Study: Democracy building works

American-sponsored democracy building abroad is working, according to a recent study involving… American-sponsored democracy building abroad is working, according to a recent study involving Pitt professors.

The study, which covered 165 countries, was presented in Washington, D.C, on Oct. 27.

“Basically every country in the world is involved, except for 30 or so advanced industrialized countries that would not be eligible to ever receive USAID assistance,” said Pitt professor Steve Finkel, who was involved in the study.

Countries ranging from Iraq to Afghanistan, Papua, New Guinea to the Congo have received American dollars to promote democracy building.

The average country in the study received approximately $2.07 million per year in democracy assistance. The quantitative study spanned the post-Cold War period, from 1990 through 2003.

The study concluded that democracy building is in fact working, and that less money devoted to a country correlates with less democratic progress. In contrast, more money promotes more of an impact.

The researchers measured democratic progress by the effectiveness of legislatures, strength of the judiciary branches and freedom of the press.

“Our job was to evaluate the impact of democracy assistance and the results are for the most part positive,” said Anibal Perez-Linan, Pitt assistant professor of political science. “Given those positive results, we should expect foreign assistance for democracy to increase, rather than decrease, in the future.”

There was one negative aspect of the study’s results, however. Researchers discovered that human rights violations have increased in the last decade.

“We found that an increase in funds to promote democracy is related to an improvement in the levels of democratization,” Perez-Linan said. “But in the case of funds specifically devoted to promote human rights, we found that more funds apparently lead to greater human rights violations.”

The obvious question: If money is devoted to increasing democratic processes, why are human rights violations increasing?

“We are not sure, but there are two possible explanations for this paradox,” Perez-Linan said. “One is that authoritarian governments crack down on activists and opponents when they realize that the international community is helping them.

“The other possible reason is that when human rights organizations receive more funding, they are more capable of detecting and reporting human rights violations.”

Researchers used data from the non-profit, non-partisan organization Freedom House. The group found that for every $10 million spent on America’s democracy assistance program, a country would rise one-quarter of a point on the group’s democracy scale.

Although the study is finished, the effects of the democracy building efforts that took place during the last 10 years may remain to be seen.

“We find that democracy assistance continues to have effects some two to three years in the future, indicating that there is potential for cumulative impact of these kinds of programs,” Perez-Linan said.

The study was conducted by researchers from Pitt, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.