Enhancing democracy assistance

This report recognizes that democracy assistance is essential to the promotion of US foreign policy and global interests, and offers political and technical recommendations in order to enhance democracy assistance. Today's global setting poses several distinct challenges to democracy assistance. Countries such as China offer an alternative model of governance that promotes economic development without political reform, while wielding substantial economic leverage. Populist authoritarian regimes and illiberal democracies, such as those of Venezuela and Iran, claim popular legitimacy while cracking down on internal dissent. Challenges to democratization have also been exacerbated by the Iraq War and the Global War on Terror (GWOT), which have fueled anti-Americanism around the globe, undermined US credibility, overstretched US resources, and compromised domestic support for democracy assistance. ... In order to address negative perceptions of democracy assistance around the world and to rebuild bipartisan support at home, it is necessary to reframe the means and ends of assistance efforts. The democracy assistance community can maximize the impact of its activities by planning for the long term, insuring better training and preparation for field staff, and emphasizing more rigorous project evaluation. This report offers recommendations to hone proven approaches to democracy assistance, specifically, programs that strengthen civil society, prepare elections, assist political party development, and support democratic governance. It also identifies different regime types that are the focus of democracy assistance -- authoritarian states, illiberal democracies, free-wheeling kleptocracies, and post-conflict states. While recognizing that the distinctions among them are not iron-clad, the report offers context-specific recommendations for each.