Foreign aid is increasingly provided not only by traditional OECD donors but also by authoritarian donors like China, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Research shows that these countries have different foreign aid practices and implementation processes in the recipient countries (Dreher et al., 2022; Isaksson & Kotsadam 2018) . In this paper we ask, “How do stakeholders perceive the interplay of democratic and autocratic actors and their impact on the democratization processes of recipient countries?” We examine elites’ perspectives in recipient countries toward the role of both democratic actors, such as the European Union and the United States, as well as autocratic actors like China and Russia. We seek to understand the challenges and opportunities faced by both recipients and foreign donors when implementing democratic reforms. We employ 33 informant interviews with elites in the countries of the Western Balkans, specifically in Kosovo, Albania, and Serbia. We interview heads of civil society, ministers, ambassadors, journalists, donor officials, academics, researchers and a former president. Our aim is to make both theoretical and empirical contributions by increasing our knowledge of external donors' impact on the recipient government's incentives to democratize, or, in some cases, to prop up the legitimacy of autocratic leaders.
