USAID Democracy Promotion as a Possible Predictor of Revolutionary Destabilization

Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 C OMPARATIVE SOCIOLOGY brill.com/coso USAID Democracy Promotion as a Possible Predictor of Revolutionary Destabilization Maksim Kostin | ORCID: 0000-0002-1493-730X HSE University, Moscow, Russia maksimkostin333@gmail.com Andrey Korotayev | ORCID: 0000-0003-3014-2037 HSE University, Moscow, Russia Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia akorotayev@gmail.com Received 16 January 2023 | Revised 24 November 2023 | Accepted 17 March 2024 | Published online 3 May 2024 Abstract USAID democracy promotion programs might not only influence the democracy levels, but also increase the likelihood of revolutionary uprisings in the recipient states. Democracy promotion can strengthen political opponents of the incumbent regime via support for alternative media, civil society groups and political parties, on one hand, and, on the other, support democratic institutions that in contrast to autocracies are more tolerable towards political opponents and thus allow more room for expressing political will on the streets. Since democracy aid targets “democrats” who are less prone to exert armed violence, the authors expect it to be associated with unarmed uprisings. Using logit regression models, they find that the volume of the USAID financial democracy assistance appears to be a significant predictor of unarmed revolutionary destabilization, but its effect is relatively weak. Some particular sub-sectors of democracy assistance have an impact on revolutionary destabilization, namely: civil society, elections, human rights and media assistance. These correlations might be partly explained by the fact that USAID assistance goes disproportionately to anocracies. This aid tends to increase the probability of revolutionary destabilization in two ways – directly (through strengthening political opponents of the regime) and indirectly (through increasing the number of anocracies in the world). Published with license by Koninklijke Brill BV | doi:10.1163/15691330-bja10102 © Maksim Kostin and Andrey Korotayev, 2024 | ISSN: 1569-1322 (print) 1569-1330 (online) DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 241 Keywords revolutions – democracy – US democracy promotion – democracy assistance – USAID – revolutionary protests – nonviolent uprisings 1 Introduction The role of the US democracy promotion programs as a predictor of protests and revolutions remains a highly debatable issue, especially in the context of the so-called “color revolutions” and the events of the Arab Spring. While studying democracy assistance, some experts draw the attention to the institutional transformation effects of democracy promotion (e.g. Finkel 2008; Scott and Steele 2004). Others argue that external democracy promotion might also have an effect on the anti-government protests onset and spread (Beissinger, 2006; Mitchell, 2012, 2022). Democracy promotion has been one of the key priorities for the US foreign policy and national security as outlined in the National Security Strategies for the last decades. For instance, the first National Security Strategy under J. W. Bush administration (NSS, 2002) stressed the support to the democracy movements that use nonviolent methods: “We will <…> use our foreign aid to promote freedom and support those who struggle non-violently for it, ensuring that nations moving toward democracy are rewarded for the steps they take” (NSS, 2002, p. 4). The next NSS (2006, p. 6) is more specific on the sectors of the US democracy promotion: “In the cause of ending tyranny and promoting effective democracy, we will employ the full array of political, economic, diplomatic, and other tools at our disposal, including: <…> Using foreign assistance to support the development of free and fair elections, rule of law, civil society, human rights, women’s rights, free media, and religious freedom”. Obama administration put emphasis on why democracy promotion was of high importance as a US foreign policy objective, highlighting the favorable environment for the US interests that democracy promotion stipulates: “The United States supports the expansion of democracy and human rights abroad because governments that respect these values are more just, peaceful, and legitimate. We also do so because their success abroad fosters an environment that supports America’s national interests. Political systems that protect universal rights are ultimately more stable, successful, and secure” (NSS, 2010, p. 37). Thus, democracy promotion is regarded as a vital branch of the US foreign policy and national security and its aim is to transform the institutions of the recipient countries. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 242 Kostin and Korotayev As Susan Stewart (2009, p. 647) notes, “democracy promotion is defined to include activities engaged in by external actors to encourage the development of democracy within a given country”. The US has a number of governmental and private funds that finance various projects related to civil society, human rights, elections monitoring, independent media and political competition through local NGO’s, political parties and activists. Such organizations include National Endowment for Democracy (NED), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Freedom House, Republican Institute, Open Society Foundation and others. The question is whether democracy assistance programs indeed have an impact on democratic institutions, political competition and robustness of civil society. If they do, how do they affect the political stability in the recipient countries and therefore can democracy assistance be regarded as a predictor of a revolutionary destabilization? Democracy promotion has become vital for the US foreign policy as a tool to combat communism in the 1970s with the onset of the third wave of democratization and was given greater impetus in the 1990s with the ex-communist states undergoing a democratic transition (Lawson and Epstein 2019). Democracy promotion is an ambiguous process that is analyzed either in the framework of democratization theory as an element that fosters democratic institutions, or as a factor that in effect contributes to the destabilization of non-democratic political regimes. This study will focus specifically on the second paradigm, i.e. we will be analyzing the US democracy assistance programs as a possible predictor of revolutionary destabilization. There are certain reasons to analyze the US democracy assistance programs as a possible predictor of revolutionary destabilization. Foreign aid in general may act as a leverage on the countries that heavily rely on this aid, thus making them more vulnerable and less stable in case the aid is withdrawn (Ritter, 2015; Nieto-Matiz & Schenoni, 2020). Democracy promotion programs in particular also might have an impact on the stability of political regimes. The external factor, namely the financial support of the US-based foundations to various civil society organizations and political movements, in some cases was if not the most vital, but played a significant role in ousting the autocratic regimes in a number of countries. The most evident cases are the so-called color revolutions in the 2000s. As Mark Beissinger (2006, p. 20) notes, even though the color revolutions in Eastern Europe had been mostly fueled by domestic sources, the US support “was critical to their materialization and spread” (see also Mitchell, 2012; Goldstone et al., 2022a). Julia Gerlach (2014) explores the “international pressure” as a factor that facilitates the so-called color revolutions, noting that the Western democracy promotion measures include training of opposition activists, funding media campaigns, election monitoring that in general, in Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 243 addition to internal factors, contributed to their success. Democracy promotion is sometimes seen as a tool to overthrow a political regime that is opposed to the American interests, and that is why there might be an emergence of a backlash against democracy promotion in a number of countries, with restrictions imposed on foreign aid (see, e.g., Nepstad, 2011; Beissinger, 2022, p. 97). Some of the most prominent examples of such an attitude are Russia and Belarus that have recently embarked on a policy of tightening the grip over the foreign funding of civic organizations and independent media in order to weaken the possible protests’ potential1 (Gilbert, 2020; Oleinikova, 2017; Pikulik & Bedford, 2019; Gershman & Allen, 2006). Some observers, especially in Russia, portray the democracy promotion programs as a plot or a set of “technologies” to topple the “undesirable” political regimes (see, e.g., Manoylo, 2014; Kaprovich, 2015). Other scholars regard this influence as not as significant as the internal factors, i.e. corrupt political regimes, election frauds, stagnant economy, elite defection etc. (Tucker, 2007; Lewis, 2008; Mitchell, 2012). The US democracy assistance was provided to various youth opposition movements that were active during the most prominent color revolutions in the early 2000s (e.g., “Otpor” in Serbia (2000), “Kmara!” in Georgia (2003) and “Pora!” in Ukraine (2004) [Filin et al., 2022]). The US assistance, however, was not the only factor contributing to these events unfolding as pointed out by various scholars (Beissinger, 2006; Mitchell, 2012), but to some degree it might have had an impact on the results. In the context of the limited access to the resources for the opposition movements and civic organizations in autocratic or semi-autocratic settings, financial aid from abroad may assist the opposition in arranging resistance against the incumbent regimes. In other words, the external assistance might expand the organizational capacities of civil society or various opposition movements and parties, providing more resources for the spread of information and mobilization of the opponents of the incumbent political regimes. However, if the preconditions for uprisings are absent, democracy aid alone is unlikely to “destabilize” political regimes. It might be a contributing factor, rather than an initiating one. The aim of the article is not to give an assessment of the degree of the US democracy assistance’s role in these particular and other cases, but rather to take a look at a broader picture and analyze the US democracy aid interactions with mass uprisings in the 21st century using quantitative research methods. This would help us understand 1 By the same token, it also provokes the introduction of more restrictions on domestic political and civic organizations in general, as shown in the abovementioned literature. Foreign funding therefore sometimes becomes a convenient trigger for combatting political opponents in authoritarian settings. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 244 Kostin and Korotayev whether the scale of democracy assistance and its type might be a predictor of a possible revolutionary destabilization in a country. In this article, we will examine the relations between revolutionary destabilization and USAID democracy promotion funding. The reasons to study the USAID expenses as a democracy promotion variable and not the ones of other organizations are the following: – Firstly, the USAID is by far the largest donor of democracy promotion with almost 60 billion dollars annual budget in 2022 (together with the State Department) (USAID, 2022a). Moreover, other foundations are often financed through USAID that allocates them budgets for various programs connected with democracy promotion (for example, the aforementioned NED, Freedom House, Open Society). – Secondly, there is already some evidence that USAID financial assistance might be a statistically significant predictor of antigovernment protests (e.g., Brancati, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2021a, pp. 199–247; Medvedev et al., 2022). It will be discussed in more detail below. On the one hand, the relations between the USAID democracy promotion and revolutionary destabilization might be the reflection of systematic problems of the recipient countries. Indeed, it does not seem to make sense to promote democracy in those regimes that are already consolidated democracies, whereas full autocracies tend to do their best to avoid getting democracy promotion aid on the part of USAID. Thus, the most likely targets of the democracy aid are not consolidated democracies and fully autocratic political regimes, but rather hybrid regimes that are generally more prone to experience destabilization (Gurr, 1974; Hegre, 2001; Goldstone et al., 2010; Korotayev et al., 2016a, 2016b, 2018, 2021c, 2021d; Slinko et al., 2017; Walter, 2022). On the other hand, democracy aid itself might have an impact on political stability, since it assists civil society and the spread of information and political education, thus making society more responsive to the authorities’ misdeeds (such as human rights violations, election frauds etc.) and more capable of resisting by enhancing the available resources for opposition movements. Therefore, democracy assistance might influence the stability of political regimes since its main goal is institutional transformation and the funds potentially go to the countries that are already at risk of destabilization due to the weak democratic institutions that often might be a factor that itself triggers revolutionary destabilization. As we find out in this article, particular sectors of democracy assistance, namely civil society, elections, media and human rights, demonstrate positive relationships with revolutionary uprisings. However, this might be to a significant degree connected with the direction of aid that goes to potentially unstable countries, as demonstrated by our analysis of aid allocation, as well as Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 245 the decreased significance and strength of democracy promotion effect when controlling for regime type. 1.1 Conceptualization of Revolutionary Destabilization In his comprehensive theoretical work, Jack Goldstone (2001) points out that revolutions are defined differently by various scholars, depending on the perceived main causes and actors, proposing the following definition of his own: “an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in a society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine existing authorities” (Goldstone, 2001, p. 142). Lawson (2019, p. 5) provides an essentially similar definition: “a revolution is a collective mobilization that attempts to quickly and forcibly overthrow an existing regime in order to transform political, economic, and symbolic relations”. Here we also observe such features as mass mobilization and political goals that describe the essence of the notion “revolution”. The most recent definition of this sort also stresses the anti-government character of revolutions, the participation of the masses (that distinguishes them from elite coups), and the willingness of the participating actors to significantly alter the existing system: “Revolution is anti-government (very often illegal) mass actions (mass mobilization) with the following aims: (1) to overthrow or replace the existing government within a certain period of time; (2) to seize power or to provide conditions for coming to power; (3) to make significant changes in the regime, social or political institutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, pp. 50–51).2 Today, following Erica Chenoweth, researchers tend to use the term “maximalist campaigns” to describe revolutions. This approach may be found in various works (see, for example, Stephan & Chenoweth, 2008; Stradiotto & Guo, 2010; Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011; Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013; Bayer et al., 2016; Butcher & Svensson, 2016; Chenoweth & Ulfelder, 2017; Gleditsch & Rivera, 2017; Dahlum, 2019; Kim & Kroeger, 2019; Dahl et al., 2021; Rasler et al., 2022). The “campaign” is typically defined as “a series of observable continuous purposive mass tactics and events in pursuit of political objectives” (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011, p. 14). Moreover, the above-mentioned works study “maximalist” campaigns “with goals that are perceived as maximalist (fundamentally altering the political order); … regime change, antioccupation, and secession” (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011, p. 68). As we can see, the actual Chenoweth definition of “maximalist” campaigns turns out to be virtually 2 Note that none of the abovementioned definitions of revolution implies that revolution should be necessarily successful. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 246 Kostin and Korotayev identical with the abovementioned revolution definitions by Goldstone and Lawson. This point is further supported by the fact that Chenoweth’s database of Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) designates as “campaigns” all the indisputable revolutions since 1900 – including Russian revolutions of 1905–1907 and 1917, Constitutional Revolution in Iran, Xinhai Revolution in China, Mexican Revolution of 1910–1917 and so on (Chenoweth & Shay, 2020). Thus, the term “maximalist campaigns” turn out to be similar to the term “revolutions”. In our opinion such a substitution of notions not only does not help us in deeper studying the situations of revolutionary destabilization, but rather obscures it. In fact, this substitution neglects (without any grounds for this) the achievements of all the four (or five) generations of revolutionary theory (surveyed, e.g., in Goldstone, 1980, 2001; Lawson, 2016, 2019). However, the results of the abovementioned studies on the conditions favoring the onset of “maximalist campaigns” turn out to be perfectly relevant for our understanding of the factors of revolutionary destabilization. Another important point that has to be addressed here is that most researchers in this field prefer to speak about “violent campaigns/revolutions” versus “nonviolent campaigns/revolutions”. We also use the terms “nonviolent” and “violent” here as it is widely accepted in the literature. However, Mohammad Kadivar and Neil Ketchley quite convincingly show that the participants of most “non-violent maximalist campaigns” frequently resorted to serious violence (recall at least the Egyptian revolution of 2011 or the Ukrainian revolution of 2013–2014, which Chenoweth qualifies as “non-violent maximalist campaigns”), and therefore, with good reason, these researchers believe that it is wrong to call such revolutionary actions “non-violent”, suggesting that they be labeled as “unarmed” (Kadivar & Ketchley, 2018). As outlined by the revolutionary theorists, there are at least four generations of revolution theories, with each focusing on different causes and actors of revolutions (Goldstone, 2001). If the classical revolution theories (as well as the first three waves of new age theories) focus predominantly on internal factors of revolutions, for the latest generation of revolutionary theory there is a tendency to pay more attention to the international factors that entail revolutions as well (Goldstone, 2014; Ritter, 2015; Goldstone et al., 2022a, 2022b). The fourth generation stresses the impact the globalization processes has on political stability through “international intersection of economic, political and symbolic factors” (Lawson, 2019, p. 52). The influence of the international context on revolutionary destabilization is outlined in a number of works, may it be the effect of revolution diffusion (Beck, 2011, 2017; Rozov, 2022) or the direct influence of external actors (Hale, 2005; Ritter, 2015; Beissinger, 2006, 2007, 2022). Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 247 The globalization processes with the strengthening of non-state transnational organizations (that become actors influencing domestic and foreign policies of the countries they interact with) raise a question of the impact such organizations have on revolutionary destabilization. One of the most interesting cases in this context is the international “democracy promoters” that directly target political institutions in the democracy assistance recipient countries. 1.2 Why Democracy Assistance Might Help Predict Mass Revolutionary Uprisings The democracy promotion scholars focus on two main aspects of this phenomenon: the donors’ motivation and the impact the aid has on its recipients. Democracy promotion scholars have established that it indeed has a transformative impact on the recipients’ institutions and political systems in general. Steven Finkel (2008) finds a statistically significant positive link between the USAID democracy funding and freedom levels (measured as Freedom House index) in the recipient countries, as well as democracy sub-sectors, such as elections, governance, media freedom and civil society. Dursun Peksen and Katherine Comer (2012) come to the same conclusion that USAID democracy aid has a positive impact on democratization in the recipient countries. The same results are also found in the analysis of the European Union efforts to promote democracy abroad (Gafuri, 2021). However, as research shows, democracy promotion influences not only institutions of recipient countries, but might also have an impact on revolutionary destabilization at large. Linkages to the West are believed to have an impact on stability of post-communist autocracies (Way 2008). Foreign development aid in general has significant positive relationships with mass uprisings in democracies, whereas in autocracies it is vice versa (Kono et al., 2015). Increases in international human rights NGO activities are associated with the higher protest levels (Murdie & Bhasin, 2011). As a result of a machine learning analysis, it is found that the overall USAID assistance3 is the second most significant variable that has an impact on the intensity of the anti-government protests in the Afrasian instability macrozone (Korotayev et al., 2021a, pp. 199–247; Medvedev et al., 2022). The work by Dawn Brancati (2014) has shown that the USAID democracy aid has significant and positive relations with pro-democracy protests for the period 2006–2011. The possible relations between democracy 3 This includes not only democracy promotion, but any type of assistance provided by USAID (e.g., economic assistance, education programs, projects related to health, climate change mitigation etc.). Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 248 Kostin and Korotayev promotion and mass uprisings that can be traced in the existing literature might depend on a number of aspects. Literature on democratization and democracy promotion provides us with further explanations on the potential mechanisms of how external democracy assistance might influence socio-political destabilization. As Thomas Carothers (2009) points out, there are two approaches towards democracy aid: developmental and political. The first one is aimed at the long-term, steady process of institutional transformation, mainly through institutional support and socio-economic development. Political approach, on the other hand, sees its goal to help “the democrats”, i.e. the political actors that lead their struggle against the “non-democrats”. The assistance goes in various forms, ranging from moral support to training and funding, and to various groups, such as political parties, associations, politicians, independent media, non-governmental organizations and key political institutions. Carothers argues that political approach is often aimed at challenging the non-democratic leaders and this approach is actively implemented through the US democracy assistance foundations, as, for example, in the case of “electoral revolutions” in Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia. Given that “developmental approach” and “political approach” imply fundamentally different mechanisms of “promoting democracy”, with the first being aimed at development of democracy mainly through facilitating the administrative capacities and economic growth [in line with the assumptions made in the classic work of Seymour Lipset (1959)] and the second one rather promoting the “bottom-up pressure” through reinforcing the political opponents and dispersing the political power among different actors, both types of democracy assistance should be studied separately. Since the political approach is a more “conflict prone”, we would consider it to be more relevant as a potential predictor of socio-political destabilization. In this regard, we will exclude from our analysis the USAID programs that might be aimed at democratic development in the long-run (like various programs related to socio-economic assistance) and focus on such sectors that are rather related to the “political approach”, which are aimed at fostering participation culture and strengthening the “democrats”, i.e. various political parties, media and civil society organizations. Studying the whole array of the USAID foreign assistance types [available here – (USAID, 2022b)], we have chosen a set of democracy assistance programs based on the assistance purpose that, in our view, might be related to the “political approach” of the democracy assistance. The programs that we have chosen include the following: – Democratic participation and civil society – the programs that are directly aimed at facilitating the organizational structures of civil society Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 249 organizations that might, on the one hand, nurture the “participant” political culture, and, on the other, might be directly engaged in the subsequent political actions, including revolutionary protests (as already discussed above, civil society groups frequently become the basis of protest activities). – Decentralization and support to subnational government – programs that are related to the civil society since they foster participation in politics on local level. Such programs per se might not lead to revolutionary destabilization, but combined with other assistance they could be efficient for building the participatory capabilities of local communities. – Human rights – programs that can be allocated to the organizations engaged in monitoring and disseminating the information about the human rights violations by the incumbent political regime. Such information might contribute to the delegitimizing of political regimes, possibly fueling further uprisings. – Elections – fraudulent (or considered as fraudulent) elections also frequently become the trigger for mass revolutionary uprisings and therefore, the assistance to the elections monitoring groups that detect violations of the electoral procedures might stipulate the delegitimizing of a political regime, leading to protests. – Anti-corruption organizations and institutions – as in case with elections and human rights assistance, anti-corruption organizations might also facilitate the undermining of legitimacy of a political regime through detection and disclosure of the information about the regime corruption. – Media and free flow of information – the assistance to non-governmental media might be essential for the spread of alternative information by groups opposing the incumbent regime that could be used for the mobilization of protest potential. Democratization per se is a process with an intrinsic risk of collisions between the incumbent regime and opposition/civil society (Wolf & Wurm, 2011; Savun & Tirone, 2011; Nodia, 2014). The process of democratic transition therefore bears high risks in terms of revolutionary destabilization. In addition, democracy assistance increases the possibility of political conflicts onset in the countries where civil society structures have low links to the political regimes that impose restrictions on their activities. As such, they are more prone to seek unlawful methods of resistance, and financial aid from abroad in this regard makes it easier for them to operate in the context of limited resources (Braithwaite & Licht, 2020). The democracy aid should, on the one hand, assist the political opponents of the incumbent regimes. On the other hand, it may strengthen the democratic Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 250 Kostin and Korotayev institutions, thus making the regime less capable of severe repressions that can “behead” a revolutionary protest in advance. In this regard, we expect the positive relationships between the USAID democracy promotion financing and revolutionary uprisings: H1. The likelihood of revolutionary mass uprisings is significantly higher in the countries where the US democracy aid funding is higher. Studying revolutions in the post-communist countries, Michael McFaul (2005) highlights the following factors that contribute to the success of overthrowing the incumbent regimes. Firstly, it is a semi-autocratic regime type, i.e. neither a strict dictatorship-like autocracy, nor a consolidated democracy (see also Mitchell, 2012, 2022; Korotayev et al., 2022). Then it is low popularity of the incumbent regime: revolutions normally do not happen against those leaders who are viewed as legitimate by the majority of the population. Other significant factor is a united opposition, meaning the coalition of opposition parties that are united by the will to combat the incumbent regime. Furthermore, it is the ability of the opposition and civil society to prove election fraud4 that often becomes a trigger of mass revolutionary protests. In addition to that, alternative sources of information matter as well: strong independent media that can inform the society about the incumbent’s misdeeds is vital for the mobilization purpose. Finally, it is the opposition’s capabilities to mobilize supporters to protest, on the one hand, and divisions in the elites, on the other. This observation is vital for understanding the possible effect of democracy promotion on revolutionary destabilization. The research shows that higher press freedom in autocratic regimes may be considered a reliable predictor of non-violent conflicts (Groshek & Christensen, 2017; Gleditsch et al., 2023). The presence of independent media is vital for the onset of revolutionary protests since it may help spread views alternative to that of official information sources and cover topics that are not generally discussed in the state media, such as election frauds, corruption, human rights violations and so on. In addition, revolutionary protests do not occur out of nowhere: as a rule, they are 4 Hence, the election year is the time of increased revolutionary risks, since it is the time of the high political mobilization and such events often become triggers for the onset of protests by opposition or discontented citizens (Kadivar, 2017; Zhdanov & Korotayev, 2022; Korotayev et al., 2024). Some observers even use the term “electoral revolutions”, especially with regards to the so-called “color revolutions” (Kalandadze & Orenstein, 2009; Pop-Eleches & Robertson, 2014). Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 251 organized by political actors from within the government or from the outside (Brancati, 2016; Lawson, 2019; Beissinger, 2022). Developed and strong NGO sector, especially in political realm, also plays a significant role in mobilizing and organizing protest movements that challenge the incumbent regime (Krastev, 2014; Gershman & Allen, 2016; Watson & Burles, 2018; Ortiz et al., 2022). The youth opposition movements, for example, significantly contributed to the enhancing of the mobilization potential, logistics during the protests and their initiating at large in the context of color revolutions in the post-Soviet states (Kuzio, 2006; Filin et al., 2022). NGO s enhance the abilities of civil society to engage in collective action and thus contribute to the “activist” political culture, where society is more responsive to the political and socio-economic situation, in comparison to the “passive” political culture. Citizens learn how to act together in pursuit for social or political demands, and such experience might be helpful further in the context of political protests. Using Ronald Inglehart’s terminology, we can assume that a developed civil society inclines more towards the values of “self-expression”, rather than the values of “survival”. The self-expression values imply a more active participation in politics and social life in general and inter alia an orientation towards more freedom and equality (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Welzel & Inglehart, 2008). The democratic experience has a positive impact on the self-expression values (Dahlum & Knutsen, 2017), hence the engagement in various civic movements and organizations also contributes to this shift. On the contrary, authoritarianism has a negative effect on the self-expression values (Bernhard & Karakoç, 2007). In this context, we assume that democracy promotion programs might have an impact not only on the organizational capacities of civil society, but at the values level as well, as these programs help build the space for the civil society development. This, in turn, leads to a more demanding and organized civil society ready to contest authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes. In a nutshell, the unarmed revolutionary destabilization might occur in the circumstances where, on the one hand, there is the presence of a genuine political opposition ready to contest the incumbent regime (especially during the elections period), available channels of the alternative information dissemination and operating civil society structures that can mobilize society for revolutionary protest. On the other hand, it is the fraudulent and unpopular political regime that has low legitimacy and cannot fully suppress the opposition movements. Democracy promotion, as we have already discussed, targets exactly those sectors that may influence the stability of political regimes via supporting civil society NGO’s, independent media and political Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 252 Kostin and Korotayev opposition parties. Election monitoring organizations, anti-corruption campaigns, human rights activists, independent media and opposition movements are the common recipients of the US democracy assistance. It enhances the watchdog and mobilization capabilities of civil society (Savun & Tirone, 2011) and in general contributes to the political demands through promoting education on political matters, and the spread of information on the incumbent regime’s frauds. Hence, we assume that democracy assistance may increase the likelihood of the occurrence of revolutionary destabilization that might be a result of strengthening civil society organizations and political participation, as well as the enhanced capacity of the spread of information. Therefore, it might affect political stability contributing to the shifts in public demands for the more accountable government and enhancing the organizational capabilities of the civil society. Thus, it is not surprise that many authoritarian regimes consider foreign funding as a direct threat to their survival and therefore impose heavy restrictions on it or even completely ban it. It also may act as a factor that strengthens or nurtures democratic institutions, contributing to the transition from a fully autocratic to a semi-autocratic political regime or by preventing the semi-autocratic regime from backsliding to the full autocracy. This, in its turn, gives more room for revolutionary protests to occur, since it raises the costs for a partially democratized authoritarian regime to suppress the opposition or civic activists. Taking into account the possible channels, through which democracy promotion might have an impact on political stability, i.e. media and civil society organizations, we expect the positive relations between revolutionary destabilization and a number of democracy promotion sectors in particular: H2a. The likelihood of revolutionary mass uprisings is significantly higher in the countries where the USAID civil society support funding is higher. H2b. The likelihood of revolutionary mass uprisings is significantly higher in the countries where the USAID elections monitoring support funding is higher. H2c. The likelihood of revolutionary mass uprisings is significantly higher in the countries where the USAID independent media support funding is higher. As the US provides support to the democratic movements that use predominantly non-violent resistance tactics (in contrast to guerilla warfare or armed coups), we would also expect that the US democracy aid will have a positive relationship with nonviolent revolutionary/“maximalist” campaigns and negative or no relationship with violent ones. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 253 H3a. USAID democracy assistance will increase probability of unarmed uprisings. H3b. None of the democracy promotion sectors will show a significant positive correlation with the risks of armed insurgencies. However, the causal mechanisms might be even trickier. As James Scott and Carie Steele (2004) illustrate, there is a negative relationship between the NED grants allocation in the 1990s and the levels of democracy that might indicate that the assistance goes to the countries where democratic institutions are weak. Such political regimes with weak democratic institutions are generally more prone to experience destabilization than the consolidated democracies as demonstrated by other research (Hegre, 2001; Slinko et al., 2017; Korotayev et al., 2020, 2022; Beissinger, 2022; Walter, 2022). In this regard, we would expect that democracy aid goes to countries with weak democratic institutions, i.e. that already have a potential for experiencing instability. As Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way (2002) note, the “competitive authoritarian regimes” have a potential for destabilization since the democratic norms are regularly violated and create uneven rules for the incumbent and the opposition, and at the same time the opposition is not fully suppressed as in “pure” autocracies. Moreover, such regimes that we can also call “hybrid regimes” or “anocracies”, are typically more corrupt than democracies (Pellegata, 2013), meaning the quality of their institutions is poorer. Weaker democratic institutions are associated with higher inclinations of civic organizations to use alternative methods of expressing their preferences, i.e. taking to the streets (Machado et al., 2009; Beissinger 2020). The more recent research on USAID democracy funds allocation by James Scott and Ralph Carter (2020) shows that it is the authoritarian regimes “with the most ‘democratic-like’ institutions” that are more likely to receive democracy aid. The consolidated democracies are unlikely to be a target of the US democracy assistance and at the same time are unlikely to experience major political instability since the power in such countries changes as the result of fair and free elections. The full autocratic regimes are less likely to experience political instability since they have strong repressive apparatus and also are less likely to be the targets of the US democracy promotion programs because it is harder to operate in such countries since they impose harsher control on foreign funding of NGO’s, political organizations and the media. Therefore, we would expect that democracy promotion will go disproportionally to the countries that are already prone to experience revolutionary instability, i.e. to hybrid regimes or anocracies. In this regard, the mechanism that connects democracy promotion and revolutionary destabilization might reflect a “prevention effect” that democracy promotion possibly exerts on hybrid Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 254 Kostin and Korotayev regimes: it might prevent them from backsliding towards autocracies that are more resilient to revolutionary destabilization. On the other hand, it also can be the case that democracy promotion exerts a “democratization effect” on autocracies and hybrid regimes, thus making them less repressive. H4a. Democracy promotion programs will show a positive correlation with hybrid regimes/anocracies. H4b. The introduction of anocracy as a control variable will decrease the strength and significance of democracy promotion programs in the respective regression models. As a result, we have established two possible channels that may connect democracy promotion and revolutionary destabilization: 1. Strengthening of civil society and political opponents. 2. Fostering and/or reinforcing the democratic institutions in autocracies and hybrid regimes (“prevention effect” and “democratization effect”). 2 Materials and Methods The first stage of our research will be dedicated to the peculiarities of the USAID country-selection. It will help us better understand the possible explanation of the relations between USAID democracy assistance and revolutionary uprisings. For this purpose, we will run OLS regression models to study the relations between the financing, regime type and socio-economic development. This will help us understand if there are specific country characteristics that determine where the assistance is more likely to pour in. We will also add fixed effects on region to these models. We will then analyze the probability of the occurrence of nonviolent and violent revolutions and revolutions in general, based on the data on USAID democracy assistance and a number of control variables. For that purpose, we will use the logit regression model. We will run logit models that will use three different dependent variables representing various types of revolutionary uprisings, i.e. violent revolutions, nonviolent revolutions and revolutions in general, as well as main independent variables related to democracy assistance programs with region-fixed effects in order to take into account the unobserved factors that might influence the political stability and a number of control variables. The second stage models will not include regime type as a control variable. We will add it at the third stage of research to see if the relations between democracy promotion programs and revolutionary mass Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 255 uprisings is the reflection of the USAID country choice, i.e. taking into account the point that the aid goes to the already potentially unstable countries. Our unit of analysis is country-year, for 165 countries in the period 2001–2018. We have excluded from our sample the microstates (countries with the population less than 500 thousand people) in order to have more precise results.5 The analyzed data cover the period from 2001–2018 since the earlier USAID data do not include enough information on specifically democracy promotion-related programs. The other reason is that the majority of studies indicating any connection between the US financial assistance and political instability are related to the events taking place in the 21st century. 3 Dependent Variables We test out hypotheses on three dependent variables representing revolutionary uprisings: non-violent revolutions/campaigns, violent revolutions/campaigns and revolutions/campaigns in general. The data used is based on the database on revolutionary destabilization created with support of the Russian Science Foundation/RSF (see online Appendix 1 for the RSF database). The events are coded as revolutions/campaigns only if the number of participants exceeds 1000 people. All these variables are dummy variables with 1 indicating the onset of a revolutionary campaign and 0 if no onset was observed. We have opted to study separately the determinants of violent/armed and nonviolent/unarmed revolutionary episodes because the previous research has shown that violent/armed and nonviolent/unarmed revolutions differ significantly with regards to the conditions that explain their onset and their outcomes (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011; Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013; Butcher & Svensson, 2016; Rasler et al., 2022; Ustyuzhanin & Korotayev, 2022, 2023a, 2023b; Ustyuzhanin et al., 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, 2023a, 2023b; Korotayev et al., 2024). 4 Main Independent Variables The main independent variables are the USAID democracy expenses. The USAID database (USAID, 2022b) provides us with two main types of expenses: 5 With regards to the countries used in the analysis we stick to the approach used by Jack Goldstone et al. (2010), where countries with the population less than 500 thousand people are excluded. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 256 Kostin and Korotayev obligations and disbursements. We will use disbursements, as obligations do not represent the actual spending in a given year. Democracy expenses data include only democracy-related sectors that we have chosen from the database. These sectors are registered in the original database under the column “International purpose name” and include the following: democratic participation and civil society, human rights, elections, anti-corruption organizations and institutions, decentralization and support to subnational government, media and free flow of information. We believe that these programs might have an impact on pro-democracy movements’ formation or fostering democratic institutions in recipient countries and hence they may lead to the revolutionary destabilization of autocratic and semi-autocratic regimes. We will use both the total amount of the democracy assistance and spending on various democracy sub-sectors separately. In the analysis, we use the log parameters of these variables. 5 Control Variables As a regime type variable, we consider anocracy, based on data from Freedom House (Freedom House 2022). The work by Charles Butcher and Isak Swenson (2016) proves that the polity type is a significant predictor of non-violent uprisings. Moreover, the relations between uprisings and polity type are curvilinear, meaning that the probability of revolutionary destabilization becomes higher in the regimes that are “in between” democracy and autocracy (Wimmer et al., 2009; Keller, 2012; Korotayev et al., 2015a, 2015b, 2022; Dahl et al., 2021; Beissinger, 2022). Butcher and Swenson (2016) also show that the presence of elections in a given year can be also a predictor of revolutionary non-violent campaigns as well (also confirmed by Chenoweth & Ulfeder, 2017 as well as Zhdanov & Korotayev, 2022 and Korotayev et al., 2024). Therefore, we will also include elections into our analysis. Anocracy variable will act as a regime type variable. We create a dummyvariable that corresponds to hybrid regime type or anocracy, i.e. neither autocracy nor democracy. The values chosen for the hybrid regime correspond to the Freedom House category “partly free”. We will use anocracy as control in both the logit regressions that study the relations between democracy assistance and revolutionary uprisings and in OLS regressions that deal with the determinants of the aid allocation. As an alternative regime type variable for violent campaigns, we take autocracy that corresponds to the Freedom House’s “not free” category. Our analysis also uses elections as a binary variable indicating the presence or the absence of elections in a given year, based on the data Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 257 from The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Voter Turnout database (IDEA, 2022). The dataset includes only major elections (i.e. parliamentary and presidential elections) and does not include local elections, municipal elections and referendums. GDP per capita, as it stems from existing research, has also proven to be a reliable predictor of socio-political destabilization (e.g., Korotayev et al., 2020, 2021b; Beissinger, 2022; Ustyuzhanin et al., 2023a). In the light of these findings, we would expect that the variables related to the socio-economic development, like GDP per capita and GDP growth levels might have an impact on the stability of political regimes. GDP per capita (logged) and annual GDP growth will act as the economic indicators. The data source is the World Bank World Development Indicators database (World Bank 2022). Population (logged). The data are from the UN Population Division (2022) database. The population variable will help us take into account the size of the country: we assume that the larger the country, the more financing it will get, therefore we have to include this variable as control. Value-units are given in millions. We will use regions as fixed effects. The table with the regions used in the analysis can be found in online Appendix 2. 6 The Determinants of USAID Democracy Allocation6 To test our H4a and the considerations on the causal mechanisms that we have put forward in the previous section, we examine the allocation patterns of the USAID democracy aid. As we can see in Table 1, lower levels of economic development and hybrid regime type are significant determinants of USAID democracy spending. We can assume that less economically developed countries generally have weaker democratic institutions and this is why they receive more democracyrelated funds. If there are elections in a given year, elections assistance tends to increase, which is also not surprising: elections require increased expenses on observers training, monitoring and media coverage. The hybrid regime type also happens to be a reliable predictor of increased USAID democracy assistance, which supports our H4a. Moreover, the regime type appears to be the most significant factor among all studied sectors (except for the total democracy aid). Thus, we can say that anocracy is a predictor of increased US 6 To get a deeper insight into the allocation peculiarities of USAID democracy promotion allocation trends see online Appendices 2–5. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 258 Table 1 Anocracy Elections GDP per capita ln Population ln Kostin and Korotayev OLS regression results for USAID democracy promotion allocation factors USAID democracy ln USAID USAID civil society media ln ln USAID elections ln USAID human rights ln 2.388*** (0.373) 3.873*** (0.414) 3.247*** (0.391) 3.235*** (0.405) −3.446*** −2.833*** −1.887*** 4.507*** (0.411) 2.377*** (0.449) −1.671*** (0.239) 1.695*** (0.265) 1.777*** (0.250) 1.401*** (0.262) 1.198*** (0.258) 2.173*** (0.137) 0.755 (3.330) 2,638 0.346 0.343 9.232 (df = 2623) 99.257*** (df = 14; 2623) (0.129) −5.902* (3.141) 2,644 0.228 0.224 8.714 (df = 2629) 55.569*** (df = 14; 2629) (0.137) −6.286* (3.312) 2,615 0.202 0.197 9.119 (df = 2599) 43.764*** (df = 15; 2599) (0.134) −9.277*** (3.248) 2,648 0.316 0.312 9.026 (df = 2633) 86.727*** (df = 14; 2633) (0.124) Constant 13.059*** (3.012) N 2,642 R2 0.443 Adjusted R2 0.440 Residual Std. 8.328 Error (df = 2627) F Statistic 149.361*** (df = 14; 2627) −1.924*** *** p < .01; ** p < .05; * p < .1 democracy promotion and vice versa – large levels of US democracy aid are a predictor of an anocracy. These findings generally support the earlier research outcomes on the determinants of the US democracy promotion financing that were arrived at by other authors (e.g., Scott & Steele, 2007; Scott & Carter, 2020). It also supports our argument that we have put forward earlier: the countries in the “revolutionary risk zone”, i.e. anocracies, attract more USAID democracy funding. The democracy promotion might have a preventing or democratizing effect on those states, thus making them less repressive. The latter means that they may be more prone to experience popular uprisings since the political opposition, media and civic NGO’s and activists can operate in more favorable settings. We test this assumption in the next section. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 259 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 7 USAID Democracy Promotion and Revolutionary Uprisings Table 2 shows the relationships between USAID democracy aid and probability of revolutionary uprisings with no control for anocracies. Table 2 Logistic regression results for revolutionary destabilization factors (without control for anocracies) Dependent variable Revolutions/campaigns (1) USAID democracy ln USAID civil society ln USAID elections ln USAID human rights ln USAID media ln GDP per capita ln GDP annual growth Population ln Elections Constant Observations Log Likelihood Akaike Inf. Crit. (2) (3) (4) (5) 0.017 (0.012) 0.018* (0.009) 0.021*** (0.008) 0.015* (0.009) −0.390*** (0.144) −0.071*** (0.016) 0.313*** (0.073) 0.413** (0.199) −2.463 (1.725) −0.380*** (0.142) −0.071*** (0.016) 0.313*** (0.073) 0.400** (0.199) −2.483 (1.725) −0.403*** (0.143) −0.065*** (0.016) 0.314*** (0.073) 0.367* (0.201) −2.249 (1.735) −0.414*** (0.141) −0.070*** (0.016) 0.302*** (0.074) 0.421** (0.198) −2.133 (1.722) 0.021** (0.009) −0.395*** (0.141) −0.069*** (0.016) 0.311*** (0.072) 0.449** (0.197) −2.292 (1.720) 2,493 −496.116 1,026.232 2,490 −493.405 1,020.809 2,469 −485.112 1,004.224 2,500 −496.276 1,026.552 2,496 −494.486 1,022.972 *** p < .01; ** p < .05; * p < .1 Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 260 Kostin and Korotayev Each model represents different USAID democracy sectors and USAID democracy promotion total values, showing the relations between various USAID democracy promotion programs and revolutionary destabilization. Overall democracy assistance does not appear to be significantly related to the likelihood of mass uprisings (even without control for anocracy), contrary to our H1, where we assumed positive significant relations between these variables. It may be connected with the fact that the overall democracy assistance includes large, yet not really relevant sectors, such as decentralization and support to subnational government.7 The relationships of all the analyzed specific sectors turn out to be positive and significant: civil society, elections and media, which supports our H2a, H2b and H3c that the respective sectors have a positive relationship with the probability of revolutionary uprisings. Interestingly, human rights sector turned out to be significant as well. It seems that less economically developed countries with slower GDP growth, larger population and larger amounts of external assistance in such sectors as civil society, elections, human rights and media are more likely to experience revolutionary destabilization. The additional factor is elections year – as has been mentioned above, elections often become a trigger of mass revolutionary protests. We can observe the same pattern if we look at specifically nonviolent revolutionary uprisings (Table 3). As we can see in Table 3, all the sectors (except the total amount of democracy assistance spending) demonstrate significant positive relations with nonviolent uprisings. It supports our H3a that suggests the positive relations of USAID democracy promotion with nonviolent uprisings. For violent revolutionary campaigns (Table 4), the situation looks completely different. We expected that no democracy promotion sector would have positive relations with violent revolutionary uprisings. However, the tests show that one of the sectors has significant and positive relations with the uprisings, which is media and free flow of information. It can be explained by the aforementioned mechanism: democracy promotion may contribute to the partial democratization of the autocratic regimes that turns them into anocracies that are more prone to destabilization of any type (Goldstone et al., 2010; Slinko et al., 2017; Korotayev et al., 2021c, 2022; Walter, 2022). A salient example is Ukraine: the high USAID expenses on media assistance there are not directly connected with the violent campaign in the Donbass region, however it might have contributed to the “Revolution of dignity” in Kiev that turned out to be one of 7 The regression results with this sector and “anti-corruption” sector, as well as the tables showing the size of democracy spending per sector can be found in online Appendix 6. Both sectors show no significance for any type of revolutionary destabilization in any model. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 261 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION Table 3 Logistic regression results for non-violent revolutionary destabilization factors (without control for anocracies) Dependent variable Nonviolent revolutions/campaigns (1) USAID democracy ln USAID civil society ln USAID elections ln USAID human rights ln USAID media ln GDP per capita ln GDP annual growth Population ln Elections Constant Observations Log Likelihood Akaike Inf. Crit. 0.020 (0.013) (2) 0.019* (0.010) (3) 0.025*** (0.009) (4) 0.026** (0.011) (5) −0.367** (0.162) −0.044*** (0.017) 0.280*** (0.079) 0.481** (0.218) −2.480 (1.857) −0.357** (0.159) −0.043** (0.017) 0.284*** (0.079) 0.467** (0.218) −2.528 (1.857) −0.368** (0.159) −0.040** (0.017) 0.289*** (0.079) 0.422* (0.220) −2.396 (1.862) −0.376** (0.159) −0.044*** (0.017) 0.251*** (0.081) 0.477** (0.217) −2.073 (1.852) 0.017* (0.010) −0.392** (0.157) −0.042** (0.017) 0.286*** (0.079) 0.527** (0.216) −2.239 (1.847) 2,493 −423.510 2,490 −420.481 2,469 −414.492 2,500 −422.036 2,496 −423.253 881.021 874.961 862.984 878.072 880.507 *** p < .01; ** p < .05; * p < .1 the triggers of the separatist movements formation in the East of the country. Nevertheless, to understand the relations better we should also investigate how the variables will act with the specific controls for regime type. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 262 Table 4 Kostin and Korotayev Logistic regression results for violent revolutionary destabilization factors (without control for anocracies) Dependent variable Violent revolutions/campaigns (1) USAID democracy ln USAID civil society ln USAID elections ln USAID human rights ln USAID media ln GDP per capita ln GDP annual growth Population ln Constant Observations Log Likelihood Akaike Inf. Crit. −0.005 (0.022) (2) (3) 0.010 (0.018) 0.014 (0.017) (4) (5) −0.017 (0.018) 0.032* (0.017) −0.410 −0.408 −0.447 −0.418 −0.366 (0.284) (0.284) (0.292) (0.279) (0.285) −0.086*** −0.086*** −0.081*** −0.085*** −0.080*** (0.022) (0.022) (0.021) (0.022) (0.022) 0.424*** 0.400*** 0.383** 0.452*** 0.368** (0.155) (0.152) (0.154) (0.157) (0.152) −21.311 −21.011 −20.512 −21.566 −20.910 (4,984.746) (4,920.154) (5,000.153) (4,901.975) (4,933.429) 2,493 −146.641 2,490 −146.378 2,469 −142.700 2,500 −146.319 2,496 −144.977 327.282 326.757 319.401 326.638 323.955 *** p < .01; ** p < .05; * p < .1 In the models above, we do not account for regime type that by itself might be a significant predictor of revolutionary destabilization. Now we add the additional control variable, which is anocracy, in order to shed more light on the connections between democracy promotion programs and revolutionary destabilization: the reduction of significance of democracy promotion might Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION 263 indicate that it contributes to the partial democratization that in its turn increases risks of revolutionary destabilization. As we see, with the introduction of control for anocracy, the only sectors of democracy promotion that remain significant are elections assistance and media (Table 5). Table 5 Logistic regression results for revolutionary destabilization factors Dependent variable Revolutions/campaigns (1) USAID democracy ln USAID civil society ln USAID elections ln USAID human rights ln USAID media ln Anocracy GDP per capita ln GDP growth Population ln Elections Constant Observations Log Likelihood Akaike Inf. Crit. 0.013 (0.012) (2) 0.013 (0.009) (3) 0.017** (0.009) (4) 0.012 (0.009) (5) 0.461** (0.190) −0.343** (0.146) −0.074*** (0.016) 0.338*** (0.074) 0.415** (0.199) −3.455* (1.774) 0.466** (0.193) −0.335** (0.144) −0.073*** (0.016) 0.338*** (0.074) 0.400** (0.200) −3.474* (1.775) 0.436** (0.194) −0.363** (0.144) −0.068*** (0.016) 0.335*** (0.074) 0.372* (0.201) −3.138* (1.781) 0.459** (0.191) −0.362** (0.143) −0.073*** (0.016) 0.329*** (0.075) 0.419** (0.198) −3.192* (1.779) 0.018** (0.009) 0.442** (0.190) −0.349** (0.143) −0.071*** (0.016) 0.334*** (0.073) 0.440** (0.198) −3.252* (1.770) 2,493 −493.175 1,022.351 2,490 −490.462 1,016.924 2,469 −482.587 1,001.175 2,500 −493.378 1,022.756 2,496 −491.779 1,019.558 *** p < .01; ** p < .05; * p < .1 Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 264 Kostin and Korotayev Anocratic regime type seems to be a significant predictor of revolutionary destabilization that reduces the significance for civil society promotion (it becomes marginally significant with p-value shrinking from 0.05 to 0.16) and human rights promotion sectors for revolutionary campaigns of both types. It seems that these sectors might contribute to some institutional changes that stipulate the protests onset by weakening the autocratic grip on the one hand and strengthening the civil society on the other. The remaining sectors therefore increase the risks of revolutionary destabilization on par with the regime type. The elections assistance may certainly help expose elections fraud that often leads to the popular dissent. These findings support our H2a, H2b and H3.c on the positive relations (with the caveat that civil society sector becomes marginally significant) and H4b that anocracy decreases the significance of these factors. These relations can also be observed when we study specifically nonviolent revolutions (Table 6). Media assistance may help spread the information not only about the election fraud, but in general about the government flaws and about protests thus mobilizing the proponents to take to the streets. Interestingly, it does not correlate with nonviolent revolutionary campaigns, whereas human rights sector becomes significant for this type of revolutionary destabilization (Table 6). The increasing risks of nonviolent revolutionary campaigns in connection with growing USAID human rights expenses might be also the reflection of the degree of human rights violation in the recipient countries. This can also be explained by the activities of human rights organizations that reveal the information on human rights violations by the incumbent regime that may also contribute to the overall dissatisfaction with the regime. Surprisingly, USAID media assistance turns out significant for the violent revolutionary uprisings (Table 7). However, here anocracies show the opposite tendency: this variable demonstrates significant negative relations with violent campaigns. It seems therefore that for armed revolutionary insurgencies we should use other regime type variable, which is autocracy that is believed to be more prone to violent conflicts (Bartusevicius & Skaaning, 2018). When we do this (Table 8), the significance of USAID media assistance disappears, whereas autocracy demonstrates positive significant correlation with the risks of violent revolutionary insurgencies. Media assistance, therefore, can unlikely be regarded a predictor of violent campaigns that allows us to state that our H3b (“None of the democracy promotion sectors shows a significant positive correlation with the risks of armed insurgencies”) turns out to be supported as well. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 265 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION Table 6 Logistic regression results for non-violent revolutionary destabilization factors Dependent variable Nonviolent revolutions/campaigns (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) USAID democracy ln USAID civil society ln USAID elections ln USAID human rights ln USAID media ln 0.012 (0.013) Anocracy 0.780*** (0.216) −0.301* (0.165) −0.048*** (0.017) 0.324*** (0.082) 0.488** (0.219) −4.065** (1.917) 0.806*** (0.220) −0.293* (0.162) −0.046*** (0.018) 0.328*** (0.082) 0.469** (0.219) −4.166** (1.920) 0.740*** (0.220) −0.311* (0.161) −0.044** (0.018) 0.323*** (0.081) 0.434** (0.221) −3.832** (1.917) 0.750*** (0.217) −0.305* (0.161) −0.047*** (0.017) 0.298*** (0.083) 0.476** (0.218) −3.726* (1.919) 0.011 (0.010) 0.779*** (0.216) −0.319** (0.160) −0.046*** (0.017) 0.327*** (0.081) 0.511** (0.217) −3.884** (1.910) 2,493 −416.826 869.652 2,490 −413.587 863.173 2,469 −408.733 853.466 2,500 −415.926 867.853 2,496 −416.596 869.192 GDP per capita ln GDP growth Population ln Elections Constant Observations Log Likelihood Akaike Inf. Crit. 0.010 (0.011) *** p < 0.01; ** p < .05; * p < .1 Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 0.017* (0.010) 0.019* (0.011) 266 Table 7 Kostin and Korotayev Logistic regression results for violent revolutionary destabilization factors (with a control for anocracy) Dependent variable Violent revolutions/campaigns (1) USAID democracy ln USAID civil society ln USAID elections ln USAID human rights ln USAID media ln Anocracy GDP per capita ln GDP annual growth Population ln Elections Constant Observations Log Likelihood Akaike Inf. Crit. −0.002 (0.022) (2) (3) 0.013 (0.018) 0.017 (0.017) (4) −0.016 (0.018) (5) −0.793* (0.417) −0.516* (0.290) −0.079*** (0.022) 0.389** (0.157) 0.230 (0.424) −19.548 (4,942.312) −0.816** (0.416) −0.509* (0.289) −0.079*** (0.022) 0.364** (0.154) 0.210 (0.421) −19.248 (4,876.318) −0.784* (0.417) −0.536* (0.296) −0.074*** (0.021) 0.350** (0.156) 0.180 (0.424) −18.891 (4,963.220) −0.785* (0.418) −0.531* (0.285) −0.078*** (0.022) 0.417*** (0.159) 0.265 (0.422) −19.754 (4,854.413) 0.034* (0.017) −0.811** (0.413) −0.451 (0.288) −0.074*** (0.022) 0.333** (0.153) 0.219 (0.420) −19.311 (4,891.289) 2,493 −144.691 325.382 2,490 −144.303 324.607 2,469 −140.807 317.614 2,500 −144.430 324.859 2,496 −142.889 321.778 *** p < .01; ** p < .05; * p < .1 Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION Table 8 267 Logistic regression results for violent revolutionary destabilization factors (with a control for autocracy) Dependent variable Violent revolutions/campaigns (1) USAID democracy ln USAID civil society ln USAID elections ln USAID human rights ln USAID media ln −0.010 (0.022) (3) (2) 0.005 (0.018) 0.010 (0.017) (4) −0.025 (0.018) (5) 1.484*** (0.416) GDP per capita ln −0.391 (0.285) GDP growth −0.075*** (0.021) Population ln 0.419*** (0.160) Elections 0.275 (0.428) Constant −21.490 (4,985.592) 1.452*** (0.413) −0.386 (0.285) −0.074*** (0.021) 0.388** (0.156) 0.255 (0.424) −21.175 (4,928.754) 1.408*** (0.416) −0.399 (0.291) −0.071*** (0.021) 0.374** (0.159) 0.224 (0.427) −20.922 (5,009.996) 1.550*** (0.420) −0.389 (0.278) −0.074*** (0.021) 0.465*** (0.163) 0.321 (0.426) −22.025 (4,906.889) 0.022 (0.018) 1.367*** (0.416) −0.351 (0.283) −0.071*** (0.021) 0.355** (0.158) 0.248 (0.423) −21.048 (4,940.023) Observations Log Likelihood Akaike Inf. Crit. 2,490 −139.672 315.343 2,469 −136.549 309.098 2,500 −138.905 313.810 2,496 −139.115 314.230 Autocracy 2,493 −139.718 315.435 *** p < .01; ** p < .05; * p < .1 Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 268 Table 9 Kostin and Korotayev Standardized odds ratios for USAID related variables (dependent variable: revolutions/campaigns for elections and media; nonviolent revolutions/campaigns for human rights) No control for anocracies With control for anocracies USAID elections (ln): 1.24** USAID media (ln): 1.23* USAID human rights (ln): 1.32* USAID elections(ln): 1.19* USAID media (ln): 1.19* USAID human rights (ln): 1.22 As we see, the regime type control changes not only the significance, but the strength of the factors as well, as it can be observed through the standardized odds ratios (Table 9). These results provide additional support for our H4b where we expect the decreased strength of the observed factors. Therefore, our results suggest that the relations between revolutionary uprisings and USAID democracy promotion are quite complex. The reduction of significance suggests that the observing correlation can be partly explained by the allocation patterns of democracy promotion, i.e. the funding goes to the already potentially unstable states that partly explains the observed relations in the first step models. The sectors that still remain significant, i.e. elections, media and human rights, may act as more reliable predictors of revolutionary uprisings. To illustrate the scale of the effect that USAID democracy promotion exerts on revolutionary destabilization, we will examine its standardized odds ratios in comparison with other control variables for the Model 3 in Table 5 (Figure 1). It turns out that the USAID fair elections support funding variable that we take as an example, has a relatively low strength compared to other variables: the increase in one standard deviation of USAID elections assistance leads to the increase of odds of revolutionary destabilization by 19% compared to 32% for low GDP growth, 35% for low GDP per capita and 63% for population. It is in fact the least powerful factor of all, however it is quite close to anocracy that increases the odds up to 23%. Our findings generally support the point of view expressed by other scholars that the effect of external democracy assistance may have a significant positive effect on probability of revolutionary uprisings, but it should not be overestimated (Beissinger, 2006; Tucker, 2008; Mitchell, 2012, 2022). Still, this finding supports our H2b. Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AS A PREDICTOR OF DESTABILIZATION Figure 1 8 269 Standardized odds ratios (dependent variable: revolutions/campaigns) Discussion and Conclusions We find that it is not democracy promotion as a whole, but rather the programs targeted at specific purposes that may play a role in revolutionary destabilization. Namely, USAID financial support for the civil society, fair elections, media and human rights tend to impact positively the likelihood of an onset of mass uprisings (predominantly of the unarmed/“nonviolent” type). The situation changes when we add anocracy as a control variable that reduces the significance of a number of democracy promotion sectors and their strength. Thus, we find that the observed correlations may be partly explained by the fact that USAID democracy promotion disproportionately targets anocracies, which are more prone to revolutionary destabilization. On the other hand, the USAID democracy promotion in autocracies almost never leads to the formation of consolidated democracies; almost always, if successful, the result is partial democracies that are a type of anocratic regime very liable to revolutionary destabilization, especially if these are partial democracies with Comparative Sociology 23 (2024) 240–278 270 Kostin and Korotayev factionalism (Slinko et al., 2017; Korotayev et al., 2022; Medvedev et al., 2022); however, the USAID tends to continue supporting the democracy promotion in such regimes after their partial democratization, which would further increase the correlation between the USAID funding and the probability of the revolutionary destabilization. Thus, the USAID democracy promotion tends to increase the probability of revolutionary destabilization in the world in two ways – directly (through strengthening political opponents of the incumbent regime via support for alternative media, civil society groups, political parties etc.) and indirectly (through the promotion of democratization of autocracies that leads to the increase of the number of anocracies in the world, and, thus, to the increase of global revolutionary instability). On the other hand, our analysis supports the point of view that the effect of external democracy assistance has a statistically significant positive effect on probability of revolutionary uprisings, but this effect is not particularly strong (for example, it turns out to be much weaker than such factors as large population or low rates of economic growth). The future research may focus on the possible causal mechanisms that connect democracy promotion and revolutionary destabilization. The current article reveals the directions of the relations between revolutionary destabilization and various democracy promotion sectors, however the causal mechanisms require further scrutiny. As external democracy promotion tends to be a vital policy branch of Western liberal democracies and international organizations, the need for a deeper understanding on the effects (apart from democratization) that possibly may arise from this process grows. The revolutionary destabilization typically arises due to the internal factors, but the question still remains: does external democracy assistance lead to the increase in the strength of various domestic factors? Acknowledgments This article is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the HSE University in 2024. References Bartusevičius, H., & Skaaning, S. E. (2018). Revisiting democratic civil peace: Electoral regimes and civil conflict. 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