Promoting Democracy Under Electoral Authoritarianism: Evidence From Cambodia

• Published date: 01 June 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140221139387
• Author: Susan D. Hyde,Emily Lamb,Oren Samet
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2023, Vol. 56(7) 1029–1071

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140221139387

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Promoting Democracy

Under Electoral

Authoritarianism:

Evidence From

Cambodia

Susan D. Hyde

1

, Emily Lamb

2

, and Oren Samet

1



Abstract

After many decades and billions of dollars spent, the effects of foreign de-

mocracy promotion interventions remain poorly understood, particularly in

authoritarian contexts. Do these external interventions contribute to the

building blocks of democratization and democratic consolidation under au-

tocracy? Do these potential contributions come at the cost of bolstering

autocrats’credibility? This article presents a randomized study of a democracy

promotion program undertaken by a prominent international non-

governmental organization (INGO) in rural Cambodia, in which elected

parliamentarians from multiple political parties interacted with constituents.

The intervention had relatively large effects on individuals’knowledge about

politics and self-reported political engagement but, crucially, did not give

citizens increased conf‌idence in Cambodia’s“democracy,”suggesting a role

for democracy promotion without whitewashing the authoritarian nature of

Cambodian politics. Overall, the results suggest that democracy promotion

under authoritarianism can foster a more engaged and informed citizenry

without lending undue credibility to an authoritarian system.

1

Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

2

Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University, Ohio, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Susan D. Hyde, Department of Political Science, Robson Professor, University of California, 210

Social Sciences Building 1950, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Email: susanhyde@berkeley.edu

Keywords

democracy promotion, electoral authoritarianism, Cambodia, f‌ield experiment,

democratization, and regime change

Introduction

As a prominent component of foreign policy, democracy promotion attracts

billions of dollars in foreign aid and substantial rhetorical attention from many

world leaders. Most foreign aid for democracy promotion supports non-

partisan programming (also called democracy assistance or democracy

support) which is carried out in more than 100 countries by non-governmental

and intergovernmental organizations (Bush, 2015;Carothers, 2004;Donno,

2013;Escrib`

a-Folch & Wright, 2015;Youngs, 2010). In new and emerging

democracies, many of these programs, including civic education initiatives,

community dialogues, and civil society support, are aimed at encouraging

citizens to participate in politics and empowering them to demand ac-

countability from their governments (Lawson & Epstein, 2019). These

programs are premised on the idea, supported by academic research, that

democracy thrives where associational life is strong and where the citizenry is

engaged with politics (Almond & Verba, 1963;Diamond, 1999;Gaventa &

Barrett, 2012;Gibson, 2001;Putnam, 1993). In new and emerging democ-

racies, this type of engagement can therefore lay the groundwork for dem-

ocratic consolidation.

A substantial portion of funding for democracy promotion, however, is

directed at more entrenched authoritarian countries, particularly electoral

autocracies, where similar programming faces unique challenges (Bush, 2015;

Grimm & Leininger, 2012;Scott & Carter, 2020). In these contexts, orga-

nizations must balance the goal of supporting democratization against the

reality of working under governments that may be threatened by direct de-

mocracy promotion. As Sarah Bush documents, democracy-promoting or-

ganizations often have strong incentives to f‌ind programs that are “regime

compatible,”which avoid direct challenges to authoritarian rule (Bush, 2015).

These are practical decisions: few international non-governmental organi-

zations (INGOs) want to jeopardize the safety of their staff or risk expulsion

from a host country. But they also have implications for democracy pro-

motion’s effectiveness in these contexts. Such programming runs the risk of

bolstering autocratic governments and undermining public demand for

genuine democratization.

Given these realities, what impact do these efforts have in practice? First,

can interventions in electoral autocracies actually contribute to a more aware

and engaged citizenry, in line with intentions and with evidence from more

democratic settings? Second, when democracy promotion is subject to

1030 Comparative Political Studies 56(7)

oversight by an autocratic regime, can it still increase bottom-up demand for

more democratic governance? Or, by empowering citizens with knowledge

about the procedurally democratic aspects of the political process in their

countries and improving the responsiveness of state off‌icials, are democracy

assistance practitioners unwittingly improving perceptions of electoral au-

thoritarian regimes, or giving a false impression of functioning democracy?

To answer these questions, this article examines a democracy promotion

intervention carried out in Cambodia in 2011 and 2012. At the time, Cambodia

constituted an archetypal electoral authoritarian regime. Prime Minister Hun

Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), in power for decades, con-

sistently harassed and stif‌led opposition. Nevertheless, government off‌icials

often pointed to the trappings of procedural democracy in order to bolster the

regime’s credibility both at home and abroad (Karbaum, 2011;McCargo,

2005;Morgenbesser, 2016;Un, 2005). In this context, we studied the effects

of a program aimed at fostering dialogue between Members of the National

Assembly (MNAs) and their rural constituents. The program organized

village-level constituency meetings, where citizens were able to engage with

MNAs from multiple political parties. The study aimed to introduce a f‌ield

experiment into the ongoing INGO-led and foreign-funded program while

being minimally disruptive to the existing program architecture.

The intervention studied is a reasonably common type of “indirect”de-

mocracy assistance (Grimm & Leininger, 2012) aimed at improving the

responsiveness of elected off‌icials with a combination of civic education,

exposure to multiple political parties, and an opportunity to voice concerns

directly to parliamentarians.

1

This article thus contributes to a growing body

of research on democracy and governance that relies on f‌ield experimental

methods,

2

and builds on previous work to evaluate an INGO-implemented

democracy promotion intervention in an electoral authoritarian context, where

a unique set of underlying conditions and concerns arise.

Based on randomization of the treatment within village pairs in rural

Cambodia, we found that the intervention had relatively large effects on

individuals’knowledge about politics and their self-reported willingness to

take a variety of political and civic actions. Crucially, however, the inter-

vention did not give citizens increased conf‌idence in the political process,

which in an electoral authoritarian country would be misleading absent more

fundamental reforms.

This is a somewhat hopeful f‌inding for democracy promotion under

electoral authoritarianism: this program enabled citizens to learn about civic

action that could be useful or necessary in the context of future political

liberalization. But citizens did not interpret this interaction with their MNAs as

a sign that Cambodia was a functioning democracy. The effects also went

beyond self-reported attitudes, including noticeable but unanticipated changes

in voting behavior more than a year after the study’sf‌inal meeting. Thus, there

Hyde et al. 1031