When do electoral institutions trigger electoral misconduct?

Drawing on two complementary mechanisms, this article explores the question of whether electoral institutions and conditions of electoral competition create incentives to promote electoral misconduct in young or developing democracies. The first mechanism explains how majoritarian institutions like disproportional electoral systems are more likely to trigger electoral fraud than consensus electoral institutions like proportional representation. However, for this mechanism to be activated, the incumbent must feel effectively threatened by the opposition. To better understand the way this mechanism works, the electoral history of the country also needs to be taken into consideration. Democracies which have a historical record of running clean elections are less likely to experience fraud than countries with a history of electoral misconduct. I test these theoretical claims using a dataset that contains relevant information for 323 parliamentary elections in 59 new or developing democracies in the period between 1960 and 2006. The empirical analysis shows a strong and robust empirical support for the two mechanisms.     

Getting elections right? Measuring electoral integrity

Holding elections has become a global norm. Unfortunately, the integrity of elections varies strongly, ranging from “free and fair” elections with genuine contestation to “façade” elections marred by manipulation and fraud. Clearly, electoral integrity is a topic of increasing concern. Yet electoral integrity is notoriously difficult to measure, and hence taking stock of the available data is important. This article compares cross-national data sets measuring electoral integrity. The first part evaluates how the different data sets (a) conceptualize electoral integrity, (b) move from concepts to indicators, and (c) move from indicators to data. The second part analyses how different data sets code the same elections, seeking to explain the sources of disagreement about electoral integrity. The sample analysed comprises 746 elections in 95 third and fourth wave regimes from 1974 until 2009. I find that conceptual and measurement choices affect disagreement about election integrity, and also find that elections of lower integrity and post-conflict elections generate higher disagreement about election integrity. The article concludes with a discussion of results and suggestions for future research.     

Who are the targets of familial electoral coercion? Evidence from Turkey

The unfettered expression of electoral choice is an important democratic right; however, in many contexts voters are pressured by others to cast their votes in certain ways. Electoral coercion is a topic that has received increased attention from researchers in recent years as part of the wave of research on electoral violence, yet there is little consensus in the literature as to who the targets of coercion are most likely to be. This article uses a list experiment embedded in a survey fielded following the Turkish general election of 2018 to identify the targets of coercive electoral practices within families and among close friends. The analysis reveals familial electoral coercion to be strongly conditioned by partisanship and disadvantaged demographic characteristics, but finds no evidence that women are more likely than men to be coerced.     

Electoral violence prevention: what works?

Elections are in theory democratic means of resolving disputes and making collective decisions, yet too often force is employed to distort the electoral process. The post-Cold War increase in the number of electoral authoritarian and hybrid states has brought this problem into relief. In recent years the prevention of electoral violence has played an increasingly large role in the democratic assistance activities undertaken by international agencies, following increased awareness within the international community of the specific security challenges that elections entail. However, there has to date been little systematic evaluation of the success of different electoral violence prevention (EVP) strategies in reforming electoral institutions so as to enable them to maintain the peace during the electoral period. This article assesses the effectiveness of two common types of international EVP activity. Using a new global dataset of EVP strategies between 2003 and 2015, this article finds evidence that capacity-building strategies reduce violence by non-state actors, whereas attitude-transforming strategies are associated with a reduction in violence by state actors and their allies. The findings are relevant both for understanding the dynamics of electoral violence, and also for policymakers and electoral assistance providers in the international community who have responsibility for the design of democratic assistance projects in states at risk of electoral violence.     

What it takes to win when the game is rigged: the evolution of opposition electoral strategies in Moscow, 2012–2017

This paper examines how the political opposition innovated strategies to overcome obstacles presented by Russia’s uneven electoral playing field. Using evidence from two municipal elections in Moscow, I argue that members of the opposition have coordinated around local contests in response to political opportunities created by the Kremlin, including the anti-electoral fraud protests of the winter of 2011–2012 and the resurrection of gubernatorial elections in 2012. Following these openings, grassroots electoral initiatives recruited and trained opposition-minded individuals, first focusing on established activists and then on politicized individuals, to run for municipal council seats. The campaigns provided training using ad hoc educational seminars and later developed electronic tools that lowered barriers to political participation. As a result of these campaigns, electoral competition has boomed at the local level in Moscow even as regional and national contests have become less competitive. The campaigns demonstrate the continued vulnerability of authoritarian regimes that rely on elections for political legitimacy. Furthermore, the development of highly portable online tools for campaigning has potentially long-term democratizing consequences.     

Preventive action and conflict mitigation in Nigeria’s 2015 elections

Prior to the 2015 Nigerian general elections, there were concerns that the fierce political contest would lead to electoral violence in the country. However, the elections were conducted peacefully, with fewer disputes and election-related deaths than previous elections. This study accounts for the fall in the level of electoral violence in Nigeria and discusses the lessons that Nigeria’s experience presents. It argues that the avoidance of destructive electoral disputes in Nigeria was the result of preventive action taken by the country’s electoral commission, civil society groups, and development partners. The specific preventive actions taken include innovations in election administration aimed at enhancing electoral transparency and credibility, election security measures such as early warning and peace messaging, and preventive diplomacy urging the main candidates and the political elite to embrace peace. The key lesson that can be drawn from Nigeria’s experience is that a well thought out conflict prevention strategy should be an integral part of electoral governance, especially in countries with a high risk of electoral violence.     

Globalization,Integration, and the European Welfare State

This paper considers three challenges to the mature European welfare states posed by economic and social integration, demographic changes, and the alleged decline of state capacity in the form of fiscal extraction in an era of globalization. I argue that the experiences of the older member states in the European Union are difficult to reconcile with the common assertions that globalization necessarily leads to a “race to the bottom” where welfare spending is downsized to the lowest common denominator. I develop a set of hypotheses on plausible linkages between demographic challenges, globalization, political capacity, and welfare spending, and test the propositions in an empirical analysis of 14 European Union member states from 1983 to 1998. My empirical results suggest that economic integration does not pose a threat to European welfare states. Rather, demographic changes such as low fertility rates and the aging of the population and their political implications for political leaders’ incentives are more serious challenges for the continuation of the welfare state in Europe.     

中国海军的崛起:从区域性海军力量到全球性海军力量?

经过\"后毛泽东时代\"近四十年的经济发展与科技现代化,当前中国所拥有的资源已足以构建具有战略影响力的海军力量。与此同时,中国在其近域边疆的战略优势不断增强,这使得中国人民解放军可以将其军事预算重心从内陆军事力量转移至海军防御。因此,即使其经济增长放缓,中国仍将具有充足的财力、科技资源以及战略条件来建设一支\"大海军\",从而对美国在东亚的海上安全构成越来越大的挑战,即使美国军事技术保持领先势头,这种挑战依然存在。据预测,十年内中国现代化海军规模将超越美国。这种变化将对未来全球海洋秩序产生巨大影响。虽然美国期望维持其全球海洋优势,但中国海军的崛起将会迫使美国将更多的海军力量集中于东亚海域,以制衡中国海军力量。同样,中国也可能会希望拥有全球性海洋军事优势。但随着美国海军对中国海军的日益关注,中国人民解放军将不得不集中力量发展其在东亚区域的海军力量,以维护其海洋安全。因此,由于海军大国维持地区安全的作用已经不复存在,中国海军的崛起将会导致东亚地区的不稳定,甚至还会导致欧亚大陆宽泛区域不稳定性的增强。     

Coercive or Corrosive: The Negative Impact of Economic Sanctions on Democracy

This article seeks to analyze the impact that sanctions have on democracy. We argue that economic sanctions worsen the level of democracy because the economic hardship caused by sanctions can be used as a strategic tool by the targeted regime to consolidate authoritarian rule and weaken the opposition. Furthermore, we argue that economic sanctions create new incentives for the political leadership to restrict political liberties, to undermine the challenge of sanctions as an external threat to their authority. Using time-series cross-national data (1972–2000), the findings show that both the immediate and longer‐term effects of economic sanctions significantly reduce the level of democratic freedoms in the target. The findings also demonstrate that comprehensive economic sanctions have greater negative impact than limited sanctions. These findings suggest that sanctions can create negative externalities by reducing the political rights and civil liberties in the targeted state.     

Change and Continuity in the European Union's Political Conditionality: Aims,Approach, and Priorities

The EU's political conditionality has acquired increasing importance with successive enlargements; this also goes for the period since 2004 compared with that before. The focus here is on change and continuity in conditionality policy with respect to its aims, approach, and priorities. The article presents and applies a three-dimensional analysis concerning the challenge to, the process of, and the management of that policy. Given the need for assessing it in a broad and dynamic context, the discussion revolves around three relationships: between conditionality and post-communist democratization; between conditionality and the enlargement process; and between conditionality and the EU itself in terms of institutional responsibility for enlargement and conditionality matters. This explains how the policy since 2004 has been driven by four factors: more difficult democratization cases from the West Balkans; lessons from the earlier 2004 enlargement involving East–Central Europe; the policy outlook of Commissioner Olli Rehn; and ‘enlargement fatigue’ and stronger pressures from EU actors other than the Commission. As a result, political conditionality has become broader in its scope, much tighter in its procedures, and less easy to control within a less enlargement-friendly environment in the EU and against less certainty about enlargement prospects.     

Stuck in transition: electoral processes in Zambia 1991–2001

Zambia has held three multiparty elections since its restoration of democracy in 1991. This peaceful transition raised expectations of a smooth process towards democratic consolidation. But similar to experiences in other African countries and Eastern Europe, the Zambian democratic process has remained stuck in a ‘transitional zone’ between actual democracy and authoritarian systems. This article argues that Zambian elections fall short of the expectations of a democratic process due to the institutional uncertainty surrounding elections and the weakness of the Zambian Electoral Commission in particular. The continued uncertainty – of the rules and regulations guiding elections and electoral administration – has maintained the same party in power through three consecutive elections, despite an alarming economic record.