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This paper studies nepotism by government officials in an authoritarian regime. We collect a unique dataset of political promotions of officials in Vietnam and estimate their impact on public infrastructure in their hometowns. We find strong positive effects on several outcomes, some with lags, including roads to villages, marketplaces, clean water access, preschools, irrigation, and local radio broadcasters, as well as the hometown's propensity to benefit from the State's "poor commune support program". Nepotism is not limited to only top-level officials, pervasive even among those without direct authority over hometown budgets, stronger when the hometown chairperson's and promoted official's ages are closer, and where provincial leadership has more discretionary power in shaping policies, suggesting that nepotism works through informal channels based on specific political power and environment. Contrary to pork barrel politics in democratic parliaments, members of the Vietnamese legislative body have little influence on infrastructure investments for their hometowns. Given the top-down nature of political promotions, officials arguably do not help their tiny communes in exchange for political support. Consistent with that, officials favor only their home commune and ignore their home district, which could offer larger political support. These findings suggest that nepotism is motivated by officials' social preferences directed towards their related circles, and signals an additional form of corruption that may prevail in developing countries with low transparency.

This paper studies nepotism by government officials in an authoritarian regime. We collect a unique dataset of political promotions of officials in Vietnam and estimate their impact on public infrastructure in their hometowns. We find strong positive effects on several outcomes, some with lags, including roads to villages, marketplaces, clean water access, preschools, irrigation, and local radio broadcasters, as well as the hometown's propensity to benefit from the State's "poor commune support program". Nepotism is not limited to only top-level officials, pervasive even among those without direct authority over hometown budgets, stronger when the hometown chairperson's and promoted official's ages are closer, and where provincial leadership has more discretionary power in shaping policies, suggesting that nepotism works through informal channels based on specific political power and environment. Contrary to pork barrel politics in democratic parliaments, members of the Vietnamese legislative body have little influence on infrastructure investments for their hometowns. Given the top-down nature of political promotions, officials arguably do not help their tiny communes in exchange for political support. Consistent with that, officials favor only their home commune and ignore their home district, which could offer larger political support. These findings suggest that nepotism is motivated by officials' social preferences directed towards their related circles, and signals an additional form of corruption that may prevail in developing countries with low transparency.

Duplicate record, see https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1383. This paper studies nepotism by government officials in an authoritarian regime. We collect a unique dataset of political promotions of officials in Vietnam and estimate their impact on public infrastructure in their hometowns. We find strong positive effects on several outcomes, some with lags, including roads to villages, marketplaces, clean water access, preschools, irrigation, and local radio broadcasters, as well as the hometown's propensity to benefit from the State's "poor commune support program". Nepotism is not limited to only top-level officials, pervasive even among those without direct authority over hometown budgets, stronger when the hometown chairperson's and promoted official's ages are closer, and where provincial leadership has more discretionary power in shaping policies, suggesting that nepotism works through informal channels based on specific political power and environment. Contrary to pork barrel politics in democratic parliaments, members of the Vietnamese legislative body have little influence on infrastructure investments for their hometowns. Given the top-down nature of political promotions, officials arguably do not help their tiny communes in exchange for political support. Consistent with that, officials favor only their home commune and ignore their home district, which could offer larger political support. These findings suggest that nepotism is motivated by officials' social preferences directed towards their related circles, and signals an additional form of corruption that may prevail in developing countries with low transparency.

The question of whether and how democracy can be promoted and protected through international support has recently gained relevance. On the one hand, the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan has reignited a public debate on the limits of democracy promotion. On the other hand, the need for international democracy protection is growing due to an increase in autocratisation trends worldwide. DIE research shows that it is possible to effectively support and protect democracy. In this context, both the protection of central democratic institutions, such as term limits for rulers, and the promotion of democratic forces that pro-actively resist attempts at auto¬cratisation are central. Since 2010, autocratisation trends have been characterised by the fact that they often slowly erode achieved democratisation successes and consolidate autocracies. The circumvention and abolition of presidential term limits by incumbent presidents are part of the typical "autocratisation toolbox". Term extensions limit democratic control and expand presidential powers. Democracy promotion and protection play a relevant role in preserving presidential term limits, and thus in protecting democracy. They contribute towards improving the "duration" and "survival chances" of presidential term limits. The more international democracy promotion is provided, the lower the risk that term limits will be circumvented. For example, a DIE analysis found that a moderately high democracy promotion mean of $2.50 per capita over four years on average halves the risk of presidential term limits being circumvented.Based on quantitative analysis and case studies, the following recommendations for international democracy promoters emerge:• Use democracy promotion and protection in a complementary way. On the one hand, democracy must be promoted continuously, as the organisa¬tional and oppositional capacity of political and civil society actors can only be built up in the long term. On the other hand, democracy protectors must also react in the short term to political crises with ad hoc measures and diplomatic means.• Democracy promotion is a risky investment that pays off. Whether it is possible to promote democracy in the long term and protect it from autocratisation depends above all on domestic forces and institutions. For them, too, political crises are open-ended. While inaction tends to play into the hands of autocrats, context-sensitive engagement at least offers the possibility of contributing to the preservation of democracy. • Strengthen democracy protection through regional organisations. Regional organisations such as ECOWAS and the African Union offer regional political structures that can help with de-escalation and ensure credible commitments on the part of the incumbents. International donors could therefore coordinate with regional organisations in situations where democracy is at stake.

Whether democracy promotion should play a role in US foreign policy continues to be a subject of considerable debate, perhaps nowhere more than with regard to the Arab World. But looking beyond the "whether," what explains why, where, and how the United States promotes democracy? What caused the shift from the Obama administration's support of the Arab Spring protests in 2011 to its retreat from democracy promotion only two years later? What explains the Trump administration's focus on relationships with autocrats? In the context of these questions, Mieczysław Boduszyński explores the tensions between interests and ideals in US foreign policy and the possibilities and limits of US democracy promotion in a region where Washington has often supported autocracy over freedom

Regional organisations (ROs) around the world increasingly use sanctions against member states in situations of democratic crisis. This special issue unpacks the trend of RO sanctions in regions that are both democracy-dense (Europe and the Americas) and autocracy-dense (Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East). We argue that regional sanctions cannot be taken at face value as instruments of democracy promotion. Instead, the politics of regional sanctions unveil controversies over the substance and limits of democracy, as well as over practical processes of regional interference in a sphere that is at the core of 'domestic affairs'. In this introductory article, we situate the special issue at the crossroads of debates within comparative regionalism, sanctions, and democracy/autocracy promotion, and discuss how the membership premise crucially distinguishes RO measures from foreign policy and United Nations (UN) sanctions.

After a period of relatively small activity in this region, in 2007, the European Union offered a strategy for Central Asia. This strategy addressed many issues, including democratic deficit and human rights violations. The main obstacles to the implementation of the strategy are autocratic tendencies and corruption, the influence of neighbors strongly leaning towards autocracy and the post-Soviet legacy. Additionally, the EU's activity is overshadowed by the US and has minimal capacity for pursuing its own policy toward Central Asia. Another problem is the fact that after implementing this EU strategy toward Central Asia there are no new initiatives which contribute to more visible European activity in that region.

Russia and China are assumed to challenge democratization and to promote autocracy. In a first step, we analyze Central Asia as the most-likely case, considering both Russia and China as relevant external actors. We develop a concept for our analysis based on the different strategies of Russia (dominance) and China (doing-business) towards the region and present the results of a qualitative study of the main dimensions of autocracy promotion with respect to regional and bilateral schemes. In a second step, we extend a previous framework (Melnykovska and Schweickert 2011) and provide econometric evidence based on a panel of post-socialist countries. We show that bilateral schems are (still) more relevant for external influences in Central Asia and that (unintentionally) China's doing-business approach may in fact promote institutional change. Arguably, democratization should not be a precondition for cooperation as in European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) but rather be promoted by sweeping economic cooperation incentives.

AbstractDemocracy promotion is an integral component of European foreign policy. However, the 1990s' rosy proliberalization rhetoric faded with the failed interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the bumpy integration of the Western Balkans into the EU and the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab world despite the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring. This article suggests four explanations for the observed lack of effectiveness of European democracy promotion: (1) the absence of a consensus among democracy promoters about policy objectives, and the interference of hidden agendas; (2) the neglect of rational interests of domestic actors and the dynamics of the external–domestic interplay in democracy promotion; (3) the adaption of authoritarian incumbents to the domestic and international threats to democratize, and (4) the existence of negative external actors interested in promoting autocracy and undermining democratic transition.

The article deals with the ideological resources of the Russian Federation to resist democracy promotion in the context of geopolitical struggle for Ukraine. The author emphasizes that ideological component of the fight for Ukraine makes significant impact on and to a large extent defines the development of confrontation between the main players as collective West from one side and Russia from the other, which developed its own concept of non-liberal regime and mechanisms of its external projecion as a mode to resist democracy promotion. During 2004-2017 the geopolitcal fight for Ukraine has been activating particluarly in ideological aspects especially in connection with two the most prominent examples of external players' participation in the democratization processes and authoritarian reaction as Orange Revolution of 2004-2005 and Euromaidan / Revolution of Dignity of 2013-2014. Period of 2013-2017 has become the most demonstrative, since the Russian Federation among its «hard power» resources had used significant tools of ideological resistance toward democracy promotion as: autocracy promotion, «sovereign democracy», «russian world / peace» («russkiimir»), neoeurasianism toward Ukraine.
Keywords: Ideological resources, democracy promotion, geopolitical struggle, Ukraine, Russia