Donor Dollars, Individual Behavior, and Democratic Development: A Democracy Assistance Theory.

Democracy assistance to the developing world has increased exponentially in recent decades, yet it remains to be determined whether such assistance has caused democratic development in recipient states. This is because no one has developed a theory to explain how exactly democracy assistance is expected to yield positive democratic development. This paper does just that. It develops a theory to explain the relationship between democracy assistance and democratic development that is assumed to exist by democracy assistance providers. It then tests the theory with cases studies on the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The theory is based on Most and Starr's (1993) pre-theoretic framework of opportunity and willingness, and on the evaluation practices of the U.S. democracy assistance community. In brief, the theory asserts that democracy assistance seeks to directly improve individual, and subsequently, organizational capabilities (opportunity) within a recipient state and indirectly to increase the willingness of citizens of the recipient state to engage in activities that are expected to yield democratic development. As individuals become more capable and willing to pursue pro-democratic change in civil society, political parties, or elected office, they will engage in such behavior; further, such behavior will over time increase their opportunities to engage in more pro-democracy behavior by changing institutions, laws, and norms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]