Democracy-Contingent Benefits

Abstract

This chapter documents changes in international democracy promotion as well as the change in democracy-contingent benefits associated with the norm of election observation. It discusses the indirect role that pro-democracy actors played in generating the norm of election monitoring. It shows that the initiation of election observation coincided with increases in democracy promotion before 1989 and that the rapid increase in election monitoring beginning in the late 1980s coincided with a dramatic increase in democracy-contingent benefits brought about by the end of the Cold War. It presents evidence from several detailed cases of elections in which reports from international observers were linked to international benefits. Finally, it documents and explains cases in which governments refused observers after 2000, showing that democracy promoters perceive these governments as nondemocracies, despite the fact that they hold national elections.