ABSTRACT
International democracy promotion has become an increasingly prominent activity. Significant efforts are currently under way to evaluate more rigorously the results of one particular version of democracy promotion, namely past projects and programs in democracy assistance. International support for promoting democracy has increased substantially over the last two decades, and reported democracy assistance is now in excess of US$5billion dollars annually. The literature on democracy promotion suggests yet further refinements are needed to capture the full variety. The reasoning behind a double shift from activities to instruments and from past performance to future policy is not revolutionary although the context is new. Debates about the policy goal of democracy promotion should benefit from sound appraisal. The fact that the strategies for promoting democracy are constitutive of political relationships with countries such that different strategies have different implications for the possibilities of democratic self-determination certainly merits closer consideration.
