Download - Joel Lazarus Political Parties And Western Democracy Promotion In Georgia

Promoting Democracy?Political Parties and Western Democracy Promotion in Georgia

Joel Lazarus, DPhil candidateDept of Politics & International Relations, University of Oxford

Work in progress, May 2009

‘…if democracy cannot be consolidated in

Georgia, it is not clear where it can be

consolidated. As difficult as the challenges are, the

outlook in Georgia still looks brighter than in most

of the rest of the nondemocratic world’

Lincoln Mitchell (2008: 6)

Caveats…

• Preliminary analysis and answers• Sacrificing details for comprehensiveness• Food for discussion and thought…



consolidated. As difficult as the challenges are, the

outlook in Georgia still looks brighter than in most

of the rest of the nondemocratic world’


Georgia’s democratic potential

Cons avoided: Natural resource wealth (Ross 2001) Oligarchic economic structure (?) (Stefes 2006) Clan party politics (Collins 2002) Ethnic party politics (Barany & Moser 2005) Military as autonomous political force (Geddes 1999)

Georgia’s democratic potential

Pros: Good social indicators: high literacy rates and education levels Open to effects of democratic “diffusion” (Whitehead 1996;

Brinks & Coppedge 2005) and of “linkage” (Levitsky & Way 2002).

Unchallenged ideological position of democracy Pro-democratic revolution and explicitly pro-democratic

leadership The largest regional per capita beneficiary of democracy

promotion and development aid If Finkel et al (2007) are right we should see positive outcomes

in Georgia.



consolidated. As difficult as the challenges

are, the outlook in Georgia still looks brighter

than in most of the rest of the nondemocratic

world’


Opposition politician clashes with riot police, May 6th 2009

Georgian politics since independence

• Civil war 1992-3• No constitutional transfer of power• Post-Rose Revolution (November 2003)

Media/NGO repressionElectoral fraud and intimidationLarge-scale protests violently crushedOpposition boycott of parliamentCurrent street protests and violence

Intense polarisation of party politics

Georgian parties’ traits accord with Carothers’ (2006: 4) ‘standard lament’ about political parties in ‘new or struggling democracies’ around the world

Salient traits• Highly centralised, leader-centric organisations• Ideological vagueness: nationalism as dominant ideological

force• Informal “rules of the game”• Opaque, illicit financing• Personal insults and violence instead of debate• Dominant ruling parties: administrative resource, patron-client

networks, electoral fraud

Georgia’s political parties

The research question

Why, after almost two decades of

independence, do Georgia’s political parties

and party system remain so weakly

institutionalised?

Research methods

Qualitative methods and techniques:• Primary and secondary literature sources• Semi-structured interviews with:

• Georgian political elites; NGO leaders; academics• Western aid donors, providers, diplomats

• Elite interviewing

• Process tracing

• Discourse analysis

Secondary quantitative data• Data collection on aid flows• Sociological data

Political parties as bellweather of democracy

Parties – the indispensable element• Schmitter 1999:

• Symbolic integration – policy and ideology choices• Electoral structuration – recruiting citizens into electoral

campaigns and public office

• Governing function – forming governments and providing internal structure to legislative process

• Aggregative function – aggregating and articulating voters’ preferences

• Representation – linking citizens to political system

- the ‘demos’ to democracy

Standard definitions of party and party system institutionalisation

Institutions:‘[R]ules and procedures that structure social interaction by constraining and enabling actors’ behaviour’ (Helmke & Levitsky 2006: 5)

Institutionalisation: the process by which the rules of the political game are established and politicians’ and parties’ behaviour becomes patterned and predictable

…Rules and behaviour

Weakly institutionalised parties

Internal External

Structural systemness decisional autonomy

Attitudinal value infusion reification

Randall & Svåsand 2002: 7

Almost almost parties, even the ruling party, score very poorly against all but the ‘decisional autonomy’ dimension…

Weakly institutionalised party system

Process or rules-focused approach:• Stability of formal rules of the game:

constitution, electoral code (Cox 1997; Bielasiak 2002)

Party-focused approach• Stability of system components – parties

(Pedersen 1979; Laakso & Taagepera’s ENEP 1979; Mainwaring & Scully 1995)

Opposition seeks to oust government by any means

Power changes hands through

unconstitutional means. Those

linked to former regime are punished

Incumbents’ fear of

retribution

‘Zero-sum’ politics:

win by any means

Incumbents build dominant party: clientelism; administrative resource;

electoral fraud

Informally patterned and predictable:

The vicious cycle of unconstitutional politics in

Georgia?...

“The mistakes of the past should be analyzed so as

not to get locked in the same vicious circle

tomorrow…How long should the authorities and

the opposition compete with each other in

radicalism?”

Giorgi Targamadze, Leader of Christian Democratic Party6th March, 2009

Preliminary answers

Domestic variables • Formal institutionalist explanations often confuse cause with

effect (endogeneity)• e.g. constitutional or electoral code choices, amendments not made in a

political vacuum

• Poor leadership (agentic factors) best explained by structural factors

• Georgia’s structural factors explain why charismatic, impulsive leaders with authoritarian tendencies come to power

Alternative socially-grounded, “substantive” approach/definition of party and party system institutionalisation

Preliminary answersDomestic variables continued…• Path-dependency

• Political• No early experience of democratic politics

• Socio-economic• Pre-Soviet feudalism• Late and limited urbanisation/industrialisation

• Bureaucratic• No tradition of rational bureaucratic governance

Soviet: ‘patrimonial communism’ (Kitschelt et al 1999)• Bureaucratic/governance - patron-client structures, fiefdoms• Social – privatisation of social sphere

Post-Soviet: weak social cleavages -> weak citizen-party linkages Weak party and party system institutionalisation

Preliminary answers

Domestic variables continued…• Political culture inimical to party

institutionalisation/democratic development• Low levels of organisation/mobilisation;• Very low levels of trust in parties, other political institutions;• Lack of pro-democratic values: tolerance, self-reliance,

restraint

Preliminary answers

Domestic variables continued…• Territorial/sovereignty issues

• Nationalism dominates political scene

• Ruling party/president stress need for unity

• Political opponents dismissed as traitors

• War and political instability inimical to general processes of social and economic development

Preliminary answers

International variablesWestern democracy promotion aid and diplomacy• ‘Political democracy promotion’ (Carothers 2009) –

backing “reformers” to exclusion of all others• Ignoring, even praising unfree and unfair elections

• Ignoring constitutional/electoral code manipulations

• (Perceived?) shift in funding from CS/media to direct government support after Rose Revolution

Inherent tension in Western democracy promotion foreign policy and diplomacy

Self-interest trumps principled foreign policy• Stability rather than democracy/HR the objective Political democracy promotion – individuals over

values Ignoring democratic/hr transgressions Hypocrisy Democracy discredited

Understanding the current political crisis

Systemic crisis• US/EU backing to revolutionary government Greatly diminished sense of domestic accountability Constitutional and electoral code manipulation Oppositional disillusionment and distrust with ‘West’

and ‘democracy Unconstitutional political struggle Undermines potential effects of diffusion, linkage,

leverage?

Understanding the current political crisis

Social crisis• Painful economic/social reforms• Society as object of, not partner in, reform project• Lack of communication/explanation/empathy Huge sense of social alienation and anger Non-parliamentary opposition feeds into this

What can/must realistically be achieved in Georgia?

Systemic stability not “democracy”• Agreement over formal rules of the game New constitutional and electoral agreements De jure and de facto agreements Georgia achieves level of Eastern European states

Social stability• Conciliation and humility on part of government

Party aid in Georgia

Party aid providers

U.S. Party Institutes (NDI, IRI):

• NDI very (pro-)active in revolution

• IRI chief now government ministerIssue of legitimacy, neutrality in eyes of

opposition


Party aid providersEuropean organisations:• NIMD large multi-party project: ‘Political

Institutions in Georgia• Small FCO/GFSIS multi-party project• German stiftungen’s partisan approach

• KAS-Christian Democrats• FNS-Republicans


ObjectivesI. Professionalisation of party cadre and

electoral campaigns

II. Internal democratisation

III. Inter-party co-operation and consensus-building


Outcomes – Pluses• Valuable technical assistance to

party leadership and lower party cadre (multi-party and partisan)

– professionalisation of parties; – strategy– political skills

• Stiftungen building deeper relationships, achieving more


Outcomes - MinusesI. Professionalisation

Very little increase in programmatic content More leader-centric party structures (?) Playing field even less level?

II. Internal democratisation Failed attempts at internal elections (Conservative Party) Internally democratic parties not electorally successful

III. Inter-party co-operation and consensus-building (NIMD) Polarisation and conflict worsened since project

commenced in 2007

Multi-party aid’s five ‘central dilemmas’

Political and institutional obstacles party aid providers face both from recipient societies and from within party aidorganisations themselves:

• Time discrepancy – Long-term goals vs short-term needs

• Talking local, acting global – Local assessments vs “cookie-cutter” solutions

• Formal focus, informal realities– Building formal institutions vs formal institutions ignored/undermined

• Technical solutions for political and cultural problems– Donors/providers talk about the ‘cultural’ but offer the technical

• Limited legitimacy– Problematic criteria for party inclusion; picking local NGO partners;

“dancing on the line of internal affairs”

Holistic approach to understanding effects of Western interventions

Detailed single case studies are important and valid but they are also useful as a prism through which to view the effects of other aid/diplomatic interventions and how they can conflict and undermine each other

• Party aid efforts undermined by dominant effects of Western foreign policy/diplomacy

• Development aid also channelled according to foreign policy objectives e.g. MCA, direct budget support

• “Civil society” funding undermining party political (business, state) development

• NGO sector as disseminator of values/technology of socialisation vs NGO sector as retardant of development?

Reforming Western foreign policy and diplomacy

• Foreign aid in all forms remains first and foremost tool of foreign policy (Morganthau 1962)

• Realism is too extreme ‘Ethical realism’:

• Reject political democracy promotion: values over individuals; substance over processes

• Minimise negative conditionality; maximise and specify positive conditionality

• Internationalise democracy promotion institutions e.g. OSCE EOM

• Lead by example e.g. democratisation of global governance institutions (IFIs, WTO)

Conclusion • Political institutions as embedded in and

reflective of society and political culture• Less optimistic prospects for substantive,

participatory democracy in Georgia• Understanding weakly institutionalised parties

and party system in this social context• Domestic factors (path dependency, culture,

territory.sovereignty) best explain weak party/system institutionalisation

Conclusion • Inherent tension in Western democracy promotion

Hypocrisy Discredited democracy

• Western ‘political democracy promotion’ as partial explanatory variable of recent political instability/weak party development

• Value but limits of technical party aid; dangers/ethics of US party aid; merits of German approach

• Systemic and social crisis not democratic crisis Achievable breakthrough = establishing formal rules of

game; process of social conciliation

Download - Joel Lazarus Political Parties And Western Democracy Promotion In Georgia

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