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Ten Challenges in Democracy Support – and How to Overcome them

Ten Challenges in Democracy Support – and How to Overcome them Democracy supporters face tough times. Authoritarian reversals across North and sub‐Saharan Africa, combined with a lack of progress in the Middle East and Central Asia, have dampened funders’ enthusiasm for the endeavour. To better understand these setbacks, we identify ten challenges in democracy support. These are the challenges of: (i) difficult cases; (ii) authoritarian backlash; (iii) adapting to context; (iv) confronting politics; (v) managing uncertainty; (vi) unintended side‐effects; (vii) a tight funding environment; (viii) defining and demonstrating success; (ix) competing priorities; and – exacerbating all the rest, (x) a limited evidence base. While much has been written about the need for more coordinated and politically intelligent engagement to meet these challenges, far less has been said about the need to improve our evidence‐base and the way in which policy‐oriented research is produced. We identify several strategies that policy makers and practitioners can use to advance the field. All require better bridges between research, policy and practice, so we offer concrete suggestions about how such bridges can be built. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Global Policy Wiley

Ten Challenges in Democracy Support – and How to Overcome them

Dodsworth, Susan; Cheeseman, Nic
Global Policy , Volume 9 (3) – Jan 1, 2018
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References (44)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
ISSN
1758-5880
eISSN
1758-5899
DOI
10.1111/1758-5899.12567
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Democracy supporters face tough times. Authoritarian reversals across North and sub‐Saharan Africa, combined with a lack of progress in the Middle East and Central Asia, have dampened funders’ enthusiasm for the endeavour. To better understand these setbacks, we identify ten challenges in democracy support. These are the challenges of: (i) difficult cases; (ii) authoritarian backlash; (iii) adapting to context; (iv) confronting politics; (v) managing uncertainty; (vi) unintended side‐effects; (vii) a tight funding environment; (viii) defining and demonstrating success; (ix) competing priorities; and – exacerbating all the rest, (x) a limited evidence base. While much has been written about the need for more coordinated and politically intelligent engagement to meet these challenges, far less has been said about the need to improve our evidence‐base and the way in which policy‐oriented research is produced. We identify several strategies that policy makers and practitioners can use to advance the field. All require better bridges between research, policy and practice, so we offer concrete suggestions about how such bridges can be built.

Journal

Global Policy – Wiley

Published: Jan 1, 2018

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