Lessons from Development for a Democratic Future

This article argues that autocratization should be a concern for development actors and that development thinking offers critical lessons to build democratic resilience. Key factors that build democratic resilience include participatory political processes, citizen engagement and accountability mechanisms. Development thinking and practice can help improve democratic resilience, and the article illustrates this by learning lessons from development on strengthening two of the above listed factors: citizen engagement and accountability mechanisms.

Recent studies have shown that democracy outperforms autocracies on most development goals including health, education, government spending on development and economic development (Colagrossi et al. 2020; Tudor 2025).

‘the current decline in democracies and rise in autocratization has development implications that development actors need to care about.’

While Sen (1999) argues that development can be viewed as the removal of unfreedoms and the gaining of freedoms, studies have found that media freedoms can also have instrumental value in producing greater health outcomes (Wigley & Akkoyunlu-Wigley 2011). One area where democracies do not outperform autocracies is inequality, but on the whole, the current decline in democracies and rise in autocratization has development implications that development actors need to care about.

To protect democratic futures, it is important to understand factors that improve democratic resilience. These include creating inclusive and participatory political processes, mobilizing democratic citizens for elections, peaceful protests, civic engagement and strengthening accountability mechanisms (Lührmann, A. 2021). Development thinking and practice can offer critical lessons in strengthening those factors that improve democratic resilience, as argued in IDS’s recently published report, Where’s the Demos in Democracy?: Building Democratic Futures and Resisting Autocracy. This article will focus on lessons from development in strengthening factors that help improve democratic resilience, citizen engagement and accountability mechanisms.

Citizen engagement has been an important part of international development for decades. By the early 2000s, development scholars had noted that excessive focus on democratic institutions resulted in democratic practice and culture being ignored (Luckham et al. 2000). Stronger citizen engagement is the result of both supply-side and demand-side improvements, with local governance opening spaces for citizen participation and citizens engaging in society to expand their rights and freedoms and thus strengthen active citizenship.

Citizen engagement can be improved in various ways including by developing greater civic and political knowledge, improving an understanding of institutions and an increased awareness of rights. Some forms of citizen engagement are better linked to particular types of positive outcomes such as increased accountability. Similarly, local associations and social movements can be more important sources of change than formal participatory governance spaces, including in less democratic countries. Furthermore, multiple approaches to citizen engagement more frequently lead to increased accountability from states. It is also important to note that citizen engagement in some cases can result in negative outcomes so it is essential to consider the context, quality and approach to citizen engagement (Gaventa, J. & Barrett, G. 2012). To increase citizen engagement, it is also necessary to consider how citizens perceive officials and the policies they are engaging with (Sjöstedt, et al. 2022). A recent systematic review of citizen engagement found that citizen engagement interventions that engaged citizens through participatory fora and accountability mechanisms were more effective in increasing citizen engagement and improving service delivery (Sonnenfeld, et al. 2024).

International development also has significant experience in transparency and accountability, particularly in social and diagonal accountability. Traditional forms of democratic accountability are both horizontal and vertical. Horizontal accountability includes checks and balances between the judiciary, legislature and the executive, while vertical accountability includes voting. Diagonal accountability includes civil society and media holding the state and other powerful actors accountable. Fox (2015), in his meta-analysis of social accountability, found that while citizen voice is important, government responsiveness to that voice is likewise very important. He noted that approaches that used a sandwich strategy – which includes improving both citizen voice and creating an enabling environment for collective action and bolstering government responsiveness – were more successful. He also argued that it is important to take scale into account to enable support for more horizontal expansion which allows for more voices to be represented and vertical expansion which allows for more state responsiveness (Fox, J. A. 2015).

A review of a global programme that relied on technology to improve transparency and accountability revealed the limits of digital tools and questioned assumptions that transparency through digital technology could significantly strengthen accountability (McGee et al. 2018). Studies have also found that combining legal strategies with social accountability can be a useful avenue for strengthening accountability.

In conclusion, the crisis in democracy has negative implications for human development, not just in terms of reduced rights and freedoms for certain sections of society, but also in terms of development outcomes such as education, health and governance. While there are multiple factors that help strengthen democratic resilience, international development has critical lessons to offer this area of work. Future work on democracy can build citizen engagement by focusing on local associations, social movements and formal participatory governance fora while being mindful of contexts, the quality of engagement and positive outcomes.

Future work on accountability mechanisms should recognise the limitations of digital technology. Additionally, it should work on both strengthening citizen voice and creating an enabling environment for collective action to bolster government responsiveness to that citizen voice. This work should also take scale into account, seeking to expand both horizontally to include a diverse array of citizen voices and vertically to strengthen government responsiveness and thus hopefully create a feedback loop of government responsiveness leading to increased trust and encouraging more citizens to raise their voice. Lastly, it should combine social accountability with legal strategies to strengthen accountability mechanisms. Global trends in democratic backsliding and autocratization are likely to come with development losses beyond the loss of freedoms. Development actors can significantly contribute to informing approaches to building democratic resilience and stopping backsliding and autocratization, a trend that affects not just those interested in democratic values and processes but also those interested in human development