Monitoring the Monitors: Understanding Election Observation in Today's World

Abstract

The Pseudo-Democrat's Dilemma: Why Election Observation Became an International Norm. By Susan D. Hyde. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. 248 pp., $35 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-801-44966-6). Monitoring Democracy: When International Election Observation Works, and Why It Often Fails. By Judith G. Kelley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. 342 pp., $35 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-691-15278-3). As the Third Wave of democracy spread, elections grew in number and importance, coming to symbolize not the apotheosis of a democratic transition, but the first step on a long and uncertain path of political change. And as elections spread, so did election observation; while only 9% of national elections were observed between 1945 and 1990, 63% were observed between 1990 and 2011. Election observers' pronouncements became front-page news, yet new doubts emerged regarding monitors' ability to constrain incumbents from stealing elections. As of the late 2000s, however, there had been little scholarly attention to election monitoring. Two new books have fortunately filled this gap—Susan Hyde's The Pseudo-Democrat's Dilemma and Judith Kelley's Monitoring Democracy . The books significantly contribute to our understanding of the who, what, why, and where of election monitoring. Indeed, they have much in common. Each fuses a practitioner's understanding of the technical and political demands of election monitoring with a researcher's eye for theory-building and data collection. Each book evaluates the efficacy of election observation, but also offers a more complex portrait of its origins and evolution. They should therefore interest scholars of democracy promotion, international norms, and experimental methods. Yet Hyde and Kelley's contributions also diverge in purpose, theory, and methods. Kelley more eagerly addresses questions of the impact of election monitoring and consequently offers a more public policy-friendly critique of its practice. Hyde, in contrast, is more interested in constructing a new theory of how international norms originate. In essence, Kelley has written a book on the practice of election monitoring, while Hyde has written a book on the norm of election monitoring. The authors also come to divergent conclusions regarding the impact of election monitors. Both Kelley and Hyde begin their books by pointing to several empirical facts now familiar to political scientists: …