Conflicts of preferences and domestic constraints: understanding reform failure in liberal state-building and democracy promotion

Abstract

This paper challenges the common explanations that failures of external state-building and democracy promotion are the result of a lack of domestic capacity or a lack of domestic willingness against an externally set liberal agenda of state-building and democratisation. Studying political decision-making on a microlevel, we argue that both explanations fail to capture the multifaceted motivations and interests of domestic actors that go beyond mere 'resistance' against externally induced liberal reforms. Rather, criticism of reforms might be rooted in ideas of social justice and claims to socioeconomic security. Furthermore, these explanations tend to overlook the need for domestic elites to bargain with various domestic stakeholders. A case study of Croatian public administration reform illustrates that failure of externally promoted reforms remain an option when significant international resources are available for liberal state-building and the target of reform is a relatively mature bureaucracy.

European Democracy Promotion in Crisis: Conflicts of Objectives, Neglected External–Domestic Interactions and the Authoritarian Backlash

“…Even when they are critical, the governments and state officials of democratizing countries do not necessarily oppose the fundamental ideas that lie behind an external reform initiativesuch as improving transparency, accountability or service orientation to citizensbut they might substantially disagree with the scope and scale of desired reforms, with the necessary degree of local third-party participation in policy making, or with the implementation of the reform. Groß and Grimm (2014a) discovered this pattern in a case study about Croatia's accession process to the EU. It needs to be clearly noted that the external-domestic relationship is not completely a one-way street.…”

“…As a consequence of the external–domestic interaction, original versions of reform demands are changed, modified and adapted to local contexts; some demands are even dropped altogether. Democracy promoters tend to misperceive such processes as the outcome of ‘local resistance’ against external demands (Groß and Grimm, ). However, I suggest reframing domestic behaviour as rational in the face of domestic constraints, and democracy promotion in such a context as a dynamic process of constant interaction that necessarily leads to the change of original reform proposals.…”

Domestic elites and external actors in post-conflict democratisation: mapping interactions and their impact

“…The majority of studies on democracy promotion and post-conflict democratisation focus on external actors to explain the effectiveness (or the lack thereof) of democracy promotion and state-building, thereby reducing the agency of domestic actors to 'compliance' , 'partial compliance' , or 'non-compliance' with external demands. 41 In turn, the role of domestic elites and in particular the power struggles between domestic elites and international actors (as well as power struggles among domestic elites) have largely been neglected.…”

Political parties matter: a research agenda on interactions among elites in post-conflict democracies

“…UN peacebuilding strategies have increasingly focused on institutionalization as a key component in solving conflicts. At the same time, 'neoliberal peacebuilding' has been marked by mounting criticism over the mainstream technical view of state-building and institutional reforms, which has been largely discarded because it failed to take into account cultural, social and historical needs (Groß & Grimm, 2016;Mac Ginty, 2010).…”