Founding Elections Research Articles

Post-Third Wave Democratisation: A Study of Nigerian and Ghanaian Democratic Experience in the West African Sub-region

<p>This article explores the democratic experience in the West African Sub-region and it focuses on Ghana and Nigeria after the post-third wave democratisation. In a real sense, the post-third wave democratisation was a transition to democracy after 1991. The character brought down authoritarian regimes such as one-party systems, military regimes, and personalisation of power. The consequences led to the establishment of democratic governments in different political situations. The article argues that democratic experience dictates the non-feasibility of elections during the transition process as there are massive irregularities that marred the conduct of elections in different forms. This article contests the founding (first) elections that were conducted under the supervision of the military leaders. The outcome of the transition elections had raised an issue on the quality of future democracy. This include the socio-economic development that interfaces with dividends of democracy. Therefore, the post-third wave democratisation defines the new African politics. This implies that the two military leaders Jerry Rawlings (Ghana) and Abdulsalam Abubakar (Nigeria) intentionally handed over power to the military. This means that the countries that organised democracy based unethical practice could witness military intervention or otherwise civil war that may obstruct the new democracies.</p>

The scars of violence and repression on founding elections: Evidence from Spain

Do violence during a civil war and its aftermath leave a mark on political behaviour? In this article I study how violence perpetrated by the left and repression by the right during and after the Spanish Civil War shaped vote choice and turnout in 1977, in the first legislative election after a 40 year dictatorship. I argue that the effect of repression travels over time when actions are perpetrated by clearly identifiable antagonistic actors. By using a dataset that captures the intensity and the type of violence, results indicate that repression perpetrated by the Francoist dictatorship during and after the conflict had a positive and significant effect on left-wing support in 1977. Results are consistent across different indicators, such as religious violence, distance to mass graves or sanctions to teachers, confirming that violence triggered greater support for the political left. In contrast, results show no relationship between repression and turnout.

The ‘myth of moderation’ following the Arab Uprisings: polarization in Tunisia and Egypt’s founding elections

ABSTRACT From the actor-centric perspective of party politics, it is widely held that the two transitional outcomes observed in Tunisia and Egypt are the result of the different degree of polarization across the two party systems. Through a quantitative text analysis of the party manifestos of the main transitional parties in Tunisia and Egypt, this contribution shows that the end result of the two transitional experiences has actually little to do with polarization and it is rather due to the way political parties structured political competition during the founding elections.

Ulnerable Consolidation of Democracy in South Korea

This research scrutinizes the process of democratic consolidation in South Korea, focusing on interactions of political actors. This study assumes that if democratization depends on political interactions, the status of the outcomes tends to be fluctuating, and examines the research hypothesis that democratic transition of South Korea was the outcomes of strategic interactions between political actors, by analyzing the political conjuncture of presidential nomination in 1992 as a crucial moment of democratic transition in South Korea, with a rational choice theory: a game theory model. The results show that strategic interaction of political actors determined the process of transitions, even after the founding election. This research also clarifies that the weakness of the political society and severe regionalism, which are derived from patrimonialism, are the vital elements for fluctuating consolidation in South Korea.
 Keywords: Democratization, Democratic Consolidation, Rational Choice Theory

Feasibility of Democratisation in Sub-Sahara Africa, A study of South Africa after Apartheid system

<p>This article explores the intellectual ideas of Ake on feasibility of democratisation in Africa. Democratisation is feasible as government focuses on the real people irrespective of racial affinity. In the past, the apartheid government in South Africa was adjudged as obstacle to democracy because majority black were marginalised in the representative democracy. The African National Congress (ANC) developed a pressure against undemocratic laws of apartheid rule. This process translated to Trust Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a driving-mechanism towards peaceful negotiation in the country. While this is true, this article argues that transition to democratisation in 1994 by founding elections marked the beginning of a representative government. This article contests the current practice of democratisation by political disconnection of the popular party after the death of President Nelson Mandela. Finally, it is argued that feasibility of democracy is economic empowerment of the people but was trivialised in the country. The article further states the characters which marred democratisation process after the post-third wave. The article submits that there was adequate oversight functions which checked the excess power of executive arm and the others. This de facto is justified by the action of opposition parties such as EFF, DA, and IFP in the Freedom House. As a result, triangulation politics is recommended as mechanism which can promote national unity in the country.</p><p> </p>

Electoral violence and the legacy of authoritarian rule in Kenya and Zambia

Why do the first multiparty elections after authoritarian rule turn violent in some countries but not in others? This article places legacies from the authoritarian past at the core of an explanation of when democratic openings become associated with electoral violence in multi-ethnic states, and complement existing research focused on the immediate conditions surrounding the elections. We argue that authoritarian rule characterized by more exclusionary multi-ethnic coalitions creates legacies that amplify the risk of violent elections during the shift to multiparty politics. Through competitive and fragmented interethnic relations, exclusionary systems foreclose the forging of cross-ethnic elite coalitions and make hostile narratives a powerful tool for political mobilization. By contrast, regimes with a broad-based ethnic support base cultivate inclusive inter-elite bargaining, enable cross-ethnic coalitions, and reduce incentives for hostile ethnic mobilization, which lower the risk of violent elections. We explore this argument by comparing founding elections in Zambia (1991), which were largely peaceful, and Kenya (1992), with large-scale state-instigated electoral violence along ethnic lines. The analysis suggests that the type of authoritarian rule created political legacies that underpinned political competition and mobilization during the first multiparty elections, and made violence a more viable electoral strategy in Kenya than in Zambia.

Elections as Vehicles for Change? Explaining different outcomes of democratic performance and government alternation in Africa1

Does having more regular elections improve democratic performance in Africa? And have elections transformed the patterns of alternation in government? To answer these questions, two analyses are conducted drawing on an original dataset of 179 elections in 27 African countries, from the founding multiparty elections until 2019. The first tests the effects of alternation in government on democratic performance and shows that while alternation in government in the founding elections improves democratic performance, opposition victories in subsequent elections do not produce democratic gains. The second examines why alternation in government is more frequent in certain countries than in others; and reveals that the odds of turnover are increased by alternation in government in the founding elections, the level of political competition and the quality of elections. These findings contribute to literature linking elections, democracy and turnover in Africa.

Why Election Monitoring Does Not Always Lead to Democratization: from the Perspective of Information on the International Standards of Electoral Integrity

AbstractThis paper theoretically presents a new structure from the perspective of information on international standards with regards to the actual impact that election monitoring has on political change. Specifically, there is the point of view that after the election monitoring, a report is published, and as a result information relating to international standards of electoral integrity becomes clear in the countries subject to monitoring. Then if it becomes clear, for example, to one country that it is unable to meet the standards required by the international community then that country might abandon trying to meeting international requirements and its inclination toward authoritarianism might strengthen. Therefore, the clarification of information on the international standards of fair electoral integrity as a result of election monitoring could result in a shift toward authoritarianism. Through a case study, this paper shows that new interpretations of democratization in Africa can be advanced by its theoretical framework. Many African countries started to get rid of one-party systems or military dictatorships in the 1990s and to introduce multi-party elections. As a result, they held founding elections. What is often pointed out is that compared to the founding elections, the degree of fraud increased at the second elections. Although there has been no appropriate explanation, this paper suggests a theoretical explanation for this puzzling trend.

The psychological effect of electoral systems in founding elections

In this research note, I revisit the conventional wisdom about when the psychological effect of electoral systems is observed. I rely on data from the first presidential and legislative elections in 45 third- and fourth-wave presidential and semi-presidential regimes to show that the psychological effect of electoral systems manifests itself in the first election. The effective number of legislative parties is significantly higher than the effective number of presidential candidates in the first election when the electoral system in legislative elections is more permissive than in presidential elections.

Conditions for new parties’ participation in a founding election in a democratic transition

The literature on democratic transitions considers the participation of new parties in the first pluralist election in a post-authoritarian context (founding election) as something to be taken for granted. As such, it is never questioned. Specialists in democratic transitions ignore the research on “new parties,” which is, nonetheless, essential to the understanding of the particular characteristics of a post-authoritarian situation. Using an original qualitative study on Algeria, this article proposes to bring to light the political, organizational, and legal conditions of new political parties’ participation or nonparticipation in a founding election. In particular, this research allows us to grasp the dilemmas and difficulties faced by leaders of new parties and the types of support on which they rely to engage for the first time in an electoral competition. The analytical framework stemming from this “case study” is applicable to other national case studies.

Institutions as Causes and Effects: North African Electoral Systems During the Arab Spring

From late 2010 through 2011, popular uprisings toppled authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. In each country, a key component of the new regime's moment was the selection of rules for the first democratically elected assembly. This paper asks how the design of electoral systems affected the outcomes of the founding elections. We are interested in whether the rules of competition were consequential in determining winners and losers, and to the quality and trajectory of democratization. Our conclusions are based on analysis of district level results from the list proportional representation component of each election and on first person interviews with actors in who participated in the design of electoral rules.

The Impact of ‘Boss’ Candidates and Local Political Machines on Elections in Ukraine

The business sector has strongly influenced Ukrainian electoral campaigns since the founding post-communist elections. This article investigates the role of influential, local business-sector candidates, whom we label ‘boss’ candidates, in illicit campaign activities, using unique biographical, electoral, and crowd-sourced data from the 2012 parliamentary elections. The analysis shows that higher levels of competition among candidates with ‘boss’ characteristics are associated with elevated reports of voter manipulation, specifically vote buying. The findings add to extant research on election integrity in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, presenting quantitative empirical evidence that is consistent with narratives about Ukrainian electoral corruption.

Democratic Transition and Electoral Design in Plural Societies: The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina's 1990 Elections

The uncertainty of democratic transition poses a threat to the survival of ethnically plural societies, culminating in the first open elections. The design of the electoral system for the founding elections is therefore of crucial importance. This paper focuses on the democratic transition of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its founding elections in 1990. A variety of electoral systems, both proportional and majoritarian, were employed during these elections. With different incentives they attempted to reconcile inclusion and group representation, while fostering interethnic politics. Utilizing newly available election data and a within-case comparison, the paper analyses incentives and outcome of different electoral systems under least-likely conditions of success. As no single electoral system was able to overcome the predominance of particularistic ethnic politics during these elections, the paper concludes that under high levels of transitional uncertainty and low levels of ethnic inter-group relations, the choice of electoral system alone is often not enough to make a decisive difference in electoral outcome.

Undermining democratic transition: the case of the 1990 founding elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina

In retrospect, with nearly 20 years of uneasy peace and three and a half years of war behind us, the outcome of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first election appears nearly inevitable – the resounding vi...

Partisan turnout bias and district magnitude

This article examines how the partisan turnout bias (i.e. turnout rate differences across districts that are linked to the partisan vote shares in those districts) changes over time in PR districted electoral systems. We argue that the bias after the founding election is the unintended consequence of parties and voters' strategic behaviors when they respond to the incentives provided by the electoral system. By looking at the case of Portugal, one of the countries with the largest variation in district magnitude, we find that the increasing asymmetry in turnout rates across districts makes the bias more severe as time goes by.

Trajectories of Regime Transformation and Types of Stateness in Post-communist Countries

In this paper, we address the issue of what types of factors are crucial for regime transformation in post-communist countries. First, we test the relative importance of structural and actor-oriented factors using a specially constructed index of democracy. Cross-country regression analysis reveals that policy-related variables have higher statistical explanatory power: presidentialism vs. parliamentarism; opposition coming to power in the first founding elections; foreign policy orientation towards the West and state capture as the most significant variables. These findings are further corroborated and expanded by qualitative analysis. Following this we examine types of post-communist stateness as another possible explanation of differences in regime transformation results. We propose a vector measure of stateness which is based on both statistical data and expert evaluations. This measure allows us to develop a typology of stateness in post-communist countries which is used to assess the relationship between regime and stateness dynamics. We find that those post-communist states which fulfil a broad range of social functions are more successful in their democratic development.

La nacionalización electoral de los partidos políticos en España

Este estudio se centra en la nacionalización de los partidos en Españaentendida como la homogeneidad en los apoyos electorales que consigueun partido en las circunscripciones de una elección nacional. La primeraparte del artículo presenta una descripción de la evolución de la nacionalizacióndesde 1977 hasta la actualidad y muestra cómo el sistema departidos español está cada vez más nacionalizado pese a sus diferenciasentre partidos. En la segunda parte se busca explicar sus determinantes. Elanálisis indica que los votos que reciba el partido a nivel nacional incrementanla nacionalización de los partidos. La antigüedad solo potencia lanacionalización si el partido es de ámbito estatal mientras que para lospartidos subnacionales esta variable tiene un efecto negativo, apuntando aun trade-off entre ambos grupos. Finalmente, la distancia en el ejeizquierda-derecha reduce la homogeneidad electoral de los partidosnacionales mientras que las elecciones fundacionales no tienen efecto.

Explaining Post-Communist Founding Elections Results through Initial State Capacity

While a consensus is emerging about the importance of state building and state capacity for democratization in both post-communist and developing countries, comparatively few explicit attempts have been made to provide empirical support for the relationship between the two concepts. Even more problematic is to find an explicit causal mechanism linking high state capacity with democracy. State capacity can be understood as the capability of the state to penetrate society, regulate social relations, extract resources, and appropriate or use resources in determined ways. In other words, strong states have high capabilities to complete these tasks, while weak states struggle to compete with private actors over extraction and appropriation of resources. But what makes strong states more likely to be democratic and, in turn, weak states less likely to be democratic? This article explores whether or not state capacity correlates with the outcomes of founding elections, that is, the first open elections in post-communist countries. In other words, do voters in states with higher initial capacity also tend to “throw the communist rascals out” in the founding elections?

Forgetting to make votes count: The role of previous democratic experience

This paper argues that wasted votes in founding elections decrease when countries have a previous democratic experience before the current democratic period. This historical-institutionalist argument is tested with national election results in 22 founding elections in third-wave European, Asian, Latin American and African democracies. The results demonstrate that having a democratic past clearly increases coordination and then reduces the percentage of wasted votes in the founding election, controlling for the electoral system.

Why new parties?

The variables explaining party system fragmentation have been investigated extensively, but little is known about changes in the number of parties over time within countries. This article is an attempt to fill the gap by explaining the entry of new viable competitors in party systems after the founding election. Using empirical evidence from Spain, we show that when there is an electoral market failure and a high number of perfectly elastic voters, there is a high probability of new viable entrants.