Studies of International Democracy Promotion in Post-conflict Societies and Fragile States (2010-2018)

In my cumulative habilitation project I investigate the instruments and strategies of international democracy promotion in post-conflict societies and fragile states, the effects of such external support and the reasons for the (mostly limited) effectiveness of international democracy promotion. Three research questions are investigated: How do external actors promote democracy in post-conflict societies and fragile states? How effective is international democracy promotion in post-conflict societies and fragile states? What does influence the effectiveness of international democracy promotion in post-conflict societies and fragile states? To understand successes and failures in post-conflict democratization, the standard literature is right to argue that both external and domestic structures and actors need to be taken into account. However, this is not sufficient to explain the limited effectiveness of international democracy promotion in post-conflict democratization. In my view, the interplay of external and domestic actors in political power struggles during regime transition corresponding to international democracy promotion and post-conflict democratization also needs to be taken into account. Why domestic actors adapt or not towards democratic rules and norms can be explained through the dynamics of the external-domestic interplay, conflicts of preferences between and among external and domestic actors and domestic constraints such as the existence of domestic third parties that limit the room to manoeuvre of relevant domestic political actors.
Funded by the University of Konstanz and the Institute for Advanced Study, Center of Excellence, University of Konstanz.

Can Democracy be Imposed? External Democracy Promotion after Military  Intervention 1945-2010 (PhD research project 2005-2010)

The purpose of this project is to investigate the influence of external actors on transition and regime change through and after military intervention. External actors increasingly seek to induce democratic regime change in conflict torn societies to secure peace and stability. However, the legality, legitimacy and effectiveness of changing a political system in a sovereign country through large scale external intrusion in domestic state affairs have to be questioned. Cases of external democratization between 1945 and 2010 are investigated and the dilemmas of external democratization after military intervention are discussed. The project takes a special glance on the external supervision in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the international trusteeship administration in Kosovo, the multilateral monitoring mission in Afghanistan and the US occupation of Iraq. A critical comparison with West Germany’s way to democracy under Allied oversight 1945 till 1949 rounds up the analysis. It becomes apparent that the dilemmas of external democratization can hardly be solved and democratization success  by externally induced regime change is limited.
The results of this project have been published as "Erzwungene Demokratie: Politische Neurodnung unter externer Aufsicht nach militärischer Intervention" (in German) in 2010, supported by a publication grant of the Social Science Research Center Berlin [WZB] and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt [PRIF/HSFK].