Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Diffusion of Democratic Norms: Examining How Democracy INGO Strategies Contribute to Hybrid Regimes

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As a governmental system, democracy produces an environment where fundamental freedoms are respected and fulfilled, and promotes both peace and prosperity, as well as individual well-being. In pursuit of these ends, democracy aid is dispensed by various actors including democracy-promoting international non-governmental organizations (DINGOs). Such aid has skyrocketed, with 2008 global expenditures nearing $20 billion. Yet the success of this endeavor remains unclear because at the same time, hybrid regimes – governments that co-opt democratic institutions and policies to mask authoritarian practices – are proliferating. Moreover, aid is often ineffective, and typical aid strategies can incentivize superficial democratization while legitimizing and reinforcing nondemocratic rule. Thus, DINGOs themselves may contribute to hybrid growth. However, the role of DINGOs and their strategies regarding hybrids and democratization is underexplored. This project empirically examines how nations’ ties to DINGOs impact their level of democracy in policy and practice, as well as how various types of DINGO aid strategies improve or reduce DINGO effectiveness in promoting democracy. As such, the project assesses how democracy aid influences hybrid regimes. By identifying factors relevant for democracy promotion, this project will help various actors such as nonprofits and governments safeguard human rights and improve citizen well-being worldwide. This project combines statistical and computational methodologies to examine DINGOs’ impact on democratic policies and practices cross-nationally in five-year intervals from 1980 to 2015. It uses content analysis of the Yearbook of International Organizations to count nations’ annual DINGO ties for each selected year. It then employs random effects regression to understand how those ties impact democracy in policy and in practice cross-nationally and longitudinally, using a novel measure of democracy. It further investigates this relationship by analyzing 30 DINGOs’ annual reports using one type of automated content analysis, Latent Dirichlet Application (LDA) topic modeling, to quantify which strategies DINGOs pursue, and to what degree. Finally, it draws upon these data to analyze how DINGO impact on democracy varies by DINGO strategy cross-nationally and over time using random effects regression. This design thus makes it possible to examine and compare, for the first time, the direct effects of DINGOs on democracy in policy and in practice, and how aid strategy modifies this relationship. Findings will inform sociological theories regarding democracy promotion and comparative governmental organization.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.