Democratic evaluation brings a way of thinking about evaluation’s role in society and in particular, its role in strengthening social justice. Yet the reality of applying it, and what happens when it is applied particularly outside the West, is unclear. Set in South Africa, a newly formed democracy in Southern Africa, the book affords an in-depth journey that immerses a reader into the realities of evaluation and its relation to democracy. The book starts with the broader introductory chapters that set the scene for more detailed ones which bring thorough insights into national government, local government, and civil societies’ experience of evaluation, democratic evaluation and their understanding of how it contributes to strengthening democracy (or not). A teaching case, the book concludes by providing guiding questions that encourage reflection, discussion and learning that ultimately aims to inform practice and theory.

The International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment is a robust and sensitive guide to assessing the quality of democracy and human rights in any country around the world. The Handbook introduces an easy-to-use and universal methodology for assessing the condition of democracy in any country, or its progress in democratisation, that has been developed in a three-year action programme at IDEA, the inter-governmental Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Sweden. The Handbook provides a means to measure systematically the full range of values, institutions and issues relating to modern democracy that is sensitive to the underlying principles and democracy and the differences between democracies themselves. It is therefore both universal in application and capable of responding to particular aspects of any one nation's democratic arrangements. The animating principle of the Handbook is that only citizens of a nation themselves are qualified to assess the quality of their own democratic arrangements. Thus, it provides a self-help guide, which gives academics, lawyers, political practitioners, journalists and interested citizens the tools to assess the state of their democracy, or any key aspects of their democracy. The Handbook is above all a practical working document that draws on the actual experience of assessing democracy in different countries, comparative knowledge and research, and democratic principles and practice. It gives a step-by-step guide to the purposes and methods of democracy assessment; who to involve; how to use the research tools; how to validate the findings; what standards of practice to adopt; and how to present and publicise a finished assessment. It contains extracts from completed assessments, guidance on the use of qualitative and quantitative data, examples of codes of democratic practice and international and regional standards, and a vast list of accessible data sources. The methodology was created by a team of political scientists assembled from all regions of the world by International IDEA and has been tried and tested in a variety of countries, including Bangladesh, El Salvador, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, New Zealand, Peru, South Korea and the United Kingdom. International organisations like the World Bank and UNECA are adapting it for in-country use. The four main authors and editors have been directly involved from the inception of the project - in developing and refining the methodology and participating in and advising on the nine country studies that form the essential practical core of experience on which this invaluable Handbook is based.

Publisher description

Drawing on years of academic research on democracy and measurement and practical experience evaluating democratic practices for the United Nations and the Organization of American States, the author presents constructive assessment of the methods used to measure democracies that promises to bring order to the debate in academia and in practice. He makes the case for reassessing how democracy is measured and encourages fundamental changes in methodology. He has developed two instruments for quantifying and qualifying democracy: the UN Development Programme's Electoral Democracy Index and a case-by-case election monitoring tool used by the OAS.

The State of Democracy: Democracy Assessments in Eight Nations Around the World is the robust and sensitive study of democratisation in eight very different countries at varying stages of democratisation - Bangladesh, El Salvador, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, New Zealand, Peru and South Korea. This unique comparative study first presents the findings of in-country teams of experts in the eight countries on the state of democracy in their own country; and concludes with an analysis and synthesis of their findings to suggest an overall general trajectory of the democratisation process. In doing so, the conclusions examine a variety of issues of significance to democracy, including for example the creation of electoral space, the formation of political parties, the political inclusion of minorities, mechanisms of accountability, and the reduction of corruption.The strength of The State of Democracy lies in the common use by the eight teams of the same democracy assessment framework developed under the auspices of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), Stockholm. This innovative assessment framework covers every aspect of democracy: citizen rights and the rule of law, representative and accountable government, civil society and popular participation, and the international dimensions of democracy. The expert teams used the same methodology to answer the same questions: how democratic are we? In what respects have we made progress? What are the major defects of our governing arrangements from a democratic point of view? How do we stand in comparison with our past and with other comparator countries?Thus their findings are both comprehensive and directly comparable. The State of Democracy contains summaries of each democracy assessment; presents detailed comparative data on key democratic indicators for the eight countries; and then concludes with an overall analysis. The eight studies were pilot schemes, funded and organised by International IDEA, to validate and test the democracy assessment framework, set out in the companion volume, The International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment, also published by Kluwer Law International. Some studies are also being published separately in their country of origin as promotional tools for democratic reform. International IDEA is continuing to cumulate these comparative studies and analysis of democratic trends around the world, see www.idea.int.The State of Democracy: Democracy Assessments in Eight Nations Around the World comprises: an introduction explaining the methodology being used; summary findings in systematic form for each of the eight countries; comparative tables covering a range of democratic features in both qualitative and quantitative aspects; a conclusion drawing out the implications of the country findings for the future of democratisation generally. The book will be of value to all those interested in the progress of democracy, whether as academics, practitioners or citizens, and in finding effective ways to assess it.