effective party assistance: stronger parties for better democracy

8/6/2019 Effective Party Assistance: Stronger Parties for Better Democracy

1/36

Eective Party

AssistanceStronger Parties for Better Democracy

By:

Matthias Catn

International IDEA PolicyPaperNovember 2007


2/36

International Institute or Democracy and Electoral Assistance 2007

International IDEA publications are independent o specifc national or political interests.

Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views o International

IDEA, its Board or its Council members.

Applications or permission to reproduce or translate all or any part o this publication

should be made to Publications Ofce, International IDEA , SE -10334 Stockholm, Sweden.

ISBN 978-91-85724-27-7

Political parties play a crucial role in modern

representative democracy. Despite

all their imperections, the unctions they

perorm cannot be taken on by any

other entity. Party assistance needs to ocuson the unctions that parties ulfl in a

democratic system rather than on unrealistic

expectations o how parties should work.


3/36

What is International IDEA?

The International Institute

or Democracy and Electoral

AssistanceInternational

IDEAis an intergovernmental

organization that supports

sustainable democracy

worldwide. Its objective is

to strengthen democratic

institutions and processes.

What does International

IDEA do?International IDEA acts as a

catalyst or democracy building

by providing knowledge

resources and policy proposals

and supporting democratic

reorms in response to specifc

national requests.

Areas o work

IDEAs notable areas o

expertise are:

Constitution-building

processesElectoralprocesses

Politicalparties

Democracyandgender

Democracyassessments

Where does International

IDEA work?

International IDEA works

worldwide. It is based in

Stockholm, Sweden, and has

ofces in Latin America, Arica

and Asia.

ContentsKey Recommendations 4

Executive Summary 5

Introduction 6

Purpose o this paper and overview 6

The unctions o parties in a democracy 7

How do parties operate in reality? 8

Analysis 10

Actors in party assistance 10

Types o party assistance programmes 14

Recommendations 18

Why do we need principles? 18

Functions frst 19

Integration is the key 20

Systematic planning and implementation 21

Tools or the project cycle 23

Conclusions 32

Reerences 33

Abbreviations 35

List o tables

Table 1 Functions o political parties in government

and opposition 7

Table 2 Expenditure on party assistance 12

Table 3 Matrix o party assistance target areas and

methods o delivery 14

Table 4 Categories o International IDEAs democracy

assessment 24

List o fgures

Figure 1 Actors in party assistance 11

Figure 2 Functional dimensions o political parties 19

Figure 3 Phases o scenario development 25

Figure 4 Sample scenario matrix 26

Figure 5 Connecting needs assessment, scenarios and

party unctions 27

Figure 6 Perspectives o the basic Balanced Scorecard

(Kaplan and Norton, 1992) 28


4/36

4

International IDEA

Key Recommendations

International IDEA

1Party assistance actorsdonors, assistance providers and assistance partnersshouldagree on common principles or assistance project delivery. This would make projectsmore eective and less vulnerable to accusations o undue intererence with other countries

democracies.

2The assistance community needs to develop a tool-kit or needs assessment, monitoring oimplementation and evaluation o projects.

3

Party assistance needs to ocus on the unctions that parties ulfl in a democratic system

rather than on unrealistic expectations o how parties should work. These basic unctionsare: to develop consistent policies and government programmes; to pick up demands rom

society and bundle them; to recruit, select and train people or positions in the executive and

legislature; and to oversee and control government.

4The traditional feld o actors in party assistance should be complemented by other actors,such as Party Internationals and regional cooperation orums.

5Given that direct impact measurement is difcult in democracy assistance, indirectevaluation tools are needed, such as scenario development, state o democracy assessmentand the balanced scorecard approach.


5/36

5

International IDEA

Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties

or Better Democracy

Political parties play a crucial role

in modern representative democ-

racy. Despite all their imperec-

tions, the unctions they perorm

cannot be taken on by any other

entity. Te unctions are: () to

develop policies and programmes, () to pick

up demands rom society and bundle them

into dierent options, () to recruit and select

people or executive and legislative positions(and other positions in politics) and (4) to ex-

ercise control over government.

Party assistance as a eld o international

cooperation has existed since the 950s and

has been expanding steadily since, both in

terms o money spent and the number o ac-

tors involved. Despite this long tradition, par-

ty assistance is still very weakly systematized

and lacks coherent standards and principles

with regard to what projects should achieve,

how appropriate activities can be identiedand how eects are to be measured.

Te party assistance community should

develop joint principles or project needs

assessment, monitoring o implementation

and impact evaluation. Such principles would

make activities more eective and ecient.

Tey would allow all actors, including

assistance partners, to choose appropriate

remedies or specic problems and they would

also make party assistance less vulnerable to

accusations o partisanship or undue oreign

intererence.Instead o having unrealistic, normative

ideas o how parties should work, their

unctions, as described above, should be at

the centre o the new principles. Te major

obstacle to eective party assistance is the

diculty o linking activities directly to

their ultimate goal o enhancing democracy.

Indirect measurement tools are necessary to

overcome this inherent weakness. Such tools

can be scenario development and state o

democracy assessment or needs assessmentand the balanced scorecard approach or

implementation monitoring and evaluation.

Executive Summary


6/36

6

International IDEA

The purpose o the policy paper is to

initiate a broad dialogue among party

assistance stakeholders to discuss

and to reach a common understanding o

what eective and ecient party assistance

entails. Ultimately, the goal is to lay the basis

or establishing general principles or party

assistance and to share best practices that will

help stakeholders to design and implement

eective assistance projects that are inormedby context-specic needs assessments. In

that sense, it is not an end in itsel, but rather

the start o an interactive process among

stakeholders to make party assistance more

eective and relevant.

We dene party assistance as any type

o international assistance geared towards

individual parties or the party system as a

whole, with the purpose o strengthening

democracy in a given country. In line with

the Paris Declaration on Aid Eectiveness,we understand eective assistance in a broad

sense that includes more than just the literal

meaning o producing an eect. Specically,

eective assistance encompasses targeting

assistance to dierent contexts, dening clear

aims and related indicators, harmonizing

programmes to avoid duplication,

and strenghtening transparency and

accountability.

Te paper aims to be both a policy paper

and a discussion paper. It recommends

and argues or the introduction o agreed

principles, but it leaves the content o these

principles open to urther interactions with

stakeholders and limits itsel to some ideas

as a basis or discussion. It explores the way

international assistance to political parties

is delivered and recommends ways in which

assistance could be improved. Te key goal

is to make party assistance as eective and

ecient as possible, meaning that it achieves

the desired results with an optimal input o

resources. Te principles are not meant to

be binding rules that determine every step,

but to provide help and a reerence point or

stakeholders during the process.

Although party assistance is an important

part o democracy assistance today, it lacks

systematic inormation and analysis, which in

turn can severely obstruct learning processes.

Only recently have a number o studies beenpublished that map assistance activities.

Mostly, these analyses conclude that assistance

providers still ail to carry out extensive

assessments and evaluations. Assessment

and evaluation are crucial not only or

inorming the design and implementation o

programmes, but also or accountability to the

public that unds the overwhelming majority

o party assistance activities. Assistance

partners in party assistance programmes

would also benet rom more systematicinormation. It would enable them to identiy

the kind o assistance they need, which they

could then actively seek rather then being

subject to the agendas o donors or assistance

providers. As is explained below, the interests

o the assistance partners may not always be

in line with the requirements o democracy as

a whole, but at the same time, any assistance

activity will be o very limited use i it does

not meet a need o the assistance partner.

Tis policy paper is directed at sta rom

donor agencies and assistance providers who

design assistance programmes or allocate

unding. It is also directed at party assistance

partners who want to know more about how

to assess their own needs in order actively to

seek the assistance they need.

Te next two sections o this introduction

describe the context and the problem; namely,

why political parties are important or a

unctioning democracy, the roles they have

IntroductionPurpose o this paper and overview


7/36

7

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

to ull and the problems or weaknesses they

typically ace in new democracies. Te chapter

entitled Analysis deals with party assistance,

the types o activities, the actors and the way

assistance is usually carried out. Te chapter

entitled Recommendations gives International

IDEAs recommendations and serves as a basis

or discussion o how to make party assistance

more eective. Te conclusion summarizes

the main points o the other chapters.

The unctions o partiesin a democracy

Tere are our central unctions o political

parties in modern representative democracies:

. o develop consistent policies and

government programmes (the interest

articulation unction).

. o pick up demands rom society and

bundle them (the interest aggregation

unction).

. o recruit, select and train people

or positions in government and the

legislature.

4. o oversee and control government.

Te rst three unctions eed into the two

undamental roles that political parties play

in the political process: they orm the

government or they are in opposition. In

practical terms, the signicance o the

unctions varies according to the current role

a party plays, as can be seen in able . Te

ourth unction varies depending on the type

o political system. In parliamentary systems,

where the government is elected by parliament

and depends on its support, this unction alls

entirely on the opposition. In presidential

systems, where the executive is independent,

the legislature as a whole ulls this unction.

Articulation Aggregation Recruitment

Government Implement policies Sustain suppor t or

government

Fill government

positions

Opposition Develop alternatives Gain suppor t or

change

Build pool o

competent people

Table 1: Functions o political parties in government and opposition

Much has been written about parties

obvious shortcomings, but no other actorcould replace them. In some countries,

politicians establish movements, which

purportedly dier rom parties by being

uniying orces that represent the society as

a whole rather than just a part o it. In most

cases, however, the movement turns out to

be just a replacement or the discredited term

party. Sometimes these movements try to

ollow through with their claim o being

the sole representative o society and as a

logical consequence deny all other partiesthe right o existence. Movements that are

set up to compete or poweras opposed to

movements that advocate a specic cause,

such as the civil rights movement in the

United Statesare either parties in disguise

or potential threats to democracy.

Not so long ago many peopleboth

practitioners and academicsbelieved that

civil society could replace political parties.

A vibrant civil society is a good thing or a

country, but civic associations cannot play the

role o parties unless they actually transorm

themselves into parties. It is the discredited

state o many parties around the world today,

not only in young democracies, that led to

an exaggerated enthusiasm or civil society.

Another reason is an alleged non-partisanship

o civil society organizations. However, this

is not true. Non-governmental organizations

(NGOs) are important or democracy, but

they are not by nature democratically


8/36

8

International IDEA

mandated by anybody other than their

members. What is more, they are part o the

demand side o politics. Teir demands have

to be aggregated by an institution and this

institution is the party system (Doherty 00:

56). Parties are also important because

they provide an institutional memory

o policies and politics. Tis knowledge o

what works and what does not is crucial

to continuity. A political system that ischaracterized by individuals rather than by

parties cannot provide this memory and

also carries the danger o bureaucratic and

technocratic dominance. In addition, parties

aggregate policy options into bundles, as is

described in Function above.

Te interests o a given party, its leaders

and members, are not necessarily the same as

the unctions which the party should ull

in order to sustain a working democracy. Most

scholars agree that parties can have a numbero goals. Tese goals are to maximize their

vote-share, to obtain as many government

oces as possible and to push a specic policy

agenda (Harmel and Janda 994: 657).

While the goals are linked, there still is

considerable dierence between

them. For example, maximizing vote-share

does not necessarily lead to an increased

number o government oces. In countries

with requent coalition governments it may be

more important or a party to position itsel

as a possible partner o another party than

to win as many votes as possible. Similarly,

i a party has a strong ideological agenda it

may seem natural or it to try to become big

and powerul enough to be able to pursue its

agenda. However, some parties deliberately

choose to lose votes rather than compromise

on their agenda.

Te unctions o parties in a democratic

system and the goals o individual parties

overlap, but are not necessarily the same. Party

assistance has to bear in mind the relationship

between the overall unction o democratic

parties and the goals o individual parties.

Te objective o party assistance is to enhance

democracy. In order to be eective and to

be accepted by the assistance partners, it has

to benet all the partys goals at the same

time.

How do parties operate inreality?

o assess the current situation o political

parties and to understand their weaknesses

and needs, International IDEA carried out an

extensive Research and Dialogueprogramme

between 004 and 007. More than 00

parties in 50 countries were included in the

project. Tree comparative regional reports(Salih and Nordlund 007; Stojarov et al.

007; Suri 007), two sub-regional reports

(Chege 007; Matlosa 007) and 7 country

reports have been published so ar; one

more regional report will ollow in early

008 (Adejumobi 008). In addition, the

inormation gathered is stored in an online

database that International IDEA makes

available on an individual basis to interested

organizations and academics.1 A recent

International IDEA publication (Roncagliolo

and Melndez 007) provides in-depth

analysis o parties and party systems in the

Andean region.

While it is not the purpose o this policy

paper to summarize all the results rom this

large endeavour, it is important to highlight

some o the key ndings. Most importantly,

there is no uniorm picture that can be

painted. Te state o party systems in young

democracies varies considerably rom country

1 See http://www.political-parties.org


9/36

9

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

to country and usually not all parties share

the same weaknesses within a country. On the

one hand, extreme volatilitychanges in vote

shares rom one election to anotheris a ma-

jor problem in many young democracies. In

essence this means that parties are incapable

o developing stable relationships with society.

On the other hand, some countries, mainly

in Arica, experience very low volatility to the

extent that one party dominates the politicalprocess over a very long time without any real-

istic chance o the opposition gaining power.

In Arica, party programmes seem

increasingly detached rom citizens concerns

and seem to lack creative, context-specic

answers to the countries problems. Tis

ailure, in turn, creates voter apathy and low

turnouts in some areas o the continent. In

terms o the structure o the party system, we

observe two contradictory trends in Arica.

Tere is an increasing ragmentation in manycountries, while in others two-party systems

or dominant party systems consolidate.

International IDEAs research has identied

two main challenges to political parties in

Arica. One is the area o party nancing.

Corruption within parties is widespread

and it is hard to imagine how these parties

are supposed to be the oundation o stable,

responsible governments. Tereore, in order

to achieve good governance at the state

level, the area o party nancing needs to

be tackled. Te other area is the problem o

leadership succession within Arican parties,

which can oten lead to severe crises.

In South Asia, International IDEAs

research shows that the spread o democracy

has surprisingly gone hand in hand with more

authoritarian parties where the infuence o

leaders rises. Furthermore, while peoples

expectations o political parties grow, the

parties ability to deliver remains low. Tis

creates a situation in which people are

supportive o democracy as a whole but ar less

enthusiastic about political parties.

In Central and Eastern Europe, limited

institutionalization is one o the main

problems with political parties. Parties are

not suciently rooted in society, resulting

in relatively high levels o volatility as voters

switch parties between elections or parties

switch their ideologies.In many countries, parties tend to be

weakly organized, lack a coherent

ideological platorm and be set up around

personalities rather than stable structures. As

a consequence, new parties appear constantly,

others disappear and there is a great deal

o change both in political personnel and

in political positions. In Latin America

there has recently been a rise o (neo-)

populist politicians who openly voice their

contempt or the institutions o representativedemocracy. Research conrms that the

dissatisaction o the population with political

parties increases the chances o newcomers

outside the established parties winning

elections. In the last ve presidential elections

in each o the ve Andean countries2, almost

hal the votes went to independents or to

candidates who ran or newly ormed parties

(Mainwaring et al. 006: ).

o sum up, parties can have two undamental

weaknesses. One is a lack o organizational

coherence and institutionalization, the other

is a lack o programmatic substance. I parties

ail to perorm in both areas, they will not

be able to get much traction. However, there

are also cases where parties are weak in one

aspect, but strong in another. In terms o dem-

ocratic consolidation, this can be problematic

when pro-democratic parties are strong

on programmatic issues and weak on organi-

zation, while other, ormerly authoritarian

2 Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.


10/36

10

International IDEA

parties lack a programmatic platorm but act

in a very organized way. As a consequence, the

party system may be unresponsive to societys

preerences (Carey and Reynolds 007).

Most research on the state o party systems

in newly democratized countries, including

International IDEAs Research and Dialogue

programme, presents a great variety o

situations. A careul, context-sensitive analysis

is crucial or any kind o party assistanceactivity.

Despite the dierent situations, the

research nevertheless shows that political

parties are part o the problem in most

countries where democracy is perceived by the

population not to be working satisactorily.

Tis is not surprising given the central role

played by parties in the democratic process

and it emphasizes that party assistance must

be a central eld o democracy assistance.

Unsatisactory perormance by politicalparties is not only a problem that aects

newly democratized countries. In most

established democracies political parties and

politicians are held in very low esteem by their

citizens and most parties do not ully comply

with the idealistic model that is oten used to

assess parties in young democracies. In other

words, ew parties in Western countries are

completely transparent, internally democratic

and centred around issues rather than

persons.

While it is important or the proper

unctioning o democracy to pinpoint crucial

weaknesses o political parties in young

democracies and to nd ways to overcome

them, it is equally important not to all or

idealistic expectations. Oten, these are

ideal types: they may serve as a beacon, as

something to orient onesel by, but not as a

model that one is likely to adopt ully.

Analysis

This chapter analyses party assistance. Te rst section deals

with the dierent actors in the eld, and the second section

analyses the dierent types o programmes and activities that

are carried out as party assistance. Te last section in this chapter

discusses how needs assessments are carried out and how activities

are evaluated.

Tere are very ew studies, either academic or non-academic, on

party assistance, let alone comparative analyses. Burnell (000) deals

with democracy assistance in general. Carothers (006) is the rst

comprehensive, comparative analysis exclusively dedicated to partyassistance. Burnell (006) also deals with party assistance together

with an analysis o party systems in dierent regions and countries

and a recent book by Burnell (007)published by International

IDEA and Sidaassesses how democracy support is evaluated. In

addition, there are some studies that map party assistance activities

in a certain region, such as a report commissioned by the Olo

Palme International Center on democracy assistance activities in the

Balkans and the Black Sea region (Erhardy 006) and a mapping

exercise by International IDEA in Central America (Umaa Cerna

007). Although these studies vary in ocus and depth, the

conclusions they come to are remarkably similar. Party assistancegenerally lacks precisely dened objectives, high quality project

management and proper measurement.

Actors in party assistance

Party assistance is a eld with many dierent actors. Te rst basic

distinction when talking about actors in party assistance is among

those who receive the assistance (assistance partners), those who

deliver it and those who und it. Sometimes two o these categories

all together, such as when an implementing organization alsoprovides the unds. Each o these groups has dierent interests

and ollows a dierent approach when deciding where and how to

proceed.

Primary partners in assistance programmes are, o course,

political parties. However, the exact target within parties can vary

greatly. Programmes can be geared towards party ocials, leaders,

the youth, etc. In addition, activities can deal with only one party

or with a number o them, or example when the aim is to oster

dialogue and understanding. Depending on the objective o an

activity, assistance partners can also be civil society actors, the


11/36

11

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

media, government ocials and electoral

management bodies (EMBs).

As can be seen rom Figure , providers

are usually the link between donors and

assistance partners. Direct donorto

assistance partner contacts are ar less

requent.

Assistance providers

Tere are our types o assistance providers:partisan NGOs, multi-partisan NGOs,

non-partisan NGOs and intergovernmental

organizations. NGO is used in a broad sense

here and includes all not strictly governmental

organizations. Most o these NGOs, however,

receive all or almost all o their unding

directly rom public sources. Te distinction

between partisan, non-partisan and multi-

partisan is blurred as some organizations

engage in dierent types o activities, some o

which may be partisan while others are multi-partisan. Te German political oundations

attach great importance to the act that they

are not party oundations, but only party-

related.

Even openly partisan organizations oten

have multi-party projects. Tere are a number

o reasons or this. Some types o activity,

such as dialogue programmes, obviously do

not make sense on an individual raternal

party basis. In many countries the European

party oundations cannot nd appropriate

counterparts, because parties align along

dierent cleavages and not in the clusters o

the Western party amilies.

Te actors with the longest experience in

party assistance are party oundations that

operate mainly on a raternal basis, meaning

that they support their counterparts in other

countries. Te German party oundations

were the rst to enter the scene o party

assistance. Te two biggest, the Social

DonorsAssist.

providersAssist.partners

Figure 1: Actors in party assistance

Democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation

(FES) and the Christian Democratic Konrad

Adenauer Foundation (KAS), started

working with political parties in the 950s.

oday, they have an annual budget o more

than EUR 00 million. It should be noted,

however, that not all o this is allocated to

party assistance. Te German oundations,

like most other European party oundations,have a broad mandate. Tey work both

within their country and abroad on a wide

range o topics rom democracy promotion

to participation and policy development.

Te amount o money they receive rom

the government depends on the size o their

parliamentary representation. FES and KAS

currently receive about one-third o the total

amount each and the rest is split among the

other our oundations (Erdmann 006: 8).

Funds are made available upon application to

the Ministry or Development Cooperation.

Van Wersch and de Zeeuw (005) count

European oundations active in party

assistance, which are all aliated with, or

close to, a political party. Te only exception

in this group is the Netherlands Institute or

Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), which is

multi-partisan. Most o these oundations are

very small in terms o their budget. Only

one in our has a budget o more than


12/36

12

International IDEA

EUR 0 million per year and hal have a

budget o less than EUR million (van

Wersch and de Zeeuw 005: 0). Given

the broad range o activities, only a raction

o theseresources goes to party assistance.

Most donors and assistance providers do not

disclose how much they spend specically on

party assistance, so resources spent on these

activities can only be estimated.

Te German oundations dominate theeld, as they account or roughly 90 percent

o the overall budget o party oundations

in Europe. Te only other oundations that

match this size are the two United States

oundations, the National Democratic

Institute (NDI) and the International

Republican Institute (IRI). Both these were

established in 98 and they are loosely

aliated with the Democratic and the

Republican parties, respectively. In contrast

to the European oundations they workexclusively abroad and ocus on democracy

Organization Overall budget

in EUR

Party assistance

in EUR

Share o

total

budget

NDI 77,000,000 26,950,000 35%

FES 123,500,000 24,700,000 20%

IRI 57,000,000 24,510,000 43%

KAS 102,900,000 20,580,000 20%

HSS 42,700,000 8,540,000 20%

FNSt 40,000,000 8,000,000 20%

HBS 37,200,000 7,440,000 20%

NIMD 6,800,000 6,120,000 90%

WFD 6,200,000 4,030,000 65%

OPIC 12,500,000 3,750,000 30%

RLS 9,000,000 1,800,000 20%

IDEA 11,000,000 1,650,000 15%

FPI 2,300,000 1,150,000 50%

Total 528,100,000 139,220,000 n.a.

Source: van Wersch and de Zeeuw (005), Carothers (006), International IDEA.

Estimations or FES, FNSt, RLS and HSS based on data rom KAS and HBS. All data are

rom 004, except IRI and NDI (005) and International IDEA (006)

Table 2: Expenditure on party assistance

promotion. In 005 the annual budget o the

NDI was EUR 77 million and the annual

budget o the IRI was EUR 57 million

(Carothers 006: 79). Although the US

oundations can certainly be described as

partisan by International IDEAs denition,

their approach has always been more

multi-party than that o most European

oundations. Most other party oundations

are rather small. Te only ones with annualbudgets or party assistance o more than

EUR million are the Swedish Social

Democratic Olo Palme International Center

(OPIC) and the Spanish Socialist Pablo

Iglesias Foundation (FPI).

Estimates o how much o their budgets

the oundations spend on party assistance

activities can be ound in able . Reliable

gures are dicult to obtain. Many

programmes serve more than one purpose

and the organizations do not always publishdetailed budget breakdowns. Carothers

(006: 85) estimates that the German

oundations spent somewhere between EUR

0 million and EUR 60 million in 004 on

party assistance activities. Te considerably

higher percentages or party assistance

activities that are shown or the NDI and

IRI compared to the German oundations

are partly owing to the act that the latter are

engaged in a wide range o domestic political

activities. Expenditure on these activities is

included in the overall budgets.

Non-partisan NGOs in the eld o party

assistance are relatively new. Te NIMD was

ounded in 000 and now has an annual

budget o slightly less than EUR 7 million.

Te Norwegian Centre or Democracy

Support was ounded in 00 and Demo

Finland in 006. Tese three organizations

have in common the act that they bundle

the democracy promotion activities o the


13/36

13

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

major political parties in their countries.

Te UK-based Westminster Foundation or

Democracy, created in 99, also belongs to

the group o multi-partisan NGOs, although

it unds activities that are run by the political

parties or by other non-prot organizations

rather than implementing projects itsel. It

could thereore also be characterized as a

specialized donor organization.

In Australia, democracy promotion is car-ried out by the non-partisan Centre or

Democratic Institutions (CDI), which was

ounded in 998 and receives most o

its budget rom the Australian Agency or

International Development (AusAID).

Recently, the two main Australian parties

the Australian Liberal Party and the Austral-

ian Labor Partyhave established their own

international programmes that are unded

directly by the government, currently with

AUD million (EUR 590,000) each per year,under the Australian Political Parties or

Democracy Program.

Finally, there are a number o inter-

national organizations working in the eld.

International IDEA is the only one with an

exclusive mandate or democracy promotion.

It was ounded in 995 and currently has 5

member states. Its annual budget is around

EUR million (006), o which some

5 percent is spent on party-related activities,

ranging rom direct work with parties in the

eld to the generation and dissemination o

comparative knowledge. Other international

organizations engage in party assistance as

one aspect o their activities, among them the

Organization or Security and Co-operation

in Europe (OSCE) through its Oce or

Democratic Institutions and Human Rights,

the United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP) and the Organization o American

States (OAS).

Donors

Te largest proportion o nancial resources

or party assistance activitiesas is the case

or democracy assistance in generalcomes

rom public sources. Funds are provided

either directly by governments through their

oreign ministries or development ministries,

or through donor agencies.

Te NDI and the IRI were established with

unding rom the National Endowment orDemocracy (NED), which still continues to

provide about 0 percent o the organizations

budgets as a core allocation. Te rest o their

resources now come rom the United States

Agency or International Development

(USAID), the United States State Department

and a number o oreign donor agencies.

Sweden grants money to the party

oundations through the Swedish

International Development Cooperation

Agency (Sida). Te German oundations alsoreceive most o their unds rom the state.

Te FES reported 9 and 9 percent o its

proceeds came rom public sources in 004

and 005, respectively. Te second biggest

oundation, the KAS, reported a share o 94

percent or 004 (gures calculated rom

the oundations statements o accounts).

Other development agencies that und party

assistance projects are the Spanish Agency or

International Cooperation (AECI), the British

Department or International Development

(DFID) and the Canadian International

Development Agency (CIDA). In addition

to national governments there are some

international or regional donors that have

started to nance party assistance projects,

such as the Inter-American Development

Bank (IDB). It is thereore important to

note that even the non-governmental actors

depend almost exclusively on public unding.


14/36

14

International IDEA

Other actors

Party Internationals, the loose associations o

like-minded political parties, are also actors in

the eld. Tey do not usually carry out ully

fedged programmes themselves, but instead

work as an occasional catalyst or organizer o

conerences and dialogues.

Types o party assistanceprogrammes

Generally, party assistance attempts to

strengthen either an individual party or the

party system as a whole. Oten, assistance

is driven by an idealistic notion o what

parties should look like, without much

reerence to how they work even in established

democracies. As Tomas Carothers puts it,

party aid seeks to help build parties that are

competently managed, internally democratic,well-rooted in society, law-abiding, nancially

transparent and adequately unded,

ideologically dened, inclusive o women and

youth, eective at campaigning and capable

o governing eectively (Carothers 006: 97).

wo dimensions describe the dierent

party assistance activities: the target area and

the orm o delivery. Tis results in a two-

dimensional space within which to map

party assistance activities with ve targetareas (shown horizontally in able ) and

Target area

Method o delivery

Internal party

organization

Inter-party

relations

Parties and

society

Party regulation International

party assistance

Training/capacity building

Dialogues

Knowledge resources

Policy advice/Consulting

Direct fnancial contributions

Table 3: Matrix o party assistance target areas and methods o delivery

ve methods o delivery (shown vertically).

It is not always possible to make a clear-cut

distinction between the elds, but it gives a

airly good approximation o where a specic

activity is located.

Target areas

A large part o party assistance is aimed

at helping parties to become eective by

enhancing internal party organization.During pre-election periods this essentially

means help with campaigning. Tis can easily

be carried out by specialist consultants who

cover specic aspects o a campaign, such

as strategy development, messages, voter

targeting, advertising and get-out-the-vote

activitities. Although campaigning is very

political and sensitive, the technical nature

o the activities involved and the clearly

dened time-rame and objectives make

campaign assistance straightorward toimplement. Campaign assistance is mostly

done by partisan organizations because it

is not something that can easily be shared

with competing parties, apart rom very

general introductory training sessions on

campaign communications. Tis type o

assistance comes down in the end to paying

or a proessional service that the party could

also buy itsel, provided that it has enough

resources.

Organizational assistance also covers


15/36

15

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

other aspects o the internal unctioning o

political parties. Among these are: (a) ecient

internal communications, (b) accounting,

(c) undraising, (d) establishing a working

structure or the party, (e) dealing with the

media and (e) membership recruitment and

membership relations.

A slightly dierent, albeit important, assist-

ance activity is to help parties develop coher-

ent policies. Given the requent lack o soundprogrammatic platorms that can be observed

in many parties in young democracies and the

severe consequences this has once the parties

are in government, the eld o policy develop-

ment has been given too little attention in the

past.3

Especially in confict-prone societies, build-

ing stable inter-party relationsplays an im-

portant role in party assistance. It is based on

the assumption that democracy can only work

properly i parties engage in a healthy compe-tition or ideas and policies while at the same

time maintaining a minimum level o consen-

sus. Tis has been described as diuse support

or democracy (Easton 956). One aspect is

that political competitors should still be able

to talk to each other in a civilized manner no

matter how erce the dispute is. A slightly di-

erent area o inter-party relations is contacts

made between parties in the target country

and those in established democracies, usually

in the home country o the assistance provider

or the donor. Here, o course, confict resolu-

tion is not the intention but rather learning

by exposure. It is oten argued that while the

representatives o the target countries learn

how democracy works in reality, their coun-

terparts also gain a broader understanding

o the situation and the diculties aced by

parties in young democracies. In addition,

assistance providers increasingly try to oster

South-South relationships between develop-

ing countries. Rather than bringing together

party people rom developing countries with

party people rom a Western country with

completely dierent backgrounds, South-

South exchange acilitates the sharing o expe-

riences among people who have recently gone

through similar experiences.

Parties and societyincludes all activities

that aim to increase the participation o

women, youth and minorities in and throughpolitical parties. Tese projects have become

much more requent in the last two decades.

A special kind o assistance is geared

towards the party system as a whole rather

than towards individual parties. Assistance

withparty regulation tries to create a

avourable ramework within which parties

can work. Party registration, compliance

requirements and party nancing orm part

o this. International organizations such as

International IDEA and UNDP have takenthe lead in this subeld.

Te last area is the meta-level o

international party assistance. Tis policy

paper is an example o an activity in this

area. It deals with how international party

assistance is planned and delivered and the

aims it tries to achieve.

In reality, many activities all into more

than one category. For example, a training

course or members o dierent parties

can simultaneously oster the internal

organizational capacities o the parties and

help inter-party dialogue. Te same holds true

or many projects geared towards women in

politics. Assisting a womens platorm can

both help to bring more women into parties

and create a orum or inter-party dialogue.

How assistance is delivered

Assistance can be delivered in many dierent

ways. Tere are some common ways in

3 International IDEA has been very successul in Latin America in acilitating platorms where party representatives meet

both jointly and individually with experts on specifc topics. This is a feld where party assistance providers can establish

crucial links between parties and external policy experts.


16/36

16

International IDEA

which it is organized: training sessions,

conerences and seminars, exchanges,

individual consulting and direct or in-kind

grants. Again, as with the overall budgets

or party assistance, it is dicult to estimate

the importance o each o these methods.

Van Wersch and de Zeeuw (005: 7)

report that the European party oundations

spend 56 percent o their overall democracy

assistance budget on training, 4 percent onadvice and technical assistance and percent

on conerences and seminars. It is likely that

the distribution or party assistance is similar.

Training and capacity-buildingthus seem

to be the most important methods used,

but the range o topics and the ormat can

vary considerably. Most training deals with

rather technical aspects o assistance, such

as undraising, campaigning methods or

leadership development. Oten, training is

provided by international consultants whoare expensive and lack knowledge o specic

contexts. On the other hand, local expertise is

not always available.

Workshops and seminars can also include

consultants and other experts, but are

geared more towards exchange o ideas and

experiences. Tis is the eld odialogues.

For example, politicians rom other countries

that have experienced similar problems can be

invited to share their experiences. Workshops

are also used to bring together politicians rom

dierent parties to discuss topics o general

interest to them, such as codes o conduct or

regulatory issues.

Study tours and exchange visits are a

popular dialogue tool. Either a delegation o

politicians rom an established democracy

visits an assistance partner country or a

group rom a newly democratized country

travels abroad to get to know an established

democracy. Assistance providers try to bring

together groups o politiciansoten taking

them out o the countryin an attempt to

initiate dialogue.

Organizations such as International IDEA

produce a broad range oknowledge resources

and analyses on party-related issues that

may be reely used by assistance partners.

International IDEAs handbooks, briengs,

databases and interactive online platorms

are geared towards practitioners and bringcutting-edge research to a useable and

understandable ormat. Tis is important

because there is oten a considerable lack

o knowledge about the subject on the side

o both assistance providers and assistance

partners.

Assistance can also be delivered aspolicy

adviceand individual consulting. Partners in

this kind o assistance may be government

agencies or party leaderships, who, or

example, request the expertise o an assistanceprovider on a specic topic. Assistance

providers can also try to infuence the agenda

by preparing policy papers and highlighting

specic options.

Finally, direct fnancial contributionsare

rare in party assistance. NIMD has provided

them on some occasions (Carothers 006:

4), but generally assistance providers preer

to organize their own activities. In some cases

they may also underwrite costs or specic

events organized by parties themselves, such

as conventions.

In addition to distinguishing the type o

activity it is also important to look at the

duration o the assistance. Te German party

oundations, or example, tend to have eld

oces in most countries in which they work

and usually establish long-term relationships

with their counterparts in these countries.

Some o these programmes run or decades.

Other assistance providers run specic


17/36

17

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

programmes over a limited time. Te last

distinctive criterion is the level at which the

activity is located. It can be at the eld level

in a single country, at a regional level or at the

international level.

Strengths and weaknesses of

todays party assistance

Party assistance has two weaknesses that

may sound contradictory at rst: it lackssystematic methodology and it is insuciently

contextualized. Te rst weakness means that

there is no general ramework or what party

assistance is supposed to achieve and how

programmes should be implemented. Tis

does not mean that there are no successul

programmes. At the general level, however, no

such ramework exists. Te second weakness

reers to the act that assistance providers tend

to apply the same solutions everywhere or to

copy experiences rom other countries. Yeteach situation is dierent, and i assistance

is to be eective, it has to be tailored to

specic contexts. Parties operate in a complex

environment that is infuenced by political,

societal, cultural and historical actors. Tese

actors need to be taken into account and

a general ramework would assist such a

process.

Kumar (005: 507) writes, the internation-

al community rarely had a coherent and com-

prehensive strategy or party development in a

country. Instead, its approach has been oppor-

tunistic. Interested donors and NGOs have se-

lected specic areas o assistance largely on the

basis o local openings, available resources and

their own interests. Erdmann (006: 979)

analyses the party assistance activities o the

German oundations and concludes that none

o them has an explicit strategy that deals with

the aims o party assistance and that they lack

any kind o guidelines, tool-kits or handbooks

on how to carry out party assistance projects.

Evaluation o party assistance activities is

still very weak. Many assistance providers do

make some kind o evaluation, but generally

it is not systematic. It tends to be carried out

by internal sta and not shared with anybody

outside the institution itsel (van Wersch and

de Zeeuw 005: 4). Te lack o consist-

ent, standard-based assessment and evaluation

makes it dicult to determine the impact oparty assistance and to improve perormance.

In addition, there seems to be little institu-

tional memory o tools and experiences, which

requires programme designers to start rom

scratch every time a new activity is designed.

Te NDI has published a guide to party

assistance (NDI 00) that highlights some

key elements in planning and evaluating

party assistance programmes. It rightly points

out that any needs assessment has to be done

jointly with the partners in the assistanceprogramme. Regarding indicators or evalu-

tion the guide ocuses on training sessions and

recommends surveying participants. Tis is a

step in the right direction, but it needs to be

much more comprehensive and much more

precise to be useul or practitioners.

Te dilemma o using either international

experts with little local knowledge or local

trainers with little experience in the subject

matter has in part been overcome. Assistance

providers increasingly use a train the trainer

approach to provide knowledge to local people

who can then spread it urther. In electoral

assistance this is done, or example, by using

the Building Resources in Democracy,

Governance and Elections (BRIDGE)

tools. Tis is a ramework developed by

International IDEA, the United Nations

Electoral Assistance Division, the Australian

Electoral Commission, UNDP and the

US-based democracy promotion organization,


18/36

18

International IDEA

IFES. Although topics and target groups in

party assistance are dierent rom those in

electoral assistance, the BRIDGE ramework

serves as a model or capacity-building tools

in other areas o democracy assistance.

Party assistance activities are oten linked

to the specic goals o donors and assistance

providers. For example, one requent goal

is to strengthen internal democracy. Others

are to raise the number o women and youthinvolved in the organization o the party.

Although these may be legitimate goals,

assistance oten ails to make clear whether

these are ends in their own right or the means

to achieve better democracy. I the latter were

the case, this would have to be made explicit

in terms o the unctions o political parties

explained in the introduction.

I party assistance is to have an eect, it

needs to ollow a sequence o steps, starting

with identiying weaknesses and designingspecic programmes to overcome them.

What is needed is a ramework to assess the

situation, determine the needs and properly

plan, implement and evaluate assistance

activities. Proposals or this are made in the

next section.

Recommendations

The purpose o this section is threeold. First, it argues the need

or common principles, agreed by the community o actors.

Second, it highlights three areas that these principles should

cover: (a) a unctional approach to political parties, (b) integration

with other elds o democracy assistance and (c) a systematic project

cycle. Tird, it makes initial suggestions or tools that cover the

three phases o the project cycle. Te presentation o tools is ar rom

complete. Tis part o the policy paper provides a basis or uture

discussion and is intended to give an idea o the direction in which

discussions may lead.

Why do we need principles?

Party assistance has been accusedrightly or wronglyo being

too oten unocused, supply-driven and ineective. While

this can certainly not be said o all projects, there is some truth

in these assertions. Te Paris Declaration on Aid Eectiveness

(005) recognizes the need or better standards in development

cooperation and makes several recommendations on how to improve

eectiveness. Not every part o it is relevant to party assistance, butthe general challenge is the same. Te Paris Declaration calls or

harmonization and more monitoring and transparency.

Principles do not limit, they enable. Tey give assistance partners

tools to assess their strengths and weaknesses, to determine their

needs in terms o specic assistance and to actively go out and seek

this assistance. With such principles, party assistance would be

much more demand-driven in the uture. Principles help donors

to determine how to spend their money wisely to maximize eect

and they enable assistance providers to be ecient and serve their

mission in the best possible way.

Te undamental aim o principles or party assistance is toget the balance right between sucient systematization and more

contextualization. Systematization is needed or the procedures, that

is, planning, unding, implementation, evaluation and institutional

memory. Contextualization is needed or the content o the

assistance. Te current situation in international party assistance

is oten the opposite. Te procedures are unstandardized while

assistance providers are tempted to use o-the-shel approaches or

the content.


19/36

19

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

Functions frst

In the introduction to this paper we described

the essential unctions that parties perorm in

a democratic system. Tese unctions are:

. o develop consistent policies and build

programmatic platorms: the interest

articulation unction.

. o pick up demands rom society and

bundle them: the interest aggregationunction.

. o recruit and select people or positions in

government and the legislature.

Te ourth unction (oversight and control

o government) is not mentioned here,

because it is partly a procedural unction

that ollows rom the rst three. I a party

is perorming satisactorily in the rst

three unctions it is likely to translate this

perormance into eective scrutiny ogovernment in parliament. In addition, it

is also an end in itsel, because it means

that there are alternatives to the current

government on the political market, which is

the essence o pluralism.

o make the abstract unctions more

manageable, we divide them into six

dimensions that can be assessed or an

individual party or a party system as a

whole. Te interest articulation unction is

determined by the degree to which a party

programme is comprehensive and consistent.

Interest aggregation includes the dimensions

o having a bottom-up structure and a broad

structure, meaning that it is rmly rooted in

society. Te recruitment unction is dened

as having an inclusive and a competitive

recruitment process.

Te six dimensions can be mapped on a

spider chart (see Figure ). Each o the six

axes measures how well a certain dimension

is perorming in a given case. Owing to the

qualitative nature o the assessment, a ve-

point scale (very low, low, average, high, very

high) is recommended. By connecting the

measured values or each o the dimensions

one obtains the individual perormance

prole or a party or party system. Tis prole

can then be matched with a capability prole.

A capability prole is similar to a party

perormance prole. Instead o measuring a

partys perormance, it maps the potential o

a given assistance activity to enhance each o

the dimensions. By overlaying perormance

proles and capability proles it is easy to

select an appropriate activity or a given

situation.

In the example, we have a party

(represented by the black line) that has a

broad structure, meaning that it is represented

widely in the country and the society. Its

competitive recruitment

inclusive recruitment

broad structure

bottom-up structure

consistent programme

comprehensive programme

Figure 2: Functional dimensions o political parties


20/36

20

International IDEA

recruitment processes are average both in

terms o competitiveness and inclusiveness.

Te partys programme is consistent, but not

very comprehensive. Most likely, the party

will have policy proposals or just a ew o the

relevant issues in the country. Also, the party

is very hierarchicalit is top-down rather

than bottom-up.

Any assistance activity or this party would

probably address its two main weaknesses,namely the narrow programme and the top-

down structure. Te chosen activity in this

case (represented by the blue line) is targeted

at the programmatic dimension. As a side-e-

ect it also enhances the competitiveness o the

recruitment process. Tis is, o course, only

a hypothetical example to illustrate the use

o the proles. However, it could be a project

that links policies to the selection o candi-

dates or party and government oces by

helping party ocials to develop a set o pro-posals with which they can compete or oce.

Assistance programmes should identiy

weaknesses through careul pre-project

assessment and tailor activities accordingly,

rather than ollowing an activity-based

approach, where the type o activity is

decided upon rst. Idealistic perceptions

o how parties should operate should be

dropped. It is highly unrealistic to expect

parties in young democracies to behave in a

way that parties in established democracies

rarely do, and i programmes are entirely

based on this assumption it could even be

counterproductive.

Integration is the key

In order to be eective, party assistance

programmes have to be increasingly seen

as part o a holistic democracy assistance

approach. Tis does not mean that individual

activities will no longer be possible, but

rather that they should be careully put into

a broader context and be coordinated with

eorts in the eld o electoral assistance, civil

society, constitution building and the rule o

law.

All activities have to be part o an overall

programme based on a careul needs

assessment. Assistance providers and donorsare oten criticized or carrying out individual

activitiessuch as a single workshop or a one-

year programmerather than larger, more

comprehensive projects. It is not a problem to

run a single activity as long as it is made clear

where this activity is situated in the overall

ramework.

Integration means not only bringing the

dierent components o democracy assistance

together, but also bringing the dierent

actors together. Many o the suspicions andhesitations around party assistance could be

overcome i, or example, donors would seek

multilateral ways to channel their money

rather than doing it alone (Kumar 005:

578). Te same holds true or assistance

providers, especially the partisan ones. I

individual projects are integrated into an

overall scheme or strengthening the party

system o a given country, the assistance

providers could continue working with

specic actors but eectively counter the

accusations o inappropriate infuence (a

similar demand is made by Gershman and

Allen 006).

Party assistance has been dominated

by party oundations thus ar, as can be

easily judged rom the budget overview in

able . Te oundations have done very

valuable work, but there are other actors that

could complement their activities. Party

Internationals are well suited to develop


21/36

21

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

general norms or their ideological amily.

Membership creates an incentive or parties

to comply and the regular exchange should

oster accountability. Party Internationals are

notoriously underunded and have diculties

carrying out extensive programmes, but they

have become increasingly interested in party

assistance activities.

Other intergovernmental and parliamenta-

ry bodies are also entering the scene or work-ing on related topics such as parliamentary

support. Tese institutions should be encour-

aged to intensiy their activities in the eld

o party assistance. Examples o these bodies

are the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the

OAS, the Inter-American Development Bank

(IDB) and the Southern Arican Development

CooperationParliamentary Forum (SADC-

PF).

Systematic planning andimplementation

Comprehensive needs

assessment

Te starting point o any project activity has

to be careul needs assessment and planning.

In this phase, three essential questions have to

be answered:

. What is the situation like now?. What will it be like in the uture and how

do we want it to be?

. What are the appropriate activities to

achieve the desired outcome?

Needs assessment should always keep in

mind the long-term perspective. While indi-

vidual projects cannot usually solve all prob-

lems at once, it is important to know where

a country should be heading. It is a common

complaint among assistance providers that

donors are too short-sighted and not willing

enough to und long-term projects. Only part

o the blame lies with the donors, however.

Careully assessed projects can and should

serve long-term goals even i they themselves

are limited in scope. I a staircase represents

the way to enhanced democracy, each project

represents one stepat least i assistance

providers emphasize cooperation rather than

competition. Needs assessment should addressthe question o the sustainability o the assist-

ance project. While the call or longer-term

projects is requent, any measurement should

aim at enabling the target o the activity

whether it is a single party or a party system

to be sel-sucient in a reasonable time. It is

clearly not desirable to base programmes on

the assumption that assistance will be needed

indenitely.

Needs assessment should ollow a general

scheme in order to be comparable. One im-portant thing is that the assistance partners

need to be involved. All assistance is doomed

i it addresses an aspect that is not considered

relevant by the assistance partners themselves.

Important gatekeepers and decision-makers

most notably the party leadershave to be in-

volved rom the very beginning. Tis ensures

that they eel engaged and are more likely to

take advantage o the assistance. Depending

on the circumstances, a consultative commit-

tee with high-level representatives rom the

political parties and other key stakeholders

could be convened in the initial phase o a

project to provide input and act as a eedback

orum.

Proper needs assessment is time-consuming

and expensive. Dierent assistance providers

should not carry out overlapping analyses, as

this would be a waste o resources. Tereore,

all material resulting rom needs assessment

endeavours should be made public and be


22/36

22

International IDEA

shared widely. Tis demand is also being

made or development cooperation in general

(see or example OECD 00: 44). For

obvious reasons, many actors are reluctant to

release such material. Ater all, despite having

the same goal there is still a air amount o

competition and some actors may ear that

they would be giving away an advantage.

Nonetheless, to improve eectiveness it is very

important that dierent assistance providersshare their experiences. Regular exchange

orums should encourage them to do so.

Despite the general call or openness and

transparency, one caveat should be noted.

Work with political parties is more political

and more sensitive than most other areas

o democracy assistance and development

cooperation. Te need or cooperation

among assistance providers to enhance the

eectiveness o their programmes may collide

with demands rom political parties to treatinormation condentially. Tere is no silver

bullet as regards how to deal with this issue, as

it has to be addressed rom case to case.

Te two rst sections under ools or the

project cycle present two examples o how

to assess the current situation o democracy

and to look into the uture. Te rst is

International IDEAs State o Democracy

Assessment, the second is Scenario

Development. Tey complement each other

and greatly acilitate the initial planning or a

successul project.

Thorough monitoring and

evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation are closely

linked to needs assessment. Only when

activities are results-based and developed on

the basis o a careul needs assessment can

they be evaluated. Measuring the impact o

democracy-building activities is a challenge,

but stakeholders should still try to develop

appropriate tools.

Evaluation starts with the planning phase

o a project. It is at this stage that appropriate

indicators have to be chosen and a decision

has to be made about the data that need

to be gathered or this purpose during the

implementation o the project. Unortunately,

the beginning o a project is the point at

which the people responsible or designingit are least likely to think o these seemingly

ar away requirements. Yet ailure to dene

evaluation needs at this stage will result in

higher evaluation costs later or even make

proper evaluation impossible.

As with needs assessment, it is important

not only that each project is properly

evaluated, but also that the results are made

available beyond the group o organizations

directly involved. Tere is an understandable

reluctance to disclose evaluation results,especially i they document weaknesses and

ailures. Yet, or the sake o improvement o

party assistance all stakeholders should be able

to learn rom other experiences.

Evaluation usually requires indicators.

Depending on the nature o the underlying

inormation, indicators can use dierent levels

o measurement, ranging rom ordinal (or

example, low, middle and high) to ratio

(numerical values with an absolute zero, such

as number o participants). Indicators can

either be lead or lag indicators. Lag indicators

measure past perormance while lead indica-

tors are a proxy or uture developments. For

example, the number o registered participants

could be a lead indicator or the size o the

event itsel. Regarding the measurement ocus,

there are our dierent categories: (a) input in-

dicators that measure how many resources are

put into the project, (b) output indicators that

measure how many products are produced,


23/36

23

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

or example, how many reports have been

published, (c) outcome indicators that

measure the eects o the output and (d)

impact indicators that measure the medium-

or long-term impact on the over-arching

project goal (OECD 00: 57).

Te indicators chosen to measure the

objectives should be a mix o lead and lag

indicators and o the dierent measurement

ocuses above. It usually gets more dicult tond suitable indicators as one moves down the

list.

Input and output measurements belong

to the sphere o operational control and are

useul mainly or implementation monitoring.

Evaluation at this level is usually done by the

programme sta members themselves. Impact

studies are mostly long-term (some might

have to cover several years) and are not done

by the implementing sta. Tis is or two

reasons. First, evaluation should not be doneentirely by those who are responsible or the

project, because there are natural inherent

limits to objectivity in refection. Second,

impact evaluation is clearly outside the project

liespan or cycle. Outcome evaluation is

located in between and can be seen as part o

either the internal evaluation or the external

impact study.

Finally, it should be noted that comprehen-

sive impact studies may not always be easible.

As noted, these are long-term tasks that are

complex and can be costly. o avoid inecien-

cy, however, it is crucial to have impact studies

or new activities and pilot projects that

are later supposed to be scaled up or imple-

mented elsewhere. Pilot projects in particular

should be careully designed to enable proper

evaluation, or example with regard to the

venue, selection o participants and contextual

actors.

Tools or the project cycle

International IDEAs State

of Democracy Assessment

methodology

Te State o Democracy Assessment (SoD)

is a methodological ramework developed by

International IDEA together with researchers

rom the University o Essex. It is a tool or

assessing how well democracy works in acountry rom the diering perspectives o its

citizens. Te rationale behind its development

was the observation that democracy had

become the norm in many parts o the world,

yet many people were dissatised with the

quality and perormance o their democratic

system. Te State o Democracy Assessment

is not the only measurement or democracy,

but a number o characteristics make it

unique.

SoD is based on democratic principles andvalues against which institutional arrange-

ments are assessed. It places the responsibility

o assessment in the hands o the citizens, or

internal actors, and it is based on the princi-

ples o popular participation and ownership.

Te ramework is the most comprehensive tool

or assessing democratic perormance. It is

also a fexible ramework that allows or con-

textualization o the assessment. able 4

summarizes the assessment ramework. Te

our-pillar ramework covers 4 dierent

aspects o democracy, including one that

specically deals with political parties.

Te primary purpose o the assessment is

to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses

o a democracy, and use the ndings to

identiy and pursue priorities or democratic

reorm in the specic country o assessment.

Local ownership o both the assessment

process and the ndings is critical. An

assessment carried out ollowing International


24/36

24

International IDEA

IDEAs ramework will always be done rom

within a country, not rom the outside. As

such, the assessment itsel will already have

an impact on democracy. Tis is neitherunwanted nor merely a collateral eect, it is

one o the purposes o the assessment. Te

assessment process itsel contributes to the

democratization process o a country through

debates and dialogues around salient issues

emerging rom the assessment.

In what ways can the democracy

assessment be useul or a needs assessment

in the area o party assistance? Tere are two

options. One is to conduct a ully fedged

assessment and use the results to design

appropriate party assistance projects. In many

ways, this is the best choice, because it gives

the ull picture rather than just a specic part.

However, this would be an extensive project

o its own that requires considerable resources

both in terms o time and money.

I a ull assessment is not possible, staged

and/or targeted assessments are possible. For

example, an assessment ocusing only on

the aspect o the democratic role o political

Citizenship, law and

rights

Representative

and accountable

government

Civil society and

popular

participation

Democracy

beyond the state

Nationhood and

citizenship

Free and air

elections

Media in a

democratic

society

International

dimensions o

democracy

Rule o law and access

to justice

Democratic role

o political parties

Political

participation

Civil and political

rights

Government

eectiveness andaccountability

Government

responsiveness

Economic and social

rights

Civilian control o

the military and

the police

Decentralization

Minimizing

corruption

Source: IDEA (007).

Table 4: Categories o International IDEAs State o Democracy

Assessment ramework

parties may be undertaken. Any democracy

assessment should be complemented by a

thorough assessment o the party unctions

described above.

In-depth inormation about the

International IDEAs democracy assessment

methodology may be ound in a booklet

published by International IDEA (IDEA

00) or the comprehensive Handbook on

Democracy Assessment (IDEA 007).

Scenario development

Once we have a picture o what the situation

looks like now, we need a way to make

projections about the uture. Scenarios are a

way o thinking about the uture. Tey are

based on the assumption that a great part o

the uture is determined by unknown actors

or variables that we cannot predict. Tereore,

rather than just extrapolating rom the

present, scenario development tries to identiydierent possibilities o what the uture could

look like. Scenario development means two

things: a process or developing a vision o the

uture and a way o dealing with uncertainty

itsel. Great emphasis is placed on creativity,

both during the generation o scenarios and

in their use. In that sense, scenarios are not

supposed to be accurate predictions, but

rather a means o stimulating thought about

the uture.

Like many strategic planning rameworks,

scenario thinking has its origin in the

military. In the 960s it was adapted or

business use. Te oil company Royal Dutch

Shell was a pioneer in this eld and still

publishes its Shell Global Scenarios.

Scenarios try to look at specic questions

rom the outside and rom dierent angles.

It is crucial that dierent stakeholders or

even people not connected to the topic are

involved. Tere are many reasons or engaging


25/36

25

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

in scenario thinking and many ways o doing

it (or a very good introduction see Scearce

and Fulton 004).

Scenarios can serve many dierent

purposes and the way in which the process is

carried out varies accordingly. Rather than

describing the dierent options at length, we

Phase One:

Orient

Phase Two:

Explore

Phase Three:

Synthesize

Phase Four:

Act

Phase Five:

Monitor

Figure 3: Phases o scenario development shall concentrate on the specic application

o scenario thinking to party assistance. Each

process consists o ve phases, as shown in

Figure . Te rst three phases belong to

the planning stage, the ourth deals with

implementation and the th with evaluation.

In phase , the scope and time horizon o

the endeavour is determined. Te result is

a question that will lead all ollowing steps.

Te time horizon has to be broad enough toinclude real changes but limited enough to

make realistic assumptions about what the

uture will look like. For party assistance

and democracy-related questions, looking

ve to ten years into the uture is reasonable.

Anything urther ahead depends on too

many unknowns and anything shorter than

ve years will lack the potential to include

visionary changes.

Te question or the scenario process

needs to be broad enough to enable opendiscussion. Depending on the exact needs

o the organization that carries it out, it may

deal with the development o democracy in

a country in general or with a more specic

question. Examples are:

What will democracy look like in country

X in ten years?

Will the parties in country X be stronger

or weaker in ve years?

What challenges do parties face in countryX in the next ten years?

Usually, determining the question will

already involve talking to stakeholders and

asking them about what they think will be

important or democracy in the given time-

rame.

Once the guiding question or the scenario

process has been established, phase begins.

Tis is the exploration phase. Te goal here

is mainly to identiy the orces that shape


26/36

26

International IDEA

open violence

strongweak

irrelevant

economic development

ethnic

tensions

SCENARIO 1 SCENARIO 2

SCENARIO 3 SCENARIO 4

the outcome. Tese driving orces can be

either known or unknown. Known actors

are constants or variables that are relatively

easy to predict, such as slow-changing

demographic actors. As we can assume these

to be set, they are included in each o the

scenarios. More interesting are those orces

that we are uncertain about. Tese will make

up the dierent scenarios. Once a list o

actors has emerged through brainstorming,the next phase starts.

Factors that should be considered when

dealing with party assistance are socio-

demographic changes in society, economic

development, external (international) orces

that have an impact on the internal situation,

dierent actors, etc.

In phase , the results o the brainstorming

are ordered and the scenarios put together.

Te rst step is to order the actors by their

importance to the issue at stake and by their

degree o uncertainty. Tose actors that score

highest on the two scales, that is, those that

are most uncertain and most important, are

the so-called critical uncertainties. Normally,

these critical uncertainties can be mapped

on a continuum. For example, i economic

development were to be a critical uncertainty,

the continuum would range rom weak tostrong. I it were ethnic tensions, a con-

tinuum could range rom irrelevant to open

violence. Te actual scenario ramework is

now drawn by combining two critical un-

certainties in a two-dimensional matrix (see

Figure 4).

Te matrix has our quadrants, each o

which represents one scenario. Hence, in our

example the upper let scenario is one where

ethnical conficts are violent and the economy

is weak, etc. Te drawing o matrices is aniterative process, which means that ater

setting up a combination o two dimensions

one has to test whether the resulting scenarios

make sense. Ater some eort, eventually one

will come up with a combination that does.

Once the ramework is established, the

scenarios are described in narratives. Tese

are stories that vividly tell what the uture will

look like under this scenario. It is not crucial

to depict the uture accurately (which is

impossible anyway), but to write the scenarios

in a way that causes refection among those

who read them and encourages them to think.

Phase 4 is about putting the scenarios

to work. By now, the planners have several

resources at hand: an assessment o the

current situation through a tool like the State

o Democracy assessment, our dierent

paintings o the uture and an understanding

o the unctions o political parties in a

democracy. At this stage, we know where we

Figure 4: Sample scenario matrix


27/36

27

International IDEA


or Better Democracy

are (assessment), where we want to go (based

on unctions) and how external driving orces

can infuence the general picture (scenarios).

Te situation is illustrated in Figure 5.

Choosing the right programmatic activity

is built on the three pillars. Te arrows

symbolize dierent programmatic options or

reaching the desired unctional outcome in

the context o dierent scenarios.

Te choice o activity depends on manyactors. One o them is risk. Some o the

options may work in more than one scenario

and are thereore low-risk. Others may only

work in one or two scenarios, but promise

to be very eective. Tese are high-risk

options. Any project should include activities

at dierent risk levels and be prepared or a

variety o uture scenarios. It is important to

note that the scenarios are not detached rom

the project activity. Every project, o course,

tries to infuence the uture, which means thatnot only does the uture scenario infuence

the choice o activities, but that the uture can

change precisely through the activity. Tere is

a mutual relationship.

Te nal phase deals with monitoring. In

order to monitor, suitable indicators have to

be established that are constantly monitored

throughout the implementation o the

assistance activity and aterwards. Tis is

described in the next section.

Balanced Scorecard for party

assistance projects

Tis section introduces the BSC as a tool or

measuring the progress a

effective party assistance: stronger parties for better democracy

Documents