Doctoral Dissertation Improvment Grant: Metrics and Democratization: The Role of Monitoring Technologies in Democratic Governance Reform in El Salvador

研究生贾森克罗斯，由威廉M。奥巴尔将研究监测技术在实施民主治理改革中的作用，如监测和评估程序。尽管政府、非政府组织和外国援助机构经常使用监测技术来评估机构改革，但很少有人关注监测实践本身对民主治理社会进程的影响。研究将在萨尔瓦多进行。研究人员将侧重于在设计和实施民主改革中发挥核心作用的机构和非政府组织，以及正在进行改革的三个城市的地方政治行为者。研究目标是研究民主治理中不同参与者的监测技术的制作、使用和意义，以了解这些技术如何影响当地政治文化，并促进特定治理形式的全球化。因此，研究者将运用民族志、历史和法律的方法，对监测技术在解决公民参与、问责、仔细审查萨尔瓦多民主化的遗产是重要的，因为该国往往是后民主化的典范。冲突的民主化和作为一个实验室的权力下放政策与全球影响。这项研究将确定全球治理话语扎根的方式，并适应于对民主是什么或可以是什么有不同概念的特定地区。此外，它还将深入和系统地研究法律的和技术治理做法如何共同出现，并在它们重新塑造社会关系、历史遗产和理想未来的过程中相互依赖，以确保其可靠性和有效性。这项研究也将有助于社会科学家的教育。

Graduate student Jason Cross, supervised by Dr. William M. O'Barr will undertake research on the role of monitoring technologies, such as monitoring and evaluation procedures, in the implementation of democratic governance reforms. Although governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and foreign-aid agencies routinely use monitoring technologies to assess institutional reform, little attention has been paid to the effects of the monitoring practices themselves on the social process of democratic governance. The research will be carried in El Salvador. The researcher will focus on agencies and NGOs that have been central in the design and implementation of democratic reforms, and local political actors in three municipalities undergoing reform. The research objectives are to examine the making, use, and meaning of monitoring technologies for diverse participants in democratic governance, in order to understand how these technologies affect local political culture and facilitate the globalization of specific forms of governance. Therefore, the researcher will use ethnographic, historical and legal methods to conduct a qualitative analysis of the construction, circulation, and use of monitoring technologies in programs addressing citizen participation, accountability, and rule of law.Examining closely the legacy of democratization in El Salvador is important because the country often serves as a model for post-conflict democratization and as a laboratory for decentralization policies with global reach. This study will identify ways in which global discourses of governance take root and are adapted to particular locales with diverse notions of what democracy is, or can be. Additionally, it will provide an in-depth and systematic examination of how legal and technological governance practices emerge together and depend on each other for their reliability and efficacy, as they rework social relations, historical legacies and desired futures. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.