https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5883-4601
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ABSTRACT
The article examines the democracy aid practices of the Czech Republic and Poland in Georgia. These two countries have recently emerged as promoters of democracy, and have argued that their own transition experience puts them in a unique position to support democratization and the consolidation of democracy in the European Union’s eastern neighbourhood. The article evaluates how these two countries provide democracy aid to Georgia along three criteria, derived from the aid effectiveness literature: supporting locally driven change, learning from results, and coordination. The results indicate that both countries have plenty of space to improve the way their democracy aid is delivered. Neither country has formal systems in place to ensure that they actually support Georgian priorities; evaluations are ad hoc and feedback loops missing; and there is significant scope to improve coordination with other donors. Nonetheless, there seems to be a general perception among stakeholders that the democracy aid provided by the Czech Republic and Poland is relevant to Georgia’s needs.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to Anna-Sophie Maass, Paul Cardwell, Marek Neuman, and two anonymous referees for comments on earlier versions, as well as participants at “The Crisis of Democracy Promotion” workshop at the University of Groningen, 10-11 March 2016. Any remaining errors however are ours.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 See the contributions in Berti, Mikulova, and Popescu, Democratization in EU Foreign Policy.
2 See for example Petrova, From Solidarity to Geopolitics; Pospieszna, Democracy Assistance from the Third Wave; Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot, “Central and Eastern European Transition Experience.”
3 Petrova, From Solidarity to Geopolitics.
4 Dangerfield, “The Contribution of the Visegrad Group to the European Union's ‘Eastern Policy’.”
5 Schmitter, “The Influence of the International Context upon the Choice of National Institutions and Policies in New Democracies.”
6 Brückner and Ciccone, “Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity.”
7 De Zeeuw, “Projects Do Not Create Institutions,” 482.
8 Przeworski et al. “Democracy and Development”; Grimm and Leininger, “Not All Good Things Go Together.”
9 Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson, “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development.”
10 Wright, “How Foreign Aid Can Foster Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes.”
11 Doucouliagos and Paldam, “Conditional Aid Effectiveness.”
12 Kosack, “Effective Aid”; Burnside and Dollar, “Aid, Policies and Growth”; Wright, “Aid Effectiveness and the Politics of Personalism.”
13 Knack and Rahman, “Donor Fragmentation and Bureaucratic Quality in Aid Recipients”; Riddel, “Does Foreign Aid Work?”; Gulrajani, “Organising for Donor Effectiveness”; Bingsten and Tengstam, “International Coordination and the Effectiveness of Aid.”
14 Carothers, “Democracy Assistance: Political vs. Developmental?”
15 Carothers, “Democracy Aid at 25.”
16 Burnell, “Does International Democracy Promotion Work?”
17 Green and Kohl, “Challenges of Evaluating Democracy Assistance.”
18 Gräwingholt, Leininger, and Schlumberger, “The Three Cs of Democracy Promotion Policy.”
19 Grimm and Leininger, “Not All Good Things Go Together.”
20 Wetzel and Orbie, “Promoting Embedded Democracy?”
21 Burnell, “Does International Democracy Promotion Work?”
22 Carothers, “Democracy Aid at 25.”
23 See also Fagan, “Taking Stock of Civil-Society Development in Post-communist Europe.”
24 Godfrey et al., “Technical Assistance and Capacity Development in an Aid-dependent Economy.”
25 Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, 11.
26 Easterly and Pfutze, “Where Does the Money Go?,” 33.
27 Gräwingholt, Leininger, and Schlumberger (“The Three Cs of Democracy Promotion Policy”) especially emphasize the importance of context sensitivity and the need for a strategy for long-term systemic support.
28 Carothers, “Democracy Aid at 25.” Leininger and Ziaja, “Conflicting Objectives in Democracy Promotion,” put much emphasis on avoiding the imposition of donors’ ideas, or as they call it, the “blueprint trap.”
29 Green and Kohl, “Challenges of Evaluating Democracy Assistance.”
30 Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, 12.
31 See also Grimm and Leininger, “Not All Good Things Go Together.”
32 Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, 25.
33 See Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot, New Europe’s New Development Aid.
34 This is of course not to say that democracy promotion based on transition experience is the only international development priority these two countries have. Both countries align, at least in their written strategies, to the general priorities of development voiced by the EU or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including poverty reduction and sustainable development (see Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot, New Europe’s New Development Aid).
35 Kucharczyk and Lovitt, Democracy’s New Champions.
36 Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot, “Central and Eastern European Transition Experience.”
37 Pospieszna, “When Recipients Become Donors.”
38 See the Fund’s website at http://solidarityfund.pl/en/.
39 See for example Pospieszna, “When Recipients Become Donors.”
40 Horký, “The Transfer of the Central and Eastern European ‘Transition Experience’ to the South.”
41 Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot, “Central and Eastern European Transition Experience.”
42 Petrova, The New Role of Central and Eastern Europe in International Democracy Support, 18.
43 OECD, Creditor Reporting System. Aid spent on “Government and civil society” is the best available proxy for democracy aid in the OECD's Creditor Reporting System, given that neither the Czech Republic nor Poland publishes statistics on the exact amounts of their democracy aid.
44 For more about the Rose Revolution, see Jones, “The Rose Revolution.”
45 Embassy of the Czech Republic, The Czech Development and Transition Projects.
46 Polish Aid, Georgia; Embassy of Poland in Georgia, Georgian-Polish Development Co-Operation 2008–2010.
47 European Commission, EU/Georgia Action Plan, 4.
48 Interviews #03, #04, #05, #16.
49 Interview#01.
50 Interview#06.
51 Interview#07.
52 Ibid.
53 Interview#03.
54 Embassy of Poland in Georgia, Georgian-Polish Development Co-Operation 2008–2010; Embassy of the Czech Republic, The Czech Development and Transition Projects.
55 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Report from the Complex Evaluation of the Czech Development Assistance.
56 Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot, New Europe’s New Development Aid.
57 Mora and Antonie, “Levers Supporting Program Evaluation Culture and Capacity in Romanian Public Administration.”
58 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Report from the Complex Evaluation of the Czech Development Assistance.
59 Polish Aid, Evaluation; Ecorys, Evaluation of Selected Initiatives Under the Polish Development Cooperation Programme.
60 Interviews #02, #08.
61 Interviews #01, #02.
62 Interview#08.
63 Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot, New Europe’s New Development Aid, Chapter 2; Grimm and Leininger, “Not All Good Things Go Together.”
64 Interview#09.
65 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Report from the Complex Evaluation of the Czech Development Assistance, 4.
66 Ibid.
67 Interview#10.
68 Interview#10.
69 Interview#11.
70 Interview#12.
71 Interviews #03 and #04.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Balázs Szent-Iványi
Balázs Szent-Iványi is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, Birmingham, UK, and also holds an Associate Professor position at Corvinus University Budapest, Hungary. His research focuses on the political economy of foreign aid, with an emphasis on how foreign aid decisions are made in the Central and Eastern European donor countries, as well as foreign direct investment in Central and Eastern European. His latest book, an edited volume, entitled Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe. Post-crisis Perspectives, has been published with Palgrave in 2016.
Zsuzsanna Végh
Zsuzsanna Végh is a Research Fellow at the Chair of Comparative Politics of the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, and an Associate Researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Her research focuses on Central European cooperations, including the Visegrad Group, Hungarian foreign policy and the European Union's relations with its Eastern neighborhood.