The Democratic Reform Process Model - General Discussion

Comment: A common practice on mine is to baseline my understanding on a topic by writing on it.  This increases my knowledge and is a point to which I return and adjust my knowledge as well.  In addition, my objective was to write in a manner in which others could increase their understanding as well.  I have modified this paper for posting purposes.  The topic originated from the Marshall Plan then through several model revisions and ultimately arriving at the Democratic Reform Process model.  This is one in a set of posts on Democracy:

Community Leadership

Democratic Reform Process Model - In Practice

The Democratic Reform Process Model - General Discussion

Figure 1: DRP Model

The United States encourages Representative Democracy or a Republic and capital economies as a means to elevate human dignity and rights around the globe. Democracy has been the view of the United States as the only form of civil government that can best emplace these virtues. Over time as the United States engages increasing numbers of dissimilar and even hostile cultures, numerous approaches of reforms have emerged resulting in an evolutionary model.  

The current approach to implementing democratic reforms centers on a process model that has an economic backbone. Host nations must willfully build the capacity and capabilities to implement the desirable reforms themselves. The United States partners and in some cases organizes coalitions with the host nation in order to mentor the process. The desired end state is a democratic ally who participates in the global community - economically and politically. 

The book 'Managing Policy Reforms', Figure 1, advances the Democratic Reform Process, DRP,  model as a closed loop feed back model that is a strategic management tool. This model considers the reform process from the perspective of the transitioning country's decision maker challenges and measures of effectiveness indicate progress towards the end state. These challenges commonly center of governance, economic, and the organization's ability to implement the reforms. 

Governance: Host nations often have competitive forms of governance with democracy. Democratic reforms often require anti-corruption campaigns, citizen participation, controls, and judicial restructuring. Sometimes restructuring is not sufficient and complete re-constitution of a new governmental framework is necessary. 

Organizational: In order to support democratic reforms, agencies and systems require a systemic overhaul into an organizational framework that is supportive of the desired reforms. Host nations often simply do not possess the skilled work force, organizational framework, and/or operational process sophistication. Identification of these systemic shortfalls is necessary but action is often constrained due to a lack of financial strength to implement. A strong economic tax base is an underpinning of successful implementation.  

Economic:  Many host nations that have been under repressive or inattentive rule simply have never developed the requisite financial strength necessary to implement full reforms. Barriers in local economies such as graft, corruption, and other adverse conduct prevent economic expansion.  Management programs must be in place to reduce the effects and remove the negative influences if possible.  As a nation's economic strength increases then improvements are notable in terms of human living conditions, dignity, personal incomes, quality of life, and healthcare.

As economic strength increases a ready source of internal revenues become available to fund reforms. Taxation must be carefully managed in order to balance the funds redistributed to economic growth.  In part the temptation for graft and corruption may persist and adversely impact the reforms. 

The basic model of implementing democratic and capitalistic reforms centers on a closed loop feedback system. Progress towards the end state are tracked using measures of effectiveness that relate to governance, economic and organizational centers. In order to develop reforms in a focused center constituencies, legitimization, and resources must be championed as well. 

References:

Brinkerhoff, D.; Crosby, B. (2001). Managing policy reforms: concepts and tools for decision-makers in developing and transitioning countries.  Kumarian press: NY.