Title: The Political Culture of Democracy in the Americas, 2014: Democratic Governance across 10 Years of the Americas Barometer
By: Elizabeth J. Zechmeister, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University
Summary: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) takes pride in its support of the AmericasBarometer. While the surveys’ primary goal is to give citizens a voice on a broad range of important issues, they also help guide USAID programming and inform policymakers throughout the Latin America and Caribbean region. USAID officers use the AmericasBarometer findings to prioritize funding allocation and guide program design. The surveys are frequently employed as an evaluation tool, by comparing results in specialized “oversample” areas with national trends. In this sense, AmericasBarometer is at the cutting-edge of gathering high quality impact evaluation data that are consistent with the 2008 National Academy of Sciences recommendations to USAID and the new evaluation policy put in place by USAID in 2011. The AmericasBarometer also alerts policymakers and international assistance agencies to potential problem areas, and informs citizens about democratic values and experiences in their countries relative to regional trends.
Biblioteca CASEDE 
