Evaluating U.S. democracy promotion in the balkans: Ironies, inconsistencies, and unexamined influences

Problems of Post-Communism

Volumn 56, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 3-15

  Brown, Keith ^a  

^a BROWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 68149162610     PISSN: 10758216     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2753/PPC1075-8216560301     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. International Crisis Group, "Collapse in Kosovo," Europe Report no. 155 (April 22, 2004), p. i.
2. Harry Blair, Lorel Donaghey, and Dardan Velija, "Kosovo Civil Society Sector Assessment: Final Report" (Management Systems International, Washington, DC, May 2004), p. iv.
3. The practice and principles of evaluation have been widely discussed in scholarly circles, and some of the issues discussed in this paper can be traced in publications from two decades ago. See, for example, Roland Hoksbergen, "Approaches to Evaluations of Development Projects: The Importance of World and Life Views," World Development 14, no. 2 (1986): 283-300;
4. Dennis Palumbo, ed., The Politics of Program Evaluation (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987), especially the chapters by Egon Guba and Yvonna Lincoln, and by Carol Weiss, as well as more recent work, such as Des Gasper, The Ethics of Development: From Economism to Human Development (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004). I have chosen to focus here less on the theoretical debates and more on the empirical data from a set of evaluations conducted in countries of the former Yugoslavia over the past decade, none of which refer to this literature.
5. Rachel Boynton, Our Brand Is Crisis (Boynton Film Productions, 2005).
6. Blair, Donaghey, and Velija, "Kosovo Civil Society Sector Assessment," p. iv.
7. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in the War on Poverty (New York: Free Press, 1970).
8. Harry Blair, Richard Blue, Mihailo Popovski, and Ilo Trajkovski, "Assessment of the Civil Society Sector in Macedonia" (Development Associates, Arlington, VA, August 2003).
9. Harry Blair, Robert Herman, Danko Cosic, and Marguerite Galaty, "Strategic Assessment of Civil Sector and Political Processes for Serbia" (Management Systems International, Washington, DC, August 2004).
10. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 311-16.
11. Keith Brown, ed., Transacting Transition: The Micropolitics of Democracy Assistance in the Former Yugoslavia (Westport, CT: Kumarian Press, 2006).
12. For an insightful discussion of the construction of knowledge through impact assessment in South Asia, see Sue Phillips and Richard Edwards, "Development, Impact Assessment, and the Praise Culture," Critique of Anthropology 20, no. 1 (2000): 47-66.
13. Claire Sneed, "Neutrality, Empowerment, Gender: Fostering Democratic Culture in Southwestern Serbia," in Transacting Transition: The Micropolitics of Democracy Assistance in the Former Yugoslavia, ed. Keith Brown (Westport, CT: Kumarian Press, 2006), pp. 99-120.
14. Gregory J. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919-1929 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974).
15. Robert Morin and Dana Stinson "Transitioning to Long-Term Development: An Evaluation of the USAID/OTI Program in Kosovo" (ARD, Burlington, VT, 2001), p. 28.
16. Ibid., pp. 15, 20.
17. Julie Nenon, Biljana Bejkova, and Petar Atanasov, "Potentials for Peace: A Mid-Term Evaluation of OTI's Program in Macedonia: Final Report" (Creative Associates International, Washington, DC, 2003), p. 14.
18. James Traub, The Freedom Agenda: Why America Must Spread Democracy (Just Not the Way George Bush Did) (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008).
19. Edgar S. Cahn and Barry A. Passett, ed., Citizen Participation: Effecting Community Change (New York: Praeger, 1971);
20. Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding.
21. William Paddock and Elizabeth Paddock, We Don't Know How: An Independent Audit of What They Call Success in Foreign Assistance (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973), pp. 41, 46.
22. "Democracy Network II: Final Report [Bosnia and Hercegovina]" (America's Development Foundation, 2004), p. v.
23. Blair, Donaghey, and Velija, "Kosovo Civil Society Sector Assessment," p. 27.
24. Blair et al., "Strategic Assessment of Civil Sector and Political Processes," p. 13.
25. William Millsap and Emory Brusset, "OTI Macedonia Confi dence Building Initiative: Evaluation Report" (Social Impact, Washington, DC, 2003), p. 26.
26. Maureen Taylor, Sanela Pecenkovic, Rada Vujovic, and Dragica Karandic, "Final Evaluation of OTI's Programs in Bosnia and Croatia" (Offi ce of Transition Initiatives, Rutgers University, 2000), p. 45.
27. Paula Hoy, Players and Issues in International Aid (Bloomfi eld, CT: Kumarian Press, 1998), p. 37.
28. George Konrad, Anti-Politics: An Essay, trans. Richard E. Allen (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1984), p. 62.
29. John Fawcett and Victor Tanner, "Political Repercussions of Emerging Programs: A Review of USAID's Offi ce of Foreign Disaster Assistance in the Former Yugoslavia (1991-1996)" (Checchi Associates, Washington, DC, 2000), p. 181 (http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf-docs/PDACJ890.pdf).
30. Mark Duffi eld, "Lunching with Killers," in Scramble for the Balkans, ed. Carl-Ulrik Schierup (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), p. 135;
31. see also David Abramson, "Putting Central Asia on the Anthropological Map," Anthropology News (May 8, 2001): 8.
32. Gerald Creed and Janine Wedel, "Second Thoughts from the Second World: Interpreting Aid in Post-Communist Eastern Europe," Human Organization 56, no. 3 (1997): 253-64.
33. For newsreel footage, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNsp8B1qlI8.
34. Stephen Snook, "An Agency Under Siege: USAID and Its Mission in Tanzania," in Agencies in Foreign Aid: Comparing China, Sweden, and the United States in Tanzania, ed. Goran Hyden and Rwekaza Mukandala (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 68-94.
35. James Coffi n, Witness for AID (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1964), p. 43.
36. Several evaluators include language that reveals their own awareness of the limitations and constraints - fl agging, for example, the pressures to include quantitative measures and the limited time available for data collection (Nenon, Bejkova, and Atanasov, "Potentials for Peace," p. 8;
37. Taylor et al., "Final Evaluation of OTI's Programs," p. 10). There are some examples of cut-and-paste writing, in the civil society assessments for Kosovo and Serbia published in May and August 2004, and written by teams headed by Harry Blair in each case.
38. Lewis Irwin, "Dancing the Foreign Aid Appropriations Dance: Recurring Themes in the Modern Congresses," Public Budgeting and Finance 20, no. 2 (2002): 30-48.
39. This sentence facetiously over-emphasizes the professionalized guild language in which these evaluations are often written.
40. Vernon Ruttan, United States Development Assistance Policy: The Domestic Politics of Foreign Economic Aid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 229.
41. Ibid., pp. 230 ff.
42. See, for example, Fawcett and Tanner, "Political Repercussions of Emerging Programs," p. 161.
43. David J. Keen, Complex Emergencies (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008), p. 135; other fi gures drawn from www.guidestar.org.
44. Jeff Merritt, "Quick Impact, Slow Recovery? Funders' Priorities and the Local Realities of Transition Programming," in Transacting Transition: The Micropolitics of Democracy Assistance in the Former Yugoslavia, ed. Keith Brown (Westport, CT: Kumarian Press, 2006), pp. 23-44.
45. An example, reported by the Center for Public Integrity, is the negative evaluation of the Chemonics implementation of a USAID-funded local government program in Poland, by rival MSI. USAID reportedly intervened to protect Chemonics' reputation. See www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio. aspx?act= pro&ddlC=8.
46. Millsap and Brusset, "OTI Macedonia Confi dence Building Initiative," p. 10.
47. For discussions of aid chains, see Tina Wallace, Lisa Bornstein, and Jennifer Chapman, The Aid Chain: Coercion and Commitment in Development NGOs (Rugby, South Africa: Practical Action, 2007);
48. Stuart C. Carr, Eilish McAuliffe, and Malcolm MacLachlan, Psychology of Aid (New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 44-64;
49. David Sogge, Give and Take: What's the Matter with Foreign Aid? (New York: Zed Books, 2002), pp. 65-85.
50. Keen, Complex Emergencies, p. 157.
51. Janine Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe, 1989-1998 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), p. 73.
52. Charles King, "Potemkin Democracy: Four Myths About Post-Soviet Georgia," National Interest (June 1, 2001): 103.
53. Keen, Complex Emergencies, p. 14;
54. see also Carol Weiss, "Where Politics and Evaluation Research Meet," in The Politics of Program Evaluation, ed. Dennis Palumbo (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987), p. 49.
55. Keen, Complex Emergencies, p. 155;
56. see also E.J. Clay and B.B. Schaffer, Room for Maneuver: An Exploration of Public Policy Planning in Agricultural and Rural Development (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984).
57. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority (New York: Harper Torch-books, 1974), p. 11.
58. Taylor et al., "Final Evaluation of OTI's Programs," p. 16.
59. Bernard Schaffer, "Toward Responsibility: Public Policy in Concept and Practice," in Room for Maneuver: An Exploration of Public Policy Planning in Agricultural and Rural Development, ed. E.J. Clay and B.B. Schafer (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984), pp. 148 ff.
60. Thomas Carothers, "Think Again: Civil Society," Foreign Policy, no 117 (1999-2000): 18-29;
61. see also Ruth Mandel, "Seeding Civil Society," in Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies, and Practices in Eurasia, ed. Chris Hann (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 279-96.
62. Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
63. This is not to say that the evaluations lack scholarly perspectives, but rather that they are often informed by particular scholarly perspectives. Another example - again drawn from Putnam's work - is the frequent use of the concept of "social capital" without reference to the now signifi cant literature challenging the idea that it represents an unequivocal good.
64. See, for example, USAID/Macedonia, "Strategic Objective Close-Out Report: Increased, Better-Informed Citizen Participation in Political, Economic and Social Decision-Making" (Skopje, 2005), p. 10;
65. Beata Czajkowska, Judith Dunbar, Mike Keshishian, Caroline Sahley, and Kelley Strickland, "Assessment of the Serbian Community Revitalization Through Democratic Action Activity: Final Version" (USAID, Washington, DC, February 1, 2005), p. 19.
66. Kim Perlow, "Moving Civil Society Forward: Results of the Support for Croatia's Nongovernmental Organizations (CroNGO) Program, 2001-2004" (AED, Zagreb, 2005), p. 15.
67. Mercy Corps International, "Lessons Learned in Community Mobilization: Kosovo 2001-2003," p. 4, www.mercycorps.org/files/ file1137796821. pdf.
68. Millsap and Brusset, "OTI Macedonia Confi dence Building Initiative," p. 2.
69. Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 88.
70. Nenon, Bejkova, and Atanasov, "Potentials for Peace," p. 13.
71. A more charitable reading would be to assume that USAID and implementers deliberately chose terminology that would resonate with past traditions and thus gain purchase. In fact, though, Yugoslavia is routinely cast in the same terms as the rest of Eastern Europe, as victim of a Soviet legacy that holds no promise for the future.
72. Richard Kobayashi, Stark Biddle, Ilija Torodorovski, and Natasha Garber Damjanovska, "Macedonia Local Government Program Assessment: Final Report" (Development Associates, Washington, DC, January 2004), pp. 27-28.
73. Ted Priftis and Faye Haselkom, "Serbia Local Government Assessment Team: Final Report" (USAID, Washington, DC, 2004), pp. 7-8.
74. Morin and Stinson, "Transitioning to Long-Term Development," p. 10.
75. Millsap and Brusset, "OTI Macedonia Confi dence Building Initiative," p. 3.
76. Two such individuals are Josif Tanevski, mentioned above, whom I met because I taught his children English in a summer school back in 1993, and who recalled our meeting when I contacted him, out of the blue, in 2008;
77. and Goran Veličkovski, a leading public interest journalist, with whom I have a very close mutual friend. Veličkovski's weekly television program, Zevzekmanija, offers political satire, but it also includes a humanitarian or development component each week, as he highlights stories of need from inside the country and invites viewers to make charitable contributions that address them. Alongside such stories - which document, for example, a shortage of books in a rural school - he also includes tales of common civility that prompt viewers to think about what can be done to improve conditions, with little investment beyond goodwill.
78. Kobayashi et al., "Macedonia Local Government Program Assessment, p. 6.