By Randall Nielsen

“Among the great variety of developments that have occurred in the twentieth century, I did not, ultimately, have any difficulty in choosing one as the preeminent development of the period: the rise of democracy.“ — Amartya Sen

At the Kettering Foundation’s semiannual retreat last January, staff and associates discussed opportunities for—and challenges to—engaging our research in international contexts. Some proposals focused on new lines of research. Others identified existing areas of Kettering research that might be usefully illuminated through wider international experience. As always, we tried to identify critical problems that the particular strengths of the foundation’s research might speak to. What have we learned about what people in other countries see as the central challenges to their efforts to strengthen democracy?

Participants noted the problems resulting from viewing democracy as a Western import. Subsequent discussion quickly led to insights about the importance of thinking clearly about how international research into the challenges of “making democracy work” should be done. One unique strength of the foundation’s research is the result of what we call joint-learning agreements. How might a similar approach in the international research help alleviate the “Western import” problem?

In a widely cited article published in the Journal of Democracy (1999), Amartya Sen argues that the “recognition of democracy as a universally relevant system, which moves in the direction of its acceptance as a universal value, is a major revolution in thinking, and one of the main contributions of the twentieth century.” However, Sen notes a critical challenge to democratic experiments, one identified by the Kettering Foundation a decade ago—a thin notion of what democracy is and what it requires of people, communities, and institutions.

Sen identifies one symptom of the problem: the tendency to equate democracy with the mechanics and structures of majority rule in elections. This implies that democracy is largely a technical challenge and can be exported—or even imposed—by creating formal institutions that structure repre¬sentative voting. As such, democracy is correctly seen as a Western concept. In many countries, this makes experiments with democracy harder to legitimize, and therefore less secure under the inevitable tensions brought on by change.

We may be witnessing the impact of that “thin notion” in Latin America. A recent report issued by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) found that over 50 percent of Latin Americans say they would support an authoritarian regime over democratic government if authoritarian rule could restore order and resolve their economic problems. If democracy is viewed principally as a means of choosing officeholders, it may not seem like much to give up.

The foundation’s research is based on a deeper, more general vision of democracy. It is grounded in a focus on the roles people need to play as problem-solving actors in democratic politics. As such, democracy is seen not as a destination—which when reached will deliver particular outcomes—but as the ongoing journey of people struggling with challenges to their collective ability to rule themselves. The challenges to citizen self-rule are not fixed; they emerge from changes in technology, demographics, and global political forces. Kettering research thus emphasizes the study of practices—ways that citizens, communities, and institutions can work together—that hold the promise of increasing the ability of people to act in concert on problems they share. It also recognizes that because circumstances change, constant study and refinement of the ways those practices work is required.

Seen that way, democracy is not a thing that can be granted to people, exported to people, or imposed. Democracy has to be made to work by the people who make up the citizenry of a place. What does that paradigm suggest about alternatives to “exporting democracy”?

One way the foundation develops and tests insights is through learning agreements with organizations that have their own reasons for attempting to “make democracy work as it should.” These organizations have chosen to explore how they can facilitate the public engagement of issues. Furthermore, they hope to learn from their efforts and share that learning systematically. The foundation’s joint-learning agreements do not fund the organization’s activity, but rather support the costs of documenting and sharing what is learned about mutually agreed-upon lines of questions.

The Kettering Foundation has two general goals for the joint-learning projects. First and most obvious is to develop our practical understanding of how to make public life work better, and report findings in ways that can inform other organizations struggling with similar challenges under different conditions. Kettering realizes that organizations exploring their impact on civic life need to learn their way to more effective practice. Learning is also necessary for efforts to continue to grow through time. The development and growth of effective democratic practice does not come from building on success so much as from learning from experience. Although it is difficult for any organization to reflect on unsuccessful efforts, it is exactly those “failures” that provide some of the best opportunities for shared learning.

However, we also know that many organizations lack the capacity to interrogate their experiences in productive ways. Most are set up to do things, not to reflect on and record what they are learning in ways that allow findings to be shared. The foundation’s shared-learning relationships deliberately intend to address that dilemma. When successful, they have the long-term effect of changing the way organizations see themselves as civic actors, especially through the development of their capacity to learn and document what they are learning and thus continue to innovate in practice.

Recent meetings with international organizations revealed some intriguing possibilities for shared-learning agreements. As described in Ileana Marin’s article, an increasing number of organizations around the world are coming to see the potential of deliberately exploring how to interact with citizens in public life. Some have recognized that, although there are no simple techniques for doing so, lessons from experience can be derived and shared so that efforts can complement and build on each other. There are clearly more opportunities for international shared-learning agreements now than ever before.

However, these meetings also reinforced our understanding of the challenges to doing international research through joint-learning agreements. By far the biggest obstacle is in distinguishing the goals of the foundation as a research organization from those of grantmaking organizations. Many of the standard protocols that tie organizations in other countries to U.S. grantmaking foundations are in direct tension with the development of joint-learning relationships. Joint-learning relationships depend on keeping the responsibility for the work, and the learning that results, located in the organizations and their communities. Extensive experience with grant evaluations, however, has taught many organizations to document instru¬mental activities rather than record their reflections on experiments.

Conventional practices of evaluation often hinder effective, self-generated learning, perhaps more so in international contexts. Still, we have reason to believe that the challenge can be dealt with successfully. At a recent meeting with organizations from various countries, one participant argued that he saw no tension between acting and learning in his organization’s protocols. He noted that organizations that proceed without reflection inevitably fail. Successful organizations are constantly learning. The challenge, he noted, is in capturing the learning in ways that can be shared with others. Although that challenge may be more difficult when dealing with organizations in other countries, the growing recognition of the potential of shared-learning agreements gives reason for hope.

Randall Nielsen is a program officer at the Kettering Foundation.