aimed at professionalizing or improving the capacity of democratic institutions. This research follows the recent practice turn in IR theory to examine how expert knowledge is enacted through everyday organisational practices and argues that the recent rise of post-truth politics was not coincidental to the professionalisation of the field. Through interviews, ethnographic research, and document analysis of North American democracy promotion organisations, the following presents an analysis of contemporary democracy promotion as a set of practices emerging out of a global backlash against democracy that started in the early 2000s. The findings of this research suggest that performances of expertise in this field tend to be de-politicised, indeterminate, and narrowly focused on institutional legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a large number of countries in Africa, biometric identification technologies have become a key element of voter registration procedures. Based on an in-depth study of biometric voter registration in Chad, a country marked by a long history of political violence, the article explains how the technology has been construed as a "solution" to address a situation labelled as a political crisis. To make sense of the unlikely introduction of biometrics in Chad, two main elements are considered: the socially constituted belief in the potential of biometrics and – paradoxically – the unfulfilled promises and fallibility of that same technology. Combining the literature on biometrics, election technologies, and liberal democracy promotion, the analysis concludes that biometric voter registration is a disciplining technology. In addition to capturing the personal data of individuals, it fosters the framing of democracy in narrow technological and procedural terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article puts forth a new heuristic model for analysing the EU's democracy assistance to non-accession countries. The EU's democracy assistance has predominantly been scrutinized in academia through the so-called democratization-stability dilemma, whereby allegedly the EU is found to single-mindedly promote regime stability to the detriment of democracy. Nevertheless, we argue that this conceptualization falls short of analysing the full dynamics of EU democracy assistance. Our contribution provides an alternative to the traditional conceptualization of EU democracy assistance, by proposing three alternative nexuses of analysis: formal/substantive democracy, elite/non-elite engagement and security/stability. We apply this new analytical framework to the study of EU's democracy assistance to Tunisia from 2011 to date. While EU's political and financial investment in the transition has been considerable in the three nexuses, negative interaction effects have generated several inconsistencies that affected several areas of EU's democracy assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia has developed an internal model of reconciling the values of democracy and Islam; therefore it could pursue international activities for bringing the West and the Islamic world together. However, Indonesia's international role as a bridge-builder between democratic values and Islam has limited effectiveness. In this paper the attempt is to investigate why Indonesia's international activity as a bridge-builder between the West and the Muslim world is ineffective? The analysis shows, and this is the argument, that its limited effectiveness results from a conflict between the country's conception and prescription roles. The assumptions are that Indonesia's underlying objective in its foreign policy is to provide a tool for reconciling the West and the Muslim world (role conception); however an enactment of this role is affected by a dissonance between the authors of this role. The paper examines three empirical case studies at different levels of Indonesia's external engagement: (1) civilizational and interfaith dialogues at the international level; (2) the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Developing-8 at the inter-regional level; and (3) the Bali Democracy Forum at the regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent white papers, Australia has identified rising authoritarianism in the region as a key challenge to its regional security interests. Foreign policy discourses highlight Australia's normative commitment to global democracy, and Australia engages in a range of democratic promotion activities. Democracy promotion by Western states has come under scrutiny by analysts of different ideological persuasions. Critics have framed American 'exceptionalism' as really meaning 'exemptionalism', referring to its capacities to create exceptions for itself and its own conduct on the global stage, particularly regarding democracy and human rights. This paper argues that this exemptionalism is not limited to the United States: Australia also engages in practices that have undermined its democracy promotion principles. In some cases, Australia's policies have enabled authoritarianism to flourish unchecked. This paper uses Australia's refugee policy and its effect on the small Pacific Island state of Nauru as a case study. It highlights how the securitisation of asylum seekers for electoral purposes has contributed to Australia carving out an exception for itself in both adherence to international refugee law and the promotion of democracy. It finds that formal democratic processes within Australia have produced undemocratic outcomes in foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adverse political developments in both established and newer democracies, especially the abdication by the United States of its traditional leadership role, have cast international democracy support into doubt. Yet international action on behalf of democracy globally remains necessary and possible. Moreover, some important elements of continuity remain, including overall Western spending on democracy assistance. Democracy support must adapt to its changed circumstances by doing more to take new geopolitical realities into account; effacing the boundary between support for democracy in new and in established democracies; strengthening the economic dimension of democracy assistance; and moving technological issues to the forefront. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, comparative scholars and constructivists have recognized the universally liberal character of democracy promotion and yet continued the analysis of difference in this area. Mainly in studies of German and US democracy promotion, constructivists have demonstrated the recurring and difference-generating impact of ideational factors. In this article, I hence assume the likeliness of difference and address the question of how we can analyse and explain those differences through a comparison of German and US democracy assistance in transitional Tunisia. I conceive of Germany and the US as a dissimilar pair and adopt a broad perspective to uncover differences at the diplomatic level and between and within the respective approaches to democracy assistance in Tunisia. Theoretically, I argue that national role conceptions hardly impact democracy assistance in a clear manner, and that roles are renegotiated in the process. I rather focus on liberal and reform liberal conceptions of democracy, which shape perceptions of the local context, and democracy assistance agencies different organizational cultures, which impact civil society support. Finally, I account for transnational dialogue and coordination as a factor mitigating differences in democracy promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing the framework of conflicting goals in democracy promotion as a departure point, the paper addresses the issue of arms exports to non-democratic countries as an important research topic which points to a reconsideration of certain fundamental conceptual and normative commitments underpinning democracy promotion. Empirically, we remind of the lingering hypocrisy of Western arms exporters, knowing that exports to non-democratic countries often hinder or block democratisation. This is not easily circumvented because of the many conflicting objectives both internal and external to democracy promotion itself. Yet, democracy and human rights promotion remain, ethically and pragmatically, important policy goals. Noting that the self-evident character of the state-based liberal democratic model is being increasingly questioned in the literature, we then critically explore a radical, and surprisingly natural, alternative vision: namely, if the commitment to democracy and human rights is to be genuine, only global democracy remains a viable way of resolving the many dilemmas, as it aspires to deal both with regulating arms exports and building accountable decision-making structures. Although we ultimately reject the globalist solution and lean towards a less radical constructivist approach, we endorse the underlying rationale that democracy promotion needs to embrace normative democratic theory sincerely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes the case for why we should turn to studying democracy promotion negotiation, outlines the research questions guiding this special issue, identifies overarching findings and summarizes the individual contributions. After outlining the rationale for more attention to the issue of negotiation, which we understand as a specific form of interaction between external and local actors in democracy promotion, we outline three basic assumptions informing our research: (1) Democracy promotion is an international practice that is necessarily accompanied by processes of negotiation. (2) These negotiation processes, in turn, have an impact upon the practice and outcome of democracy promotion. (3) For external democracy promotion to be mutually owned and effective, genuine negotiations between 'promoters' and 'local actors' are indispensable; the term 'genuine' here being understood as including a substantial exchange on diverging values and interests. The article, then, introduces the three research questions for this agenda, concerning the issues on the negotiation table, the parameters shaping negotiation processes, and the results of democracy promotion negotiation. We conclude by presenting an overview of the overarching findings of the special issue as well as with brief summaries of the individual contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to better understand the dynamics of international cooperation on democracy promotion with authoritarian regimes, this article looks into the processes and results of negotiations on democracy (promotion) between the European Union (EU) and two of its North African neighbours (Morocco, Tunisia) in the decade leading up to the Arab uprisings. Asking if, how, and to what effect the EU and its Mediterranean partners have negotiated issues related to democracy promotion, it analyses official documents issued on the occasion of their respective association council meetings in 2000-2010. It shows that partners have indeed addressed these issues since the early 2000s, however, without engaging in substantive exchanges. Most of the time, conflicts have been neither directly addressed nor resolved. Where there are traces of actual negotiations leading to an agreement, these are clearly based on a logic of bargaining rather than arguing. These findings challenge the picture of harmony and cooperation between the EU and Morocco. Furthermore, they point to the low quality of these exchanges which reinforces the dilemma of international democracy promotion in cooperation with authoritarian regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the integration literature, the relationship of the European Union (EU) as a donor and the (potential) candidates for EU membership as recipients of democracy promotion is described as asymmetrical. The donor is portrayed to have full whereas recipients have moderate or even no leverage over democratic reform what brings a hierarchical notion of active donors versus passive recipients into the analysis. Taking the local turn into consideration, however, this contribution argues that democracy promotion, is better conceptualized as a dynamic interplay between external and domestic actors. It reveals the toolbox of instruments that both sides dispose of, traces the dynamic use of these instruments, and systematizes the structural and behavioural factors that constrain the negotiation interplay. A case study of negotiations over public administration reform in Croatia in the context of EU enlargement shows that domestic actors dispose of leverage that counterweights external leverage and mitigates the implied hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses negotiations on democracy promotion by looking at the case of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It argues that Venezuela contested the concept of representative democracy during the Charter negotiations, advancing the notion of "participatory and protagonist democracy" and that, even if it was unsuccessful in its demands, the country contributed to deepening the debate on the concept of democracy, on which there is far from worldwide consensus. The article suggests that the main drivers of the negotiation process and the final agreement were domestic political changes in Venezuela, specific features of the negotiations, and the structural position of Venezuela in the field of democracy promotion in the global and regional contexts, which were, at the time, favourable to a compromising attitude to conclusion of the Charter, even if not to the concept of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a general assumption in democracy promotion that liberal democracy is the panacea that will solve all political and economic problems faced by developing countries. Using the concept of "good society" as analytical prism, the analysis shows that while there is a rhetorical agreement as to what the "good society" entails, democracy promotion practices fail to allow for recipients' inclusion in the negotiation and delivery of the "good society". Contrasting US and Tunisian discourses on the "good society", the article argues that democracy promotion practices are underpinned by neoliberal parameters borne out from a reliance on the transition paradigm, which in turn leave little room to democracy promotion recipients to formulate knowledge claims supporting the emergence of alternative conceptions of the "good society". In contrast, the article opens up a reflective pathway to a negotiated democratic knowledge, which would reside in a paradigmatic change that consists in the abandonment of the transition paradigm in favour of a "democratic emergence" paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory article seeks to analyze the nature and impact of one of the main democracy promoters in Malaysia i.e. the United States (US). The US is a promoter that is often being alleged with interfering with Malaysian domestic affairs, especially since the sacking of former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim in 1998. This article argues that the US democracy promotion in Malaysia can be conceptualized under the framework of a concurrent democracy assistance strategy. This is due to the fact that while the US is supporting the non-regime compatible program, it is also concurrently channeling bigger aid for regime-compatible program to Malaysia from 1999–2015. The improvement of diplomatic ties between both countries since post-Mahathir era and the prioritization of security issues have led to a more engaging conduct of democracy promotion. Despite the US continuous funding of non-regime-compatible programs through non-state actors, this approach was nevertheless balanced by cordial relations at the state level. Nevertheless, the effect of US democracy assistance and promotion on Malaysia's democratic development has been minimal, reinforcing the views on the difficulty to promote democracy in a semi-authoritarian regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This article presents a new method inspired by evolutionary biology for analyzing longer sequences of requisites for the emergence of particular outcome variables across numerous combinations of ordinal variables in social science analysis. Methods: The approach is a sorting algorithm through repeated pairwise investigations of states in a set of variables and identifying what states in the variables occur before states in all other variables. We illustrate the proposed method by analyzing a set of variables from version 7.1 of the V‐Dem data set (Coppedge et al. 2017. Varieties of Democracy (V‐Dem) Project; Pemstein et al. 2017. University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 21). With a large set of indicators measured over many years, the method makes it possible to identify and compare long, complex sequences across many variables. Results: This affords an opportunity, for example, to disentangle the sequential requisites of failing and successful sequences in democratization, or if requisites are different during different time periods. Conclusions: For policy purposes, this is instrumental: Which components of democracy occur earlier and which later? Which components of democracy are therefore the ideal targets for democracy promotion at different stages? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on paradoxes of democracy promotion aid and offers research on an understudied topic: the microlevel of incentives facing donors and receivers of aid and its overall effect on the stability of authoritarianism. It argues that in the Belarusian case traveling the democracy promotion road, donors and implementers faced a typical bureaucratic problem: It became easier and more rational to justify the continuation of the democracy promotion project at large rather than closing it down, even though it was becoming increasingly clear it was not providing the desired results, that is, bringing about democratization or even a step in that direction. This created negative stimuli for the local beneficiaries, who developed strong aid addiction. A co-dependency between the providers and receivers of foreign aid led to the continuous application of unfit and self-defeating strategies. In fact, all of the actors involved (Western donors, implementers, and the Belarusian opposition but also the regime) became rationally interested in the status quo. As a result we argue that the democracy promotion efforts strengthened autocratic rule in Belarus rather than bringing about democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the threat to liberal democracy and rise in authoritarianism due to China's increasing sharp power. It discusses on what can democratic nations like U.S. and Taiwan do including countering China's power through import and export of capital and information with China, while also inspecting Chinese investments and mergers.

The article explores the promotion of democracy by the U.S. in Latin America from 1984 to 1988. Topics covered include the argument that the roots of the U.S. effort to link the growth of civil society in an overt way to state power can be found in the public-private democracy promotion programs during the period, how U.S. money and expertise constructively supported local civil society groups in achieving transitions to civilian rule, and the growing consensus in U.S. foreign policy institutions that the spread of free elections and free markets was universal and worthy of the support of the U.S.

This article examines the relationship between international criminal justice and democratisation processes in post-conflict settings, illustrating that international tribunals did not contribute to democratisation in the cases of Serbia, Kosovo and Rwanda. The argument that tribunals have willingly or inadvertently empowered local non-reformist factions is rooted in the agency of local elites. The findings suggest prioritisation of international over localised knowledge, political over victim interests and stability over judicial independence. This article makes a contribution to the emerging, critical literature on the dynamics between institutions of international criminal law and their socio-political environments, drawing attention to volatile effects of internationalised justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-Cold War era, with democratic peace theory on the rise, efforts to promote democracy around the world have flourished. Western and Western democratic values-oriented states in particular have acted on the belief that democracy promotion would contribute to world peace. Yet this process is not as utopian as described; it is also highly contingent, with no single prescription for success nor common idea of what the end result should look like. This study elaborates the problematic aspects of democracy promotion by examining the case of US and EU democracy promotion in the Western Balkans. The problems uncovered in this analysis fall into three categories: 1) those stemming from the very nature of democracy promotion as an exercise, 2) those specific to the promoters of democracy and 3) those relating to the particular characteristics or circumstances of the target state or region. Based on the analysis, this study concludes that such problems will continue to arise so long as the promoters of democracy continue to approach the process monolithically, without sensitivity to, and synchronization with, the cultural and political realities on the ground in target states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jordanian parliament is widely recognised as a patronage provider and means for authoritarian upgrading. Despite, or precisely because of this, it has over the past years become a linchpin of US and European attempts at parliamentary strengthening. The parliament’s highly marginalised position notwithstanding, this article suggests that such efforts provide us with an insightful opportunity to better understand the reconfiguration of authoritarian power via external intervention in the name of democracy. Discussing the contradictory effects of parliamentary strengthening programmes in Jordan, the article tries to shift the discussion of democracy promotion away from a concern with policy, conceptual debates and intentions to one with democracy promotion’s constitutive effects. As such, the article investigates the framing of Jordanian politics within a market rationale as central mechanism for the de-politicisation of uneven power relations. Further, it explores the ways in which democracy promotion serves to seemingly reconfirm interveners’ desired self-understandings via the maintenance of assumptions of cultural ‘difference’. Ultimately, it is suggested that decentring the study of democracy promotion by paying more attention to its constitutive effects provides us with a better understanding of why and how increasing democracy promotion portfolios have, in Jordan, had the effect of strengthening authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To encourage the spread of democracy throughout the developing world, the United States provides targeted aid to governments, political parties, and other non-governmental groups and organizations. This study examines the calculations behind the allocation of democracy assistance, with special attention to the role of regime conditions and policy compatibility in the provision of aid. We argue that both concerns—the opportunity for successful democratization and critical goals related to containing and countering political opponents—are central to democracy aid allocations. We theorize how these two concerns determine the amount of aid allocated, operationalizing these concepts using measures of the original democracy level, change in the democracy level, and policy compatibility. We find support for our argument in tests of US democracy aid allocations by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from 1981–2009. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we investigate the effect of European Commission democracy assistance on democratization in the countries of the Western Balkans. The analysis is based on a comprehensive dataset of the financial assistance given by the European Commission to the region from 1994 to 2010. Since this dataset is disaggregated into different sectors, it allows for the distinction between direct and indirect approaches to democracy promotion. The regression results do not confirm the expected positive association between direct democracy promotion and democratization in the Western Balkans. We contextualize our findings by considering the specific post-conflict context in the region and the European Commission’s conflicting policy objectives in play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an overview of the literature on international democracy promotion in relation to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It draws on the criteria of process tracing to evaluate the mechanisms, processes and episodes of democratization associated with international democracy promotion in the region. It finds that the literature lacks a clear account of how international democracy promotion relates to conditions for democratization and could pay greater attention to the role of media in either supporting or counteracting democracy promotion activities which impact democratization processes in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research finds that intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) influence domestic public opinion on foreign policy matters. This article applies these insights to crisis bargaining, arguing that IGO support will help democratic leaders prevail in crises, but it will have little systematic benefit for nondemocratic leaders. IGO support helps democratic leaders generate leverage by increasing domestic support for their policies. In turn, leaders with greater support will be more risk acceptant in crises and put greater pressure on their adversaries to make concessions. Such leaders will also face an increased likelihood of domestic punishment if they back down after receiving IGO approval. In contrast, nondemocratic leaders will see little advantage following IGO backing because domestic actors have fewer opportunities and face higher costs for punishing their leaders. The argument is empirically assessed on international crises from 1945 to 2006. The findings indicate strong and consistent support for theoretical expectations advanced in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of the historical experience and foreign political processes of Georgia, which began after the declaration of independence in 1991 and until 2012. The features of Georgia’s foreign policy priorities, namely, cooperation with the US, are highlighted, and the attractiveness and profitability of such cooperation both for Georgia and for America is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much research focuses on the causes and consequences of direct democracy and regime legitimacy, little attention has been paid to the potential relationship between them. In an attempt to fill this void, this paper focuses on the legal provisions for direct democracy and its use. The key argument is that possibilities for the public’s direct involvement reflect high importance given to citizens, openness of the regime towards different modes of decision-making, and ways to avoid unpopular institutions. Consequently, citizens are likely to accept and support the regime, improving or maintaining its legitimacy. The cross-national analysis includes 38 European countries ranging from transition countries to established democracies. It uses bivariate statistical analysis and country-level data collected from legislation, secondary sources, and aggregate surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The EU's role to assist Turkey in its democratization efforts has been debated during Turkey's candidacy. However, in the second decade of the 21st century, this role of the EU lost its visibility while Turkey seemed to lose its interest in reform movements. This paper, inspired by Pevehouse, defines the EU as a supplier of democratization mechanisms and Turkey as an actor in need. Although lack of enthusiasm and disengagement have come to characterize Turkey-EU relations, this study aims to demonstrate that there are differences between the governing and the opposition actors' views on the EU and its role in the democratization of Turkey. Data collected from the speeches of opposition parties' parliamentarians between 1 January 2011 and 31 August 2016 demonstrates the similarities observed in these parties' concerns regarding democratic practices and the perception of the EU as an actor strengthening democracy, while indicating that the EU, as a supplier, overlooked their concerns during the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-war constitution-making touches the future identity of the concerned society. In externally led democratization, it can turn into a challenging negotiation process between international and so-called local actors. But who can claim the authority to define and interpret identity and fundamental norms of society, and on what grounds? Based on an analysis of the “Joint Working Group on the Constitutional Framework” held in spring 2001 in Kosovo, the article argues that external actors have a structural disadvantage in the authoritative communication with local actors, even if equipped with a strong international mandate. While external actors can set the opportunity structures to negotiate constitutional politics, local actors will use every chance to publically claim authority on their behalf in the process. Guided by the theoretical framework of interpretative authority (Deutungsmacht), the article concludes that we have to understand authority in statebuilding primarily, not as an attribute of actors, but as an outcome of communicative practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents a normative critique of the coherence of democracy promotion in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). As an immanent critique, the paper derives its normative standards internally from an analysis of key ENP policy documents. It is argued that democracy promotion is in conflict with some of the other goals of the ENP such as market liberalisation, trade policy reforms and private sector development. Further, the incentive of market integration is argued to undermine democracy promotion. Though the ENP’s current way of pursuing the goal of democratisation is normatively incoherent, this article also argues that incentivising democratisation through conditionality is not inherently contradictory. Two potential ways democratisation could be coherently promoted are suggested: delimiting the policy to unilateral transfers conditional on democratisation alone (‘simple transfers’), or offering EU membership to ENP countries (‘no integration without incorporation’). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2009 the USA and the Bolivian government have been trying to fix their broken diplomatic relations. These negotiations culminated in 2011 in the signing of a bilateral agreement but, ultimately, failed to establish a basis for mutually acceptable development aid relations. This article analyses these negotiations and suggests a partial explanation that accounts for their dynamics and results. Specifically it shows how the negotiations have pitted Bolivian demands for state sovereignty and mutual respect, based on an egalitarian understanding of inter-state relations, against the US emphasis on common obligations and universal rights, informed by a non-egalitarian notion of liberal hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries interested in the promotion of political development often provide aid in the form of democracy assistance. However, some regimes resist these attempts to promote democracy, introducing repressive measures to counteract their effectiveness. Hence, democracy assistance sometimes has the unintended consequence of curtailing democracy. This article explains how the size of the targeted regime’s military determines the effectiveness of democracy assistance and why it can sometimes result in lower levels of political freedom. Large militaries, often holding a privileged position in authoritarian regimes, will be threatened by political liberalization and its associated redistribution of resources. They will thus work with the regime to limit the effect of democracy assistance, while their size makes this repression more feasible. In states with smaller militaries, regimes have less incentive and capacity for repression, and democracy assistance is more successful at empowering democratic opposition. Cross-national statistical analysis of the United States Agency for International Development democracy assistance supports the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]