Democracy Support Practice After the Third Wave: Adapting to Change?

Democracy Support Practice After the Third Wave: Adapting to Change? (DemSupPra) aims to assess the significance and impact of three recent developments on the practices of international election observation and assistance: (1) rapid technological change (new voting technologies and communication revolution); (2) social learning by autocrats, which made assaults against democratic institutions including elections less visible (fake compliance); and (3) the use of the ballot box to backslide or advance illiberal democracy (majoritarianism).

It asks how have these elements affected the two democracy support practices; and how have democracy supporters adapted to these developments?

In doing so, the project also sets out to answers the policy relevant question, whether election observation and assistance are still fit for purpose.

It seeks to suggest ways in which the effectiveness and credibility of the two practices may be strengthened, especially at a time when democracy and democratic institutions, including elections, are facing a fresh wave of contestation.

The projects objectives are to: (1) contribute to the conceptual, theoretical and methodological innovation in studies of democracy support, in particular election observation and assistance; (2) explain the impact of the three crises of democracy developments on the two practices; (3) improve cross-fertilisation between policy practice and academic research.

These objectives will be achieved through a mixed-methods approach that combines: mapping of election observation and assistance as practices and a quantitative assessment of their adaptation to change (WP1); with qualitative comparative case study design to investigate the impact of the crisis of democracy developments (WP2); enriched by dissemination, communication and regular policy impact and public outreach endeavours (WP3); project and career management (WP4) teaching/training (WP5) and a secondment practice stage (S).