Strengthening Democratic Resilience (SDR) Assessment Tool Guide

The tool diagnoses a country's vulnerability to actions undermining democratic resilience, focusing on both actual and potential actions of external actors with interests threatening democratic resilience. The SDR Assessment Tool is built on the Governing the Commons (GTC) framework, which provides conceptual guidance for relationships between key elements and connects real-world actions with potential strategic and programmatic responses. The GTC framework views public goods as subject to overconsumption and despoilment by individuals pursuing their self-interest, and it offers a response to the "tragedy of the commons" problem. The SDR Assessment Tool examines the behavior of external actors as they work to undermine democracies for geopolitical or economic gain by fomenting disunity, generating uncertainty, and destabilizing existing political, social, and economic relations. The tool also examines aspects of authoritarian learning that contribute to problems within a democratic system, such as the regional diffusion of laws to limit civil society organization (CSO) financing or the adoption of social media censorship tools and information manipulation. The SDR Assessment Tool shares a common analytical perspective with many of the DRG Bureau's other assessment tools, including the DRG Strategic Assessment Framework (SAF) and Political Economy Analysis (PEA). However, it differs from these tools in its focus on external actor behavior and how that intersects with a country's actual and potential weaknesses to undermine democratic development. The SDR Assessment Tool first seeks to develop an understanding of the country's political and economic context, then analyzes the ways in which external actors undermine or could undermine the current political economy, and finally recommends a series of strategic and programmatic responses. An SDR Assessment is not intended to be a DRG Assessment, though a solid understanding of the economic context and democratic institutions and processes is necessary. The SDR Assessment Tool is designed to be used in conjunction with other assessment tools, such as the DRG Strategic Assessment Framework (SAF) and Political Economy Analysis (PEA), to provide a comprehensive understanding of a country's democratic resilience and to develop effective strategic and programmatic responses to strengthen it. The tool is intended to be used by USAID Missions and select stakeholders to develop effective responses to the efforts of external state and non-state authoritarian actors. The SDR Assessment Tool has been developed by the DRG Bureau in collaboration with select interagency partners, including the Analytic Task on Authoritarian Resurgence and Influence (ATARI) Task Order of the Analytical Services IV (ASIV) IDIQ. The tool has been piloted and tested in several countries, and it has been found to be a useful tool for assessing external influences and developing effective strategic and programmatic responses to strengthen democratic resilience. The SDR Assessment Tool is designed to be used in a variety of contexts, including in countries that are experiencing democratic backsliding or are at risk of experiencing democratic backsliding. The tool is intended to be used by USAID Missions and select stakeholders to develop effective responses to the efforts of external state and non-state authoritarian actors and to strengthen democratic resilience in partner countries.