Network of Democracy Research Institutes

About Member Institutes Democracy Research News

-Democracy Research News-

1. NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Network of Democracy Research Institutes sponsored two workshops at the Fourth Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy, which met April 2–5, 2006, in Istanbul, Turkey. The first workshop, entitled “Measuring Democracy,” examined how valid comparative measures of democracy and democratization are designed, tested, and conducted. Larry Diamond (Hoover Institution and International Forum for Democratic Studies) moderated the session, whose featured presenters included Asher Arian (Israel Democracy Institute), Ghia Nodia (Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy, and Development), Hauke Hartmann (Bertelsmann Transformation Index), and Christopher Walker (Freedom House).

The second workshop, entitled “Translating Democracy,” was moderated by Marc F. Plattner (International Forum for Democratic Studies). It focused on the state of translating and publishing literature on democracy in different parts of the world, and on the special challenges facing democracy-research institutes in translating work from and into foreign languages, especially Arabic. Featured presenters included Abdu Filali-Ansary (Prologues, Morocco), Adel Abdellatif (United Nations Development Programme, Lebanon), Olga Gyárfášová (Institute for Public Affairs), and Gerald Knaus (European Stability Initiative).

The NDRI welcomes the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE, Mexico), which joined the Network in June 2006 as its sixty-third member. CIDE is a degree-granting academic center with programs in political science, international relations, and economics, as well as a research center on democracy and political reform in Mexico and in other Latin American countries. The Center organizes numerous conferences and lectures, publishes books and articles, and maintains a virtual library of scholarship. Política y Gobierno, CIDE’s semiannual scholarly journal, publishes articles on democratic consolidation, the rule of law, political economy, and public opinion. Visit CIDE’s Spanish-language Web site for more information about all of these activities.

The Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI, Australia) has a new director and new institutional home as of March 2006. With the appointment of Benjamin Reilly as director, CDI relocated from the Australian National University’s Research School of Social Sciences to its Asia-Pacific School of Economics and Government. Mr. Reilly is a widely respected scholar of governance, electoral systems, and democratization whose work has appeared in the Journal of Democracy, International Political Science Review, Australian Journal of Political Science, and other academic journals. More information about CDI and its new leader is available here.

The Center for Democracy and the Third Sector (CDATS, United States) announces the creation of a new M.A. program in democracy studies within the Georgetown University department of government. The 42-credit M.A. program introduces students to the problems of democratic practice in contemporary democracies and to the diverse challenges and obstacles to promoting sustained democratization in developing states. The program provides solid preparation for a variety of professions and positions students well for further academic study in the field. Applications may be submitted online. The deadline for Fall 2006 admissions is July 15, 2006.

Nicole Pope, a Turkey-based correspondent for Le Monde from 1989 to 2005, has joined the European Stability Initiative (ESI, Germany and Turkey) as a research associate. Ms. Pope is a coauthor (with Hugh Pope) of Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey (Overlook Press, 1998). Among her current projects is a book on the practice of honor killings.

The Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) was one of five winners of the first-ever South African NGO Web-site Awards. The award, which was presented at a gala dinner in Johannesburg on March 8, 2006, praised the Idasa site for its “near flawless design, clear navigation logic, and richness of information.”

The Democracy in Africa Research Unit (DARU, South Africa) of the University of Cape Town announces the launch of a new postgraduate Honors/M.A. program in democratic governance within the university’s department of political studies. The program will combine strong training in basic research methods and social statistics with focused courses on the empirical study of democratic politics. Detailed course descriptions and admission requirements can be found here. Application information is available here or by e-mail.

The Romanian Academic Society (SAR) invites submissions to the Winter 2006 issue of its Romanian Journal of Political Science, which will be devoted to “The Two Sides of European Transformation.” The issue will consider the changes applicant countries undergo to improve their chances of accession to the European Union, as well as the political, economic, and social impacts of new entrants on the EU itself. For more information write to Emanuel Rauta. The deadline for submissions is September 15, 2006.

The Centre for the Study of Public Policy (CSPP, United Kingdom), which was founded in 1976 by Richard Rose and based at the University of Strathclyde, moved to a new institutional home within the School of Social Sciences of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland in October 2005. Professor Rose continues to direct the Centre, and its lengthy catalog of current and backlist publications is now available at its new Web site.

The Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies (Egypt), serves as the secretariat of the Egyptian Democracy Support Network (EDSN), an umbrella organization of domestic civil-society groups that came together to monitor the 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections in Egypt. The EDSN has issued a call for action on such issues as threats to judicial independence and the postponement of local elections. It also demands the release from prison of Ayman Nour, an opposition candidate for president in 2005, and condemns incidents of violence against the country’s Christian minority. For more information or to become an international partner of the EDSN write to edsnetwork@gmail.com.

2. NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECENT EVENTS BY NDRI MEMBERS

Three new studies have been added to the Afrobarometer Working Paper series since the last issue of Democracy Research News. In “Poor People and Democratic Citizenship in Africa” (January 2006), Michael Bratton finds that while “poor people in Africa are clearly dissatisfied with the quality of governance provided by elected national leaders,” they often prefer to bypass formal political channels and to seek redress for their grievances through informal clientelistic means.

In “Support for Democracy in Malawi: Does Schooling Matter?” (February 2006) Geoffrey Evans and Pauline Rose find that access to primary education increases support for democracy in a developing country like Malawi, “even though it has been undertaken in a nondemocratic setting and without appropriate civic education.”

Carolyn Logan and Michael Bratton’s March 2006 study of political behavior in fifteen African countries, entitled “The Political Gender Gap in Africa: Similar Attitudes, Different Behaviors,” finds that “African women differ relatively little from men with regard to their preferences for political and economic regimes and in performance evaluations” but also that women “seem to be less convinced of the need for multiparty competition within a democracy.”

Among the fifteen new Afrobarometer Briefing Papers are studies of term limits and the electoral system in Nigeria, combating corruption in Tanzania and Kenya, support for democracy in Kenya and Zimbabwe, and political participation in Malawi.

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD–Nigeria) published “2007 Elections: Democracy in Nigeria at a Crossroads,” a brief essay outlining potential problems in the preparations for next year’s presidential, legislative, and gubernatorial elections in that country. The essay concludes with concrete recommendations for improving the country’s electoral system and also suggests how the international community can help promote transparency and reduce corruption in Nigerian politics.

The Ghana Center for Democratic Development published the September–December 2005 issue of its newsletter Democracy Watch, which includes a lead essay on the state of governance in Ghana in 2005, plus additional articles and commentary on policy formation, presidential press conferences, conflicts of interest involving legislators, and political party development in Ghana.

The Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) published Budget Transparency and Participation 2: Nine African Case Studies (2006), a comparative study of “how citizens become engaged with their government’s budgets” as a means of achieving greater democratic control over public spending. Additional contents and ordering information are available here.

Philip Green, Australian high commissioner, spoke on “Growth, Development, and Governance” at a May 18, 2006, Idasa workshop on citizens and parliaments in Africa. Among other topics, Mr. Green discussed the importance of “functioning and effective states” in promoting economic development and reducing poverty.


2.2 ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

The Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI, Australia) organized a seminar on political party development in Papua New Guinea on April 27, 2006. The event brought together senior party leaders from Australia and Papua New Guinea for discussions of the role of parties in democratic governance, party organization and structure, and policy development. On April 28 CDI scholars participated in the annual Papua New Guinea Update, hosted by the Australian National University’s Asia-Pacific School of Economics and Government. More information on these events is available here.

CDI director Benjamin Reilly participated in a panel discussion on “Evaluating Political Institutions and Electoral Processes” at the 2006 annual meeting of the International Studies Association, which met March 22–25, 2006, in San Diego, California, and he later spoke at the Vail Symposium on “Dilemmas of Democratization in War-Torn Societies” in Vail, Colorado.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR, India), and Devesh Kapur edited Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design (Oxford University Press, 2005), a major collection of essays on the design, performance, and adaptability of India’s political institutions and their role in a democratic polity.

The Centre convened a day-long seminar on “India and America in a Tocquevillian Frame” on March 31, 2006, in which leading political scientists from the two countries discussed how the themes and approaches of Tocqueville’s analysis of nineteenth-century America can inform the study of India and the United States today. A report on the event is available here.

Civic Exchange (Hong Kong) published “Election Reform in China: Its Context, Recent Developments, and Future” by Lin Feng, an associate professor of law at the City University of Hong Kong, in January 2006. The 60-page report examines rural village elections, elections to all five levels of China’s people’s congresses, and the system for electing officials to government organs. The author believes that “in the long run, it is impossible for the Communist Party of China to prevent democracy” and thus recommends that the Party adopt more democratic rules for elections as a first step toward removing Party control from the electoral process altogether.

In March 2006 Civic Exchange also published The Rise of Hong Kong Politics: The View through Political Cartoons, 1984–2005, a study of the emergence of cartoons as a means of political discourse during a critical period in Hong Kong’s recent history. Information on how to obtain this bilingual English–Chinese publication is available here.

The May–August 2006 issue of the Journal of East Asian Studies, edited at the East Asia Institute (EAI, South Korea), includes the articles “Electoral Reform and the Costs of Personal Support in Japan” by Matthew M. Carlson and “Signaling Democracy: Patron-Client Relations and Democratization in South Korea and Poland” by Andrew Yeo, plus additional articles and reviews.

The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA, Sri Lanka, ) published Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Problem and Solutions by Lionel Guruge in January 2006. The 54-page monograph provides a historical overview of relations between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil peoples in Sri Lanka and assesses past and current proposals to resolve their long-standing ethnic conflict.

The Center also organized a February 2006 symposium on “The Future of Sri Lanka and the Federal Idea.” The event marked the release of a new CPA book entitled The Journey of Federal Idea in Sri Lanka (1926–2005).

On March 30, 2006, CPA’s Centre for Monitoring Election Violence released a brief report on voting irregularities and violence during the 2006 local government elections in Sri Lanka.

The Institute for National Policy Research (INPR, Taiwan) and the Cross-Strait Interflow Prospect Foundation sponsored a February 16, 2006, roundtable in Taipei entitled “New Cabinet, New Politics.” Scholars from INPR and several Taiwanese universities discussed domestic politics, constitutional reform, foreign policy, and relations with the mainland.

Hung-mao Tien, chairman of INPR, contributed an essay entitled “The Course of Taiwan’s Democratization: A Retrospective” to the Institute’s Taiwan Perspective e-Paper series. The author assesses the accomplishments of Taiwan’s democratic development since the 1980s and reviews current challenges facing Taiwan, including constitutional reform, governmental gridlock, corruption and vote buying, and Taiwanese sovereignty.

Other recent contributions to the e-Paper series include “China’s Emerging Role in the Middle East as It Repositions Itself Diplomatically” by Eric Teo Chu Cheow (May 3, 2006), “2006 National Security Strategy: It’s All about Democracy” by Ralph A. Cossa (March 28, 2006), and “Democracy is the Ultimate Principle” by Tung Chen-yuan (February 24, 2006).


2.3 EUROPE

The Access to Information Program (AIP, Bulgaria) published the third volume of its documentary collection, Access to Information Litigation in Bulgaria: Selected Cases. The 340-page book, available in English and Bulgarian, includes an analytical essay by editors Alexander Kashumov and Kiril Terziiski, plus complete court decisions and annotations of ten recent freedom of information cases in Bulgaria.

The Centre for Liberal Strategies (CLS, Bulgaria) organized a conference entitled “The Challenge of the New Populism” on May 10–11, 2006, in Sofia. The meeting focused on the rise of competing concepts of democracy and explored whether populism is a danger for democracy or a return to a more genuine form of political discourse. NDRI members who participated in this event included Ognian Minchev (Institute for Regional and International Studies), Maria Lipman (Carnegie Moscow Center), and Gerald Knaus (European Stability Initiative).

The Centre also organized a conference on “Strengthening the Policy Making Capacity of the Bulgarian Judicial System,” which took place on April 20, 2006. A summary of the project’s findings is available here.

The Centre published Reflection Time-Out, edited by Antoinette Primatarova, a collection of Bulgarian-language articles, speeches, and documents on the 2005 debate on the European Constitution.

Ivan Krastev, CLS chairman, published “Democracy’s ‘Doubles’” in the April 2006 Journal of Democracy. The essay examined the rise of regimes (such as Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and Vladimir Putin’s Russia) that resemble democracies but behave like autocracies.

Ognian Minchev, director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS, Bulgaria), participated in the “Brussels Forum on Transatlantic Challenges in a Global Era,” an annual meeting of leading European and American business, political, and intellectual leaders. The April 28–30, 2006, event was hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Mr. Minchev published “The Case of Turkey in the EU,” a 16-page review of the main arguments for and against Turkish accession, and of how Turkish membership would impact the EU itself.

IRIS published Advocacy in Bulgaria. The Other Power: A Handbook for Civil Advocacy (2006), which collects the experiences of public advocacy campaigns as a tool to improve citizen participation in the policy process. More information about this Bulgarian-language publication is available here.

The Centre for the Study of Democracy and Culture (CDK, Czech Republic) published a Czech translation of Varieties of Cultural History by British historian Peter Burke and an English-language anthology entitled Trajectories of the Left: Social Democratic and (Ex-) Communist Parties in Contemporary Europe: Between Past and Future, edited by Lubomír Kopecek. Among the Czech-language titles published by CDK in 2006 are Monitoring European Legislation, 2004–2005 by Ondrej Krutílek and Petra Kuchýnková; The Civic Democratic Party and Czech Politics by Stanislav Balík and additional coauthors; and Democracy, Dictatorship, and Party Politics in Slovakia by Lubomír Kopecek.

On April 12, 2006, the Centre organized a conference entitled “A Suffocating Embrace: Cooperation among Communists and Social Democrats.”

The March 2006 issue of Revue Politika, CDK’s monthly journal, included an article by Michal Plavec on the failures of the Belorusian opposition, an essay by Marek Cejka on what the Hamas parliamentary victory means for Palestine, plus additional articles on Czech and European politics and reviews of new books. Complete contents and selected full-text articles are available here.

The Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI, Germany) published the Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2006: Toward Democracy and a Market Economy, the English-language edition of the BTI’s major biennial study of political and economic reform in 119 countries worldwide. (The German-language edition was released in October 2005 at a Bertelsmann conference in Berlin.) The publication includes a 246-page book and accompanying CD-ROM with an extensive description of the project and its methodology, an overview of key findings, and a wall chart of country rankings and scores. The BTI Web site provides a wealth of additional information, including detailed country reports and an interactive Transformation Atlas that allows users to view and manipulate data and to make their own country comparisons. Additional resources on the BTI Web site include the complete 2003 edition of the study, research papers from the project, and information about the BTI Transformation Thinkers network of democratic reformers.

The European Stability Initiative (ESI, Germany and Turkey) published “Beyond Enlargement Fatigue: The Dutch Debate on Turkish Accession.” The 30-page research report is the first in a series of ESI reports that will analyze public debates on Turkish accession to the European Union in Germany, France, Austria, and other EU member states.

The Spring 2006 Turkish Policy Quarterly, published in cooperation with ESI, was a special theme issue on youth policy (at the EU and member-state levels) and on the political behavior of young people throughout Europe. Featured articles included studies of demographic trends, political cynicism among the young, manifestations of xenophobia and racism in countries with high levels of Muslim immigration, and new methods of civic education for the young.

The Center for Policy Studies (CPS, Hungary) and the Center for EU Enlargement Studies (both within the Central European University), in partnership with the University Association for Contemporary European Studies, organized a May 17, 2006, workshop in Budapest on “Committee Governance in an Enlarged European Union.” Twenty-six researchers and senior policy makers discussed how enlargement had affected expert committees and their relations with member governments.

In February 2006 CPS published The Visegrad States on the EU’s Eastern Frontier: Consular and Visa Cooperation in East Central Europe for Residents of Ukraine and Moldova by Piotr Kazmierkiewicz, Dora Husz, Juraj Misina, and Ivo Slosarcik. The 86-page monograph examines how changes in the visa policies of four new EU members (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czech Republic) have impacted their relations with non-EU neighbors. Visit http://cps.ceu.hu/polstud.php and click on the link for the CPS Policy Studies Series to access the 79-page document.

The CPS Policy Documentation Center regularly adds new government documents, research reports, and academic papers on political and social reform in postcommunist Europe to its online collection. Recent additions to the archive include studies of asylum and deportation policies in Italy, the elections in Belarus, and educational reform in the Czech Republic.

The Interuniversity Research Centre on Southern Europe (CIRES, Italy) published Europeanizations and Democratization: The Southern European Experience and the Perspective for the New Member States of the Enlarged Europe, the proceedings of a June 2005 conference organized by the University Of Florence Centre Of European Excellence and the Italian Institute of Social Sciences. The 524-page volume includes case studies of Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Romania, plus thematic essays on EU democracy-promotion policies and of internal and external influences on democratization.

A team of legal and legislative experts from the Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM, Montenegro) drafted a law on antidiscrimination that was presented to the Montenegrin parliament in February 2006. The proposed text, which would make Montenegrin law conform to European Union standards, was also published in the January–April 2006 CEDEM Newsletter.

CEDEM researchers also conducted opinion polling before and after the May 2006 referendum on independence from Serbia. For results and analysis visit the Center’s Web site and click on its links for “Political Public Opinion in Montenego.”

Piotr Kazmierkiewicz, project analyst at the Institute of Public Affairs (ISP, Poland), edited EU Accession Prospects for Turkey and Ukraine: Debates in New Member States, a 216-page collection of essays in which experts from new EU member states provide their perspectives on additional enlargement. ISP published the book to inform participants in the debate that “the vision of enlarging Europe remains attractive to the citizens of the countries most directly concerned, who are still acutely aware of the costs of fragmentation and isolation.” Purchasing information is available here.

ISP also published Bridges across the Atlantic? Attitudes of Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks toward the United States, edited by Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, Jacek Kucharczyk, and Piotr Maciej Kaczynski. Contributors to the anthology describe how their countries found themselves pulled in different directions by the United States and the so-called old Europe, primarily on questions of security policy and the war on terrorism, shortly after joining the EU. Purchasing information is available here.

Jacek Kucharczyk, ISP program director, contributed a six-page essay entitled “Assisting Democratic Transition in Belarus: Lessons from Pre-1989 Poland” to the Institute’s policy papers series.

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, president, Romanian Academic Society (SAR), participated in a March 14, 2006, roundtable in Brussels entitled “Turning the Tide: Romania’s Anticorruption Efforts in the View of Government and Civil Society.” The event was organized by the Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels. A summary of the presentation is available here.

SAR published its “Forecast Report for 2006” in March as part of the Society’s Policy Warning Reports series. The 34-page report (in Romanian only) reviewed the state of the Romanian economy, transparency in public administration, and the capacity of the EU to absorb new members.

SAR also published the Winter 2005 issue of the Romanian Journal of Political Science, whose special theme was “Europe as a Democracy Promoter.” Based on research prepared for a 2005 SAR conference, the issue includes articles on Romania, Germany, the Black Sea region, and a critique of EU efforts to promote democracy in Ukraine.

Boris Begovic, vice president of the Center for Liberal–Democratic Studies (CLDS, Serbia), contributed “Corruption, Lobbying, and State Capture” to the CLDS Working Paper series in March 2006. The 29-page study compares corruption and lobbying as alternate methods of rent seeking and develops mathematical models to predict conditions under which each would be the preferred method of those seeking state capture.

The Institute for Public Affairs (IVO, Slovakia) published the English-language edition of Slovakia 2005: A Global Report on the State of Society. Edited by Martin Bútora, Miroslav Kollár, and Grigorij Mesežnikov, the book is the Institute’s largest annual publication; it features twenty-five chapter-length essays on all aspects of Slovak politics and society. Additional contents and purchasing information are available here.

Elections 2006: Analysis of the Electoral Platforms of Political Parties and Movements, edited by Grigorij Mesežnikov and Miroslav Kollár, contains essays on political party platforms in such thematic areas as democracy, rule of law, and constitutionality; foreign and defense policy; economics, social policy, health policy, minority and human rights, education, and the environment.

IVO published Resolutions and Reality II: An Assessment of the Performance of the Second Government of Mikuláš Dzurinda, edited by Miroslav Kollár and Martin Bútora. The contributors analyze specific government ministers and departments and assess how well they fulfilled their announced programs.

IVO scholar Zora Bútorová delivered a presentation on “Women in Central-Eastern Europe: Expanding the Frontiers of Democracy” at an Istanbul conference entitled “Leading Change: Women and Democracy’s New Frontiers,” which met on March 23–25, 2006.

The Democratisation and Rule of Law Program of FRIDE (La Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, Spain) published a major Survey of European Democracy Promotion Policies, 2000–2006. This 236-page collection of essays, which was edited by Richard Youngs, includes chapter-length surveys of the democracy-promotion strategies of seven European Union member states plus an additional chapter on such EU institutions as the European Commission, European Parliament, and European Council.

FRIDE and three partner organizations also published “What Purpose Does the Political Dialogue between the European Union and Latin America Serve?” The 16-page document compiles recommendations emerging from a March 2006 seminar aimed at improving political dialogue between the European Union and Latin America.

New research from the Centre for the Study of Public Policy (CSPP, United Kingdom) includes “Russia’s Persistent Communist Legacy: Nostalgia, Reaction, and Reactionary Expectations” by Neil Munro and “Going Public with Private Opinions: Are Postcommunist Citizens Afraid to Say What They Think?” by Richard Rose, which explores why some citizens hesitate to express their views on political issues. A study entitled “South-East Europe Barometer Public Opinion Compared in Seven Countries” reports on surveys of public attitudes toward the European Union in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia-Montenegro, all of which aspire to join the EU. A listing of these and other CSPP studies is available here.

Democratic Audit, a research program of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex (United Kingdom), published “The British National Party: Roots of Its Appeal,” a 32-page paper by Peter John, Helen Margetts, David Rowland, and Stuart Weir. The paper questions the conventional wisdom that right-wing nationalism is not a danger in Britain through a case study of a marginal party that is “at least capable of achieving a ‘mainstream presence’ in localities across England” based on its opposition to immigration and the “creeping Islamification”of Britain.

Democratic Audit also released its Manifesto Watch, a study of political party manifestos in the 2005 general elections in Britain with a special emphasis on democracy.


2.4 LATIN AMERICA

The Center for Opening and Development in Latin America (CADAL, Argentina) published the Index of International Commitment to Human Rights: Year 2005 in March 2006. The 20-page report by Mariel Julio analyzed voting in the Spring 2005 session of the UN Commission on Human Rights and explored the paradox of a UN voting process that classifies numerous advanced democracies with some of the world’s harshest dictatorships as having a low commitment to human rights.

CADAL also published The Ladies in White: The Women of the Prisoners of Cuba’s Black Spring. Compiled by journalist Erika Lüters, this 128-page Spanish-language book documents the experiences of mothers, wives, and sisters of numerous political prisoners in Cuba.

The Center recently launched a weekly radio program in Argentina entitled “Latin American Opening” that features commentary and analysis of political events throughout the continent.

The Latinobarómetro (Chile), an annual survey of public opinion in eighteen countries in Latin America, published its Latinóbarometro Report 2005, the most recent in a series of reports dating to 1995. The 88-page report provides data on responses to questions on democracy, politics, and the rule of law, as well as on economic and foreign policy issues. The complete texts of previous reports are also available here. http://www.latinobarometro.org/index.php?id=101.

Marta Lagos, executive director of the Latinobarómetro, announced that data from this and other annual surveys will pass into the public domain and will be available free of charge for all users. The Spanish-language Banco de Datos Latino will also contain information from polls conducted by participants in the Latin American Association of Opinion Surveys, which was launched in October 2005. A description of available resources and instructions on their use are available here.

FUNDAR (Center for Analysis and Research, Mexico) published El Caso Provida: Cuentas Pendientes en la Transparencia y la Justicia (The Provida Case: Pending Bills in Transparency and Justice) by Gaia Gozzo in April 2006. The 64-page monograph documents how a coalition of civil-society groups, including FUNDAR, successfully demanded an investigation of allegedly fraudulent payments from the Mexican ministry of health to a nongovernmental group.

FUNDAR also published El sistema de comisiones, el cabildeo legislativo y la participación ciudadana en el Congreso mexicano (The Legislative Committee System, Lobbying, and Citizen Participation in the Mexican Congress) by David Dávila Estéfan and Lila Caballero Sosa as part of its series of citizen handbooks on legislative power in Mexico.

A new FUNDAR Web site tracks daily activities and resolutions from two legislative committees of the Mexican lower house with jurisdiction over budgets and public accounts, as well over gender equity.

Andreas Schedler, director of the political studies division of the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE, Mexico), edited Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition (Lynne Rienner, 2006), a volume of essays on “the most common form of political regime in the developing world.” The book is the result of an April 2004 conference in Mexico City cosponsored by CIDE and the International Forum for Democratic Studies. Purchasing information is available here.


2.5 MIDDLE EAST

The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) presented the Israeli Democracy Index 2006, the latest in a series of annual audits of the Israeli political system, at a May 10, 2006, conference organized under the patronage of Moshe Katsav, president of Israel. Asher Arian, Nir Atmor, and Yael Hadar, the lead authors of this year’s report, presented their findings to a distinguished audience of senior-level government officials, party leaders, journalists, academics, and other representatives of Israeli society, many of whom participated in a discussion of the Index with the authors. Each year the Israeli Democracy Index includes standard questions that are repeated each year plus additional questions on a special topic; this year that topic was the dealignment and realignment of the Israeli political-party system. An English-language draft of the 99-page report is available here. Click here for earlier editions of the Index and additional IDI publications on Israeli democracy.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) released the twentieth in its series of opinion polls on June 19, 2006. The research indicates that 85 percent of Palestinians agree that “the goal of the Palestinian people is to establish an independent Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital in all areas occupied in 1967,” that “a new PLO council should be established before the end of 2006 whereby all factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, would be represented in accordance with proportional representation,” and that “a national unity government should be established with the participation of all factions, especially Fateh and Hamas…” Additional findings from this and from previous polls dating to 2000 are available here.

Khalil Shikaki, the Center’s director, argues that Palestinian public opinion is not an obstacle to progress in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, and that Palestinians oppose violence when they see that diplomacy brings progress, in a report entitled “Willing to Compromise: Palestinian Public Opinion and the Peace Process.” The study, published as a special report by the U.S. Institute of Peace in January 2006, concludes with Mr. Shikaki’s review of the policy implications of these findings and his recommendations of ways that foreign actors and Palestinians themselves can take advantage of Palestinian willingness to compromise to reach a permanent status agreement with Israel.

The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS, Lebanon) was a cosponsor and local host of the Fifth Mediterranean Development Forum (MDF5), which met April 7-9, 2006, in Beirut. The annual event, organized by the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, and leading research institutes from the region, brings together more than 500 leaders from civil society, government, and the private sector. This year’s meeting theme was “Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region.” Workshop topics included “A Prospective Working Agenda for Judicial Reform in the MENA Region,” “Rethinking the Role of the State,” and “Initiatives for Strengthening Parliamentarians as Champions for Reforms in the Arab World.” Click here to view the complete agenda, to download paper presentations, and to view other conference materials.

The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID, United States) held its seventh annual conference on May 5-6, 2006, in Washington, D.C., where the theme was “The Challenge of Democracy in the Muslim World.” Keynote speakers included Randall L. Tobias, administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development; and Carl Gershman, president, National Endowment for Democracy. The event included panel discussions of the prospects for democracy in individual countries as well as regions, a debate on the role of the media in advancing democracy, and a roundtable to launch CSID’s Network of Democrats in the Arab World. Saadeddine Elothmani, secretary-general of Morocco’s Party of Justice and Development, received CSID’s 2006 Muslim Democrat of the Year award at the event’s annual banquet. Click here for the complete agenda, papers, and conference materials.

2.6 RUSSIA AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

Oleg Manaev, director of the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (Belarus, IISEPS), contributed a chapter to Prospects for Democracy in Belarus, a 200-page collection of essays edited by Joerg Forbrig, David R. Marples, and Pavol Demeš that was published in April 2006 by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (http://www.gmfus.org). Other NDRI contributors include Vitali Silitski (Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University), Dmitri Trenin (Carnegie Moscow Center), and Jacek Kucharczyk (Institute of Public Affairs).

The Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy, and Development (CIPDD, Georgia) organized a March 17, 2006, meeting in Tbilisi on “Political Parties for Georgia’s New Democracy.” The event was cosponsored with the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy and the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe; it featured presentations of new CIPDD research on the state of Georgian political parties and on international support for them.

On April 26, 2006, CIPDD presented The Georgian Regional Media Map, a 288-page study of the print media in different regions of the country. The project analyzed the journalistic, business, and technical aspects of print media; the training and professionalism of journalists; and relations between media and government and between media and minorities.

The Carnegie Moscow Center (Russia), Gorbachev Foundation, New Eurasia Foundation, and Liberal Mission Fund cosponsored a May 30, 2006, conference entitled “Does Russia Need the West?” The event brought together current and former senior government officials, diplomats, scholars, businessmen, and journalists for panel discussions of what Russia thinks about the West, economic cooperation between Russia and the West, and Western technical assistance and philanthropy in Russia. More information about this Russian-language publication is available here.

Alexei Malashenko, chair of the Center’s program on religion, society, and security, presented The Islamic Alternative and the Islamist Project at a May 30 Carnegie book-release seminar. The book examines Islam as a theological-political phenomenon and discusses the impact of Islamism in the Muslim world and beyond. More information about this Russian-language publication is available here.

Dmitri Trenin, deputy director of the Center, presented Integration and Identity: Russia as the “New West” at another Carnegie seminar, this one on May 24, 2006. The book documents “the development of Russia’s relations with the West, its integration into the international community, and the definition of Russia’s place in the twenty–first century world.” More information about this Russian-language publication is available here.

On March 30, 2006, the Center sponsored a seminar entitled “Kyrgyzstan One Year Later: What Comes Next?” Mr. Malashenko moderated the panel discussion of political and economic developments since the Bishkek incidents of March 2005.

The April 2006 issue of Political Commentary, a monthly analysis of government policy published by the International Centre for Policy Studies (ICPS, Ukraine), provides a preliminary analysis of the country’s 2006 parliamentary elections, an assessment of the political campaigns, and a description of coalition possibilities in the new parliament. The May issue includes analysis of coalition developments in the preceding month, plus a report on a parliamentary plan to remove immunity for deputies of local councils. And the June issue continues the analysis of protracted coalition negotiations that had prevented the formation of a new government by press time. Each issue of Political Commentary also includes analysis of economic developments and foreign-policy issues in Ukraine. Subscription information is available here.

2.7 UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Rights & Democracy (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, Canada) published Documenting Women’s Rights Violations by Non-State Actors: Activist Strategies from Muslim Communities, a 93-page manual on how to document abuses against women by nonstate actors and how to address the violence by Jan Bauer and Anissa Hélie. The authors argue for the need to expand the concept of human rights beyond protecting individuals from state action to protecting them from other kinds of abuse.

Rights & Democracy also assembled a delegation that included Jean-Louis Roy, its president; several board members (including Saad Eddin Ibrahim, president of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies), and senior Canadian government officials, that visited Egypt in May 2006 “to assess and report on the case against Dr. Ayman Nour,” a candidate in the 2005 presidential election in Egypt who was convicted of violating Egyptian election law and sentenced to five years imprisonment in a process that many observers condemned as politically motivated and antidemocratic. More information on the case is available here.

Steven Heydemann, director of the Center for Democracy and the Third Sector (CDATS, United States), published “In the Shadow of Democracy” in the Winter 2006 Middle East Journal. His essay reviewed two new books on democracy promotion (by Thomas Carothers and Marina Ottaway) and on state building (by Francis Fukuyama) and also summarized the history of the idea of democracy promotion, especially in the Arab world.

Marc Morjé Howard, CDATS faculty fellow, and Philip G. Roessler published “Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes” in the April 2006 American Journal of Political Science. Bo Rothstein, professor of political science at Göteborg University in Sweden, presented a paper entitled “Can Efficient Institutions Be Established? A Close Look at the Soft Underbelly of Rational Choice Theory” at an April 11, 2006, meeting of CDATS Speaker Series on the Quality of Democracy.

Almut Wieland-Karimi, executive director of the Washington office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, discussed “Perspectives on the Future of Democracy in Afghanistan” at an April 5, 2006, CDATS lecture.

The Spring 2006 issue of Democracy and Society, the CDATS newsletter, includes articles on the history of affirmative action in the United States, mapping migrant civil society, and several essays drawn from a major new CDATS study of American civic engagement.

The Center on Democratic Performance (CDP, United States) has issued its third annual report on the human rights practices of U.S. presidential administrations. The Bush administration received a grade of D, indicating poor performance. Click here to view the report.

CDP fellow (and former director) Edward McMahon of the University of Vermont and Scott Baker published Piecing a Democratic Quilt: Regional Organizations and Universal Norms (Kumarian Press, 2006), a study of the role of international organizations in the promotion of democracy. Purchasing information is available here.

The Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD, United States) sponsored its second annual graduate student conference on “Democracy and Its Development” on April 29, 2006. The event features paper presentations and panel discussions by advanced graduate students from leading universities in California.

CSD hosted a Democracy Dialogue with Wang Dan, a leader of the June 1989 student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, on May 25, 2006. His lecture topic was “Rethinking the Past and Looking forward to the Future of China.”

Recent additions to the CSD online papers series include “Democratization: Perspectives from Global Citizenries” by Doh C. Shin, “Political Involvement and Electoral Competition” by Lorenzo De Sio, “Neo-Madisonian Theory and Latin American Institutions” by Royce Carroll and Matthew S. Shugart, and “Consensus without Veto-Players: Testing Theories of Consensual Democracy” by Anthony J. McGann and Michael Latner. Click here to access the complete texts.

Michael McFaul, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL, United States), and Anders Åslund edited Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine’s Democratic Breakthrough (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), a collection of essays on the dramatic events that unfolded in Ukraine in the fall of 2004, leading to what many observers call a seminal democratic breakthrough whose aftereffects are still being felt. NDRI scholars Nikolai Petrov and Andrei Ryabov (Carnegie Moscow Center) contributed essays to the volume.

Newly published working papers now available at the CDDRL Web site include “Contagion Deferred: Preemptive Authoritarianism in the Former Soviet Union (The Case of Belarus)” by Vitali Silitski, “Defining and Domesticating the Electoral Model: A Comparison of Serbia and Slovakia” by Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik, and “Differential Impact of EU Enlargement on First and Second Wave Applicants: Europeanizing Political Parties in Poland and Bulgaria” by Tsveta Petrova.

New conference reports from the Center include “Stabilizing Iraq: Options for Democracy, Security, and Development” and “2006 Mexican Elections: A Challenge for Democracy” by Karla Lopez de Nava.

The International Forum for Democratic Studies (United States) and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies cosponsored a two-day workshop on “Democracy and Terrorism: What We Know and What to Do” on February 16–17, 2006, on Grand Bahamas Island. The workshop brought together terrorism and foreign affairs experts, democracy scholars and activists, senior government officials, and journalists. NDRI members who participated include Marc F. Plattner and Larry Diamond (International Forum for Democratic Studies), Saad Eddin Ibrahim (Ibn Khaldun Center), Ivan Krastev (Centre for Liberal Strategies) and Michael McFaul (Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law).

The April 2006 Journal of Democracy included a lead article entitled “Identity, Immigration, and Liberal Democracy” by Francis Fukuyama, plus a study of “The Assault on Democracy Assistance” by Carl Gershman, president of the NED, and Michael Allen, also of the NED. Ivan Krastev contributed “Democracy’s ‘Doubles,’” which examined countries like Russia and Venezuela, where the current regimes claim to be democratic but which nonetheless act like autocracies. Other articles in this issue include trends in the design of electoral systems; elections in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan; an analysis of the so-called Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan; plus other essays and reviews.