Assessing Democratization: A case for qualitative approaches
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Dialogue
Assessing Democratization: A case for qualitative approaches
KEBOITSE MACHANGANA
ABSTRACT Keboitse Machangana suggests that reform-orientated qualitative assessments led by internal stakeholders are a way forward in assessing democratization efforts, and contributing to democratization processes. She analyzes extant measures for assessing democratization and highlights major challenges. She introduces the State of Democracy assessment methodology, developed by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance as an alternative assessment framework. KEYWORDS: IDEA; state of democracy assessment methodology; democracy measurement; participation
Introduction Support to democratization has increased significantly in the post-cold war era together with a growing demand for and close scrutiny of extant democracy measures and assessment frameworks. The political conditionality attached to aid has played a major role in the debate around appropriate measures of democracy and governance and assessment methodologies.‘Most donors now pay considerable attention to the quality of political governance in recipient countries when making their aid-allocation decisions’ (Arndt and Oman, 2006: 39).
On democracy measurement and assessment frameworks Efforts to measure democracy can be traced back to the post-WorldWar II (Landman and Haºusermann, 2003). Since then, there has been a proliferation of measures and assessment frameworks. Despite this proliferation, there currently exists no agreement on appropriate methodologies and frameworks for assessing or evaluating democratization efforts (www.hri.ca/, accessed12 July 2006). This is largely due to the fact that the development and choice of such methodologies is based on definition and conceptualization of democracy ^ a concept that is still highly contested (www.oecd.org/dataoecd/, accessed 12 November 2006). In addition, increased understanding of the complex and non-linear nature of democratization processes has contributed to the scrutiny of the adequacy of extant democracy measures and frameworks. The State of Democracy (SoD) assessment methodology was developed by the International Institute for Development (2007) 50(1), 81–85. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100328
Development 50(1): Dialogue
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Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) as an alternative assessment framework for reformminded assessors. The disparity between intended functions or purposes of these measures and how they are eventually used compounds the disagreement on appropriate measures for assessing democratization. These measures and assessment frameworks serve varying purposes such as ‘description, classification, hypothesis testing, prediction and policy advice, and advocacy and reform’. The first three functions are largely associated with ‘academic analysis’ in seeking to understand ‘the genesis, survival and performance of democracy, while policy advice, advocacy and reform activities’ generally serve democracy building actors that seek to influence policy developmen
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