Introduction: Rethinking democratization and democracy assistance
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Introduction: Rethinking democratization and democracy assistance
ALICIA PHILLIPS MANDAVILLE AND PETER P. MANDAVILLE
ABSTRACT Alicia and Peter Phillips Mandaville outline some of the ways in which democratization efforts can be reconceptualized and reformulated based on insights from critical social theory and by paying closer attention to the local histories and legacies of power relationships that shape the political present in developmental contexts around the world. They argue that we need to move from a hegemonic and universally conceived effort of ‘democracy assistance’ towards messier, idiosyncratic, but often at the end of the day, more participatory forms of democratic politics. KEYWORDS USAID; polyarchy; transition paradigm; democracy assistance programmes
Introduction To invoke notions of democracy and democratization today is to enter a thick web of contested meanings. Democracy assistance inevitably occurs in highly globalized socio-political environments where multiple layers of governance, both formal and informal, intersect across increasingly blurred and questionably sovereign boundaries. We generally tend to assume that absences or deficits of democracy ^ and consequently the need for something called ‘democratization’ ^ are primarily to be found within the developing and postcolonial worlds. This makes the issue of democracy considerably more complex. The purposes of this introductory essay to this edition of Development are two-fold. The first is to provide a brief critical overview of several key debates in the theory and practice of democratization. Secondly, we aim to offer some thoughts on how contemporary practitioners of democratization and democracy assistance, particularly those working within bilateral funding environments might benefit from the integration of various insights from critical theory into their programmes. We bring to the piece our experiences as both an academic observer of national formation in the postcolonial world and a democratization practitioner.
What is democracy? We recognize up front that there are challenges posed by the question of how one defines democracy.Western academic literature on the subject is replete with definitions Development (2007) 50(1), 5–13. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100321
Development 50(1): Upfront
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of the core concept, so much so that it is well beyond the scope of this essay to do them justice (Pateman, 1970; Schumpeter, 1976; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996). At the core of these debates is whether democracy exists when regular elections are held or whether democracy is better described by qualitative features of political discourse. There are several points we would like to make on the definition of democracy. First, in common usage the term democracy is used to indicate the more specific model of liberal democracy ^ that is, a system of rule by the people within a framework of individual rights holding. This is an important point to make because those who work in the field of democracy and democratization are often op
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