This thesis examines the relationship between democracy aid, democratization and political instability. Using disaggregated cross-country aid data supported by anecdotal evidence from Ghana, the first chapter finds that the presence of more donors promoting democracy aid has a positive impact on democratization. This is due to the increased diversity of political positions offered to a multitude of local state and non-state partners. The finding contradicts the conventional wisdom that aid fragmentation is entirely harmful. It is in line with current research on the importance of competition in young democracies. The second chapter examines (potentially unintended) effects of democracy aid on symptoms of political instability, employing data on social conflict in Africa. It shows that democracy aid is related to the occurrence of demonstrations and violent unrest. This suggests that democracy aid supports popular participation in recipient countries, although sometimes with undesired, violent side effects. Extensive specification tests confirm this relationship. They also cast doubt on previous findings on mitigating effects of democracy aid on civil war onset. The third chapter models the impact of different types of democratic transitions on state fragility. Using three separate expert-coded indicators, I find evidence that incomplete and uneven democratizations are related to decreasing levels in the monopoly of violence. This finding contributes to the debate on democratization and war, supporting the notion that destabilizing effects are robust but limited. There is little evidence on a robust relationship between democracy aid and administrative capacity of or popular identification with the state. I conclude that democracy aid can be beneficial, but only when it is sufficiently diverse. Given the advantages of democracy for development in general, the rather limited potential for destabilization should not be used as an argument to delay the spread of democracy.

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This thesis critically re-examines deliberative democracy from a rational and social-choice-theoretic perspective and questions its dominance in current democratic theory. I define deliberative democracy as reasoned, inclusive, equal and other-regarding debate aimed at making decisions collectively. The thesis examines both procedural and epistemic justifications for deliberative democracy. Procedural justifications are based on the normative values that underpin the theory of deliberative democracy: reasoned debate, equality and inclusion. The epistemic justification of deliberative democracy states that it will arrive at better outcomes or the truth more often than other democratic procedures. I conclude that the justifications offered for the claim that the model of deliberative democracy is superior to other models of democracy are not solid enough to warrant the strength of the conclusions presented in the literature. The thesis also examines whether deliberation is likely to produce the positive consequences that its proponents ascribe to it by using findings from deliberative experiments, political science, psychology and other social sciences. I find that many assumptions about human nature and motivation that deliberative democrats make cannot be supported by empirical evidence. They do not sufficiently consider problems of instrumental rationality, cognitive limitations, self-interested behaviour and a lack of motivation to participate in highly resource intensive activities. Furthermore, the model of deliberative democracy is based on a very particular conception of politics. This conception is somewhat apolitical, requires a high level of popular participation and conflicts with other, more adversarial or interest-based conceptions of politics. Through these findings I challenge the dominant position of deliberative democracy in the current literature on democratic theory and argue in favour of a more comprehensive theory of democracy that puts more emphasis on other democratic mechanisms, such as representation or interest group politics.

This dissertation is an attempt to understand how Mexico's democratisation process transformed budget accountability and the relationship between the federal, state and municipal governments. With the decline of presidentialism, two major changes occurred: the federal Congress became a more powerful regulator of public expenditure; and a large share of the budget was decentralised to subnational governments. The research objective is to produce an empirical analysis of how it came about that the president lost control over a major share of discretionary budgetary spending while state and municipal authorities increased their financial capacities without strong local systems of checks and balances. The dissertation is focused on two reforms related to budgetary policy: 1) The creation of a new Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) at federal level; and 2) The decentralisation of federal spending to states and municipalities. The creation of a new SAI, the Auditoria Superior de la Federacion (ASF), improved the political autonomy and technical capability of the congressional bureau in charge of ex post budgetary oversight. Through the ASF, the Congress improved its capability to demand an accountable presidency. The second reform was the decentralisation of an important share of government expenditure to state and municipal authorities. This implied the creation of clear norms and transparent formulas for the distribution of public resources among the three levels of government. In the former political system, the President had the unwritten prerogative to decide the geographical allocation of public expenditure, according to unaccountable criteria. The federal Executive had deep pockets and full political power to determine the fiscal surplus or financial bankruptcy of a subnational government. The decentralisation process created rules that forced the President to render financial accounts to subnational governments. For the first time, the Federal Executive had to follow transparent and stable criteria for the transfer of resources to states and municipalities. The decentralisation process rested on the premise that local authorities would allocate public expenditure more efficiently and would maximise social welfare. The decentralisation of public expenditure increased the accountability of the federal government to states and municipalities. However, a central claim in my thesis is that an unforeseen consequence of this process was a lack of accountability of political leaders at subnational levels. With the dusk of presidentialism and the decentralisation of expenditure, governors and municipal presidents gained ample margins of political and financial power. Thorough a census of state SAIs and an Index of Budget Information, the thesis will provide empirical evidence on the importance of accountability institutions in the transfer of spending responsibilities to subnational governments. With weak accountability mechanisms at the local level, there are no guarantees that decentralisation will deliver its theoretical expectations of efficiency and welfare.

The thesis aims to justify liberal democracy on the cultivation of autonomy amongst its citizens. The potential of deliberative democracy and associational democracy to achieve this cultivation are then critically evaluated It is suggested that autonomy has intrinsic value and an intrinsic connection to democracy, particularly in Western democracies. Deliberative democracy is justified as the most suitable model of decision-making to cultivate autonomy due to its enhancement of public reason, speaker and hearer autonomy. All three factors therefore encourage reflective preference transformation. which is the defining mark of deliberative democracy. A perfectionist case of deliberative democracy is further presented and associations in civil society are evaluated as a location of deliberative democracy. It is argued that the associations can achieve this by fulfilling four functions: they can be venues for subsidiarity; provide information and representation; be schools of democracy; and locations for governance. The fulfilment of these functions enables the institutionalisation of deliberative democracy to overcome some of the threats of complexity, pluralism, size and inequality. However, not all associations can achieve all four functions and in order to do so, they must be internally democratic. The associations also need to pursue a dualist strategy in relation to the state. This involves a critical public sphere with informal networks of communication based upon the norms of deliberative democracy. The public sphere should then set the agenda for legislation through the `outside access model'. The second strand of the dualist strategy is to gain access to legislative arenas. Associational mediating forums with power devolved from the state, again based on the norms of deliberative democracy, are advocated as a suitable method by which to achieve this. This associational model differs from the neo-pluralist model of interest groups because it is based upon the norms of deliberative democracy and can therefore promote the common good and avoid the `mischief of factionalism'. Finally, a case study of the Stanage Forum is considered I suggest that it approximates the associational mediating forums and highlights where trade-offs between the ideal and practice need to be, can be, should be and will be made.

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