2014 Volume 23 Issue 1 Pages 23-40
This article considers the state of “pro-democracy” development assistance by examining how agendas for democratization have been interwoven into the United Nations' Post-2015 Development Agenda and into strategies for development assistance to developing countries and what issues are emerging from this.
First, this article extracts the core values of democracy from literature on democracy and democratization, and defines the “pro-democracy” standpoint. While a democracy consists of three elements, this standpoint attaches greater importance to (1) the core democratic political institutions—such as free and fair elections, a pluralistic political party system, and respect for basic human rights—than; (2) the systems making those institutions function, including effective and accountable government and active civil society organizations; and (3) the social and economic base for democracy. Next, this article analyzes the ongoing process of formulating a post-2015 development agenda in the United Nations. Then, the means of assessing democracy and governance, which is one of the most controversial issues in setting the Millennium Development Goals and developing the post-2015 process, are overviewed and categorized along with the above three elements of democracy. Finally, this article examines how the agendas for promoting democracy, especially consolidating core democratic political institutions, are incorporated into the development assistance strategies of the United Nations, European Union, and United States for countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Mozambique, and Rwanda.
This article concludes that the promotion of important elements of democracy tends to be interwoven into international development goals even if the word “democratic” is not mentioned. However, the recipient governments and donor actors are reluctant to bring the important elements of democracy into their actual development (assistance) strategies as concrete development (assistance) goals, seeing them as irrelevant to the results of democracy assessments.