Democracy Assistance: International Co-operation for Democratization

The 1990s have seen a significant expansion of international co-operation for democratisation in respect of emerging and prospective new democracies. This book makes a detailed study of recent developments across the full range of official and autonomous providers of democracy assistance. They include the United Nations, the European Union and multilateral development banks, as well as Germany’s party foundations, or Stiftungen, and notable public and privately-run agencies in the United States. Democracy aid’s performance in parts of Africa, Asia, Latin America, Russia and elsewhere is critically examined. Special attention is paid both to post-conflict situations and to semi-authoritarian regimes where democratisation has stalled . International efforts to support democratic decentralisation and civil society in particular are assessed. although there are many strands to democracy assistance, the book argues that we cannot yet be confident that the total effort adds up to the sum of its parts. Indeed, there are a number of important political questions about what democracy assistance hopes to achieve, why and how effectively, and its implications for the evolution of world politics rather than just for the political relationships inside sovereign states. these outstanding questions should be addressed urgently by analysts as well as practitioners.