The Politics of Change: The Evolution of UN Electoral Services, 1989–2006

Abstract

The United Nations and many members were unenthusiastic when Nicaragua, a sovereign state, invited the UN to observe its elections in 1989. However, the UN accepted the invitation, and UN electoral services have since reached over 100 members. This article investigates UN involvement in elections from 1989 to 2006 and identifies important changes over that time in the kinds of electoral services that the UN provided. These changes cannot be explained solely by shifts in member interests, international norms, the distribution of power, or the market for electoral services. Instead, the UN made modest reforms to manage the conflicting pressures that these external shifts produced without stretching scarce resources or weakening its perceived legitimacy. However, each modest reform—an exception, symbolic institutional change, or new leadership vision—triggered additional changes by reconstituting member or bureaucratic preferences. This article specifically highlights three change processes that these reform...