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Eective Party
AssistanceStronger Parties for Better Democracy
By:
Matthias Catn
International IDEA PolicyPaperNovember 2007
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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.
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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
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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.
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Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties
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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
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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
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Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties
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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
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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
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Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties
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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.
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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
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Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties
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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.
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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
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Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties
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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,
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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.
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Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties
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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
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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
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Eective Party Assistance:Stronger Parties
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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