COVID-19 Update: NED is continuing to operate during this worldwide health emergency, and to make grants in support of democracy.
However, our office is closed to the public and all in-person events and meetings have been postponed, cancelled or are occurring virtually.

Debating Democracy Assistance: Sometimes Less Is More

Issue Date October 1999
Volume 10
Issue 4
Page Numbers 125-28
file Print
arrow-down-thin Download from Project MUSE
external View Citation

Read the full essay here.

About the Author

Irena Lasota is president of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe (IDEE), an organization that assists democratic and human rights groups and independent media in postcommunist countries, and editor-at-large of its journal, Uncaptive Minds. From 1981 to 1990, she was president of the Committee in Support of Solidarity.

View all work by Irena Lasota

Further Reading

Volume 10, Issue 2

What Went Wrong in Russia? The Perils of a Protracted Transition

Read the full essay here.

Volume 18, Issue 2

The 2006 Freedom House Survey: The Pushback Against Democracy

Although the overall state of democracy in the world differed little from that in 2005, a series of worrisome trends seem to be contributing to a stagnation of freedom.

Volume 15, Issue 3

South Africa After Apartheid: The First Decade

Over the ten years since its first nonracial elections in 1994, South Africa has seen its democratic order become more firmly institutionalized, even as the electoral dominance of the ANC…