Flawed Elections Research Articles

Zombies ahead: Explaining the rise of low-quality election monitoring

AbstractThe international election monitoring regime has become considerably more complex in the twenty-first century. Although the number of organizations engaged in high-quality election monitoring has plateaued, the number of low-quality monitors—commonly known as zombie monitors—has continued to grow. Low-quality election monitors threaten democracy because they validate flawed elections and undermine the legitimacy of the international election monitoring regime. This article argues that international politics have played a crucial role in the diffusion of low-quality election monitors. It hypothesizes that ties with autocratic powers that promote low-quality observers and membership in authoritarian regional organizations significantly increase the likelihood that a country will host low-quality monitors at its elections. To test the hypotheses, the article draws on original data on international election observation between 2000 and 2020 that identifies the most comprehensive set of groups of election monitors to-date. A statistical analysis of the dataset supports the argument.

7 - ‘Open the Servers’: The Implications of Electoral Technology for Kenya’s Democratisation Process


 
 
 Digital technologies for elections were introduced in Kenya with a vision that they would bring election reforms through increasing administrative efficiency, reducing long-term costs, and by enhancing transparency in the electoral process would enhance citizenry inclusivity. Despite the voting exercise taking place without a hitch, the 2017 General Election results were dismissed by various stakeholders who called on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to ‘open the servers’, with witnesses, to use the results inside the servers to verify the ballot papers in the ballot boxes. Promises by IEBC that counting, transmission and verification of results would promote citizens’ rights during the electoral process were not met hence the Swahili phrase, ‘Fungua server’ (Open the servers) was coined. The server became the Holy Grail, the gadget of hope for free and fair elections. Chants of ‘Fungua server’ unveiled the dreaded side of Kenya’s democratisation; of flawed elections and violence that followed. ‘Fungua server’ was a call to free and fair elections. The paradox of technology this article seeks to interrogate was how technology has subverted democratic elections in Kenya; arguing that there is need to demystify the server and focus on electoral transparency as a yardstick of democracy.
 
 
 
 Joyce Omwoha, PhD, Lecturer, Journalism & Media Studies, Technical University of Kenya. Email: joyceomwoha@gmail.com
 
 
 
 
 

Role of the Courts in Ensuring Free and Fair Elections in Kenya

Although the Judiciary has made many decisions that are consistent with the ideal of free and fair elections in the last fifty-six years, its dominant approach to electoral dispute resolution generally entails making superficially sound but disingenuous and deeply flawed decisions. This ‘clever’ approach, referred to as ‘legal sophistry’ in this article, generally entails an inflexible emphasis of legal and procedural technicalities; eschewing or suppressing serious genuine questions regarding the validity and integrity of elections; disingenuous adoption of discreditable case law from countries that practice pseudo or sham democracy; and manipulation of the law in favour of incumbency. Legal sophistry is inconsistent with the transformative agenda of the 2010 Constitution, which, inter alia, requires the Judiciary to promote the values and principles embodied in the Constitution and determine (electoral) disputes without undue regard to technicalities of law and procedure. Legal sophistry undermines the ideal of free and fair elections in at least three significant ways. First, it encourages electoral fraud and malpractice. Secondly, it leads to absurd or unjust outcomes, such as judicial affirmation of flawed elections. Lastly, legal sophistry undermines democracy, the rule of law and public confidence in the courts as honest arbiters of political disputes. The entrenchment of legal sophistry as the Judiciary’s dominant approach to electoral dispute resolution has defied constitutional, legal and institutional reforms specifically designed to end it. The resilience of legal sophistry may be attributed to the factors that have influenced the evolution of the Judiciary from its inception to date, especially colonial legacy, corruption, patronage politics, impunity and the institutional degradation of the pre-2010 years.

The Emergence of a Hybrid Public Sphere in Myanmar: Implications for Democratisation

AbstractMyanmar was under a military government for almost six decades, during which time the state maintained an ‘authoritarian public sphere’ that limited independent civil society, mass media and the population's access to information. In 2010, Myanmar held flawed elections that installed a semi-civilian government and established a hybrid governance regime, within which civil, political and media freedoms expanded while the military's influence remained significant. In this paper, we examine ‘hybrid governance at work’ in the ‘hybrid public sphere’, that holds in tension elements of an authoritarian and democratic public sphere. The boundaries of these spheres are demarcated through legal means, including the 2008 military-created Constitution, associated judicial and administrative state structures and the actions of civil society and community movements toward political, military and bureaucratic elite actors. We develop our analysis first through an assessment of Myanmar's political transition at the national level and, then, in an empirical case of subnational politics in Dawei City regarding the planning of the electricity supply. We suggest that the hybrid public sphere enables discourses—associated with authoritarian popularist politics in Myanmar—that build legitimacy amongst the majority while limiting the circulation of critical discourses of marginalized groups and others challenging government policies. We conclude that for substantive democracy to deepen in Myanmar, civil society and media must actively reinforce the opportunity to produce and circulate critical discourse while also facilitating inclusive debates and consolidating legislated civil, political and media freedoms. On 1 February 2021, shortly after this article was finalized, a military coup d’état detained elected leaders and contracted the post-2010 hybrid public sphere, including constraining access to information via control of the internet and mass media and severely limiting civil and political rights.

Assessing Political Risk Analysis in a hybrid regime: The case of Zimbabwe

Political Risk Analysis (PRA) levels are theoretically postulated to increase in a hybrid regime. This paper argues that there is a change to this hypothesis. A single case research design was employed, using Zimbabwe from 1990 to 2018. During the period, Zimbabwe showed five diverse forms of hybridity which are liberal, competitive illiberal, competitive, illiberal, and military hybrid regimes. A conceptual framework is developed to assess political risk in a hybrid regime using hybrid regime indicators and some political risk factors of most concern to developing countries. 28 key informants from six categories of respondents were interviewed. Illegitimacy, corruption, the staleness of leadership, adverse government regulation, election violence, and severed home-host state relations were confirmed to increase the perception of political risk in a hybrid regime. Investors were observed to have developed a tolerance for some “unacceptable” factors that increased political risk. Military tutelage, weak institutions, flawed elections, military generals in power, undemocratic means to retain power, minimum horizontal accountability and weak rule of law were found to not automatically increase political risk as before. The paper concludes that there is no single form of hybridity and as such different forms of hybrid regimes accrue different levels of political risk, some lower levels while others substantially higher levels. Therefore, in a hybrid regime, a differentiated PRA monitoring, assessing and mitigation strategy will be most effective for management to implement. Future studies can apply the analytical framework of assessing PRA in a hybrid to another hybrid regime to expand the theoretical propositions made by this paper

Election Management Systems and Peaceful Alternation of Power between Incumbent and Opposition Governments in Ghana and Nigeria

Across most democracies in Africa, election management is largely problematic, and peaceful alternation of power between incumbent and opposition governments is usually infrequent and rancorous. The role of election management systems in such power alternations, specifically in Ghana and Nigeria, is not adequately covered in literature. Adopting an exploratory research design and qualitative methodology, this article explores the role of election management in the peaceful alternation of power between incumbent governments and opposition parties in the countries. It relies on primary data sourced from semi-structured interviews and secondary literature. The results show that, in Ghana, election management system is largely credible, thus, influenced incumbents’ willingness to peacefully hand over power to opposition, whereas, in Nigeria, peaceful alternation took place despite flawed election management system. The study concludes that while election management was significant for peaceful power alternation in Ghana, it was not for Nigeria.

Exploring the Link between Global Capital Expansion, Chinese Ascendancy, and the Verdicts of Western Election Observers in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Kenya's 2017 General Elections

There is an increasing feeling among scholars of African democracy that Western election observers apply a double standard in their operations in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the explanation for this supposed posture on the part of international election monitors is yet to be exhaustively explored. Associated scholarship has largely confined itself to three broad factors: the "progress bias," defined by Susan Dodsworth as "a tendency to tolerate flawed elections that improved on those held previously"; the risk of triggering electoral violence; and the protection of strategic partnerships. In an attempt to further scholarship on Western observers of African elections, this article employs the lens of globalization and monopoly capitalism to discuss Kenya's 2017 polls within the context of China's rise as a global power. It revolves around the following broad question: If, in fact, the John Kerry-led international observer team was complicit in facilitating election rigging during Kenya's 2017 election cycle, how do we explain this from an economic perspective? It concludes, partly, that the quest to either attain or retain dominance among global powers, is not only contributing to the erosion of constitutional gains but also exposing the Kenyan masses to dictatorial and predatory leadership. Moreover, during Kenya's 2017 election cycle, there appears to have been a significant shift in the inclination and preference of citizens, from substantive to procedural democracy.

Flawed Laws, Flawed Elections: Local Elections in Pakistan

Abstract Violations of electoral integrity occur throughout the electoral cycle. This article focuses on violations that take place in the legal framework for elections and examines what happens wh...

Cambodia's Transition to Hegemonic Authoritarianism

Despite a long history of intense repression and flawed elections in Cambodia, recent years have witnessed events unprecedented by the standards of Cambodian People's Party (CPP) leader Hun Sen's dictatorship. A political crackdown targeted the last remaining vestiges of public opposition to the CPP—namely, civil society groups, independent media organizations, and political opponents. Sham parliamentary elections in July 2018 capitalized on this repression by providing a mechanism for the CPP to keep its iron grip on power while feigning conformity to the principles of party competition, citizen participation, and impartial validation. Taken together, these developments marked a transition from the competitive authoritarianism that had long characterized Cambodia's political system to full-blown hegemonic authoritarian rule.

Double standards: the verdicts of western election observers in sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACTThis article tests whether Western election observers apply a “double standard” to elections in sub-Saharan Africa. It demonstrates that they do: Western election observers were statistically less likely to allege that significant fraud had occurred in an election in sub-Saharan Africa, than an election of the same quality held elsewhere, throughout the period from 1991 to 2012. This discrepancy exists despite controls for other factors commonly thought to influence the verdicts of observers, such as the strategic interests of Western countries. Yet, there is variation over time. Between 1991 and 2001, the double standard is partly explained by “progress bias,” a tendency to tolerate flawed elections that improved on those held previously. From 2002 to 2012, observers’ application of a double standard is much harder to explain. In that period, the analysis points to several factors that discourage Western observers from alleging fraud, including the risk of triggering electoral violence and a desire to protect relationships with strategic partners. It also identifies factors that make allegations of electoral fraud more likely, including the precedent set by past allegations of fraud and – unexpectedly – higher levels of foreign aid. None of these factors, however, account for the regional discrepancy.

The electoral bureaucratic machine and flawed elections in Nigeria

The electoral bureaucratic machine and flawed elections in Nigeria

Nonideal democratic authority

Empirical research has transformed our understanding of autocratic institutions (Gandhi, 2008; Magaloni, 2006; Schedler, 2009). Yet democratic theorists remain laser-focused on ideal democracies, often contending that political equality is necessary to generate democratic authority (Buchanan, 2002; Christiano, 2008; Estlund, 2008; Kolodny, 2014B; Shapiro, 2002; Viehoff, 2014B, Waldron, 1999). Those analyses neglect most nonideal democracies and autocracies – regimes featuring inequality and practices like gerrymandering. This essay fills that fundamental gap, outlining the difficulties of applying theories of democratic authority to nonideal regimes and challenging long-standing views about democratic authority. Focusing on autocrats that lose elections (for example, Sri Lanka, 2015), I outline the democratic authority of nonideal, flawed procedures. Flawed elections are unjustifiably biased toward incumbents. But under certain conditions, ignoring an incumbent’s loss would require not treating one’s fellow citizens as equals. Under those conditions, therefore, citizens are bound to obey those electoral outcomes – that is, flawed procedures can possess democratic authority.

Can human rights conditionality reduce repression? Examining the European Union’s economic agreements

The insertion of human rights commitments into international economic agreements is now a widespread practice. We argue that the effect of such commitments depends on the degree of leverage held by one partner over the other. In a comprehensive analysis of the European Union’s (EU’s) relations with developing countries, we find that human rights clauses are conditionally effective; they are associated with improved political freedom and physical integrity rights only in countries that are more heavily dependent on EU aid. An in-depth look at the EU’s enforcement of its human rights clause in the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group reveals that the Union most often responds to violations of political rights—particularly coups and flawed elections—and that enforcement is indeed a more powerful catalyst for change in highly aid-dependent states. Alternative explanations—that the impact of the human rights clause depends on legalization, the country’s strategic importance, NGO activity, or domestic institutions—find little support.

Out of the shadows: autocratic regimes, election observation and legitimation

ABSTRACTAutocratic regimes have developed a new strategy to overcome the high costs of either fully complying or not complying with the international norm of external election observation. This article explains how many dictators and dominant parties deploy ‘shadow’ election observation groups over professional observation groups as part of a mock compliance strategy. By supplanting the identity of the group judging elections and displacing the normative standard being applied, autocratic regimes have sought to gain democratic-procedural legitimation via flawed elections. This argument is evidenced using case studies of parliamentary and presidential elections in Cambodia, Zimbabwe and Egypt, which show that legitimation driven by shadow observation groups has become a globally applied strategy. The conclusion offers policy proscriptions for how to counteract the deployment of these groups and what the emergence of this phenomenon means for the study of autocratic legitimation.

Getting away with foul play? The importance of formal and informal oversight institutions for electoral integrity

AbstractElectoral integrity is increasingly being recognised as an important component of democracy, yet scholars still have limited understanding of the circumstances under which elections are most likely to be free, fair and genuine. This article posits that effective oversight institutions play a key role in scrutinising the electoral process and holding those with an interest in the electoral outcome to account. The main insight is that deficiencies in formal electoral management can be effectively compensated for via one or more other institutional checks: an active and independent judiciary; an active and independent media; and/or an active and independent civil society. Flawed elections are most likely to take place when all four checks on electoral conduct fail in key ways. These hypotheses are tested and supported on a cross‐national time‐series dataset of 1,047 national‐level elections held in 156 electoral regimes between 1990 and 2012.

Flooding the lake? International democracy promotion and the political economy of the 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan

The introductory article to this volume positions the Afghan case within the broader literature on the political economy of war-to-peace transitions. The paper begins by critiquing the rise of democracy promotion, and then employs a political economy framework to understand the more focused research on democratisation and elections. The paper highlights some of the major features of the Afghan case that provided a backdrop for the 2014 election: a deeply divided society, a highly militarised and invasive international presence, and a history of flawed elections. This discussion helps contextualise the seemingly technical questions about constitutional design, electoral systems and the organisation and monitoring of elections. It is argued that the pursuit of elections and democratisation efforts more broadly, in a context of growing insecurity and political fragmentation, have had unintended and perverse effects. The concluding section sets out the main themes of the individual contributions that follow.

The failure of democratisation by elections in Cambodia

ABSTRACTThis article questions the explanatory power of the theory of democratisation by elections. This approach to democratisation argues that elections in authoritarian regimes constitute part of a metagame between ruling elites and opponents, which involves a competition for votes inside a larger competition over the nature of political power. The cumulative effect is that even flawed elections raise the costs of repression and lower the costs of toleration in ways that eventually bring about democracy. When applied to the most likely case of Cambodia, however, electoral democratisation has resoundingly failed to occur. Instead, this article argues that neopatrimonial inhibits the transformative power of elections by preventing the emergence of resolute democratic ideals, reform-minded elites and pro-democratic institutions. In this way, the distribution of party-state patronage constitutes a method of co-optation; and flawed elections represent a mechanism to renew and reinforce the historical roots and structural basis of state authority. Using the case of Cambodia, this article develops an account of neopatrimonialism in authoritarian elections and explores implications of the Cambodian experience for the democratisation by elections theory more broadly.

The autocratic mandate: elections, legitimacy and regime stability in Singapore

ABSTRACTThis paper explains how authoritarian regimes employ flawed elections to obtain both short-term legitimacy and long-term stability. In conjunction with the use of co-optation and repression, it argues that ruling parties hold de jure competitive elections to claim what is termed autonomous legitimation. This denotes the feigning of conformity to the established rules of the constitution and the shared beliefs of citizens. Regardless of overall turnout and support, ruling parties exploit the normative and symbolic value of elections in order to establish moral grounds for compliance within a dominant-subordinate relationship. In support of this argument, the case of Singapore's People's Action Party (PAP) is analysed in historical and contemporary terms. Since 1959, the PAP has used precisely timed elections to extract one or more mandate types from citizens and, by extension, claim legitimacy. In particular, it has sort a mandate based on its response to an event, execution of a policy and/or collection of a reward. In the long run, autocratic stability has been achieved through a process of reciprocal reinforcement, which has combined autonomous legitimation with targeted co-optation and low intensity coercion. The paper concludes by addressing the generalisability of this finding for other authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia.

Elections, Protest and Trust in Government: A Natural Experiment from Russia

How do flawed elections and post-election protest shape political attitudes? Taking advantage of the largely exogenous variation in the timing of a survey conducted in Moscow, we examine the short-term impact of the parliamentary election of December 4th, and the large protest of December 10th on trust in the Russian government. The fraud-marred parliamentary election had little effect on attitudes toward government, perhaps because allegations of vote improprieties were not new information. In contrast, the large protest of December 10th increased trust in government. Heightened trust arises largely from non-supporters of the ruling party updating their beliefs rather than from social desirability bias, a perceived improvement in government performance, or a “halo” effect. This finding is consistent with the view that autocrats can increase trust in government by unexpectedly allowing protest without repression. It also suggests that when evaluating trust in government citizens may cue not off the content of the protest, but off the holding of the protest itself.

Good Guest, Bad Guest: The Micro-Geographies of Violence in Urban Kenya

This article analyses the 2007–08 postelection violence in Kenya arguing that there were significant socio-spatial variations to the conflict in urban areas that can be better understood through an analysis of localised framing processes. It argues that, in some urban neighbourhoods, an underlying frame of autochthony is (re)produced through lived experience, facilitating the casting of ethnic others as either good or bad guests in times of political transition. The flawed elections of 2007 justified the violent eviction of ‘bad’ guests in these settings. This frame of autochthony, however, is absent in other urban neighbourhoods, and so these spaces remained relatively calm for the duration of the crisis. The article further argues that the flexibility of the good guest/bad guest frame enabled its reconfiguration at the local level, leading to variations in the fault lines of conflict across both time and space. It concludes that frame analysis can help to elucidate these micro-geographies of conflict.