Promoting Democracy Under Electoral Authoritarianism: Evidence From Cambodia

Abstract

After many decades and billions of dollars spent, the effects of foreign democracy promotion interventions remain poorly understood, particularly in authoritarian contexts. Do these external interventions contribute to the building blocks of democratization and democratic consolidation under autocracy? Do these potential contributions come at the cost of bolstering autocrats’ credibility? This article presents a randomized study of a democracy promotion program undertaken by a prominent international non-governmental organization (INGO) in rural Cambodia, in which elected parliamentarians from multiple political parties interacted with constituents. The intervention had relatively large effects on individuals’ knowledge about politics and self-reported political engagement but, crucially, did not give citizens increased confidence in Cambodia’s “democracy,” suggesting a role for democracy promotion without whitewashing the authoritarian nature of Cambodian politics. Overall, the results suggest that democracy promotion under authoritarianism can foster a more engaged and informed citizenry without lending undue credibility to an authoritarian system.

What works in democracy support? How to fill evidence and usability gaps through evaluation

“…Overall, theories of change – and in particular, the mechanisms that help close the attribution gaps in democracy support – are thus still fragmented, difficult to generalise and do not capture the systemic nature of democracy support. This resonates with Hyde et al, who observe that ‘[s]cholars and practitioners still possess a relatively limited understanding of the mechanisms through which democracy promotion is expected to operate in varying contexts and under circumstances frequently defined by conflicting foreign objectives’ (Hyde et al, 2023: 5). In addition, theories that focus on attitudes assume that more democratic attitudes contribute to more democracy in a regime, but that is not a given.…”

“…We do not see a specific singularity that would make it impossible to do rigorous evaluations (e.g. Finkel and Lim, 2021;Hyde et al, 2023). Moreover, using qualitative methods or mixing rigorous impact evaluation with qualitative approaches may be a better option.…”

“…What is assumed – but is neither an element of most theories of change nor analysed – is how these changes contribute to the overall quality of a democratic regime. Thus, theories of change do little to address the attribution gap between the overall impact of democracy promotion on the quality of democracy at the macro level and how individual interventions contribute to this change at the micro and meso levels (FCG Sweden et al, 2021; Hyde et al, 2023). The results of a disaggregated analysis of election assistance support the argument that there is a missing link in the theories of change: Steele et al (2021) find that micro measures have no effect on individual indicators concerning the quality of elections, whereas total democracy aid has a positive effect on the overall quality of democracy.…”

“…Context is used in two ways for impact measurement and the evaluation of democracy support – either by identifying general types of context (e.g. level of democracy or economic development) or as specific domestic conditions, often in the specific reform processes of a country (Hyde et al, 2023). Overall, democracy support has a positive amplification effect in existing democratic regimes but a negative impact on democratic outcomes within autocracies (see, e.g.…”

Can low-cost, scalable, online interventions increase youth informed political participation in electoral authoritarian contexts?

“…Our study contributes to the literature on the efficacy of civic education campaigns [ (31,32) provide recent reviews]. Civic education is an important component of democracy promotion, but the evidence base in low-and middle-income countries is meager [for important exceptions, see (33)(34)(35)(36)]. By showing that, while on average Tafra's campaign had a null effect on turnout and vote intention, our simple model and exploratory subgroup analysis points to those who can be nudged to vote or to cast a more informed vote.…”