Search
Filter by
Type
Publication date
Language
Type
Publication date
Language
Publication
Report/Paper
Annex to Final Project Report, Republic of Tajikistan, October 1, 1997 - September 30, 2002: Reference and Training Manual for the Resolution of Election Disputes in Tajikistan (2000)
This manual is designed as a guide for the resolution of electoral disputes. The manual is divided into two parts. The first part analyzes election law while the second part presents various appendix containing the actual law required for the resolution of election disputes.
November 30, 2002
Publication
Report/Paper
Political Parties in Tajikistan (Facts, Figures and Analysis): Final Draft
This report discusses the current (circa 2000) political situation in the Republic of Tajikistan by providing a general description of the political parties and political movements in the country.
October 31, 2002
Publication
Report/Paper
Municipalities in Azerbaijan
This report describes the role municipalities play in the democratic process in Azerbaijan. The document begins by describing what municipalities are, the legal framework regarding municipalities and the structure of municipalities. Following the description of municipalities, the report proceeds by reviewing what municipalities can do for the people, as well as how people can get involved in these institutions. The report concludes by outlining the IFES/Azerbaijan local governance program.
September 30, 2002
Publication
Report/Paper
Guidance for Promoting Judicial Independence and Impartiality -- IFES Judicial Independence Guide
IFES and USAID partnered on a first-of-a-kind multi-year global research project that focused exclusively on issues pertaining to judicial independence. The aim of the resultant publication, Guidance for Promoting Judicial Independence and Impartiality (the Guide), is to identify, organize, and strategically assess the array of judicial independence issues and to share lessons learned and programming experiences with USAID program officers, donors, reformers and civil society. The Guide contains consensus findings, lessons learned, and comparative information gleaned from global surveys, thematic papers, roundtables and the contributions of numerous pro bono advisors. As highlighted in the Guide, transparency reforms, if collectively and strategically undertaken, are among the most important reforms because they promote public participation, open government, access to information, efficiency, and higher quality decision-making. The Guide is now available in Arabic, English, Español, and Français.
September 19, 2002
News & Updates
Press Release
International Conference Launches Global 'Bill of Electoral Rights for People with Disabilities'
Stockholm, September 17th 2002 -- Disability rights experts and activists, senior election administration officials and international parliamentarians from more than 24 countries met in Sigtuna, Sweden on 14-17th September to draft a global 'Bill of Electoral Rights for People with Disabilities' - the outcome of a first ever effort to bring together concerned parties as equal partners to develop a global initiative in this field. The new Bill of Rights defines and promotes the fundamental rights of people with disabilities in relation to all aspects of the electoral process, in particular: the right to a secret vote, full physical accessibility of polling stations, and full and equal electoral rights for people with mental disabilities.
Election Material
Election and Political Party Law
The Bill of Electoral Rights for Citizens with Disabilities
The "Bill of Electoral Rights for Citizens with Disabilities" calls on states to meet their obligation to take effective measures to ensure that all citizens with disabilities are able to exercise their universal right to participate fully and on equal terms in electoral processes.
Publication
Report/Paper
Targeted Assistance to the Voter Registration Process: IFES Final Activity Report May 2000-June 2002
This report is a narrative of IFES Albania program activities under the CEPPS I funding mechanism from May 2000- June 2002. During the period covered in this report IFES was involved with the CEC in preparation for the local government elections of October 2000; the revision of the national voter registry; preparing for and administering the election to the National Assembly in June 2001; the 'clean-up' of the national election including an assessment of the process and identification of future activities of the CEC; and conduct of surveys of local election officials and the judiciary. This document reports on all of these items.
July 31, 2002
Publication
Report/Paper
From Civil War to Civil Society: Lessons from the IFES Democratic Development Programs in Deeply Divided Societies
Introduction Citizen participation in the political system is one of the cornerstones of modern democratic governments. Although participation through voting, lobbying, referenda, interest group formation and a variety of other forms is often taken for granted in the established democracies of the West, within transitioning nations lacking experience with democracy such concepts can be so unfamiliar as to turn people away from involvement with the political system. Thus, in order to help a democracy survive after an initial transition, the individuals who have recently become “democratic citizens” must be made familiar with the rules, institutions, operations and points of access of their newly crafted political system. Such familiarization takes time and significant effort. To cite Giuseppe Di Palma: “. . . just as it takes time to craft an agreement, so it takes time and habituation before the agreement is secure and any danger of failure, stemming from the transition or its antecedents, is removed.”1 Therefore, international organizations interested in promoting the survival of regimes after democratic transition must be prepared to commit themselves to helping individuals of a state become active citizens in the political process. Within many transitioning nations, however, there is another obstacle complicating the promotion of civic activity in a democratic system. A history of ethnic and religious tension, often resulting in periods of violence, introduces a number of potential problems for the development of civil society and political cooperation among citizens. The wars of secession in the former Yugoslavia, the ethnic genocide in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the civil conflicts in Indonesia—just to name a few—are all very recent demonstrations of how deep and explosive differences among ethnic and religious groups can be. Each of these is an example of how the difficulties of democratic transition, an uncertain and volatile process itself, are exacerbated by histories of deep ethno-religious divisions and hostility. Each of these is also an example of the difficult tasks facing international organizations attempting to promote democracy with aid and technical assistance in deeply divided societies. If democracy depends on cooperation, agreement on the “rules of the game,” and a unified vision of the state, how can these notions become a reality in countries where recent violence and genocide has been branded onto the minds of their people with all-too-real force? What follows is an examination of one of the methodologies for inculcating democracy in deeply divided societies. With an initial focus on Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the program for civil society promotion introduced by the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), a number of observations can be drawn that will help further what is known about democratic promotion in states with deep segmental cleavages among their populations. These observations are then extended to a comparative analysis of other civil society promotion programs that are being conducted by IFES in Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi in order to show how the lessons learned in Bosnia can be applied to other deeply divided states in transition. Ultimately, this will help to introduce and analyze a type of approach that international organizations can use to help countries that are separated by ethnic hatred realize a unified vision of democratic tolerance and cooperation. The first chapter is dedicated to operationalizing the theoretical concepts that define ethnically divided societies undergoing democratic transition. More specifically, this section deals with operationalizing amorphous terms such as “civil society” and “deep division” so as to avoid analytical confusion that these words might produce. This is followed by a second section that reviews the methods employed in this study in order to further crystallize the process of analysis and how conclusions were reached. Chapter three is comprised of an in-depth look at civil society promotion in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which serves as a case study for highlighting the civic education methodology used by IFES from 1996 to 2002. By highlighting this approach, this case study will not only show how organizations might approach civil society promotion in ethnically divided societies, but will also serve as a basis for extracting lessons that can be applied to other areas facing similar circumstances. Chapter four is an application of the lessons learned from Bosnia-Herzegovina to other countries in which IFES is currently working to promote democracy through civil society in deeply divided contexts. The three cases in this study are Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. They serve not only as examples of ethnic and religious division, but also as a representative sample of the many other parts of the world that are undergoing democratic transitions from authoritarianism. By filtering the lessons learned in Bosnia-Herzegovina through these cases, formal conclusions about civil society promotion in deeply divided states can be drawn. I conclude with a discussion about the conclusions reached in the preceding chapters. More specifically, this section highlights the findings of this evaluation of democracy promotion and civil society development programs, and emphasizes the 10 crucial role that context plays in determining the methods that an international organization might employ in an effort to assist and promote democracy.
July 31, 2002
Election Material
Election and Political Party Law
Macedonian Election Laws
Macedonian Election Laws