1. Democracy Analysis

International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide © International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance 2005 International IDEA publications are independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of International IDEA, its Board or its Council members. Applications for permission to reproduce or translate all or any part of this publication should be made to: Publications Office International IDEA SE -103 34 Stockholm Sweden International IDEA encourages dissemination of its work and will promptly respond to requests for permission to reproduce or translate its publications. Graphic design by: Magnus Alkmar Front cover illustrations by: Anoli Perera, Sri Lanka Printed by: Trydells Tryckeri AB, Sweden ISBN 91-85391-43-3 A number of individuals (and organizations) have contributed to the development of this book. Our thanks go, first and foremost, to Bernd Halling, External Relations Officer, who coordinated the content development of this book and for all his hard work and support to the book through its many phases. We also thank Ozias Tungwarara, Senior Programme Officer, who developed the concept from the beginning and helped in the initial phase of writing and collection of material, as well as IDEA’s Publications Manager, Nadia Handal Zander for her help in the production of this book. Foreword International IDEA was born in 1995 in a world which was optimistic about democratic change. The end of the Cold War had ushered in a period of opportunity and innovation with democracy as well as more self-critical analysis of the quality and achievements of democracies, old and new. The time was ripe for the idea of IDEA, the creation by a group of countries committed to democracy of a special body to assist in strengthening democracy anywhere in the world. Definitions of democracy differ and evolve. IDEA has had its own vigorous debates on the issue. What is clear for IDEA is that democracy goes beyond the rule of law and the protection of human rights; it means more than good governance and the effective management of public resources. Democracy is about the use of power and the management of conflict. We may formulate this as a set of political institutions and processes based on the principles of popular control over public decisions and decision makers, and equality of respect and voice between citizens in the exercise of that control. However, IDEA has been insistent from the beginning, as now echoed by many, that there are no blueprints for democracy since every country’s political institutions and practices are shaped by its history, its culture, and social and economic factors. The quality of democracy will vary according to how well the institutions allow for these two principles to be given practical expression, through processes of participation, representation, accountability, transparency and responsiveness to the citizens. Such processes depend on a culture of participation, in which pluralistic media, an active civil society, competing political parties and other mechanisms allow all citizens to acquire political voice. It follows that the task of making democracy work belongs to the countries themselves, their citizens, civil associations, social and economic forces, professional associations and religious groups, as well as public bodies, political parties and institu- 4 tions—hence the notion of local ownership of the process of reform and development. For significant political reforms and public policy decisions, there needs to be the space and time for knowledge to be shared, for information to be circulated, and for opinion groups to form and debate and to build consensus with key stakeholders. The quality of the dialogue and the inclusive nature of the decision-making processes will tend to condition the acceptability and effectiveness of the reforms in question. Building local capacity for dialogue as well as for institutional strengthening has thus been one of the priorities in the work of IDEA. For IDEA, this has meant on the one hand an emphasis on the importance for local stakeholders and political elites of using dialogue and public debate to establish a momentum and a consensusbased agenda for political reform. It has meant an equally strong emphasis on learning from others, and developing comparative knowledge and experience so as to enhance understanding about political processes and institutions. Every situation may be distinct but common elements do emerge: there may be lessons to be learned in democracy and peace building, in enforcing standards of integrity and transparency for political parties and institutions, in designing institutional arrangements to enhance participation and governability, in establishing good practice in political management, negotiating techniques and consensus building processes and so on. Such comparative knowledge and experience is more than ever in demand by political reformers at local, national and intergovernmental level. IDEA has specialized in developing such materials in response to needs and demands and in cooperation with a wide range of partners and user organizations. The last decade has seen both major changes and continuity in the business of democracy building. IDEA’s basic premises have been confirmed The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and vindicated but also sharpened over time. Rising apathy and cynicism in various parts of the world about democracy’s failure to deliver on expectations or provide any real control over political elites present one set of challenges. Conflict and insecurity present other challenges: democratic processes should serve as the tools of conflict management and remain paramount when tackling security threats of all kinds, but they nevertheless need very careful design and development to avoid contributing to conflict in society. Other challenges, and also opportunities, arise from globalization, mass communications and technology. Tackling inequality has become perhaps the most pressing task for democracy. Political institutions and processes need to ensure political equality and popular control but they also need to ensure the political mandate and capacity to govern and deliver policies which serve to improve the lives of citizens. Without both economic and political justice, democracy cannot thrive. These twin objectives need to remain present in foreign trade and development cooperation policies as well as in specific efforts at democracy promotion by the international community. Compared with a decade ago, there is a vast increase in talk about democracy building, and much more knowledge too, although concepts and strategies still vary widely. There are appreciably more resources available, but here are multiple challenges and needs. There is also a considerable growth in the number of pro-democracy actors, both in the not-for-profit sector at national and international level and in the public sector as an increasing variety of public agencies—different government departments, parliaments, judiciaries and so on— take initiatives related to democracy and governance support. This is a new environment for IDEA. It started out as a body with a unique vocation and a unique structure. The first decade was a period of innovation and passion. IDEA attracted many lively minds, then as now, and built up great expectations, then as now. There have been many important achievements and this anniversary yearbook is an excellent opportunity to present some of these as well as highlight some of IDEA’s current preoccupations and activities. In the decade to come, IDEA will continue to be a microcosm of the international community of democracy-loving nations but it may well develop a more conventional intergovernmental structure and draw much closer to its Member states in future. It will certainly remain true to its philosophy of democracy building, but should find satisfaction as more and more other bodies emulate IDEA, extending its influence, although reducing its uniqueness. IDEA will adapt to the changing scene, no more a lone pioneer attempting to fulfil an impossibly ambitious global vocation, but acting in future as a wise and enterprising partner for cooperation and a dynamic creator of networks in the expanding world of democracy building. I am privileged to have been part of IDEA’s journey into its second decade, contributing to its renewal and development. It was nearly ten years ago when I first encountered IDEA on one of its first missions to start a process of democracy capacity building. At the time, and now more than ever, I share their vision with all those who consider IDEA to be a wonderful idea. My thanks go to all those who have contributed to this shining idea as well as those who have brought this anniversary book into being. May IDEA’s next decade be as bright as its first! Karen Fogg Secretary-General International IDEA Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 5 Table of Contents Foreword .............................................................................................................................................................................4 Acronyms ............................................................................................................................................................................9 Introduction: A Reader’s Guide to IDEA’s Tenth Anniversary Publication .......................................................11 Ingrid Wetterqvist Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................11 About this Publication...................................................................................................................................................12 Part I: IDEA in the Democracy-Building Context .........................................................................................................12 Part II: IDEA’s Experiences ...........................................................................................................................................13 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................................14 Part I The World around IDEA …1995–2005 ........................................................................................................................16 1. Democracy Analysis...................................................................................................................................................19 Todd Landman 1.1. Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................................19 1.2. Defining Democracy .............................................................................................................................................20 1.3. Measuring Democracy ...........................................................................................................................................20 1.4. Analysing Democracy ............................................................................................................................................22 1.5. Lacunae and Further Work .....................................................................................................................................24 References .....................................................................................................................................................................26 2. Democracy Building and the Political Dimensions ..........................................................................................29 Massimo Tommasoli 2.1. Democracy Building and Development ..................................................................................................................29 2.2. Democracy, Poverty and Political Change...............................................................................................................30 2.3. Structural Features, Institutions and Agents ...........................................................................................................33 2.4. Some Implications for Democracy Building ...........................................................................................................34 References .....................................................................................................................................................................36 3. Themes in Democracy Assistance .........................................................................................................................39 Richard Youngs 3.1. Overall Trends ........................................................................................................................................................39 3.2. Reassessing Civil Society? .......................................................................................................................................42 3.3. Government-to-Government Institution-Building Aid ..........................................................................................44 3.4. Political Society: Parties, Parliaments and the Military ..........................................................................................45 3.5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................47 References ....................................................................................................................................................................48 6 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 4. Why Governance Matters in Achieving the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals ..........................................................................................................................51 UNDP Governance Centre, Oslo 4.1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................................51 4.2. The Millennium Declaration and Democratic Governance ....................................................................................52 4.3. Why is Governance Indispensable to Achieving the MDGs? ..................................................................................52 4.4. Human Development and Democratic Governance as a Framework for Achieving the MDGs ..............................54 4.5. The Challenge of Strengthening Democracy in a Fragmented World .....................................................................56 4.6. Regional Focus on Human Development and Governance .....................................................................................57 4.7. Democratic Governance: the Road Ahead ..............................................................................................................58 4.8. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................................59 References ....................................................................................................................................................................59 5. The People’s Voice: Trust in Political Institutions .............................................................................................61 Michael Bratton, Yun-han Chu, Marta Lagos and Richard Rose 5.1. Limited Trust in Political Institutions .....................................................................................................................62 5.2. What Explains Differences in Trust? .......................................................................................................................67 5.3. Implications for Governance ..................................................................................................................................70 6. From ‘89 to 9/11: of Turmoil and Hope .................................................................................................................73 Konstanty Gebert PART II Highlights of IDEA’s Work … Looking Back 1995 – 2005 ......................................................................................83 7. Ten Years of Democratic IDEAs ...............................................................................................................................85 Charlotte Hjorth 7.1. Mandate and Objectives .........................................................................................................................................85 7.2. IDEA’s Guiding Principles ......................................................................................................................................85 7.3. Increasing Trust and Efficiency in Electoral Processes .............................................................................................86 7.4. The ACE Project for Sustainable Elections .............................................................................................................87 7.5. Women’s Participation ............................................................................................................................................88 7.6. Measuring Democracy: State of Democracy and Democracy Assessment ...............................................................89 7.7. Dialogue as a Route to Democracy : Capacity Building for Sustainable Democracy ...............................................89 7.8. Democracy and Conflict Management ..................................................................................................................91 7.9. Democracy and Reconciliation ...............................................................................................................................92 7.10. The United Nations and Democracy ....................................................................................................................92 7.11. Constitutional Reform .........................................................................................................................................92 7.12. Democracy at the Local and Regional Level .........................................................................................................92 7.13. Dialogue and Democracy Building .......................................................................................................................93 7.14. Research and Dialogue on Political Parties............................................................................................................93 7.15. Regional Activities ...............................................................................................................................................94 7.16. Outlook ...............................................................................................................................................................96 8. Optimism to Realism: Ten Years of Electoral Development ...........................................................................99 Andrew Ellis 8.1. Electoral Systems, Institutional Frameworks and Direct Democracy ......................................................................99 8.2. Internationally Run Elections in Post-Conflict Transitions ...................................................................................101 8.3. Looking at Elections from a Development Perspective .........................................................................................102 8.4. Has Election Observation Outstayed its Welcome?...............................................................................................105 8.5. The Independence of Election Administrations ....................................................................................................106 8.6. Election Administration as a Profession ................................................................................................................107 8.7. Gender and Elections ...........................................................................................................................................108 8.8. Participation and Turnout: A Threat to Electoral Legitimacy? ..............................................................................108 8.9. The Next Ten Years ..............................................................................................................................................109 Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 7 9. Ten Years of Progress: Enhancing Women’s Political Participation...........................................................113 Julie Ballington 9.1. National Politics: Broadening the Scope of Participation .....................................................................................113 9.2. Key Themes of IDEA’s Work on Women in Politics ............................................................................................115 9.3. Using Special Measures to Increase Women’s Access to Politics .............................................................................118 9.4. Supporting and Encouraging Regional Change ..................................................................................................120 9.5. Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................................................123 References ..................................................................................................................................................................124 10. Democracy in Situations of Deep-Rooted Conflict .......................................................................................127 Timothy D. Sisk 10.1. The Turbulent 1990s: A World in Transition ......................................................................................................128 10.2. Themes of IDEA’s Work ....................................................................................................................................130 10.3. Countries, Regions and the International Community .......................................................................................136 10.4. Conclusion: New Challenges, Themes and Approaches ......................................................................................141 11. The State of Democracy Project .......................................................................................................................145 David Beetham 11.1. Background ........................................................................................................................................................145 11.2. An Innovative Methodology ...............................................................................................................................146 11.3. ‘First-Generation’ Assessments ............................................................................................................................150 11.4. ‘Second-Generation’ Assessments .......................................................................................................................152 11.5. The International IDEA Workshop ....................................................................................................................154 References ..................................................................................................................................................................155 12. Building Democracy, Shaping the Future: International IDEA in Peru ..........................................................................................................................................157 Kristen Sample and Daniel Zovatto 12.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................157 12.2. Crucible for Political Reform..............................................................................................................................157 12.3. IDEA Begins Working in Peru ...........................................................................................................................158 12.4. Governance ........................................................................................................................................................160 12.5. Political Reform and Political Parties ..................................................................................................................160 12.6. Women and Political Participation .....................................................................................................................162 12.7. Reconciliation ....................................................................................................................................................163 12.8. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................165 Annexes A. About the Authors ..................................................................................................................................................168 B. Former and Current Members of IDEA’s Board of Directors .................................................................................171 C. IDEA Publications .................................................................................................................................................175 Tables and Figures Table 5.1: New Europe Barometer Surveys, 2004 .........................................................................................................62 Table 5.2: Summary of Institutional Trust ....................................................................................................................63 Table 5.3: Institutions Least Trusted Everywhere ..........................................................................................................66 Figure 5.1: Trusting and Distrusting Citizens, by Continent ........................................................................................64 Figure 5.2: National Differences in Trust within Each Continent .................................................................................66 Figure 5.3: Positive and Negative Influences on Trust ...................................................................................................69 8 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Acronyms ACE ACP AEC AHDR AULA BRIDGE CB CEDAW DAC DFID DPD DRC EIDHR EISA EMB EP EPIC EU GBS GOVNET GTZ ICTJ IDESI IFES IULA MDGs Administration and Cost of Elections Project Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific Australian Electoral Commission Arab Human Development Reports African Union of Local Authorities Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections Capacity Building (Programme) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women OECD Development Assistance Committee UK Department for International Development Regional Representative Council of Indonesia IDEA handbook on Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators European Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights Electoral Institute of Southern Africa Electoral management body Election Programme Election Process Information Collection European Union Global Barometer Surveys Network OECD DAC Network on Governance German Agency for Technical Cooperation (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit) International Centre for Transitional Justice Institute for the Development of the Informal Sector (Institute de Desarrollo del Sector Informal) International Foundation for Election Systems International Union of Local Authorities Millennium Development Goals National Accord Forum National Democratic Institute Non-governmental organization Organization of American States Overseas development assistance Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OHCHR Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ONPE National Office of Electoral Processes (Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales) OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe PDP Participation and Democracy Programme PR Proportional representation R&G Rules and Guidelines Programme SADC Southern African Development Community SEEDS South Eastern Europe Democracy Support Network Sida Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency SSR Security sector reform Transparencia Asociación Civil Transparencia UNDESA United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNEAD UN Electoral Assistance Division UNIORE Inter-American Union of Electoral Organisations UNMISET UN Mission of Support in East Timor USAID United States Agency for International Development NAF NDI NGO OAS ODA ODIHR Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 9 “International IDEA broke new ground. First of all, it was global in its reach and it was not just about elections in developing countries. It was about the fundamentals of democracy worldwide. We were as concerned with the funding of political parties in established democracies as about the interface between democracy and underdevelopment. Our mission remains as valid now as it was when we began.” Sir Shridath Ramphal, First Chairman of International IDEA (February 1995–June 2001) And former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. Guyana. “Today, democracy in Germany is taken for granted. This is the result of our troubled history and experience with two kinds of totalitarianisms. The fragility and weaknesses of democracy in the Weimar Republic made it possible in 1933 for the National Socialists to seize power, and to terrorize and repress the opposition. After the end of the Second World War, democratic elections were established in the western part of the divided Germany, but banned by state communism in the Eastern part. [The two parts] reunited only since 1990, the lesson I draw from our German way to democracy is that democratization is more than the promotion of freedom and elections – it can only succeed with the active participation of citizens and open dialogue. To me, democratization means learning: for overcoming totalitarian and authoritarian attitudes, for fighting intolerance, discrimination and inequalities by non-violent means. This is why Germany is keen on contributing to IDEA’s worldwide effort. IDEA is pivotal in promoting civic and political dialogues necessary for sustainable democratization.” Dr Henning Scherf, member of the Board of International IDEA, President of the Senate and Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Germany 10 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Introduction: A Reader’s Guide to IDEA’s Tenth Anniversary Publication Ingrid Wetterqvist Introduction The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) was founded in 1995 with a mandate to promote sustainable democracy worldwide by assisting countries in building the capacity to develop and strengthen their democratic institutions. Ten years down the road, the organization constitutes an essential interface between academia, policy makers and practitioners, synthesizing research and providing a platform for discussion between nations and continents. Democracy building is as yet a relatively young thematic area, consisting of a fragmented community of rapidly multiplying players: national governments with diverging policies between development and foreign ministries; international organizations, non-governmental organizations, professional politicians and party functionaries. It seeks to reconcile diverging aims such as the improvement of development policy, securing stability and advancing democracy as a normative agenda. 2005 marks the tenth anniversary of IDEA’s work, which represents a good opportunity to take a step back and consider what the Institute has achieved in its first decade of existence. IDEA has therefore decided to produce a tenth anniversary publication to look at the changing environment of democratization in the last decade and IDEA’s role as a pioneer in promoting new tools for democracy building. One way to bridge the fragmentation is to improve the dissemination of information, multiply exchanges of best practice, and promote research to increase understanding of the underlying processes that favour or impede democratization, in order to further consolidate a common knowledge base. The tenth anniversary publication is to be the first of a series of reference publications for any reader who wants to keep abreast of the latest developments in the furthering of democracy. Given the diversity of and the rapid changes in the field of democracy building, the publication cannot be an exhaustive account of all developments in the field, but simply selects some of the topical issues to represent the whole when it comes to cuttingedge developments. This publication hopes to contribute to this process by presenting the field of democracy building from different perspectives in an attempt to summarize the efforts in the field and provide an annual focal point for practitioners and policy makers. The publication aims to illustrate how IDEA contributes to democracy building in the practical and theoretical sense, and its experience of how to make a difference in the field of democracy building. The debate on the different forms of Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 11 democracy building has intensified in the last few years, but, despite the panoply of competing approaches, a consensus on some core ideas is emerging as common to all who work with democracy issues. Not by chance, these ideas have been at the heart of IDEA’s work since the very beginning. IDEA recognizes that democratization is a process which requires time and patience, and which is not achieved through elections alone. The IDEA approach is comparative and nonIDEA recognizes that democratization is a prescriptive, and process which requires time and patience, based on the beand which is not achieved through elections lief that democracy alone. The IDEA approach is comparative can only be built and non-prescriptive, and based on the from within in orbelief that democracy can only be built from der to be sustainwithin in order to be sustainable. However, able. However, the the outside world can provide examples of outside world can provide examples best practice and lend support to processes of best practice and that are essentially local. The support must lend support to be attuned to national specificities, as there processes that are are no one-size-fits-all solutions. IDEA essentially local. believes that these founding principles upon The support must which it operates remain valid to this day. be attuned to national specificities, as there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. IDEA believes that these founding principles upon which it operates remain valid to this day. True to its principles and to the fundamental principles of democracy, IDEA offers no standard solution, but rather understands the process of democracy building as a dialogue between the different actors, opinions and approaches. This is also reflected in the structure of this publication, which in itself can be seen as a dialogue: the articles shed light on democracy building from different angles and institutional perspectives, and the reader should form his or her own opinion and organize the pieces in a pattern that is useful to him. About this Publication To better show the interrelationship between the political environment of democracy building and the work of IDEA, the publication is divided into two parts: 12 Part I deals with current developments, the different facets of democracy building and the diverging players represented by the contributions of internationally renowned authors and institutions. It builds the conceptual and empirical framework for IDEA’s activities, which are selectively presented in the second part. Part II describes some of the activities of IDEA in democracy building, via the perspectives of the different IDEA programmes and the instruments employed, and by highlighting the organization’s work in a sample region (Peru) to show the interplay between broad institutional planning and regional activity. The ambition is not to render an exhaustive account of IDEA’s activities in the last decade but to provide the reader with some colourful examples drawn from IDEA’s vast range of experiences. Part I: IDEA in the DemocracyBuilding Context One of the prime questions in democracy building is how to define democracy, and in the next step, how to assess its quality in a given nation. In his chapter, Democracy Analysis, Professor Todd Landman of the University of Essex offers an introduction to how to assess, measure and analyse democracy and its defining characteristics. A clear understanding of the model and the caveats of defining democracy is crucial in creating instruments for effective democracy building. The chapter by Massimo Tommasoli on Democracy Building and the Political Dimensions of Development looks at the challenges for the effectiveness of aid in the promotion of democracy and in poverty reduction. He outlines why democracy promoters should pay more attention to the role of structural features, institutions and agents in change processes, and rethink incentives for political change. In the following chapter, Themes in Democracy Assistance, Richard Youngs traces the development of democracy building over the last decade, its challenges and its different forms as experienced by donor member states and in relationship The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) to other international players. The UNDP Governance Centre’s contribution, Why Governance Matters in Achieving the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals, addresses the issues of democracy and good governance in a systematic way by linking development and the realization of the Millennium Goals to democracy building. It presents its experiences on how to stabilize democracy and make it work. While the previous authors try to define and describe democracy building from an analytical or ‘objective’ perspective, the Global Barometer Surveys (GBS) Network investigates empirically how democracy is perceived by citizens on different continents. The chapter by Professor Richard Rose of the GBS Network, The People’s Voice: Trust in Political Institutions, shows how a comparative approach can help set the democracy debate in a country into motion, and how listening to the vox populi can help achieve local ownership by formulating a political agenda that mirrors the expectations of citizens. In his chapter, From ‘89 to 9/11: of Turmoil and Hope, Konstanty Gebert, author and columnist in the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborzca, invites us to reflect on the hazards and pitfalls that emerging democracies encounter on their way to a state system that represents the will of their people. Gebert describes the changes from authoritarian regime to democracy against the backdrop of the collapse of communism and the growth of liberal democracies in Eastern Europe, mirroring the experiences and illusions of millions of people in the last 15 years. He also touches upon the acute issue of Islam and its relationship to democracy, and the often crumbled hopes of an increased democratization of the Arab world, arguing that the West carries a far bigger part of the responsibility in its failure than it is ready to admit. range of IDEA’s activities in the different working teams, on different continents and with different methods, a proof of the ‘diversity in unity’ approach towards democracy, built on its underlying principles of tolerance, neutrality and academic excellence. Thereafter IDEA’s different thematic teams give their view of development in their field. The chapter on Optimism to ReOne of the prime questions in democracy alism: Ten Years building is how to define democracy, and in of Electoral Develthe next step, how to assess its quality in a opment highlights given nation. one of democracy building’s most advanced areas—sustainable electoral processes. Andrew Ellis recounts the development of this area from the optimistic climate of the mid-1990s to the sober professional approach of the early 20th 21st century, and the progress made on the way. Electoral assistance has been a driver in international cooperation in the field, and has played an important role in the emergence of a defined community of practitioners. The activity of the Electoral Processes team is a illustrative example of the IDEA principles in practice. It works on the assumption that elections alone do not define democracy, and shows why Part II: IDEA’s Experiences The second part of the publication highlights IDEA’s own experiences with democracy building by way of key examples of its work over the last decade. First, a general overview shows the broad Lena Hjelm-Wallén, Bengt Säve-Söderbergh, Thorvald Stoltenberg and Sir Shridath Ramphal at the celebration of IDEA’s 10th Anniversary held on 28 February 2005 Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 13 for democracies to succeed in situations of deeprooted conflict and to counter the threat of terrorist attacks. However, he argues that IDEA’s work has generated numerous lessons, best practices and understandings not only of how democracy can survive in divided, conflictual societies, but how democratic practices directly contribute to peace as the only long-term solution. Karen Fogg, Bengt Säve-Söderbergh, Thorvald Stoltenberg, Sir Shridath Ramphal, Timothy D. Sisk and Patrick Molutsi at the celebration of IDEA’s 10 Anniversary held on 28 February 2005 providing examples of best practice and options for improving institutional frameworks, achieving local ownership via the training of locals and proposing cost-effective solutions, is so important to achieving sustainable electoral processes. In her contribution, Ten Years of Progress: Enhancing Women’s Political Participation, IDEA staff member Julie Ballington points out that statistics show that ten years of efforts to improve gender participation are slowly starting to pay off, although much remains to be done. Information must continue to be disseminated, comparisons and examples be given of how an alternative situation could look, and the strategies for how it could be attained pointed out. The strategies include leverage of political parties, gender quotas, electoral system design, drawing on and boosting the influence of those already elected, and, lastly, raising awareness about the attitudinal obstacles in patriarchal societies. An important area in democracy building is the role of democracy in conflict resolution, affecting all parts of democracy building. In the chapter on Democracy in Situations of Deep-Rooted Conflict, Professor Timothy Sisk, IDEA Senior Policy Advisor, paints a sombre picture of the challenges 14 The chapter on The State of Democracy Project, by Professor David Beetham of Essex University, takes on the theme from the first part of the yearbook, democracy assessment and analysis, and gives an account of IDEA’s role in the process. Beetham outlines how the democracy assessment methodology developed by IDEA has proved to work and influenced other methodologies, and how it has been used as a teaching tool and even taken on a life of its own, triggering a second generation of assessments initiated by the countries themselves. IDEA benefits particularly from the dynamic between global and regional activities. The close connection with IDEA’s regional offices increases the relevance of its academic work as there is a need to connect to citizens and politicians in their natural habitat. As an example of this important connection, the chapter on Building Democracy, Shaping the Future: International IDEA in Peru gives an overview of the activities carried out by and the achievements of one of IDEA’s regional offices. All work has been carried out in partnership with local groups and through other forms of including locals, especially women and indigenous peoples, in keeping with IDEA’s principles on the importance of local ownership. Conclusion Given that democracy is a process and not a static state of affairs, the discussion on democracy building is in constant motion. Although the next decade is likely to witness a further consolidation of the community of practitioners in democracy building, the number of policy instruments and players will multiply and the interdependence of the national, regional and the international levels to promote democracy will grow. The increasing number of democracies will also contribute to a The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) diversification of democracy building. IDEA will continue to play an important part in the advancement of democracy building, particularly as a platform for exchange and dialogue and as a catalyst to promote best practice to the benefit of democracy in all parts of the world. The tenth anniversary book seeks to contribute to this process, not only by demonstrating conclusions and lessons drawn from democracy building, but, more than that, by opening up new points of departure. It should encourage activists and practitioners to draw their lessons from the past, while creatively shaping the future. We hope you will enjoy reading it! Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 15 Masai women outside of Morogoro wait to cast their ballots in Tanzania’s 2000 elections. Photo taken by Julie Ballington, Programme Manager, Gender and Political Participation, IDEA. Election workers load polling materials for delivery to remote voting districts outside of Milange, Zambezia Province, ahead of Mozambique’s 1999 election. Photo taken by Julie Ballington, Programme Manager, Gender and Political Participation, IDEA. PART I THE WORLD AROUND IDEA … - This section of the book deals with recent and current developments, the different facets of democracy building and the different players which are represented by the contributions of internationally renowned authors and institutions. It builds the conceptual and empirical framework for IDEA’s activities, selectively presented in the second part of the book. ‘I have always felt that effective and reliable democratic processes are the best guarantee of human liberty and happiness, which is why we needed an international institute to establish and propagate guidelines. I would like it to go further in the fullness of time and become a recognized arbiter and watchdog of electoral practices.’ Lord Steel of Aikwood, politician, author and former Speaker of the Scottish Parliament, United Kingdom, member of the Board of International IDEA February 1995–June 2001 18 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 1. Democracy Analysis Todd Landman One of the prime questions in democracy building is how to define democracy, and in the next step, how to assess its quality in a given nation. This chapter offers an introduction to how to assess, measure and analyse democracy and its defining characteristics. A clear understanding of the model and the caveats defining democracy is crucial in creating instruments for effective democracy building. 1.1. Introduction The study of democracy has occupied political science since the days of Aristotle, who used both normative rules to guide his classification of forms of rule (good vs corrupt), deductive derivation of the types of rule (monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, polity, democracy), and empirical methods to map his typology onto the states of the day. Since these early forms of normative and empirical analysis, democracy has been a vigorous idea: that in human communities it ought to be ordinary people (the adult citizens) and not extraordinary people who rule. For John Dunn (1992), ‘The idea itself is devastatingly obvious but also tantalizingly strange and implausible’. Moreover, a comprehensive comparative study of forms of governance stretching from ancient Mesopotamia to the 20th century argues that the form of rule most equivalent to democracy (i.e. the ‘forum polity’) has been the most rare and the most recent in world history (Finer 1997). Despite the historical advances and setbacks in democracy, the world witnessed a first wave of democracy that extended from the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, and then three successive waves since World War II, which advanced across Western and Southern Europe, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and parts of Africa and Asia such that virtually 60 per cent of all independent nation states in the world are now at least nominally democratic. The second wave comprised those democratic transitions that occurred largely in Western Europe and Japan after the defeat of the Axis powers. The third wave included countries that experienced democratic transitions between 1974 and 1989 (mostly in Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia), while the fourth wave of transitions began with the end of the Cold War and included countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Scholars and practitioners working in the fields of political science, development studies, overseas assistance and foreign affairs have sought to explain and understand the contours of this new ‘democratic universe’ while contributing to its successful consolidation and long-term sustainability. Such an effort has required working definitions of democracy, measures of democracy, analysis of the factors that explain its emergence and performance, and policies that help to support countries in their efforts to consolidate it. This chapter outlines the different ways in which democracy is defined, demonstrates the necessary and inexorable Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 19 link between conceptions and measures of democracy, reviews the main empirical findings from democracy analysis, and identifies remaining lacunae in the field where further work is needed. 1.2. Defining Democracy In many ways democracy is a classic example of an ‘essentially contested’ concept (Gallie 1956), since there is not now, nor is there likely to be, a final consensus on its definition or Procedural definitions of democracy identify full content. Nevthe minimum requirements for upholding ertheless there are participatory competitive politics. Liberal certain features of definitions include the full protection of democracy about civil, political, property and minority rights, which there is sigwhich are meant to curb the possible nificant consensus, negative consequences of democratic and the world has governance based on majority rule only. countless examples of democratic Social definitions include additional practices that have protections for economic and social rights, existed over long which are seen as essential for the full periods of time participation of citizens in the collective and have now addecisions that may affect their lives. vanced across vast geographical spaces. The idea that democracy is a form of governance based on some degree of popular sovereignty and collective decision making remains largely uncontested. But it is the concern over the additional features to this basic formulation that have produced significant and serious debate about the different definitions of democracy. For the purposes of this chapter, these definitions of democracy include procedural democracy, liberal democracy, and social democracy, which we now consider in turn. Procedural definitions of democracy, made most notably in Robert Dahl’s seminal work Polyarchy (1971), include the two dimensions of contestation and participation. Contestation captures the uncertain peaceful competition necessary for democratic rule, a principle which presumes the legitimacy of some opposition, the right to challenge incumbents, protection of the twin freedoms of expression and association, the existence of free and fair elections, and a consolidated political party system. Participation captures the idea of popular sovereignty, which presumes the 20 protection of the right to vote as well as the existence of universal suffrage. Liberal definitions of democracy maintain concerns over contestation and participation, but add more explicit references to the protection of certain human rights. Liberal definitions include an institutional dimension that captures the idea of popular sovereignty, and includes notions of accountability, constraint of leaders, representation of citizens, and universal participation. But it adds a rights dimension, which is upheld through the rule of law and includes civil, political, property and minority rights. Social definitions of democracy maintain the institutional and rights dimensions found in liberal definitions of democracy but expand the types of rights that ought to be protected, including social and economic rights. Taken together, these three definitions of democracy share certain features such as the notion of peaceful competitive politics and some form of participation, but then add further features meant to protect individuals and groups across increasingly wider aspects of their lives. Procedural definitions of democracy identify the minimum requirements for upholding participatory competitive politics. Liberal definitions include the full protection of civil, political, property and minority rights, which are meant to curb the possible negative consequences of democratic governance based on majority rule only. Social definitions include additional protections for economic and social rights, which are seen as essential for the full participation of citizens in the collective decisions that may affect their lives. There are thus ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ definitions of democracy, and the differences in them are inexorably linked with the degree to which political scientists have been able to measure and analyse the patterns in the emergence, maintenance and performance of democracy. 1.3. Measuring Democracy Social science measurement establishes a direct link between background concepts and indicators by providing a systematized version of the background concept, operationalizing the systematized concept, and providing meaningful ‘scores’ that vary across units of analysis (Adcock and Collier 2001). With respect to the measurement of The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) democracy, the numerous measurement efforts in political science tend to specify democracy in its minimal and procedural form or provide indicators for the institutional and rights dimensions that comprise liberal definitions. Fully specified measurements of social democracy have thus far remained elusive, which can be explained in part by the political culture and ideology of (American) political science itself, which privileges narrower definitions of democracy, and in part by the serious methodological challenges that have yet to be overcome in providing valid and meaningful measures of economic and social rights (Landman 2004). Political scientists have adopted a number of strategies to operationalize democracy for empirical analysis, including categorical measures, standards-based measures, and objective measures of democratic practices. Seymour Martin Lipset (1959) established the first set of categorical measures of regime type that were used for cross-national quantitative analysis, which ranged across a ‘democracy–dictatorship’ continuum including stable democracies, unstable democracies, unstable dictatorships, and stable dictatorships. More recently, Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub and Limongi (2000) developed a dichotomous classification scheme using a set of criteria for judging whether countries are democratic or authoritarian. To qualify as a democracy, a country must have had its chief executive elected and its main legislative body elected, and it must have more than one political party. These criteria are quite narrow and specifically exclude questions of accountability, freedom, participation and rights, among others. This categorization rests on the assumption that democracy is an ‘all or nothing’ affair and it tries to avoid over-counting the number of democracies in the world. Despite these assumptions and narrow focus, this categorical method has provided democracy measures with a wide spatial and temporal coverage for use in global quantitative comparative analysis. Typically, the resulting data sets include over 150 countries for between 40 (Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, and Limongi 2000) and 100 years (Boix 2003). Indeed, for those studies that reach back into the 19th century, democracy is specified in even more minimal fashion to include free and fair elections, accountable execu- tives, and at least 50 per cent enfranchisement for the male population (Boix and Stokes 2003). Standards-based measures of democracy also specify a set of criteria for judging countries but, unlike the categorical measures, they assume democracy to be more continuous and provide scales that range from low to high values. For example, the Polity data series takes into account both the democratic and the autocratic features of countries, while its combined score on democracy ranges from –10 for a full autocracy to +10 for full democracy (Jaggers and Gurr 1995). Freedom House has two separate scales for political and civil liberties that range from 1 (full enjoyment of liberties) to 7 (full restriction of liberties), which have often featured in cross-national comparisons in some combined form as a measure of democracy (see <http://www. freedomhouse.org>; and Burkhart and LewisBeck 1994). These scales provide greater variation in the level of democracy (as opposed to an ‘either or’ classification) and have wide-ranging spatial and temporal coverage (e.g. between 194 and 200 countries and territories for over 30 to 200 years). While these measures provide greater variation in democracy, criticisms have focused on their less than transparent coding rules (especially those of Freedom House); their illogical form of aggregation into single indices, which does not take into account trade-offs between the institutional and rights dimensions; their inability to differentiate the democratic performance of those countries at the extreme ends of the spectrum (i.e. among mature democracies and highly authoritarian regimes); and the possible presence of ideological biases (Freedom House in particular) (see Munck and Verkuilen 2002). Objective measures of democracy move away from a fixed set of criteria and judgements about country locations either into categories or on particular scales and concentrate instead on available indicators of democratic practices. To this end, Tatu Vanhanen (1997) specifies democracy in minimal and procedural fashion along the lines of Robert Dahl and then provides separate measures of contestation and participation. He uses the percentage share of smallest parties in the national legislature (100 minus the share of the largest party) as a measure of contestation and he uses the Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 21 percentage turnout in national elections as a measure of participation. These two measures are then multiplied together and divided by 100 to produce an ‘index of democratization’. While this measure moves away from subjective and judgemental categories or scales, quite a few problems remain. First, the measure of contestation does not take into account the electoral system, which has a direct relationship with the effective number of parties in the legislature (Lijphart 1994b, 1999). Countries with single-member district electoral systems tend to have a smaller number of parties than countries with proportional representation, which may lead to the false representation of contestation. Second, many countries have compulsory voting, which necessarily compromises the validity of turnout as a measure of voluntary participation. Nevertheless, the measure has been used alongside other measures of democracy for quantitative analysis (Landman 1999). In addition to these measures of democracy, another measurement strategy avoids making external judgements against pre-established criteria or using the kind of objective measures outlined above and relies instead on public perceptions of democracy through the collection of individuallevel survey data. Such data provide an indication of the degree to which mass publics support democracy in general, as well as indicators on mass perceptions of the relative performance of democracy and faith in democratic institutions. The various ‘barometer’ studies began in Europe and have subsequently been extended to Latin America and Africa, and are now part of the larger Global Barometer Surveys. In contrast to the other extant approaches to democracy measurement, these data provide an indication of citizen supOnce democracy has been established in port for democracountries with high levels of economic cy, which exhibits development, it tends not to collapse. In this significant variaway, economic development supports the tion between and process of democratization but it does not within regions (e.g. determine it. Lagos 1997). Survey data has been used throughout the social sciences, but the crossnational use of survey data for democracy analysis such as this rests on the vulnerable assumption that all publics have a similar ‘model’ of 22 democracy in their heads when they answer standardized questions. Taken together, categorical classification, standards-based scales, objective indicators and survey data have all been used to provide measures of democracy, and all have sought to establish a direct link with a conceptual definition of democracy, which has tended to be specified in a narrow fashion to include procedural and in come cases liberal democracy. All the measures have aimed to provide comparability across the world and over time. In this way, the measures use definitions of democracy that ‘travel’ across many observable units that vary in time and space. This emphasis on achieving a greater scope of coverage and comparability has, however, meant that these measures are operationalized at a relatively high level of abstraction and are less sensitive to the cultural specificities of the different countries that comprise the world. But what have been the main findings of empirical analyses that have used these various measures? 1.4. Analysing Democracy Empirical analysis in political science has hitherto examined important questions on the emergence, maintenance, and performance of democracy. Since the early work of Lipset (1959), political scientists have analysed the economic requisites of democracy. Whether democracy is measured in categorical or scalar terms, and regardless of the time period used, global comparative analysis has consistently shown a positive and significant relationship between high levels of economic development and democracy. Such a consistent finding has led either to the weak claim that the two are associated with one another or to the strong claim that economic development causes democracy. Both claims try to identify the endogenous and exogenous factors for the emergence of democracy. Endogenous explanations argue that changes internal to the process of economic development necessarily lead to a series of social and political changes that culminate in democracy. Such factors have variously included the rise of an enlightened middle class (Lipset 1959), the push for inclusion by the working classes (Rueschemeyer, Stephens The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and Stephens 1992), and changes in the relative distribution of land, income and capital (Vanhanen 1997; Boix 2003; Boix and Stokes 2003). Exogenous explanations argue that factors external to processes of economic development help establish democracy, including changes in the relative power and strategic interaction of elites within authoritarian regimes (Geddes 1999), the strategic interaction between elites in the regime and elites in the opposition (Przeworski 1991; Colomer 1991; Colomer and Pascual 1994), and social mobilization for individual rights of citizenship (Foweraker and Landman 1997), as well as important international factors such as diffusion, contagion, coercion (Whitehead 1996), and globalization (Li and Reuveny 2003). Economic development is not absent from such exogenous explanations. Rather, they argue that once democracy has been established in countries with high levels of economic development, it tends not to collapse (Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub and Limongi 2000). In this way, economic development supports the process of democratization but it does not determine it (Landman 2001: 235–39). Since these analyses have been more concerned with explaining the emergence of democracy, they have had very little to say about the quality or performance of democracy itself. Efforts to describe the third and fourth waves of democracy using institutional and rights measures have shown that, while the world has witnessed a dramatic growth in the number of democracies, the latest waves have largely involved ‘illiberal’ democracies (Diamond 1999; Zakaria 2003). Illiberal democracies are particularly good at establishing the basic institutional mechanisms and protections for holding relatively free and fair elections, maintaining a relatively free press, guaranteeing freedom of expression, and protecting rights to assembly and association for the development of political parties, civil society organizations and trade unions, but they are less good at protecting citizens from ethnic, religious and gender discrimination, arbitrary detention, and torture, ill treatment and death in custody. There is thus a significant gap between the procedural and institutional dimensions of democracy on the one hand and the protection of civil and minority rights on the other. Human rights advocates add that these illiberal democracies are equally bad at guaranteeing the protection of economic and social rights, and point to persistent problems with social exclusion and limited forms of access to justice, which mean that, although citizens are legally equal, they remain socially unequal. Illiberal democracies are particularly good at establishing the basic institutional mechanisms and protections for holding relatively free and fair elections, maintaining a relatively free press, guaranteeing freedom of expression, and protecting rights to assembly and association for the development of political parties, civil society organizations and trade unions, but they are less good at protecting citizens from ethnic, religious and gender discrimination, arbitrary detention, and torture, ill treatment and death in custody. There are a variety of institutional and cultural explanations for the presence of such illiberal democracies. Institutionally, analyses have shown that presidential democracies, and especially those with multiparty systems, are inherently more unstable, prone to breakdown, and susceptible to extra-constitutional behaviour of presidents that makes the protection of rights precarious (Stepan and Skach 1994; Foweraker and Landman 2002). Parliamentary systems and so-called ‘consensus democracies’ perform better across a range of indicators including political stability, economic performance, and minority and other rights protections (Lijphart 1994a; 1999). Other institutional explanations focus on weak and less-than-independent judiciaries (Méndez, O’Donnell and Pinheiro 1999), corruption, reserve domains of military power, and vestiges of past authoritarian practices (of either the left or the right) (Linz and Stepan 1996). Cultural explanations for the presence of illiberal democracies concentrate on patrimonial and neo-patrimonial forms of rule (Bratton and van de Walle 1997), and consistent levels of mass popular support for security and the quick prosecution of criminals that undermine fundamentally a commitment to human rights standards. Beyond the analysis of conditions for the emergence and maintenance of democracy, political science has also turned its attention to the consequences of democracy. Research shows that democracies have significantly better human development records (Ersson and Lane 1996) and are no Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 23 worse at promoting growth than authoritarian regimes to commit themselves to international (Przeworski, Alvahuman rights obligations, they also show rez, Cheibub and a much lower propensity to get involved in Limongi 2000). ‘international entanglements’. Despite the problem of illiberal democracies noted above, democracies are better at protecting ‘personal integrity rights’ (Poe and Tate 1994; Davenport 2001), which shows dramatic improvement even after the first year of a democratic transition (Zanger 2000). Democracies (especially new democracies) are also more likely to participate in the international human rights regime through ratification of human rights treaties. Fourth wave democracies tend to ratify more international human rights treaties with fewer reservations, followed by third wave democracies and established democracies. But the inverse is true for the actual protection of human rights, where mature democracies have better human rights records than third and fourth wave democracies, respectively (Landman 2005). Beyond the propensity for democracies Beyond the propensity for democracies to commit themselves to international human rights obligations, they also show a much lower propensity to get involved in ‘international entanglements’. Research on the ‘democratic peace’ has shown that since the mid-19th century pairs of democracies do not go to war with one another (Levy 2002), and, beyond outright engagement in warfare, research has also shown that democracies are simply more pacific than authoritarian But, despite the great progress that has been regimes. For exammade in the global analysis of democracy, ple, using a crossmuch work remains to be done, including national and timedevoting more attention to the domestic series data set of history of democratizing countries and the pairs of states (dyhistory of the international system; giving ads) from 1885 to more attention to the quality and depth 1992, Russett and of democratic practices, including those Oneal (2001) show that do not conform to the Western ideal; that the probabiland producing locally ‘owned’ democracy ity of a militarized assessments that act as advocacy tools for dispute between domestic and international actors to engage two countries is in democratic critique, reflection and reform. greatly reduced if both countries are 24 democracies, even after controlling for classic ‘realist’ factors such as relative power, distance and contiguity. Moreover, they have shown that the presence of one democracy in the pair reduces significantly the propensity to engage in a militarized dispute with another country, suggesting that democracies are simply less conflict-prone than authoritarian states. 1.5. Lacunae and Further Work This overview of definitions, measures and analyses of democracy has shown that the considerable time and effort dedicated by political scientists to analysis of the emergence, maintenance and consequences of democracy has made great progress. It is clear that there is a necessary and inexorable link between conceptions of democracy and the indicators used to measure it, whether they are categorical, standards-based, survey-based or objective. It appears that economic development is a requisite, if not a prerequisite, to democratization, that certain institutional arrangements have better records of democratic performance across a range of indicators, and that democracies are generally better at participating in the international regime of human rights, protecting personal integrity rights, and resolving their international differences more peacefully. But, despite the great progress that has been made in the global analysis of democracy, much work remains to be done, including devoting more attention to the domestic history of democratizing countries and the history of the international system; giving more attention to the quality and depth of democratic practices, including those that do not conform to the Western ideal; and producing locally ‘owned’ democracy assessments that act as advocacy tools for domestic and international actors to engage in democratic critique, reflection and reform. With a few notable exceptions (Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens 1992; Boix 2003; Boix and Stokes 2003), the systematic study of the emergence of democracy pays far too little attention to history. It ignores the historical processes of both socio-economic and political change at the domestic level and it has tended to ignore the The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) changing structure of the world political system. Lipset’s (1959) original study on the social requisites of democracy was a ‘snapshot’ analysis of a world at one point in time, a time that saw processes of decolonization and the Cold War restructuring of the world. Analyses that added time continued to compare countries from the 1950s onwards, which again populated their samples with a large proportion of rich democracies and ignored the history of global capitalist development in which the core countries experienced different ‘routes to modernity’ (Moore 1966) from those on the semi-periphery and periphery. The exceptions to these analyses have either looked further back into history to a period that preceded the first wave of democracy (Boix 2003; Boix and Stokes 2003) or controlled for the ‘location’ of countries in the world economy (see Burkhart and LewisBeck 1994; Foweraker and Landman 2004). These latter studies have shown that economic development is indeed a prerequisite for democracy, but that the overall relationship between levels of economic development and democracy is different over time and space such that ‘early’ democratizers required a lower threshold of development to secure sustainable democracy, while those countries on the semi-periphery and periphery of the world system accrue less democratic benefit from patterns of economic development. Beyond the inclusion of time, history and world structure in the study of democracy, it appears that the analytical leverage gained from using fairly minimal definitions and measures of democracy in global quantitative analysis has meant that we lack in-depth analyses on the quality of democracy. Even those studies that have sought to differentiate democracy beyond single indices have tended to stop at liberal conceptions and measures, while fuller analysis that takes into account the relative protection of economic and social rights is still needed. The defenders of liberal democracy argue that such rights protections are extrinsic to a core conception of democracy and that they are matters of policy to be decided by any form of government (e.g. Foweraker and Krznaric 2001). But the human rights and development community have long argued that the different categories of rights are related in important ways such that a low protection of social and economic rights may actually undermine the protection of civil and political rights. Beyond the inclusion of time, history and world structure in the study of democracy, it appears that the analytical leverage In addition to the gained from using fairly minimal definitions need for greatand measures of democracy in global er analysis of soquantitative analysis has meant that we cial and economic lack in-depth analyses on the quality of rights under dedemocracy. mocracy, there is also a need for a fuller analysis of traditional forms of rule that contradict largely Western conceptions of the individual and the ways in which relations between the citizen and the state are mediated. In mature democracies, citizen interests tend to be aggregated and represented through political party organizations, social movement organizations, and/or other civil society organizations. However, many countries in the developing world have other forms of interest aggregation and social organization that do not fit these models, but nor are they inherently inimical to stable democratic rule. For example, it is typical for tribal chiefs in Burkina Faso to act as intermediaries between the villagers in a particular tribe and voting in elections. Such a practice suggests that voting is not ‘free and fair’, but it differs little from the kind of patron–client forms of political control in Latin American democracy or the political machines that have operated throughout the history of Chicago politics. Rather than dismiss these practices outright, there is a need to examine and analyse how alternative and traditional forms of social organization represent interests and how such forms of organization interact with the formal institutions of democracy. In addition, many societies have large indigenous and nomadic populations that do not fit the Western notion of ‘fixed’ individuals that participate freely in periodic democratic elections. Analysis should thus examine the ways in which such individuals and the group identities to which they ascribe engage in democratic politics. Clearly, any attempt to add depth of analysis into the quality of democracy means that our ability to make empirical generalizations becomes partially sacrificed and models of democracy will be less able to ‘travel’ for comparative purposes. The inclusion of traditional forms of rule, nomadic populations and indigenous communities, among Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 25 other contextually-specific practices, suggests perhaps that the analysis of democracy requires ‘core’ indicators along the lines addressed in this review and ‘satellite’ indicators that remain sensitive to alternative forms of interest aggregation and representation. In this way, more grounded and locally ‘owned’ democracy assessments (see chapter 11) can benefit from the inclusion of such core and satellite indicators. As the march of democracy continues across the globe, it covers an increasingly diverse set of countries, societies and peoples. So far the true meaning of the term ‘democracy’ remains unfixed and is therefore flexible. Yet the core principles of popular sovereignty and collective self-rule will continue to have wide appeal and to be universally applicable. Democracy analysis will continue to compare and contrast the ways in which this ‘tantalizingly strange and implausible’ idea has been realized throughout the world. Systematic global comparative analysis will continue to answer certain important questions about the emergence, maintenance and consequences of democracy. More grounded and locally owned democracy assessments will continue to encourage civil society organizations, political parties and key stakeholders to invest in democracy and to advocate for its improvement. 26 References Adcock, R. and Collier, D., ‘Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research’, American Political Science Review 95/3 (2001), pp. 529–46 Boix, C., Democracy and Redistribution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) — and Stokes, S., ‘Endogenous Democratization’, World Politics 55 (July 2003), pp. 517–49 Bratton, M. and van de Walle, N., Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Burkhart, R. E. and Lewis-Beck, M., ‘Comparative Democracy: The Economic Development Thesis’, American Political Science Review 88/4 (1994), pp. 903–10 Colomer, J., ‘Transitions by Agreement: Modelling the Spanish Way’, American Political Science Review 85/4 (1991), pp. 1283–1302 Colomer, J. M. and Pascual, M., ‘The Polish Games of Transition’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 27/3 (1994), pp. 275–94 Dahl, R. A., Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971) Davenport, C., Paths to State Repression: Human Rights Violations and Contentious Politics (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000) Diamond, L., Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) Dunn, J., ‘Preface’, in J. Dunn (ed.), Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 508 BC to AD 1993 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. v-vii Ersson, S. and Lane, J. E., ‘Democracy and Development: A Statistical Exploration’, in A. Leftwich (ed.), Democracy and Development, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), pp. 45–73 Finer, S. E., The History of Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) Foweraker J. and Krznaric, R., ‘Measuring Liberal Democratic Performance: A Conceptual and Empirical Critique’, Political Studies 45/3 (2000), pp. 759–87 Foweraker, J. and Landman, T., Citizenship Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) Foweraker, J. and Landman, T., ‘Constitutional Design and Democratic Performance’, Democratization 9 (2/2002), pp. 43–66 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Foweraker, J. and Landman, T., ‘Economic development and Democracy Revisited: Why Dependency Theory is Not Yet Dead’, Democratization 11/1 (2004), pp. 1–21 Gallie, W. B., ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 51 (1956), pp. 167–98 Geddes, B., ‘What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years?’, Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999), pp. 115–44 Jaggers, K. and Gurr, T. R., ‘Tracking Democracy’s Third Wave with the Polity III Data’, Journal of Peace Research 32/4 (1995), pp. 469–82 Lagos, M., ‘Latin America’s Smiling Mask’, Journal of Democracy 8/3 (1997), pp. 125–38 Landman, T., ‘Economic Development and Democracy: The View From Latin America’, Political Studies 47/4 (1999), pp. 607–26 — ‘The Economic Requirements of Democracy’, in P. B. Clarke and J. Foweraker (eds), Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought (London: Routledge, 2001) — ‘Measuring Human Rights: Principle, Practice, and Policy’, Human Rights Quarterly 26 (November 2004), pp. 906–31 – Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study (Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 2005) Levy, J., ‘War and Peace’, in W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse and B. Simmons (eds), Handbook of International Relations, London: Sage, 2002), pp. 350–68 Li, Q. and Reuveny, R., ‘Economic Globalization and Democracy: An Empirical Analysis’, British Journal of Political Science 33 (2003), pp. 29–54 Lijphart, A., ‘Democracies: Forms, Performance, and Constitutional Engineering’, European Journal of Political Research 25 (1994), pp. 1–17 (1994a) — Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of TwentySeven Democracies, 1945–1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) (1994b) — Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) Linz, J. J. and Stepan, A., Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: South America, Southern Europe, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) Lipset, S. M., ‘Some Social Requisites for Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy’, American Political Science Review 53 (1959), pp. 69– 105 Mendez, J. E., O’Donnell, G. and Pinheiro, P. S. (eds), The (Un)Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America (South Bend, In.: Notre Dame University Press, 1999) Moore, B., The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1966) Munck, G. and Verkuilen, J., ‘Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Ideas’, Comparative Political Studies 35/1 (2002), pp. 5–34 Poe, S. and Tate, C. N., ‘Repression of Human Rights to Personal Integrity in the 1980s: A Global Analysis’, American Political Science Review 88 (1994), pp. 853–72 Przeworski, A., Democracy and the Market (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) — Alvarez, M. E., Cheibub, J. A. and Limongi, F., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Rueschemeyer, D., Stephens, E. H. and Stephens, J., Capitalist Development and Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) Russett, B. and O’Neal, J., Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence and International Organizations (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001) Stepan, A. and Skach, C., ‘Presidentialism and Parliamentarism in Comparative Perspective’, in J. Linz and A. Valenzuela (eds), The Failure of Presidential Democracy (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 119–36 Vanhanen, T., The Prospects of Democracy (London: Routledge, 1997) Whitehead, L. (ed), The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) Zakaria, F., The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2003) Zanger, S. C., ‘A Global Analysis of the Effect of Regime Changes on Life Integrity Violations, 1977–1993’, Journal of Peace Research 33 (2000) Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 27 ‘Ten years ago in the mid-90s, when there were great breakthroughs in democracy building, the concept of having a special organization providing guidance on election administration and working on electoral processes and political parties was novel. IDEA’s work was the first systematic approach in this field and a very appropriate initiative. Now IDEA has to define how it can promote democracy in connection with the paramount agenda for security: we can not abstain from the relationship of development–security–democracy. How shall IDEA deal with countries like Afghanistan and Iraq? How do we relate to outside initiatives taken to enforce democracy—for example, Middle Eastern initiatives, which are seen as part of Pax Americana but have genuine elements of bringing a better form of government to that region?’ Jos van Gennip, member of the Board of International IDEA and member of the Upper House of the Netherlands’ Parliament 28 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 2. Democracy Building and the Political Dimensions of Development Massimo Tommasoli In its first ten years IDEA has been actively engaged in the field of democracy building. The same period coincided with greater donor recognition of the importance of the political dimensions of development. How has this trend changed the way donors take into account political processes in the context of aid policies and programmes? What implications does it have for democracy building? This chapter looks at the challenges for aid effectiveness in the promotion of democracy and in poverty reduction. Democracy promoters should pay more attention to the role of structural features, institutions and agents in change processes, and rethink incentives for political change. 2.1. Democracy Building and Development The impact of donor action on democracy building can be seen in two important areas, the most obvious being through that range of activities that is traditionally labelled ‘democracy assistance’. It can also occur as donors attempt to implement poverty alleviation strategies and, as part of this process, focus their efforts on structural and institutional issues. Democracy assistance consists of aid policies and programmes aimed at promoting and consolidating democracy in partner countries. Carothers (1999) defines democracy assistance as ‘aid specifically designed to foster a democratic opening in a non-democratic country or to further a democratic transition in a country that has experienced a democratic opening’. More recently, donors have expanded this definition to address issues of capacity and institution building even if it is not directly related to a ‘democratic opening’. Democracy assistance can therefore include forms of technical assistance that are deemed useful to strengthen institutional frameworks for democracy promotion—such as electoral registration in Tanzania—or aid invested in static semi-authoritarian states—such as the funding of international observation missions. Such measures have attracted increasing resources as aid agencies have become less willing to support countries with poor governance (Groves and Hinton 2004). Although the definition of democracy assistance is fairly straightforward, it covers a wide range of activities, some of which are categorized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) under the broader policy marker of ‘participatory development and good governance’ (OECD DAC, 1995 and 2002), a general label covering everything from public sector management to peace building. Democracy assistance is, therefore, a varied landscape encompassing the provision of technical assistance in more traditional areas (such as election management, constitutional reform, parliaments, the judiciary, support to civil society) and new areas (such as the strengthening of political parties and civil–military relations). It also overlaps with wider development cooperation and humanitarian objectives such as post-conflict rehabil- Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 29 itation and reconstruction (Tommasoli 2004). It is assistance is fairly straightforward, it therefore difficult covers a wide range of activities, some of to assess the overall which are categorized by the Organisation volume of aid flows for Economic Co-operation and Development that can be catego(OECD) Development Assistance Committee rized under the (DAC) under the broader policy marker democracy assistof ‘participatory development and good ance rubric. Nevergovernance’ (OECD DAC, 1995 and 2002), theless, according a general label covering everything from to rough estimates, public sector management to peace over the last 15 building. years up to 10 per cent of the overall volume of aid was devoted to democracy, human rights and governance (Uvin 2004). Although the definition of democracy A second, more indirect way of democracy building stems from the recent donor interest in political change and power relations in recipient countries. A growing number of aid agencies see improved governance as a key element of democracy promotion. Specifically, the need to hold the state more accountable to its citizens—and in particular to people living in poverty—in partner countries is a means of strengthening other democratization initiatives. The first, more traditional, approach to democracy assistance is addressed in the chapter entitled ‘Themes in Democracy Assistance’. This chapter focuses on the second approach, namely, the broader donor interest in political change and development, the so-called power and ‘drivers of change’ analysis in development cooperation and its implications for democracy promotion. This chapter argues that democracy assistance could be more effective and achieve more realistic objectives if it is approached from a country’s historical and political context, rather than by simply applying a system of normative A growing number of aid agencies see standards. improved governance as a key element of democracy promotion. Specifically, the need to hold the state more accountable to its citizens. 30 2.2. Democracy, Poverty and Political Change Democratic institutions are a set of socially constructed arrangements for organizing political competition, legitimating governments and implementing the rule of law. They are based on some form of popular participation, typically through free elections to determine the composition of the legislature and the government. Constitutionalism and the rule of law, both of which establish the basic rules of the game and protect the political and civil rights and freedoms of individual citizens, are also features of democracy (Luckham et al. 2000). Democratic processes are based on inclusive forms of politics that aim to hold democratic institutions accountable, participatory and effective. They depend on a culture of participation, in which pluralistic media, an active civil society, competing political parties and other mechanisms allow all citizens to acquire political voice. Democratic processes build the legitimacy of democratic institutions. An important aspect of democratic processes is the ability of citizens, acting independently or through government, to hold powerful private interests as well as agents of the state to account. Most people involved in democracy promotion tend to use established democracies as a reference point (all too often their own!). The same applies for assessing how particular institutions work. This means that ‘gap analyses’ are often based on biased assumptions which result in the development of inappropriate prescriptive models. Any discussion of ‘democracy deficits’, therefore, should recognize that there is no ‘one size fits all’ institutional arrangement for democracy building and, indeed, applying an inappropriate solution may turn out to be highly ineffective and even counterproductive in some cases. According to Luckham, Goetz and Kaldor (2003), the challenge for democracy building is to overcome four types of democratic deficit: of citizenship, vertical accountability, horizontal accountability and international accountability. The first two refer to the gaps between formal democratic The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) institutions and the deep politics of society, and concern issues of citizenship and representation. In terms of citizenship and representation, problems may include lack of constitutionally guaranteed rights and effective exclusion from the public sphere as a result of gender, societal inequalities, lack of organization, cultures of intolerance, or intimidation and violence. Vertical accountability of governments relates to citizens’ ability to hold governments, legislatures and political elites accountable for their use of power, their definition of policies and their use of resources, as well as citizens’ space to formulate and aggregate their interests at all levels. The third democratic deficit, of horizontal accountability, is related to issues of balance of power and power sharing and the recurring problem of the relationship between powerful and authoritarian executives and the legislature and judiciary. Interrelated problems include patronage, corruption and civil–military relations. Issues cutting across the dimensions of citizenship/representation, vertical and horizontal accountability include the degree of devolution and decentralization, and their relevance to both the growth of democracy, on one hand, and the responsiveness of service delivery to the needs of the poor, on the other. International accountability is assuming increasing importance and concerns the impact of decisions of international bodies or other countries on national political and economic processes, especially in terms of new challenges to global security; political conditionality; and the implications of the behaviour of multinational corporations. Mainstream donor efforts in the area of democracy and development aim to increase the level of accountability to the poor people in recipient countries. In theory, such accountability is achieved through elected governments. Donors recognize, therefore, that democracy building is related to political empowerment as a means of addressing poverty. Although there are different expectations of accountability to the poor across the donor community, most governments in aid-recipient countries do not even meet the basic standards (OECD DAC 2005). Despite this, the potential for democratization to impact positively on the poor provides sufficient rationale for promoting democracy as part of broader development cooperation strategies. Although broadly-based growth is important for democracy, there is no clear evidence of causal links between democracy and poverty reduction. Strong states can facilitate growth, irrespective of the democratic or authoritarian nature of their regimes. Some authors like Leftwich (2002) even argue that democracy is a conservative system of power and that ‘the rules and operational conditions of stable democratic politics will tend to restrict policy to incremental and accommodationist options’ that are not necessarily compatible with the far-reaching and rapid change in the structure and use of wealth required by developDemocracy assistance could be more mental processes. effective and achieve more realistic objectives if it is approached from a Democracy has difcountry’s historical and political context, ferent outcomes for rather than by simply applying a system of the poor, and the normative standards. patterns in the relationship between the degree of democracy, pro-poor growth and poverty reduction performance are inconclusive. One of the reasons for this trend ‘lies in wide variations in the substantive content of formal, electoral democracy’. Poor people fail to have the influence and voice that one would expect in democratic contexts due to: (a) their exclusion from the political process, especially in the case of poor women; (b) the influence of different factors, both formal and informal, other than the one often considered in political analyses (i.e. class identities of people living in poverty) on their vote or support for politicians, political parties and programmes (like patronage, clientelism, and ethnic, linguistic or regional identities); and (c) the peculiar difficulty poor people, particularly in rural areas, face in sustaining coherent, encompassing political organizations. As Moore and Putzel (2000) conclude, ‘in many democracies the poor are often badly organised and ill-served by the organisations that mobilise their votes and claim to represent their interests’. Effective redistribution of resources cannot be the direct result of increased political pressure by the poor. Instead, such measures require (a) the ruling Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 31 classes to be open to social equity concerns as a result play a more important role for poverty not only of their reduction than formal democratic enlightenment but institutions, whose mere presence will not also of their internecessarily benefit the interests of people est in a stable and living in poverty. Better knowledge about conflict free social the political systems in which donors environment, and intervene, and the dynamics that drive them, (b) ‘a state with the is increasingly seen by donors as essential institutional cafor understanding the political conditions pacity to break the and consequences of aid. connections between venal politicians, rapacious business interests and compliant bureaucrats’ (Luckham, Goetz and Kaldor 2003). In this sense, the state and its institutions play a more important role for poverty reduction than formal democratic institutions, whose mere presence will not necessarily benefit the interests of people living in poverty. Better knowledge about the political systems in which donors intervene, and the dynamics that drive them, is increasingly seen by donors as essential for understanding the political conditions and consequences of aid (Moore and Putzel 2000). accountability, based on the recognition of state resources as public goods. Similar conclusions can be drawn from the experience of democracy building, where the focus is on promoting democracy rather than reducing poverty. Carothers’ cautionary remark (1999) that ‘democracy aid, as well as the complementary tools of diplomatic and economic carrots and sticks, can do little to change the fundamental social, economic, and political structures and conditions that shape political life in other countries’ could well apply to the broad limitations of external aid, not just democracy promotion (Carothers 2004). The challenges for democracy promotion and poverty reduction are similar in one respect: the need for donors to think less in normative terms, with a fundamental shift to thinking more strategically, politically and historically. For aid practitioners this means taking a longer-term view of the factors that shape the incentives and capacities for pro-poor change. It means also focusing on the interplay between long-term structural factors and short-term contingent ones (Unsworth 2001 and 2002). For democracy promoters the challenge is even greater, as democratic values are enshrined in particular institutional forms whose existence and strengthening are often seen as the immediate outcome of aid efforts, and whose social meaning is drawn from the political environments of ‘consolidated’ democracies. What needs to be done rather than how to help make it happen seems to be clearer to both aid specialists and democracy promoters. Both need a better understanding of the political landscape of the context as an indispensable basis for action. In this sense, the state and its institutions Building state institutions does not consist of just translating institutions into a new context because they will work in different ways depending on the local political, social and institutional environment. Nor can the solution be reduced to institutional engineering or technical design, because public institutions are constructed through a political process and their effectiveness cannot be guaranteed by the expert technocratic knowledge invested in their design. State building also requires a shift in the very concept of 32 Taking the existence of the state for granted is a typical bias of many democracy promoters. Yet to fall into this trap could produce paradoxical outcomes, especially in situations where deep patronage structures and opaquely functioning economies shape people’s loyalties—irrespective of the existence, mandate and procedures of formal institutions—as occurs in many countries in the Arab region, in the former Soviet Union and in conflict-prone environments like Afghanistan. Ottaway (2003) argues that many structural conditions impede democratic transformation and make semi-authoritarianism more likely. These include the shallowness of transitions, the extreme polarization of society, the incomplete processes of state formation, the asymmetrical mechanisms for generating power, the absence of embedded democratic elites, and the fallout from semi-authoritarianism itself. She adds that failing to take account of such conditions may explain the fact that ‘democracy assistance and international pressure for political change are two of the main reasons why semi-authoritarian regimes exist’. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) In conclusion, while there is no empirical evidence that establishes a causal relationship in either direction between democracy and economic growth, there is growing acceptance of the fact that democratic systems—in as much as they allow citizens’ participation in policy formulation and implementation—are the system of governance most likely to be responsive to citizens’ needs. 2.3. Structural Features, Institutions and Agents Recent policy debates between donors have focused on the political dimensions of development (OECD DAC 2004). The interest in the links between development, democracy and aid effectiveness was certainly prompted by the rapid changes in the political landscape that led to a new wave of ‘democratic transitions’ in the 1990s. It is also related to the broader debate re-examining the underlying assumptions on which a range of development issues have been approached: from growth to service delivery, from good governance to democracy promotion. As a consequence, the analysis of the political dimensions of development and aid has become an area of concern for the same agencies that only a few years ago would have considered those dimensions as issues well beyond their mandate. A good illustration of this trend is the so-called ‘drivers of change’ approach, launched by the UK Department for International Development (UK DFID 2003) with the aim of enhancing donor agencies’ capacity to understand how change occurs and the relationship between change and poverty reduction. Change has always been at the core of development policies and practices. In deploying their expert knowledge to effect change, development practitioners have been confronted with the challenge of identifying the obstacles to the change processes associated with development. They must also identify the individuals and institutions deemed to act as change agents, so as to meet the needs of the expected beneficiaries. The ‘drivers of change’ agenda is a better way of understanding the means of achieving poverty reduction in developing countries because it takes into account other factors at play in any given context. This approach forces development practitioners to understand the broader systemic and institutional factors that are likely to influence a particular course of action to achieve reform. According to the DFID, such a process involves three broad factors: structural features, institutions, and agents ‘with relationships of power, inequality and conflict at their heart’. ‘Structural features’ include natural and human resources, economic and social structure, and other non-institutional facts; ‘institutions’ consist of the frameworks and rules structuring the behaviour of agents; and ‘agents’ are individuals and organizations pursuing particular interests. The drivers of The ‘drivers of change’ agenda is a better change approach way of understanding the means of begins with a baachieving poverty reduction in developing sic country analycountries because it takes into account sis which identifies other factors at play in any given context. the nature of a political community within a country, government control of the territory, the history of state formation, embedded social and economic structures, and other elements that shape the basic characteristics of the political system. Factors such as the institutionalization of the bureaucracy, policy mechanisms, political parties, civil society organizations, the basis for political competition, the composition of the political elite, the basis of political mobilization (around issues or patronage networks), the importance of ethnicity, and power-sharing issues are also identified. An awareness is also needed of government capacities, key mechanisms for vertical and horizontal accountability and political resources. The second step consists of the analysis which is similar to some aspects of IDEA’s State of Democracy assessment methodology (see chapter 11), that is, an emphasis on the political system, the policy process, public financial management and the private-sector investment climate. Subsequent steps include an assessment of the role of external forces, an analysis of the effects on poverty, and operational implications. Drivers of change work has so far been carried out by the DFID in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Georgia, Ghana, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan and Zambia. Preliminary results show that donors’ assumptions about change and Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 33 poverty reduction are not always correct. More donors on the political dimensions of development are interested in the shares a common concern about the need same issues. Onto understand political change, based going work in the on a better and more in-depth contextOECD DAC Netspecific analysis. Pursuing such an agenda work on Governwould imply a shift from systems where ance (GOVNET) power is heavily concentrated and highly addresses the popersonalized to systems where power is tential and limits more widely distributed, institutions are of political econmore rule-based, policy making is more omy analysis as a predictable and transparent, and political tool for enhancing mobilization is based less on local social aid effectiveness. identities than on common issues and In 2002 the Swedish International interests. Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) launched a series of analyses, covering both formal and informal power relations and structures, focused on actors, processes and institutions as a means of understanding how to take account of these factors within programme planning at a country level. One of the reasons for this work (carried out in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mali) was the awareness of the limitations of democracy and human rights assessments which were too focused on formal structures (the constitution, the political system and other formal democratic institutions). The German Agency for Technical Cooperation (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, GTZ) is also engaged in addressing political change and has developed an analytical tool, the ‘Governance Questionnaire’, which maps out six areas for assessing the political environment: the state–society relationship; the political system; the political culture, change agents and development paradigms; politics and gender; economic policy and the political frameworks of markets; and international integration. The current debate in the donor community The current debate in the donor community on the political dimensions of development shares a common concern about the need to understand political change, based on a better and more indepth context-specific analysis. Pursuing such an agenda would imply a shift from systems where power is heavily concentrated and highly personalized to systems where power is more widely distributed, institutions are more rule-based, policy 34 making is more predictable and transparent, and political mobilization is based less on local social identities than on common issues and interests. All these objectives are part of the democracybuilding agenda as well. Addressing the close relationship between political systems, power-sharing mechanisms and policy making seems to be the next challenge for development cooperation—and for democracy promotion as well. 2.4. Some Implications for Democracy Building What are the implications of this debate for democracy promotion? So far we have reviewed ‘how’ to make political change and reform happen, and concluded that it is important for external actors involved in democratization to focus on broad structural features as well as institutions and agents if change is to be effected. 2.4.1. Incentives for Political Change Whether the objective is poverty reduction or democracy promotion, donors have started to acknowledge the limitations of external actors to influence change in partner countries. This recognition calls for a rethinking of the concept of incentives and disincentives to bring about political change. Traditional instruments of international pressure may have an impact, but new tools are needed. The definition of ‘incentives’ provided by the Carnegie Commission for Preventing Deadly Conflict—‘the offer of a reward by a sender in exchange for a particular action or response by a recipient’ (Cortright 1997)—is the other side of the same coin of traditional tools which include deterrence, sanctions, coercion and conditionality. The scope of such instruments is limited and is mainly focused on applying short time pressure in a crisis situation. Some donors, like the USA, make use of indicators of democratic governance for aid allocation purposes, as in the case of the Millennium Challenge Account, which sets out measures of democratic performance for defining eligibility conditions for recipient countries (Rich 2004). The drivers of change approach, however, is based The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) on a deeper understanding of the historical, social and political context, and an assessment of the capacity to effect change of both institutions and agents within a particular country. As an approach it embodies more realistic assumptions about the limited role for external factors, including aid, to influence change processes. The concept of using aid incentives for democracy building warrants reconsideration. Within the DAC context, incentives could be defined as ‘any purposeful use of aid that strengthens the dynamics favouring democratic change’ (Uvin 2004) with the following objectives: (a) influencing actors’ behaviour; (b) strengthening actors’ capacities; (c) changing the relations between actors (ethnic groups, political parties, the state and civil society, etc.); and (d) influencing the social and economic environment in which political change processes take place. These objectives are ranked in order from shortterm through to medium- and long-term; or, to use a drivers of change terminology, from the level of individual agents and organizations (objectives (a) and (b)) to those of institutions (objective (c)) and structural features (objective (d)). Aid may play a role mainly in the first three categories, and non-aid instruments are crucial for any meaningful impact on the fourth. 2.4.2. Structural and Agency Explanations of Political Change Two frequently used conceptual frameworks for understanding political change are ‘structure’ and ‘agency’. Structural explanations tend to stress the significance of the social, economic and political structures of a society as the main factors determining change, whereas agency explanations focus more on the capacities and action of agents, that is, individuals and institutions, and their role in contributing to political change. Approaches based on drivers of change and power analyses aim to take account of both structural and agency explanations and the interrelationship between the two. In the field of democracy building, the link between the consolidation of democratic institutions and the strengthening of democratic politics is key. Democracy-promotion policies and practices traditionally focused on the role of institutions and agents in democratization processes. Less attention has been paid to the structural features affecting political change processes. Without an understanding of the political landscape, interventions for poverty reduction, as well as democracy building, can not only fail to achieve their stated objectives; they can do harm. Structural analysis helps to identify key underlying challenges: state control; deep ethnic divisions; rents from the extraction of natural resources; or a dominant and repressive landed class. Understanding the basis of political accountability is essential, both in terms of its implications for work on political parties, political party funding and parliaments, and as a fundamental basis for determining the incentive structures of key actors. As Bastian and Luckham (2003) point out, how particular constitutional arrangements play out depends on context and elite interests. The impact of civil society action on change should be seen in context too by developing an underUltimately, there is a need for detailed, standing of the bacountry-specific information on the sis of group mobiinstitutions and processes of democracy lization. The same building to allow for a proper analysis of applies to the effects of multiparty what is needed for democratization. If they competition which are to be successful, practitioners need may yield positive to be armed with an understanding of the results—incentives relationship between the institutional for less damaging frameworks, agents of change and patronage politics, structural conditions characterizing more space for indifferent societies. dependent media—or even have a negative impact, depending on the context—corruption, fuelling local identity-based conflict. Ultimately, there is a need for detailed, countryspecific information on the institutions and processes of democracy building to allow for a proper analysis of what is needed for democratization. If they are to be successful, practitioners need to be armed with an understanding of the relationship Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 35 between the institutional frameworks, agents of change and structural conditions characterizing different societies. In the future, IDEA will continue to meet the need to adapt institutional design to different types of country circumstances, shaped by political and historical factors, with a focus on inclusive dialogue among local actors. For an institute like IDEA that aims to improve the design of key democratic institutions through a comparative knowledge of structural and institutional issues that condition democratic change, the capacity to understand the context in which democratic institutions are built and strengthened will always be extremely important. For an institute like IDEA that aims to improve the design of key democratic institutions through a comparative knowledge of structural and institutional issues that condition democratic change, the capacity to understand the context in which democratic institutions are built and strengthened will always be extremely important. 36 References Bastian, Sunil and Luckham, Robin (eds), Can Democracy Be Designed? The Politics of Institutional Change in Conflict-Torn Societies (London: Zed Books, 2003) Carothers, Tom, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999) — Critical Mission: Essays on Democracy Promotion (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004) Cortright, David (ed.), The Price of Peace: Incentives and International Conflict Prevention, Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Carnegie Corporation of New York (Rowman & Littlefield, Inc., 1997) Groves, Leslie and Hinton, Rachel (eds), Inclusive Aid: Changing Power and Relationships in International Development (London: Earthscan, 2004) GTZ, ‘Governance Questionnaire: Draft’, State and Democracy Division, Sectoral Project on Democracy and Rule of Law, Eschborn, 2004 Leftwich, Adrian, ‘Debate: Democracy and Development: A Contradiction in the Politics of Economics’, New Political Economy 7/2 (2002), pp. 269–73 Luckham, Robin, Goetz, Anne Marie and Kaldor, Mary, ‘Democratic Institutions and Democratic Politics’, in Sunil Bastian and Robin Luckham (eds), Can Democracy Be Designed? The Politics of Institutional Change in Conflict-torn Societies (London: Zed Books, 2003), pp. 14–59 Luckham, Robin, Goetz, Anne Marie and Kaldor, Mary (with Alison Ayers, Sunil Bastian, Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, Shireen Hassim and Zarko Puhovski), ‘Democratic Institutions and Politics in Contexts of Inequality, Poverty and Conflict: A Conceptual Framework’, IDS Working Paper no. 104, University of Sussex, Brighton, 2000 Moore, Mick and Putzel, James, ‘Thinking Strategically about Politics and Poverty’, IDS Working Paper no. 101, University of Sussex, Brighton, 2000 OECD, Development Assistance Committee (DAC), ‘Chair’s Summary: Senior Level Forum on Development Effectiveness in Fragile States’, London, 13– 14 January 2005, DAC/CHAIR(2005)3, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, 1 February 2005 — DAC Orientations on Participatory Development and Good Governance (Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1995) The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) — ‘Reporting Directives for the Creditor Reporting System’, DCD/DAC (2002)21, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, 30 July 2002 — ‘Summary Record of the GOVNET Informal Workshop on Sharing Approaches to Understanding Drivers of Change and Political Analysis. Meeting held 1–2 June 2004’, Development Assistance Committee, GOVNET, Paris, 1 July 2004 Ottaway, Marina, Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003) Rich, Roland, ‘Applying Conditionality to Development Assistance’, Agenda 11/4 (2004), pp. 321–34 Tommasoli, Massimo, Le développement participatif: Analyse sociale et logiques de planification (Paris : Karthala, 2004) UK Department for International Development (DFID), ‘What Does Drivers of Change Mean for DFID? A draft approach paper’, Drivers of Change Team, DFID Policy Division, London, August 2003 Unsworth, Sue, ‘Understanding Incentives and Capacity for Poverty Reduction: What Should Donors Do Differently?’, mimeo, 23 April 2002 — ‘Understanding Pro-Poor Change: A Discussion Paper’, mimeo, 20 September 2001 Uvin, Peter, Human Rights and Development (Bloomfield: Kumarian Press, Inc., 2004) Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 37 ‘Sustainable democracy must be home grown. That’s why International IDEA presents options and not solutions to new and re-established democracies.’ Erling Olsen, former Speaker of the Danish Parliament. Member of the Board of International IDEA June 1998–June 2001 Acting Secretary-General of International IDEA April 2002–August 2002 ‘Even if it is not perfect, democracy is without doubt the best of systems to guarantee the full development of human beings and national stability. In the last decade International IDEA has tried to tackle diverse aspects of the complicated democratic coexistence: electoral systems capable of forging a good political system, guaranties for a clean vote, and internal dialogues to solve national conflicts. Democracy building is still a challenge and it constitutes a responsible commitment in the creation of a more humane world. IDEA has a leading role to play during the next decade. We hope that when we celebrate the 20th anniversary in 2015, the global map will reflect more light and fewer shadows on the panorama of universal democracy.’ Lourdes Flores Nano, member of the Board of International IDEA, President of the Alianza Electoral Unidad Nacional and candidate in the 2001 Peruvian presidential election 38 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 3. Themes in Democracy Assistance Richard Youngs This chapter traces the development of democracy building over the last decade, its challenges and different forms as experienced by donor member states and other international players. When IDEA was set up ten years ago, most donors were just beginning to focus in a more systematic way on using aid resources to encourage democratic change in developing states. The organization itself represented one manifestation of this reassessment. This chapter offers a general (and necessarily schematic) overview of the ways in which Western governments’ democracy assistance policies have subsequently evolved. It identifies the more sophisticated approaches to democracy assistance that have taken shape in recent years and highlights how the attempt to fashion more holistic strategies has brought its own set of problems. It is argued that efforts to temper the latter will constitute the next phase in donors’ progressive honing of their democracy assistance strategies. 3.1. Overall Trends During the last ten years donors have developed a relatively standardized range of initiatives encompassing what are seen to be democracy’s constituent arenas: civil society, elections, political parties, parliaments, civil–military relations, state reform, the rule of law and good governance. These have become the familiar categories around which democracy assistance is organized. Donors exhibit slightly different emphases between these various arenas, but all spread their political aid between these broadly convergent conceptual strands of work. Indeed, the increasing homogeneity of democracy aid profiles is striking, particularly when considered against a background of perceived divergence of diplomatic strategies between countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC). Focused on what are judged to be the individual building blocks of political change, the vast majority of donors eschew any overarching classification of ‘democracy assistance’. It is still impossible to identify total amounts of democracy aid in any precise fashion. For aid that is ostensibly aimed at increasing transparency, some donors also continue to be incredibly opaque in sharing information on their democracy assistance activities. Definitions in this sense remain elastic. Many initiatives implemented under a democracy assistance label are at best tenuously reIt is still impossible to identify total lated to political amounts of democracy aid in any precise reform; conversefashion. For aid that is ostensibly aimed ly, much aid that at increasing transparency, some donors has a strong politialso continue to be incredibly opaque in cal impact is allosharing information on their democracy cated under other assistance activities. aid categories. Donors will support Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 39 almost identical individual projects but invariably regextremely modest in comparison to the ister them under magnitude of political challenges. different categories of aid. Some donors appear intent on over-selling the amount they invest in democracy assistance; others seem keen to play down their commitment. Some donors have stretched definitions of political aid in an effort to convince a sceptical audience that significant resources are being devoted to democracy and human rights; others insist that the key is to maximize the chance of projects succeeding on the ground by defining them as apolitically as possible. The OECD measure of ‘government and civil society’ category contains much support that is not remotely related to democracy. The amount of political aid has been A curious duality has emerged. On the one hand, donors’ individual ‘blocks’ of political aid (civil society support or rule-of-law projects, for instance) have exhibited increasing similarities. On the other hand, no commonly agreed indicators to measure the impact of such aid have emerged. Indeed, the picture has become increasingly disparate, as democracy-related funding has been forthcoming from an array of new programmes covering conflict prevention, cultural cooperation, economic governance and civic education, as well as separate country-specific initiatives. • Out of a total European Commission aid budget of 7.5 billion euros for 2004, only 124 million euros was available under the European Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), but 2.9 billion euros was defined as contributing to governance and civil society reform more broadly. • Germany, the largest European funder, now allocates just over 100 million euros per year for a broad category of ‘governance’ projects, which includes democracy, human rights and conflict prevention work, and another 150 million euros to the Stiftungen. • The Nordic states have consolidated their presence as proportionately the largest contributors. Aid for ‘democratic governance’ has consistently accounted for over 10 per cent of total Swedish ODA. Danish funding for ‘human rights and democratization’ has increased by over a third since 2001 and is due to be boosted by an additional 65 million USD up to 2009. Norway gave 9 per cent of its bilateral aid to ‘civil society and democracy development’ in 2003, and another 9 per cent to ‘Peace, reconciliation and democracy’. • Elaborating a political aid portfolio slightly later than the USA and other principal donors, Japan has gradually consolidated its position has a mainstream player in broadly defined ‘governance assistance’, with yearly allocations of around 150 million USD comparing favourably with most European governments. With such caveats it can be safely succeeded in offering a route into engaging concluded that powith more intransigent states. Authoritarian litical aid, broadly states account for a small share of defined, was one of democracy assistance budgets compared the fastest-growing to semi-authoritarian and post-transition categories of aid countries. during the latter half of the 1990s, with the rate of increase flattening off in the case of most donors in recent years. Notable donor profiles include the following: Overall sums remain self-evidently limited compared to the more established, mainstream aid categories. Few would deny that big infrastructure, health or education projects will naturally need more resources: to set these areas of ODA alongside democracy assistance is hardly to compare like with like. It is, however, difficult to refute the judgement that the amount of political aid has been extremely modest in comparison to the magnitude of political challenges—as well as to the significance often claimed for such funding. • The overall US investment in political aid increased during the 1990s, before reaching a plateau of approximately 700 million USD a year, or 6–7 per cent of total overseas development assistance (ODA). As overall funding has increased, so geographical priorities have shifted. During the 1990s two parallel logics conditioned the distribution of democracy assistance. On the one hand, a large slice of democracy assistance appeared to follow Significantly, reform-oriented aid has not 40 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) overall aid distribution, tacked onto donors’ primary mainstream poverty reduction programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. On the other hand, most donors focused more heavily on post-transition scenarios, where a commitment to political reform was evident. German political aid was, for example, split between these two logics, going primarily to Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. By the end of the 1990s, over a third of the US democracy budget was going to Eastern Europe and Eurasia, while the main gainers after 2000 were states that had recently enjoyed democratic breakthroughs: Indonesia, Nigeria, Mexico, Peru and Serbia. A similar logic was reflected in Japan’s ‘request-based approach’ to democracy assistance (Japanese International Cooperation Agency 2003). Both Swedish and Norwegian political aid was heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of African states, including Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and South Africa, although both these donors have increasingly developed a strong link between conflict and democratic institution building, with increasing shares of democracy assistance going to Serbia, Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan and Cambodia. Several donors have introduced initiatives offering the ‘reward’ of additional aid where recipient countries demonstrate democratic progress and a willingness to cooperate on reform initiatives. This is, for example, a prominent feature of German governance aid and the US Millennium Challenge Account. Significantly, reform-oriented aid has not succeeded in offering a route into engaging with more intransigent states. Authoritarian states account for a small share of democracy assistance budgets compared to semi-authoritarian and post-transition countries. In cases such as Libya, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Cuba or Syria, relatively limited funding has been offered to exiled advocacy groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) gathering information and monitoring rights abuses in these states. In order to overcome obstacles to implementing effective political aid projects in Russia, donors have increasingly sought to pursue initiatives through the Council of Europe, Russia’s membership of which is seen to offer the prospect of greater leverage over Moscow. While such patterns are discernible, the broad geographical spread of donors is more striking. The majority of donors have offered a smattering of democracy assistance with similar thematic focus throughout the world. This is of a piece with donors’ similarly broad thematic coverage. All donors support most thematic areas and most provide assistance in all sectors. Nuances are apparent: French aid is more oriented towards state elites, German aid towards regional-level governance, and British aid towards reform of public administration. While these self-evidently reflect It would be an exaggeration to argue that donors’ own dodonors have sought to export wholesale mestic specificities, their own particular model of democracy. it would be an exaggeration to argue that donors have sought to export wholesale their own particular model of democracy. Arguably, the commonalities between donors’ democracy aid profiles have become more notable than the differences. All donors have adopted something of a scatter-gun approach, supporting small parcels of every type of work in a large number of countries. This represents a response to criticism levelled at Western governments for being interested only in supporting democracy in a few select states and for conceiving democracy to be about elections only, or civil society only, or bicameral legislative politics only. By the end of the 1990s it was not the case that democracy assistance was only being offered in a small number of amenable countries, or only where immediate and significant Western interests existed. In place of undue narrowness, however, democracy assistance profiles have taken shape that lack thematic or geographical critical mass. Debates in the past three years have centred on the prospective reorientation of aid away from Eastern Europe and the Balkans to the Middle East, the latter being the region that was most sparsely funded during the 1990s. Donors have all announced intentions to target democracy aid at the Middle East, and have in some cases followed this through with new and increased funding designed with this in mind. New funding under the US Middle East Partnership Initiative has attracted the most Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 41 attention. Significantly, France has also initiated politestablished itself as one of the clearest ical reform projects trends of the 1990s. in the Maghreb and Mashreq. This constitutes a potentially major change to the nature of democracy assistance. If the latter was previously the preserve of specialists in aid ministries, one of the most routinely-made suggestions since 9/11 is that democracy aid needs to be invested with greater strategic purpose. Some tension is evident between foreign and development ministries on this question. As the latter have resisted the diversion of funds from the least developed states into an agenda driven by more instrumental foreign policy objectives, some new Middle East reform initiatives have appeared within foreign ministries. This is leading to what one leading practitioner calls the ‘Balkanization of democracy assistance’, with a plethora of new funds appearing across different parts of Western governments’ policy-making machinery. Tensions have recently deepened between the European Parliament, the Commission and the European Council—and indeed within each of these institutions—over the question of how tightly democracy funds should be directed in accordance with strategic priorities. 3.2. Reassessing Civil Society? The drift towards civil society funding Critics argue that the distribution of European Union (EU) aid has in practice still been more decided by internal trade-offs than coherently deployed as a foreign policy tool (Santiso 2002: 419). It remains to be seen how far geo-clientelism gives way to a systematic harnessing of democA far larger proportion of political aid racy assistance to sebudgets goes to the standard range of curity policy. human rights issues—torture, the death penalty, xenophobia—than on the broader Another increasingly prominent debate in this sense relates to the paucity of linkage between external and internal civil rights policies: without this many practitioners and analysts fear that hardline anti-terrorist provisions within the West leave democracy promotion policy to survive in increasingly stony ground. agenda of political reform. 42 The drift towards civil society funding established itself as one of the clearest trends of the 1990s. This was in response to criticisms that donors had previously focused too narrowly on democracy’s formal institutional features, and in particular on elections. The vast majority of donors have gradually reoriented their democracy assistance away from electoral support and monitoring. The claim that Western governments are only interested in democracy’s formal façade is still often heard but is not one that the evolving profile of democracy assistance invites. Between the mid-1990s and 2004 the share of EIDHR funds allocated to electoral assistance, for instance, fell from over 50 per cent to 14 per cent. By 2002, 48 per cent of US democracy funds were being allocated to civil society, up from one-third in 1997 and having climbed gradually over the decade; the share going to elections and political processes had fallen to only 7 per cent. Within the category of civil society support, most donors have continued to channel the largest share of their funds to NGOs. The largest single group of such recipients is still the large human rights organizations. Typically, a large international NGO will be supported to work with one of the two or three main umbrella human rights NGOs in the recipient state. A far larger proportion of political aid budgets goes to the standard range of human rights issues—torture, the death penalty, xenophobia—than on the broader agenda of political reform. One of the most commonly supported projects within European democracy assistance has been the incorporation of international human rights treaties and covenants into developing countries’ domestic legislation. While clearly closely related, the human rights and democracy strands of Western policies have not always been entirely mutually reinforcing: one complaint from aid officers is that diplomatic tensions focusing on select human rights issues have often complicated aid projects on broader governance reforms within the state in question. To support civil society, donors have espoused a philosophy based around fostering communitylevel participation and organizational capacity. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Concepts of local ownership that have dominated development policy thinking have filtered into democracy assistance, making much of the latter look very much like an extension of new approaches to development. This is presented as part of a move towards strengthening general democratic processes and away from trying to engineer specific policy outcomes. Germany’s Development Ministry, as one representative example, defines the aims of its political aid to be ‘strengthening the political dimension of development’, enhancing ‘capabilities for self-reliant problem solving . . . not . . . prescribing ready-made solutions’, encouraging a ‘citizen-orientation of the state’, and boosting the participation of the poor in monitoring local government performance (BMZ 2002). Expediency has certainly not been entirely absent: it is this type of project that has been possible without significant confrontation with recipient governments. Most donors have been reluctant to extend their focus to projects that are openly opposed by governments. Continuing support for organizations which are denied official recognition has invariably been problematic. Critics observe that many NGO recipients have been the more moderate, measured, and arguably coopted sector of civil society. Many donor officials insist that much-maligned government-organized NGOs can usefully widen access to government reformers and provide a foothold from which to press for more genuine separation between civil society and the state. But in some cases donors have stood rather meekly by while government authorities sabotage externally funded projects. Donors flag this as an area where future efforts must focus: in many contexts the need is not only, or even primarily, for more funding but for stronger political backing to ensure that projects are actually allowed to run in an effective manner. The perception is widespread that the USA remains more drawn than other DAC donors to supporting overtly politicized groups, dissidents and direct democracy propaganda through its civil society programmes. European donors commonly argue that a focus on linking social rights initiatives to political reform work distinguishes European assistance from more directly political US approaches. Even the more forward-leaning European donors, such as Sweden, have preferred to support highly politicized groups for their educational or humanitarian work and not simply for their being anti-regime. The USA has certainly supported anti-regime exile groups from Iraq, Iran and Syria that other donors have declined to fund. The State Department has sometimes intervened to channel funds to openly pro-US groups, for example, in Eastern Europe and in some Middle Eastern countries (Quigely 2000: 203; and Dalpino 2000). However, overall the approaches taken by the US Agency for International Development (USA firmly established consensus has taken AID) have also exroot among donors that democracy aid hibited an increasneeds to move away from the traditionally ing orientation tofavoured set of internationally connected wards long-term, NGOs to support civil society organizations democratic capacthat are more organically entrenched ity building. The in local communities, and organized USA and other doaround issues of real daily significance nors have all been guilty of abandonrather than abstract debates of competing ing their caution political interests. in supporting the most critical civil society organizations only very late in the day. For example, donors moved to support anti-Fujimori groups in Peru when transition was already imminent. Democracy aid has invariably followed more than it has pre-empted tangible political change. Many activists in developing states in fact judge European donors to have become more willing than the USA to fund controversial projects. Reflecting a now well-worn critique of civil society support, a firmly established consensus has taken root among donors that democracy aid needs to move away from the traditionally favoured set of internationally connected NGOs to support civil society organizations that are more organically entrenched in local communities, and organized around issues of real daily significance rather than abstract debates of competing political interests. Many donors now aim to support a smaller number of NGOs, aiming for more tangible impact with locally-rooted groups. Donors no longer need to be convinced on this routinely repeated point. Talk of the need to move away from Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 43 standardized templates is ubiquitous; how to do this in practice is a matter of genuine uncertainty. One currently debated question is whether and how to start incorporating business groups, often key protagonists in democratic transition that have so far been absent from political aid work. Another issue is whether donors should begin including Islamist groups within their civil society programmes; positive indications have been made on this, but caution, and in some cases opposition, still prevails at the level of implementation. 3.3. Government-toGovernment InstitutionBuilding Aid An increasingly prominent area of debate relates to the role of aid channelled to state institutions for capacity-building initiatives. A reassessment of the linkages between civil society and the state has been evident in recent years. Influential civil society protagonists have themselves advocated a more holistic approach to democracy assistance which ceases overwhelmingly to target voluntary associations as substitutes for a strong democratic state (Edwards 2004: 94). Significant amounts of government-to-government institution-building aid have been presented as part of democracy assistance efforts. The corollary to donors’ slightly less rosy view of civil society actors has been a declared intent to pay greater attention to state-building challenges. The USA’s most senior democracy aid official argues that resources have shifted into state-building projects in response to a recognition that civil society support has invariably failed to generate smooth momentum towards democratic transition (Hyman 2002: 26–32). The state–elite focus has remained a distinctive element of French political aid, with priorities listed as including the ‘training of foreign elites’; export of the French legal system; social dialogue and the strengthening of trade unions; constitutional support; and negotiated change through ‘national consultative committees’ (French Ministère des Affaires Étranges, (DGCID) (undated)). Japan sees its main strength as lying in assistance to ‘improve the efficiency of government capacity building’ (Japanese International Cooperation Agency 2003: 37). Support for more effective 44 links between regional and national public institutions represents the largest slice of Germany’s political aid, drawing on what is seen as a particular, domestically derived German expertise. Moreover, donors profess a realization that state-building challenges are often those that need most attention well after formal transition; some donors have consequently reversed incipient withdrawals from places like Russia and the Balkans. Whether and how such initiatives have in fact served to enhance democratic quality, however, is in some cases not clear. Most rule-of-law projects have been strikingly formalistic. Work under this category has focused mainly on offering support for setting up ombudsmen offices; legal advice on incorporating international human rights covenants into domestic legislation; measures to speed up the processing of cases; provisions for copying laws; and judicial training, carried out by lawyers. It has rarely sought to address the broader politics that continue to limit the effective use of such formal measures. One critic characterizes approaches to the rule of law as ‘breathtakingly mechanistic’, devoid of any linkage to the political process (Carothers 2003: 9). A recent German Development Ministry policy review raised concerns that rule-of-law and other state reform projects were being used in a way that actually fomented locallevel corruption and patronage, and that recipient governments were disingenuously presenting standard social development projects as a ‘governance’ commitment. One diplomat acknowledged that, within ‘governance’ budgets, democracy has so far been ‘the missing link’. With institutional support budgets exceeding democracy and human rights funds many times over, these failings represent one of the most debilitating shortcomings of democracy assistance efforts. One of donors’ stated priorities has been to marry top–down capacity building more systematically to bottom–up accountability measures in mutually reinforcing fashion. Official discourse and policy statements are replete with references to drawing out the ‘complementarity’ and ‘interconnections’ between democracy aid and those mainstream aid budgets covering areas such as public administration reform. The declared aim has been to generate greater ‘democratic The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) spillover’ from good governance projects—the latter recognized to have more political overtones than previously assumed. A new EU resolution on governance in 2004 formally enshrined an apparently broader and more holistic concept of good governance cooperation. The influential ‘drivers of change’ framework of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) is predicated on the notion of building governance elements into all standard aid projects. Within German aid, ‘democracy’ indicators have been incorporated as ‘mainstream’ criteria within good governance programmes. Some recent initiatives have attempted to link state reform work to enhanced civil society access to public policy making. It remains unclear, however, how far such trends are likely to extend. Alongside frequent talk of ensuring better linkages, many officials still conceive a focus on the rule of law as a separable, and in the short term preferable, objective to democracy promotion. One senior EU aid official is still able to assert that the rule of law ‘is more important than democracy’ in European policy. Many rule-of-law projects have continued to focus overwhelmingly on procedural capacity and efficiency, with little systematic coordination to assess qualitative impact on democratic process. One aid official acknowledges that, while the relevance of public administrative reform to democracy is now recognized, the question remains open of ‘how do we let people . . . participate in a meaningful way’ in state reform projects. Some democracy officers still tend to see governance funding as a competitor to their own political efforts, lamenting the large amounts of aid diverted to governance projects that are far more integral (in their judgement) to economic liberalization than to the democracy agenda. In practice, rather than good governance and the rule of law being approached as prerequisites to democracy assistance proper, there is evidence to suggest that they may end up as long-term substitutes for the latter. The assumption is still too uncritically made that all state-building capacity work is reform-oriented; as one head of department sweepingly claims, ‘Everything we do [in this sphere] is conducive to democracy’. It is a belief commonly asserted, but rarely demonstrated. 3.4. Political Society: Parties, Parliaments and the Military A corollary to this concern with state–civil society linkage has been a professed determination to focus more intensively on the bodies often grouped together under the label of ‘political society’. A commanding majority of donors list as their main ‘lesson learned’ from the last ten years of democracy assistance the need for a better understanding of the underlying politics of deRather than good governance and the rule mocracy building. of law being approached as prerequisites They recognize that to democracy assistance proper, there is civil society’s transevidence to suggest that they may end up formative potenas long-term substitutes for the latter. tial has been overestimated and the essential aggregative role of political institutions unduly overlooked. Comments from different donors exhibit a striking commonality, averring the need for greater recognition of ‘the centrality of politics’; of the democracy agenda’s ‘implications beyond the development assistance perspective’; of ‘the need for a political analysis of the structures of power . . . and forces that can brake or promote change’; of the need to move from isolated ‘technical’ initiatives to a comprehensively ‘political’ approach. The development minister of one of the largest democracy funders points to a need to recognize that ‘democracy assistance is not simply more development cooperation’. Several donors reveal that, partly in response to critiques of the gradualist ‘transition paradigm’, they have begun to compile assessments of underlying power relationships in a select number of recipient countries. Relatively limited shares of democracy assistance have gone to direct party-building initiatives. All but a small part of party strengthening work has been carried out by the party foundations and, with the exception of the US and German Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide A commanding majority of donors list as their main ‘lesson learned’ from the last ten years of democracy assistance the need for a better understanding of the underlying politics of democracy building. They recognize that civil society’s transformative potential has been overestimated and the essential aggregative role of political institutions unduly overlooked. 45 foundations, these have continued to operate with extremely limited resources. The Stiftungen account for 90 per cent of non-governmental party foundation funds in Europe; no other European foundation receives more than 5 million euros a year. The percentage of democracy assistance accounted for by political party work never reaches double figures. US party work declined steadily during the late 1990s until in 2001 it represented under 5 per cent of USAID’s democracy and governance budget—at which stage it was identified as a priority focus for increased resources (USAID 1999). The most notable exception to such caution in the political party sphere was the explicit backing given to anti-Milosevic opposition parties in the Balkans. donor recognized: ‘This is basic, but we are not doing it’. Doubts remain over how to combine assistance for the party system in general with the evident need in many contexts to bolster opposition groups against a dominant party. One observer notes that donors have found it difficult to fashion meaningful support where parties are programmatically weakest—precisely the situation in which backing is most needed (Mair 2004: 136). In practice, initiatives have still been most readily forthcoming that target individual parties as and when opportunities for access exist. A dual challenge remains to link such support both upwards to the systemic level and downwards to strengthen what are still often conflictual relations between political parties and civil society organizations. Conceptually, donors’ main stated concern has been that the partisan, fraternal party approach used in Latin America, Southern Europe and then Eastern Europe shows signs Relatively limited shares of democracy of ‘running out of assistance have gone to direct partysteam’. There has building initiatives. been a shift away from support for individual electoral campaigns towards longerterm capacity building. Europeans moved in this direction earlier than the US foundations (Carothers 1999: 150). Another trend is towards more inclusive dialogue, bringing together a wide range of parties to fashion consensus on basic reform options. The declared aim is to move way from selfstanding political party initiatives towards a more holistic incorporation of party support into state reform and civil society work. US officials talk, in this sense, of a move towards a ‘middle out’ approach, linking party work to other thematic areas of democracy assistance. Sweden has recently begun to initiate such party system approaches in Central America and East Africa. Several other donors have begun tentatively to incorporate some of this work into their own bilateral initiatives, meaning that political party work is likely to become increasingly less the unique preserve of the semi-autonomous foundations. The implementation of such logic is acknowledged to be still in its early stages. Strategies emphasize the broader context of, and structural impediments to, party development, but as one Similar trends can be seen in parliamentary support. This is another dimension of democracy building that has been under-represented in most donor profiles. As in other areas, approaches in recent years have come to focus on the building of connections between parliamentary support and initiatives aimed at enhancing civil society interest groups’ access to policy making. The largest category of parliamentary work has gone to strengthening the role of women in parliaments. This is an area that some donors have come to question, however, expressing a concern that the focus on women’s rights in parliament has often diverted attention from broader reform work: in many cases, it is admitted, the problem has been less one of women’s role within parliaments than of the weakness of parliament per se vis-à-vis the executive— an area less frequently addressed through democracy assistance. Another trend is towards support for regional parliamentary forums, with donors supporting bodies such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum. Parliamentary exchanges have continued to expand, but it often stretches a definition to claim that these are concerned with democracy promotion in any direct sense. Some donors have been concerned that one-off parliamentary exchanges have had no discernible impact and thus need to be used as a base from which to develop longer-term capacity-building assistance. Most donors claim to be keen to divert funds away from support for formal committee structures, equipping parliamentary libraries and the transposition of new rules 46 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and procedures in parliaments, towards increasing parliaments’ responsiveness to citizens. In practice, much support still goes to funding equipment and very technical drafting provisions. The reform of civil–military relations has been perhaps the most neglected of all democracy’s constituent arenas. Suffering from a low degree of awareness among the main makers of decisions on political aid, this issue has to a significant degree been left to defence ministries. Where it has been incorporated into democracy assistance profiles it has invariably been through a conflict-prevention lens. Assessments of democracy aid rarely pick up how much traditional defence diplomacy has transmuted into security sector reform (SSR) work. These have developed almost as two different policy-making worlds. A quid pro quo has increasingly taken root: defence ministries have trimmed traditional defence cooperation into reform-oriented SSR initiatives; in return an erstwhile sceptical development community has accepted that SSR does have a genuine place in reform and conflict prevention objectives. The USA launched an initiative to incorporate USAID-led accountability elements into Defense Department military training, aimed at encouraging civil society participation in the formulation of defence policies (USAID, ‘Civil–Military Relations Resources’). European donors all run similar projects. Sweden has launched a pilot project on democratic oversight of the military in Honduras, while the Dutch Government has sought to elaborate an integration of the development, diplomatic and defence elements of political reform initiatives. A number of donors have recently been engaged in DAC discussions on the possibilities of incorporating SSR work into development aid. While such moves are of significant import, in overall terms SSR initiatives have only very tentatively moved away from standard military capacity building towards assistance aimed at the broader restructuring of civil–military relations. It is widely acknowledged that SSR initiatives are primarily about consolidating alliances with third-country militaries, albeit in parallel with new human rights training and courses on democratic oversight run with security forces. Where democracy and human rights modules have been added to military training courses there is rarely any The reform of civil–military relations has follow-through been perhaps the most neglected of all from donors to asdemocracy’s constituent arenas. sess how these can be harnessed to contribute to more reform-minded militaries. The more self-critical donors increasingly acknowledge that the proclivity in SSR work towards ‘training the trainers’ programmes continues with little idea of what, if any, impact these might be achieving. Most donors remain cautious of confusing military and development aid too much: the Japanese Government and others prefer any focus on military reform to be supported through multilateral institutions. 3.5. Conclusion Common threads have gradually woven themselves into donors’ democracy assistance programmes during the last ten years. In each case, the evolution in approaches to democracy building has been simultaneously significant and circumscribed. Most unequivocally, donors stress a conviction that democracy assistance is moving away from support for self-standing projects in different thematic sectors towards the moulding of holistic linkages between different arenas. At the same time, political aid still often appears to function as a relatively modest and hermetically sealed pocket of aid activity. A shift away from attempts at direct institutional engineering is universally proclaimed and acclaimed; but it is uncertain that what has emerged in its place is capable of generating significant democratic change. At best, the value of gradualism remains convincingly to be substantiated, and in the absence hitherto of assessment mechanisms it has intuitive rather than demonstrable merit. Few benchmarks have been rigorously designed or applied that suffice to hold donors to account against their own logic of incremental capacity enhancement. Independent monitoring agencies are lacking at the political level, while on the ground judgement is rarely derived from the participation of local ‘stakeholders’ (Crawford 2003). It is now widely recognized that democracy assistance will at most impact at the margins, and that Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 47 support relating to the broader context of political change represents a hitherto underestimated key. Yet in practice democracy officers commonly remain focused simply on ‘running good projects’ and meeting the reporting requirements attached to these. Concepts and criteria relate, at one level, to individual projects, at another level to generic macro-level aims: ‘good governance’ and ‘the rule of law’. One is too narrow to look beyond the confines of individual parcels of aid; the other is too broad to guide actionable priorities. A central challenge for democracy assistance is to fashion from all the strands of new thinking elaborated in this chapter strategies able to articulate a linkage between these two levels. 48 References BMZ, Good Governance in German Development Cooperation, Position Paper no. 50 (June 2002) Carothers, T., Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999) Carothers, T., Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: The Problem of Knowledge, Working Paper no. 34 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003) French Ministère des Affaires Étranges, Direction générale de la Coopération International et du Développement (DGCID), ‘La coopération pour la promotion de l’état de droit’, ‘La défense et la promotion des driots de l’Homme’ (undated), <http://www.france.diplomatie.fr/cooperation/dgci> Crawford, G., ‘Promoting Democracy from Without: Learning from Within (Part I)’, Democratization 10/1 (2003), pp. 77-98 Dalpino, C., Deferring Democracy: Promoting Openness in Authoritarian Regimes (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000) Edwards, Michael, Civil Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004) Hyman, G., ‘Tilting at Straw Men’, Journal of Democracy 13/3, (2002) Japanese International Cooperation Agency, Roads to Democracy and Governance 23 (2003) Mair, S., ‘Multi-partisan or Bi-partisan Cooperation? What is the Best Solution for Democracy Assistance’, in Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, Enhancing the European Profile in Democracy Assistance 136 (2004) Quigely, K., ‘Lofty Goals, Modest Results: Assisting Civil Society in Eastern Europe’, in M. Ottoway and T. Carothers (eds), Funding Virtue (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2000) Santiso, C., ‘Reforming European Foreign Aid: Development Cooperation as an Element of Foreign Policy’, European Foreign Affairs Review 7/4 (2002) USAID, Civil–Military Relations Resources, <http://www.usaid.gov/> USAID, ‘Political Party Development and USAID’, Democracy Dialogue December 1999 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘Building democracy involves much more than arranging free elections. Freedom of speech and the press must be protected, as well as the rights to assemble and establish political parties. A fair judiciary must be built up. In a country with democratic traditions, these rights are self-evident. But less than half of the world’s countries that have declared independence and are UN members are countries where the people themselves determine their government. The majority of the world’s population does not have ownership of their government. Typically, power has been secured through the establishment of a single party system, a military coup or by bloodlines. The state leaders consider themselves owners of the state, and they see the duty of citizens as keeping them in power. Those who attempt to rock the boat are prevented from doing so and punished accordingly.’ Harri Holkeri, member of the Board of International IDEA, former Prime Minister of Finland, and former Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo 50 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 4. Why Governance Matters In Achieving the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals* This chapter addresses the issues of democracy and good governance in a systematic way by linking development and the realization of the Millennium Development Goals to democracy building. It presents UNDP’s experiences on how to stabilize democracy and make it work. No state can truly be called democratic if it offers its people no escape from poverty; and no country can truly develop, so long as its people are excluded from power. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations One of the most important lessons of the last two decades is that democratic governance is the glue that holds all other development priorities set out across the Millennium Development Goals together. Mark Malloch Brown, former Administrator, United Nations Development Programme current Chief of Staff to the UN Secretary-General 4.1. Introduction More countries than ever before are working to build democratic governance. Their challenge is to develop institutions and processes that are more responsive to the needs of ordinary citizens, including the poor. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) works to bring people together within nations and around the world, building partnerships and sharing ways to promote participation, accountability and effectiveness at all levels. UNDP acts to help countries strengthen their electoral and legislative systems, improve access to justice and public administration, and develop a greater capacity to deliver basic services to those most in need. The critical importance of democratic governance in the developing world was underlined at the Millennium Summit, where the world’s leaders resolved to ‘spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development’. A consensus was reached which recognized that improving the quality of *This chapter was contributed by the UNDP Governance Centre in Oslo. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 51 democratic institutions and processes, and managgovernance in the developing world was ing the changing underlined at the Millennium Summit, roles of the state where the world’s leaders resolved to and civil society ‘spare no effort to promote democracy in an increasingly and strengthen the rule of law, as well as globalized world, respect for all internationally recognized must underpin nahuman rights and fundamental freedoms, tional efforts to reincluding the right to development’. duce poverty, sustain the environment and promote human development. Whether the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed on at the Millennium Summit will be reached depends in large part on how successful governments, civil society, citizens and international institutions will be in promoting and implementing the concepts of democratic governance. UNDP believes that political and human development is as important to achieving the MDGs as economic growth. Sustained poverty reduction requires equitable growth, but it also requires that poor people have political power and a voice. The best way to achieve that in a manner that is consistent with the Millennium Declaration objectives and MDGs is by building strong and deep forms of democratic governance at all levels of society. The critical importance of democratic 4.2. The Millennium Declaration and Democratic Governance In September 2000 the world’s leaders adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to stronger global efforts to advance development and poverty eradication, securing human rights, democracy and good governance. The MDGs that emerged from the Declaration are specific, quantitative and measurable targets to be achieved by 2015 or earlier. The goals focus on eight essential areas of development, from halving extreme poverty and hunger, to making primary education available to all girls and boys, reducing child and maternal mortality, reducing gender disparities and empowering women, arresting the spread of HIV/AIDS, and ensuring environmental sustainability. MDG 8, ‘Global partnership for development’, promises to create a more transparent, rule-based and non-discriminatory trading and 52 financial system. This goal also includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction, both nationally and internationally. On current trends, however, at least 59 countries are unlikely to meet their targets and 33 countries with more than a quarter of the world’s population will achieve fewer than half of the goals by 2015. If this lack of progress continues, it will take more than 130 years to rid the world of hunger. An even more troubling aspect of these bleak facts is that many of the countries least likely to achieve the MDGs are the world’s poorest—the least developed countries. Most of these are in Sub-Saharan Africa where 23 of the region’s 44 countries are failing in most areas (UNDP Human Development Report 2002). These discouraging facts beg the question what is needed to hasten the pace of progress towards achieving the MDGs. There are various debates concerning economic growth, technology, macroeconomic policy, or the more elusive concept of governance. While there are many opinions on what must come first or which is more important, most would agree that all these elements are needed, and that all these factors are indeed related to improving governance in developing countries (Fukuda-Parr and Ponzio, undated). The fact is that most of the countries that are not on track to meet the MDGs do not have free and democratic political systems. While freedom and democracy are not necessarily prerequisites for development, very few democratic countries are among the world’s poorest. Countries where political rights and civil liberties are limited, where corruption is rampant, where ruling parties have dominated for decades, where women have less opportunities or where there is ethnic or religious discrimination tend to be among the poorest and the least likely to achieve the goals. 4.3. Why is Governance Indispensable to Achieving the MDGs? Although most people agree that governance is essential in the development process there are different understandings about what governance means. In a historical development context it is possible to The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) identify three main phases of the governance concept. First, from the 1960s to the mid-1980s development was seen to be state-led through a ‘planning’ framework where strengthening public administration was the focus of what is today called ‘governance’. Development assistance during this period was concerned with technological transfers and building state capacity. In the second phase, the governance debate turned to implementation of economic reform programmes that were part of a larger economic liberalization agenda in developing countries. During the 1980s and 1990s attention turned to issues such as the lack of adequate legal frameworks for investors, lack of financial transparency and accountability, weak institutions that were unable to enforce laws, corruption and ineffective administration. These concerns can be described as a good governance agenda that is preoccupied with creating efficient institutions and rules that promote development by making markets work and ensuring that public services are managed effectively. The World Bank is generally seen as the strongest proponent of the good governance agenda which includes the rule of law (i.e. enforcing contract and property rights), combating corruption (emphasizing greater financial transparency and accountability), and ensuring efficient public service delivery and basic social services such as schools and health care. The good governance priorities are aimed at increasing economic efficiency and growth by helping to set an environment that is conducive to private investment. Few would disagree that economic growth, financial transparency and accountability are essential to achieving the MDGs. After all, the cornerstone measurement for MDG 1 of halving poverty is per capita gross domestic product (GDP).1 The rule of law, efficient public service delivery and marketfriendly institutions are also necessities to encourage economic investment and growth in developing countries. There is no doubt that countries with economic mismanagement and rampant corruption are far less likely to achieve the MDGs as 1 such activities distort a country’s ability to invest in health and education. The good governance agenda, however, is too narrow for achieving the goals and objectives of the Millennium Declaration. First, the Declaration has a broader agenda that covers peace, democracy and human rights. The world’s leaders in 2000 clearly committed themselves to more than just good governance when they stated that: We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development. We resolve therefore to strive for the fulfilment of all human rights, including the rights of minorities, women, migrant workers, to work against racism and for more inclusive political processes and to ensure the freedom of the media and the right to information for all (United Nations Millennium Declaration 2000). The MDGs have also in many ways become a manifesto for the world’s poor. In this aspect, economic growth is just one of the means for achieving the MDGs and will remain inconsequential in many countries unless there is a change in their governance structures. Economic growth is clearly not enough because the benefits The fact is that most of the countries that of growth may not are not on track to meet the MDGs do be channelled to not have free and democratic political the poor or to exsystems. While freedom and democracy panding their social are not necessarily prerequisites for and economic opdevelopment, very few democratic portunities. countries are among the world’s poorest. Second, although there is no automatic relationship between growth and human development, growth can contribute to human development if increased incomes and higher government revenue translate into social and productive spending that positively influences human development indicators such as health and education (UNDP 2003d). The Millennium Goals demonstrate a development agenda that is for human development, not GDP per capita is also an essential indicator for several human development measures including the Human Development Index. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 53 just economic growth. Goals such as improving access to water and increasing literacy rates are concerned with expanding the well-being of people as opposed to just promoting economic growth. As several UNDP Human Development Reports have pointed out, economic growth is a means to an end, not an end in itself (UNDP Human Development Report 2000, 2002, 2003). 4.4. Human Development and Democratic Governance as a Framework for Achieving the MDGs While it may be unclear whether democratic governance enhances economic growth, it is clear that democratic governance enhances human development. Human Development Report 2002: Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accordance with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is therefore about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means—if a very important one—of The Millennium Declaration and the MDGs enlarging people’s aim to secure the environment which can choices. produce freedom and human capabilities. A human being cannot be ‘free’ unless he Fundamental to enlarging these provides choices. choices is building human capabilities—the range of things that people can do or be in life. The most basic capabilities for human development are the chances to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community. Without these, many choices are simply not available, and many opportunities in life remain inaccessible. or she has an enabling environment that 54 In seeking that ‘something else’, human development shares a common vision with human rights. The goal is human freedom. And in pursuing capabilities and realizing rights this freedom is vital. People must be free to exercise their choices and to participate in decision making that affects their lives. Human development and human rights are mutually reinforcing, helping to secure the wellbeing and dignity of all people, building self-respect and the respect of others. UNDP defines human development as ‘development of the people, for the people and by the people’. Of the people because the aim is to lead a more human life; by the people because development depends on the creative effort of men and women, not on nature or luck; and for the people because the objective is not to add zeros to the national accounts but to improve the lives of people. In this perspective, the true goal of public policy is to provide more options for citizens to live their lives in an increasingly satisfactory way. In a word, development is ‘freedom’. And freedom, in addition to being the objective, is the best way to achieve development. The Millennium Declaration and the MDGs aim to secure the environment which can produce freedom and human capabilities. A human being cannot be ‘free’ unless he or she has an enabling environment that provides choices. The MDGs can be conceived of as the core tools needed to make these choices. Moreover, the key economic and social rights, such as the right to food, education and health, are clearly reflected in MDGs 1-7. Human development and the MDGs need to be delivered by environments that provide democracy, the rule of law and human rights as described in the Millennium Declaration. 4.4.1. Democratic Governance for Human Development Whereas the good governance agenda sought to enhance public service delivery and economic management in order to promote private investment and economic growth, human development demands a broader notion of governance. Human development advocates in the 1990s introduced concepts such as ‘humane governance’. In contrast The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) to good governance, the concept of humane governance seeks to make governance more peopleoriented, focused on human rights and global security. This concept aims to tackle ‘inhumane governance’ which is characterized by five persistent global problems: • the failure to meet basic needs; • discrimination against and denial of human rights to women, indigenous people and others; • failures to protect the environment and to safeguard the interests of future generations; • lack of progress in abolishing war; and • failure to achieve the spread of ‘transnational democracy’ (Falk 1999). A similar approach to humane governance was introduced in the 1999 UNDP Human Development Report on South Asia. The report developed a policy agenda for human governance dedicated to securing human development along three lines: first, structures and processes that support the creation of a participatory, responsive and accountable polity (good political governance); second, a competitive, non-discriminatory and equitable economy (good economic governance); and, third, a society in which people are given the ability to self-organize (good civic governance). Building on these ideas of governance, the UNDP Human Development Report 2002 elaborated on the concept of ‘democratic governance’. Like good governance, democratic governance seeks efficient institutions and a predictable economic and political environment necessary for economic growth and the effective functioning of public services. But democratic governance shares with humane governance the objective of securing political, civil, social, economic and cultural rights for all. A democratic governance reform agenda would aim at building institutions and rules that are not only efficient but also fair and are developed through a democratic process in which all people have a real political voice. Consequently, good governance may not be democratic, while democratic governance is always good governance (Fukuda-Parr and Ponzio, undated). For UNDP, democratic governance must be the framework within which countries achieve human development through poverty eradication, environmental protection and regeneration, gender equality and sustainable livelihoods. The Millennium Declaration clearly supports the same framework by emphasizing peace, human rights and good governance as the process for delivering the MDGs. Democratic governance is the most human-development-friendly system of governance and the primary vehicle for the articulation of individuals’ interests and the fulfilment of their deepest aspirations. It is also essential for the nurturing of civil society as an indispensable partner in the management of public affairs. From a human development perspective, good governance means democratic governance. According to the UNDP Human Development Report 2002, democratic governance entails the following: • People’s human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected, allowing them to live with dignity. • People have a say in decisions that affect their lives. • People can hold decision makers accountable. • Inclusive and fair rules, institutions and practices govern social interactions. • Women are equal partners with men in the private and public spheres of life and decision making. • People are free from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, gender or any other attribute. • The needs of future generations are reflected in current policies. • Economic and social policies are responsive to people’s needs and aspirations. • Economic and social policies aim at eradicating poverty and expanding the choices that all people have in their lives. That is why governance for human development places individuals and their choices at the centre of the development process and embraces the principles of empowerment, participation, equity and sustainability. Ownership, decency and Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 55 Democracies also contribute to political stability and thus to human security because open space for political contests allows for more peaceful resolution and management of conflict. accountability are among the most important underlying principles of governance for human development. Democratic governance is valuable in its own right. But it can also advance human development and MDGs for the following reasons. • When more than economic growth is considered, democracy can work to put in a political dynamic to respond to the social and economic priorities of people and contribute to reducing poverty and promoting human development. This is particularly essential for developing countries that are not on target to reach their MDGs. A human development-centred democracy would for example prioritize health and education issues over military spending. • As Amartya Sen has demonstrated, famines do not take place in countries where there is freedom of the press and access to information. Even in times of food shortages, public pressure obliges the government to act when a famine is looming. History provides ample examples of the opposite occurring in non-democratic countries. In general, democratic institutions can check authoritarian leaders from adopting ruinous policies. • Democracies also contribute to political stability and thus to human security because open space for political contests allows for more peaceful resolution and management of conflict. Although riots and demonstrations are more frequent in democracies, they are far less destabilizing there than in dictatorships. Empirical studies also show that democracies do not wage wars with each other. The opposite can be said about authoritarian regimes, which are far more prone to conflict and war, which in turn severely undermines human development and human security. • Democratic institutions and processes that give voice to people, and hold rulers accountable, as well as open competition for power, make politicians more likely to respond to the needs of ordinary people. 56 Authoritarian leaders promise better outcomes and argue that democracy must be sacrificed for economic growth and social progress. But there is no evidence of such a trade-off. Statistical studies find that neither authoritarianism nor democracy is a factor in determining either the rate of economic growth or how it is distributed (UNDP Human Development Report 2002). The lesson from these empirical findings is that, while democracy can contribute to equitable socio-economic progress, it is neither a panacea for eradicating poverty nor a luxury for poor countries. 4.5. The Challenge of Strengthening Democracy in a Fragmented World These findings raise some fundamental questions: where and why do the incentives to respond to people’s needs fail in democracies? Why does democracy not have stronger links with the equitable expansion of social and economic opportunities for the public at large? Why are social injustices widespread even in long-established democracies? The UNDP Human Development Report finds that there are two main reasons why democracy deficits persist: first, corruption and the control by an elite subvert democratic institutions; and, second, the inadequate reach of democratic institutions causes limited participation. Corruption, abuses of power, intimidation by criminal elements—all weaken democratic accountability. Oversight and regulatory agencies may also fail to act when they have been politicized or are under the influence of special interests. Judicial proceedings can be undermined when they are open to bribes, providing little protection to ordinary people, particularly the poor and vulnerable. Women, for instance, may well get little justice from male-dominated courts. The issue of money in politics is especially serious because it can distort democratic institutions at every level. Electoral processes can obviously not operate without financing; but, where money plays a decisive role in politics, it turns unequal economic power into unequal political advantage and undermines the fundamental democratic principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The issue of money in politics is The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) equally contentious in developed and developing countries. What needs to be done to break the vicious cycle of corruption and control by an elite? Strengthening the key institutions of democracies is a necessary first step which represents a tremendous challenge in new democracies. Capacity building and support to parliaments, public administration, electoral bodies, judicial systems, the media and civil society are some of the areas in which UNDP and other development actors work in collaboration with national counterparts. Activities in these areas include, for example, strengthening political parties, which are often far from institutionalized and virtually disappear between elections. Many media bodies are still subject to restrictions or do not have adequate professional capacity. In many new democracies, political reforms have not been consolidated and the executive continues to exercise control over the judiciary and legislature. In this context UNDP and partners work with the government to establish independent oversight bodies for elections or human rights institutions that are charged with investigating human rights violations. Capacity building and the strengthening of the judicial system are also key activities, as justice and the rule of law have been shown not to be accessible for many citizens in developing countries. According to the Human Development Report 2002, only 47 of 81 countries that took steps to democratize in the 1980s and 1990s are considered to have completed these reforms. Strengthening institutions, however, is only part of the solution. Political pressure and change also have to come from outside formal structures, through the emergence of more vibrant democratic politics, led by watchdog media and activist citizen groups. A global trend of the last decade has been the explosion across the world of civil society organizations and civic participation, demanding greater accountability of government and other powerful actors such as private business and multilateral organizations. Civil society organizations can play a critical role in developing the social and political capacities of the poor, increasing their effectiveness in influencing governance institutions and making the latter more responsive to their needs. 4.6. Regional Focus on Human Development and Governance Since the first Human Development Report was launched in 1990, there have been several regional reports which promote regional partnerships for influencing change and addressing region-specific human development approaches to human rights, governance, poverty, education, economic reform, HIV/AIDS and globalization. With regard to democratic governance, the regional reports that have arguably received the greatest attention are the Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) of 2002 and 2003. The AHDR 2002 challenged the Arab world to overcome three cardinal obstacles to human development posed by widening gaps in freedom, women’s empowerment and knowledge across the region. A look at international, regional and local developments affecting Arab countries since the report was issued confirms that those challenges remain critically pertinent and may have become even graver, especially in the area of freedom. Nowhere is this more apparent than the status of education and knowledge in the Arab world at the beginning of the 21st century, and this is the theme of the second report. Despite the presence of significant human capital in the region, the ADHR 2003 concluded that disabling constraints hamper the acquisition, diffusion and production of knowledge in Arab societies. This human capital, under more promising conditions, could offer a substantial base for an Arab knowledge renaissance. The Report affirms that knowledge can help the region to expand the scope of human freedoms, enhance the capacity to guarantee those freedoms through good governance, and achieve the higher moral human goals of justice and human dignity. It also underlines the importance of knowledge to Arab countries as a powerful driver of economic growth through higher productivity. Its closing section puts forward a strategic vision for creating knowledge societies in the Arab world based on five pillars: guaranteeing key freedoms; disseminating quality education; embedding science; shifting towards knowledge Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 57 based production; and developing an enlightened Arab governance’ debate was cast as finding knowledge model. alternatives to the state-dominated The AHDR 2003 economic and social development of makes it clear that, previous decades. in the Arab civilization, the pursuit of knowledge is prompted by religion, culture, history and the human will to achieve success. Only defective social, economic and political structures hinder this quest. Arabs must remove or reform these structures in order to take the place they deserve in the world of knowledge at the beginning of the knowledge millennium. In the 1980s and early 1990s the ‘good UNDP believes that these reports can help spark the necessary debate on how countries and regions should approach democratic governance issues and strengthen human development for all citizens, including women and the poor. 4.7. Democratic Governance: the Road Ahead To achieve the vision and goals of the Millennium Declaration requires democratic governance. There is a need for democratic governance that responds to peoples’ priorities and needs, which amounts to more than people just having the right to vote. It must be about strengthening voice and power through democratic politics that make participation and public accountability cut through elite control of institutions. There is a need for democratic governance that gives priority to poor people’s interests, which is about more than institutions and rules that promote efThe UN system and partner organizations ficiency; it is also can play an important role on the new about fairness and frontiers of governance policy advice and social justice. institutional strengthening, especially in areas that bring political elements into Democratic governance in the fast-changing global community of the 21st century is more than public management within borders. It also concerns operations, rules and practices beyond borders and by actors beyond the state—civil society groups and private businesses. economic and social development. 58 In the 1980s and early 1990s the ‘good governance’ debate was cast as finding alternatives to the state-dominated economic and social development of previous decades. In the present day, good governance is more about improving and reforming the functioning of democratic institutions, including the ‘deepening of democracy’, strengthening accountability and exploring more active and creative roles for non-state actors. According to the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2003: Millennium Development Goals: A Compact among Nations to End Poverty, the development policy approaches of the 1980s and 1990s focused too much on macroeconomic and governance reforms to the detriment of those structural constraints that keep the poorest countries in a ‘poverty trap’. While this is true, sound governance is indispensable if the MDGs are to be achieved. International cooperation in support of democratic governance would need to take on a broader agenda. Beginning in the early 1990s, many development assistance providers began shifting away from traditional public-sector management concerns and modest decentralization programmes to dealing with sensitive governance areas such as human rights, parliamentary support, judicial reform and corruption. Responding to the growth in the number of transitional democracies, the electoral assistance role played by several multilateral and bilateral agencies has served as a key entry point for undertaking a ‘new generation of governance projects’. These recent developments have generated a new kind of demand for research and analysis relating to governance. The recent publications, knowledge tools and other governance activities undertaken by organizations such as UNDP and IDEA are very much evidence of this recent trend. The UN system and partner organizations can play an important role on the new frontiers of governance policy advice and institutional strengthening, especially in areas that bring political elements into economic and social development. Besides institutional constraints on addressing the broader issues of democratization and human rights— such as enhancing the functioning of parliaments, the media, civil society organizations, and state– citizen relations—the approach to governance by The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) UN organizations will no doubt emphasize partnership rather than conditionality (UNDP, Arab Human Development Report 2002, 2003). The importance of partnership is reflected in MDG 8—the anchor without which the first seven goals cannot be attained. The importance of partnership is reflected in MDG 8—the anchor without which the first seven goals cannot be attained. In calling on the international community to promote a global partnership for development, MDG 8 supports strengthening mutual accountability between North and South, with the latter countries improving governance and eliminating corruption in order to address their development needs effectively. On the other hand, developed countries have committed themselves to increasing overseas development assistance, reducing the debt burden of poor countries, and promoting open trading and financial systems likely to benefit the South. 4.8. Conclusion The UN Millennium Declaration of 2000 commits rich and poor countries to advance development and eradicate poverty by promoting human rights, democracy and good governance. By 2015 or earlier developing countries are to have achieved the MDGs which range from halving poverty to arresting the spread of HIV/AIDS. At present rates, however, many developing countries, including the worlds’ poorest, will not achieve the goals. Whether the MDGs will be reached depends in large part on how successful governments, civil society, citizens and international institutions will be in promoting and implementing the concepts of democratic governance. The UNDP believes that political and human development is as important to achieving the MDGs as economic growth. Sustained poverty reduction requires equitable growth, but it also requires that poor people have political power and voice. The best way to achieve that in a manner consistent with the Millennium Declaration objectives and MDGs is by building strong and deep forms of democratic governance at all levels of society. References Falk, Richard, On Humane Governance, quoted in UNDP, South Asia Human Development Report 1999 Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko and Ponzio, Richard, ‘Governance: Past, Present, Future: Setting the Governance Agenda for the Millennium Declaration’ (undated), <http:// www.undp.org/governance/docsaccount/gov-pastpresent-future.pdf> UNDP, Arab Human Development Report 2002: Creating Opportunities for Future Generations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) (2003a) — Arab Human Development Report 2003 (New York: UN Publications, [2003]) (2003b) — Human Development Report 2000: Human Rights and Human Development (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) — Human Development Report 2002: Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) — Human Development Report 2003. Millennium Development Goals: A Compact Among Nations to End Human Poverty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) (2003c) — Making Global Trade Work for People, 2003 (2003d) United Nations, Millennium Declaration, UN document A/RES/55/2, 18 September 2000 Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 59 ‘Living together democratically calls for, above all, attaining a profound and generalized change in individual attitudes to establish a global conscience able to breed true solidarity. We must learn to reconcile the tension between worldwide and local interests, in order to little by little become citizens of the world without forfeiting our respective roots, and to participate actively both in national and community life. Consequently, what we demand and pursue is education for peace: to prevent violence, intolerance, selfishness and ignorance. Education should serve the cause of human dignity through democratic harmony in freedom . . . as well as for modernity and progress in solidarity. In so doing, education can and should contribute decisively to bring peace and sustainable development to the entire world, once and for all.’ Dr Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner, member of the Board of International IDEA and Honorary President of the Club of Rome 60 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 5. The People’s Voice: Trust in Political Institutions Michael Bratton , Yun-han Chu, Marta Lagos , Richard Rose The Global Barometer Surveys Network investigates empirically how democracy is perceived by citizens on different continents. This chapter shows how a comparative approach can help set the democracy debate in a country into motion, and how listening to the vox populi can help achieve local ownership by formulating a political agenda that mirrors the expectations of citizens. If you want to know what is happening in a country, how do you find out? Talking to a cross-section of the people who live there is an obvious way to determine what people are thinking. Public opinion surveys do just that: they collect data about knowledge, values, opinions, attitudes and behaviours and measure the collective views of a representative sample of a defined population. Understanding popular attitudes is especially important in new or unstable democracies, because the authority of ‘governors’—that is, the holders of the chief offices of state, whether elected or not—is not secure and citizens’ readiness to support democratic political institutions is untested. In established democracies government agencies regularly conduct sample surveys of the population to get feedback for shaping public policies; political parties use polls to formulate their voting appeal; and the mass media sponsor public opinion polls to provide instant evaluation of what governors are doing and to conduct hypothetical ‘horse races’ which show who would be the winner if an election were held that day. Academic social scientists have the responsibility to dig deeper in order to find out why government is popular or unpopular. Is unpopularity due to a dislike of a political personality who can be voted out of office at the next election? Is it due to economic failings that may be the result of a world depression rather than a government’s mistakes? Is it due to corruption in government? Or does the unpopularity of a democratically elected government reflect popular dissatisfaction with democracy itself? Opinion polls are an extremely effective tool for comparing and understanding political, economic and social trends. Epictetus, the slave philosopher, addressed the core problem of public opinion: ‘Perceptions are truth because people believe in them’. Jean Jacques Rousseau, the first major philosopher to use the term ‘public opinion’, said ‘whoever makes his business to give laws to a people must know to sway opinions and through them govern the passions of men’. Nonetheless, we need to be aware of the scope and limitations of public opinion survey data. Public opinPublic opinion polls are best at answering ion polls are best questions about what people are doing, at answering queswhat they are thinking and what kind tions about what people are doof government they would like to have. ing, what they are Yet the evidence from opinion polls still thinking and what leaves open for discussion why people kind of governdiffer in their attitudes and what the policy ment they would implications are. like to have. Yet the Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 61 evidence from opinion polls still leaves open for discussion why people differ in their attitudes and what the policy implications are. political concerns are common to citizens in every political system, lots of questions are common in GBS surveys across four continents. The GBS Network is a scholarly collaboration of social scientists that addresses the task of finding out what people are thinking and doing by conducting representative sample surveys in more than 50 societies in transition in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America <http://www.globalbarometer.org>. Its questions focus on fundamental problems of governance rather than the ephemeral concerns of a nightly television show. Independence from government means that the surveys are designed to increase understanding of what citizens see as the faults as well as the strengths of their political institutions. Each of the four GBS partners writes its questionnaire for maximum relevance withAsking citizens what they think is in its continental especially necessary if trust in political context, whether institutions is to be evaluated. Inevitably, it is the legacy of governors want to claim that the institutions communist rule in they direct are trusted by the masses. But Eastern Europe or political elites are not unbiased judges of the political conpublic opinion at the grass roots, and the sequences of povfact that people vote in elections is not erty and illiteracy proof that they trust politicians. in Africa. However, since many Asking citizens what they think is especially necessary if trust in political institutions is to be evaluated. Inevitably, governors want to claim that the institutions they direct are trusted by the masses. But political elites are not unbiased judges of public opinion at the grass roots, and the fact that people vote in elections is not proof that they trust politicians. 5.1. Limited Trust in Political Institutions Trust is of fundamental importance for ‘governance’, the process by which government policies are carried out through the cooperation of citizens with public officials. While implementing popular decisions is easy, leaders need the ‘governance capital’ that trust provides in order to carry out unpopular decisions. If major political institutions are deemed trustworthy, citizens are more likely to cooperate with unpopular decisions necessary for the long-term benefit of a society. If institutions are distrusted, citizens may refuse to cooperate or ignore laws and regulations, and the effectiveness of government is thereby reduced. Table 5.1: New Europe Barometer Surveys, 2004 62 Country Survey dates Belarus Bulgaria Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Russia Slovakia Slovenia Ukraine 16–28 November 2004 18–25 October 2004 29 November–6 December 2004 5–19 November 2004 10–30 November 2004 5 November–22 December 2004 3–19 December 2004 24–30 November 2004 1–10 October 2004 3–23 January 2005 3–10 November 2004 26 November–6 December 2004 Jan.–Feb. 2005 Number of respondents 1,000 1,231 1,071 940 992 956 1,113 943 1,110 2,107 1,036 1,000 2,000 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Table 5.2: Summary of Institutional Trust Army Police A. AFROBAROMETER Mali 79 Tanzania 72 Malawi 72 Mozambique 49 Lesotho 50 Botswana 60 Ghana 54 Uganda 51 Namibia 50 Kenya 58 Zambia 52 Senegal 61 South Africa 32 Cape Verde 35 Nigeria 21 Afro-Barometer (53) Courts Parliament 2 (% trusting ) Party1 Country mean 63 51 64 50 51 57 51 43 48 28 42 45 35 36 11 (45) 50 54 61 59 58 57 45 51 42 37 49 42 39 43 22 (47) 62 69 38 54 49 37 48 48 47 53 40 25 31 22 11 (42) 58 66 45 64 55 43 51 56 59 65 32 26 32 19 16 (46) 62 62 56 55 53 51 50 50 49 48 43 40 34 31 16 (47) B. NEW EUROPE BAROMETER Estonia 57 45 Hungary 39 43 Lithuania 61 33 Romania 60 32 Poland 59 36 Latvia 36 36 Slovakia 48 27 Slovenia 30 33 Czech R 29 28 Bulgaria 38 35 Russia 38 15 New Europe (45) (33) 46 45 26 26 22 35 24 25 26 15 21 (28) 18 23 17 15 8 14 12 19 13 7 11 (14) 7 16 10 9 3 10 10 10 15 6 10 (10) 34 33 30 28 26 26 24 23 22 20 19 (26) C. EAST ASIA BAROMETER PR China 95 Thailand 76 Mongolia 67 Hong Kong 63 Philippines 54 Korea 59 Taiwan 58 Japan 48 East Asia (65) 72 60 47 69 50 51 41 61 (56) 86 54 61 52 44 15 20 13 (43) 94 47 42 22 35 15 16 9 (35) 85 58 53 52 46 38 36 36 (50) 1 2 77 55 48 na 47 50 45 48 (53) Note: trust for the ruling party. Percentage excludes ‘don’t knows’. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 63 Army D. LATINO BAROMETRO Brazil 54 Uruguay 33 Chile 36 Colombia 41 Costa Rica Na Venezuela 34 Honduras 27 Panama Na Mexico 40 El Salvador 25 Paraguay 23 Argentina 27 Peru 26 Nicaragua 22 Bolivia 19 Ecuador 25 Guatemala 11 Latino Barometro (26) 1 2 Police Courts Parliament (% trusting2) 37 50 48 37 36 26 33 35 17 34 24 22 23 26 14 17 16 (29) 42 37 20 19 31 19 19 20 13 17 17 16 12 15 16 8 12 (20) 28 25 23 13 20 18 19 17 21 14 14 14 13 11 13 6 10 (16) Party Country mean 16 17 13 9 10 14 12 15 10 11 11 8 8 7 6 6 8 (11) 35 33 28 24 24 22 22 22 20 20 18 17 16 16 14 12 11 (21) Note: trust for the ruling party. Percentage excludes ‘don’t knows’. Figure 5.1: Trusting and Distrusting Citizens, By Continent New Europe East Asia Distrust 53% Little, no trust 42% Neutral 21% Trust 26% Latin America A lot or some trust 49% Little, no trust 75% Don´t know 9% Africa Little, no trust 51% Don´t know 5% A lot or some trust 20% A lot or some trust 43% Don´t know 6% Source: Global Barometer Surveys <www.globalbarometer.org>, New Europe 2004/05: 11 countries; Latin American 2003: 17 countries; East Asia 2001 – 2003: 8 countries; Africa 2002 – 2003: 16 countries. Average is for 5 institutions per country. 64 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) During their term of office, political leaders often become unpopular because of their own behaviour or because their efforts to deal with such issues as the economy or rising crime are unsuccessful. In a democratic system, a low level of popularity can lead to defeat at a general election, and authoritarian leaders can be deposed abruptly too. When leaders are unpopular, trust in political institutions provides a reservoir of political support. Furthermore, the rejection of an elected incumbent does not automatically lead to rejection of the institutions of democratic governance. Finally, while electoral demands for prosperity cannot guarantee an economic boom, a high level of popular trust can make governance work better by encouraging cooperation between governors and governed. Trust in political institutions is thus particularly appropriate to address through surveys of public opinion. Every GBS includes questions about trust both in key representative institutions (parliament, political parties) and in the key institutions that maintain the state’s authority (the army, the police and the courts). Since interviews are conducted in more than three dozen languages, the exact wording of questions must vary between continents but the meaning is common. For example, the New Europe Barometer asks: ‘To what extent do you trust each of these political institutions to look after your interests?’ and the Latinobarometro asks—‘Per favor, mire esta tarjeta y digame, cuánta confianza tiene en cada uno de estos instituciones?’. The replies show the following. On every continent there are trusting and distrusting citizens. In societies in transformation, political institutions have not (or have not yet) secured the trust of a majority of citizens. The degree of trust and distrust differs across continents. In East Asia almost half the evaluations of five major political institutions register a lot of trust or some trust, and in Africa more than two in five responses are positive. However, the pie charts in figure 5.1 likewise show that on each continent about half withhold trust from political institutions. The situation is less favourable in the post-communist countries of Europe and in Latin America. Clear majorities register distrust in political institutions there. Yet the picture is not totally negative, for at least a fifth of responses in each of these continents express positive trust. There are substantial national differences. Continental averages of trust mask substantial differences between countries within each continent. Global Barometer surveys demonstrate that in every society public opinion is not homogeneous, as political culture theory postulates. The higher the average level of trust, the bigger the distance between countries (see figure 5.2 and, for details, table 5.2). For example, among 15 African countries, trust averages as high as 62 per cent in Tanzania, where a largely rural population has long experienced the stable rule of a dominant party. Yet in Nigeria, where a more urbanized population has endured a turbulent history of repeated military interventions into politics, only 16 per cent say they trust political institutions. The range in Asia is similarly great, because an extraordinary 85 per cent of respondents in the People’s Republic of China report trusting their institutions and in three other Asian countries more than half register trust. However, the average level of trust falls to 36 per cent in Japan and in Taiwan. Across half of Europe the widespread distrust of political institutions remains a legacy of communist rule. In Russia and Bulgaria only one in five on average trusts political institutions. Trust in institutions is highest, but still at a low level, in Estonia and Hungary, where an average of one in three show some trust. In Latin America, too, countries differ only in the degree to which the majority of citizens are distrustful. Guatemala has the distinction of registering the lowest average level of trust, 11 per cent. Brazil has the relatively highest level of trust, 35 per cent. There are big differences between political institutions in the trust they enjoy. In every country on every continent the degree of trust shown specific political institutions varies. These differences are evident within as well as between countries. On each continent the army—the institution with the least claim to be democratic—ranks first or second in terms of trust. This is true not only in postcommunist countries and Asia, where the army has usually remained politically neutral, but also in Africa and Latin America, where military rule has frequently occurred. Even in countries where Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 65 the army has been in power and where the overall level of trust in institutions is low, such as Argentina and Nigeria, the army is nonetheless less distrusted than civilian institutions. yet to establish a reputation of being independent of the governing powers and free of corruption. In African countries the result refers to the level of trust in the ruling party only, not parties in general. Source: Global Barometer Surveys <http://www.globalbarometer.org>. Even though competitive elections are held in GBS countries, representative institutions consistently rank lowest in trust. In nine of the 11 European countries newly covered by the New Europe Barometer, nine-tenths of citizens withhold trust from their political parties. Similarly, only 14 per cent of new Europeans express trust in their popularly elected Parliament. Hungary is the only country in which as many as one-sixth express confidence in both Parliament and the parties. Latin Americans have not been subject to the intense pressure of communist party mobilization, but they too distrust both parties and their parliaments. The ‘highest’ level of trust in representative institutions is found in Brazil and Uruguay, yet only one in four trusts the parliament there and one in six trusts parties. Further evidence exists to support the level of trust in institutions exercising the state’s authority: the police, for example, usually rank second in the degree of trust on each continent, and first in Latin America. Even though communist regimes were often described as police states, because coercion was the prerogative of special interior ministry and ruling party personnel, the police register a relatively highest level of trust. The courts rank relatively high in popular trust too. However, in Europe and Latin America the absolute level of trust is one-third or less, indicating that the courts have Even if they are not chosen in free and fair elections, African leaders often create a party apparatus to mobilize support and channel patronage. Hence, the Afrobarometer asks separately about trust in the ruling party and in the opposition parties. The answers show relatively high trust in the ruling party, averaging 46 per cent, and relatively low trust in opposition parties, averaging 23 per cent. There are wide variations in trust for the ruling party and the parliament. For example, 69 per cent of Tanzanians say they trust Parliament, as against only 11 per cent of Nigerians. Table 5.3: Institutions Least Trusted Everywhere Figures are percentages of the level of trust Afro Army 53 Courts 47 Police 45 Parliament 42 Parties 461 Asia 65 56 53 43 35 Euro 45 28 33 14 10 Latino 26 20 29 16 11 1 Figure 5.2: National Differences in Trust within Each Continent (Mean trust in institutions) 100% P.R. China 85% 80 60 Mali/Tanzania 62% East Asia mean 49% Afro mean 43% 40 20 Japan/Taiwan 36% Brazil 35% Latino mean 20% Nigeria 16% Guatemala 11% Estonia 34% NEB mean 26% Russia 19% 0 Africa East Asia Latin America Source: Global Barometers Surveys: <www.globalbarometer.org> 66 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) New Europe In Asia trust in representative institutions is on average greater, but variations are extreme. Although Japan is the oldest democracy covered by the East Asia Barometer, only 13 per cent trust the Parliament and 9 per cent trust the political parties, which are divided into factions and spend lavishly in competing for votes. In the People’s Republic of China, trust appears abnormally high: 94 per cent say that they trust the party—an answer that may reflect prudence as much as the positive qualities of party officials at the grass roots. people differ in their evaluation of major political institutions. These include social differences between young and old or between men and women; economic differences between those who see themselves or their country as better or worse off financially; differences in political performance, such as the level of corruption in government; and cultural differences distinguishing, for example, Chinese from Japanese or Russians While all societies require individuals to from Hungarians. While all societies require individuals to trust some social relations, the radius of trust differs radically. In an established democracy, the radius can extend from the home to national political institutions. However, the radius is usually much shorter in authoritarian regimes, because people develop strong face-to-face ties in order to insulate themselves from oppressive state institutions. In addition, people need strong face-to-face ties in order to cope with the shocks and stresses of change. This can produce an ‘hour-glass’ society in which ordinary people trust informal face-to-face networks while distrusting political institutions. This is the case in post-communist societies: the New Europe Barometer found that 70 per cent trust most people they know, while only 41 per cent trust most people in their society, and just 26 per cent trust major political institutions. 5.2. What Explains Differences in Trust? trust differs radically. In an established Contrasting theodemocracy, the radius can extend from ries about why peothe home to national political institutions. ple differ in trust However, the radius is usually much have practical implications. Insofar shorter in authoritarian regimes, because as generational difpeople develop strong face-to-face ties ferences between in order to insulate themselves from young and old are oppressive state institutions. In addition, the chief determipeople need strong face-to-face ties in nant, there is little order to cope with the shocks and stresses that today’s govof change. ernors can do to prompt an increase in political trust. Only the gradual turnover of generations could alter the trust in political institutions. But insofar as economic conditions are influential, then governors can try to ‘buy’ trust by promoting a rising standard of living. If political performance influences trust, governors can earn more trust by rooting out corruption in the political institutions for which they are responsible. Just as free elections reveal differences of opinion about who should govern, so in every country surveyed there are major differences between citizens about trust in political institutions. In the average Asian and African country, from two-fifths to one-half of the people interviewed express trust in political institutions, while the other portion do not. Moreover, there are differences of degree in the extent of trust or distrust. The New Europe Barometer finds that one-fifth of post-communist citizens are neutral or sceptical about rather than actively trustful or distrustful of institutions, and those expressing extreme distrust are outnumbered by those who are a little or somewhat distrusting. Before prescribing what needs to be done, we must determine which of the competing explanations of trust is best supported by the systematic statistical analysis of evidence. Many explanations of why individuals in countries as different as Chile, China or the Czech Republic trust or distrust political institutions are stated as universal propositions about the motivation of people everywhere, for example, ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. The multi-continental scope of GBS allows such generalizations to be tested by pooling survey data from all countries on each continent and then identifying influences and trends and comparing the results to ascertain similarities or differences between continents. Many theories are put forward to explain why Since many citizens have limited knowledge of trust some social relations, the radius of Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 67 politics, political trust or distrust is more a reflection of a generalized attitude towards political institutions as a whole than a specific view of the courts or politicians. Individuals Even though the level of trust may differ seem to have a prefrom one institution to another, an African disposition to be who trusts the police is more inclined to more or less trusttrust parliament, and a Latin American who ing of all political distrusts the courts is more inclined to institutions. Even though the level distrust political parties. of trust may differ from one institution to another, an African who trusts the police is more inclined to trust parliament, and a Latin American who distrusts the courts is more inclined to distrust political parties. Therefore, the answers that each individual gives about trust are combined into a single measure of trust, the average of their responses about trust in the army, police, courts, parliament and political parties. Even though explanations of trust have different theoretical rationales, they are not mutually exclusive. For this reason we use multiple regression analysis to determine how strong each social, economic, political and cultural influence is after controlling for the effect of other influences. Given the wealth of social structure, economic and political measures in each GBS questionnaire, initially analysis was undertaken with two dozen potential influences on trust. As is invariably the case, statistical analysis found that many potenWhat a government does has the biggest tial influences were impact on trust. While the point may seem in fact unimporobvious, it is often overlooked. tant. Regressions were therefore rerun taking into account only the substantial influences on several continents. The results of multivariate statistical analysis are robust, explaining the 38 per cent of the variation in the extent to which individuals do or do not trust their political institutions in East Asia, 21 per cent in Africa, 19 per cent in Europe and 12 per cent in Latin America.2 Analysing influences across four continents identifies many common patterns independent of national context. Figure 5.3 shows the seven influences that across continents have the biggest impact on political trust, whether positive or negative. What a government does has the biggest impact on trust. While the point may seem obvious, it is often overlooked. Governors find it easier to blame the world economy or foreigners for citizens distrusting them than to accept that distrust is their own fault. Citizens who see the government treating people like themselves fairly and equally will have more trust in political institutions than those who think it unfair. People can be treated fairly with a professional bureaucracy in an authoritarian regime. However, an authoritarian regime is less likely to be trusted, and citizens who see their government as democratic are likely to trust it. A government that abuses its authority has a big negative impact on trust. Corruption at the national level can lead to a waste of scarce resources and the conspicuous enrichment of a narrow political elite. At the local level, corruption can take the form of officials extracting money from poor people for doing what public officials ought to do anyway. Thus, the trust a government gains by being perceived as democratic will be lost if it is also perceived as corrupt. Economic conditions have a big impact on trust in political institutions. The state of the national economy rather than individual circumstances is particularly important. If individuals view the national economy positively, then on a four-point scale their level of trust rises by more than onethird of a point. Government gets the credit or the blame for the national economy whether or not its actions are a major cause of prosperity. Many factors outside the control of government can produce a sense of economic progress, for example, a boom in oil prices benefits the Russian economy irrespective of what its governors do. Likewise, a fall in world commodity prices hurts African economies. 2 Space does not permit us to include the full statistical results as an appendix. In order to focus on the chief findings and their implications here, we propose to publish the statistical details of the regression analysis at <http://www.globalbarometer.org>. 68 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) In established democracies, political interest and education are expected to encourage positive attitudes towards political involvement. However, in societies in transition this is only half true. Those who are interested in politics and identify with a political party are more likely to trust political institutions. But, insofar as a government is untrustworthy, then the more you understand what is going on politically, the less you will trust it. Thus, in transition societies, educated citizens tend to be less trustful of political institutions. A greater knowledge of how a country ought to be governed makes educated people more aware of the gap between the ideals, including those enshrined in their national constitution, and how governors actually use and abuse political institutions. This implies that political involvement is less likely to reflect the civic virtues of an ideal democracy and more likely to be due to individuals calculating that party ties and being in the know politically are useful ways to advance their material interests and career. An advantage of identifying common patterns of trust is that the regression analysis simultaneously identifies exceptions to the rule, including countries where political conditions cause citizens to differ to a degree from the overall pattern outlined above.3 The citizens of the People’s Republic of China deviate most from other East Asian citizens. Chinese trust in political institutions is two-thirds of a point higher than would be expected, a boost big enough to offset the negative effect arising from the perception of the government as corrupt. One possible explanation for the Chinese distinctiveness is political. The starting point by which Chinese evaluate their government may not be an idealized democracy but the repression and fear of the Cultural Revolution. Today’s government in Beijing is thus gaining political trust by liberalizing institutions in comparison with a totalitarian past. The past has also created a positive economic legacy. Although China is poor in absolute terms, during the last decade the economy has grown at the extraordinary rate of 9 per cent a year. Although the countries included in the Latinobarometro differ in many respects, national context has less impact on trust. Differences in trust among Mexicans and among Argentineans reflect individual circumstances that also affect people throughout the continent. Not only is Nigeria’s government distrusted in the absolute sense, In established democracies, political but its political ininterest and education are expected to stitutions are more encourage positive attitudes towards distrusted than political involvement. would be the case if Nigerians saw their political system as other Africans do. The effect of national context may be due to ethnic minorities Figure 5.3: Positive and Negative Influences on Trust More 1 trusting 0,5 Good economy .35 More democratic .33 Grovt fairer Political interest .33 .10 Party ID 0 .11 - 0,5 -.37 More corrupt Less - 1 trusting -.24 More education Note: Each bar shows the average change in the level of political trust across all continents. For more detail see <www.globalbarometer.org/trust>. 3 National exceptions were identified by iteratively coding several major countries on each continent as dummy variables in order to see whether their national context, net of the other influences identified in figure 3, had a substantial impact on trust. The four countries discussed above are the ones that showed the biggest impact on their continent. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 69 feeling that the federal government does not care about them or suspicions that popularly elected new leaders are just as corrupt as the soldiers they have succeeded. Encouraged by Promoting the rule of law and bureaucratic economic recovfairness is the single biggest step governors ery, Russians show could take to increase trust. The more more positive attiindividuals perceive their government as tudes towards their corrupt and unfair, the less likely they are to conditions but this does not boost potrust its institutions. litical trust. Russians whose attitudes are otherwise the same as those of citizens of Central and Eastern Europe are less trusting. Many of the attitudes that increase trust are cumulative. People who see their government treating people fairly, being democratic and being associated with economic success are likely to be a full point higher in trust in political institutions than citizens who view their country negatively on all three counts. But in some instances the same influences may have the opposite effect. If people view the economy as successful but regard their government as corrupt, then corruption cancels out the gain in trust generated by economic success. 5.3. Implications for Governance The GBS diagnosis of the causes of distrust also highlights how governors could act to increase trust. Since many of the causes of distrust are due to the actions of governors, prescriptions for change are within their responsibility. The priority for increasing trust in political institutions is a change in the behaviour of government officials. Promoting the rule of law and bureaucratic fairness is the single biggest step governors could take to increase trust. The more individuals perceive their government as corrupt and unfair, the less likely they are to trust its institutions. Even though public officials may argue that corrupt practices are traditional, that does not make them any more acceptable to ordinary citizens who are vulnerable to exploitation by unfair officials. Transparency International not only assesses the extent to which national political systems are corrupt; it also 70 prescribes steps that can be taken to reduce corruption <http://www.transparency.org>. In addition to abstaining from corruption, officials in societies in transformation need more incentives and training to be bureaucrats, that is, public officials who exercise their powers impartially and fairly according to the rules. Improving democratic practices will also increase trust. While the great majority of countries covered in GBS surveys hold elections, this is not sufficient to make government trustworthy. Where free elections are held, if political parties are led by cliques that blatantly ignore public opinion, few people will want to identify with a political party. Distrust will also occur wherever an elected government claims legitimacy yet is seen as the lesser evil, and politicians use office to enrich themselves. In new democracies the sine qua non for trustworthy government is that elected representatives should be accountable to the courts. If they are not, laws on campaign finance and civil society generally will not be enforced and representative institutions may be viewed with suspicion. Where government is associated with economic growth, there is more trust in political institutions, because growth implies effective government. In a single term of office the government of a developing country cannot deliver a high standard of living, but it can achieve economic growth. This not only encourages citizens to be more optimistic about the future but also to be more trusting of political institutions here and now. The example of China demonstrates that it is the speed of economic growth rather than the absolute standard of living that promotes greater political trust. Since the way in which individuals evaluate the national economy is more important for trust than the economic circumstances of individual households, this helps the government, since even those who do not benefit directly from growth will still be positively influenced by macroeconomic improvement. Whether an increase in public education has a positive effect on trust depends on government performance. Where political institutions are justifiably distrusted, higher levels of education will go hand in hand with increased distrust. Given The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) the very strong desire of young people in societies in transformation to become more educated, this will produce pressures on politicians to make their institutions more trustworthy or face the consequences of political alienation and an educated demand for structural change in the regime. The bad news for distrusted governors is also the good news for political reformers. Political distrust is not due to shortcomings of individuals, such as a lack of education, or to a national political culture. Rather, high levels of political distrust reflect low levels of political and economic performance by governors. Many of the measures required to increase political trust are within the hands of governors: improving adherence to the rule of law and reducing corruption at all levels; making officials conform to bureaucratic principles of fairness towards citizens; improving the responsiveness of central democratic institutions such as parties and parliament; and promoting economic growth. In short, good government makes for trust and bad government makes for distrust. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide Many of the measures required to increase political trust are within the hands of governors: improving adherence to the rule of law and reducing corruption at all levels; making officials conform to bureaucratic principles of fairness towards citizens; improving the responsiveness of central democratic institutions such as parties and parliament; and promoting economic growth. In short, good government makes for trust and bad government makes for distrust. 71 ‘Gorbachev—Glasnost and Perestroika—presented us with the stellar moment when everything seemed possible. The Cold War was over. The Wall was torn down and democratization took off. The need for help and advice became obvious and with that the creation of ground rules for democracy. Bengt Säve-Söderbergh and Sweden saw the importance of a truly international institute whose sole ambition was to support and promote democracy worldwide . . . That was the beginning of IDEA.’ Thorvald Stoltenberg Former Foreign Minister of Norway and UN Special Representative in the former Yugoslavia. Vice-Chairman of the Board of International IDEA November 1995–June 2001 Chairman of the Board June 2001–June 2003 72 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 6. From ’89 to 9/11: of Turmoil and Hope Konstanty Gebert This chapter invites us to reflect on the hazards and pitfalls that emerging democracies encounter on their way to a state system that represents the will of their people. Gebert describes the changes from authoritarian regime to democracy against the backdrop of the collapse of communism and the growth of liberal democracies in Eastern Europe, mirroring the experiences and illusions of millions of people in the last 15 years. We never really believed we would live to see the day. As the 1980s dragged on, we kept following our underground routines: writing, printing, distributing, organizing. But this was more out of a sense of lack of alternative than hope that we would succeed in tilting the balance. Jaruzelski’s military regime clearly had the upper hand: Russia’s permafrost still extended to the Elbe, and the West was as sympathetic to the socialist regime—and as ineffectual—as ever. People were in and out of jail, queues in front of shops got no shorter, and the lies in the morning paper and on the evening news remained cheerfully brazen. What kept us going was the feeling that freedom is addictive. The sheer pleasure of thinking what you want, writing, printing and distributing it, more than outweighed the risk of spending a few years in jail so long as the regime was not prepared to kill. And clearly it was not: the relatively few deaths during demonstrations or in police cells were seen to be working ‘accidents’ rather than murder. At this rate things could go on indefinitely. We spoke vaguely of our children growing up in a free Poland eventually. The rest of the world was an abstraction. Sure, some of us occasionally could and did travel abroad, meaning to the ‘West’: a trip to Czechoslovakia or Bulgaria did not count, because there we saw the same oppression and lies, only in different wrappings. The West was much too different to be able to relate to our fate and too different for us to be able to understand its problems. I myself was able to spend one summer in France and Italy: yes, capitalism was decaying—but what beautiful decay! In Paris I ran into a group of Argentinean exiles. We traded experiences, realizing with growing amazement the similarities of our predicaments, with one significant exception: their junta was capable of killing more people each month than ours managed in eight years. But beyond that, communication with this group of Argentineans was impossible: for them Moscow was admittedly a flawed ideal, but also a necessary restraint on rapacious American imperialism. Yet for us Ronald Reagan was the first US president in decades who seemed to understand: we rootWhat kept us going was the feeling that ed for him! When freedom is addictive. he called the USSR an ‘evil empire’, we were euphoric. This was, after all, what for years we had been screaming to deaf ears. For the first time we no longer felt alone in a world afflicted with moral indifference bordering on insanity. But, legitimately enough, my Argentinean friends remained supremely unconvinced. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 73 It was not that we were totally oblivious to their fate. When I rammed through an article condemning Pinochet in the underground paper I was editing at the time, one of our best editors resigned in protest. Her father had been murdered by the Russians in Katyn, and anyone fighting the communists had to be her ally. So, when I published another article, this time criticizing the invasion of Grenada, on the ground that it seemed retrospectively to legitimize the invasion of Afghanistan, I should have been forewarned. I expected some backlash—but not that several hunI realized that a system which cannot offer dreds of readers even its beneficiaries something which was would henceforth available to any Italian passer-by simply refuse to buy my cannot last. ‘red rag’ at underground distribution points. I had betrayed them. This split continued into the 1990s, when a former leading underground activist travelled to London to visit Pinochet, who at that time was under house arrest pending examination of a Spanish extradition request. The Polish visitor presented the Chilean general, in the name of the Polish people, with an ornamental pendant engraved with the icon of the Black Madonna. I then debated him furiously on television. ‘I thought that what united us was our opposition to pulling people’s fingernails’, I told him ‘and now I see that what divides us is the little detail of whose fingernails are not to be pulled’. He laughed. And yet, during that otherwise depressing earlier trip abroad—no agreement with the Argentineans, and a constant awareness of the fact that I was seeing what Poland could never be—I had a sudden flash of insight about the inevitability of our victory. It happened, of all places, in a provincial Italian bar. Watching the dazzling array of liquor bottles displayed behind the counter (back at home, my monthly ration card had a coupon that entitled me to buy a bottle of vodka), I suddenly realized that no such bar exists between the Elbe and Vladivostok. Not in the most expensive hotels for foreigners. Not in the secret den of the Central Committee building. Not anywhere: the system could simply not cope with the diversity of possible choices, nor were the potential customers on our side of the fence aware it existed. Sipping 74 an espresso ristretto which I chose after mature deliberation (Warsaw coffee shops offered a spoon of ground coffee in a glass, topped with boiling water—if they had any coffee, that is), I realized that a system which cannot offer even its beneficiaries something which was available to any Italian passer-by simply cannot last. And yet, as a religious friend of mine used to say: ‘I know God will provide. I just hope He provides until He provides’. But provide He did ... and then came 1989. Sitting for two-and-a-half long months at the Round Table negotiations, I saw our communist adversaries give up position after position, one illusion after another, until they came to the stark realization that they were wrong, we were right, they knew it, we knew it and they knew that we knew. Their humiliation was almost embarrassing and satisfied any thirst for revenge by our negotiators. Yet success was not predetermined. The Soviet permafrost was beginning to thaw, to be sure. But we had witnessed such thaws before, and climatic change does not affect tanks. On the other hand, it was not obvious that people would vote for us anyway if given a democratic chance. A few leading personalities aside, all we had was a banner and a legend. The adversary had public faces, organization and money. During a break in the talks, the deputy Minister of the Interior, the secret police’s man at the Round Table, earnestly tried to convince me that we should go for a deal which would ensure that at least 40 of our leaders would get safe seats in Parliament. He was worried that people would not vote for unknown faces: our guys would not get elected—and then everybody will accuse the Reds of forging the results. He left me half-convinced. We voted on what turned out to be ‘Tienanmen Day’, 4 June. On the evening news, images of polling alternated with footage from the Beijing massacre, starkly illustrating what the alternative solution could look like. When the dimensions of the communists’ defeat became clear—the Solidarity list had taken all 35 per cent of the parliamentary seats open for free elections under the Round Table deal, and all but one of the 100 freely elected Senate seats—a group of generals visited Jaruzelski and, pointing to China, tried to convince him the damage could still be undone. To Jaruzelski’s The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) credit, he refused a repeat performance of his coup of 13 December 1981 and stuck to his part of the deal. Two years later, during Yanayev’s farcical attempt to seize power in Moscow, Warsaw TV sought out General Kiszczak, Jaruzelski’s righthand man, to ask for his opinion about events. ‘I would have done things differently’, said Kiszczak, and smiled. He certainly would have. But in July 1989 the National Assembly elected Jaruzelski president, although Solidarity could have blocked that vote. One month later a former political prisoner and Solidarity adviser, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, was appointed prime minister, later unanimously approved by Parliament. The Great Polish Deal was under way. But it was still a Polish deal only. The Soviet empire might, as we now know, have been in its death throes already, but no one then would have taken its imminent death for granted. Its armies were surrounding us from all sides; in fact they had a heavy presence inside the country itself: the Red Army was to leave finally only a couple of years later. All the events now associated in popular imagery with 1989—Berliners tearing down the Wall, the execution of Ceausescu and his wife, Czechs toasting President Havel—were yet to happen. The military coup in Poland in 1981 and Tienanmen weighed heavily on our minds, and we trod cautiously—not on eggshells but on a minefield. Too cautiously, no doubt. Despite later rumours, there never was a secret deal not to prosecute the communists, for, yes, we were determined, once and for all, to break the vicious circle of revenge. There was a purge, especially of the police and the armed forces, but it was far from massive. A few torturers from the Stalinist times were eventually sentenced to jail, but the trials of generals Jaruzelski and Kiszczak, for the massacres of 1970 and 1981, drag on inconclusively to this very day. The Communist Party was not outlawed: it simply disbanded and renamed itself. And as the country went into economic shock therapy (with prices freed and privatization encouraged) former communists often found themselves on top of the heap, with their privileged knowledge and access to the former state economy. Meanwhile former worker activists often found themselves at the bottom. With 15 years’ hindsight, the shock therapy seems largely justified, even if the price paid—Poland’s 20 per cent unemployment rate, currently the highest in the EU—was huge. But all it takes is a visit to our eastern neighbours to see the results of shock therapy’s supposedly soft version—the shock without the therapy. Shop shelves filled up miraculously in just a few months, and bars like the one I had marvelled at in Italy became commonplace. Shops were no longer full of people with money and ration cards but nothing to buy. Instead, more and more they were full of goods—and of potential customers, happy to be rid of ration cards, but without the money to buy what was now freely available. ‘We fought for free Poland, and what we got was free prices’, people would grumble. The fact that Poland’s freedom was in fact a part of that bargain, soon ceased to impress. We, who had been surprised that the West takes its freedom for granted, were now treating ours no differently. But freedom does not necessary mean justice, especially the kind that compensates, even symbolically, for historical wrongs. There had been no taking of the Bastille. While we, who had been at the Round Table, lost our desire for revenge in the face of our adversaries’ humiliation, 40 million Poles were not present in the room with us at the time. There was no symbolic event (as in Berlin, Prague and Bucharest) which would psychologically compensate for Jaruzelski’s military coup on 13 December 1981 and for the terror and despair that date stood for. A protracted negotiated transition could hardly foot the bill, and economic recovery, with all the concomitant injustices, was but a poor substitute. No, Jaruzelski did not deserve Ceausescu’s fate (I doubt if even Ceausescu himself did). And yet it would have done no harm to see, just for a day, the fear in ‘their’ eyes that But freedom does not necessary we had lived with mean justice, especially the kind that for so many years. compensates, even symbolically, for What we saw inhistorical wrongs. stead was the selfsatisfied smugness of former apparatchiks turned successful entrepreneurs. No way could strike leaders or underground printers compete with that. But at least we had political power. One year after Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 75 being elected, Jaruzelski, by then marginalized and irrelevant, resigned, and, riding a populist wave, Lech Walesa, Solidarity leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was elected, effortlessly crushing his former adviser and first non-communist prime minister. This was bad enough news for those of us who had actually voted for the dour-faced, unsexy but responsible Catholic liberal Mazowiecki. But, worse still, Mazowiecki only came third, defeated also by an émigré businessman from Canada whose simple programme—‘I made millions abroad, so I know how to make PoWe assumed that by building an land rich’—was underground civil society, we had more convincing successfully promoted the civic ideal of to voters than Mazresponsible politics. owiecki’s heroic biography and indubitable achievements. But we should have seen the writing on the wall: in the 1989 Senate elections, the only seat not won by Solidarity was taken by a businessman who (no small feat) had even managed to be expelled earlier from the Communist Party for corruption. We assumed that by building an underground civil society and emerging victorious we had successfully promoted the civic ideal of responsible politics. But Mazowiecki was just one of the many players of that story, whereas Walesa was the main actor. And the triumph of consumer capitalism following our victory had triggered aspirations better expressed by crooked businessmen than by paragons of civic virtue. We had only ourselves to blame for our delusions. over, goodness, fairness and justice would somehow automatically prevail. This, of course, is the illusion lyrique typical of any revolutionary movement. The system made the implementation of goodness, fairness and justice impossible—but its removal would only make the implementation, gradual and incremental at best, of those values possible. It would not guarantee their triumph. And though Poles today are split roughly evenly in their assessment of whether the country is better off than it was 15 years ago, not one political party attempts to capitalize on that nostalgia by proposing a return to the past. The present is condemned in the name of the illusions we held, and not in the name of the past itself. So, had it all been worth it? The question had been asked earlier. When on 13 December the military came to arrest, for the umpteenth time, veteran oppositionist Jacek Kuron, they bundled him into an armoured personnel carrier and let him watch, through the gun-slits, the army occupying the city. ‘Well, Mr Kuron? Was it worth it?’ a gloating officer asked. ‘You know what?’, Kuron slowly answered, ‘The first time you guys came to arrest me, all it took was three cops and a car. Now you had to mobilize all this. Was it worth it?’. Clearly, a system that could deal with political opposition only through arrests and eventually martial law was beyond salvation, and we were right to overthrow it. But because the system was evil, corrupt and unjust, the expectation was that once it was Yet even the communist comeback and the free and unfettered transition of power it entailed was a victory of sorts. It proved, once and for all, that the democracy we had built was genuine, to the point of allowing its former enemies to regain power by popular will and of their giving it up peacefully once their popular mandate was withdrawn. By a supreme irony, thanks to us the communists could, at long last, claim the legitimacy they so craved and could never attain under their own regime. This ultimate test was to us proof that Central Europe’s democratic breakthrough of 1989 could be replicated elsewhere: in the new states emerging from the rubble of the USSR, in the Arab world, and ultimately across the globe. Not that we adopted Fukuyama’s naïve prophecy 76 Only defeated revolutions live on in the popular imagination as dreams of what could have been. Successful ones, such as ours, are invariably a disappointment, as what could have been is confronted with what we actually made of it. Social reality has an inertia of its own and, human nature being what it is, the dream must inevitably win and reality must pay the price. Twice already, in the free and fair elections they had spent 40 years suppressing, the former communists have been brought back to power due to the electorate’s sheer and legitimate disgust over the way their opponents had bungled things once in power. The excommunists being no better, they too got dumped once their turn in office was over. This provided us with small satisfaction: we were not supposed to be as bad as them! The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) of the end of history—we had been immersed in history far too long and emerged much too scarred to fall for that one—but we knew that the progress of democracy is feasible, even if it is not immediately and universally attainable. No homo sovieticus, no putative ‘Russian mentality’, and no ‘Asian values’ could ultimately stand in its way. To put it simply: I believe than those who witnessed 1989 have no moral right to be historical pessimists. If we could do it against such odds, then eventually anyone could. Fukuyama’s illusion lyrique was ultimately shattered by 9/11. For us the turning point came much sooner, with the wars in the former Yugoslavia. On the face of it, of all the Central European states that country was best poised to assume the transition to democracy smoothly, and possibly even to salvage something out of the general socialist disaster. Its descent into hell, which I witnessed at first hand, living as my paper’s correspondent in Sarajevo during the siege, showed that optimism would have to wait. The war itself was horrible enough. What made the experience even worse was the unavoidable conclusion that it was a product not of dictatorship but of democracy, even if its roots lay deep in the country’s Titoist legacy of crushing all dissent, which made the negotiated resolution of conflict impossible. There was no denying that Slobodan Milosevic was elected by a popular vote: I was one of the international observers of the elections of 1992, and could find little evidence of fraud. There was also no denying that this popular vote was a fully conscious one: it is hard to forget the thousands of inhabitants of Belgrade cheering their troops leaving to ‘liberate’ Croatian Vukovar. And even if these crowds were again out on the streets a decade later, to topple Milosevic, one cannot reject the gnawing suspicion that their complaint was not that he had started the war, but that he was not able to win it. It seemed, to use a metaphor, that if one wanted to translate from the language of communism to that of democracy, one had to change both the vocabulary and the grammar, and that had proved to be too difficult a task. But if one wanted to translate from the language of communism to that of nationalism, the task was much simpler: all it took was changing the vocabulary. The grammar, as it were, remained the same. The class enemy became the national enemy, the party leader the leader of the nation. His job remained that of crushing the adversary. The quarter of a million dead that followed seemed an inevitable consequence. And we, the just recently expanded community of democratic states, still basking in the glory of a peaceful transition, were accomplices to the crime. We had let genocide happen again in Europe, quibbling over fine points of international law while war raged. As the American journalist David Rieff had put it: ‘After Sarajevo we now know what “Never again!” means. It means that never again shall Germans kill Jews in World War II’. Only that, and nothing more. It was hard to believe. In August 1992, Bosnian Vice-President Ejup Gani explained to me that ‘soon Europe will come to defend Bosnia’. ‘No, I am not a fool’, he responded to my incredulous reaction. ‘It is not naiveté. They will have to help us not out of good will, but out of self-interest. After all, we in Sarajevo are defending the very principles on which Europe is founded. The unacceptability of war. The primacy of citizenship over ethnicity. Rule of law. They cannot abandon us without abandoning these. Therefore, they will come.’ They didn’t, of course. We didn’t. The continent’s democracies, old and new alike, were tested and found lacking. Bosnians of all ethnicities and creeds and their friends worldwide watched with incredulity and despair. For three years, all over the Muslim world, from Khartoum to Riyadh to Kuala Lumpur, people watched on television their co-religionists being butchered live, with Europe doing nothing. To their eyes, this was a test within the test. After all, Europe had been telling Islam that it is certainly welcome as long as it adopts European customs and mores. The Bosnian Muslims did, to a point that their more practising brethren even found unacceptable. They rarely went to mosque. They emancipated their women. They drank wine. They intermarried with nonMuslims. They espoused democratic politics with passion. And genocide was what they got in return. It was impossible for them not to draw conclusions about the value of European promises and guarantees. It was also impossible not to see Afghanistan, Chechnya, Israel/Palestine and Bosnia other than as instances of the same thing. The Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 77 Muslim world did not need to wait for Samuel Huntington to believe that a war of civilizations is under way. All it needed to do was to turn on a television set. None of this should be interpreted to mean that 9/11 was a consequence of the failed policies of the West in respect to the Muslim world. Al Qaida, in all probability, would have struck anyway even had the West not failed: its target is conquering the Muslim world, not influencing Western policy. If anything, Osama Bin Laden It is true, of course, that the treatment meted and his followers out to Iraqi prisoners by their American believe the Bosjailers is no different from standards which nian Muslims got apply in jails all over the Arab world—but their just deserts the West has repeatedly claimed that it precisely for havis to be judged by its own standards, not ing abandoned the strict observance those of undemocratic regimes. From this they consider to perspective, the Americans have failed be binding on all miserably, and indeed strengthened their Muslims worldadversaries’ cause. wide. Indeed, the Islamic Mujaheddin who came to Bosnia to fight against the Serbs were thoroughly disgusted by their local co-religionists, and they in turn were no less afraid of these Islamic fighters than the Serbs themselves. The issue is not so much Al Qaida’s deeds, abhorrent though they are, but the credibility it has gained in many Islamic societies. Without it, Bin Laden would be only a criminal, and not a political problem. His message to the Islamic world is that adopting Western mores and values, from individualism to democracy, not only is wrong from a religious standpoint but, more importantly, does not work. Whatever you do, Bin Laden and his supporters preach, the West will still hate you for being Muslim. You cannot change that, so all that remains is to reciprocate the hatred and be stronger. This is not a question of political choice, they say, but of naked survival. And they have no dearth of evidence to support their case—from the horror of Bosnia to the outrage of the French ban on headscarves. There is precious little evidence pointing the other way. The war on terror, legitimately launched by the USA after 9/11, fails completely to address this 78 issue. It treats terror not as a symptom but as the root cause of evil. Even if it succeeds militarily— which is still very much an open question—by failing to tackle the reasons behind the legitimacy that the use of terror enjoys among wide segments of Muslim public opinion worldwide it will fail to reach its goal. It is not enough to tell armed Islamic fundamentalists ‘You cannot vanquish us’. In order to defeat them, one has to convince their passive supporters that they need not feel defeated; that a victory of the West can be their victory as well, for the values in whose name the struggle is being fought are ones they can identify with too. That it is worthwhile for them to change both the vocabulary and the grammar of their political discourse. For this to be effective, however, talking is not nearly enough, and military action falls completely short of the mark. Yes, it is true that US military intervention in the former Yugoslavia, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo, was undertaken to protect essentially Muslim populations from oppression at the hands of a regime representing a nominally Christian nation. Yet the first intervention came much too late to save a quarter of a million people who were butchered as the world looked on, and raises the issue of why (since it was possible in 1995) it did not happen in 1992, which would have made all the difference. And the Kosovo intervention, though timely, has led to an inconclusive situation in which the Kosovo Albanians are left stranded short of the independence they legitimately believe to be their only guarantee of their safety. The pogrom of Kosovo Serbs at the hands of their erstwhile victims in March 2004, though despicable and deserving even stronger condemnation than that the international community made, was an entirely predictable consequence of this stalemate. With the passage of time, these shortcomings loom larger than the interventions themselves and seriously vitiate, in the eyes of its critics, the argument that the West does, in fact, care about the fate of Muslim populations. Afghanistan could have made a much more convincing counter-argument had not the disastrous war in Iraq almost completely eclipsed the achievements accomplished there. It can be convincingly argued that since the intervention, for all the The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) blunders made in its reconstruction, Afghanistan is in better shape today than at any moment in its recent history. Yet the success of its first-ever relatively decent elections, made possible by the US victory over the Taliban, pales in comparison with the impact of the atrocities committed by these self-same Americans in Abu Ghraib—and especially with the relatively muted official reaction to their uncovering. It is true, of course, that the treatment meted out to Iraqi prisoners by their American jailers is no different from standards which apply in jails all over the Arab world—but the West has repeatedly claimed that it is to be judged by its own standards, not those of undemocratic regimes. From this perspective, the Americans have failed miserably, and indeed strengthened their adversaries’ cause. The more so as this outcome can be interpreted not only as a result of deplorable lapses and abuses committed in the confusion of war, or as being due to lack of a clear vision of priorities in the dizzying worldwide political turmoil of the 1990s. Samuel Huntington’s theory of the ‘clash of civilizations’ seems to have replaced Fukuyama’s promise of an end to history as the theoretical blueprint of Western strategic thinking—the despot following in the footsteps of a failed utopia. It is of no importance that Huntington’s theory does not fit the facts. It fulfils a deeper need, that of providing an underlying narrative which purports to explain the complexities of an unfolding political drama. So what if in the Gulf War a mixed ‘Christian’ and ‘Muslim’ coalition had confronted a putative ‘Muslim’ leader who had for years been butchering other Muslims, be it Iranians or his own unfortunate subjects? Of no importance that in Bosnia most of the ‘Christian’ world sided eventually with Bosnian Muslims against ‘Christian’ Serbia. Inconsequential that, in the second Iraq war, the attack by a ‘Christian’ USA on Muslim Iraq was roundly condemned by most of the ‘Christian’ West. Irrelevant that the ongoing slaughter of Muslim Chechens by ‘Christian’ Russia enjoys the diplomatic support of the very Muslim Arab League, careful not to alienate a long-standing ally. All these developments seem to be of little import when compared with the stark facts of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The ‘Christian’ USA overtly denies Muslims the protection of the laws it invokes for itself. Nor is it alone in this perception of the world. The ‘headscarf ’ crisis in France is legitimately seen as an example of rank discrimination, a refusal of Muslim women’s right to practise their religion as they see fit, and the local enforcement of similar bans in different places in Germany and Italy adds a Europe-wide dimension. The popularity in Europe of Oriana Falacci’s anti-Muslim pamphlets is seen as confirmation of what Europeans really think. For Muslim intellectuals observing the West, Huntington is only the acceptable face of Falacci’s prejudice. And what he says can hardly strike them as novel, for his vision of the world seems to be but the (admittedly intellectually more sophisticated) mirror image of Bin Laden’s preaching. ‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet’: both of them could probably agree with this succinct wording of Rudyard Kipling. If the British author Kipling was the spokesman of an unabashed and unselfconscious Western colonialism, then Bin Laden is simply turning his words around to use them against a West that is no longer colonialist, in the name of an East which overtly proclaims conquest as its goal. For all the mad ravings of Al Qaida’s leader, why should the vision of the flag of Islam floating over Westminster and Capitol Hill be more abhorrent than that of a Christian flag floating over Baghdad and Cairo? After all, the latter actually occurred, whereas the former remains only a delusional dream. Yet there is a fundamental difference. Western colonialism collapsed not only under the thrust of anti-colonial resistance but mainly because the West itself finally understood it to be both nonenforceable and unjust. The war in Algeria, Europe’s bloodiest post-war colonial conflict, ended although the Algerian resistance was mainly militarily crushed but a substantial part of France’s political elites and civil society reached the conclusion that the political price to be paid for that victory was unacceptable. The war spawned two coup attempts in France, one of them successful: French democracy was under threat. It seemed that France could have had either Algeria or democracy, but not both, and successfully gave up the former to save the latter. But Algeria, 50 years later, still remains a violent dictatorship Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 79 undermined by a bloody civil war: the legacy of successful violence haunts the streets of Algiers and Oran to this very day. Similarly, the legacy of the military success of Tito’s partisans was one of the elements that led to the outbreak of the wars of the 1990s: the lesson for many Serb and Croat leaders was that violence pays. And it does, but at a price. A price that much of the West has decided is unacceptable. Polish civil society drew different conclusions from the terrible bloodletting the country went through in World War II. Contrary to its own understanding of history, from the 1950s onwards Poland opposed communist dictatorship by different forms of non-violent civil resistance. Even General Jaruzelski’s 1981 military coup did not goad Poles into taking up arms, though it seems this had been expected, and possibly invited, by the junta. This legacy of non-violence led to the peaceful transition of 1989 which, in turn, paved the way for similar developments elsewhere in Central Europe and built a solid foundation for the democratic regimes which emerged. To be sure, not every nation had the good luck of having a non-violent option available. No one can blame Croats, Bosnians, Kosovars or Chechens, to name only them, for having taken up arms when their very existence was at stake. Conversely, the abandonment of Bosnia by the democratic powers had, as we saw, seriously undermined their credibility; and the horror of Rwanda drove that lesson home beyond the Muslim world. And no one can blame the USA for having responded militarily to 9/11. On the contrary, the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al Qaida not only made the world a safer place but also gave the Afghans their first chance at democratic development. internal violence will remain a feature of its political scene, just as it remains one in Algeria. All this would be serious enough without the added burden of the vision of a clash of civilizations being endorsed by extremists on both sides of the ever more bloody, if invisible, front line which today crosses entire continents. Fifteen years after 1989, four years after 9/11, the world is not a safe place. But, just as the illusions of utopia proved to be groundless, an endorsement of distopia would be unwarranted. As the Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec had said, ‘Man favors good over evil, but the circumstances do not favor him’. Fair enough—and yet these self-same circumstances are man-made. To quote another Polish poet, the Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, ‘The avalanche changes its course depending on the stones it rolls on’. This last quotation was often used in our underground writings in the 1980s, although little did we know how quickly the stones would prevail. Hope does not demand that we be blind to turmoil, for it is turmoil’s antidote. Yet violence has a price tag attached. Success in Afghanistan was one of the precipitating factors of the disastrous decision to invade Iraq, for reasons that were in part trumped up, in part spurious. The overall impact runs directly against the historical optimism generated by 1989: not only has the progress of democracy been seriously impaired by those who would be its standard-bearers, but the USA is already starting to feel the Algerian consequences of the war at home. And it is a safe bet that, whatever happens to Iraq in the future, 80 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Former Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson at the first Democracy Forum held by International IDEA in Stockholm, 12-14 June 1996. Former IDEA Secretary-General, Bengt Säve-Söderbergh and Prof. Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Director of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, at the IDEA Democracy Forum, ”Democracy and Poverty: A Missing Link?”, held in Stockholm, 8 - 9 June 2000. PART II Highlights of IDEA’s Work Looking Back … - This section illustrates IDEA’s own experiences with democracy building by giving key examples of its work over the last decade. First, a general overview describes the breadth of IDEA’s activities and methods on different continents – proof of the ‘diversity in unity’ approach towards democracy building which rests on the principles of tolerance, neutrality and academic excellence. Thereafter, IDEA’s thematic teams provide more detailed accounts of developments in their own areas. ‘My congratulations on the 10th anniversary of IDEA are combined with personal recognition of the valuable work being undertaken in democracy promotion: in Sri Lanka, I was privileged to experience IDEA-moderated workshops bringing together conflicting parties from different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds; and as a Board Member of Transparency International I was impressed by the excellent IDEA study, ’Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns’, giving real help in the development and management of political parties and their key role in democratic systems. Just two highlights from the wide range of democracy-promoting activities initiated by IDEA—activities of great value for the peaceful development of our world. ’ Jermyn P. Brooks, member of the Board of International IDEA and member of the Transparency International Board of Directors ‘Electoral administration had been a slow grower in the administration garden, as practitioners and academics worked at substantially different aspects of common problems. International IDEA’s great, and lasting, achievement was to bring the two unfamiliar tribes together in a series of productive projects and publications which assembled data and formulated norms and then made both widely available. At the same time its parallel commitment to democracy focused more closely on particular countries in the round with some pioneering work and through its summer conferences, which attracted wider audiences. From its inception International IDEA undertook a job no one else was doing across so broad a range of objectives and activities.’ Colin Hughes, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of Queensland, Australia. Member of the Board of International IDEA June 1996–June 1999 84 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 7. Ten Years of Democratic IDEAs Charlotte Hjorth This chapter highlights IDEA’s work and experiences with democracy building. It gives a general overview of the broad range of IDEA’s activities in the different themes and regions that have been the focus of IDEA’s work over the past decade. IDEA was created in 1995 to assist both nations in transition to democracy and established democracies to develop and deepen a lasting culture of democratic institutions and processes. IDEA’s status is unique: it is an independent intergovernmental organization with a global mandate to promote sustainable democracy. Ten years later, IDEA consists of 23 member states from all continents and four associate members representing international non-governmental organizations, working together to promote sustainable democracy. The composition of member states balances democracies from the North and the South, developed and developing countries, which both enables IDEA to operate impartially and contributes to its singular position as a mediator and facilitator in the highly politicized field of democratization. Part II of this anniversary publication shows how these principles relate to IDEA’s achievements in its different programmes and activities. This chapter offers a brief general overview of IDEA’s activities in the last decade which are all addressed in more detail in later chapters. 7.1. Mandate and Objectives These features position IDEA effectively to achieve the objectives set out in its founding statutes, which are to: • promote sustainable democracy worldwide; • consolidate democratic electoral processes; • disseminate the norms associated with multiparty pluralism; • support national capacity to build democratic institutions and processes; • increase the knowledge, transparency and accountability of democratic electoral processes; and • be a bridge-builder between academia and practitioners in the field of democracy by serving as a meeting place. 7.2. IDEA’s Guiding Principles From the first seeds of development and the adoption by the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) of the motion proposing the creation of an international body to further the cause of democracy, IDEA’s status is unique: it is an independent certain basic prinintergovernmental organization with a ciples have underpinned IDEA’s acglobal mandate to promote sustainable tions. democracy. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 85 Underlying IDEA’s work are the principles, first, that first, that democratization is a long-term democratization is process which cannot be achieved a long-term procthrough elections alone; second, that ess which candemocracy must be home-grown in order not be achieved to be sustainable and not something that through elections can be imposed from the outside; and, alone; second, that third, that there is no universal form of democracy must be democracy that is applicable to all nations: home-grown in ordemocracy must be attuned to each society der to be sustainaand its people. However, IDEA believes in ble and not somecertain core democratic values such as thing that can be free and fair elections, the existence and imposed from the unfettered functioning of multiple political outside; and, third, that there is no parties, respect for human rights and the universal form of independence of the media. democracy that is applicable to all nations: democracy must be attuned to each society and its people. However, IDEA believes in certain core democratic values such as free and fair elections, the existence and unfettered functioning of multiple political parties, respect for human rights and the independence of the media. Underlying IDEA’s work are the principles, IDEA believes that the result is most effective when it catalyses debate around the available options and leaves it to local stakeholders to make the critical choices. So, rather than prescribing an externally imposed model of democracy, IDEA’s approach is to present available options and the means to make comparisons. 7.3. Increasing Trust and Efficiency in Electoral Processes In just ten years IDEA has established itself as a leading organization promoting sustainable electoral processes and has gained widespread recognition for its work in practitioner and academic expert circles. From the very beginning IDEA’s mandate included articulating and strengthening the international standards and guidelines for the conduct, administration and observation of elections. While the report of the Swedish Parliament preceding 86 the foundation of IDEA suggested electoral observation as the main focus of the organization, in reality over the last decade IDEA has developed its niche in the broader area of electoral assistance. Over the last ten years IDEA has produced a range of products, tools and resources to support the development of good practice in sustainable electoral processes. These include the codes of conduct for election observation, election administration and political parties, as well as the guidelines for involvement in electoral observation and for the evaluation of free and fair elections. The Election Programme (EP) aims to increase confidence in electoral processes and to facilitate electoral participation. IDEA has been active in numerous fields and published a wealth of information, both in hard copy and electronically. All publications are in English but some have been translated into Spanish, French and other languages relevant to IDEA’s programme activities. 7.3.1. Landmark Publications The IDEA Handbook of Electoral System Design (1997, 2002 and 2005) details what to consider when modifying or designing an electoral system. As an important institutional setting in any democracy, the choice of electoral system can help to further specific outcomes, such as encouraging cooperation in a society torn by conflict and division, or to exacerbate polarization if it leads to a ‘winner-takes-all’ result. Due to high demand, an updated edition of the handbook was published in 2005, and will be promoted in collaboration with partners in different regions. The current versions exist in several languages, as a CD ROM and as a project web site. The new edition is to be translated into French and Spanish; translations into Russian, Arabic, Nepali, Singhalese and Tamil are planned for the future. 7.3.2. Voter Turnout Data Collection Since 1996 IDEA has been collecting data on voter turnout. Three global reports have been published since then, the latest being Voter Turnout Since 1945: A Global Report (2002). An online Voter Turnout Database <http://www.idea.int/vt/ index.cfm> has been updated continuously since The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 1999. This is one of the most comprehensive resources available and includes information on voter turnout and election results for parliamentary and presidential elections since 1945. A recent addition is a regional report on Voter Turnout in Western Europe with a special annex on the 2004 European Parliament elections, entitled Europe Expands, Turnout Falls: The Significance of the 2004 European Parliament Election. 7.4 The ACE Project for Sustainable Elections The 1996 elections in India, the world’s largest democracy, involved the mobilization of 4.5 million polling station workers for the 830,000 polling booths needed to service an electorate of 600 million. Such numbers show the need for efficiency in financing and managing elections. Cost-efficiency is a prerequisite for sustainable democracy, especially in emerging democracies since the international donor community often tends to pull out after the first or second elections. In 1998 the Administration and Cost of Elections (ACE) Project <http://www.aceproject.org> was launched to deal with this aspect of elections. It has produced the first comprehensive encyclopaedia on electoral cost and administration issues, providing best practices and practical options. Founded by IDEA in cooperation with the UN and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), it is available in English, French and Spanish as a CD ROM and as an interactive web site. It is recognized as the world’s top online resource in the field, and is currently being transformed into ‘ACE 2’, adding a more dynamic dimension. The main elements will be knowledge services, including a bulletin board and an online help desk with experts answering questions, knowledge networking with virtual communities for professional peer groups, and capacity development building regional and country partnerships, peer exchanges and courses to increase electoral staff capacity. With 1 million hits per month, of which 10 per cent stay more than five minutes and 10 per cent come back within a month, the ACE web site is a continuing success which clearly responds to a real demand. The Election Process InformaIn just ten years IDEA has established tion Collection itself as a leading organization promoting (EPIC) Project is sustainable electoral processes and has a joint undertakgained widespread recognition for its ing in partnership work in practitioner and academic expert with UNDP and circles. IFES, which complements the ACE Project by collecting comparative data on election systems, laws, management and administration. The online database <http://www.epicproject. org> also contains useful country profiles and is meant to be a resource for election observers, researchers, practitioners and the media. In order to continuously improve the database, regional research partnerships are established with electoral organizations, universities and research centres to help collect data efficiently. Currently, 12 regional hubs cover 64 countries, with research on another 50 countries due to come online in 2005. 7.4.1. BRIDGE Training on Election Management The Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections (BRIDGE) project was initiated in 2002 in partnership with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD) and has developed course curricula for interactive adult training of election officials on election planning and management. It is popular among election managers around the world, and has been translated into Portuguese, French, The Administration and Cost of Elections Georgian, Russian (ACE) Project has produced the first and Spanish. comprehensive encyclopaedia on electoral BRIDGE training cost and administration issues, providing material has been best practices and practical options. used in projects in East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Australia, Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Georgia, to name but a few. The continued development of course material, training of facilitators and further regional promotion are foreseen. The EP engages in numerous other activities, including the provision of technical support, Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 87 advisory missions, and facilitation of networking and that true democracy has been achieved cooperation beonly when all sections of society are tween electoral properly represented. This also means full management bodrepresentation of women, who make up ies (EMBs), as well more than half the world’s population as research on a number of important electoral themes such as the media dimension of elections, and improving access to elections for the disabled, migrant workers and overseas voters. The EP has several forthcoming publications, including the Handbook on Electoral Dispute Resolution, the Handbook on Structuring and Financing of Electoral Management Bodies, and a Handbook on Direct Democracy, all due for publication in 2005– 7. It is also in the process of developing and translating electoral tools for the Arab world. From the outset IDEA has understood there are different types of quota that can be used strategically to increase women’s representation. Since 2002 IDEA has collaborated with Stockholm University on a research project about the use of quotas to increase women’s representation. The information gathered is being incorporated on an ongoing basis into an online database, Electoral Quotas for Women <http://www.quotaproject.org>, which was launched in 2003 and contains information on electoral quotas in more than 90 countries, as well as some 30 case studies. Workshops on regional experiences of the implementation of quotas in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Arab World have been held and reports published, including case studies and information on when, where and how quotas have worked, with the aim of raising awareness on the use of quotas as a tool to increase female representation. 7.5. Women’s Participation 7.5.3. Regional Support 7.5.1. Gender Participation: Women in Parliament From the outset IDEA has understood that true democracy has been achieved only when all sections of society are properly represented. This also means full representation of women, who make up more than half the world’s population (52 per cent). Whether in new or established democracies, this goal has not yet been achieved, as only 16 per cent of the world’s parliamentarians are women. For a decade now, IDEA has sought to provide tools and strategies for those who are dedicated to correcting this political imbalance. A first attempt was made with the publication of Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers (1998). It looks at the obstacles women face in getting into parliament, how to overcome them and how they could make a greater impact once they enter parliament. Written by researchers and parliamentarians, it examines the impact that quotas and electoral systems have on women’s representation. 7.5.2. Gender Quotas One way to tackle the imbalance in women’s representation is by the use of gender quotas. However, 88 IDEA has developed regional partnerships to support the role played by women in society. IDEA also recognizes that structural changes in the electoral system can lead to the increased participation of women in politics. In Peru, for example, IDEA collaborated with the Asociación Civil Transparencia (Transparencia) in convening a multiparty round table to draft an electoral code aimed at introducing reforms for increased women’s participation. One of the recommendations of the round table—a 30 per cent quota provision for women on lists at both general elections and for leading posts within parties—was adopted by the Peruvian Congress in 2003. Regionalized versions of Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers in Bahasa Indonesian, French, Spanish and Russian have been useful in the promotion of a stronger role for women politicians in different societies. In Indonesia, its launch in 1999 started a process that was to end four years later with the inclusion in the general election law of the recommendation that parties field a minimum of 30 per cent women. As a follow-up, the One Hundred Women for Parliament initiative helped identify and train women candidates, and to prevent party leaders from ignoring the The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) recommendation in the 2003 law. With numerous projects running across the globe, IDEA plans to continue in the coming decade to tackle the challenge of women’s under-representation in politics, and to provide them with the tools to leverage their position once in power and to achieve proportional representation at senior decision-making levels within political parties. 7.6. Measuring Democracy: The State of Democracy and Democracy Assessment The issue of how best to analyse democracy and evaluate democracy assistance is attracting increasing attention within the international community. IDEA has contributed to the debate in many ways. While stressing its belief in the local ownership of democracy evaluation, the State of Democracy Project was inaugurated in 2000 with the aim of developing a methodology for assessing the condition of democracy, and progress towards or regression from democratic norms and practices in a given country. institutional reform, political parFrom the outset IDEA has promoted locally ties, regionalism driven and owned dialogues and and local self-govassessment processes as the most ernment. Twelve strategic way of strengthening democracy. discussion papers were published in English and Georgian. The IDEA Democracy Assessment Framework was also adapted for South Asia, where the methodology will be used in a two-and-a-half-year research project led by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. Dialogues on democracy analysis have also been initiated in West Africa. 7.6.2. Evaluation and Future Direction Having taken a lead role in developing the assessment methodology, IDEA has ensured that second generation activities will continue unabated. The Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex has been designated as the appropriate institution to provide a core institutional base to coordinate future work on assessments and enable further developments in this field in partnership with IDEA. 7.6.1. Creating a New Methodology Recognizing the difficulty of establishing a democracy index, IDEA developed an alternative— or even new—method for evaluating democracy based on a theoretical framework that presents general democracy denominators which are not country-specific. Instead of developing numerical indexes which rank countries, it prefers the development of country reports. The methodology was created through a partnership with professors David Beetham and Stuart Weir, building on a methodology developed for the UK Democracy Audit. The methodology seeks qualitative answers to a range of universal questions which are complemented by quantitative data where appropriate. The methodology is outlined in detail in the Handbook on Democracy Assessment (2002) and The State of Democracy: Democracy Assessment in Eight Nations Around the World (2003). In 2003 a democracy assessment exercise in the South Caucasus touched upon critical issues, including 7.7. Dialogue as a Route to Democracy: Capacity Building for Sustainable Democracy From the outset IDEA has promoted locally driven and owned dialogues and assessIDEA operates as an impartial facilitator, ment processes as bringing together national stakeholders the most strategic from all sections of society to produce a way of strength‘democracy road map’ or democracy reform ening democracy. agenda. International experts are often Since 1996, IDEA has called this invited to generate the debate but not to methodology the provide a diagnosis. Capacity Building Programme for Sustainable Democracy (CB). In the first years of IDEA, CB helped to define national democracy agendas and build local capacity to assess the needs for institutional reform. It was complemented by the Rules and Guidelines Programme (R&G) which provided the generic and Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 89 parties involved. In this way it constitutes a moral commitment to working towards the achievement of the goals set out in the text. The report is then presented to the government, civil society, political parties, the supreme court, the parliament, the universities and the international donor community. In Burkina Faso, certain key recommendations of the IDEA democracy assessment report Democracy in Burkina Faso (1998) were adopted by the government in the wake of a political crisis which prompted the establishment of a council of ‘wise men’ to advise on how to improve democracy in that country. The creation of an independent and permanent electoral commission and the adoption of a new electoral code are two notable examples. normative tools to develop guidelines for institutional development and reform. 7.7.1. National Dialogue as a Route to Reforming Democratic Institutions IDEA operates as an impartial facilitator, bringing together national stakeholders from all sections of society to produce a ‘democracy road map’ or democracy reform agenda. International experts are often invited to generate the debate but not to provide a diagnosis. The methodology was first tried on a national scale in Burkina Faso, and then in Guatamala, Nigeria and Indonesia. Similar, though more limited, interventions have been made in Nepal, Bosnia and Romania. The process is initiated with a series of meetings with key stakeholders in the country such as unions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the government and political parties. A working group is created out of these representatives, complemented with international experts and IDEA staff. The group takes responsibility for convening dialogues and discussions; through this process it identifies the opportunities and challenges for consolidating sustainable democracy; and it makes concrete recommendations for advancing the democracy agenda. The process is finalized with the publication of a democracy assessment report, which is endorsed and published in the name of all 90 Both measures reflect IDEA’s emphasis on institutionalizing the democratic process: in this instance they led to the holding of free and fair elections and a more equitable representation of the opposition in parliament. The method developed in the CB programme is very process-oriented, and any specific projects undertaken to further consolidate democracy are informed by the findings of the report. For instance, in Burkina Faso a radio programme was produced as a means of bringing the debate to the greater public. Theatre groups staged plays ahead of the local elections in 2000 about why it is important to vote, how to register to vote and the voting process itself. In the course of the last decade IDEA has concluded similar projects in Nigeria, Guatemala and Indonesia, and new projects have been initiated in Georgia and Peru. The CB programme intended to increase the number of options available to stakeholders in the democratization process and to advise the international community on how it could best support democracy. In the initial years of the programme, experience was gained in the field on identifying critical areas for support and methods developed and tried on targeting interventions that added value. As the programme matured, so too did the programme approach, and country programmes evolved into regional programmes. Although CB is still engaged in field projects, it mainly The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) focuses on promoting successful methods of democracy support and making them available to those working in the field. Two specific examples are the Handbook on Democratic Dialogue which is currently being written with UNDP and the Organization of American States (OAS), and the new programme on constitution-building processes. 7.7.2. The Public Agenda Project The basis of the Public Agenda Project is similar to the democracy assessment process: it aims to hear the voice of the people. This is achieved through a survey. For the first time ever, a regional public opinion survey, conducted by the South-Eastern Europe Democracy Support Network with IDEA support, was carried out in all nine territories of the Balkans. In 10,000 face-to-face interviews, public attitudes towards economic, social and political issues and their trust in public figures and in domestic and international institutions were surveyed. Interestingly, people appeared to be more concerned about domestic issues such as unemployment, corruption and poverty than about the historical ethnic tensions and international geopolitical concerns that seemed to occupy the minds of their leaders. The survey was useful to both local authorities and the international community because it pointed to the policies for which there is genuine popular support. A similar survey is used in IDEA’s dialogue project in Nepal. 7.7.3. Dialogue for Democratic Development within the ACP–EU Partnership In the last two decades the international community has attached increasing importance to democracy and good governance as prerequisites for sustainable development. In 1998 the European Commission asked IDEA to organize a conference around the political dimension of the Lomé Convention, which established the legal framework for relations between the EU and the 71 states of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP), and which was up for renegotiation. The EU wished to build political development and democracy into the new agreement. The Lomé Convention had been negotiated at the level of governments and the European Commission, but the discussions that led to the new agreement also included actors from civil society. The resulting IDEA report, Dialogue for Democratic Development: Policy Options for a Renewed ACP–EU Partnership (1999), identified 80 practical ways of promoting democratic development within the ACP–EU Partnership. Many of these recommendations were included in the final text, the Cotonou Agreement. On partnership and co-operation agreements: ‘The EU and its partners agree that respect for fundamental Human Rights and democratic principles and the rule of law underpins the internal and external policies of the parties and constitutes an ‘essential element’ of partnership agreements’ (Annual Report 2004 on the European Community’s Development Policy and External Assistance, 2004) 7.8. Democracy and Conflict Management As the 20th century drew to a close the majority of conflicts took place within and not between states. At the same time there was a growing realization that democracy if applied can be a crucial means of eliminating conflict and building sustained peace processes. In 1998 IDEA published the handbook Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators. It provides ideas and options for negotiators to draw upon when brokering peace and building or rebuilding democracy in a country emerging from violent conflict. The underlying theme of the handbook is that the democratization process is part of and supports the conflict management process: not only does it provide a means for countries to emerge from a difficult past, but it also provides the structures which, if they operate successfully, are able to As the 20th century drew to a close the manage endemic majority of conflicts took place within and conflict peacefully not between states. At the same time there in the future. was a growing realization that democracy, The handbook has been used in training for diplomats and UN staff and in Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide if applied, can be a crucial means of eliminating conflict and building sustained peace processes. 91 university courses. It has been used by those negotiating peace in conflict situations from Colombia to the Balkans. Numerous seminars and regional workshops have also been held in the Caucasus, Asia–Pacific, Latin America and Africa. A regionalized Spanish version was launched in Colombia in 2001 at a seminar co-sponsored by the Interior Ministry and the UN University for Peace. The book is available also in Bahasa Indonesia and Burmese. An updated edition in English is due to be published in 2005. 7.9. Democracy and Reconciliation In 2003 IDEA published Reconciliation After Violent Conflict: A Handbook, which presents a range of choices for the design and implementation of reconciliation processes as part of conflict management and peace-building. Pragmatic advice and options are provided for policy makers facing the challenge of constructing a shared democratic future for a society divided by a violent past. Demand has been intense, leading to the book and summaries being translated into French and Spanish. The summaries have been translated into Singhalese and Tamil to support the peace initiatives in Sri Lanka. The publication of the handbook has given rise to several important partnerships, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in New York. IDEA has cooperated with these two organizations on seminars and the production of policy papers. Assistance has also been provided to Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the dissemination of its report, as well as a number of activities organized with the TRC in Peru. 7.10. The United Nations and Democracy IDEA has cooperated with the UN on peacekeeping and democracy-building initiatives, notably with evaluations of the UN peace missions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, with final reports being published in 2004. A preparatory mission was sent to East Timor in 2003 to plan the assessment 92 of the impact of the UN Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) and the future role of the UN in promoting democracy in the country. A workshop was held in 2004 with a final report on lessons learned published in 2005. 7.11. Constitutional Reform In 2000 IDEA contributed to the dialogues on constitutional reform in Indonesia by providing information on how to increase public participation and strengthen democratic institutions. In 2003 IDEA provided support to the democratic institutional framework of Indonesia by way of options for the design of the second chamber, or Regional Representative Council (DPD), which was established after a 2001 constitutional amendment. IDEA also demonstrated its credibility and effectiveness through a project to support the DPD, for which the first elections were held in 2004. IDEA also assisted the constitutional reform process in Nigeria. In Nepal, a dialogue on constitutional processes as a way of addressing the ongoing conflicts and political stalemate in that country engaged key stakeholders at the national and regional levels. 7.12. Democracy at the Local and Regional Level In 2000 IDEA launched the handbook Democracy at the Local Level: the International IDEA Handbook on Participation, Representation, Conflict Management and Governance at the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA) conference in Brazil. The book recognizes the importance of participation at the local level as a symptom of functioning democracy. Local democracy can also be an important mechanism for communities to manage conflict situations. Since then, IDEA has worked on local government in several areas: • in 2003 Democracy at the Local Level: A Guide for the South Caucasus (in English and Russian) was the result of a regional dialogue; • a capacity-building project for local governments in Southern and Eastern Africa was developed together with the African Union of The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Local Authorities (AULA) in 2003, with the results of four pilot studies on local democracy assessment released the following year; • a pilot project on democracy in the Arab world was initiated in 2003 which includes a regional dialogue on electoral reform, the political participation of women and strengthening political parties; and • similar dialogues have been carried out in Peru and Nepal. 7.13. Dialogue and Democracy Building IDEA is to publish by the end of 2005 a handbook on democratic dialogue as a method for promoting democracy in cooperation with UNDP and the OAS. This publication draws on numerous case studies where dialogue has been the method of facilitating public participation to analyse and assess democracy, and to develop reform agendas with genuine public ownership. This methodology is crucial to countries emerging from violent conflict as they attempt to build sustainable democracy. 7.14. Research and Dialogue on Political Parties Political parties are vital to the democratic process due to their capacity to represent different interests, present candidates for representative office, and provide citizens with political choices. Wherever political parties are weak, democratic systems are at risk. Yet they face increased distrust, their memberships are dwindling, and they have trouble renewing their intellectual and organizational capacity. IDEA is conducting a global research project on the impact of external regulation and internal management challenges on the effectiveness of political parties. In broad terms, the study is seeking to establish how electoral laws, regulations and financing affect the stability, membership and internal operations of political parties. Much of these data, including information on gender quotas, is assembled on a regional and comparative basis in order to assist with the development of policy options. Information on the internal functioning of parties, management practices, mechanisms to ensure a diversity of candidates and how members are included in party decision-making processes is presented in order to encourage within political parties. Political parties are vital to the democratic process due to their capacity to represent different interests, present candidates for representative office, and provide citizens with political choices. Wherever political parties are weak, democratic systems are at risk. a culture of democracy The programme will be conducted in collaboration with regional partners. It began in Latin America with a focus on the funding of political parties. Central America was added to the programme next and the research broadened to examine the functioning of parties. Later, Western and Southern Africa, South Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and the Andean countries were added; and in 2005–6 East Africa, the Arab region, other parts of South America, East Asia, the Pacific, and lastly Western Europe and North America will be included in the project. The intention is to publish and develop an online database as a key part of the project. This will enable the dissemination of comparative information, best practice and material useful to parties and others via the IDEA web site. Workshops will also be held to generate regional debate on political party reform. 7.14.1. The Role of Money in Politics The sources of funding for political parties influence both public trust and the outcome of elections. They may also affect how many women get put on party tickets. IDEA’s research The sources of funding for political parties produced the handinfluence both public trust and the outcome book on Funding of of elections. They may also affect how Political Parties and many women get put on party tickets. Election Campaigns (2003), which contains one of the largest collections of information on party finance regulations, covering more than 100 countries, and compares the different laws and regulations from a regional perspective. The Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 93 Guatemala. At the end of its bloody civil war in 1996, IDEA was invited by the Guatemalan Government to help assess the challenges to the country’s democratization process. The result was voiced in the report Democracy in Guatemala: A Mission for an Entire People and a national mechanism, the Participation and Democracy Programme (PPD), was created to follow up on the recommendations. Workshops were held in 2003 with political parties on women’s participation (indigenous women in particular), the political participation of women at the local level and internal democracy of political parties. Peru. IDEA has been involved in a range of activities in Peru including the provision of assistance to the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and conducting a democracy assessment in 2003. book analyses enforcement problems and possibilities for the effective public disclosure of party funding. 7.15. Regional Activities 7.15.1. Latin America The 1990s saw a wave of democratization sweep through Latin America. Free and fair elections were held in many countries, and several autocratic regimes were deposed. However, the region still faces four important challenges: • exclusion; • corruption; • poverty; and • inequality. These are all caused by the political system, which is controlled by oligarchies; this in turn affects regional stability. The problem of unresponsive and unrepresentative political systems in the majority of countries in Latin America has led to crises of governability, representation and participation, to institutional weakness, and to low levels of accountability and transparency. Political reforms have not produced economic reform and are therefore perceived to have failed to deliver tangible improvements in people’s everyday lives, leaving them disappointed with the promises of democracy. 94 A regional research study assessing the continent’s evolution in political, electoral, economic and social terms in 20 years of democratization, carried out jointly with the Inter-American Development Bank, resulted in the report Politics Matters: Democratic Reform and the Quest for Development (2002). IDEA has also contributed to the democratization process in Mexico, Paraguay, Colombia, El Salvador and Chile, and plans to continue to work for political reform, participation of women and other under-represented groups as well as the strengthening of political parties. 7.15.2. Africa The African continent is struggling with a number of difficulties including socio-economic problems, HIV/AIDS, widespread corruption and endemic civil wars which hamper its democratic evolution. Nigeria. The election of General Olusegun Obasanjo as president in 1999 opened up a window of opportunity for democracy in Nigeria. IDEA was invited to provide advice on constitutional laws, to assist the independent electoral commission and to assess the transition to democracy. In the course of 2000, IDEA facilitated dialogues between state institutions, the private sector, the military and civil society, which resulted in the assessment report, Democracy in Nigeria: The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Continuing Dialogue(s) for Nation-Building. IDEA later provided technical assistance and a postmortem of the 2003 elections. IDEA has also supported nationally-driven democracy assessments in Burkina Faso, and facilitated expert assessments of democracy in Ghana and Benin. IDEA holds training courses for electoral administrators in Africa, notably in South Africa and Mozambique, using material from the BRIDGE programme. 7.15.3. South and South-East Asia South and South-East Asia pose many challenges for democratic consolidation. The region includes India, the world’s largest democracy, and China, the world’s largest non-democracy. In between are a variety of regimes: monarchies, military dictatorships, oligarchies and democracies. IDEA is conducting a regional assessment on the state of democracy in South Asia, developing a base-line study of democracy in five South Asian countries to assist communities to share information on how to deal with the common challenges of pluralism, diversity and socio-economic inequalities. Indonesia. After the resignation of President Suharto in 1998 and the opening up of political space for democratization, IDEA advised political parties and civil society on the options for and implications of electoral system choices. In 1999 IDEA provided technical assistance in the development of material for civic education and training women to run for public office. The report Democratization in Indonesia: An Assessment (2000) was the result of political dialogue to assess how best to consolidate democracy. IDEA also supported efforts to further the constitutional reform process, strengthen the political participation of women, support the emergence of democratic electoral processes and institutions, and ensure effective regional representation. Burma. The political climate in Burma is such that work for a democratic transition must necessarily take place outside the country, in collaboration with the supporters of democratic opposition in exile. In the 1990 elections, the democratic opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi won a majority of the seats contested, but the army stepped in and the result was ignored. Since 1997 IDEA has been using a multi-pronged strategy vis-à-vis Burma: promoting dialogue through the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) network; mobilizing European Union opinion to support democratic forces; and supporting activities that anticipate the transition to democracy. IDEA also supports the National Reconciliation Programme which engages the ethnic nationalities in dialogue on conflict resolution; assists constitution drafting processes; and works for the increased inclusion of women in the political arena. 7.15.4. The South Caucasus Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, there was enormous potential for democratization, but the transition has been more difficult than expected. Wars within and between the three Caucasian republics, lingering authoritarianism, the transition to primitive capitalism leading to a dramatic drop in living standards and mass emigration are some of the difficulties encountered. There are positive signs, however, with ceasefires holding well and the increasing attention the international community is paying to the region. IDEA supports the home-bred democratic processes in the South Caucasus. A democracy Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 95 democracy by bridging the gap between academia and practitioners in the field. The following chapters outline in more detail IDEA’s achievements in its ten years of existence. Much work remains to be done before democracy can be said to prevail as the state system of choice worldwide. IDEA will continue to innovate in the field of democracy in the coming decade in order to turn the hope for universal democracy into a global reality. assessment and report entitled Georgia: Challenges Towards Sustainable Democracy (2002) were followed by an advocacy phase leading to the development of an agreed agenda for change. BRIDGE training was carried out in Georgia in 2002 and further strengthening of the election management capacity is planned through a tailormade BRIDGE curriculum for the South Caucasus. IDEA will also organize debates around the recently translated handbook Democracy at the Local Level: A Guide for the South Caucasus. 7.16. Outlook One of IDEA’s founding principles is to operate at the very forefront of democracy advocacy, exploring the frontiers of institutional design and reform, and catalysing networks and democratic processes, thereby supporting the development of sustainable democracy through loMuch work remains to be done before cal ownership. Its democracy can be said to prevail as the strengths lie in its state system of choice worldwide. IDEA being a global orwill continue to innovate in the field of ganization, which democracy in the coming decade in order to is also small and turn the hope for universal democracy into a efficient enough global reality. to respond fast as an independent facilitator. As the name implies, IDEA should be an incubator for new ideas on how to promote 96 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘The combination of countries and people gave us credibility. It was not just seen as an institution coming from the North again to teach developing countries how to arrange their affairs. We offered something that incorporated experiences from different continents, not only from Europe or North America. The idea was quite obvious – I was surprised that no one else was doing it. At that time many people were focusing on elections and electoral observation, expecting that democracy would come more or less automatically. But I knew that electoral observation doesn’t create democracy. You have to go further down the road with electoral work, and also with democracy work. You have to combine the two basic principles of preparing handbooks on good practices with a process that is focused on institutions.’ Bengt Säve-Söderbergh, First Secretary General of International IDEA (1995 – 2002) current Ambassador in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sweden ‘The right to vote under universal adult franchise gives to every citizen an opportunity to participate in the democratic process and to select the government. This right must be used not only to operate and defend democracy but also to make it more effective and meaningful. This is a tremendous responsibility.’ Dr Subhash C. Kashyap, member of the Board of International IDEA, former SecretaryGeneral of the Indian Parliament’s Lower House, and former Constitutional Adviser to the Indian Government on PRI Laws 98 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 8. Optimism to Realism: Ten Years of Electoral Development Andrew Ellis This chapter highlights one of democracy building’s most advanced areas—sustainable electoral processes. It attempts to recount the development of the area from the optimistic climate of the mid-1990s to the sober professional approach of the early 21st century, and the progress made on the way. Electoral assistance has been a driver in international cooperation in the field, and has played an important role in the emergence of a defined community of practitioners. When IDEA opened its doors in 1995 there was a great sense of optimism about the future of democratization and the power of elections. Many countries of Central and Eastern Europe had already held two successful elections, and a process of political change and consolidation appeared to be well under way. South Africa’s first universal franchise election in 1994 had been successful. There was a sense that a new wave of democracy was rolling, with elections as defining moments and the perception that an external stamp of approval from international observers was a key part of the process of democratization. Ten years on, a more sober climate prevails. The assumption that established democracies know how to conduct acceptable elections was dealt a heavy blow in Florida in 2000. Groups seeking to retain power in transitional countries have sought to conduct façade elections, acceptable on the surface but maintaining their single set of established power interests within ‘soft authoritarian’ states. From Chechnya onwards, some elections have been held under security conditions that did not come close to enabling the free expression and debate of ideas during an election campaign. Since 9/11, there are many who view democracy as a component part of the ‘war on terror’ and the quest for security. The initial euphoria that took hold in the 1990s as many countries held their first elections has evaporated. The explosion of interest in elections since that time has led to many important and solid gains. Much of the ‘muddling through’ that characterized the early 1990s has gone. Ethical codes and guidelines for elections have emerged; standards have been debated; an enormous pool of knowledge about what makes elections run well has been accumulated and is widely accessible; and electoral administration has grown into a profession of its own, with a distinct identity and skills. Networks of electoral practitioners have formed and peer support mechanisms are emerging. The limited and ad hoc application of electoral experience has been replaced by global sharing of electoral expertise. IDEA has played a major role in helping to catalyse this process of change and developing the tools and materials to support it. 8.1. Electoral Systems, Institutional Frameworks and Direct Democracy The conventional, if somewhat simplistic, wisdom of the 1990s that elections define democracy is now under challenge. There is increasing Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 99 recognition that successful elections are built upon the legitimacy of institutional frameworks, even if this is sometimes obscured by realpolitik. These frameworks have many component parts, including constitutions, political laws (for example those regarding the structure of legislatures The conventional, if somewhat simplistic, or the regulation wisdom of the 1990s that elections define of political parties), democracy is now under challenge. There electoral laws and is increasing recognition that successful electoral system deelections are built upon the legitimacy of sign. The essential institutional frameworks. interconnection of all of these is only now beginning to be understood. For example: electoral systems influence political party systems, which in turn influence future electoral system design. Over the last ten years there has been greater recognition that the design of political systems cannot be imposed, that there are no perfect solutions, and that the involvement of stakeholders through dialogue is critically important if they are to achieve legitimacy. There has been marked, although not universal, progress towards more practical realism in the field of electoral system design. In the past, it was rare for electoral systems to be consciously and deliberately selected. Often the choice was accidental, with the impact of colonialism and the effects of influential neighbours especially strong. In almost all cases, the choice of any particular electoral system had a profound effect on a country’s political life: once chosen, the electoral system usually remained fairly fixed as political interests solidified around and responded to the incentives presented to them. In the last ten years there has been more conscious thought and debate about electoral system design. Whether it is part of a transition, a response to a political crisis within an established democracy, or merely because campaigners for political reform attempt to put electoral system change onto the agenda, the process of change is fundamentally political. Electoral system choice is not a question to which independent technicians can produce a single ‘correct answer’. The consideration of political advantage is an inevitable factor in the process of change. Political actors with vested interests 100 may use their knowledge of electoral systems to promote designs which they think will work to their own partisan advantage. Alternatively, those involved in the process of designing an electoral system may lack basic knowledge and information so that the choices and consequences of different electoral systems are not fully recognized. Realists now recognize that short-term, self-interested, sectoral and even venal considerations will be in play when change is promoted. Democratic reformers need to seek to ensure that long-term and visionary considerations of national interest coexist alongside them. The necessary information and tools are now available to help them. Alongside the choice of systems for elections, the last ten years have seen an increase in the use of referendums and citizens’ initiatives. The number of national referendums worldwide increased throughout the 20th century, and there is no sign that the process will be reversed. Direct democracy instruments are no longer only used in Switzerland, in western states of the USA and on other isolated occasions. Once direct democracy instruments are in place, it is unlikely that they will ever be abolished: the strength of ‘They want to take away your right to decide’ as a campaigning argument is self-evident. Similarly, when a neighbouring country or state has a referendum, there may well be pressure for the practice to spread, as is shown by the number of referendums that have accompanied the process of European integration. Our understanding of the consequences of direct democracy is not very far advanced. Electoral participants and stakeholders cannot wish away the growth of direct democracy. Those who are inherently suspicious of direct democracy confront those who enthusiastically promote it as the solution to a wide range of problems of democracy. A synthesis has not yet emerged about how direct democracy and representative democracy can complement and reinforce each other. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) The International IDEA Handbook of Electoral System Design, first published in 1997, rapidly became a standard text for electoral system designers and students of electoral system design worldwide. The New International IDEA Handbook of Electoral System Design (2005) covers the process of electoral system change and the political and institutional context in which electoral systems work in more depth than the original handbook, describing what factors to consider when modifying or designing an electoral system. Created for policy makers, politicians and election administrators, it is also an excellent tool for commentators, students and interested members of the public. The New Handbook explains in a practical way how countries choose or inherit electoral systems as well as how and why they may be changed or modified. It describes how electoral systems interact with the larger institutional, political and social context and framework in a country, and how they can affect participation, reach out to minorities, assist in alleviating conflicts and help instil faith in a sceptical electorate. The New Handbook also addresses issues of increased concern and debate such as the potential role for the electoral system to increase women’s political participation. Policy makers are provided with options and comparative lessons from around the world. The New Handbook includes: • a precise and simple-to-understand explanation of the electoral systems in use in more than 200 independent states and related territories; • an explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of using different electoral systems; • 18 case studies written by regional experts; • an analysis of measures that can be taken to promote the representation of women and minorities; and • a colour-coded map showing which systems are used where in the world. 8.2. Internationally Run Elections in Post-Conflict Transitions In the last ten years those who have sought to implement democracy, build democratic institutions and hold pluralist elections have often received a level of media coverage and international support. Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor all come to mind, with Afghanistan and Iraq being more recent examples. The attention of the international community has, however, mostly focused on the election itself. As these cases have demonstrated, although factional leaders may emerge from a conflict, there may well be few political incumbents. The institutional interests of other stakeholders are even less obvious. Moreover, not everyone is committed to ending the conflict, and international and external actors may have their own contradictory or controversial agendas. An internationally organized transitional election also Electoral participants and stakeholders involves a major cannot wish away the growth of direct investment of redemocracy. Those who are inherently sources. It is theresuspicious of direct democracy confront fore unlikely to be those who enthusiastically promote it as rejected as ‘unsucthe solution to a wide range of problems of cessful’ by those democracy. involved in the process, short of Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 101 complete breakdown. Those whose commitment to democracy is only limited hold a negotiating card: do it our way— or at least in a way we can live with—or we will restart the conflict. When the choice Donor countries have often responded has to be made, the enthusiastically to forthcoming elections, reality is more likebut treated them as isolated events. ly to be that ‘peace’ Regrettably, this approach has the comes first. Quespotential to yield a variety of undesirable tions of the acceptconsequences. ability of an election then become negotiable. International pressure for ‘positive results’ and the need for continuing donor commitment mean that time will be on the side of those who are against democratic change. In the real world, Afghanistan and Iraq are the most recent examples of political pressure to ‘declare victory’ after the elections without a clear strategy about post-election commitment of the donor community. No consensus exists about the notion of democracy building through international intervention, as there are major unresolved questions which affect the role of elections and the perception of elections. The international community is often not in the position to maintain support for ‘international norms of democracy and governance’ against firm, if sometimes covert, opposition by significant local actors. When agreements are reached, the pressure has often been to hold elections and to establish new institutions as fast as possible—but this may merely serve to entrench the major parties to the conflict, as illustrated by the elections in Bosnia which followed just nine months after the 1995 Dayton Agreement. Is it The planning of future electoral assistance better (if it is realneeds to emphasize the development of istic) to hold local political frameworks and democratic culture. elections first, with the opportunities they may present for cooperation and reconciliation? Election planners are beset by difficulties or agendas that are beyond their control. The reality of post-conflict missions funded by the international 102 community is that resources often arrive late or are insufficient. Worse, elections are sometimes used as an exit strategy by the international community. Experience shows that timing of elections is important, that quick elections are not necessarily beneficial, and that it is always better to back up a commitment to legitimize government through elections with complementary measures to enhance the legitimacy of interim governments. Such elections raise the question of the definition of an ‘acceptable election’. Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, have shown that security conditions that allow for competitive campaigning, or even the proper organization of the election itself, cannot be taken for granted. IDEA’s International Electoral Standards: Guidelines for Reviewing the Legal Framework of Elections go some way towards answering the question. Yet more needs to be done to arrive at a broader consensus on exactly what constitutes ‘minimum standards’ and who decides if they have been met or breached. 8.3. Looking at Elections from a Development Perspective Donor countries have often responded enthusiastically to forthcoming elections, but treated them as isolated events. Regrettably, this approach has the potential to yield a variety of undesirable consequences. For example, only focusing on the election itself unwittingly lends support for replays of the same semi-authoritarian scenario every four or five years. At election time, opposition forces are temporarily allowed enough space to participate but are ultimately bound to fail. Election performance may show technical improvements, but little or no long-term progress towards democratization and pluralism is visible. The planning of future electoral assistance needs to emphasize the development of political frameworks and democratic culture. The priority placed on technical electoral assistance should become part of a comprehensive strategy of capacity building to strengthen democratic processes and institutions. The relationship between the political, foreign policy and development agendas is often sensitive and contradictory and may not necessarily be consistent with the democratization process. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) From the perspective of development, if electoral support is to produce long-term benefits, it needs to include three important elements. First, electoral processes and structures must be robust, credible, cost-efficient and affordable within recipient country budgets. It is surely better for a poor country to develop an imperfect yet ‘good enough’ election mechanism, which can be funded by the national budget with perhaps a small amount of external support at election time, than to develop a system that relies on more technically advanced machinery that is beyond local financial and human resources, and for which long-term support is unlikely to be forthcoming. The UN intervention in Cambodia in 1992–3, for example, cost some 2 billion USD, while with a better managed election the level of donor assistance for the 2003 national elections was only 12 million USD. Second, investment in electoral administration capacity makes more sense than ad hoc contributions to electoral events. Twinning arrangements, cooperation between electoral management bodies (EMBs) and the development of regional and local training networks and curricula in elections management—particularly in local languages—all contribute to longer-term capacity building. The BRIDGE interactive training course, developed together by IDEA, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and the UN Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD), offers this possibility. The ACE Project <http//www.aceproject.org> provides a globally accessible online information resource on election administration. Work has now been completed on 12 different topic areas: electoral systems; legislative framework; electoral management; boundary delimitation; voter education; voter registration; voting operations; parties and candidates; vote counting; media and elections; election integrity; and elections and technology. In 2004, CD ROMs in English, French and Spanish were produced in addition to the hard copy and online information. ACE was originally developed by IDEA in partnership with the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). In 2003 IDEA took over responsibility for the coordination of ACE. In 2004, in preparation for ‘ACE 2’, the project partnership was joined by Elections Canada, the Mexican Elections Commission (Instituto Federal Electoral), UNDP and the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA). ACE 2, in addition to updating the complete content of ACE, is designed to include interactive knowledge services, electoral ‘communities of practice’, and peer group support networks, building on the online electoral encyclopaedia and the collection of sample materials. The EPIC Project <http://www.epicproject. org> brings together comparative information about electoral legislation and regulations in an easily accessible form. Developed and implemented by IDEA in partnership with IFES and UNDP, material for EPIC is assembled through a worldwide network of research partners, each of whom monitors developments in electoral laws in their own region. Third, it is important to support and encourage planning and evaluation cycles. In the ‘time– money–quality’ equation, time is the often the most critical item—as well as the scarcest—for Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 103 an election administration. Politicians will normally take all the time available to resolve political questions, because negotiating concessions made late are almost always more valuable. Although election administrations have adequate time available in theory, in reality they are always operating under time constraints to produce a ‘good enough’ election. Unfortunately many of the international community’s electoral assistance interventions, particularly in the 1990s, have been found The time has come to review the emphasis wanting. Luckily, donors have learnt on election observation now that alternative a number of lesapproaches to transparency and integrity sons if they are to are being developed and now that resources provide effective are limited. assistance: 1. Avoid event-driven approaches and short timelines. Electoral support is often considered only when a polling day is identified, usually 18 months away at most. Political hesitancy can then curtail the key early planning and training stages of election preparation. Subsequent short timetables create great pressure to spend donor funds with little time to implement best practice. 2. Plan for sustainability. The overall aim should be the development of the human and organizational capacity to run effective elections that are both ‘good enough’ and sustainable within the national budget in the longer term. First elections are often visible and well funded, and may even set standards that are too high; second and third elections are equally important in developing long-term electoral capability. Commitments to follow up electoral assistance programmes need political will to outlast polling day. Long-term training and capacity building are the key. 3. Avoid reinventing the wheel. When the only priority is to deliver an election under pressure of time, with all knowledge and direction coming from outside, the result can include loss of institutional memory, lack of continuity, and lack of ownership among local stakeholders in the electoral process. Each election process should build on the previous one, using observation 104 4. 5. 6. 7. reports as an important means of identifying future technical assistance agendas. Respond to the trend towards election manipulation through the media. More and more attempts to manipulate elections through the media are occurring in the weeks before polling day. Electoral assistance planning needs to provide a means of responding to this challenge: the development of globally applicable codes of conduct and guidelines for the role of the media in elections would be valuable. Ensure technical advice is appropriate. External advice flavoured by ‘we know what’s best for you’ is rarely helpful. Ensure procurement is driven by need and not by supply. Vendor-driven agendas and lengthy internal donor procedures can result in expensive options, such as helicopter transport of ballot papers or chartered plane transport of materials sourced out of country, rather than more costeffective local solutions that take time to develop. The quality of electoral assistance should be ensured by value-for-money and accountability procedures, not compromised by them. Assist the whole electoral process. Give more emphasis to the electoral planning process, including the consultation and involvement of stakeholders, the timely drafting and reviewing of laws and regulations, and the development of calendars and operational plans. The critical importance of electoral dispute resolution The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) mechanisms should also not be underestimated. 8. Strengthen electoral processes, don’t just judge them. Funding an observation mission alone can be an easy, visible and low-risk disbursement of funds allocated to an electoral process, especially where there are controversial issues surrounding it. Local stakeholders find it strange that funding is available to judge a process but not to help make it work. 8.4. Has Election Observation Outstayed its Welcome? International observation has been a major focus of activity and expenditure in the last ten years and is often the subject of debate. The time has come to review the emphasis on election observation now that alternative approaches to transparency and integrity are being developed and now that resources are limited. Early election observation concentrated on the act of voting. As the authoritarian elites of 1990 struggled to comprehend what was happening around them and react fast enough, this symbolic presence was often sufficient to prevent manipulation of the vote. At the same time the international seal of approval of observers became an important validation of the process of democracy building. However, large-scale observation raised issues. Allegations of observation as electoral tourism surfaced, sometimes with a real basis in fact. In large countries especially, international observation missions could only be present in a fraction of polling stations, and it was not always clear that observers knew what they were looking at. As a result, observation methodology became stricter and more professional, observer training more rigorous, and observer selection more considered. In this respect both the EU and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) played an important part. Attempts to steal elections by ballot-stuffing became rarer. Those who sought to manipulate elections were learning new ways how to escape control. Attempts to influence election results by the use of selective criteria for registration, or selective application of these criteria, became Most insidious of all was the realization more common beby some governing elites that the entire cause registration electoral process can be allowed to be takes place when technically clean as long as the media there are fewer outenvironment in the months leading up siders around. Atto the election is sufficiently under their tempts to affect recontrol. sults by falsifying the numbers during counting and tabulation of votes also continued. Observer groups responded by trying to ensure that observation took place throughout the electoral process, deploying long-term observers from the beginning of registration through to the swearing into office of those elected. The wider involvement of civil society organizations in domestic observation and the growing competence and professionalism of parallel vote tabulations helped to identify and counter some attempts at fraud. But the resolution of electoral disputes remained a problem because these matters could be delayed until after the international caravan had moved on. Most insidious of all was the realization by some governing elites that the entire electoral process can be allowed to be technically clean as long as the media environment in the months leading up to the election is sufficiently under their control. Opposition voices may even be allowed during that short period when the international spotlight is on. Methodologies for media monitoring have been developed but need to be deployed effectively before polling commences. The question is whether international observation is worth its considerable cost? Is The question is whether international it better to use reobservation is worth its considerable cost? sources to support domestic observer networks, or are these most effective with the support of internationals in situations where the opponents of democracy are really determined? Are audits and peer reviews a better approach to ensuring transparency and integrity in the future? Is it indeed more effective to concentrate resources on the development of fully independent, effective and empowered election administrations? Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 105 8.5. The Independence of Election Administrations This concept was so successful that over half of the world’s EMBs now take this form. The organization of elections was traditionally a specialist backwater in the administrations of established democracies, often located within the government or local government service. Individual committed officials worked in their electoral service for many years often in isolation and with their role unrecognized. The considerable independence of the Election Commission of India was a shining exception too often unknown outside that country. But realism shows that independence on its own is not enough. Formal independence laid down in legislation has been shown to be a chimera when political control of the appointment procedure is used to create a compliant body. The election commission of Ukraine for the late 2004 elections was formally independent, but inspired no confidence: it had to be completely replaced before the rerun of the second round of the presidential election. Independence is beginning to be understood not only as desirable in itself but also as a means of ensuring electoral management that is impartial, accountable and transparent—and perceived to be so. Nonetheless, there are still battles to be fought. Independent EMBs may have to fight with governments or legislatures to ensure that their budgets are sufficient to organize elections effectively, and then to receive the money when it is needed. Elections in ‘new democracies’ in the early 1990s did not initially address the question of how to develop an election administration. The lack of public confidence in ex-communist civil services led to the adoption of election administration practices in which commissions were filled by political party nominees at every level, with good practice being assured by the members mutually policing each other. The optimistic approach to transitions brought huge international presences: for example, there was one international person in every Cambodian commune for nine months in 1992-3, and one international supervisor in every registration station and every polling station in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1996. Eventually it was realized that the level of resources and commitment required to mount such efforts could only ever be one-off, and that such interventions were in any event disproportionate in scale. Gradually, the importance of election administration has dawned. When developing democracies started to plan their second elections and the plethora of international resources was no longer available, the importance of national electoral management as a manifestation of national sovereignty became readily apparent. African and Latin American countries joined India in showing the value of EMBs that are independent Independence is beginning to be understood of the executive not only as desirable in itself but also as a branch, reporting means of ensuring electoral management to the legislature that is impartial, accountable and or even set up as transparent—and perceived to be so. a separate fourth branch of the state. 106 Realism has also, rightly, led electoral management debate into the realms of sustainability, service delivery and efficiency. The budgets for elections are significant in almost all countries and enormous in larger countries. Decisions about equipment are not easy, especially in the information technology field, where new systems become obsolete almost as soon as they are installed and vendors have an interest in promoting their product whether or not it is appropriate. Electoral procurement needs to be transparent and accountable if corruption is to be prevented. But the challenges of delivering cost-effective elections against time deadlines, retaining institutional memory in electoral management, and ensuring transparency and appropriate choice in procurement will not go away. The staffing requirements for EMBs fluctuate enormously: in the lead-up to an election, a huge number of people are needed for a short period, but only a small core staff is needed on a continuous basis. The question of what short-term electoral staff do between elections remains a complex issue worldwide. To illustrate the scale of this problem, a general election in a developing country can be the biggest single organized activity undertaken by anyone at any time. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) IDEA has played a major role in the last ten years in bringing together EMBs from around the world, enabling experience to be shared and both formal and informal networks to be created. IDEA’s Code of Conduct for the Ethical and Professional Administration of Elections has played an important role in this process, and is available in English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. In response to the current challenges faced by electoral management bodies—especially in the context of structuring, financing, and issues of sustainability, accountability and good governance— IDEA is developing tools and resources for use by policy makers and practitioners in election law and administration to improve election management, which will be contained in the forthcoming IDEA Handbook on the Structure, Finance and Evaluation of Electoral Management Bodies. 8.6. Election Administration as a Profession The isolation of election administrators within the civil services of their own countries used to be matched by a lack of contact between election administrators in different countries. The increasing number of countries which hold elections, the growth of international interest in elections, and the explosion in international technical assistance—and indeed observation—have reversed this. Regional electoral organizations and EMB networks increasingly share knowledge, best practice and materials with each other, thereby promoting the implementation of professional standards in electoral management. For example, Southern African EMBs maintain regular contact through the SADC Election Commissioners’ Forum, and those in Latin America through the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organisations (UNIORE). Election administration is now seen as a profession that requires training, specialist knowledge and practical skills. Training material for electoral capacity, such as the BRIDGE curriculum, is important. Courses in electoral management are available in several places such as the University of Calgary, Canada, and Griffith University, Australia. The building of sustainable electoral administrations relies on the development of the capacity of election administration staff being a priority. In response to this need, IDEA, Election administration is now seen as a the AEC and the profession that requires training, specialist UNEAD develknowledge and practical skills. oped a comprehensive training curriculum for electoral administrators called the BRIDGE Electoral Administrators’ Training Curriculum <http://www.bridge-project. org>. The curriculum covers all aspects of elections and uses an activities-based adult learning methodology to build capacity and develop professionalism. The training is global in scope and uses comparative examples to illustrate options and best practice. Throughout the course guiding principles for election administration such as impartiality, accuracy and transparency are incorporated into the course activities. Currently available BRIDGE modules include: • an introduction to electoral administration; • electoral systems; • public outreach; • boundary delimitation; • registration of voters; • election contestants; • preparation for the electoral event; • polling and the count; • electoral observers; and • strategies for sustainability. BRIDGE materials are now available in Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, English, French, Portuguese and Russian, with Spanish planned. The BRIDGE project partners conduct regular international ‘Training of Facilitators’ courses where potential trainers are taught how to deliver the BRIDGE course. To ensure the quality of BRIDGE course delivery, only fully accredited BRIDGE trainers are able to run BRIDGE training courses. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 107 8.7. Gender and Elections The last ten years have seen wider acceptance of the principle that representation of women involves representation by women. Pressure has grown for both electoral and political legislation that encourages the election of women through gender-friendly electoral systems and quotas, and for action within political parties to encourage the nomination of more women candidates. The method of list proportional representation has been shown to encourage more gender representation as women seize the opportunities for ‘balanced tickets’ on party lists. However, merely fixing the basic form of the electoral system is not enough. Systems with a larger number of seats per districts can substantially increase the number of women elected. On the other hand, a strongly fragmented party system, in which small parties elect just one or two male leaders as their representatives, may reduce this number. Legislation or regulations increasingly political legislation that encourages the include provisions election of women through gender-friendly for voluntary or electoral systems and quotas, and for action mandatory quotas. within political parties to encourage the These are more efnomination of more women candidates. fective if the positioning of candidates on the list is taken into account as well as gender balance. The development and operation of quotas have been detailed in the IDEA/University of Stockholm Global Database of Quotas for Women <http://www.quotaproject.org>. Pressure has grown for both electoral and Party procedures for choosing candidates, along with the nomination and election procedures for internal party management bodies, play a major role in determining whether parties are ‘genderfriendly’. Women candidates and potential candidates have created support networks and ‘women only’ training through cross-party caucuses. However, the quest for stability—and sometimes also pressure to take action against corruption—has often led to excessively tight control of elected members by political parties, by strengthening the power of the central party leadership. In such situations elected women have sometime found it 108 difficult to be effective, being expected only to shut up and follow the leadership’s instructions. The importance of gender balance in election administration recruitment, from commissioners to polling station officials, is now better recognized. There is also more awareness of how women may be disadvantaged by literacy or access requirements in registration and polling procedures. Considerable experience and best practice exists in targeted voter education to encourage women’s participation, and it is important to ensure that this is developed to match local conditions. Little attention has yet been given to gender aspects of electoral dispute resolution. How are appointments made to adjudicating bodies? Do the procedures to lodge a claim and have it heard appear more onerous or threatening to women? 8.8. Participation and Turnout: A Threat to Electoral Legitimacy? Participation and voter turnout have been a cause of growing concern in both established and developing democracies. IDEA has played an important role in this debate by assembling and maintaining the worldwide Voter Turnout Database <http:// www.idea.int/vt>. It has taken most of the last ten years to identify and address the fundamental issues affecting turnout and to develop practical advice for those seeking to promote or protect electoral involvement. The International IDEA Voter Turnout Database is continuously updated and is a comprehensive compilation of global voter turnout statistics. The material is a resource for the important debate about voter turnout, participation and effective voter education. Two associated publications, Voter Turnout Since 1945: A Global Report and Voter Turnout in Western Europe, include statistics from parliamentary and presidential elections from nearly every contested national election since the end of World War II. Graphs, charts and tables illustrate trends in voter turnout and enable a comparison between old and new democracies. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) In addition to the statistics, these publications discuss relevant issues such as the development of the franchise and voter registration. Voter registration is a key part of exercising franchise, and is therefore a prerequisite for electoral participation. History shows us that the removal of barriers to registration is essential to the full exercise of a citizen’s political rights. The Global Report also analyses voter registration methods around the world. Much of the existing analysis of participation relates to established democracies. Most people establish their pattern of electoral participation (or otherwise) in the first three elections after they reach voting age and this pattern hardly changes until they die. Any new measures to promote participation are therefore more likely to affect new voters rather than older ones whose voting pattern (or lack thereof ) is set. How people perceive elections is also important. The habit of electoral participation is more likely to be developed when election results are perceived to make a difference to the conduct of government or when elections look likely to be close, either in a national context or in the context of the elector’s own district. This raises further questions. How does socialization affect voting? What determines which young people become habitual voters and which do not? Interestingly, people who vote usually engage in other kinds of citizens’ participation in community activities. It appears paradoxical that in some countries, for example Sweden, interest in politics has increased even though turnout has fallen. The paradox is explained by a big increase in the number of thoughtful independent people, alongside a big increase in the number of uninterested, non-partisan people—both of which groups, one may speculate, are made up of younger rather than older people. The biggest challenge of turnout may be that of engaging the young, urban, unemployed and unqualified ‘underclass’ who may be switched out of society generally. The widespread reduction of the voting age to 18 has reduced turnout in established democracies. Mark Franklin has described this as ‘a well-intentioned decision with the unanticipated consequence of giving rise to a lifetime of disenfranchisement for many of the intended beneficiaries’. Yet reversing this policy and increasing the voting age again is clearly not politically possible. What are the implications for voter education? What knowledge or skills are needed to encourage a new elector to engage with elections? With the proliferation of media channels on which news can be found 24 hours a day and with the almost instant access to information provided through the Internet, is political awareness now acquired in a different manner from the way in which it was acquired in the past? What is the best way nowadays of enabling people to make informed decisions about electoral participation and electoral choice? Do developing democracies face the same or worse problems in the electoral area? Questions about turnout have become clearer in the last ten years. Political and institutional reformers, election administrators and civic educators now have some understanding about the effects of their choices on participation and turnout. Yet the implications of their decisions may not become apparent for years and could then take decades to undo. 8.9. The Next Ten Years When the development of elections in the last ten years is looked at as a whole, it is possible to draw much encouragement from it. How to hold an Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 109 acceptable election is now widely understood, although the achievement of higher electoral standards and sustainable elections needs more work in some countries. Such cases would benefit from the knowledge sharing and assistance that comes from electoral management networks and regional peer support. The challenge for election administration now focuses on issues of credibility, transparency, integrity, protecting electoral processes from partisan pressure, and on how technically efficient election administrations relate to other interested players in the electoral process. In the wider political context, much more needs to be known about different approaches to institution building. The new security agenda has placed further political difficulties in the way of promoters of pluralist, acceptable, professional and sustainable elections. In many countries there are people who will continue to try to subvert elections to outmanoeuvre political structures which encourage power sharing and pluralism, and to manipulate independent and professional electoral management processes. The potential for technology to enable people to express their opinions directly on individual issues will add a new dimension to the debate and create tension between representative democracy and direct democracy. Electoral and institutional reform has moved forward, but the agenda for future electoral and institutional reformers remains as full as it was ten years ago. 110 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘In the mid-1990s there was not much work done concerning elections and democracy. We saw an opportunity to do something in this area and there was great enthusiasm about founding International IDEA. The Institute was one of the first institutions to discuss women in politics. I believe that the report ’Women in Parliament’ was an eye-opener for a lot of people, and it started processes in many countries. I, for example, gave this book to the female foreign ministers when we met in New York during the UN General Assembly 1997. Hostile opinions about political parties are often expressed. But I think people understand that parties are a decisive component of democracy. We need them as a channel for our views, the primary stream for influence. Efforts must be made to renew and strengthen political parties, in old as well as in new democracies.’ Lena Hjelm-Wallén, Chairperson of the Board of International IDEA, former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, and former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden ‘IDEA’s commitment to providing comparative information on how to advance gender and democracy issues in general, and how to promote the participation and representation of women in political life in particular, has been valuable to South Africa as a young democracy and has largely influenced our policies. Belonging to an international Institute such as IDEA – which does not draw conclusions about the connection between types of quota provisions and the representation of women globally, but does provides quantitative information about quota types and rules – has enabled our nation to implement the quota system in an informed way. While not legally defined, South Africa’s quota system has stood women a good chance of getting elected and winning a higher percentage of representation in parliament.’ Dr Brigalia H. Bam, member of the Board of International IDEA, Chairperson of South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission and former General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches 112 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 9. Ten Years of Progress: Enhancing Women’s Political Participation Julie Ballington* This chapter shows that ten years of efforts to improve gender participation are slowly starting to pay off, although much remains to be done. The year in which IDEA was born was also the year the world’s governments recognized that, despite the increased and rapid transition to democracy in many regions, ‘the popular participation of women in key decision making as full and equal partners with men, particularly in politics, has not yet been achieved’ (United Nations 1995). From the very beginning, IDEA understood that women’s participation in politics was, and remains, central to democratic governance. IDEA also recognized that if the world’s new and emerging democracies were to be truly democratic and benefit from their previous struggles, half of the world’s population could not be excluded. It also affirmed that older, established democracies were failing in their commitments to include women in public life. For the last ten years, IDEA’s Women in Politics programme has sought to shore up different methods and models for enhancing women’s political participation. By bridging the gap between the academics and practitioners, IDEA aimed to provide relevant policy options and From the very beginning, IDEA understood data to those workthat women’s participation in politics ing to find practicawas, and remains, central to democratic ble solutions to ungovernance. der-representation of women. While taking into account a global perspective, it has tried to ensure that materials generated also reflect an awareness of and comparison between national, regional and local contexts. This chapter traces IDEA’s efforts to enhance women’s political participation over the last decade. 9.1. National Politics: Broadening the Scope of Participation The last two decades have witnessed a widespread trend towards democratization in most parts of the world, revitalizing the debate on participatory democratic governance. Overall the last decade has seen modest progress with regard to women’s presence in national parliaments. While in 1995 women accounted for 11.3 per cent of members of parliament, this figure has increased to 15.6 per *This chapter was written with contributions from Francesca Binda (Senior Advisor, Political Parties Programme), Kristen Sample (Andean Regional Director), Sakuntala Kadirgamar-Rajasingham (Head of South Asia Programme), Yee Yin Yap (Assistant to the Director of Operations) and Leena Rikkilä (Programme Manager, Asia) from IDEA, and Azza Karam, former Senior Programme Officer at IDEA between 1996-1998. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 113 ‘insufficient mechanisms at all levels to promote the advancement of women’ as two areas of significant concern where action was critical for the advancement of women. This was further expanded to encompass women’s participation in post-conflict state building, which finds expression in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, passed in October 2000. In the debate introducing Resolution 1325 in 2000, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated that ‘peace is inextricably linked to equality between women and men . . . maintaining and promoting peace and security requires equal participation in decision-making’ (Whittington 2004). cent in 2005 (IDEA 2005). More than 30 women have served as heads of government and/or state since 1995, and in 2005, 19 women preside over houses of parliament. Yet, while more women now hold elective office than ever before, The slowly changing face of parliamentary significant chalrepresentation to include women was lenges to women’s political participanot an inevitable consequence of the tion remain. broadening of the political space in democratization processes. Rather, it is the The equal participation of women engineering, political party commitment and men in puband greater recognition by the international lic life is one of community for gender equality. the cornerstones of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979, in force since 1981. Today, more than 20 years since the signing of the Convention, 179 countries are party to it and bound to take measures to promote women’s participation in decision-making and leadership positions. result of sustained mobilization, institutional In 1995, the UN Fourth World Conference on Women held in China generated renewed pressure for the implementation of CEDAW provisions: the Beijing Platform for Action identified ‘inequality between men and women in the sharing of power and decision-making at all levels’ and 114 The slowly changing face of parliamentary representation to include women was not an inevitable consequence of the broadening of the political space in democratization processes. Rather, it is the result of sustained mobilization, institutional engineering, political party commitment and greater recognition by the international community for gender equality. This international discourse has been the foundation of concerted efforts to support women’s full political participation in the last ten years. Women’s activism and mobilization at the country, regional and international level has been pivotal to keeping gender equality firmly rooted on the international agenda. Important progress has been made in some regions, notably the Nordic countries, where women’s representation in parliament averages 40 per cent. The percentage of parliaments that have reached the Beijing target of at least 30 per cent women in parliament has increased threefold in the last ten years, to 6 per cent (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2005). Yet in many parts of the world real gains in women accessing legislatures have not occurred. Women have become impatient and are demanding changes at a much greater pace. This chapter provides an overview of IDEA’s work in identifying the key factors responsible for the gradual increase in women’s representation, including the effect of institutional frameworks, political parties and the implementation of special measures like quotas. In seeking to bridge the divide between academia and practitioners, IDEA provided tools and strategies for those men and The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) women who are committed to correcting the imbalance in politics. For the last ten years IDEA has asked: ‘What are the best strategies to increase the political representation of women? Which strategies work, and in which structural and political contexts?’. IDEA always strives to identify and deal with different national realities. In the area of women in politics, these realities reveal the various structural or attitudinal conditions that either favour or hinder the participation of women in public life. 9.2. Key Themes of IDEA’s Work on Women in Politics Key themes in the area of women’s political participation have included: • overcoming the challenges of being elected to parliaments; • the effect of socio-economic and cultural biases; • the central role that political parties and electoral systems play; and • safeguarding and increasing women’s access to decision-making bodies through the use of special measures. Various reform options and information have been made available in reports and handbooks on these issues, as well as through the production of 100 country and regional case studies including 85 quota case studies. IDEA is also mindful that increasing numerical representation is just the first step in the process of facilitating changes in gender power relations, as numbers need to be complemented by women politicians using their leverage to address issues of women’s inequality in society at large. 9.2.1. Women in Parliament: Challenges and Opportunities IDEA produced its first comprehensive handbook on women’s access to political decision making, Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers, in 1998 (revised in 2005). The handbook is a practical tool for overcoming the obstacles women encounter throughout the parliamentary electoral process, and provides a number of options on how to bring about constructive change and influence in politics. In the Preface, Frene Ginwala explains the essence of the handbook: ‘The representation of women and the inclusion of their perspective and experience in decision making will inevitably lead to solutions that are more viable and satisfy a broader range of society’ (Ginwala 1998). Regionalizing Outreach Responding to ongoing requests for the translation of the Women in Parliament handbook into different languages, International IDEA has produced the following regional versions: • • • • • French 2002 Indonesian 2002 Spanish 2002 Russian (abridged) 2003 English (revised) 2005 [Includes 25 country case studies from all regions of the world] The original idea behind Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers was that women in public life require usable information on how to effect political change in decision-making bodies. There is an emphasis on the entire process of participation— from the very beginning to the end—as well as the means of making an impact. The handbook editor, Azza Karam, explains that ‘it is clear that the more active and engaged women are in politics, the more there is a need for a culling and systematization of their experiences in such a way as to elaborate how it is that they make it to these bodies and what they can do once in them’. With Women in Parliament, the provision of realistic tools and strategies for practitioners seeking to increase women’s participation in political institutions is central. IDEA frames these barriers as falling into two main categories: attitudinal and socio-economic factors, and poFor the last ten years IDEA has asked: litical and institu‘What are the best strategies to increase tional factors. Althe political representation of women? though the socioWhich strategies work, and in which economic and ideological factors structural and political contexts?’ cannot be ignored, Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 115 much emphasis has been placed on the political and institutional factors that influence the levels of representation of women, and these can, and very often do, change over a short period of time. 9.2.2. Political Parties and Institutional Rules Matter Women in Parliament clearly highlights the effect that institutions have on women’s access to parliament. In his chapter in the handbook, Richard Matland illustrates the consequences of different electoral systems. While they alone do not determine the level of representation of women, electoral systems are important because they can be, and regularly are, changed. Matland also highlights the impact of political parties: although in some contexts independent candidates are elected (typically running on issue-specific or particular ethnic tickets), political parties assume the primary responsibility for candidate nomination. Parties are entrusted with perhaps the most strategic responsibility in democracy—to prepare and select candidates for election and to support them in positions of leadership and governance. Proportional representation (PR) systems are viewed as the most ‘women-friendly’. It is no coincidence that 14 of the 15 countries with the highest representation of women in the world have PR electoral systems and average representation 34.7 per cent women in their parliaments. At the other end of the spectrum, the 15 Proportional representation (PR) systems countries with the are viewed as the most ‘women-friendly’. It lowest representais no coincidence that 14 of the 15 countries tion of women use with the highest representation of women plurality or majorin the world have PR electoral systems and ity systems, averaverage representation 34.7 per cent women aging one per cent in their parliaments. women in their legislatures.1 As Matland explains in Women in Parliament, there are several reasons why electoral systems matter. First, PR systems have higher district magnitudes which typically produce higher party magnitudes (the district magnitude is the number of seats per district and the party magnitude is the number of seats a party can win in a district). The magnitudes are important because they affect party strategy when choosing candidates. If the district magnitude is one, as it is in majoritarian systems, the party can only win one seat in a district and cannot ‘balance the party ticket’. Female candidates must compete directly with men, and winning a party nomination is heavily influenced by money in politics, name recognition and the advantage enjoyed by incumbents. When district magnitude increases, the chances that a party will win several seats increases and party leaders may be more conscious of balancing the party’s ticket. Party gatekeepers may also consider balancing the demands of different factions in the party. If a women’s branch of the party exists, women may well demand to be allotted winnable positions. Second, in PR systems, a party receives seats in direct proportion to its overall share of the national vote, with seats being filled from lists of candidates submitted by political parties. Most PR systems use closed lists where the political party determines the ranking of candidates. This system can be beneficial for women if a sufficient number are placed in winnable positions on party lists. However, the absence of party support for women candidates remains one of the greatest obstacles for women, as Nestorine Compaoré explains in her case study on Burkina Faso: ‘While the proportional list system facilitates the promotion of women, its effects are not really felt unless the political parties have made the decision to promote women and place the women on their lists in positions such that they have a chance of getting elected. Few parties nominate women, and they are generally placed at the bottom of the lists’. Woman-friendly institutions, including PR systems, high district magnitudes and closed party lists, provide the opportunity for, but do not guarantee, high levels of female representation. Other factors influencing the election of women to This is not to imply that only electoral systems matter, as representation will be affected by other factors, inter alia the level of democratic development. Data are taken from Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Women in National Parliament’, February 2005, available at <http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm>. 1 116 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) parliament include the cultural standing of women, the organization of women in civil society and funding. However, the effects of electoral systems on women’s representation are significant and directly affect political parties’ nomination processes: where parties are willing to nominate women candidates in sufficient number and place them in electable positions, there is a higher chance that political parties will send a representative group of members to parliament. 9.2.3. Beyond Numbers It is relatively easy to enumerate the various challenges regarding women’s political participation, but it is much harder to appreciate the strengths and positive differences women have made in their chosen professions. The second theme of the handbook shifts the focus to how women can move ‘beyond numbers’ in parliament to make an impact on the political process. Azza Karam and Joni Lovenduski outline how women can reform the inherent ‘institutional masculinity’ which characterizes most legislatures by implementing a ‘rules strategy’. They identify three key areas: learning the rules, using the rules and changing the rules. By using the rules strategies, the authors outline how change can be brought about in four key areas. (a) institutional and procedural change, to alter the institution to become more ‘womanfriendly’—a matter not simply of including more women but of increasing gender awareness; (b) representational change, by undertaking actions to ensure women’s continued access to the legislature, placement in important parliamentary positions and presence in government; (c) impact and influence on the ‘feminization’ of legislation and policy, ensuring that women’s issues are put on the parliamentary agenda; and (d) discourse change, involving change inside and outside parliament: efforts should be made to alter parliamentary language to integrate women’s perspectives, while making use of a parliamentary platform to alter public attitudes. Partners in the dissemination of IDEA’s Women in Parliament handbook include: • Centre for Democratic Governance (CDG), Burkina Faso • Centre for Legislative Development (CLD), Philippines • Centre for Electoral Reform (CETRO), Indonesia • EISA, Promoting Free and Credible Elections in Africa • Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) • Mujeres Democrata-Cristianas de America (MUDCA), Venezuela • National Democratic Institute (NDI), selected country offices • Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) • Organisation of America States (OAS) • Participation and Democracy Programme (PPD), Guatemala • SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF) • Second Vice-Presidency of the Congress of the Republic of Peru • Social and Political Institute for Women (ISPM) of Argentina • Transparencia, Peru • UNDP, selected country offices • UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) • Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan, YJP, Indonesia In addition to the rules strategy, there are mechanisms to help women maximize their power and effectiveness. They include working in partnership with men, enlarging the pool of eligible and aspiring women politicians and taking positive action to increase women’s access to the legislature. Within the legislature, women’s caucuses and networks and other gender machinery are vital to ensuring that women’s interests remain on the parliamentary agenda, and that gender equality is mainstreamed within different political, social and economic concerns. Karam notes that far from creating a book to be added to the dusty bookshelves of many a library, IDEA designed the Women in Parliament Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 117 handbook to be used as an advocacy tool by its tarthe dusty bookshelves of many a library, get audience. The IDEA designed the Women in Parliament book does more handbook to be used as an advocacy tool by than review the litits target audience. erature on women’s participation: it is enormously practical, being based on the experience of the authors, a number of whom are politicians themselves. IDEA’s work has also focused on how to get the information to those practitioners working in the field. Over the years IDEA has worked with several regional and international organizations, NGOs, academic institutions, parliaments and politicians. Far from creating a book to be added to 9.3. Using Special Measures to Increase Women’s Access to Politics 9.3.1. The Rise of Quotas and Reservations for Women Because of the obstacles women face in the electoral process, special measures have been implemented to safeguard women’s presence in parliament and other elected positions. In terms of political parties, they may consist of developing incentives to attract women to the party (such as providing funding to run an election campaign), providing networks, training and skills development for women candidates to stand for election, or setting a target within the party that a certain number of executive positions will be held by women. But the most common special measures are electoral quotas, which are defined as mandatory or targeted percentages of women candidates for public elections. The mid-1990s saw the emergence of what has now been termed a ‘quota fever’: several countries and hundreds of political parties adopted quota rules. While some countries experimented with reserved seats for women as far back as the 1950s, the real push for quotas came after the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. The introduction of quotas in the past ten years has met with some success. In other instance 118 quotas have not resulted in an increase in the number of women in politics, and, occasionally, have had the reverse effect. With the emphasis placed on quotas as a means of guaranteeing women’s presence in parliaments, IDEA recognized that gender quotas present many challenges, both in practice and in academic research. IDEA therefore prioritized the issue of electoral quotas as an area requiring further research and gathering of experience to ascertain how and when quotas work best. This was a natural complement to the Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers handbook. As initial mapping of the implementation of quotas unfolded in 2002, it soon became obvious that such a research undertaking would require a partner organization, and ideally one involved in largescale research projects. Fortunately such a partner was close at hand: Drude Dahlerup at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University has also identified that research on the application of electoral quotas as a priority. In late 2002, the IDEA/Stockholm University Electoral Quotas for Women project was born. 9.3.2. Analysing Electoral Quotas for Women Increasing women’s representation and participation in decision-making bodies requires information on which measures have worked in different countries within different political contexts. As only limited comparative research and data on quotas were available, the project initially aimed to gauge whether, and under what conditions, quotas have been implemented successfully. It also acknowledged the need to raise general awareness of the use of gender quotas as an instrument to increase the political representation of women and to show that they can be, and are being, applied successfully. ‘The Global Quota Database is the most comprehensive and complete global resource on electoral quota issues. It is a very useful instrument and simultaneously a wonderful picture of the progress that has been made.’ Lourdes Flores Nano, 2004 IDEA Board of Directors The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) The first step was the collection of global information on the use of quotas on a country-by-country basis, detailing the types of quotas and enforcement measures used. The information is made widely accessible through the Global Database on Electoral Quotas for Women, which was launched in March 2003. The initial results were somewhat surprising: nearly 100 countries had either implemented quotas, previously had quotas or were considering implementing quotas. Of these, 14 countries have quota provisions guaranteed in the constitution, and 32 in legislation. In addition, 130 political parties in 61 countries had voluntarily begun experimenting with quotas. 9.3.3. Analysis and Trends But numbers alone do not tell the whole story. The web site does not draw conclusions about the connection between types of quota provisions and the representation of women globally, so further qualitative information was collected through a series of five regional workshops convened in 2003–4. These allowed country and regional information on quota implementation and enforcement to be collated, and a network of researchers and experts working in this field to be developed. Workshops were convened in Africa, Asia, the Arab states, Europe and Latin America with reports compiled summarizing the main findings of the meetings. This has revealed some interesting findings. • Quotas can be effective. Evidence from around the world suggests that where quota are implemented, and properly enforced, they are a highly effective strategy to accelerate women’s political participation. There are 16 countries which have reached the target of 30 per cent women in parliament: ten are from Europe, three from Africa and three from Latin America. While these countries do not share similar levels of socioeconomic development, 14 of them have implemented quotas. Of these, four have legislated quotas, including Rwanda, which is now the world leader with 48.8 per cent women in the Parliament. In a further ten countries, one or more political parties have implemented voluntary party quotas. • There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ model. Quotas tend not to work in isolation and must be adapted to a particular country context. They usually interact with other factors such as the presence of an organized and strong women’s lobby both within and outside political parties, the existence of a political will to increase women’s representation, and the type of the electoral and party system. • Electoral systems matter. Quotas are less likely to succeed in electoral systems based on singlemember constituencies, where a party presents one candidate, unless reserved seats are used in that system. Evidence suggests that party quotas (legislated or voluntary with placement mandates) in multi-member districts are likely to be the most effective. (Placement mandates specify which positions women must hold on a party list, for example, every second or third position.) • The devil is in the detail. How quota provisions are formulated directly affects their implementation: many quotas are simply not enforced, either because the law stipulates a target but does not specify how to obtain it, or because political parties ignore it in the absence of enforcement mechanisms. Political parties may meet a 30 per cent target of women on party lists but place women at the bottom of the lists in largely unwinnable positions. • Golden opportunities. Timing is an important consideration: there are certain opportunities in the political process that may facilitate the introduction of quotas. In countries undergoing Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 119 transition and constitutional and legal reform, there is a small window of opportunity for the introduction of quota laws. It is much harder to amend the constitution and rewrite electoral or party laws in established regimes. • Post-conflict norm? It is now common for quotas to be considered as a way of securing women’s representation in post-conflict states. In fact most of the recent experiences with quotas have emerged from transitional and postconflict states. They have taken varying forms, ranging from voluntary party quotas adopted by the ruling (liberation) parties in Mozambique and South Africa, to reserved seats and constitutional quotas, most recently in Rwanda, Afghanistan and Iraq (Ballington and Matland 2004). Quotas will not be successful when introduced as a single measure. In the short term they may dramatically increase the representation of women, but they allow parties to make concessions to women without necessarily addressing key gender issues. The attainment of gender justice in post-conflict states and in the consolidation of democracy in the long term depends on a host of factors including the development of a democratic political culture, the level of mobilization of women in civil society, and the transparency and accountability of democratic institutions. Most importantly, the attainment of gender justice depends on the political will of party leadership (Ballington and Matland 2004). IDEA’s Products on Quotas: • Global Database of Electoral Quotas for Women, at <http://www.quotaproject.org> • Reports on the implementation of quotas in Africa, the Arab states, Asia, Europe and Latin America • More than 80 country case studies • Global handbook on implementing quotas to be produced during 2005-6. 120 9.4. Supporting and Encouraging Regional Change IDEA understands that change will only be achieved when all the actors involved in public life are committed to and employ the tools and strategies for reform. Francesca Binda notes that gaining that commitment requires the involvement of parliamentarians, political parties, civil society, non-governmental organizations, international organizations and the media. IDEA develops regional and country partnerships which acknowledge and support the role played by women in politics and society, including women’s movements, their involvement in national liberation struggles and peace settlements and negotiations, their contribution to post-conflict nation building and their role in the development of nations. 9.4.1. Latin America By working through its country and regional programmes, IDEA facilitates a process of information sharing and country comparisons on a range of issues, whether it is the establishment of new institutions or the reforming of existing practices. In Latin America, most nations face serious challenges in terms of the depth and quality of their democracies. There is a growing popular perception that democratic governance systems have failed to respond effectively to the demands of citizens. Women remain significantly under-represented in most Latin American legislatures. Within this context, IDEA has identified the issue of women’s political participation as a priority. Kristen Sample explains that this focuses on three main areas: first, the dissemination of comparative statistics and experiences on women’s political representation through IDEA’s Mujeres en Parlamento: más allá de los números [Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers] handbook; second, by providing comparative information on the implementation and enforcement of electoral gender quotas; and, third, by research on electoral systems and their impact on women’s political participation. The following examples illustrate how IDEA has collaborated with different organizations to disseminate its products and messages and share lessons learned. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘Transparency in nomination and selection processes is important to foster a culture of inclusiveness and democracy within political parties. It is apparent that women are confronting both explicit and implicit barriers when trying to reach higher positions within parties. Quotas are one mechanism to address these barriers.’ International IDEA, 2003 The Implementation of Quotas: Latin American Experiences Peru. In 2002, IDEA identified Peru as a priority country given its recent transition to democracy after long years of authoritarian rule. Among the priorities identified for the Peru Programme were electoral system reform, political party strengthening and women’s political participation. After receiving requests from different stakeholders, including the president of the Congressional Commission on Women and Sustainable Development, IDEA provided assistance on the reform of the election and quota laws, and the development of a political party law. IDEA and its local partner, Transparencia, supported the creation of a multiparty round table, which focused on drafting the country’s first political party law. A 30 per cent quota provision, in terms of both general election lists and leadership posts within political parties, was included in the round table’s proposal and eventually passed by the Peruvian Congress in October 2003. IDEA focused on supporting the implementation of the law through a multi-pronged strategy including designing and implementing gender-sensitive training modules which include clear explanations of the content of the law and its implications. At least 35 per cent of the participants trained are women. An inter-party seminar on women’s political participation in Peru was also convened to raise awareness of the key role of political parties to support women’s candidacies. Following the successful design and information campaign around the political party law, the IDEA–Transparencia multiparty round table drafted an electoral code which included reforms aimed at increasing women’s political participation. This draft code was presented to the Congress in October 2004. A vote was still pending at the time of publication. Guatemala. IDEA has focused on disseminating information and products where women are significantly under-represented in political life in Latin America. In Guatemala in 2002, IDEA worked in partnership with different women’s groups and a local partner, the PPD, to discuss the main challenges and opportunities to increase the political participation of women at the local level, especially of indigenous women. Women’s political participation in Guatemala is a particular problem due to their marginalization both because of their sex and because of their ethnicity. Other countries in which IDEA has worked with local and regional women’s organizations include Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. 9.4.2. Asia IDEA’s main focus has been on supporting democratization processes in South and South-East Asia. Despite a lengthy history of democratic rule, the region has long been highly volatile, exacerbated by a rise in religious fundamentalism, communal politics and religious, ethnic and social conflict. IDEA has focused on the areas of electoral system reform, democracy building and conflict management through sustained dialogue and political party strengthening. Within these areas, IDEA highlights the importance of supporting women’s inclusion and participation. The following examples show how IDEA has worked to strengthen women’s political participation in South Asia. Indonesia. Since 1998, IDEA has provided strategic advice to government and civil society on options relating to the electoral system, the administration of electoral management bodies (EMBs) and initiatives to strengthen women’s political participation. Through a dialogue with dynamic and progressive groups in civil society, members of the Parliament, political party members and academics, IDEA has aimed to strengthen women’s participation within Indonesian politics at the national and provincial levels. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 121 Obstacles Preventing Women from Becoming Members of Parliament in Indonesia: • The cultural context in Indonesia is still heavily patriarchal. The common perception is that the political arena is for men, and that it is inappropriate for women to become members of parliament. • The selection of candidates by political parties is usually conducted by a small group of officials or party leaders, almost always men. In Indonesia awareness regarding gender equality and justice is still low, and thus male political leaders have a disproportionate influence over party politics and women do not receive much support. • The media has yet to effectively mobilize the public regarding the importance of women’s representation in parliament. Khofifah Indar Parawansa, Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers, Indonesian edition, 2002. During 2001, the debate on women’s political representation and participation in politics increased and dominated much of the political agenda, being fuelled by active and outspoken civil society organizations and activists. One of the critical issues was the adoption of a 30 per cent quota for women in the electoral process. In 2002, IDEA produced an Indonesian version of the Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers handbook with the inclusion of case studies from South Asia which served as the basis for discussions on strategies for increasing and strengthening effective political representation in Indonesia’s political institutions. The IDEA programme specifically addressed those needs by organizing workshops and disseminating information for women in political parties and civil society. The goal was to help identify potential women candidates for the 2004 parliamentary elections, provide training on fundamental campaign techniques, and create linkages between women candidates and civil society so that they would have resources to draw on in identifying the development and political issues to articulate 122 once they were in parliament. IDEA also worked with the women’s caucus in the Parliament to create better linkages with civil society and helped to identify a common agenda for women across party lines. In 2002 IDEA facilitated a series of Asian Study Visits where Indonesian politicians and activists, both women and men, gathered knowledge and shared experiences with counterparts in India, Thailand and the Philippines. IDEA was invited to provide advice on the design of a new electoral system in Indonesia. At a gathering of diverse political parties, IDEA provided various options and models of electoral processes while stressing the impact that different systems have on patterns of representation of women, minorities, regions, and new and established political parties. In the run-up to the April 2004 general elections, IDEA facilitated training for 27 women candidates, aspiring to be elected to the DPD, Indonesia’s second chamber. (Nine were eventually elected.) Women were relatively successful in the polls, taking a total of 21 per cent of seats in the DPD, nearly double the number elected to the lower house. Additionally, IDEA has provided practical advice to women in Indonesia and South Asia on electoral quotas and reserved seats. A workshop in Jakarta in 2002 provided an opportunity for women to discuss strategies for lobbying for quotas and reform of their individual electoral systems. Burma: Dialogue processes. Recognizing that democracy cannot be achieved without the active participation of women, IDEA both mainstreams and especially targets women’s political participation and empowerment with capacity-building initiatives. To this end, IDEA works with Burmese exiles to help prepare them in the event of political spaces being opened up in Burma. IDEA has organized workshops on negotiating political settlements, on sharing experiences from South Africa, and on federal constitution-making processes, sharing experiences from India and Australia, which men and women activists attended. IDEA has also organized specific activities on the role of women in peace building, sharing experiences from South Africa and Colombia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is an interesting case because it elected the first female head of government in the world, Prime Minister Bandaranaike, in 1960, and is the only country in South Asia to have adopted proportional representation. However, the rates and strength of women’s political participation in elected bodies have declined in recent years, to less than 5 per cent in 2005. As a result of the ongoing conflict and violence in political life, high rates of literacy and employment have not translated into increased political representation of women. Sakuntala Kadirgamar-Rajasingham explains that IDEA aims to assist key stakeholders to articulate gender concerns in post-conflict settlements, in the peace and reconciliation processes and in the building and strengthening of democratic institutions. IDEA is therefore supporting a publication which reviews women’s political participation and intends to disseminate a ‘Gender Manifesto’ as the basis of dialogues with political parties to secure their commitment to mainstream gender concerns. Nepal. Nepal is in the throes of one of its most grave political and constitutional crises after the royal takeover in early 2005, and the fate of representative institutions and inclusive constitutional processes is uncertain. Exclusion has contributed to a deep sense of alienation among many people and has provided a constituency of support for the extra-parliamentary struggles taking place in Nepal. The number of women active in the Maoist People’s Army is considered to be unusually high. Since working for constitutional reform in Nepal from 2004, IDEA has received requests from Nepalese stakeholders for information on different electoral systems for ensuring inclusive governance. There is pressure for the Women’s Commission, among others, to be given constitutional and legal recognition as an autonomous body to facilitate the formulation of gender-sensitive action programmes and electoral system reform. As a part of a series of dialogues on constitutional processes, IDEA has organized discussions on special measures and electoral system design, to generate recommendations for improving the participation of Nepal’s marginalized communities, including its majority: women. 9.5. Conclusion IDEA enters its second decade with the understanding that there is still much work to be done to increase women’s political participation. In 2005 the representation of women in the world’s parliaments stands at less than 16 per cent. But numbers do not tell the whole story, and IDEA will continue to work to understand the issues beyond numbers. Those who work to increase the participation of women in political life are beginning to ask how women might be more effective in advancing a women’s agenda in political life. Many women who are active in political life want to understand how they can leverage their positions, their knowledge and their networks to make a difference and to improve conditions for more women to be actively engaged. Binda argues that policy makers are beginning to recognize that representation means more than elected politics. It means that more women must have seats at the Cabinet table, more women must be appointed to senior decision-making positions, and more women’s voices must be heard and included when major political reform or transformation is undertaken. In each country the methods may be different, but very few governments around the world will deny that women’s participation in the political system needs to be increased. It is IDEA’s challenge to examine the options, collect evidence of best practice, provide models for reform and encourage the reformers. As we strive to inform the debate on women’s participation we, in turn, learn from the many courageous, creative and active men and women who truly believe that democracy can only be achieved when all citizens are represented in all poPolicy makers are beginning to recognize litical structures that representation means more than which effect their elected politics. It means that more lives. women must have seats at the Cabinet Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide table, more women must be appointed to senior decision-making positions, and more women’s voices must be heard and included when major political reform or transformation is undertaken. 123 ‘In truth, many years after the [Women in Parliament] handbook in 1998, I believe that IDEA’s ongoing contributions to the field of women in politics still echo down the corridors of many an institution, NGO, governmental body and academy. A testament to its leadership, certainly, but also to the hard work of the diligent and committed staff members. Long may it continue.’ Azza Karam, 2004 References Ballington, Julie and Matland, Richard, ‘Political Parties and Special Measures: Enhancing Women’s Participation in Electoral Processes’, Paper presented at the UN Expert Meeting: Enhancing Women’s Participation in Electoral Processes in Post-conflict Countries, Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI) and Department of Political Affairs Expert Group Meeting, New York, USA, 19-22 January 2004 Ginwala, Frene, ‘Foreword’, in International IDEA, Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers, ed. Azza Karam (Stock- Taken together, these features contribute to IDEA’s unique approach: drawing on facts, lived realities, combined insights and experiences, and an emphasis on both the creation of a critical mass and using the institutions and forging the necessary strategic alliances to make a difference to the broader political process—and to make sure that the information provided reflects the realities of women East, West, North and South. holm: International IDEA, 1998) Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Promoting Partnership between Men and Women in Parliament: The Experience of the IPU’, in International IDEA, Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers, 2nd edn (Stockholm: International IDEA, forthcoming 2005) United Nations, ‘Fourth World Conference on Women Platform for Action’, 1995, article 15, <http://www.un.org/ womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/plat1.htm> Whittington, S., ‘UN Goals for Gender Mainstreaming’, Paper presented at the conference on Women and PostWar Reconstruction: Strategies for Implementation of Democracy Building Policies, Florida International University, Miami, March 2004 124 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘One of the essential features of a democracy is holding elections at regular intervals. By themselves, however, elections are not sufficient to ensure the emergence and establishment of a pro-people government that would honour promises made during an election campaign and respect the principles of good governance and accountability. A pro-people government can only be achieved with the existence of a well-structured, politically motivated and ever-dynamic civil society acting as a constant watchdog of democracy, raising its voice and making it heard whenever necessary and relentlessly keeping the people’s elected representatives on their toes.’ Cassam Uteem, member of the Board of International IDEA and former President of the Republic of Mauritius 126 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 10. Democracy in Situations of Deep-Rooted Conflict Timothy D. Sisk An important area in democracy building is the role of democracy in conflict resolution, affecting all parts of democracy building. This chapter paints a sombre picture of the challenges for democracies to succeed in situations of deep-rooted conflict and to counter the threat of terrorist attacks. However, it argues that IDEA’s work has generated numerous lessons, best practices and understandings not only of how democracy can survive in divided, conflictual societies, but of how democratic practices directly contribute to peace as the only long-term solution. When IDEA opened its doors in 1995, the organization stepped into a troubled world that was reeling from deep-rooted ethnic, religious and nationalist tensions. By the mid-1990s, with the Cold War swept into history by the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union and a new, ‘turbulent’ period of rapid political, economic and social change under way, the drama of addressing deep-rooted conflict around the world shaped the organization’s democracy promotion work in virtually every corner of the globe. Over the last decade, IDEA’s programmes in situations of deep-rooted conflict have explored how, ironically, the process of democratization often heightens deep-rooted conflict even as the long-term solution to strife in divided societies is to manage conflict through the ballot box and in the halls of parliament rather than on the battlefield or the streets. The challenge for IDEA has been, and remains today, to show how inclusive and participatory processes and institutions of democracy can and do contribute to the mitigation of tensions in diverse, conflicted societies. Today, a new, profound challenge exists for the promoters of democracy: deep and widespread scepticism has emerged IDEA’s work has about democracy’s ability to succeed in focused on key situations of deep-rooted conflict. thematic areas — managing transitions, consensus-oriented institutional design, electoral systems and election processes, political parties, learning across regional frontiers, and the UN and democracy. Additionally, its work has focused on states with internal conflicts, as in Southern Africa, Indonesia, Colombia, Nepal and Russia, and in unsettled regions such as the Balkans, Latin America, West Africa and South-East Asia. With its worldwide mandate, this work has generated a number of important lessons learned, best practices, and enduring understandings about how democracy must be nurtured to survive in deeply divided societies, and how democratic values and practices can directly promote peace. In the 21st century, the organization continues to confront the 1990s-type challenges of democracy through war-to-peace transitions, as in Afghanistan or Kosovo, and democracy’s capacity to stimulate new social conflicts, as in many societies of the Middle East. Today, a new, profound challenge exists for the promoters of democracy: deep and widespread scepticism has emerged about democracy’s ability to succeed in situations of deeprooted conflict. In a world characterized by fears Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 127 of terrorism and a global war against extremist moveand democratic practice directly responds ments—from the to the cynics with the message that the United States to answer to fear, terror and violence lies in Russia to Spain, promoting the democratic values of mutual Indonesia and the understanding, trust and tolerance. troubled countries of the Middle East—democracy agendas have been set aside in favour of national security. IDEA’s recent work on democratic dialogue and democratic practice directly responds to the cynics with the message that the answer to fear, terror and violence lies in promoting the democratic values of mutual understanding, trust and tolerance. IDEA’s recent work on democratic dialogue 10.1. The Turbulent 1990s: A World in Transition IDEA began its work in 1995 in a world that had transformed democracy promotion in two important ways. First, many of the long-running civil wars and social conflicts that had raged in the years of Cold War rivalry began to wind down in the mid-1990s. From Namibia to El Salvador, and Cambodia to South Africa, long-running wars of revolution and counter-revolution and struggles for national liberation ended in sustained peace processes. In these conflicts, democracy emerged as the exit path from those struggles despite all the difficulties of establishing tolerance and trust after so many years of fighting. Second, the changing political landscape in many settings in the 1980s and early 1990s generated new internal conflicts that precipitated violent struggles among contenders for power and, in the worst instances, new civil wars. Most of the transitions that occurred in this turbulent age were in societies that are highly diverse along ethnic, racial, religious or ideological lines. The quick introduction of democracy could easily exacerbate conflict and undermine the possibility that, over time, democracy would lead to freedom, human rights and peaceful politics. In the Balkans, former Soviet states, and other societies undergoing volatile transitions—such as Algeria or Indonesia— widespread social conflict created immediate 128 humanitarian emergencies in the short term and a renewed determination to find ways in which democracy can be developed and structured to reduce strife among contending groups rather than exacerbating tensions. 10.1.1. War-to-Peace Transitions Superpower tensions, regional rivalries and ideological polarization had fuelled many wars around the world since decolonization and the emergence of new and independent nation states. Beginning in the 1960s and ending with the independence of Namibia in 1990, many post-colonial countries had witnessed devastating internal wars fuelled by the struggle between communism and the West. As the international system rapidly changed with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many of these wars lost their sponsors and the parties in conflict found themselves trying to negotiate a settlement to war. From Namibia to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cambodia and Mozambique, long-running wars were settled in the early 1990s through peace agreements. The processes of such war-to-peace transitions directly involved negotiating the terms of post-war democracy. This meant perilous political changes, such as the holding of national elections, the transformation of rebel forces into political parties, new institutions to protect human rights, fundamental social and economic change such as land reform, and—perhaps the most difficult problem—settling accounts from past episodes of violence or human rights abuses through processes of transitional justice. Traditionally, democracy theory and practice had little experience of such complex and widespread social changes, and much of the early learning in this area was through costly trial and error. The UN especially was often called in to lead the processes of change and in some situations—as in Namibia and Cambodia—to organize the all-important transitional governments and tense electoral processes. In ‘complex’ peace operations, the UN’s peacekeeping doctrines expanded beyond security mandates to state and democracy building. The landmark UN-administered elections in Namibia in 1990 and the difficult Cambodian The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) elections of 1993 highlighted the new context in which democracy as the exit strategy to civil war is seen. Throughout the late 1990s and today, democracy promotion in countries emerging from civil war remains a critical element of IDEA’s work. 10.1.2. Democratization and Conflict At the same time, new challenges for democracy as conflict management emerged. On 2 March 1992 a referendum in the troubled former Yugoslav province of Bosnia and Herzegovina to ratify an earlier decision by separatists there became the last straw—or the spark that accelerated a brutal civil war in which crimes against humanity and genocidal acts later occurred. The turn to a referendum in Bosnia in 1992 was an ill-considered democratic approach for resolving a complex question of managing a disintegrating federation. Similarly, democracy’s potential to inflame conflict was seen in an aborted election in Algeria in January 1992. In that country, an opposition Islamist party was poised to win a majority of seats in the country’s Parliament: when the secularist military and ruling regime saw the likely outcome of democracy at work, they cancelled the second round of voting. The Islamists revolted and the election debacle precipitated a civil war, which ultimately cost more than 150,000 lives. Elections are some of the most visible elements of a nation’s democratization process and therefore highly prone to incite conflict. These two instances alone made it clear that democratization could exacerbate tensions in divided societies, evoking fears of loss of citizenship rights, political power, or separation of church and state. Along with a myriad other examples of the new post-Cold War openness, the 1992 events in Bosnia and Algeria underlined that democratic processes could well be conflict-inducing and that transitions to democracy contained real and serious perils for societies and the international community. This problem both set the stage for IDEA’s entry into the democracy promotion world and remains a theme of much of its past and current work. The rationale is this: as democracy is introduced, aspirants for political power—both incumbent elites and new challengers—may well see the route to victory in elections as espousing divisive themes that stoke public fears and build support for extremist positions. Appeals to nationalism, religious fundamentalism, ethnic solidarThe turn to a referendum in Bosnia in ity, or xenophobia 1992 was an ill-considered democratic and external threats approach for resolving a complex question become preferred of managing a disintegrating federation. paths to power through the ballot box. Democracy—or rather democratization—is then a driver of conflict rather than a means by which divided societies can find unity in diversity. Because democratization can lend itself to elite manipulation and extremism, and can generate fears of loss or for survival because the outcome of elections is inherently unknown (or all too well known, when there is a dominant majority), there are clearly inherent tensions for those in the international community, such as the UN, between the values of introducing democracy and the imperatives of managing conflict. These tensions are seen before wars, as in Bosnia and Algeria, as seen above, but also after wars. When the Bosnian war finally ended in late 1995, there was a rush by the international community to hold post-war elections in order to legitimate the new government Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 129 just steps in a much longer and difficult process. Democracy also needs mechanisms to guarantee a balanced distribution of power between different levels in government as well as state and civil society. formed by the Dayton peace accords. The push for quick elections in September 1996, less than a year after hostilities had ended, reinforced the power of nationalist parties. Many observers now believe that these elections were premature and that they contributed to the hardening of relations between the Bosnian ethnic groups for years afterwards. 10.1.3. Solutions: Democratization as Consensus Building IDEA’s work has wrestled with these two essential contexts for democracy promotion in the volatile 1990s and into the 21st century. In situations of war-to-peace transitions, and with concerns about democracy as conflict-inducing, the answer has been to try to marry somewhat disparate approaches in academic research and in reflective practice of democratization and conflict management. From the democratization side, lessons of the 1970s and 1980s revealed that democratization processes often involved the negotiation of pacts, or agreements, among incumbent leaders and others such as security forces and police and opposition elements. Likewise, the change to deLikewise, the change to democracy unfolds mocracy unfolds in a series of stages in which election in a series of stages events, while perhaps the culminating in which election moment, are just steps in a much longer and events, while perdifficult process. haps the culminating moment, are 130 From the conflict resolution field, the emphasis on consensus building, negotiation and problem solving, managing fear and insecurity, and promoting reconciliation emerged as the most important elements. Indeed, in war-to-peace transitions, for example, it was realized that from a purely practical perspective democracy could emerge as a conflict resolution instrument of choice for protagonists in civil wars: it could allow them to continue the fight they had waged on the battlefield, but in the more secure setting of electoral debates and in parliament. Democracy, depending on how it is ‘crafted’ or designed, could become a solution in which all would not be lost, as it would be in the event of defeat on the battlefield. IDEA’s work has been underpinned by the core realization that democracy need not be only about competition for power through elections, about winners and losers through the ballot box, or about the heightening of social divisions through campaigns to define the national identity and interest. Indeed, well-crafted and designed democracy, emanating from negotiations among the protagonists in situations of deep-rooted conflict, can be conflict-mitigating. Much depends on how democracy is defined, the processes by which it is created, and how its institutions can be structured to promote ongoing bargaining, inclusion, tolerance and, above all, the avoidance of winnertakes-all outcomes in favour of consensus-based decision making. 10.2. Themes of IDEA’s Work From the outset, IDEA’s work in the field of democracy building and conflict management has focused on both the processes of democracy making—through negotiation and bargaining, often with mediation, monitoring, and sometimes implementation by the international community— and the outcomes of such processes, namely new institutions. Consistent with the overall approach of the organization in highlighting the theme of The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘democracy in the making’, the emphasis of its work has been threefold. First, the programme has sought to define the wide range of options, alternatives and practical tools for building consensus-oriented democracy, illustrating the panoply of choices in handbooks, resource materials and databases. The themes on which it has focused are negotiations in post-war settings, the overall problem of ‘institutional engineering’ or design, electoral system choice as a particularly important decision, and public policies to promote inclusion and fairness. These options have been illustrated over time with reference to a wide set of case studies from all regions of the world, to include sharing lessons learned from one situation (such as South Africa) to aid considerations of transition paths in another (such as Burma). The second approach has been one of concrete democracy assessments in societies that face severe problems of social conflict. From post-war Guatemala to post-authoritarian Nigeria, democracy assessments have illustrated the application of crosscutting themes such as rebel-to-political-party makeovers or electoral system design through indepth studies that involve local actors in democratic dialogues to explore issues and themes in their own contexts. Third, IDEA has sought to evaluate how the international community can be better prepared to help ease the transition to democracy in situations of sharp social conflict. Focusing especially on international organizations such as the UN, IDEA has emphasized the importance of helping parties in conflict to design institutions, to organize, hold and monitor elections, to manage processes of transitional justice and reconciliation, and to empower women and civil society to help make democracy sustainable in the long run. In this section, some of the key insights and findings from these three areas are described. 10.2.1. Managing Transition: Negotiating for Democracy IDEA’s flagship publication in the field of democracy and conflict management is the rather voluminous, 414page handbook, In war-to-peace transitions, it was Democracy and realized that from a purely practical Deep-Rooted Conperspective, democracy could emerge as flict: Options for a conflict resolution instrument of choice Negotiators (DRC). for protagonists in civil wars: it could Published in 1998, allow them to continue the fight they had the handbook prowaged on the battlefield, but in the more vides a path-breaksecure setting of electoral debates and in ing synthesis of the parliament. democratization and peace-making fields. The handbook and the subsequent dissemination efforts dramatically spread the view that democratization could be conflict-mitigating in the essentially internal conflicts of the 1990s, and that there are a wide range of options available to deliver a sustainable peace through a democratic transition. In the foreword to the volume, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan summed up the essential insight that underpinned the work: ‘Building stable and solid internal political structures [in intra-state conflicts] is not a separate task from crisis management, but needs to be a part of it’. Themes of the 1998 DRC Handbook • Importance of Democratic Institutions “…Making appropriate choices about democratic institutions – forms of devolution or autonomy, electoral system design, legislative bodies, judicial structures, and so on – is crucial in building an enduring and peaceful settlement.” • Conflict Management, Not Resolution “There needs to be … more pragmatic interest in conflict management: how to deal with it in a constructive way, how to bring opposing sides together in a co-operative process, how to design a practical, achievable, co-operative system for the constructive management of difference.” • The Importance of Process “The process by which parties reach an outcome impacts significantly on the quality of the outcome. Attention must be paid to every aspect of the process of negotiations in order to reach a durable outcome.” Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 131 The DRC handbook brought together scholarly research and practical field experience in a way that carefully linked the changing nature of conflict and conflict management in the late 20th century (especially the phenomenon of internal, identity-based conflict), analysis of the patterns of national-level and cross-border conflict dynamics, negotiation processes and problem solving, democratic levers (institutions), and considerations for sustaining a settlement over time. In illustrations, boxes, menus and fact sheets the handbook presented an extremely complex and rich set of scholarly findings and practical lessons learned in an accessible and user-friendly format. From the peace-making and conflict resolution field, the handbook highlighted what became widely accepted aspects of understanding and negotiating war-to-peace transitions, namely, from the very start of negotiations in the so-called prenegotiation phases, protagonists in deeply divided societies keenly understand how various democracy-related options, such as elections, devolution or a truth commission, may affect their interests. In peace negotiations it is vitally important to develop a negotiation process that can resolve overall issues early—such as separation of communities versus power sharing—that can anticipate and consider the most important decisions—such as the electoral system—and that as far as possible involves all relevant parties in the institution-building process, including potential ‘spoilers’. If a democratic settlement is to emerge from a peace negotiation process, it must be approached as a design exercise in which the consequences of decisions made are understood well into the future. 10.2.2. Institutional Design The DRC handbook also highlighted that the choice of alternative institutions—rules for how the ‘game’ of democracy will be played—is a critical and possibly decisive aspect of peace negotiations. Poorly chosen institutions can doom even a wellintended negotiation process or can undermine the sustainability of democracy over time. On the other hand, aptly chosen institutions can tip the balance from recurrence of violence towards a sustainable, democratic peace. Some of the institutional choice findings that emerged are as follows. 132 • The basis of representation. Countries in deeprooted identity conflicts face a fundamental choice: will identity be the basis of representation, for example through ethnic political parties, or should the rules of the democracy systematically promote or even forbid the organization of politics along identity lines? Approaches can offer starkly different choices for countries managing cultural differences through democracy, from group-based approaches such as the political system of Lebanon to more integrative approaches, such as those adopted in South Africa, or even combining both elements. • Power sharing. Winner-takes-all institutions, in which some participants may be absolute losers and all or almost all participants have the fear of being absolute losers, are unlikely to lead towards a sustainable peace. • Autonomy and devolution. There is no single, simple way to design an autonomy scheme. While many observers in territorial conflicts see autonomy as a natural compromise between claims for secession (or national independence) and territorial integrity, autonomy is an inherently difficult balance to achieve. Moreover, there are different options for federalism as well; and the implications of federalism for economic performance and a just distribution of national resources further complicate the choice. Nonetheless, many peace settlements today feature democratic federalism as a core compromise. • Type of executive: presidentialism versus parliamentary systems. One of the most important choices to be made is between having a strong president and having a strong parliament with a relatively weaker executive. In divided societies, this choice is no trivial or technical matter. When an individual president is directly seen to represent a single identity group to the exclusion of others, presidentialism becomes a recipe for conflict. On the other hand, parliamentary systems with coalition-style governments can lead to deadlock in decision making and ineffective governance. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) • National conferences. National conferences have had a difficult track record as a means for comprehensively designing new institutions. Because they include a wide range of actors in conflict situations, they are often too unwieldy as negotiating forums to achieve much progress on contentious issues. At the same, national conferences can be very effective in ratifying decisions made in prior negotiations by bringing additional parties into the negotiating, symbolizing national unity, and ratifying final accords. These themes and others, such as human rights instruments, transitional justice and truth commissions, and national machinery for gender equality, are illustrated in the DRC handbook through the use of case studies from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bougainville, Fiji, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The handbook has been translated into Spanish for dissemination in situations such as Colombia, into Bahasa Indonesia for work in Indonesia and into Burmese for possible work in Myanmar/Burma. 10.2.3. Electoral Systems, Election Processes Scholars and policy makers agree that perhaps the single most important choice a country can make for effectively managing conflict is a wise and appropriate decision on the type of electoral system. Because such systems translate votes into seats in electoral processes, they have important ramifications for who gains power, who is included and excluded, how political parties form and compete, how politicians campaign for votes and, ultimately, whether politics is conducted as a winner-takesall system or as a competition for relative or proportional shares in post-election governments. IDEA’s research and policy work in this area has been covered in a variety of materials, including the DRC handbook, the Handbook of Electoral System Design (ESD handbook), the Administration and Cost of Elections (ACE) Project, and the Election Process Information Collection (EPIC) Project. These materials have covered important issues such as electoral system choice, the implications of electoral system choice for the party system, electoral dispute resolution and election-related violence. Some of the findings in each of these areas are highlighted here. Scholars and policy makers agree that perhaps the single most important choice a country can make for effectively managing conflict is a wise and appropriate decision on the type of electoral system. • Electoral system choice. There is a consensus among scholars of democracy that electoral systems are the most widely manipulated aspect of democratic design, that is, how the electoral system functions can help to tilt the politics of a country (or other political unit such as a city) in a particular direction. The stark choice between types of majority rule systems and those that are based on proportional representation (PR) has been widely covered in IDEA’s publications. Although there is a presumption that the emphasis of PR on inclusion, combined with parliamentary systems, is best for situations of deep-rooted conflict, there have been situations in divided societies when in fact majority rule options or presidential systems seem to have had conflict-managing effects. Electoral System Choice and ‘Engineering’ Moderation in Divided Societies “… It is increasingly being recognized that an electoral system…. can help to ‘engineer’ cooperation and accommodation in a divided society.” The New International IDEA Handbook of Electoral System Design (2005) “The collective evidence from elections held in divided societies to date suggests that an appropriately crafted electoral system can help to nurture accommodative tendencies, but that the implementation of an inappropriate system can severely harm the process of conflict resolution and democratization in a plural state.” Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators (1998) Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 133 List PR is known to be well suited to managing conflict management through democratic conflict in divided decision making are: inclusion, recognition, societies. The alterand self-worth for all elements of the native vote and the community; and satisfaction of basic single transferable human needs, such that no single group is vote may also be systematically disadvantaged through helpful, although deep-seated poverty. the impact of the Fijian experience is still being analysed. Options that explicitly recognize the presence of communal groups are also sometimes valuable. The overall conclusion is that there is no perfect, ‘one size fits all’ electoral system for divided societies. This makes IDEA’s efforts to clearly and carefully articulate options and to help policy makers think through the expected effects of various options all the more useful in so many conflicted societies today. Among the key principles of local-level • Election processes. Ensuring that elections are professionally conducted in a free and fair manner is important for any society, but in deep-rooted conflict situations, given the suspicions, fears and doubts, it is especially important that election management bodies are either composed of members who are accepted and respected as independent or are representative of all the major political forces on a ‘mutually policing’ basis; that they are unbiased in their activities; that they are able to function in all the various areas of a country; and that they do not wittingly or inadvertently advance the cause of any particular faction or group. IDEA has published a set of ethical guidelines for election administration and worked to ensure their application in the particularly volatile settings of deep-rooted conflict. For example, IDEA evaluated the establishment and performance of the election management authorities in post-war Mozambique to ensure that the election process was perceived as free and fair: such a determination is critical to maintaining peace in the country, in which former combatants now compete for political power. Similarly, in preparation for East Timor’s landmark UN-administered elections 134 of 2001, IDEA was involved in a consortium of international organizations to train local election officials to manage this most important event in the life of this new nation, focusing on a variety of topics in election administration. 10.2.4. Public Policy Beyond negotiation processes and institutional design, much of IDEA’s work has focused on a wide range of public policy options that inculcate democratic values and promote conflict management in situations of deep-rooted conflict. Among them are broad themes of public policy, such as instruments to promote, monitor and protect human rights; specific policies such as those that relate to language use; various levels of policy making, such as managing culturally diverse cities; and processes for making public decisions, such as consensusbased policy making. IDEA’s work has evaluated many of these public policy issues. • Diversity policy in multi-ethnic states. Grievances over diversity issues such as religious, cultural or language rights are a common and sometimes pivotal driver of conflict in deeply divided societies. With regard to language, for example, a debate rages over whether the state should encourage assimilation through the adoption of a single official language, or whether ‘linguistic pluralism’ is preferable. Similar debates occur over whether a democratic country should foster a strong, unified national identity or whether ‘unity in diversity’ is a more realistic and desirable framework for public policy. In a study of democratizing Indonesia in 2000, for example, three approaches were advocated to help promote religious pluralism: inter-religious dialogue processes, participatory activities among a wide range of diverse groups to foster trust, and developing a common national identity that explicitly embraces religious diversity as a core essence of being Indonesian. The study (see below) concludes that: ‘In a democratic nation, every group has an equal right to speak out and to associate. But there should be a constitutional guarantee that the foundations of the nation will not be modified by anyone or any one group in power’. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) • Local governance: managing culturally diverse cities. Recognizing that all major metropolitan areas today are vibrantly multicultural, IDEA’s work on local governance has also evaluated how public policies can foster democratic values of trust and peaceful coexistence. In Democracy at the Local Level: The International IDEA Handbook on Participation, Representation, Conflict Management, and Governance, policies to foster inclusion and tolerance in divided cities were evaluated. The findings of this and subsequent work on democracy at the local level underscore the close relationship between inclusion, democracy and conflict management. Citizen Participation and Conflict Management “Often the difficult issues faced by a community are too complex and involve too many divergent interests to be successfully resolved at the ballot box. Facilitating citizen participation in decision-making processes can augment electoral democracy by helping to build trust and confidence and by managing or resolving disputes that cannot be arbitrated by elections alone.” Democracy at the Local Level (2001) Among the key principles of local-level conflict management through democratic decision making are: inclusion, recognition, and selfworth for all elements of the community; the satisfaction of basic human needs, such that no single group is systematically disadvantaged through deep-seated poverty; practical methods of building consensus are essential; the structure of political decision making is equally important at the local level, where in multicultural contexts power sharing should be encouraged; conflict can be mitigated by fostering a sense of local pride and ‘love of place’; and minority participation in decision making needs to be encouraged, as does a variety of cultural identities. Among the case studies in the Democracy at the Local Level handbook are evaluations of local-level peace building in post-war Bosnia and a comparative study of such conflicted cities as Johannesburg, Jerusalem and Belfast. The role of ‘collaborative’ decision-making processes to resolve thorny issues and deep divisions has been a hallmark of the local-level democracy work. • Local governance: consensus-based policy making. IDEA’s local-level democracy work has also sought to present, describe and evaluate processes of consensus-based decision making through a wide variety of public policy making efforts. The role of ‘collaborative’ decisionmaking processes to resolve thorny issues and deep divisions has been a hallmark of the locallevel democracy work. Such processes involve systematic information sharing in divided communities, structured consultation, public decision-making approaches, and community-level dispute resolution procedures. For example, in South Africa community-level peace commissions have successfully managed local-level disputes—and kept them from becoming national-level problems—while at the same time building the ‘social capital’, or trust, that has subsequently allowed for the development of more inclusive, tolerant and effective local democracy structures during the country’s first ten years of democracy (1994–2004). The South African experience underscores a more central point that has resonated in much of IDEA’s work on local-level conflict and methods for its democratic management: democracy is not just about elections, it is a form of public dialogue, sometimes best fostered in highly localized settings. 10.2.5. Reconciliation In post-war settings, the linkage between successful reconciliation processes and the long-term viability of democracy has become more apparent in recent years. Without reconciliation in post-war settings, democracy is impossible because the trust, tolerance and mutual understanding necessary for democracy to function—for example, the willingness to risk loss of power in an election—simply do not exist. Legacies of past violence threaten future democratization. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 135 Some Themes of the 2003 Reconciliation after Violent Conflict Handbook • Reconciliation should be pursued for moral reasons, but there is a pragmatic element as well: some degree of reconciliation after internal conflict is an absolute prerequisite for democracy to succeed over time. • There is no easy recipe for a reconciliation process; there is no universally accepted, perfect model. • Lessons in failed reconciliation are as instructive as those processes that have been considered relatively more successful. • There is a consensus emerging that those culpable of gross violations of human rights should be prosecuted. • Truth commissions are a popular approach, but they are not appropriate in all settings. In 2003 IDEA launched a significant publication entitled Reconciliation After Violent Conflict: A Handbook. With themes, case studies, options and guides to further resources, the handbook provides a look at what many analysts see as a prerequisite for successful democracy in societies that have experienced extensive conflict and violence. Since the publication of the handbook, IDEA has launched new activities on the reconciliation theme in countries such as Sri Lanka. 10.3. Countries, Regions and the International Community Developing concepts of consensus democracy and articulating options are useful only when applied in specific settings in which careful attention to history, social and economic conditions and regional circumstances, and international action come together. IDEA’s work at the counDeveloping concepts of consensus try, regional and democracy and articulating options are international level useful only when applied in specific has sought to dissettings in which careful attention to seminate informahistory, social and economic conditions, tion, share lessons regional circumstances and international learned, and assist action come together. in particular transition processes in 136 a number of ways. At the country level IDEA has worked both on an ad hoc basis, through missions or studies at a particular moment in time, and more formally with its own offices in especially important countries such as Indonesia and Nigeria. Most important has been its work in sharing lessons learned from similar or comparable cases, such as the efforts to help democratization in Burma by convening a workshop on findings that might be conveyable from a relative success case such as South Africa. 10.3.1. Country-Level Initiatives IDEA has launched a number of country initiatives in its first decade, many of which have been in countries emerging from civil war, those facing deep ethnic, racial or religious tensions, and those such as Colombia or the South Caucasus countries that still remain challenged by internal war. In some of these initiatives IDEA has used the approach and methods of its State of Democracy assessment project to evaluate linkages around peace in conflict-prone societies. This section highlights just some of the work IDEA has conducted in several troubled countries. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia’s civil war from 1992 to 1995 left deep social scars which continue to inhibit the prospects for democracy through the Dayton peace accords. IDEA has analysed how to improve democracy in such a war-torn country, beginning with initial evaluations of the 1996 elections to the creation of local capacities for democracy advocacy through the creation of a Foundation for Democracy within the country. For example, following the 1996 elections IDEA launched a major fact-finding mission to determine how the initial stability provided by the international community’s military and political intervention to implement the terms of Dayton could be transformed into a strategy for reconciliation and democratic consolidation. The findings of the mission are found in the 1996 publication ‘Beyond the ‘96 Elections: A Two Year Window of Opportunity for Democracy, Proposals for the Transition towards Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina’. Burma. The continued authoritarianism of the military junta, the detention of democracy The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) activists such as Aung San Suu Kyi, and ongoing ethnic and religious tensions characterize the troubles contemporary Burma faces. For several years IDEA has facilitated a number of dialogues among Burmese and specialists in the international community to evaluate how a transition to democracy in Burma could occur, what institutional designs could facilitate conflict management and how a process of national reconciliation could unfold. Among the specific products of this work are reports on dialogues that have been held since 2000 on democratic alternatives, lessons from South Africa for constitution making, and, more recently, how constitutional arrangements can be structured to help promote minority rights in a democratic Burma. The State and Minority Rights in Burma “Burma requires innovative measures, which are appropriate and realistic for its specific needs…. The people of Burma must develop a federal culture through education and practice, even during the struggle, in order to create a stable and peaceful country. Ethnic and religious divisions are not in themselves inherently problematic.” “The real challenge here is not social division but how these social divisions were dealt with. The issue is whether the divisions are used to affirm identity or to exclude some groups through violent or non-violent means and to ensure the groups have no political space. When this happens, the divisions become unhealthy.” The Role of State Constitutions in Promoting Minority Rights Under Federalism: Dialogues in Support of a Democratic Transition in Burma (2003). Colombia. Colombia’s civil war takes place in a country which, despite high levels of violence, continues to have electoral contests and, despite widespread violations of human rights, still has procedural democracy. Commensurate with the launch of the Spanish-language version of the DRC handbook, in August 2001 IDEA teamed up with other organizations for a country-level initiative on Democratic Institutions and Conflict Former Chairman of IDEA Board of Directors, Thorvald Stoltenberg, at the launch of the Handbook on Democracy and DeepRooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators (1998). Management held in Bogota. On the immediate agenda was a reform process before the Colombia Congress. Members of parliament, government officials, specialists and representatives of civil society engaged in a wide-ranging, lively debate on how democracy could be improved and how the devastating civil war could be brought to an end. Among the topics considered at the event were electoral system reform, the internal democracy of political parties, and the financing of political parties. Guatemala. Following 36 years of devastating civil war, the parties to the conflict in Guatemala signed a landmark peace agreement in 1996; the National Accords featured wide-ranging promise for change in this deeply conflictual society, where disputes over land, indigenous rights and statesponsored human rights abuses fed armed conflict that cost over 150,000 lives. Constitutional and electoral reforms are among the promises made in the peace agreements. As the Accords were being implemented, IDEA launched a dialogue process in the country to systematically evaluate the twin goals of implementing the peace agreement and Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 137 building a new democracy. The assessment process yielded a substantial report, Democracy in Guatemala: A Mission for the Entire Nation (1997), which evaluated the entire range of problems, challenges and promises for the war-torn country. One of the most important and enduring findings of the study relates to the importance of reform of the state’s security forces, the protection of human rights by all sides, and the inculcation of a new culture of respect for the rule of law. Human Rights and the Rule of Law in years. In 2000, IDEA conducted a major democracy assessment of conflict-torn Indonesia, which at the time was experiencing religious and ethnic tensions, economic stress, secessionist violence, and tough struggles among newly empowered civil society and long-powerful military elites. IDEA’s work in Indonesia featured not only a set of recommendations on furthering the transition to democracy and helping to consolidate the new democratic system, but also a beneficial process of discussion among a wide array of stakeholders in the country. Guatemala “The credibility of the justice system must also be salvaged. To accomplish this, reform of the system cannot be deferred. This does not mean simply an administrative modernization or a change in laws and procedures, but rather a complete reformulation of the administration of justice within the framework of democratic institutions. In Guatemala, the democratization of the justice system implies a profound transformation of the judicial culture, particularly of the officials responsible for providing justice. This reform must extend beyond simply changing laws and norms, in order to allow for the building of a system with real support in the democratic experience, characterized by equality, equity, socio-economic inclusion, and respect for human dignity. In this sense, it is necessary to constitutionally recognize the existence of principles, criteria, and procedures that indigenous peoples have developed to resolve conflicts among their community members, as well as the validity of their decisions.” Democracy in Guatemala: A Mission for the Entire People (1998) Since the 2000 democracy assessment, IDEA has pursued a variety of programmes to implement the findings. It also worked with the Election Commission prior to the 2004 elections and supported the establishment of the new Regional Representatives Council, including holding workshops for women candidates and for elected members—for example, in the field of relationships with constituents and regional-level authorities. Key Elements for Consolidating Indonesia’s Democracy • • • • • • • • • • Reform of the state and its institutions Civilian authority and the armed forces The structure of the economy and corporate governance Democratization and decentralization Democracy and the rule of law Constitutional Review and electoral reform Democracy and a democratic culture Religious pluralism and peaceful coexistence Advocacy and monitoring by civil society organizations • Women’s participation in politics Democracy in Indonesia: An Assessment (2000) Indonesia. The post-Suharto transition to democracy in Indonesia has been one of the most dramatic, and potentially conflict-ridden, transitions from authoritarianism to democracy in recent years. The October 2004 elections, which were relatively peaceful and featured a transition from a defeated incumbent to a fairly elected challenger, underscore how far the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country has come in recent 138 Nigeria. Since independence, Nigeria has seen its share of violent conflict. From the Biafran secessionist struggle between 1967 and 1970 to the present-day ethnic and religious street violence, the country has also seen multiple transitions from authoritarian military to civilian rule. The latest transition from a military to civilian regime, The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) which is perhaps the most promising, culminated in the 1999 election of General Olusegun Obasanjo as president. Having already been involved in the launch of the 1998 DRC handbook, the new president endorsed a comprehensive democracy assessment—a top-to-bottom review—of the fractious country that featured consultations with an exceptionally broad spectrum of Nigerian society. The result was a 414-page report released in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, in 2000, entitled Democracy in Nigeria: Continuing Dialogue(s) for Nation Building. The assessment addressed in a straightforward and frank manner the difficulties the country faces as it seeks to consolidate democracy under difficult circumstances. Among the key recommendations of the Democracy in Nigeria report are the following. • Nigeria needs a new social compact. The success of the transition to democracy depends on the extent to which the relationship between the state and the citizenry can be redefined. • Constitutional development process. As a matter of urgency and as part of the development of a new social compact, it is important to institute a national dialogue process that includes a constitutional development process based on the principles of equality, justice, and the guaranteed enjoyment of individual and communal rights and freedoms. • Democratic dividend. Priority should be given to delivering the dividends of democracy through comprehensive social and economic policy frameworks targeted at poverty alleviation, security, communal harmony and environmental protection. Since the 2000 assessment exercise, IDEA has become more extensively involved in democracy promotion in Nigeria. With an in-country team, it has continued activities focusing on national dialogues, political participation, constitutional reform and national reconciliation. 10.3.2. Regional Initiatives Learning across national frontiers has also been a hallmark of IDEA’s work in its first decade. By bringing together policy makers and specialists in regional settings, Learning across national frontiers has the organization has sought to transalso been a hallmark of IDEA’s work in its fer experiences and first decade. By bringing together policy lessons learned, to makers and specialists in regional settings, help establish rethe organization has sought to transfer gional norms and experiences and lessons learned, to help operational capaciestablish regional norms and operational ties, and to build capacities, and to build networks of networks of dedemocracy specialists able to provide mocracy specialists mutual support and to share knowledge. able to provide mutual support and to share knowledge. The regional work has focused on those areas in which conflict has been an enduring feature of the region, and in which transnational or cross-border monitoring and cooperation have shown themselves to be effective in helping provide security and promoting democratic development. With the troubled transition of the Balkan states emerging from the former Yugoslavia through war, division of territory and international military intervention, IDEA has sought to promote peace in the region through support of the South Eastern Europe Democracy Support (SEEDS) network. The project conducted, among other activities, an important and timely survey in 2002 on citizen attitudes towards democracy. The results, published as South Eastern Europe: New Means for Regional Analysis (2002), were significant: most citizens care more about economic than ethnic issues; European integration is a strongly desired aim; Kosovo has been a relative success, whereas there are deep concerns about Republic Srpska (in Bosnia), Bosnia as a whole, and Macedonia; and the region has a long way to go towards achieving democracy as a path to conflict management. Other regional initiatives have focused on monitoring of elections in Kosovo, local democracy there, gender equity, and democracy in Romania. The South Caucasus region has also been troubled since its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The war of secession in Azerbaijan, unsettled sovereignty and claims for ethnic autonomy in Georgia, and endemic problems of corruption in Armenia and throughout the region set the stage for IDEA’s democracy promotion Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 139 efforts in this area. In September 2001 IDEA released a yielded a report for the UN Millennium major democracy Summit in 2000 entitled Democracy and assessment report Global Cooperation at the United Nations: on Georgia, GeorTowards Peace, Development and gia and the South Democratization. The report urged the UN to Caucasus: Chaleschew a technical approach to democracy lenges to Sustainpromotion in its peace operations and able Democracy, to embrace more openly the political which found that agenda of democracy as peace building; to the country faces consider more carefully how elections are exceptional chalonly a single step in the democratization lenges of corrupenterprise and to avoid a view of elections tion and a ‘shadow as a panacea; and, finally, to resist the state’, restive ethnic groups seeking pressure to turn to democracy as a ‘quick to break away from fix’ for bringing a peace operation to a control by Tbilisi, speedy fruition. religious tension and discrimination, de facto discrimination against women, and serious electoral fraud in the elections that have been held since independence. IDEA’s work on the UN and democracy In 2003, IDEA conducted a cross-regional comparison of local democracy in the region, which found that, while some gains had been made in establishing legal frameworks, the realities on the ground suggest that all states in the region face tremendous challenges in creating a meaningful system of local democracy. IDEA now has a programme officer working in the region to further its democracy-building work, the highlights of which are published in a newsletter entitled Dialogue. Among the regional projects are dialogues for constitution reform. IDEA’s Africa programme also operates in an exceptionally large and diverse region that has experienced conflict and deep-rooted conflict. Although in many countries such as Mozambique and Angola, or Sierra Leone and Liberia, wars have officially ended, problems of conflict still beset many states on the continent. The IDEA Africa programme has, in addition to its work in Nigeria, focused on cross-border learning in West Africa and the development of new democratic institutions, norms and standards in Southern Africa. For example, IDEA convened a major conference 140 at Goree Island off the coast of Senegal in August 1999 that brought together officials and specialists from a wide variety of West African states. More recently, IDEA held a workshop in Sierra Leone for administration personnel, and new work is planned on electoral guidelines and election monitoring through the principal sub-regional organization, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In Southern Africa, IDEA has engaged in wide-ranging work to help newly created electoral management bodies manage election processes, to share information and experience, and to develop regional guidelines for political parties in the conduct of election campaigns. In other regions, such as South Asia, IDEA has begun to build on its work in democracy assessments and dialogues and has used the State of Democracy assessment approach to evaluate a return to democracy in idyllic but war-torn Nepal, to promote reconciliation and the peace process in Sri Lanka, and to begin to develop a regional network of democracy advocates to cooperate across borders and to include the region’s pivotal states of India and Pakistan. In the Arab world, where security concerns loom large in every state, IDEA works to further buttress the nascent political reform efforts seen in recent years. The focus of activity is on political party development, gender equality and women’s representation, and electoral system reform. Earlier, in 2000, IDEA published a report entitled Democracy in the Arab World: Challenges, Achievements, and Prospects; among its key findings was that managing Islamist political action will remain a dilemma for democracy promoters in the region for some time to come. While ideally regimes should become open and introduce competitive elections, could extremists come to power through the ballot box with the intention of destroying democracy once in power? 10.3.3. Democracy and the United Nations In April 1999 the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted a landmark resolution which for the first time unambiguously proclaimed every individual’s right to democracy. Supported by 51 governments and opposed by none, Resolution 57 of that year affirmed in a new way that democracy The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) is a fundamental human right that includes, in the words of the resolution: (a) The rights to freedom of opinion and expression, of thought, conscience and religion, and of peaceful association and assembly; (b) The right to freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media; (c) The rule of law, including legal protection of citizens’ rights, interests and personal security, and fairness in the administration of justice and independence of the judiciary; (d) The right of universal and equal suffrage, as well as free voting procedures and periodic and free elections; (e) The right of political participation, including equal opportunity for all citizens to become candidates; (f ) Transparent and accountable government institutions; (g) The right of citizens to choose their governmental system through constitutional or other democratic means; and (h) The right to equal access to public service in one’s own country. In the same year, IDEA began working on a project related to the UN’s role in promoting democracy in comprehensive peace operations. In sum, for the UN, democracy is both an intrinsic human right and a practical objective necessary for the creation of viable states and the organization of legitimate governments, as part of an ‘exit strategy’ for winding up complex peace operations. Beginning in 2000, IDEA has organized a number of seminars that have brought together UN officials, veterans of peace operations and experts to evaluate how the twin goals of peacekeeping and democracy promotion have been pursued in countries such as Cambodia, Haiti, Rwanda, East Timor, and Kosovo. IDEA’s work on the UN and democracy yielded a report for the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 entitled Democracy and Global Cooperation at the United Nations: Towards Peace, Development and Democratization. The report urged the UN to eschew a technical approach to democracy promotion in its peace operations and to embrace more openly the political agenda of democracy as peace building; to consider more carefully how elections are only a single step in the democratization enterprise and to avoid a view of elections as a panacea; and, finally, to resist the pressure to turn to democracy as a ‘quick fix’ for bringing a peace operation to a speedy fruition. The UN has adopted many of the recommendations in the report over time, as evidenced in the careful and strategically sophisticated approach the world body has taken to organizing elections in 2004 in Afghanistan. A final element of the UN and democracy project is a series of seminars the organization has held in Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone on the promotion of local democracy. Recognizing that, although essential, national elections do not translate into ground-level infusion of democratic values in a war-torn society, IDEA’s work highlights the importance of elections and citizen participation initiatives in local settings. The results of this activity are published in a new report, Democracy and Peace-Building at the Local Level: Lessons Learned (2004). 10.4. Conclusion: New Challenges, Themes and Approaches Like the 1990s, the 21st century has brought with it an entirely new set of challenges for international democracy promotion in a world beset by violent conflict. Certainly the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 have placed national security concerns at the top of the international agenda, often at the expense of human rights. Moreover, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has dubbed ‘illegal’, was fought in part with the aim of bringing democracy and liberty to Iraq through the barrel of a gun. While this enterprise may in the long run still prove to be successful despite the obvious setbacks that have been encountered by advocates of the intervention, both the new climate of fear and the Iraq controversy have reinforced a deep and widespread scepticism about the ability of democracy to contribute to conflict management in today’s tumultuous climate. Added to these security concerns is the fact that in many countries democracy has not been seen to deliver the goods in terms of contributing sufficiently to economic development; it is not unusual to hear talk of a ‘democracy deficit’ in terms of public support for free and fair elections when the public’s principal Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 141 In order to contribute successfully to peace, political institutions and processes must concerns are personal and economic security. clearly and unambiguously advance the IDEA’s work must face up to these consecurity and human development. To have temporary challvalue, democracy in situations of deepenges in much the rooted conflict today must go well beyond same way as the negotiating well-designed institutions— work of the 1990s however important that may be—to ensure addressed the that today’s conflicts, too, are indeed best burning issues of addressed over time by creating political that turbulent decsystems in which tolerance, trust and ade. Today, IDEA’s mutual understanding are the values upon efforts focus on which real world security and development prior lessons well learned, such as imperatives are realized. the enduring importance of institutional design, engineering and crafting for conflict management. In 2004, IDEA began a new project to evaluate how constitution-making processes and institutional choices can contribute to conflict management. In this project, constitutional processes focus on broad inclusion of all social segments in constitutional talks and the subsequent implementation and sustainability of agreements reached. In case studies of constitution making in countries such as Afghanistan, Guatemala, Nigeria, Colombia and Kenya, among others, the project will take further the evaluation of the conditions under which clever institutional choices and well-conceived deliberation can tip the balance towards peace and away from violence in divided societies. very basic aims of governance: human facilitate more sustainable reforms. Finally, given the deep and enduring scepticism that democracy can in fact contribute to the management of deep-rooted conflict, in 2005 IDEA will launch a new handbook together with an online resource guide to re-evaluate anew the fundamental relationships between democracy and conflict management. The new project, Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Peace through Democracy Practices, starts from the premise that, in order to contribute successfully to peace, political institutions and processes must clearly and unambiguously advance the very basic aims of governance: human security and human development. To have value, democracy in situations of deep-rooted conflict today must go well beyond negotiating well-designed institutions— however important that may be—to ensure that today’s conflicts, too, are indeed best addressed over time by creating political systems in which tolerance, trust and mutual understanding are the values upon which real world security and development imperatives are realized. Similarly, the theme of democracy building as a dialogue is taken up anew in a project that will draw on the experience of practitioners in a variety of settings to derive lessons for effective processes of structured discussion to evaluate democracy’s quality and performance. The dialogue project began its work in earnest in 2004 and will yield a significant new handbook in 2005. The handbook, which is being created in a partnership with UNDP and the Organization of American States, has moved beyond the evaluation of democracy itself to key issues of setting national agendas for improving democracy, consensus building in difficult issue areas, and ways in which dialogue can 142 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) ‘Which democracy model did we want to promote? Following extensive consultations around the world as drafters of the statutes we resolved that IDEA should be mandated to support sustainable democracy worldwide. Hence, its commitment to work with both new and long-established democracies. IDEA’s programme to support democratic development in Burkina Faso, initiated in 1996, was a milestone in the struggle for advancing democracy in one of the poorest African countries.’ Adama Dieng, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda since March 2001. Senegal. Member of the Board of International IDEA February 1995–June 2001 144 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 11. The State of Democracy Project David Beetham This chapter provides an account of IDEA’s democracy assessment process. It outlines how the democracy assessment methodology developed by IDEA has worked and influenced other methodologies, and how it has been used as a teaching tool and even taken on a life of its own, triggering a second generation of assessments initiated by the countries themselves. The State of Democracy project was established by IDEA at the end of the 1990s with the following aims: • to develop a robust methodology for assessing the condition and progress of democracy in any country of the world; • to pilot the methodology with in-country partners in a number of countries, both to test its effectiveness and as a direct contribution to democratic development in the respective countries; • to draw comparative conclusions from these assessments about the successes and setbacks of democratization to date, as a guide to the global state of democracy; and • to promote the use of the assessment methodology more widely by a variety of user constituencies, through the production of a handbook and other publications, and through the fostering of a global network of democracy assessors. 11.1. Background An essential element in any country’s process of democracy building or democratic reform is a stage of stocktaking—to assess progress to date and to identify the most serious weaknesses that should be addressed. This is what a systematic democracy assessment seeks to provide. Its potential audience is not only political decision makers but also the public or civil society more widely. Such an assessment can serve to raise public awareness about what democracy involves and to inform debate about what standards of performance people should expect from their government. It can contribute to public discussion about ongoing reform, and help to identify priorities for a reform programme. It can also provide an instrument for assessing how effectively reforms are working out in practice. The idea of systematically assessing the level or quality of a country’s democracy has a long pedigree, although it became more prevalent during the 1990s with the emergence of many new democracies. Historically, such assessments have been designed to serve widely differing purposes. On one side are the quantitative tables of global democratic performance developed by Freedom House, the World Bank or the Polity IV dataset, which enable comparisons to be made between countries on a small number of key indicators. (Recent examples of these are included in UNDP 2002: 38– 41.) Here every country’s performance on each Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 145 indicator is assessed and aggregated into a single overall score or league table for rough comparative purposes. Such quantitative tables have also been developed and used by social scientists to enable correlations to be made between levels of democracy and other variables, such as economic development or respect for human rights. On the other side there are in-depth analyses of democratic governance in individual countries designed by international development agencies for an explicit policy purpose: to identify weaknesses in potential recipients of economic aid, or to locate points where external political One of its key principles is that assessments intervention might should be conducted by citizens of the be most useful country concerned, not by outsiders sitting or most effective (Crawford 2001). in judgement upon it. This is because These assessments any process of reform is more likely to be are typically qualieffective if not only the process itself but tative rather than also the definition of its priorities is ‘owned’ quantitative in by the people concerned. form, and they are sectorally disaggregated so that the respective strengths and weaknesses of different aspects of democratic governance can be individually identified. From this perspective, to sum all these together into a single score, as is done in the first type of assessment, not only obscures as much as it reveals; it cannot provide the evidence needed for a targeted reform programme. The assessment methodology developed for IDEA’s State of Democracy project is closer to the second than the first type of democracy assessment mentioned above in that its purpose is to contribute directly to a programme of democracy building and democratic reform. Unlike the assessments conducted by other international agencies, however, this one is designed to be domestically rather than externally driven. One of its key principles is that assessments should be conducted by citizens of the country concerned, not by outsiders sitting in judgement upon it. This is because any process of reform is more likely to be effective if not only the process itself but also the definition of its priorities is ‘owned’ by the people concerned. Outsiders can at most be facilitative rather than 146 instructive or judgemental, although this ought not exclude the involvement of invited external experts with comparative experience of conducting such assessments. This facilitative purpose has characterized the State of Democracy’s assessment methodology from the outset. It also has other innovative features which have gained it international recognition, of which the following are the most significant: • the criteria for assessment are derived systematically from clearly defined democratic norms and principles; • the framework of search questions provides a comprehensive and coherent itemization of democracy’s key features, which is readily intelligible and easy to use; • the assessment process and framework can be applied to established and emergent democracies alike; • finished assessments can combine qualitative and quantitative analysis; and • the practice of involving a wide range of participants from the outset, and submitting the preliminary findings to a national conference for peer review, enhances the legitimacy and political salience of the assessment process. The next section will briefly elaborate on each of these features in turn. 11.2. An Innovative Methodology The assessment methodology was originally pioneered by a group involved in auditing the state of democracy in the United Kingdom, in response to widespread concerns about the democratic condition of that country at the end of the 1980s. The methodology was, however, considerably modified and developed for IDEA’s State of Democracy Project. Most important in this was the assembling of an international group of experts from every region of the world to critique and refine a draft assessment framework. In the process, significant concerns and experiences from emergent democracies and developing countries were incorporated into the assessment method. Its distinctive features can thus be seen as the outcome of an international process of peer review. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 11.2.1. Democratic Norms Most types of democracy or governance assessment either fail to explain or justify their selection of items to be assessed, or are explicit about the normative criteria against which a given country’s practices are to be evaluated. The State of Democracy method is based on a simple assumption that democracy is to be defined in the first instance by a set of norms or principles, and only secondarily by the institutions and practices through which these principles are realized. When we are trying to assess how democratic a given institution or practice is, the criterion has to be how far it actually helps to realize a relevant democratic principle. So, for example, if what makes elections democratic is that they enable citizens to choose their rulers and hold them accountable, then these norms will not be realized to the extent that the citizen’s choice is unduly restricted, or the choices made are not fairly reflected in the governmental outcome, or a government is able to control or manipulate the choices in the first place. It follows that it is not enough to specify a checklist of items to be assessed without explaining what their contribution is to democratic life and the norms against which they are to be assessed. The underlying democratic principles that have driven the State of Democracy assessment method are twofold: popular control of public decisions and decision makers, and equality between citizens in relation to those decisions—in short, popular control and political equality. These principles are applicable to both direct and representative democracy. In relation to the latter, however (the normal form for contemporary government), these principles are realized through a set of mediating norms: those of participation, authorization, representativeness, accountability, transparency, responsiveness and solidarity. These are the norms against which the actual working of the main institutions of democracy has to be assessed, whether it be legislatures, the electoral process, access to justice, the rights of citizens, or whatever. This relationship between norms and practices provides the underlying logic to the assessment framework and method (for a convenient summary see International IDEA 2002). 11.2.2. Framework of Assessment Questions The assessment framework sets out in a logical order the main elements which together comprise a functioning democratic polity and society. It begins with the citizen and his or her rights, including the legal institutions necessary The State of Democracy method is based to guarantee these on a simple assumption that democracy is rights in practice; to be defined in the first instance by a set of moves on to the assessment of the norms or principles, and only secondarily institutions of repby the institutions and practices through resentative and acwhich these principles are realized. countable government; assesses the contribution of civil society to political participation and government responsiveness; and concludes with the international dimensions of democracy. In all, the framework has 14 sections, arranged as follows: • Citizen rights: nationhood and citizenship, the rule of law and access to justice, civil and political rights, and economic and social rights. • Representative and accountable government: free and fair elections, the democratic role of political parties, government effectiveness and accountability, civilian control of the military and police, and minimizing corruption. • Civil society and popular participation: the media in a democratic society, political participation, government responsiveness, and decentralization. • Democracy beyond the state: the international dimensions of democracy. Although all these different components can be treated separately for analytical purposes, they are all interdependent, and any overNothing, for example, has more discredited all assessment has the democratization process than the to consider how assumption that it is largely a matter of they relate to one electoral democracy alone, without any another and work consideration of what happens in the long together in conperiods between elections, or of what basic text. Nothing, for supportive conditions are necessary if example, has more elections are to be genuinely ‘free and fair’. discredited the democratization Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 147 process than the assumption that it is largely a matter of in the comparative mode, on the assumption electoral democrathat democracy is a matter of degree, not an cy alone, without all-or-nothing affair, which a country either any consideration has or does not have. of what happens in the long periods between elections, or of what basic supportive conditions are necessary if elections are to be genuinely ‘free and fair’. The assessment framework encourages the different elements to be seen in relation to one another, while also enabling the difference in democratic performance between them to be identified. These questions are all deliberately framed Each section of the framework outlined above contains a list of four or five search questions, which an assessment team will seek to answer. By way of example, the list of questions for section 8 of the framework (civilian control of the military and police) is: 1. How effective is civilian control over the armed forces, and how free is political life from military involvement? 2. How publicly accountable are the police and security services for their activities? 3. To what extent does the composition of the army, police and security services reflect the social composition of society at large? 4. How free is the country from the operation of paramilitary units, private armies, warlordism and criminal mafias? These questions are all deliberately framed in the comparative mode, on the assumption that democracy is a matter of degree, not an all-or-nothing affair, which a country either has or Yet the established democracies are also does not have. This in need of reform and improvement, as the raises the question widespread collapse in public confidence of what counts as a and participation in representative good comparative processes demonstrates. standard against which a country’s performance can be judged in each respect. One of the strengths of the assessment method is that it is left to the assessors themselves to decide what is the most appropriate comparator or standard 148 for assessment. Should it be an internal one, for example some appropriate point in the past, say the end of an authoritarian regime, from which progress can be charted, or some target for attainment which the government has explicitly set itself or which is implicit in popular expectations of how governments should perform? Or should it be external: the level attained by some appropriate comparator country in the region, or an international standard of good or best attainable practice? Assessors may wish to combine these, but the decision must be theirs in the light of which kind of standard will carry the most persuasive force in the given context. This is only one of the many ways in which the framework can be tailored to local circumstances, albeit within a common method and question base. 11.2.3. Universal Applicability At first sight it might seem surprising that an assessment methodology should be applicable to established as well as emergent democracies. Most qualitative assessments are designed to be applied to recently established democracies, typically to determine whether they attain the threshold for external assistance, say, or for membership of a democratic ‘club’ such as the European Union. Here the level of attainment of the established democracies is assumed to be the self-evident standard against which newcomers should be judged. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Yet the established democracies are also in need of reform and improvement, as the widespread collapse in public confidence and participation in representative processes demonstrates. They also have problems with ‘money politics’, with the defence of basic rights, economic as well as civil, with social inclusion, with gender equality, with accountability of the security services, and so on. Such problems may be more acute in the emergent democracies, but they are common to all, and we can all benefit from each other’s experience of how best to tackle them. A basic assumption of the State of Democracy assessment method is that the democratic norms and principles outlined above have a universal applicability and appeal, even though they may not be universally applied in practice. It is this universal appeal of democratic values that enables a carefully designed assessment framework itself to have general applicability. This is not a question of imposing our values or standards on others, as should be clear from the country-centred approach already discussed. Indeed, nothing better demonstrates the universality than having established democracies subject themselves to the same self-assessment process as is expected of emergent ones. It is for this reason that the pilot studies in the State of Democracy Project included two established democracies (Italy and New Zealand) alongside others, even though a concern with the ‘old’ democracies may not be a central part of IDEA’s mission. An example of how careful design can enable search questions to tap into the concerns of countries in very different circumstances can be drawn from the final section of the framework, on the international dimensions of democracy. That such a section was included at all was due to the prompting of contributors from the South, who were particularly sensitive to the way in which a country’s policies can be determined from outside. What value does the popular control of government have, they asked, if a government is itself relatively powerless in the face of international agencies, or if major decisions affecting the well-being of citizens are taken beyond the state? And can a country be called democratic if it is not consistent in its respect for international law, or in its support for democracy and human rights beyond its borders? These concerns are precisely reflected in the search questions of the international section, and are able to capture the democracyrelevant aspects of a country’s external profile, whether the country belongs to the relatively powerful or powerless international players. What value does the popular control of government have, they asked, if a government is itself relatively powerless in the face of international agencies, or if major decisions affecting the well-being of citizens are taken beyond the state? And can a country be called democratic if it is not consistent in its respect for international law, or in its support for democracy and human rights beyond its borders? 11.2.4. Qualitative or Quantitative Findings? Answering the search questions in the assessment framework is primarily a research-based exercise, though this need not involve the assessors in undertaking or commissioning new primary research themselves. It is rather a matter of identifying existing data and evidence from a variety of sources, including opinion surveys, and organizing it systematically so that it answers the questions as closely and convincingly as possible. Often this requires a qualitative or discursive treatment; at other times the findings can be best expressed in quantitative form. It would be a mistake to draw a sharp contrast between assessment findings in qualitative or quantitative terms. Some issues can only be treated discursively, for example, any account of the legal basis for the respective powers of citizens, legislatures and executives, and the procedures through which these are realized in practice, or a survey of the historical and social context which alone can make a country’s democratic process intelligible. When it comes to assessing outcomes, some of these certainly lend themselves to quantification and country comparison. Most obvious examples are subjects such as voter turnout, the representativeness of legislatures, gender participation rates, patterns of social and economic inequality, and so on. Less obviously, it is sometimes possible to find one or two quantitative indicators which throw light on a whole area of public life; for example, the ratio of different populations in prison, the percentage Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 149 The State of Democracy Project has rejected the practice of reducing complex and nuanced qualitative judgements to numerical form, which delivers a simple ‘score’, or of then weighting different aspects of democracy and aggregating the results into a competitive league table of democratic performance. of the prison population awaiting trial, or the average length of time taken to bring cases to court can illuminate a whole criminal justice system. Here a simple table can be worth volumes of text. The State of Democracy Project has rejected the practice of reducing complex and nuanced qualitative judgements to numerical form, which delivers a simple ‘score’, or of then weighting different aspects of democracy and aggregating the results into a competitive league table of democratic performance. The results of such reduction and aggregation are usually arbitrary, and give a misleading impression of objective precision to what are essentially subjective judgements. The reason for the currency of such league tables lies in the public demand for simple measures which can be read at a glance, where few have the time or patience to wade through a large volume. This is primarily a matter of presentation rather than of the intrinsic appropriateness of numbers or a text. For assessment findings to have a public Contributors to the impact is a question not just of effective State of Democracy presentation but of a public recognition of Project have experimented with various the legitimacy of the assessment process. methods of presenting findings in summary or simplified form: • the executive summary, both as part of a larger text and for separate publication; • the selection of a few key findings for a media handout; • the development of qualitative as well as quantitative tables; and • graphic presentations in the form of charts and diagrams. These presentational methods have developed as the project has progressed, and can be developed further. 150 11.2.5. Legitimacy of the Assessment Results For assessment findings to have a public impact is a question not just of effective presentation but of a public recognition of the legitimacy of the assessment process. At the end of the day, assessing the level or quality of a country’s democracy is a judgemental activity, aspects of which are bound to be controversial. It is all the more important, therefore, to be able to defend the integrity of the process. A number of elements can contribute to this. One is the selection of the assessors, who need to be credible experts in their respective fields. A second is the involvement of a range of potential stakeholders in the planning stages of the assessment. A third, obviously, is the quality and objectivity of the data and evidence on which the judgements are based. The fourth is the practice of submitting draft findings to a national conference for peer review by a wide range of opinion. Together these can answer criticisms that the assessment is merely partisan. I have already mentioned the legitimacy which comes from an assessment process that is domestically rather than externally driven and conducted. In addition, the robustness of the assessment method, the explicitness of its normative basis and the standing of IDEA itself as promoter and partner have all contributed to the legitimacy of the assessments to date. It is to a review of these that this chapter turns next. 11.3. ‘First-Generation’ Assessments The pilot programme of eight country assessments financed by the Institute and the various spin-offs constitute the ‘first generation’ of assessments using the IDEA methodology. Only the most significant outcomes from the pilot programme will be summarized in what follows. 11.3.1. Pilot Country Assessments The eight countries selected for assessment by incountry partners were Bangladesh, El Salvador, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, New Zealand, Peru and South Korea. All of these produced democracy assessments covering the full range of the assessment framework, including executive summaries. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) In each case draft findings were submitted for review to a national conference of experts, including journalists, academics, politicians, human rights lawyers, and public officials such as electoral commissioners, parliamentary clerks, and so on. The full reports and summaries were photocopied for domestic circulation to a wide range of audiences. All were published electronically on the IDEA web site, and those for Bangladesh and New Zealand were also published in book form by a local publisher in partnership with IDEA (Barman et al. 2002; and Henderson and Bellamy 2002). What sort of impact did they have? This has proved difficult to evaluate definitively. Many of the assessors were involved in a wide range of other democracy initiatives, and the results of the assessment fed into their other work and contacts. It is a mistake, therefore, to draw too sharp a distinction between academics and practitioners, since most of the academic assessors saw themselves as ‘public intellectuals’ who had a foot in the world of public policy as well as academia, and had developed their own political and media contacts. A number of the national conferences to discuss draft findings had a direct impact on the political scene. In Peru many of the participants were to become involved in the constitutional discussions and interim arrangements following the ousting of President Fujimori. In Kenya the conference brought together on one platform for the first time leading representatives of the competing constitutional reform proposals put forward by the government and civil society, respectively. In Bangladesh representatives from the antagonistic political parties of government and opposition both attended. In such contexts the assessment process provided a neutral meeting point which transcended political antagonisms. Time and resource limitations prevented the level of involvement of stakeholders, especially from civil society, at an early enough stage of the assessment process. Had this been possible, the finished assessment would have had wider political salience and impact. Since this was a pilot programme, it was important to draw appropriate lessons from it which have been incorporated in the two comparative publications which represent the second output from the programme. 11.3.2. Comparative Publications The first of two comparative publications arising from the State of Democracy project was the Handbook on Democracy Assessment (Beetham et al. 2002a). As its title implies, the aim of the handbook was to disseminate and democratize the process of democracy assessment by providing a step-by-step guide which any group could use on its own account. In particular it would stimulate other country assessments beyond those that could be financed by IDEA. The first part of the handbook explains the assessment framework and provides a guide to each stage of the assessment process, from assembling a group of stakeholders through to strategies for dissemination of a finished report and media publicity. The second part gives examples of finished assessments, and different ways of presenting their findings. The third part offers a systematic compendium to assist assessors in answering each of the search questions in the framework. Against each question is set a summary of the types of data required to answer the question, a list of helpful sources for the data, and the location of examples of good practice as possible standards for the assessment. The handbook concludes with a do-it-yourself questionnaire version of the assessment framework, which could also be used for an elite survey by country assessors. Since there is no equivalent in the assessment field, the handbook has had considerable international impact. Whereas the handbook was designed to disseminate the methodology of the pilot project, a second volume, entitled simply The State of Democracy, aimed to disseminate its key findings (Beetham et al. 2002b). The first part of this volume contains the executive summaries from all the eight pilot assessments, set out according to each of the 14 sections of the framework in turn. A second part presents the findings comparatively in a series of innovative qualitative and quantitative tables. A third part draws out some general conclusions about the democratization process from the pilot studies. These show that some aspects of democracy can be introduced or reintroduced relatively quickly and successfully, especially where the removal of constraints on basic freedoms simply requires governments not to act oppressively or Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 151 obstructively. Other features, however, involve a much longer haul, since they require positive action from governments to develop effective systems of accountability and inclusion, and an alert and active civil society. One advantage of including established democracies in the pilot scheme has been to show that they too have experienced continuing problems, and where there is therefore mutual benefit to be gained by sharing difficulties and potential solutions to them. 11.3.3. Influence on Other Assessment Methodologies The work and publications of the State of Democracy Project have already had a considerable influence on other organizations working internationally in the field of democracy and governance assessment. Among these, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) made use of the methodology in the development of its own governance assessment framework, and personnel from the project were involved in designing and piloting a participatory assessment process for the DFID in Indonesia and Nigeria. The UN Economic Commission for Africa used the framework in the design of its comparative govOne advantage of including established ernance assessment democracies in the pilot scheme has been programme, develto show that they too have experienced oping the methodology further by continuing problems, and where there is adding a citizen therefore mutual benefit to be gained by satisfaction sursharing difficulties and potential solutions vey and elite questo them. tionnaire to the research component of the assessment process. Again, personnel from the State of Democracy Project were involved in an advisory capacity. The Inter-Parliamentary Union is currently developing a set of criteria for assessing the parliamentary dimension of democracy which explicitly takes the IDEA methodology as its starting point. These are examples of clearly identifiable influence. Others may pass unnoticed simply because the process of dissemination of ideas is subterranean and involves a complex mixture of many factors. One way of assisting further dissemination is 152 to develop an international network of those involved in democracy assessment from the many international contacts already stimulated by the project. These include the experts involved in the original design of the framework, the assessors from the pilot countries, those involved in a second generation of country assessments (see below), and other interested parties from development agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academia. In addition, members of the project team have made presentations on the IDEA methodology at international meetings in Morocco, Germany and Mongolia (2002–3), and written them up for the academic community in Democratization (2004), the Journal of Democracy (2004), and other publications (see Beetham 2004a and 2004b). 11.3.4. Pedagogical Applications One unanticipated outcome of the State of Democracy Project has been the pedagogical applications of the assessment framework. Although originally designed as a research instrument, it has proved to be equally useful as a device for teaching about democracy and its problems, and in developing analytical skills of assessment for students at a number of levels. Aspects of the framework have been used as a component in civic education in Kenya and Malawi. They have been employed in international courses for practitioners run by the British Council. And the framework as a whole has formed a component in Master’s level modules at universities in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the UK. In addition, it has formed the core of the foundation undergraduate course in political science at the University of Toronto, where students undertake an assessment of their own country and one emergent democracy as their required project. Again, these are only the applications known to the author through personal contact, and there are likely to be many others. 11.4. ‘Second-Generation’ Assessments Second-generation assessments are those where particular countries have taken up the IDEA framework and methodology on their own initiative and used them with their own sources of The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) funding. Typically, they have adapted the methodology to their own situation and improved it, while still keeping the basic framework of search questions intact. All have attempted to involve potential user groups and agencies from both government and civil society in the assessment process from an early stage. Other innovations or modifications they have made are worth summarizing briefly. The UK Democratic Audit has a successful history of identifying under-researched topics of public importance in the democratic field and publishing research papers on them, prior to a complete democracy assessment. Its research on public nongovernmental agencies (or ‘quangos’) and on alternative electoral systems for the UK has proved particularly influential. Its most recent full democracy assessment, Democracy under Blair, using the IDEA framework, ran into a second edition, such was the demand (Beetham et al., Democracy under Blair 2002 and 2003). The pamphlets summarizing the assessment findings used diagrams and visuals in an innovative way, and were circulated to all members of Parliament (MPs), as well as to supporters of the main democracy and human rights NGOs. The authors have acted as advisers to government and to select committees of Parliament, and are developing the assessment section on economic and social rights into the first fulllength audit of these rights in the UK. A group based at the Australian National University has won a major research council grant to finance a democracy assessment of Australia on the IDEA model. Like the UK, it has adopted a strategy of publishing interim research papers on issues such as electoral systems and political equality, or corruption and Australian democracy, so as to establish an early public profile. Australia is the first federal system to be assessed using the IDEA framework, and it is of considerable interest to see how it can be adapted for assessing a multi-level polity. Other distinctive features of the Australian assessment are its emphasis on deliberative democracy as a key component of public life, and its particularly active web site and assessment network (see <http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au>). 4 The Democracy in South Asia project, One unanticipated outcome of the State involving comparaof Democracy Project has been the tive assessments of pedagogical applications of the assessment five countries, has framework. Although originally designed highlighted new as a research instrument, it has proved to thematic issues be equally useful as a device for teaching in the assessment about democracy and its problems, and in framework, such as developing analytical skills of assessment protection against for students at a number of levels. tyranny, and has developed a multilevel approach to implementing it. Besides a research component and an elite survey, it has initiated as series of democracy dialogues between different ‘knowledge communities’ at regional, national and local levels, and has complemented these with a number of case studies exploring key puzzles about the working of democracy in practice. A distinctive theme of the assessment is the idea that democracy changes as it travels to new countries, and that a common template has to be sensitive to cultural specificities in each country and region.4 Democracy assessments recently initiated in the Philippines and the Republic of Ireland have opted for implementing the assessment framework as a rolling programme, in which sections of particular importance to funding agencies are given first priority. Getting sufficient funding for A distinctive theme of the assessment is the a complete assessidea that democracy changes as it travels to ment is not always new countries, and that a common template easy. It should be has to be sensitive to cultural specificities said, however, that in each country and region. for all these secondgeneration assessments it has proved a strong selling point to potential funding bodies that the assessment method and framework have been successfully tested in practice, and have now achieved international recognition and credibility. In due course it will be important to review the experience of these later assessments, and particularly the innovations they have made. This process began at an IDEA workshop in June 2004, and will be carried forward at an international meeting in Canada in June 2005. The project is led by Professor Peter de Souza at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 153 effects: between, say, contributing to the public debate or discourse of democracy; enriching civic education within and without the academy; developing consensus around a reform agenda; influencing specific reforms or reform agents; and evaluating the effectiveness of reforms once undertaken. Some of these effects are easier to assess than others. It was agreed that it would be mistaken to prioritize either the short- or the long-term effects, but that a successful assessment ought to be able to contribute to both. 11.5. The International IDEA Workshop The workshop held in London in June 2004 brought together many of those who had been involved in the development of the assessment framework and in the pilot country assessments, together with participants in the second genNot all the outcomes of an assessment were eration of assessexhausted by the impact of a particular ments. The aims product or publication, but that the process of the workshop itself was also important. were to review the State of Democracy Project to date, to assess its strengths and limitations, and to consider proposals for its development. Much of the discussion centred around the issue of how to assess the impact of country assessments, given that their purpose was to contribute to the democratization process itself. A number of useful distinctions emerged from the discussion. It was pointed out that not all the outcomes of an assessment were exhausted by the impact of a particular product or publication, but that the process itself was also important, especially where it involved a wide range of stakeholders, and contributed to the development of an ongoing monitoring capacity within civil society. Another distinction was between longer- and shorter-term influences or 154 Particular interest centred on how the assessment work undertaken to date might be of use to the donor community, which tends to be interested in shorter-term policy outcomes. Attention focused on how the distinctive expertise of academics in comparative analysis and the evaluation of different assessment methodologies could be helpful to donors in the development of more precisely focused governance indicators and in the mounting of training programmes and conferences. Making such links between academic and policy-oriented work had always been a distinctive feature of IDEA’s activities. As for the future of the State of Democracy Project, it was agreed that its success to date had given it a momentum that exceeded its original conception. The international network created by the first generation of assessments, and publications such as the handbook, helped to stimulate the second generation without new financial resources being required from the Institute itself. Nevertheless, most of the suggestions for improvement of the methodology made at the workshop, for developing it for different user constituencies, for revising the handbook, and even for supporting further country assessments, could best be provided by a partnership between IDEA and a leading academic institution. The University of Essex Human Rights Centre has been chosen for this purpose. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) References Australian National University, <http://democratic.audit. anu.edu.au> Barman, D., Rahman, Golam and Siddiqui, Tasneem, State of Democracy in Bangladesh (Dhaka: Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Dhaka, 2002) Beetham, David, ‘The Quality of Democracy: Freedom as the Foundation’, Journal of Democracy 15/4 (October 2004), pp. 61-75 (2004a) — ‘Towards a Universal Framework for Democracy Assessment’, Democratization 11/2 (April 2004), pp. 1-17 (2004b) Beetham, D., Bracking, S., Kearton, I. and Weir, S., International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002) (2002a) Beetham, D., Bracking, S., Kearton, I., Vittal, N. and Weir, S. (eds), The State of Democracy (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002) (2002b) Beetham, D., Byrne, I., Ngan, P. and Weir, S., Democracy under Blair, 1st edn (London: Politico’s, 2002) and 2nd edn (London: Politico’s and Methuen, 2003) Henderson, John and Bellamy, Paul, Democracy in New Zealand (Christchurch: Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, 2002) Crawford, Gordon, Foreign Aid and Political Reform (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001) International IDEA, ‘Democracy Assessment: The Basics of the International IDEA Assessment Framework’, Stockholm, 2002 UNDP, Human Development Report 2002: Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 155 ‘The international community must embrace different brands of democracy as equal and above all not favour specific cultural or historical models. While the European Union, the United States and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries will be important drivers in the process of further democratization, it is the young democracies of Latin America, Africa and Asia that will give credibility to the process. We need ideas, not ideology, as well as collaboration between equals, not a sermon from developed to developing democracies. The capacity and willingness to pursue a dialogue is an important feature of a democratic culture.” Ambassador Andrés Rozental, IDEA Board Vice Chairperson and President of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations 156 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 12. Building Democracy, Shaping the Future: International IDEA in Peru Kristen Sample, Daniel Zovatto This chapter provides a glimpse at the activities of one of IDEA’s regional offices, in Peru. In so doing it illustrates how IDEA benefits from the interaction between thematic and regional activities. The lessons learned on the ground from politicians and citizens feed into the overall subject work of the organization and serve to enhance its credibility. 12.1. Introduction The opening years of the new millennium found Peru, an Andean country of 27 million people, on the threshold of political change. After nearly two decades of political violence and ten years of authoritarian government, and in the wake of a corruption scandal that had shaken the country to the core, the groundwork was being laid for movement towards more participatory, transparent democracy. The transition government had called elections that were held successfully in 2001 and had launched investigations into the web of government corruption that came to light in late 2000. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was beginning to gather testimony about the political violence, while the National Accord Forum (NAF) was bringing leaders of political parties and civil society together to draw up plans for addressing the country’s major problems. It was amid this legacy of disenchantment combined with hope for a change that IDEA began its work in Peru, beginning with various missions, conferences, background research and meetings with local actors in 2001 and officially opening its country office in February 2002. IDEA has helped to bring politicians and citizens from across the political spectrum together for dialogue on such issues as the obstacles to good governance, political parties, electoral reform, women’s participation in politics and reconciliation in the wake of political violence. IDEA’s neutrality and its ability to bring to the table research and experience from other countries allowed it to play an important role in the reshaping of Peruvian democracy. 12.2. Crucible for Political Reform Peru’s return to democracy in 1980 was complicated by political insurgency that continued through a second democratically elected administration, from 1985 to 1990. By the time of the 1990 elections, the economy was in ruins, inflation was out of control and political violence—both a cause and a result of lack of governance, especially in rural areas—had spread. Peruvian voters held the country’s political parties Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 157 of civil society organizations and churches, came together in the NAF to discuss common problems and develop consensus about possible solutions. A Country Distrustful of Democracy? The legacy of a decade of corruption and distrust is reflected in Peruvians’ ambivalence about democracy. According to the 2004 Latinobarómetro survey, 45 per cent of Peruvians believe that democracy is preferable to any other form of government, down from 63 per cent in 1996 and below the regional average of 53 per cent. Only 7 per cent, however, said they were satisfied with the way democracy functioned in the country. partly responsible and expressed their disenchantment by electing a political unknown, Alberto Fujimori, who lacked the backing of an established party and opted for an authoritarian style. In April 1992 he closed Congress (although international pressure eventually forced him to call a constituent assembly) and placed the judiciary under presidential control. During the Fujimori administration, Congress passed a law that nearly quintupled the number of signatures required for political organizations to register. This forced most of the country’s political parties into oblivion. The collapse of the Fujimori government came amid a massive corruption scandal in late 2000, shortly after he began a third term following elections that most international observers considered fraudulent. The transition governIn a region marked by upheaval, helping to ment launched recover and stabilize democracy in Peru corruption investiwould be good not only for Peru but also for gations. Alejandro the entire Andean sub-region. Toledo then won the presidency in the 2001 elections. During the upheaval, the Organization of American States (OAS) brought many of Peru’s top political figures together for round table dialogue. During the transition government, figures from across the political spectrum, along with representatives 158 12.3. IDEA Begins Working in Peru It was against this backdrop that IDEA decided to begin working in Peru. There was a feeling within the organization that IDEA was ready to engage in a new country programme, and in Peru, as it was in the process of democratic transition, there was a solid opportunity for IDEA to contribute. Weak party systems characterize most of the Andean countries. Parties are the least trusted institutions in all five countries, and political analysts have commented on the inability of the region’s parties to offer constructive proposals or interact with civil society. In 2001, IDEA launched introductory activities in Peru under the direction of Daniel Zovatto. One of the first projects was a democracy assessment that was part of the State of Democracy series. The study was under way when the Fujimori government fell, forcing the authors to revise their assessment. The State of Democracy in Peru, 2000–2001 was officially released in Peru in July 2001 at a ceremony co-organized by IDEA, the Catholic University, Transparencia, the Andean Commission of Jurists and the Dialogue and Proposals Institute. IDEA followed up with a seminar on the state The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) of democracy, co-sponsored by the Carter Center, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Transparencia, which drew about 300 people a day from various sectors of Peruvian society to discuss civil society and public opinion; political parties, representation and the party system; reform of the armed forces and the national defence; and electoral reform. The latter topic was also a focus of IDEA’s early actions in Peru, with a two-day seminar on electoral system reform followed by the publication of the content of the event. IDEA co-sponsored the seminar with the Carter Center, the NDI, Transparencia and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES). After the elections of 2000 and 2001, IDEA decided to take another step in its commitment, opening its Peru office in February 2002. IDEA consulted a broad range of Peruvian figures and representatives of IDEA’s member states about the strategic areas in which IDEA could best take action in Peru. The research identified the need to work with political parties, in partnership with local organizations. Transparencia, being a non-partisan civil society organization, already had extensive experience in civic education, the fostering of citizen participation, especially in elections, and helping to ensure free, fair and transparent elections. Transparencia became a key local partner, especially in the drafting of the Political Parties Law and proposals for electoral reform. The Peruvian organization also provided IDEA with space for its Peru office during the first year of operation. Building on the consultation process and with local partnerships in place, IDEA established its office in Peru in February 2002 with a mandate for support in four programme areas: governance, political reform, women, and political participation and reconciliation. Four Interlinked Areas of the IDEA Peru Programme • Governance Following the IDEA democracy assessment of 2001, IDEA sponsored Citizens for Good Government. This group of experts examined the exercise of citizen power through the framework of political parties, civil society and the media; and key public policies. • Political reform — Working with Transparencia, IDEA invited the leaders of the country’s 12 major political parties to meet together to discuss the framework for a Political Parties Law. This concluded with the passage of the law in 2003. — Similar dialogue was established to reach consensus on elements of a new electoral code. — IDEA published an overview of the challenges facing the party system in the region and proposals for addressing them. — IDEA launched Agora Democrática in March 2004, a programme for political participation that will form the core of its work in the coming years. • Women and political participation — IDEA Peru sponsored a workshop on the implementation of quota laws in the region, pinpointing areas for improvement. Another seminar included a focus on women’s political participation in various Latin American countries. — IDEA Peru provided political parties with technical assistance in applying the quota law and expanding women’s participation within parties. — Agora Democrática contributed to increasing women’s participation in politics, not just in Peru but throughout the Andean region. • Reconciliation — IDEA Peru assisted the TRC by providing a comparative study on the work of truth commissions. — IDEA and Transparencia jointly sponsored, and documented the results of citizen gatherings in seven cities. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 159 12.4. Governance The 2001 democracy assessment, conducted by four Peruvians with extensive experience in political and social analysis, examined the legacy of various undemocratic practices that had characterized Peru’s recent history. It found that poor indigenous Peruvians were largely excluded from public life, that there was a lack of protection for minorities and that people tended to be tolerant of authoritarian leadership. It also revealed that citizen participation was mainly limited to elections. Given the new political climate in the post-Fujimori years, both the study’s authors and the IDEA staff felt that a broader, more participatory assessment was needed. Thus was born Citizens for Good Government, which brought together a group of distinguished experts in such fields as public policy, law, political science, sociology, anthropology, business administration and economics. ‘The idea was to form a group institutions—political parties, civil society that was pluralistic, from a politiand the media—that provide the framework cal standpoint, and for the relationship between citizens and interdisciplinary’, the exercising of power. The second set said Rafael Ronof problems was related to key public cagliolo, who headpolicies for economic growth with social ed the IDEA Peru equality; gradual, effective decentralization office in 2003. of government; and efficient public When Peruvian ofadministration. ficials decided to relaunch the National Accord Forum in early 2004, Roncagliolo became the forum’s technical secretary. The first problem area involved The group met throughout 2003 and into 2004, analysing the state of democracy in the country and identifying several ‘critical knots’ that needed to be ‘untied’ in order for democracy to function properly. The first problem area involved institutions—political parties, civil society and the media—that provide the framework for the relationship between citizens and the exercising of power. The second set of problems was related to key public 160 policies for economic growth with social equality; gradual, effective decentralization of government; and efficient public administration. Citizens for Good Government drew up position papers, holding seminars in various parts of the country to present the ideas and gather input. ‘It was important to go out into the provinces to discuss the position papers with people outside Lima’, Roncagliolo said. The group continues to meet independently, under the leadership of coordinator Susana Pinilla Cisneros, the executive president of the Institute for the Development of the Informal Sector (Instituto de Desarrollo del Sector Informal, IDESI Nacional). Achievements: Governance • The 2001 democracy assessment (carried out before International IDEA opened its Peru office) laid the groundwork and provided direction for the organization’s later actions. • Citizens for Good Government, which broadened the debate on the issues raised in the democracy assessment, made an important contribution to discussion of governance issues in the country. 12.5. Political Reform and Political Parties When IDEA began working in Peru, the country was the only one in the region that did not have a law on political parties. Working with Transparencia, IDEA invited the leaders of the country’s 12 major political parties to meet together to discuss the framework for a Political Parties Law. The process, which began in 2002 and concluded with the passage of the law in 2003, included working groups that met in Lima and seminars organized in four other regions of the country with local party leaders and representatives of civil society organizations. The result was the participatory drafting of what many experts consider to be one of the most comprehensive and modern political The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) parties laws in Latin America. Highlights of the law include requirements for official registration of parties, including party by-laws and the establishment of local committees throughout the country to ensure broad participation and avoid centralization; guidelines for democratic processes within the parties, including internal elections overseen by the National Office of Electoral Processes (Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales, ONPE) and mechanisms for public and private financing of parties. The latter were modified by Congress when the draft law came up for debate, but the law provides a starting point on which the parties can build. ‘The challenge now is to make the law a reality’, says Kristen Sample, IDEA’s Peru Director. In October 2004, IDEA co-sponsored a Latin American seminar on party financing as another step towards that goal. The law and the process that gave rise to it drew the attention of the Rio Group in 2003, when Peru chaired the group. At the Rio Group’s request, IDEA researched and published ‘Democratic Governance and Political Parties in Latin America’, an overview of the challenges facing the party system in the region and proposals for addressing them. ‘The document was extremely good and continues to serve as a reference’, IDEA’s Peru Director Roncagliolo said. The study’s proposals—including strengthening parties, developing mechanisms for building consensus, making parliaments more responsive, reforming party systems, promoting political education, developing strategies for social and economic development and fostering cooperation among political parties in the region—were adopted by the Rio Group presidents at their 17th Summit in Cusco, Peru, in May 2003. A dialogue of the type that led to the Political Parties Law was later established to promote consensus on the elements of an electoral reform that will include a new electoral code. Political leaders are grappling with such issues as whether the military and police should have the right to vote, the make-up of districts, and whether to retain the ‘preferential vote’ or use another mechanism for assigning seats to winning parties. This debate has included inter-party dialogue, coordinated by Transparencia in partnership with IDEA, and a seminar on reform of the electoral system, cosponsored by IDEA in December 2001, at which speakers from various Latin American countries presented an overview of experiences in electoral reform in their nations. The process that led to Peru’s Political Parties Law and the study prepared for the Rio Group raised IDEA’s profile in Latin America and served as a catalyst for plans to expand into the Andean region. ‘The drafting of the law showed that it is possible to get members of political parties from across the spectrum, both those represented in Congress and those that are not, to sit down together to discuss issues of common interest that lead to the development of a specific product’. Percy Medina Secretary General of Transparencia Launched in March 2004, Agora Democrática seeks to support political party systems in the Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 161 Andean region. It focuses on four types of result: proposals for political reform; the promotion of a culture of dialogue; strengthened political parties; and training for political and civil society leaders. During 2004 the programme published three books: Political Parties in the Andean Region: Between Crisis and Change; Women, Political Parties and Electoral Reform; and Women in Political Parties in Peru, along with a pamphlet entitled ‘An Overview of Women’s Political Participation’. It also sponsored a series of public inter-party dialogues, attended by party leaders and members, as well as representatives of public and private institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media. Debate has focused on strategies for strengthening political parties and the role they should play in society. Eight political training workshops were held in 2004 in various parts of the country for more than 325 people representing 16 political groups and six civil society organizations. More than 37 per cent of the participants were women and 60 per cent were young people. Agora Democrática has fostered networking among the graduates of these workshops. It has also provided technical assistance to parties on implementing the Political Parties Law, increasing democracy and women’s participation within parties, and implementing financing mechanisms and oversight. IDEA’s work in the area of political parties led to a fruitful relationship with key leaders on Peru’s political scene, including Lourdes Flores Nano, who heads the Unidad Nacional party and stood for president in 2001. Flores Nano is now a member of IDEA’s Board of Directors. 12.6. Women and Political Participation Not until 1955 did women in Peru win the right to vote and hold public office. In 1985, only 5.6 per cent of the seats in the lower house of Congress and 5 per cent in the Senate were held by women. Ten years later, the number had risen, but only to 10.8 per cent in the unicameral Congress. 162 Achievements: Political Reform • The process sponsored by IDEA and Transparencia led to what is hailed as one of Latin America’s most complete laws on political parties. Both the consensus-based drafting of the law and its content can serve as models for similar processes in other countries, as well as for other reforms of the state. • IDEA’s participation in the process led to requests from the Rio Group and Latin American Parliament to prepare documents on political parties legislation to serve as a reference for the region. That, in turn, broadened opportunities for partnership in the region. • The process that led to the Political Parties Law has also served as a model for consensus building on electoral reform, also sponsored by Transparencia and IDEA. • During its first year of operation in Peru, the Agora Democrática project provided training for members of political parties in various parts of the country on such issues as political ethics, the electoral system, procedures for party registration, women’s participation in political parties, and financing mechanisms and oversight. Peru’s 1997 quota law required that at least 25 per cent of the candidates on parties’ slates for the legislature must be women. A similar provision for municipal elections was included in the Electoral Code. The quota was later raised to 30 per cent for congressional, regional and local elections. As a result, the proportion of women in public office has increased, although it remains below the quota target. ‘Peru was a country where, in spite of quota laws and a certain level of political development, the presence of women in political life was quite limited’, IDEA’s Myriam Méndez-Montalvo said. In February 2003, IDEA sponsored a workshop on the implementation of quota laws in the region, comparing the experiences of various countries and analysing the gains made and the areas in The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) which improvement was still needed. In January 2004 another Latin American seminar was held, focusing on women, political parties and electoral reform. Participants from different Latin American countries noted three obstacles to women’s political participation: 1. they must want to be elected; 2. they must receive their party’s nomination; and 3. they must win the vote of their constituents. The second barrier was seen as key and, while quota laws are a step towards overcoming it, further changes are needed within parties, including training, placing women higher on candidate slates for general elections and greater equality in campaign financing. Peru’s Political Parties Law took an important step with its requirement that 30 per cent of the candidates in internal party elections must be women. IDEA Peru has been providing political parties with technical assistance in applying the quota law and expanding women’s participation within parties. The Agora Democrática programme will also help increase women’s participation in politics, not just in Peru but throughout the Andean region. The training for party members offered through the programme will both ensure that more women are prepared to hold office and foster a more positive attitude to women’s participation. Achievements: Women’s Political Participation • • IDEA’s emphasis on women’s political participation has helped place that issue high on the country’s political agenda, with access to experience from other countries that have provided important input. IDEA provided technical assistance to political parties in the implementation of the Political Parties Law, in the drafting of the Electoral Code, and in areas related to women’s participation, such as internal quotas and the training of women to hold party posts and public office. 12.7. Reconciliation Peru’s TRC, which spent two years gathering testimony and preparing a 17-volume report on the political violence of the past two decades, found deep divisions within Peruvian society, reflected especially in the disenfranchisement of poor and indigenous Peruvians. Most shocking of all was the TRC’s calculation that 69,000 people—twice the previous estimates—had been killed or disappeared during the violence. Many of the victims lacked identity documents: as far as the rest of the country was concerned, they had never existed. The TRC’s report analysed the factors that led to Peru’s political violence, the reasons why anti-subversive strategies succeeded or failed, and the consequences of the violence. Most importantly, it made recommendations for reparations to the victims and changes in the state and society to make it less likely that the country would suffer a repetition of that dark moment in its history. IDEA arrived in Peru at a key moment. The TRC had officially begun its work, but public support was far from unanimous, government backing was lukewarm and promised funding had not been forthcoming. Under those circumstances, international support for the TRC and its work was crucial. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 163 from Uruguay, Guatemala, Chile and Argentina, as well as Ireland and South Africa, focusing on the reconciliation and rebuilding that lie ahead once a country has faced the truth about its past. Both Peru’s executive branch and the Congress have been slow to act on the TRC’s recommendations. While reforms such as changes in the procedures for applying for identity documents, political participation and electoral reform, as well as the inclusion of human rights issues in training for the military and police, partly respond to the TRC’s recommendations, far more is needed. In late October 2004, victims of the violence and other concerned citizens marched on Congress to demand action. It remains to be seen whether their pleas will be heard and what further activities might help Peru along the road to reconciliation. IDEA Peru assisted the TRC in a variety of ways. It prepared a comparative study of the work of truth commissions in other LatOf the Latin American countries, it is now in American counthe political developments in the Andean tries. With Transregion that have become the focus of parencia, it also sponsored citizen international attention; 30 years ago it was gatherings in seven the Southern Cone, and 15–20 years ago cities around the Central America. country, including the capitals of three of the departments that had been hardest hit by the violence. IDEA focused especially on the reconciliation aspect, as this would lay the groundwork for rebuilding relations among Peruvian citizens and institutions in the future. IDEA’s 2003 handbook on reconciliation was an ideal tool for this task and helped solidify its contribution to the TRC’s work. In June 2003, just two months before the commission was to present its final report, IDEA cosponsored an international seminar in Lima called ‘From Denial to Recognition’, focusing on the processes that had followed the work of truth commissions in various Latin American countries. The event put the Peruvian experience into the regional context by including comparative experiences 164 Achievements: Reconciliation • International IDEA lent important support to Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The citizen gatherings that were held to gather local input for the commission’s work resulted in the drafting of concrete local, regional and national democratic agendas that described the problems in the various areas where the meetings were held, proposed solutions and suggested steps for beginning to implement the solutions. These agendas are now in the hands of local and regional governments for implementation. • The international seminar on reconciliation experiences resulted in a compendium of knowledge that provided input into the truth and reconciliation process in Peru. It is also available to other countries grappling with the effects of political violence and the need to reconcile sectors of society that have been distanced by disenfranchisement, discrimination and violence. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 12.8. Conclusion Some Vital Partnerships Over the past three years, IDEA’s work in Peru has contributed to dialogue and proposals on crucial issues related to political parties, political reform, electoral reform, political participation, especially by women, and reconciliation after episodes of political violence. While Peru has clearly taken steps to distance itself from the recent years of authoritarianism and violence, its democratic institutions continue to face critical challenges. The other Andean nations share these challenges, though there are important differences between countries. The Andean region has the lowest levels of citizen support for democracy in Latin America. Throughout the region, people perceive that democracy has not improved their economic situation or made them more secure, and they tend to blame political parties. There has been a rise of local and regional populist movements in the region, some with an authoritarian bent, and in both Peru and Bolivia mobs have lynched mayors who were believed to be corrupt. In all the countries, the party system is characterized by a plethora of political groups and electoral options, a tendency to confrontation instead of dialogue and consensus, lack of capacity for developing specific policies and programmes, corruption, limited democracy within parties, little turnover in party leadership, weak party organization and limited capacity for outreach. Helping the Andean countries to address these issues is the mission of the Agora Democrática programme. Expanding from Peru, activities are scheduled to start up in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela in 2005–6. By promoting consensus-based processes for political reform, IDEA will thus play a role in developing more solid democratic institutions in the region. IDEA’s work in Peru has created strong partnerships with civil society and regional and international organizations. This has helped lay the groundwork for plans to expand for Agora Democratica programming in the Andean region in 2005. Partnerships between IDEA and other agencies supporting the consolidation of democracy in Peru and the region include: • the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which helped support the Citizens for Good Government programme which led to a series of proposals for strengthening democracy in the country; • the Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF), which supported the preparation of the study for the Rio Group.; • The British Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), which supported the drafting of the Political Parties Law; • DFID and UNDP, co-sponsoring the Agora Democrática programme to support the consolidation of political parties throughout the Andean region; • beginning in 2005, Agora Democrática activities at the regional level will be carried out in partnership with the Comunidad Andina de Naciones, Parlamento Andino, UNDP, DFID, IDB and the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD); • Transparencia: co-sponsor of the process leading to the Political Parties Law, among other things. The challenges are great, but so are the potential rewards—greater equity and citizen participation, and a democratic system that is truly representative of and responsive to the needs of the people. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 165 Annex A. About the Authors Julie Ballington has managed International IDEA’s work on Women in Politics since 2001. She has overseen the production of the handbooks on Women in Parliament, and has spearheaded the work on Electoral Quotas for Women since 2003. Before joining IDEA in 2001 she headed the project on Gender and Elections at the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research interests include issues relating to the political representation and participation of women, voter turnout and electoral politics. David Beetham, Professor Emeritus at the University of Leeds and Fellow of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex, was research coordinator for International IDEA’s State of Democracy Project. He has published widely on democracy and human rights and acted as consultant to many international organizations. He is currently acting as rapporteur for an international group of parliamentarians developing criteria of good practice for the parliamentary dimension of democracy under the auspices of the InterParliamentary Union, Geneva. His latest book, Democracy: A Beginner’s Guide will be published by One World Publishers, Oxford, in spring 2005. Michael Bratton is Professor of Political Science and African Studies at Michigan State University. Among his many publications are Democratic Experiments in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 1997, with Nicolas van de Walle) and Public Opinion, Democracy and Markets in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2005, with Robert Mattes and E. Gyimah-Boadi). He is the co-founder and co-director of the Afrobarometer. Andrew Ellis has been Head of Electoral Processes at International IDEA since 2003. He was a senior adviser for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Indonesia (1999–2003), and has worked for the European Commission on the electoral assistance programme in Cambodia (1997–8), as 168 technical adviser for the establishment of the Palestinian Legislative Council (1996–7), as coordinator for the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights for the local elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1997), and as Chief Technical Adviser to the Palestinian Election Commission for the European Commission technical assistance programme for all aspects of preparation for the first Palestinian elections (1994–6). He was previously Vice-Chairman (1980–6) and Secretary General (1985–8) of the UK Liberal Party and Chief Executive (1988–9) of the UK Liberal Democrats. He has a BA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, UK; an MSc in Statistics from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; and a BA in Law from Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic. Konstanty Gebert was born in 1953 in Warsaw and graduated from the Warsaw University Psychology Department. He was co-founder of the (unofficial) Jewish Flying University, 1979, and of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, as well as co-founder, in September 1980 in Warsaw, of a white-collar trade union that soon merged with Solidarity. After avoiding internment in the 1981 coup, he became known as editor and columnist of KOS fortnightly and of other underground publications under the pen name of Dawid Warszawski. In 1989 he joined the new independent daily Gazeta Wyborcza, where he is a columnist and international reporter. In 1997 he founded and until 2000 he was editor-in-chief of the Jewish intellectual monthly Midrasz, and is now its publisher. Since 2005, he has been the Polish representative of the US Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture. He has lectured in Poland and abroad. Charlotte Hjorth is a journalist and communications consultant in Brussels, working with television, the private sector and the EU-institutions. She has written for several international publications in Sweden, Belgium, UK and the US, specializing in reporting on EU affairs, Democracy and International Politics. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Marta Lagos is founder and Director of Latinobarómetro, an annual opinion survey in 17 countries in Latin America, and was formerly head of a Chilean think tank, CERC, which conducted opinion polls during the transition to democracy in Chile during the 1980s and 1990s. She trained as an economist in Heidelberg, Germany, and is the founding director of her own polling company MORI (Chile), associated with MORI UK since 1994. Todd Landman is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government and Co-Director of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex, UK. He is the author of Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study (Georgetown University Press, 2005), Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics (Routledge, 2000, 2003), Governing Latin America (Polity Press, 2003, with Joe Foweraker and Neil Harvey), and Citizenship Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Analysis (Oxford University Press, 1997, with Joe Foweraker). Dr Landman has published numerous articles in the British Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, Human Rights Quarterly, Democratization, and Political Studies. He is currently working on a new book entitled Studying Human Rights (Routledge). Professor Richard Rose pioneered the use of Barometer surveys to study mass response to transformation following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since 1991 he has organized more than 100 nationwide surveys in 16 post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (see <http://www.cspp.strath.ac.uk>) and written five books based on this material. His scientific publications have been translated into 18 different languages. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and director of the Centre for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde, UK. Kristen Sample serves as International IDEA’s Director for the Andean Region as well as its Regional Coordinator on Women’s Political Participation. Before coming to IDEA in 2003, she was the Deputy Regional Director for Catholic Relief Services (CRS), one of the United States’ largest international development organizations; during her tenure with CRS, she focused on activities aimed at strengthening civil society. She has lived and worked in Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala and Chile. She has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University. Timothy D. Sisk took his PhD in Political Science (comparative politics and research methods) with distinction and is now Associate Professor in the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, where he also serves as faculty in the Master of Arts Program in Conflict Resolution and Director of the BA programme in International Studies. Dr Sisk is the author of five books, including Democratization in South Africa (Princeton, 1995) and Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts (Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1995), and many articles. He specializes in the nexus between democracy and governance and the management of conflict in deeply divided societies, especially those emerging from a period of intense social violence. His recent research has focused on systematic approaches to conflict assessment and governance institutions, and processes for conflict management. Massimo Tommasoli is Director of Operations at International IDEA. He holds a PhD at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales of Paris. From 1999 to 2003 he has been Head of the Good Governance and Conflict Prevention Unit in the Development Co-operation Directorate (Development Assistance Committee - DAC Secretariat) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In this capacity he led the Secretariat work of the DAC Networks on “Good governance and capacity development” (GOVNET) and on “Conflict, peace and development co-operation” (CPDC). He also worked in UNESCO and, as senior policy advisor, in the Directorate General for Development Cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he has also been a member of the Technical Evaluation Unit of the Steering Committee for Development Co-operation. Lecturer at Italian Universities and international training centres, he is author of seven books and various essays and articles in edited books as well as social and political science journals. His most recent publication is “Lo Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 169 sviluppo partecipativo. Analisi sociale e logiche di pianificazione” (Carocci, Rome, 2001) (“Participatory Development. Social Analysis and the Rationale for Planning” - also published in Spanish by Iepala Editorial, Madrid, 2003 and in French by Karthala, Paris, 2004). Ingrid Wetterqvist is Head of Planning and External Relations at International IDEA, having joined IDEA in February 2004. She was previously Director at the Department for Global Development at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which she joined in 1990. She was posted to Tanzania between 1992 and 1995, and to Zambia between 1995 and 1997. Ingrid holds a BA in business administration from Uppsala University. She has been working with democracy and human rights in development, both as a practitioner and as a policy maker, for most of her career. Richard Youngs is Senior Research Fellow at the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diáologo Exterior (FRIDE) in Madrid, and a lecturer at the University of Warwick, UK. Prior to joining FRIDE, he was an EU Marie Curie Research Fellow from 2001 to 2004. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities, and previously worked as an analyst at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. His recent publications include International Democracy and the West: The Role of Governments, NGOs and Multinationals (Oxford University Press, 2004) and ‘Europe’s Uncertain Pursuit of Middle East Reform’ (Working Paper no. 45, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2004). He has worked on a number of democracy promotion initiatives, including projects funded by the European Commission, the European Parliament, the British and Spanish development ministries, and a range of research institutes. economy and democratization. He is the coordinator of the Asian Barometer Survey, a regional network of surveys on democracy, governance and development that covers more than 16 Asian countries. Among his recent English publications are Crafting Democracy in Taiwan (Institute for National Policy Research, 1992), Consolidating Third-Wave Democracies (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), China Under Jiang Zemin (Lynn Rienner, 2000), and The New Chinese Leadership: Challenges and Opportunities after the 16th Party Congress (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Daniel Zovatto joined International IDEA as Regional Director for Latin America in 1997, after being Executive Director at the Centre for Electoral Promotion and Assistance (CAPEL), a specialized programme at the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIHR), from 1989 to 1996, and serving as its deputy director for two years. He has a Master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Diplomacy of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Master’s Degree in Human Rights, a PhD in International Law from the Complutense University in Madrid, and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA. He is the author of over 60 articles dealing with issues in law and politics, as well as 14 books on matters concerning human rights, elections, political parties, and democracy in Latin America. Among his most recent publications are De las normas a las buenas practicas: El desafío del financiamiento politico en América Latina (OAS/ IDEA, co-authored with Steven Griner); Dinero y política en América Latina: una visión comparada (FLACSO); and La política importa: Democracia y desarrollo en América Latina (IADB/IDEA, co-authored with Mark Payne, Fernando Carrillo and Andrés Allamand). Yun-han Chu is Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica and Professor of Political Science at the National Taiwan University. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota and joined the faculty of National Taiwan University in 1987. Professor Chu specializes in the politics of Greater China, East Asian political 170 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Annex B. Former and Current Members of IDEA’s Board of Directors President Martti Ahtisaari June 2000–June 2003 Co-Chairperson of the New York-based EastWest Institute; Chairperson of the International Crisis Group, Brussels; former President of the Republic of Finland Dr Brigalia Bam June 2003 to date Chairperson of South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission; former General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches Mr Jermyn Brooks June 2003 to date Member of the Board of Directors of Transparency International; former Global Managing Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Ms Cheryl Carolus February 2000–June 2002 Former High Commissioner for the Republic of South Africa in London, UK; CEO of South African Tourism Mr Thomas Carothers June 2001–June 2004 Vice President for Studies and Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Dr Adama Dieng February 1995–June 2001 Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; former Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists Dr Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner June 2002 to date Honorary President of the Club of Rome; former Minister of Education, Spain Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 171 Ms Lourdes Flores Nano June 2003 to date President of the Alianza Electoral Unidad Nacional; candidate in the 2001 Peruvian presidential election Sir Henry de Boulay Forde November 1995–June 1999 Lawyer and former Foreign Minister and Attorney-General of Barbados Dr Frene Ginwala November 1995–June 1999 Former Speaker of the National Assembly, South Africa Ms Lena Hjelm-Wallén June 2003 to date Chairperson of the Board; former Deputy Prime Minister; former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sweden Mr Harri Holkeri June 2003 to date Former Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK); former Prime Minister of Finland Dr Ignacio Astarloa Huarte-Mendicoa June 1999–June 2002 Former Secretary for Security and former Under-Secretary of Justice, Spain; former Secretary-General of the Chamber of Deputies; former Secretary of the Central Election Commission Professor Colin Hughes January 1996–June 1999 Professor of Political Science, University of Queensland; former Electoral Commissioner of Australia Dr Kuniko Inoguchi June 1999 to date Professor of Political Science, Sophia University, Tokyo; former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Japan to the UN Conference on Disarmament 172 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Ms Mónica Eliana Jiménez de la Jara November 1995–June 2003 Rector of the Universidad Catolica de Temuco, Chile; former Vice-Chair, President of the Board of PARTICIPA; former Executive Director of Corporación APRENDER; former member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Chile Dr Subhash Kashyap June 2003 to date Former Secretary-General of the lower house of the Indian Parliament; Constitutional Adviser to the Indian Government Ms Kaci Kullman Five June 2003 to date Former Cabinet Minister and Chairperson of the Conservative Party of Norway Ambassador Legwaila Joseph Manson John Legwaila June 2001–June 2003 Special Representative to lead the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea Mr Manmohan Malhoutra January 1996–June 2003 Secretary-General of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, India; former Assistant Secretary-General of the Commonwealth; Adviser to the former Prime Minister of India, Mrs Indira Gandhi Ms Maureen O’Neil June 1998–June 2004 President of the International Development Research Centre, Canada Dr Erling Olsen June 1998–June 2001 Former Speaker of Parliament, Denmark; former Minister of Housing and former Minister of Justice, Denmark Sir Shridath Ramphal February 1995–June 2001 Former Chairperson of the Board; former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and Co-Chairperson of the Commission on Global Governance Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 173 Ambassador Andrés Rozental June 2002 to date Vice-Chair of the Board; President of the Mexican Council on International Affairs; former Deputy Foreign Minister, Mexico Ms Daw Aung San Suu Kyi November 1995–June 2003, June 2003– honorary board member General Secretary of the National League for Democracy in Burma and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr Henning Scherf June 2001 to date President of the Senate and Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Germany David Steel, Lord Steel of Aikwood February 1995–June 2001 Former Presiding Officer, Scottish Parliament; former President of Liberal International, UK Ambassador Thorvald Stoltenberg November 1995–June 2003 Former Chairperson and Vice-Chair of the Board; President of the Norwegian Red Cross; former Foreign Minister and Minister of Defence of Norway; former UN Special Representative in the former Yugoslavia Mr Cassam Uteem June 2002 to date Former President of the Republic of Mauritius Senator Jos van Gennip June 2001 to date Member of the upper house of the Netherlands Parliament 174 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Annex C. IDEA Publications International IDEA has produced over 150 publications over the past decade. They range from handbooks, country reports and guidelines to briefer reports such as policy papers, agendas for debate, leaflets, and synthesis reports. Most of IDEA’s publications have been translated into dif- ferent languages, including Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Georgian, French, Russian and Spanish. The following is a selected list of main publications produced between February 1995 and June 2005:1 Handbooks: • • • • • • • • • The IDEA Handbook of Electoral System Design (1997, repr. 2002) Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers (1998)2 Democracy and Deep Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators (1998) Democracy at the Local Level: The International IDEA Handbook on Participation, Representation, Conflict Management and Governance (2001) Handbook on Democracy Assessment (2002) The State of Democracy: Democracy Assessments in Eight Nations around the World (2002) Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: A Handbook (2003) Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns (2003) Electoral System Design: The New International IDEA Handbook (2005) Country and region based reports: Consolidating Democracy in Nepal (1997) Democracy in Romania (1997) Democracy in Guatemala (1998) Democracy in Burkina Faso (1998) Burkina Faso’s Electoral System: A Report (1999) Advancing Democracy in Slovakia through Local Self-Governance (2000) Democratization in Indonesia: An Assessment (2000) Democracy in Nigeria: Continuing Dialogue(s) for Nation Building (2000) Democracy in Bangladesh (2002) Democracy in the Arab World: Challenges, Achievements and Prospects (2000) Towards Sustainable Democratic Institutions in Southern Africa (2002) Democracy at the Local Level: A Guide for the South Caucasus (2003) Elections Assessment in the South Caucasus: 2003–2004 (2003) Democracy at the Local Level in East and Southern Africa: Profiles in Governance (2004) Building Democracy In Egypt: Women’s Political Participation, Political Party Life and Democratic Elections (2005) • Building Democracy In Jordan: Women’s Political Participation, Political Party Life and Democratic Elections (2005) • Building Democracy In Yemen: Women’s Political Participation, Political Party Life and Democratic Elections (2005) • Developing Local Democracy in Kosovo (2005) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1 A complete list of IDEA publications is available on IDEA website <http://www.idea.int/publications>. 2 A new edition of Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers will be published by the end of 2005. Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide 175 Codes of Conduct and Guidelines: • • • • • Code of Conduct: Ethical and Professional Observation of Elections (1997) Code of Conduct: Ethical and Professional Administration of Elections (1997) Code of Conduct: Political Parties Campaigning in Democratic Elections (1998) Guidelines for Determining Involvement in International Election Observation (2000) International Electoral Standards: Guidelines for Reviewing the Legal Framework of Elections (2002) Voter Turnout: • • • • • Voter Turnout from 1945 to 1997 (1997) Youth Voter Participation: Involving Today's Young in Tomorrow’s Democracy (1999) Voter Turnout since 1945: A Global Report (2002) Voter Turnout in Western Europe since 1945: A Regional Report (2004) Europe Expands, Turnout Falls: The Significance of the 2004 European Parliament Elections (2004) Gender Quotas series:3 • The implementation of Quotas: Asian Experience (2003) • The Implementation of Quotas: Latin American Experiences (2003) • The implementation of quotas: African Experiences (2004) Other: • Dialogue for Democratic Development: Policy Options (1999) • The Future of International Election Observation (1999) • Democracy and Global Co-operation at the UN (2000) Selected Publications in Spanish:4 • • • • • • • • • • • Mujer, Partidos Politicos y Reforma Electoral (2004) Acuerdo Nacional: Pasado, Presente y Futuro (2004) Los Nudos Criticos de la Gobernabilidad: Propuestas para un Buen Gobierno (2004) Partidos en la Región Andina: De la Crisis al Cambio (2004) El Estado (2005) Etíca y Liderazgo Políticos (2004) Inclusión y Participación (2004) Sistema de Partidos Políticos (2004) Sistema Electoral (2004) Guía Metodológica para la Formación Política (2004) La Descentralización (2004) By the end of 2005, IDEA will publish two more reports on gender quotas, which look at experiences from Eastern Europe and the Arab World. All reports and case studies on gender quotas are available at <http://www.quotaproject.org>. 3 This list includes only some of the recent publications produced by the IDEA regional office in Latin America, some co-published in partnership with regional and national counterparts. Most of these publications are only available in Spanish. A comprehensive list of publications on Latin America is available at <http://www.idea.int/publications/browse/la.cfm>. 4 176 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)