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2019-12-12
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
On November 25, a short paper was released purporting to show that there was fraud in the October 20th Bolivian presidential election — and that absent this fraud, the election would have required a second round. However, the authors, Escobari and Hoover produce no credible evidence that the official results of the election should be doubted. Instead, their approach confirms our finding that the expanded MAS margin on the later tally sheets is explained by the mix of precincts considered before and after the interruption of the unofficial TREP count. Their alarm regarding "dosing" was based on a highly distorted presentation of the facts. Instead, careful examination simply reminds us that geography was even more critical to the order in which tally sheets were counted in the cómputo than to the order in the TREP.
In this brief, we replicate the results of Escobari and Hoover, discover errors in their analysis, and eventually find that the approach essentially confirms our own findings that the change in margin was predictable.
2019-12-12
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
The OAS final audit of the Bolivian elections, published on December 4th, concludes that there was "intentional manipulation" and "serious irregularities" that make it impossible to verify the results of the election. Members of the de facto government and other critics of former president Evo Morales have used the findings of the OAS audit to corroborate allegations of electoral fraud leveled in the hours and days following the vote. But the following analysis shows that the report itself presents a biased and misleading account of the audit's findings, presenting serious inaccuracies and downplaying or ignoring altogether any evidence that runs counter to the fraud narrative that the OAS has promoted since the day after the election.
This analysis is not meant to serve as a validation of the electoral results themselves. Rather, it is an analysis of the OAS's actual findings and of the neutrality and rigor of the audit itself. This is not about supporting one political party or candidate over another. Nor is it solely about Bolivia. This is about the need for independent electoral observation in the hemisphere, and about accountability for an organization that has abandoned any semblance of neutrality under the leadership of Secretary General Luis Almagro.
2019-11-19
Peace and Security Funders Group;
Through the Peace and Security Funding Index, Candid and the Peace and Security Funders Group aim to illuminate the field of peace and security grantmaking and provide a nuanced understanding of the issues and strategies peace and security funders support. The Index tracks funding for work to prevent future conflict, resolve existing conflict, and support stability and peace across 24 issue areas (e.g., peacebuilding, nuclear issues). It includes grantmaking by institutional funders, including private foundations, public charities, and community foundations.
Funding for peace and security remains small relative to foundation funding overall. Peace and security grantmaking represented just 1.2 percent of the nearly $33 billion given by foundations in Candid's research set of grantmaking by 1,000 of the largest U.S. foundations.
2019-11-11
Rockefeller Archive Center;
My dissertation examines the role of smart power in U.S.-Spain relations during the Spanish transition to democracy. The archives of the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) held several collections that enriched my analysis of the development of soft power by the United States in Spain. At the archives, I found records on the movement of Pablo Picasso's Guernica from the Museum of Modern Art to the Prado in Madrid, Nelson Rockefeller's impact on the Spanish transition, how the Ford Foundation and Peter Fraenkel helped administer Spanish educational reforms and exchanges of the 1970s, and how human rights played a vital role in the Spanish transition.
2019-11-08
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
This paper presents results from statistical analysis of election returns and tally sheets from Bolivia's October 20 elections. This analysis finds no evidence that irregularities or fraud affected the official result that gave President Evo Morales a first-round victory. The paper presents a step-by-step breakdown of what happened with Bolivia's vote counts (both the unofficial quick count, and the slower official count), seeking to dispel confusion over the process. The report includes the results of 500 simulations that show that Morales's first-round victory was not just possible, but probable, based on the results of the initial 83.85 percent of votes in the quick count.
2019-11-01
Open Society Foundations;
Despite deep concerns about the future of democracy, people in Central and Eastern Europe retain a strong attachment to civil society and faith in the freedoms achieved with the collapse of Communism, according to States of Change: Attitudes in Central and Eastern Europe 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, a report from the Open Society Foundations.
Based on polling by YouGov conducted in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, States of Change provides a snapshot of current opinion on democracy, freedom of speech, the market economy, and the media in the former Eastern Bloc and Germany.
2019-10-21
Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York;
After 1990, US and European foundations and government agencies invested in a series of Partnerships and Trusts to support civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Balkans and the Black Sea regions. Analyzing the long-term impact of these investments is crucial, especially as many politicians across these regions increase their anti-civil society rhetoric. Three long-time US foundation staff look back at the legacy and impact of this funding and derive a series of lessons for practitioners seeking to understand how best to sustain civil societies for the long term.
2019-09-24
Rockefeller Archive Center;
One of the primary goals of the founders of the National Committee on United States-China Relations was to encourage discussion of China policy. In 1966, when they formed the group, there was little debate on the topic, and much public ignorance concerning current and recent events on the Chinese mainland. While the NCUSCR as an organization took no political positions, its leaders all supported ending the U.S. isolation of the Chinese Communists and pursuing a new policy of outreach and rapprochement. This occasioned some opposition from conservatives who supported existing policies, and who saw the Committee as a de facto lobby, despite its leaders' protestations of non-partisanship and its tax-exempt status as a non-political organization. Within less than five years, the Committee appeared to become a victim of its own success. Discussion of the issue was uncontroversial, and President Nixon had begun the process of outreach to China. The organization gave serious consideration to closing up shop. Yet rapprochement, while threatening one primary mission, increased opportunities to pursue the other: public education, particularly in the form of cultural exchanges. This gave the group new relevance and renewed public prominence, allowing it to maintain its presence and persevere.
2019-09-01
Open Society Foundations;
The digital revolution is radically changing every aspect of human life in the 21st century and it's essential that regulators address the challenges this transformation brings. The new European Commission should look beyond digital single market issues, and focus on creating new rights-based policies and regulations based on freedom, democracy, equality, and rule of law to ensure that existing offline rights are protected online.
2019-08-15
Joyce Foundation;
This document reviews the Joyce Foundation's 25-year history of grant making to advance gun violence prevention research. Since 1993, the Joyce Foundation has provided support to researchers who have produced hundreds of scientific publications and innumerable insights about gun violence in the United States, and its solutions. This is necessarily an incomplete accounting, but provides an approximate measure of the unique impact of the Joyce Foundation's grant making during a critical time period when few other private or public funders supported the field.
2019-08-01
ERSTE Stiftung;
Presently, the culture of open discussion seems to be threatened in an increasing number of countries. In Central and Eastern Europe's (CEE's) democracies, recent political developments appear to jeopardize progresses made in the past. Against this background, this study aims at shedding light on the dynamics of CEE'scivil society and gives a brief overview of the status quo and recent developments that directly affect civil society.
The study was conducted by the Competence Center for Nonprofit Organizations and Social Entrepreneurship at WU Vienna (Vienna University of Economics and Business), commissioned by and in collaboration with ERSTE foundation as well as with a group of country experts. The inclusion of expert assessments on civil society aims at giving a voice primarily to practitioners. Therefore, the study included an online survey in each participating country, addressing CSO representatives operating in various fields of activity.
2019-08-01
CIVICUS;
In this report, we present a summary of our findings, which we hope will contribute to depicting the funding landscape for CSOs in Latin America. We do so with the ambition of stimulating debates based on empirical evidence, rethinking civil society funding practices and promoting actions that democratise access to predictable flows of resources to strengthen the autonomy, sustainability and diversity of civil society.
