Do international factors, including democracy promotion policies of Western actors, play a significant role in encouraging or discouraging the consolidation of democracy and the transformation of hybrid regimes and minimalist, electoral democracies into substantive, liberal, "high quality" ones? If so, when and how do external incentives, financial and technical aid, socialization techniques, diplomacy or demonstration effects influence democratic institutions, processes and culture? What combination of domestic conditions and external factors are most likely to shape the consolidation of democratic regimes? What are the pathways of external influence on domestic change and what does the nexus of interaction between external and domestic variables look like in reality?

CDDRL's research program Evaluating International Influences on Democratic Development aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the efficacy of available instruments to encourage democratic development, in an effort to learn what has worked, what has not, and under what conditions.

The second of four research tracks focuses on consolidation and changes in the quality of democracy. By exploring a set of successful and failed cases of consolidation of liberal-democracies since the advent of the Third Wave of democratizations in 1974, the program seeks to gain a better understanding of external influence on domestic democratic development dynamics, and to provide a better guide to future academics and policymakers interested in promoting democracy abroad.

Work on this research track commences in October 2007.