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Democracy Indicators in USAID

Democracy Indicators in USAID . Conference on “ Measuring Democracy: A Multidimensional, Historical Approach ” Margaret Sarles, USAID/Democracy and Governance Margaretsarles@gmail.com Boston, May 24, 2009. Why we need better democracy and governance (DG) indicators.

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Democracy Indicators in USAID

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  1. Democracy Indicators in USAID Conference on “Measuring Democracy: A Multidimensional, Historical Approach” Margaret Sarles, USAID/Democracy and Governance Margaretsarles@gmail.com Boston, May 24, 2009

  2. Why we need better democracy and governance (DG) indicators • Major assistance area for donors • Inclusive assistance in rule of law, corruption, parties, human rights, unions and civil society, institution-building, sub-national governments, etc. • Major budget area • But we have little knowledge of impact • National Academy of Sciences report (NAS) • We need to test causal hypotheses around • (1) democratic change processes and • (2) intervention/impact • Diagnostic tool: • Under-rated: basis of deciding where and how to work in DG

  3. Current Work on “indicator gap analysis” with Management Systems International • Background: The need for both program-specific and comparative indicators of change (10 yrs) • 1998: “Handbook of Democracy and Governance Progam Indicators” (www.usaid.gov/our_work/ democracy_and_governance/publications/pdfs/pnacc390.pdf) • Our current efforts are based on: • The need to develop and test causal hypotheses of democratic development • Clear definitions, as finely grained as possible, of DVs • So far, our 20 years experience outruns the theoretical literature in measuring democratic change • The process of determining what measurement development to support: • We are developing “results framework” of causality-- what we do and how it relates to different levels of democratic change • We will analyze and “grade” the quality of indicators around what we do • We will establish a priority research agenda, based on the importance of the area of DG and the quality of the indicator

  4. Illustrative Example of Results Framework in civil society

  5. Results Framework in Elections(Draft examples of causality; programs and activities are attached to sub-Intermediate Results)

  6. Conceptual Issues • The relationship of what we call “democracy” to what we call “governance:” a bleeding line • E.g., accountability, responsiveness Congress, focus on selectorate control in public sector • Trend in donors is towards expansiveness • Sequencing & synergies among elements of democratic change • E.g., ROL relationship to sustainable f&f elections • Access to information: “canary in the coalmine?” • Policy level: political inclusion v. lack of checks and balances

  7. Measurement Concerns • Poor baseline work on expected length of time or variability in an area of democratic development, especially in poor quality/ emerging democracies • Consequence: quick to call failure/failed state • Balance of available measures may skew towards institutions rather than “majority ownership” concepts • Support of surveys relative to other data collection methods (costs, diverse uses, limitations) • Our changing understanding of democracy over time: using 2009 as a standard in history • If we have better variables now than before 1980, should we abandon them for measures that can be used over a long historical trajectory? What are the tradeoffs for looking at causality going forward?

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