ABSTRACT
Regime change is not an exclusively domestic affair but rather a multi-layered and highly internationalized phenomenon. While comparativists have traditionally concurred that domestic factors are decisive in any transition to and consolidation of democracy, they increasingly acknowledged the importance of international factors in the form of both structurally induced influences such as diffusion effects1 and more direct, agency-driven influences.2 Scholars have devoted their attention to the specification of the conditions under which external actors can effectively support local actors in their attempts to advance and consolidate democratic reforms. There appears to be agreement that external promotion activities
∗Corresponding author. Email: t.freyburg@warwick.ac.uk
Tina Freyburga a Solveig Richterb
DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AND THE CHALLENGES
need to resonate with internal reform attempts in order to have any democracyfostering influence.3 Democracy promotion then becomes characterized by a “two-fold dynamic of cooperation and change”.4
