Learning from Emerging Approaches to Party Programming

Traditionally, political party programs have focused on providing various forms of technical assistance to party activists and leaders. However, without strong incentives for change, greater organizational capacity alone rarely leads to more inclusive, responsive, and accountable political parties. As a result, assistance providers have started to supplement technical assistance to parties with interventions to incentivize more responsive, inclusive, and accountable parties. For instance, through issue-based voter education, debates, citizen platforms, and political process monitoring efforts, civic groups have tried to push political parties to: increase their focus on policies; involve citizens in policy processes; and improve service delivery. Although the theoretical foundations for these approaches appear strong, comparative lessons learned and best practices from practical experiences are limited. A deeper understanding of the efficacy of these approaches is needed to strengthen the effectiveness of political party programming.

To address these research questions, CEPPS/NDI will:

• Conduct a literature review outlining the different types of civic interventions that have been used to incentivize more issue-based parties; existing knowledge of the strengths and limitations of each; and priorities for further research;
• Through desk and field research, develop case studies examining selected experiences with these approaches, best practices, and lessons learned; and
• Develop recommendations to strengthen future programming.