Social Science Research Council

Pursuant to United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) request, the Program on Global Security and Cooperation of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) has designed a research project to evaluate the performance of USAID's Democracy and Governance programs.

The objective of this evaluation is a multi-year, multi-million dollar effort to build a rigorous analytical base on which to make decisions regarding the type, mix, and sequencing of USAID's democracy and governance programs. The evaluation has three goals: 1) to determine whether, and under what circumstances, USAID democracy programs have met their intended objectives, 2) to determine whether these programs had a significant impact on their targeted activity arenas, and 3) to determine whether, how, and under what circumstances democracy programs have changed national political development in targeted countries. Ultimately, USAID hopes that this evaluation will help them improve their programming on democracy.

During the summer of 2003, two researchers, Kenneth A. Bollen, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Pamela Paxton, from Ohio State University—with the research assistance of Rumi Morishima Tosaka, from Ohio State University—reviewed past evaluations, assessments and reviews of projects and programs USAID has undertaken, and drafted a Research Design Plan for the evaluation effort. The Research Design Plan includes research methods and practical plans for implementation.

The SSRC has set up a Democratization Technical Advisory Board to monitor and advise the work of the research team, and ensure that it adheres to high technical standards. This advisory board is comprised by Thomas D. Cook (Stanford University); Robert Bates (Harvard University); Mitchell A. Seligson (University of Pittsburgh); Charles Kurzman (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill); Dietrich Rueschemeyer (Watson Institute at Brown University); Brian Silver (Michigan State University); Gail Leese (USAID); and John Tirman (SSRC).