The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law seeks to promote innovative and practical research to assist developing and transitioning countries design and implement policies that will foster democracy, promote balanced and sustainable growth and advance the rule of law. The Center harbors four research programs on democracy, economic performance, rule of law, and sovereignty. It supports specialized teaching, training, and outreach to assist countries struggling with political, economic, and judicial reform, constitutional design, economic performance, and corruption.
A decade's worth of hard experience convincingly demonstrates that without fundamental changes in the ways developing and transitioning societies are governed, the kinds of far-reaching economic reforms necessary for sustained and equitable growth and development cannot be implemented. To advance our understanding, of the relationship between positive political, economic and legal change, the work of the new Center is oriented around four programmatic poles.