It was once de rigueur for scholars writing about the international dimensions of democratization to note that their topic had been sorely neglected. Today, such claims can no longer be made. A rich and growing literature crosses the subfields of comparative and international politics in order to explain the causes and consequences of democracy promotion. Joining that body of research, these two recent books make original and significant contributions by focusing, to greater or lesser degrees, on the varieties of democracy being supported by international actors.
Much recent research about democracy promotion argues or assumes that democracy represents an international norm. But exactly what type of democracy do democracy promoters seek to advance? In The Conceptual Politics of Democracy Promotion, editors Christopher Hobson and Milja Kurki seek to provide answers to that question by uncovering “democracy’s meaning in democracy promotion” (p. 2). Democracy, in their project, is understood as an “essentially contested concept.” As such, democracy’s meaning is something that is “interpreted, used, and fought over” by actors engaged in democracy promotion when they interact with each other, with local communities, and with academia (pp. 10–13).
The meaning of democracy in democracy promotion is a topic with significance for studies attempting to explain the drivers of foreign policy, the variations across time and space in states’ strategies of democracy promotion, and the effects of democracy promotion on target states, among other things. As such, all scholars of democracy promotion should read this book, which is the first one to focus on the conceptual politics of this topic. While some of the volume’s contributors come from the tradition of critical theory—the literature that has most deeply engaged with the topic in the past—the book has no underlying epistemological or theoretical framework, giving it broad relevance.
As the editors define it, democracy promotion refers to “the processes by which an external actor intervenes to install or assist in the institution of democratic government in a target state” (p. 3). There is some ambiguity here—is it only actions that actually do promote democracy (however defined) that count according to that definition, or do actions that claim to promote democracy count, as well? That issue is significant because how one delimits the phenomenon likely affects what meanings one discovers and because previous studies of democracy promotion suggest that some well-intentioned efforts have not had the desired democratizing effects. In any case, for the authors in this volume, democracy promotion encompasses a wide range of activities, including military interventions, economic sanctions and rewards, and direct assistance. The endeavors considered in the volume range from an effort to promote government accountability and responsiveness in Ghana (Gordon Crawford and Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai) to American and German efforts to support the rewriting of Bolivia’s constitution (Jonas Wolff).
A central theme that runs through the volume is that of the influence of liberal ideology in democracy promotion, which is typically contrasted with social democratic ideology—and often found wanting. The editors raise the significance for democracy promotion of liberal and other models of democracy in the introductory and concluding chapters, as do a number of the authors of individual chapters (e.g., Beate Jahn, Sheri Berman, Heikki Patomäki, Crawford and Abdulai, and Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik). In the editors’ framework, liberal models are distinguished by their emphasis on “core civil and political rights of individuals, as well as certain political institutions and procedures” (p. 7). In contrast, social democratic models “have placed more weight on equality, which has led to a concern with protecting socio-economic rights and regulating the economic realm” (p. 7).
Although the comparison is an important one in the volume, the editors do not take a clear stance on the relative merits of liberal versus social democratic democracy promotion. In the conclusion, on the one hand, Hobson and Kurki advance a normative claim that “democracy promotion should be understood and practiced in a pluralist manner” (p. 215). On the other hand, they argue that it is not necessary to “accept that all democratic forms are equally democratic or democratic in the same way” (p. 221). Identifying the causal effects of the different conceptual models of democracy promotion would be a welcome next step in the research agenda.
Commendably, the editors include a chapter written by Richard Youngs, “Misunderstanding the Maladies of Liberal Democracy,” that pushes back against some of the critiques of liberal democracy promotion that can be read in the volume. Youngs argues that despite Western governments’ rhetoric, it cannot be assumed that they are really doing much at all to promote democracy according to any definition, nor can it be assumed that when they do promote democracy, they “rigidly” follow a liberal template (p. 102). In fact, he suggests, governments usually fail to put their money where their mouths are with regard to democracy promotion. His arguments suggest the need for scholars to better appreciate the constraints that democracy promoters labor under and the reasons, beyond their ideological commitments, that they end up promoting democracy in the (inevitably inadequate and sometimes counterproductive) ways that they do.
In light of Youngs’s critique, Brian K. Grodsky’s monograph, Social Movements and the New State, makes a particularly important addition to the literature on democratization and democracy promotion. Specifically, Grodsky ably shows the limits of ideology as a force driving variations in the behaviors of supposedly pro-democratic forces in society. He does so by developing an answer to these questions in his new book: “What happens to those ‘principled’ organizations that participate in a pro-democracy movement when their members are subsequently drawn into the new democratic government? In what ways do they benefit or suffer from the new relationship?” (p. 4).
Although the question is highly original, the answer proffered in the book is a variant of the familiar Miles’s Law about bureaucracy: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” Grodsky argues that after democratic social movements succeed in causing regime change, former members of those movements who join government often end up at painful loggerheads with their activist colleagues. The idea is that when movement leaders enter the state, they must be responsive to their new, broader set of constituents. Therefore, they often end up pursuing policies that are in direct conflict with what activists want. That dynamic explains, for example, the conflicts with their former colleagues that arose when ex-unionists from Solidarity in Poland and the Congress of South African Trade Unions in South Africa pursued neoliberal market reforms once they took on government positions. Grodsky contrasts his institutional argument with two alternative perspectives, both of which expect democracy activists to remain committed to their movements even after they leave activism and enter government—on the one hand because of their social network ties to movement members and on the other hand because of deeply held identities linked to their movements.
Evidence drawn from three cases of social-movement success in formerly repressive environments supports the argument: postcommunist Poland, post-apartheid South Africa, and post–Rose Revolution Georgia. Grodsky chose the cases as ones that are most different on three dimensions: the movement type (inclusive or exclusive?); the movement duration (long or short?); and the nature of the struggle (against high repression or low repression?). The empirical evidence supporting the cases is impressive; he conducted more than 130 interviews with key informants (including high-level politicians and social movement leaders) in each field site, as well as thoroughly surveying the relevant international and national media. The upshot is that Grodsky convincingly shows some of the roadblocks faced by attempts to promote liberal democracy after regime change. Not only do international donors shy away from supporting civil society in such cases, preferring to work with new governments and leaving social movement organizations underresourced, but the antagonistic relations between social movements and ex-members who now work in government also hinder social movement organizations’ abilities to serve as effective watchdogs.
Grodsky’s interviews bring vivid life to his argument about the disappointments suffered by activists when their former comrades enter government and turn their back on those outside of the state, sometimes in order to implement difficult economic reforms. Although the author weighs the frustrations from both sides of the disagreements, his account often puts special emphasis on the side of the social movements, which sometimes found that “their voices were being drowned out” (p. 139). Yet in his case study of Georgia, Grodsky points out that many civil society organizations are not pro-democracy. As such, it remains unclear whether channeling more donor aid to civil society organizations in post-regime-change environments, rather than channeling it to government institutions, would be better for democracy, however defined, or for other outcomes of normative significance.
Those small critiques notwithstanding, Grodsky’s book is a very worthwhile read for scholars interested in regime change and transnational activism. Social Movements and the New State suggests that people working for democracy are fairly malleable in terms of their ideologies. Joining other scholars, such as Alexander Cooley and James Ron, and Aseem Prakash and Mary Kay Gugerty, Grodsky therefore shows the significance of institutional incentives in transnational nongovernmental organizations’ strategies. Such insights are valuable to bear in mind when studying the conceptual politics of democracy promotion because they point to interesting research questions about the conditions under which certain conceptual models predominate. Although it does not delve into that issue, The Conceptual Politics of Democracy Promotion has paved the path for future research by laying the foundations of a conceptual politics approach.
In closing, both books under review represent original and important contributions to the growing scholarly conversation about democracy promotion. They would make excellent classroom reading for all serious students of this topic.
