As the field of international democracy assistance ages and to some extent matures, it is undergoing a process of diversification—in the actors involved, the range of countries where it operates, and the kinds of activities it comprises. Strategic differentiation is an important element of this diversification—democracy-aid providers are moving away from an early tendency to follow a one-size-fits-all strategy toward exploring varied strategies aimed at the increasingly diverse array of political contexts in the world. A defining feature of this process of differentiation is the emergence of two distinct overall approaches to assisting democracy: the political approach and the developmental approach. Carothers compares and contrasts these two approaches.

http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/gratis/Carothers-20-1.pdf