Societies recovering from traumatic, often prolonged, periods of internal conflict face particular sets of challenges to democratic development. Post-conflict states typically confront a myriad of problems including weak or nonexistent public institutions, ongoing instability, displaced populations, social, political and economic devastation, shattered infrastructure, international military intervention, and a legacy of organized crime or ethnic violence.

Do international factors, including the policies of Western actors, play a significant role in aiding or hampering the development of democratic institutions and values in post-conflict states such as Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Liberia, Rwanda or Timor Leste? If so, when and how do international military interventions, transitional trusteeships, peace-keeping missions, integration policies, external incentives, financial and technical aid, socialization techniques, diplomacy or demonstration effects influence post-conflict democratic development? What combination of domestic conditions and external factors are most likely to encourage the creation or reconstruction of democratic states post-conflict? 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.

This research track, the fourth of four planned, will focus on understanding the international dimensions of post-conflict democratic development. By exploring a set of successful and failed cases 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 is scheduled to commence in October 2008.