This paper explores the question of whether or not foreign aid has helped to build state strength and legitimacy in Afghanistan, and not just bolster state capacity to fight a war.
Before a 2006 UN Special Session proclaimed there should be universal access to antiretrovirals (ARV), the life-saving drugs were far too expensive for most people with AIDS. In a new CGD working paper, Ethan Kapstein and Josh Busby examine how activists transformed ARVs from expensive private goods into so-called merit goods—products that society agrees should be accessible to all. In a related blog post they discuss the implications of their analysis for AIDS and other global challenges.
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Why do some young democracies fail? Drawing on a unique data set of every democratization episode since 1960, The Fate of Young Democracies explores the underlying reasons for backsliding and reversal in the world’s fledgling democracies and offers proposals for ways that the international community can help these states stay on track toward political stability.
Why do new democracies sometimes fail? This CGD brief by visiting fellow Ethan Kapstein explores the underlying reasons for frequent backsliding in the world's fledgling democracies and offers the international community recommendations for helping them stay on track toward political stability. Kapstein argues that the international community should encourage political arrangements in which government leaders are constrained by effective checks and balances, and economic policies that help to ensure that the benefits of growth are widely shared.
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In this new working paper, CGD visiting fellow Ethan Kapstein and Nathan Converse analyze the economic performance of young democracies around the world and find that stagnating economic performance is a good indicator of imminent democratic reversal. The authors also find evidence suggesting that the design of political institutions significantly influence their probability of survival.
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Since 1974 the world has experienced a “third wave” of democratization. Ensuring that these new democracies consolidate is critical to both global prosperity and peace. Unfortunately, the academic literature that might help policy-makers shape appropriate foreign assistance programs remains underdeveloped, in that it lacks strong behavioral foundations, or explanations of why people act the way they do. This paper argues that the process of democratic consolidation requires a transition from clientelistic to contractual exchange relationships. Without that transition, efforts to promote democratic consolidation are unlikely to succeed.