This research project was financed by National Science Centre (NCN) in Poland within SONATA program. Paulina Pospieszna was a principal investigator and Aleksandra Galus is a research assistant.
Below is a description and, under Publications, a list of scientific articles presenting the results of this research grant.
The purpose of the research, which was conducted as part of the described study from 2013 to 2018, was to determine the reasons for, forms of cooperation with various domestic and foreign partners, and, above all, the effectiveness of democracy assistance that comes from these countries. While there are many studies on NGOs as aid recipients, there are few studies on NGOs as donors to democracy. Therefore, this research filled a gap by focusing on NGOs from young donor countries, and in particular from the Visegrad Group countries that are engaged in democracy promotion.
Given the rich literature on the role of civil society, as well as on foreign aid to NGOs, it is worth noting that little research has been done on the specific assistance provided to selected civil society groups. Given this close link between women’s role in politics and democracy and peace, empowering women and leveraging their talent and leadership has become an important priority for the international community. Researchers point out that during peacebuilding (peacebuilding), women are often one of the main recipients of programs aimed at the civilian community. Therefore, in a study to assess the impact of democracy assistance, specific types of assistance were analyzed, one of which was women’s political empowerment. The study was motivated by the question of whether democracy assistance to support women in post-international conflict states has a positive impact on their political standing. This was followed by a decision to undertake research, conducted on a large scale in cooperation with a number of NGOs, formulating the following specific questions: 1) Why do NGOs from young donor countries choose foreign youth as recipients of their democracy promotion activities? 2) How are youth in target countries supported? What kind of democracy is promoted by the organizations? 3) Do young people in the target countries need this support? 4) What is the impact of aid projects on the direct beneficiaries, namely young people – are these efforts effective in terms of spreading democratic norms and practices?
This narrowing of the research involved the selection of an appropriate theoretical perspective and an adequate research methodology. First, it was decided to choose a form of democracy assistance that targets young people. It is widely recognized that civil society has an impact on all stages of the democratization process: liberalization, transition and consolidation of democracy. Active, informed, informed and determined young citizens are important not only for building, but also for the stability of democracy. A research assumption was formulated that NGOs from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, while promoting democracy among young people in particular, support civic participation mainly through educational programs, because being recipients of foreign aid themselves and being involved in the democratic transition in their countries, they recognize that citizen participation in social and political life is key to making the transition. To verify this assumption, it was determined that it would be appropriate to conduct document analysis and in-depth interviews with representatives of development programs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, as well as among NGOs. In addition, it was decided to compile a database of projects targeting young people in communist countries guided by both the classification adopted by practitioners and the scholarly literature on youth, social activism and political involvement of youth in democracies, as well as on the role of young people in the democratization process.
Two reasons were advanced for collecting information on youth programs targeting these countries. Based on interviews and analysis of texts and previous research, these countries are all major recipients of aid from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. In addition, these countries are located in three different regions of Europe: the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, and while all of these countries had experience with communism, the transition periods were shaped by different political, social, economic events and various external factors. What they have in common, on the other hand, is that they are struggling to establish and maintain democratic institutions in their country. Another reason for selecting democracy promotion programs targeting young people for the study was that it was assumed that in post-communist countries where democracy is either absent or deeply entrenched and citizen participation is limited, promoting democratic norms and practices through democracy programs can contribute to changes in the level of participation of young people, which can consequently lead to changes in the political culture of the recipient country.
In order to verify the assumption that young people in post-communist countries need support for democracy, a decision was made to conduct surveys on the opinions and attitudes of young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine in 2016 as part of an established collaboration with NGOs. Democracy assistance works best where it is needed most therefore, by examining the recipient side the goal was to verify whether young people in these countries actually need such support, which in turn was expected to have important implications for democracy assistance practitioners and theorists. Numerous studies show that in post-communist countries, the public manifests the lowest level of political activity. Therefore, it was assumed that by fostering civil society, the deficit in civic participation would be reduced and this would contribute to building a “participatory political culture,” as more people would be willing to engage in public life and decision-making, and this kind of political culture is inherent in a democracy.
Third, the narrowing of the study was intended to allow a more precise assessment of the impact of the type of democracy support chosen. It was decided that the evaluation would consist of evaluating NGO projects using the randomization method in a specific area of democracy assistance – youth activation. The Randomized Controlled Trails-RCTs (RCTs) method allows such evaluation and is considered the most reliable and accurate method of assessing impact. The method was popularized by a group of economists at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) of the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is widely used in the evaluation of development aid projects. Despite the virtues of this method, for the time being it is not widely used in the field of democracy assistance, because unlike its use in the evaluation of development aid (humanitarian aid, poverty reduction aid, education aid, etc.), the effects of such aid are more difficult to measure. Therefore, consulting with J-PAL, it was decided that the research would focus on projects that support democracy and whose impact is more measurable, for example, projects that promote the activation of young people.
The assessment of impact through randomization was intended to answer questions about whether and how democracy promotion projects affect youth, but also the more general question posed by the researcher, whether democracy assistance actually contributes to the spread of democratic ideas and attitudes. In this research work, it was decided to use an appropriate methodology selected for the research problem from a micro perspective (the impact of democracy assistance programs targeting youth on the basis of the selected program), which makes it possible to accurately answer the research questions posed. Nevertheless, since this was to set a precedent in research using this methodology, an additional goal of the project became to demonstrate the utility of the method.
Given the rich literature on the role of civil society, as well as on foreign aid to NGOs, it is worth noting that little research has been done on the specific assistance provided to selected civil society groups. Given this close link between women’s role in politics and democracy and peace, empowering women and leveraging their talent and leadership has become an important priority for the international community. Researchers point out that during peacebuilding (peacebuilding), women are often one of the main recipients of programs aimed at the civilian community. Therefore, in a study to assess the impact of democracy assistance, specific types of assistance were analyzed, one of which was women’s political empowerment. The study was motivated by the question of whether democracy assistance to support women in post-international conflict states has a positive impact on their political standing. This was followed by a decision to undertake research, conducted on a large scale in cooperation with a number of NGOs, formulating the following specific questions: 1) Why do NGOs from young donor countries choose foreign youth as recipients of their democracy promotion activities? 2) How are youth in target countries supported? What kind of democracy is promoted by the organizations? 3) Do young people in the target countries need this support? 4) What is the impact of aid projects on the direct beneficiaries, namely young people – are these efforts effective in terms of spreading democratic norms and practices?
This narrowing of the research involved the selection of an appropriate theoretical perspective and an adequate research methodology. First, it was decided to choose a form of democracy assistance that targets young people. It is widely recognized that civil society has an impact on all stages of the democratization process: liberalization, transition and consolidation of democracy. Active, informed, informed and determined young citizens are important not only for building, but also for the stability of democracy. A research assumption was formulated that NGOs from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, while promoting democracy among young people in particular, support civic participation mainly through educational programs, because being recipients of foreign aid themselves and being involved in the democratic transition in their countries, they recognize that citizen participation in social and political life is key to making the transition. To verify this assumption, it was determined that it would be appropriate to conduct document analysis and in-depth interviews with representatives of development programs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, as well as among NGOs. In addition, it was decided to compile a database of projects targeting young people in communist countries guided by both the classification adopted by practitioners and the scholarly literature on youth, social activism and political involvement of youth in democracies, as well as on the role of young people in the democratization process.
Two reasons were advanced for collecting information on youth programs targeting these countries. Based on interviews and analysis of texts and previous research, these countries are all major recipients of aid from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. In addition, these countries are located in three different regions of Europe: the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, and while all of these countries had experience with communism, the transition periods were shaped by different political, social, economic events and various external factors. What they have in common, on the other hand, is that they are struggling to establish and maintain democratic institutions in their country. Another reason for selecting democracy promotion programs targeting young people for the study was that it was assumed that in post-communist countries where democracy is either absent or deeply entrenched and citizen participation is limited, promoting democratic norms and practices through democracy programs can contribute to changes in the level of participation of young people, which can consequently lead to changes in the political culture of the recipient country.
In order to verify the assumption that young people in post-communist countries need support for democracy, a decision was made to conduct surveys on the opinions and attitudes of young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine in 2016 as part of an established collaboration with NGOs. Democracy assistance works best where it is needed most therefore, by examining the recipient side the goal was to verify whether young people in these countries actually need such support, which in turn was expected to have important implications for democracy assistance practitioners and theorists. Numerous studies show that in post-communist countries, the public manifests the lowest level of political activity. Therefore, it was assumed that by fostering civil society, the deficit in civic participation would be reduced and this would contribute to building a “participatory political culture,” as more people would be willing to engage in public life and decision-making, and this kind of political culture is inherent in a democracy.
Third, the narrowing of the study was intended to allow a more precise assessment of the impact of the type of democracy support chosen. It was decided that the evaluation would consist of evaluating NGO projects using the randomization method in a specific area of democracy assistance – youth activation. The Randomized Controlled Trails-RCTs (RCTs) method allows such evaluation and is considered the most reliable and accurate method of assessing impact. The method was popularized by a group of economists at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) of the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is widely used in the evaluation of development aid projects. Despite the virtues of this method, for the time being it is not widely used in the field of democracy assistance, because unlike its use in the evaluation of development aid (humanitarian aid, poverty reduction aid, education aid, etc.), the effects of such aid are more difficult to measure. Therefore, consulting with J-PAL, it was decided that the research would focus on projects that support democracy and whose impact is more measurable, for example, projects that promote the activation of young people.
The assessment of impact through randomization was intended to answer questions about whether and how democracy promotion projects affect youth, but also the more general question posed by the researcher, whether democracy assistance actually contributes to the spread of democratic ideas and attitudes. In this research work, it was decided to use an appropriate methodology selected for the research problem from a micro perspective (the impact of democracy assistance programs targeting youth on the basis of the selected program), which makes it possible to accurately answer the research questions posed. Nevertheless, since this was to set a precedent in research using this methodology, an additional goal of the project became to demonstrate the utility of the method.
For more information on the project, visit http://demoaid.amu.edu.pl
