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International Party Assistance – What Do We Know About the Effects?

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International Party Assistance – What Do We Know About the Effects? International party assistance – what do we know about the effects? Lars Svåsand University of Bergen Rapport 2014:03 till Expertgruppen för biståndsanalys (EBA) Acknowledgements: I thank the members of the reference group: Eva Lindström, Stefan Eriksson, Johan Norqvist, Helena Bjuremalm, Fredrik Uggla and Anne Mette Kjær, and the EBA secretariat staff members Sonja Daltung and Emma Öståker, for valuable comments on earlier drafts. The opinions expressed in the manuscript and any errors or mistakes are those of the author. “Building effective party structures is an endless task. Healthy organizations can and will adapt to changing circumstances” National Democratic Institute on twitter (accessed 07.10.14) This report can be downloaded free of charge at www.eba.se This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. ISBN: 978-91-88143-00-6 Printed by Elanders Sverige AB Stockholm 2014 Cover design by Julia Demchenko Table of contents Preface ............................................................................... 1 Sammanfattning .................................................................. 3 Summary ............................................................................ 6 1. Introduction .................................................................... 9 1.1 Democracy assistance and party assistance ............................... 10 1.2 Method, material and limitations ............................................... 11 1.3 Outline ......................................................................................... 12 2.1 The necessity of parties in democracies and the background for IPA ................................................................. 13 2.2 The challenges of parties and party systems in new democracies .............................................................................. 16 3. Dimensions of International Party Assistance .................... 23 3.1 Objectives of IPA ....................................................................... 23 3.2 Organizational models for IPA .............................................. 31 3.3 Financial model and scale of intervention ................................. 33 3.4 Modes of intervention ................................................................ 35 3.5 Timing and endurance of IPA projects ...................................... 37 3.6 Geographic focus ........................................................................ 38 3.7 Summary ...................................................................................... 40 4. Assessing the effects of IPA ............................................ 42 4.1 Challenges in assessing the effects of IPA ................................ 42 4.2. Does IPA work or not? ............................................................. 46 5. Concluding reflections .................................................... 52 5.1 A new IPA agenda? .................................................................... 52 5.2 Should IPA be maintained? ........................................................ 54 5.3 If IPA is maintained: what should be done? ............................. 57 5.4 Key factors to consider............................................................... 59 Appendix A: Findings from research literature on IPA............. 65 Appendix B: IPA donors and findings from evaluations ........... 73 Sweden: support through party-affiliated organizations ............... 74 Denmark: The Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy ......... 81 Norway: The Norwegian Center for Democracy .......................... 83 US institutions .................................................................................. 84 UK: The Westminster Foundation for Democracy ....................... 89 Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy .......................... 91 References ........................................................................ 99 Preface Sweden has a long tradition of providing development cooperation with the aim of strengthening democracy and the respect for human rights. Democratic development has been a thematic priority for many years, and democracy support constitutes one of the largest parts of Swedish aid. Given the strong focus on democracy support in Swedish aid over the past years, EBA finds it motivated to take a closer look at this kind of aid based on current knowledge. Democracy support includes a wide range of support mechanisms aiming at developing and strengthening democratic institutions, processes and actors. It is a broad field with many different kinds of interventions. In this report, focus is on one specific sub-category, support to political parties and party systems. Sweden has provided support for these purposes through party affiliated organizations (PAO) since 1995. The provision is guided by a special government strategy for the period 2011-2015. Currently support amounts to some 80 million SEK annually. In 2015, the future of Swedish international assistance to political parties will be on the government agenda; a new strategy is to be drafted and decided upon. In light of this, EBA invited Lars Svåsand, professor in Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen, to carry out a study on international party assistance. The point of departure for the study is to answer the question, what do we know about the effects of international assistance to political parties in new democracies, and to reflect upon implications for Swedish aid in this field. The author has made a review of the literature on research in this field as well as of evaluations of donor interventions and programs. He concludes that there are no clear results. There seem to be limited effects of international party assistance, and rarely any transformative impact, even though there are examples of positive outcomes. However, as the report highlights there is a number of methodological difficulties in assessing the effects. The author recognizes the contextual challenges of carrying out support to parties and party systems in new democracies, and underlines the need of being realistic about what to expect from party assistance, given the relatively scarce resources that are allocated. In addition, he points at the need for a reasonable time perspective when assessing the results of specific interventions. 1 International party assistance is often considered controversial, not only because of the difficulties to show positive results but also from the point of view that the development of parties and party systems is a highly political and sensitive issue connected to sovereignty. At the same time, given the key functions that political parties have in a democracy, a number of donors still find it motivated to engage in the development of well-functioning parties and/or party systems. In the concluding reflections, the author provides arguments for continued international party assistance - primarily interventions with a cross-party orientation. As to the key factors that donors need to consider, he underlines that ownership and commitment seems to be necessary for success. In addition, contextual factors are very important, and support must be “tailored-made” in order to contribute to the higher goal of democratic consolidation. We hope that this study will contribute to the coming discussions and decisions on the focus, scale and mode of Swedish support in this field. The study has been conducted in dialogue with a reference group led by Ms Eva Lindström, former vice chair of the EBA. The responsibility for the content of the report rests fully with the author. Stockholm, February 2015 Lars Heikensten Chair 2 Sammanfattning Internationellt stöd till politiska partier (IPA)1 kan definieras som ”organiserade insatser för att stödja utvecklingen av demokratiska politiska partier, en god samverkan mellan partier, samt de politiska och legala förutsättningar som krävs för demokratiska politiska partier” (fritt översatt från definition av Burnell & Gerritts, 2010:1068). IPA har blivit en del av de internationella insatserna för att stärka nya demokratier och utgör därmed en del av det internationella demokratibiståndet. Välfungerande partisystem och politiska partier anses ha stor betydelse för ett lands demokratiska utveckling. Poliska partier har grundläggande funktioner i ett demokratiskt system och utgör en betydelsefull kanal för organisering och förmedling av medborgarnas åsikter. Trots utmaningar och brister anses politiska partier ha flera fördelar jämfört med andra sätt att organisera politiska ståndpunkter och ansvarsutkrävande. Det finns t.ex. ingen annan organisationsform som både kan kanalisera intressen och anta rollen som regeringsmakt respektive opposition. Det civila samhället är också en viktig kanal för organisering och åsiktsmobilisering men de kan inte fullt ut anta de uppgifter som politiska partier har i ett demokratiskt system. Givet betydelsen av ett stabilt och välfungerande partisystem, och det faktum att man i flera nya demokratier arbetar med att forma ett demokratiskt system och att utveckla dessa institutioner, menar många att det finns motiv för internationellt stöd. Samtidigt uppfattas internationellt stöd till politiska partier ofta som kontroversiellt. Det handlar bl.a. om huruvida det i grunden är rätt att internationella biståndsgivare engagerar sig i nationella processer som påverkar hur politiska partier utvecklas och samspelar
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