International Election Observation Research Articles

“On stage, everyone loves a Black”: Afro-Ukrainian Folk Fusion, Migration, and Racial Identity in Ukraine

In the harsh snowy days of late November, 2004, I joined hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square in Kyiv, to protest the unfair presidential election which had been rigged in favor of the corrupt government -sponsored candidate. I was there as an international election observer and was simultaneously researching the role that Ukrainian-language popular and folk music were playing in the protests, dubbed as the Orange Revolution (Helbig 2006). Music has had such a long history of politicization in Ukraine that newspapers printed the names of Ukraine's most well-known musicians and the candidate they supported, either the opposition candidate or the government -sponsored one (Klid 2007). These affiliations were based less on political ideology as they were ruled by ethnic identity, language choice between Ukrainian and Russian, regional identity, and religious identity. Among the performers on Maidan Nezalezhnosti were an African-Jamaican duo calling themselves (Black -Browed), performing Ukrainian folk songs dressed in Ukrainian folk garb for the crowd. The passion with which the crowd embraced Chornobryvtsi made it clear that outsider validation of Ukrainian ethnic identity and culture was at the root of the protests. The crowds' chants of Chor-no-bryv-tsi! signaled an embrace of non­ Ukrainians who supported Ukrainian language and culture, perceived by protestors to be under threat by the Russian -oriented policies of the political regime. The role of African and Jamaican musicians in that critical historical moment also brought forth the role of migrants and foreigners living in Ukraine in Ukraine's ongoing political and cultural identity struggles, in terms of its vacillating leanings between more pro-Russian and pro-Western ideologies and policies. Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, the highly mediatized involvement of African musicians in Ukraine's pop-folk music scenes has broadened the contemporary public sphere beyond the ongoing ethnic Russian and ethnic Ukrainian culture wars since Ukrainian independence in 1991. The continued popularity of African musicians helps foreground issues of pluralism and multiculturalism that reinforce the notion of Ukraine as a patchwork quilt made up of many different ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups, including ethnic Russians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, ethnic

Catch Us If You Can: Election Monitoring and International Norm Diffusion

Why has the decision to invite foreign election observers become an international norm? More generally, how do international norms develop in the absence of incentives for cooperation or activism by norm entrepreneurs? Motivated by the case of election observation, I argue that international norms can be generated through a diffusely motivated signaling process. Responding to increased benefits associated with being democratic, international election observation was initiated by democratizing governments as a signal of a government's commitment to democracy. Increased democracy-contingent benefits gave other “true-democrats” the incentive to invite observers, resulting in a widespread belief that all true-democrats invite election monitors. Consequently, not inviting observers became an unambiguous signal that a government was not democratizing, giving even pseudo-democrats reason to invite observers and risk a negative report. I evaluate this theory with an original global dataset on elections and election observation, 1960–2006.

Experimenting in Democracy Promotion: International Observers and the 2004 Presidential Elections in Indonesia

Randomized field experiments have gained attention within the social sciences and the field of democracy promotion as an influential tool for causal inference and a potentially powerful method of impact evaluation. With an eye toward facilitating field experimentation in democracy promotion, I present the first field-experimental study of international election monitoring, which should be of interest to both practitioners and academics. I discuss field experiments as a promising method for evaluating the effects of democracy assistance programs. Applied to the 2004 presidential elections in Indonesia, the random assignment of international election observers reveals that even though the election was widely regarded as democratic, the presence of observers had a measurable effect on votes cast for the incumbent candidate, indicating that such democracy assistance can influence election quality even in the absence of blatant election-day fraud.

D-Minus Elections: The Politics and Norms of International Election Observation

AbstractAs international election monitors have grown active worldwide, their announcements have gained influence. Sometimes, however, they endorse highly flawed elections. Because their leverage rests largely on their credibility, this is puzzling. Understanding the behavior of election monitors is important because they help the international community to evaluate the legitimacy of governments and because their assessments inform the data used by scholars to study democracy. Furthermore, election monitors are also particularly instructive to study because the variety of both intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations that observe elections makes it possible to compare them across many countries and political contexts. This study uses a new dataset of 591 international election-monitoring missions. It shows that despite their official mandate to focus on election norms, monitors do not only consider the elections' quality; their assessments also reflect the interests of their member states or donors as well as other tangential organizational norms. Thus, even when accounting as best as possible for the nature and level of irregularities in an election, monitors' concerns about democracy promotion, violent instability, and organizational politics and preferences are associated with election endorsement. The study also reveals differences in the behavior of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations and explains why neither can pursue their core objectives single-mindedly.

Independent electoral management bodies and international election observer missions: any impact on the observed level of democracy? A conceptual framework

What kind of institutions are needed to stabilize and foster democracy? Clearly elections are crucial and much of the institutional and legal surrounding of elections has been subject to research. Two institutional variables have been neglected though, specifically in empirical research: Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) and International Observer Missions (EOMs). Can EMBs and EOMs foster free and fair elections? If yes, under what conditions? And what kind of competences are needed for them? We hypothesize that both can become crucial institutions for free and fair elections. Whereas independent central banks or audit courts control special issue areas in order to take certain decision out of the realm of politics, EMBs control the moment of the set-up of government—the election, when conflicts of interest of politicians are at its peak. Although other kinds of independent administrative agencies have been the subject of political science and economic research, EMBs and EOMs have also been neglected here. This article undertakes to outline a conceptual framework for testing various hypotheses on the institutional set-up of EMBs. Hypothesizing that de iure and de facto independence of EMBs foster fair elections, the detailed institutional set-up of EMBs as independent variable is outlined in order to test for the level of democracy as a dependent variable. Furthermore, the importance of EOMs as well as their interaction effect with EMBs is analyzed. Although by now EOMs are sent to almost any country with elections, their impact has not been analyzed in an encompassing way in spite of that the mission have intensified in their work, have become more costly and their verdicts are gaining ever more publicity.

Accountability and Independence of International Election Observers

AbstractInternational election monitoring has become ever more important in the national as well as the international context. Plenty of (regional) International Organizations (and NGOs) send Election Observers Missions (EOMs) to countries in order to assess the quality of their democratic process and elections. Whereas the influence of EOMs is largely undisputed, their independence, impartiality and accountability have been less discussed. This paper describes the legal set-up of EOMs in order to assess their independence and accountability. It also uses accountability mechanisms as discussed in international law scholarship (ILA Report and the Global Administrative Law project) in order to analyze the accountability mechanisms currently in place for EOMs.

In the Shadow of Democracy Promotion

International efforts to promote democracy can have unanticipated effects. International election observation is perceived to increase domestic confidence in the electoral process and reduce fraud. Conversely, election boycotts are perceived to be more likely as electoral fairness decreases. The authors document a puzzling relationship between monitored elections and opposition party boycotts: Observers are associated with an increased boycott probability. They argue that international benefits for democratic elections give electoral autocrats the incentive to invite international observers and manipulate elections to minimize international criticism. This increase in “strategic manipulation” has led to changed incentives for opposition political parties, which have the most to lose from a manipulated but internationally certified election. Consequently, international monitors increase boycott probability. The authors support this explanation with an original data set of elections, boycotts, and international observers (1990 to 2002).

Does Information Facilitate Self-Enforcing Democracy? The Role of International Election Monitoring

What motivates leaders to hold democratic elections? Can international actors help facilitate self-enforcing democracy? This article argues that when democracy is not yet institutionalized, leaders have little incentive to push for clean elections, in part because they are likely to face accusations of fraud from domestic opposition groups regardless of their true behavior. Reputable international election observers can facilitate self-enforcing democracy by providing credible information about the quality of elections, thus increasing the ability of citizens to coordinate against the regime when election fraud occurs, and discrediting \sore loser protests. Patterns of post-election protests are consistent with the argument, including that post-election protests are more likely and last longer following negative reports from international observers. The implication is that international election observers help promote democracy by making post-election protest more accurate in the short term, thereby increasing incentives for leaders to hold democratic elections in the long term.

International Election Observer Missions and the Promotion of Democracy: Some Lessons from Nigeria's 2007 Elections

This article explores the politics and policies that underpin election observation and monitoring, particularly as they relate to international assistance for democracy-building and post-conflict elections. Central to this is the nature of election observation, its linkages with democracy-building, and a critical evaluation of its effectiveness as a contributory factor in advancing the democratic project in Africa. The paper draws upon the case of the April 2007 elections in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and largest oil exporter, that were widely held by international observers and local election monitors to be deeply flawed, but were upheld by the government without any international sanctions/reprisals. The paper attempts to illustrate some of the difficulties and contradictions that are embedded in the election observer mission ‘industry’ as a tool of the international community for providing legitimacy for the conduct of free and fair elections, but which in some cases result in ‘acceptable’ outcomes that are neither fully free nor fair.

International Election Observers in Africa: The Case of Ethiopia

The question of inviting international election observers to monitor an election is one of the most controversial issues in Africa. Most of the time, the presence of international election monitors in emerging democracies is important to measure whether or not an election is conducted in a free and fair manner. But, sometimes it is regarded as the violation of a nation’s sovereignty. The major aim of this paper is to investigate the role and scope of international election observation. The paper looks at the importance of international election observation through the lens of a specific case study, the Ethiopian parliamentary election of 2005, which was without doubt the most ‘monitored’ election in the history of the nation. It also describes the merits and demerits of involving international election monitors in the election processes in emerging democracies in Africa. In this paper, international election monitors of three major institutions namely, the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU-EOM); the Carter Center, and the African Union (AU) election observers’ team are presented as case studies. Key words: Africa, Democracy, Election, Ethiopia, International Election Observers.

The Observer Effect in International Politics: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

By pressuring governments to hold democratic elections and by becoming directly involved in the electoral process through technical assistance and funding or as election monitors, international actors now play a visible role in domestic elections and other democratic processes throughout the developing world. Although scholars have documented several macrolevel relationships between international-level variables and movement toward democracy, there has been little attention paid to the microlevel effects of international involvement in the democratization process. This article examines the effects of international election observation as a prominent form of international involvement in domestic elections and exploits a natural experiment in order to test whether international observers reduce election fraud. Using data from the 2003 presidential elections in Armenia, the article demonstrates that although observers may not eliminate election fraud, they can reduce election-day fraud at the polling stations they visit. The unusual advantage of experiment-like conditions for this study offers unique causal evidence that international actors can have direct, measurable effects on the level of election-day fraud and, by extension, on the democratization process.

International Election Observation by the OSCE and the Human Right to Political Participation

International Election Observation by the OSCE and the Human Right to Political Participation

International election observation by the OSCE and the political participation of women

International election observation by the OSCE and the political participation of women

Battle over the box: international election observation missions, political competition and retrenchment in the post-Soviet space

The organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's international election observation missions (OSCE IEOMs) have fuelled a new political competition in the post-Soviet space. Even if previously largely ignored, OSCE evaluations have highlighted diff erences in political values between the West and several post-Soviet republics. Recently, however, they have gained political, and even strategic, importance in the region by contributing to political change in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. IEOMs have also provoked resistance from several post-Soviet governments. This has taken several forms, including contesting the apparent western terms of democratization and the creation of alternative rules and practices for democratization and election observation. These challenges risk corrupting the whole practice of IEOMs, and the OSCE has sought to respond. IEOMs have also contributed to changes in Russian foreign policy, including its policy towards the OSCE. In addition, attitudes towards IEOMs within some post-Soviet governments are adding to evidence of a deepening divide between non-democratizing polities and the West.

Minding the Polls

Eric Bjornlund opens his study of international and domestic elec- tion monitoring with a brief assessment of the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Applying international norms for democratic elections, he finds that international election observers, had they been present, would have concluded that the election in Florida—and possibly in other states as well—was fundamentally flawed. As a consequence of the 2000 elec- tion fiasco in Florida, various organizations interested in the democratic process and the upholding of electoral standards invited some foreign politicians, electoral experts, and others to observe the 2004 presiden- tial election. The lack of coordination among these observer groups, as well as their distinct agendas and methodologies, would have provided Bjornlund with good illustrations of some of the issues he raises in the book; unfortunately, Beyond Free and Fair was already in bookstores when the 2004 vote took place. Drawing on worldwide experience since the mid-1980s, the book in- cludes case studies and examples from countries across the globe. At the outset, Bjornlund provides his own definition of international election observation, highlighting all of its core elements: International elec- tion observation is the purposeful gathering of information about an electoral process and public assessment of that process against universal standards for democratic elections by responsible foreign or interna- tional organizations committed to neutrality and to the democratic

Debate: Arab, Not Muslim, Exceptionalism

Abstract: The non-Arab Muslim world has exhibited a much higher degree of electoral competition than the Arab Muslim world, both over time and in the contemporary period. 396 million Muslims, about half of the world’s Muslim population who live in Non-Arab League Muslim majority states, live in states with competitive elections. By contrast, none of the 270 million Muslims in Arab League member states live under electorally competitive regimes. Arab League member states have increasingly become a distinctive political community within the Muslim world, while non-Arab Muslim majority states are a far more diverse group. As such they are more open to a range of political communities, and consequently to international election observers and other initiatives promoting democracy.

Legitimising Electoral Process: The Role of Kenya Domestic Observation Programme (K-DOP) in Kenya’s 2002 General Election

Extracted from text ... 14 14 LEGITIMISING ELECTORAL PROCESS The Role of Kenya Domestic Observation Programme (K-DOP)* in Kenya's 2002 General Elections By Wole Olaleye* * Wole Olaleye is a researcher at the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) Tel: +27 11 482 5495; Fax: +27 11 482 6163 e-mail: wole@eisa.org.za INTRODUCTION The past two decades have seen a movement in Africa from authoritarian regimes toward popular democracy through electoral rule. Local and international election observation is now a common practice in almost all elections that take place on the continent. Elections must be free, fair and meaningful and must be perceived to ..

The politics of international election observation: the case of Zimbabwe in 2000

The example of Zimbabwe in 2000 shows that in a context of violent election campaigning, the role of international election observation is an ambiguous one. Unlike earlier elections organised by the Zimbabwean government, international donors wanted to observe its 2000 parliamentary election amidst a deepening crisis. They noted that the elections would not be free and fair in their view. Neighbouring countries with a more positive view joined the observation exercise. The government's discriminatory invitation and accreditation policy, the observers' emphasis on the peacefulness of the polling rather than free and fair elections, and the selective publication of their reports in various media, were affected both by the political agendas of the domestic players and by the governments which sent the observers. The difference between the Western view of the government, which had changed drastically since the 1980s and early 1990s, and the view of neighbouring governments, was crucial and may become significant elsewhere in Africa.

Ten Years of International Election Assistance and Observation

Ten Years of International Election Assistance and Observation

Power, Sovereignty, and International Election Observers: The Case of Zanzibar

In the international election observer process, the degree to which invasive observation rules of engagement are nego-tiated depends on host country dependence on the donor community, the willingness of the donors to exploit this relationship, the power of local opposition forces to assure that the incumbent government supports an international observer presence, or the honest commitment to free and fair elections by the incumbent government. In all of these cases, the relative power relations between donor and host states, and their conceptualizations of national sovereign-ty, are fundamental to understanding the international elec-tion observation process. This argument is explored in the context of the contentious and poorly organized 1995 multi-party elections in Zanzibar. In this election, international observers, for the most part, fulfilled the terms of their very limited mission and legitimized the electoral process as free and fair despite irregularities cited by the political oppo-sition and several observer missions.