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Key Text Political Party Aid

Author: T Carothers
Date: 2004
Size: 27 pages (179 KB)

Summary

The weak state of parties in many developing and post-communist countries is a serious problem for democratisation. This report, prepared for the Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA, analyses the role of political party aid in deepening democracy. One lesson is not to assume that the problems or attempted solutions in any one society are transferable to another. Party aid has to look beyond training and devote more attention to the systemic causes of the challenges to representative democracy.

Across newly democratised countries, political parties are perceived as self-interested organisations that import their internal problems- ranging from corruption to rigid hierarchies and unqualified persons- into the state apparatus. The weak state of parties contributes significantly to inadequate representation of interests, which is a key requirement for a well-functioning democracy.

Political party aid is often carried out by party institutes or foundations associated with West European or American political parties. Most party aid is given to individual parties to build or strengthen their basic organisation. Training and advice are the principal motors of intended change. Lessons learned from standard forms of party aid are:

Party aid programmes tend to adhere to the same template for party building inspired by the northern European political party model, regardless of political contexts and traditions.
Western party aid is based on a highly idealised notion of political parties. The strategies do not sufficiently take into account the effects of the rise of television-driven politics and corresponding changes in the political environment.
The receivers of standard party aid criticise the supply-driven, one-off, lecture-based nature of the seminar-led method. The trainers often lack an understanding of the local context and underestimate the level of knowledge of the participants. Key senior people rarely take part in the trainings.
In poor societies most parties are short of funds and cannot afford many of the recommended institutionalisation measures. Likewise, reforms that depend on a well-functioning rule of law such as party financing reforms, or rules for internal democratisation are difficult to implement in many new democracies.

Recognising a need for change, some party aid groups are trying out new forms of party assistance. Three developing party aid approaches are promotion of interparty dialogue, party/civil society dialogue, and party law reform. Recommendations for party aid actors are:

There is a shortage of systematic learning and review of party aid. It is incumbent on party institutes to develop credible methods of assessing party aid and to apply those methods to their own work.
Party aid actors should be sensitive to how the recipient country perceives party aid which favours one or more parties at the expense of others.
The inter-party dialogue holds promise for improvement of the political climate in postconflict countries. There is a need for studies to determine how they might be developed further.
More attention should be given to the formal and informal social organisations that make up civil society beyond established NGOs. Party aid actors should be clear on what kinds of relations they would like to see develop between civil society organisations and parties.
Party aid actors should try to move from assisting parties to developing democratic systems. Electoral law, political party reform and public financing might be areas of focus, but should be tempered by awareness of the complexities of the issues.

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Source: Carothers, T., 2004, ‘Political Party Aid’, report prepared for the the Swedish International Aid Agency (SIDA)