Considerable material and human resources are devoted to building democratic institutions around the world. Why, then, do assistance programs fail to meet their proclaimed goals? And why aren't these programs changed or abandoned when they fail? Using US assistance to women's NGOs in postcommunist Ukraine as a case study, Kateryna Pishchikova shows why democracy promotion programs have a    More >

Why do democratic leaders sometimes choose not to establish institutions that would promote the consolidation of democracy? And what are the consequences of those choices? Focusing on the cases of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, John Scherpereel explores the interplay of historical institutional legacies, short-term elite interests, and international pressures (i.e., EU conditionality) in the    More >