Multilateral Political Party Assistance on Societies in Transition to Democracy: A Critical Review

Resumo

Several international actors have been engaged in democracy promotion initiatives devoted to supporting and assisting democratisation reforms. Various projects were implemented to assist political parties in societies in transition. In this paper, I will integrate the debate concerning political party aid with the international dimensions of democratisation and theories of cooperation. This is motivated by the fact that most research on the development of political parties and party systems in transitional societies is still very much concentrated on internal factors, neglecting the intervention and the potential impact of democracy promotion initiatives. I begin with a clarification of the main concepts in discussion, followed by a critical assessment of the theoretical approaches proposed in the literature, focusing in the impacts for societies in transition. I argue that disaggregating democracy aid into its components is a more promising analytical strategy. In terms of donors’ strategies, two tendencies emerge clearly: there is a preference for the model of influence by consent and a tendency to formulate linear assumptions on the attitudes and strategies of the actors in the recipient country.