International commitments to international election observation in the Caucasus and Central Asia

Abstract

This chapter contends that political identity in Eurasia can be identified through an examination of how governments support or resist international election observation missions (IEOMs). IEOMs, as conducted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and supported by such other democracy-supporting organisations as the Council of Europe, advance a multifaceted conception not only of what elections should encompass but also the totality of societal freedom and of governmental responsibility. Democratising governments in the Baltic and Central and South-Eastern Europe embraced IEOMs. The response, however, has been markedly different in the post-Soviet space. There, a group of countries have actively resisted OSCE IEOMs practices and norms and created countervailing institutions. Other post-Soviet governments, as this chapter seeks to demonstrate, have actively adopted OSCE IEOMs as part of their markers of being closer to the West and more distant from the former Soviet regional political practices and norms.