ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains "The Domestic Political Impact of Foreign aid: Recalibrating the Research Agenda", situates democracy support within a broader context of international intervention relevant to spreading democracy worldwide. It examines and compares some of the main means or policy initiatives whereby democracy promotion operates, most notably by referring to different economic, state-centered, and civil society approaches respectively. The chapter examines whether recent developments in theorizing about international public goods, which received a boost from a report of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods, "Meeting Global Challenges: International Cooperation in the National Interest", offers insights into the increasingly troubled state of democracy promotion. More particularly, it examines whether an extended application of public goods theory could offer grounds for increasing the commitment to promoting democracy abroad.
