The costs of electoral fraud: establishing the link between electoral integrity,winning an election,and satisfaction with democracy

Previous research has shown that voters’ perception of electoral fairness has an impact on their attitudes and behaviors. However, less research has attempted to link objective measurements of electoral integrity on voters’ attitudes about the democratic process. Drawing on data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the Quality of Elections Data, we investigate whether cross-national differences in electoral integrity have significant influences on citizens’ level of satisfaction with democracy. We hypothesize that higher levels of observed electoral fraud will have a negative impact on evaluations of the democratic process, and that this effect will be mediated by a respondent’s status as a winner or loser of an election. The article’s main finding is that high levels of electoral fraud are indeed linked to less satisfaction with democracy. However, we show that winning only matters in elections that are conducted in an impartial way. The moment elections start to display the telltale signs of manipulation and malpractice, winning and losing no longer have different effects on voter’s levels of satisfaction with democracy.     

C. Focarelli,International Law as Social Construct. The Struggle for Global Justice,Oxford University Press,Oxford 2012, liii + 571 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-958483-3.

Netherlands International Law Review -     

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Rhetoric and Action: What are Central Banks Doing Before Elections?

Central bank rhetoric need not always be followed bycorresponding measures. In a number of regressions coveringGermany, Japan and the U.S. we examine differences in rhetoricand actual behavior before elections, using a standard PBCmodel. Our results indicate that these three central bankshave not been influenced by electoral consideration in thepolicies they implement, but the case of the German Bundesbankindicates that it may be helpful to distinguish betweenrhetoric and action.     

Governance and order-making in Central Asia: from illiberalism to post-liberalism?

ABSTRACT

This forum brings together five different angles on the question as to whether and how political regimes and forms of order-making can and should be researched through the concept of ‘illiberalism’. The discussion engages critically with this and associated concepts, such as ‘illiberal peace’ and ‘authoritarian conflict management’, which have been developed out of the Central Asian / Eurasian context and discussed in their wider global ramifications and, within the framing of ‘illiberal peace’, explored in various contexts in and beyond Central Asia. While further assessing the relevance and implications of this approach, this forum also attempts to think beyond ‘illiberalism’ by introducing and discussing the idea of ‘post-liberalism’. This way, the authors engage in an exchange that serves to probe both concepts and to determine their strengths and limitations when it comes to analysing and understanding politics and societal processes in Central Asia.