QoG lunchseminarium med Leonie Reicheneder

Democracy assistance is often disbursed to countries recovering from civil war to promote transitions from war to democracy. Despite largely negative expectations about general aid effectiveness, there is considerable variation in the success of democracy aid to post-conflict countries when it comes to promoting democracy and democratization. However, what explains these differences in the degree to which democracy aid promotes democracy and democratization remains unclear. This paper develops and tests the argument that the way in which the preceding civil war was resolved affects the recipient elites’ incentives to implement post-conflict democracy aid. In particular, I expect the impact of democracy aid on democratization to vary with three conflict outcomes - peace agreements, ceasefire agreements and decisive victories – as these traits determine the balance of power and the cost of democratization in the post-conflict setting. I test the argument by analyzing the effect of democracy aid on democracy levels for all post-conflict countries between 1947 and 2013. The results reveal that conflict outcomes play an important role in shaping the outcome of democracy aid to post-conflict countries. Democracy aid is more effective in settings where civil wars are resolved through peace agreements and less effective after decisive victories by one side. The findings contribute to a deepened understanding of why the effectiveness of democracy aid varies across post-conflict contexts.