www.electoralintegrityproject.

com

WorkingPapersSeries
SYNOPSIS
Thispaperdevelopsan explanatoryframework tounderstand(1) whetherelectionsfaildue tolackingcapacityordue tointentional manipulation,(2) whetherelectionsfaildue tolongtermstructural factorsorrathershort termcontingentfactors. Theimpactof explanatoryfactorson electoralintegrityis empiricallytestedusing bothexistingandnewly collecteddataon electoralintegrityfor over800electionsfrom 1974to2009in97third andfourthwaveregimes.

CarolienvanHam (UniversityofTwente) WhydoElectionsFail? Explainingelectionintegrityinthird andfourthwaveregimes

Workingpaper1(8)presentedattheElectoralIntegrityProject Researchseminar,1stSemester(FebMay)2013,Universityof Sydney.
Department of Government and international Relations Merewether Building (HO4) The University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia Cell: (US)+1 857 445 9105 Email: electoralintegrity@gmail.com

Why do Elections Fail? Explaining election integrity in third and fourth wave regimes

Carolien van Hamab

a

Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands b Electoral Integrity Project, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia c.t.vanham@utwente.nl

Abstract In the wake of the third and fourth wave of democratization, the number of countries holding regular elections for executive and legislative offices sharply increased: over 85% of the worlds states now select the ir national leaders through elections. However, while global norms for elections increasingly converged, global practice shows a widely varying menu of manipulation. Thus, while most states hold formally democratic elections and commit to international standards for elections, the de facto quality of elections ranges from free and fair elections with genuine contestation between parties/candidates to faade elections that are marred by manipulation and fraud. In light of these empirical developments, research on electoral integrity is increasingly relevant. Not only as a way to clarify the fuzzy boundaries between regime types, particularly electoral autocracy and electoral democracy, but also to understand the causes of variation in electoral integrity across regimes and over time. Under what circumstances do formal democratic institutions co-exist with de facto authoritarian practices and, conversely, under what circumstances does holding formally democratic elections initiate a process of increasing electoral integrity? This paper develops an explanatory framework to understand (1) whether elections fail due to lacking capacity or due to intentional manipulation, (2) whether elections fail due to long-term structural factors or rather shortterm contingent factors. The impact of explanatory factors on electoral integrity is empirically tested using both existing and newly collected data on electoral integrity for over 800 elections from 1974 to 2009 in 97 third and fourth wave regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Republics, Sub Saharan Africa, South America and Central America. The findings demonstrate the importance of several specific historical and institutional factors as well as more immediate political factors for election integrity. The over-time analyses seem to contradict earlier findings of the self-reinforcing power of elections and rather suggest a lock -in mechanism of electoral integrity. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on the results and suggestions for future research.

1. Introduction

Almost a year ago, on May 23 2012, Egyptians held their first presidential elections with multiple candidates in over 30 years. While it is still very unclear where the region is heading, after the post-1974 third wave and the post-1989 fourth wave of democratization, hopes are that the Arab spring might come to constitute a new wave of transitions away from authoritarianism (Huntington 1991, Doorenspleet 2000). At the same time however, shortly before the landmark Egyptian elections, fourth wave president Joseph Kabila managed to stay in power in Congo after an election that was so deeply flawed and so obviously rigged that it could hardly be called an exercise in democracy. Nor is Kabila alone in knowing his way around the toolbox of electoral fraud as the recent elections in Venezuela, Kenya and Russia have shown.

Clearly, holding elections has become common practice in the vast majority of countries around the world.i However, while global norms for elections increasingly converged, global practice shows a widely varying menu of manipulation (Norris 2009, Hyde 2011, Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security 2012, Schedler 2002, Lehoucq 2003). Thus, while most states hold formally democratic elections and commit to international standards for elections, the de facto integrity of elections ranges from free and fair elections with genuine contestation between parties/candidates to faade elections that are marred by manipulation and fraud.

In light of these empirical developments, research on electoral integrity is increasingly relevant. Not only as a way to clarify the fuzzy boundaries between regime types, particularly electoral autocracy and electoral democracy (Schedler 2002a). But also to understand the causes of variation in electoral integrity across regimes and over time. Under what circumstances do formal democratic institutions co-exist with de facto authoritarian practices and, conversely, under what circumstances does holding formally democratic elections initiate a process of increasing electoral integrity (Lindberg 2006, 2009)?

Surprisingly, very little is known as yet about what drives variation in election integrity between countries and over time. As Lehoucq (2003) and Birch (2011) note, while the international community invested heavily in election assistance and monitoring as part of its post-cold war democracy promotion activities (Kelley 2008, Hyde 2011), academics were
2

relatively late to pick up the topic of electoral integrity. Several scholars did question the standards used by election observers to evaluate elections (Geisler 1993, Anglin 1998, Carothers 1997), and others initiated attempts to better define the notion of free and fair elections (Elklit and Svensson 1997, Pastor 1998), however the real upsurge in scholarly attention seems to have taken place only in recent years (cf. Elklit 1999, Mozaffar and Schedler 2002, Schedler 2002a, Lehoucq 2003, Elklit and Reynolds 2005, Simpser 2005, Boda 2005, Katz 2005, Calingaert 2006, Hartlyn and McCoy 2006, Hartlyn et al. 2008, Birch 2007, 2011, Alvarez, Hall and Hyde 2008, Collier 2009, Lopez-Pintor 2010, Darnolf 2011).ii

However, now the field is developing rapidly, with important advancements made in terms of conceptualizing electoral integrity, mostly based either on democratic theory or international legal norms for elections (Elklit and Svensson 1997, Elklit 1999, Elklit and Reynolds 2005, Schedler 2002a, Mozaffar and Schedler 2002, Lindberg 2006, Munck 2006, 2009, and Boda 2005, Katz 2005, Goodwin-Gill 2006, Davis-Roberts and Carroll 2010, ECNEEDS 2007, Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security 2012, Norris 2013). Also, several cross-national databases have been developed that measure electoral integrity in third wave regimes (and sometimes also first and second wave regimes) (Elklit and Reynolds 2005, Lindberg 2006, Birch 2008/2011, Hartlyn et al. 2008, Munck 2009, Donno 2010, Kelley and Kiril 2010, Hyde and Marinov 2010, Van Ham 2012). Moreover, several excellent case studies have developed explanations for variation in electoral integrity, as well as several cross-national studies examining specific types of electoral fraud, such as vote-buying and election violence.iii Yet, despite the wealth of studies on conceptualization, measurement and in-depth case studies, cross-national research attempting to explain the causes of electoral integrity is still relatively uncommon (with the exception of Birch 2007, 2011 and Hartlyn, McCoy and Mustillo 2008).

This paper presents some lines of thought on how to develop an explanatory framework of election integrity. I first explore whether elections fail due to lacking capacity or due to intentional manipulation, and second whether elections fail due to long-term structural factors or rather short-term contingent factors. I subsequently consider the possibility of a two-level model of election integrity that first identifies the contextual factors shaping the incentive structure in which actors operate, and then explains actor decisions to undermine election integrity based on more immediate political factors. The impact of these explanatory factors on electoral integrity is empirically tested using both existing and newly
3

collected data on electoral integrity for over 800 elections from 1974 to 2009 in 97 third and fourth wave regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Republics, Sub Saharan Africa, South America and Central America (Van Ham 2012).

The paper is set up as follows: in section 2 I shortly discuss the concept of election integrity and the way it is conceptualized in this paper. In section 3 I outline the elements of the theoretical framework, discussing the administrative versus political dimension of election integrity, and identifying the distant, intermediate and proximate causal factors that may explain variation in election integrity across countries and over time. Section 4 subsequently discusses the data and methods used, and section 5 presents and evaluates the results of the empirical analyses. Section 6 concludes with a reflection on the results and suggestions for further research.

2. Conceptualizing election integrity What does it mean to get elections right (Schedler 2002)? Existing definitions of the concept range from positive definitions such as free and fair elections, clean elections, democratic elections, election quality and electoral integrity (Elklit and Reynolds 1997, Anglin 1998, Lindberg 2006, Munck 2009, ODonnell 2001, Elklit and Reynolds 2005, Hartlyn et al. 2008, Kelley an d Kiril 2010, Norris 2012); to negative definitions as flawed elections, electoral malpractice or misconduct, electoral manipulation, or electoral fraud, electoral corruption, and election rigging (Pastor 1999, Birch 2011, Donno 2010, Schedler 2002, Lehoucq 2003, Simpser 2005, Calingaert 2006). Clearly, no consensus has been reached yet on what conceptual label to use, let alone on how to define election integrity.

When conceptualizing election integrity, a number of aspects are important to consider. First of all, violations of election integrity can take a panoply of forms (Lehoucq 2003), ranging from more visible irregularities such as ballot box stuffing to more subtle irregularities such as media bias, and ranging from irregularities taking place well before election day to irregularities occurring after the elections are over. For example, in the months before the election, aspects such as constituency and polling demarcation, party and voter registration, and campaign regulation are important for election integrity. Common irregularities in this phase are: gerry-mandering, inaccurate voter registration lists, exclusion of opposition parties or candidates, unequal access to media and campaign resources,
4

opposition intimidation, etc. During election-day, aspects such as access to polling stations, vote secrecy and access of election monitors are important. Examples of irregularities are lack of polling stations in rural areas, vote-buying and intimidation of voters, ballot-box stuffing, etc. Finally, after election-day important aspects are counting and tabulating the vote, resolving election related complaints, and publishing the election results. Here, problems that can occur are: biased counting of votes, not publishing disaggregate results, etc. (Elklit and Reynolds 2005, Calingaert 2006, Birch 2011). Clearly, elections are complex logistical operations, and can fail at any step in the process (Norris, forthcoming). Hence ordering the electoral process by the sequential steps taken before, during and after election day helps to ensure that all relevant aspects are taken into account, mapping the full menu of manipulation (Schedler 2002, Mozaffar and Schedler 2002).

Secondly, election integrity can be undermined both by intentional manipulation as well as by administrative incapacity. The key difference between positive and negative definitions (as listed above) is that positive definitions tend to use a broader conceptualization of election integrity including both administrative irregularities and intentional manipulation, while negative conceptualizations focus on a more narrow set of irregularities, emphasizing actors engaging in intentional manipulation that affects the election results. The latter is problematic, as not only is distinguishing between intentional actions and organizational incapacity quite difficult in many cases, non-intentional irregularities such as inaccurate voter registration can have significant consequences for election integrity. As Pastor notes: the boundary line separating political manipulation and technical incapacity is rarely surveyed, and elections can fail for one or both reasons (Pastor 1999: 2). In addition, speculating whether the irregularities affected election outcomes seems even trickier, for the simple reason that the only way to gauge voters preferences is through the electoral process and if the latter was flawed, observers have little possibility to know what voters preferences were.iv

Thirdly, what criteria should be used to identify irregularities in elections? Most authors seek to formulate universal criteria for elections that are based either on democratic theory or international norms and standards for elections, in order to arrive at a concept of election integrity that is cross-nationally comparable (see overview in the Appendix). The minimal criteria for elections as defined by international standards for elections are clear and specify that: (1) national legislative and executive offices are elected (directly or indirectly),
5

(2) elections are held periodically and are irreversible (i.e. elected governments assume office), (3) elections have universal suffrage (at least de jure), (4) elections allow for multiple parties and candidates to compete (at least de jure). These criteria (elected officials, periodic and irreversible elections and de jure participation and competition) indicate differences in kind between elections, allowing the differentiation of elections that clearly do not meet international standards from those that do, even if only formally. However, as observed in the introduction most elections at present meet these minimal criteria, and hence it appears that election integrity rather refers to a difference in degree between elections that already meet these formal minimal criteria, as illustrated in figure 1. While agreement is widespread about these minimal criteria, what criteria should be used to evaluate election integrity, such as conditions for de facto participation and competition, civil liberties, and fair electoral procedures, is less clear. Space does not permit a thorough discussion of these criteria in this paper, suffice it to say that there is little agreement as yet on the more specific norms that define election integrity.v

Figure 1 about here

Finally, as the specific criteria defining election integrity are still a matter of debate, so are the boundaries of the concept (Stokes et al. forthcoming, Lehoucq 2003). Several grey areas exist where the line separating irregularities from normal electoral politics is not so clear. For example, where does vote buying end and constituency service begin? When does clientelism shade into political pressure or even voter intimidation? Where should we draw the line between normal redistricting and gerry-mandering? Clearly, questions remain about what election integrity is (and is not). At the same time, there appears to be broad consensus among academics and election observers about the specific type of irregularities that constitute violations of election integrity before, during and after elections, implying that at least the constituent components of the concept are clear. For the purpose of this paper I define election integrity as a working definition- as the extent of intentional and administrative irregularities (as defined by international standards for elections) occurring before, during and after elections.

3. Explaining election integrity: Why do elections fail?

What do we know and not know (yet) about electoral integrity? In the emerging literature on the topic, a number of socio-economic, institutional and cultural explanatory factors have been identified. Regarding socio-economic factors, lower levels of economic development and economic inequality appear to increase the frequency of vote-buying, election violence, and electoral malpractice in general (Von Borzyskowski 2011, Brusco, Nazareno and Stokes 2004, Bratton 2008). Vote-buying specifically seems to be targeted at poor and low educated voters (Bratton 2008, Birch 2011). In addition, some authors have found electoral fraud to be more common in rural areas than in urban areas (Bratton 2008, Hicken 2007).vi Moreover, the so-called resource curse is significantly related to electoral malpractice as well (Birch 2011).vii Turning to institutional factors, electoral systems and electoral management bodies have been found to affect election integrity. Birch (2007) suggests that majoritarian electoral systems are associated with higher levels of electoral malpractice, while other authors have suggested that candidate-centered electoral systems and electoral systems with small districts might be associated with higher levels of electoral fraud (Hicken 2007, Stokes 2007). Hartlyn et al. (2008) find that non-partisan independent Electoral Management Bodies significantly improve the quality of elections. Apart from socioeconomic and institutional aspects, electoral competition might augment the likelihood of electoral fraud as well (Lehoucq 2003, Hicken 2007, Alvarez and Boehmke 2008). The effect of competitiveness is not straightforward however, as on the one hand, competitiveness might increase parties incentives to engage in fraud (as Nyblade and Reed 2008 show to be the case in Japan), while on the other hand, competition between parties might lead to more monitoring of the electoral process, both by parties themselves as well as by civil society organizations (Birch 2011, Magaloni 2006). Finally, Birch (2011) finds that media freedom and low levels of corruption are associated with less electoral malpractice. Also, she finds surprisingly little effect of international election observers, democracy assistance and other international factors (like the geostrategic importance of a country) on electoral malpractice.

Summarizing, a number of explanatory factors of election integrity have been identified. However, it seems that most research so far has focused on a single explanatory variable or a limited sub-set of variables explaining election integrity. Moreover, most comparative studies are based on a limited number of elections and cross-sectional data, limiting the generalizability of these findings as well as our understanding of what drives changes over time in election integrity (Birch 2007, Birch 2011, and Hartlyn et al. 2008). Finally, while we seem to have a sense of which variables are important, it is less clear how
7

they fit together in a comprehensive explanatory framework. In the next paragraphs I present some lines of thought on how to develop such an explanatory framework, exploring (1) whether elections fail due to lacking capacity or due to intentional manipulation; and (2) whether elections fail due to long-term structural factors or rather short-term contingent factors.

Why do elections fail? The administrative and political dimension of election integrity

While it is common to think about election integrity in terms of the more blatant forms of manipulation such as stuffed ballot boxes and manipulated vote counts, elections can and do fail for reasons of administrative incapacity as well. For example, in a large country with poor infrastructure, the distribution of ballot boxes and other election material can pose an enormous challenge (in the 2011 elections in DR Congo, election material was transported by plane to regional hubs, and then often further transported by bike and foot to the more remote rural areas). Likewise, in a post-conflict country with a poor civil registry and a large number of displaced citizens, generating an accurate voter register often involves as much, or more, logistics than organizing the elections itself (as the census and voter registration exercise in for example Sudan demonstrates). Hence, election integrity has an administrative and a political dimension.

The administrative dimension relates to capacity, i.e. the organizational infrastructure, financial resources, knowledge and experience to organize elections. Administrative capacity is therefore likely to be greater in countries that have an effective state bureaucracy and professional electoral management body, higher levels of economic development, and that have had previous experience with organizing elections. International assistance for elections often focuses on this capacity aspect of elections, providing technical training and logistical and financial support for elections (Bjornlund 2004). Hence international assistance might affect the administrative dimension of election integrity as well.viii

The political dimension of election integrity relates to intentionality, i.e. the deliberate decisions of political actors to play by the rules of the game, or conversely undermine election integrity. These decisions are likely to be based first, on the perceived need to cheat, and second, on the possibilities to cheat.

Building on insights from social-psychology and game theory, I propose that the perceived need to cheat depends crucially on the stakes of the electoral race. The stakes of the race are determined by, firstly, what is won through elections, secondly, the degree to which elections are a zero-sum game, and thirdly, the closeness of the race. Regarding what is won through elections, not all elections are the same, and the stakes of the electoral race are likely to be higher if (a) elections give access to concentrated power (i.e. presidential elections in political systems with highly concentrated executive power), (b) elections give access to extraordinary rule-making power (i.e. elections after a regime transition, elections for constituent assembly), and (c) elections give access to state resources (i.e. elections in countries with small private sectors or abundant natural resources). Hence, the stakes of the electoral race are higher if what is won through elections is more than just public office. For example, in the early years after a regime transition, winning office provides more extensive access to rule-making as in times of normal government, as the constitution and other legislation are still being drafted. This allowed many early fourth wave presidents in for example Sub-Saharan Africa to expand their presidential powers after the first and second multi-party elections (Van der Walle 2002), and allowed parties that won the early elections to have decisive influence on new constitutions, as is illustrated by many cases in SubSaharan Africa (Lindberg 2006), and more recently in Egypt. In much the same way, the stakes of elections may be increased if access to public office also means access to economic resources, especially in developing economies with a small private sector where the state is an important economic actor, such as countries that are rich in natural resources. In addition to the size of the prize, the stakes of the electoral race also depend on the degree to which elections are a zero-sum game. In a zero-sum game, winners win all and losers lose all, and hence the trade-off between winning and losing is sharper, potentially increasing the incentives to engage in fraud. There are a number of factors that influence the zero-sum character of electoral competition, most notably the degree of power-concentration versus power-sharing of institutions and the degree of homogeneity versus heterogeneity of society (Lijphart 1968, 1999; Almond 1956). Examples of power-concentrating institutions are presidential political systems and majoritarian electoral systems. In presidential political systems, winning the elections means gaining single-candidate or single-party access to extensive presidential powers (and losing means having no influence at all), and hence the trade-off is sharper than in parliamentary systems where election losers may still be needed to form coalition governments and otherwise may still have some influence as parliamentary
9

opposition. Likewise, winner-take-all electoral systems are also likely to increase the zerosum nature of the race, and even more so in single-member districts than in multi-member districts, as the winner(s) of the elections gains access to legislative office to represent the district constituency as a whole, while the loser(s) remain unrepresented until at least the next election. Indeed, Birch (2007) has shown that electoral malpractice is higher in countries with majoritarian electoral systems. Apart from institutional characteristics, the structure of society increases the stakes of the race as well, if societal divisions are reflected in electoral competition. For example, in a society that is ethnically or religiously heterogeneous, and in which such group characteristics are a basis for electoral competition, the trade-off between winners and losers may be sharper than in a more homogenous society. As Wrong (2009) describes in the case of Kenya, if winning elections means privileged access to state resources for ones own ethnic group at the expense of other ethnic groups, and losing means being shut out of such economic opportunities until the next elections, winning the elections becomes of vital importance. Similar dynamics might occur in the aftermath of a civil war, where electoral competition often reflects the previously warring factions, and winning or losing the elections takes on a wholly different meaning, as Almeida (2010) describes in the case of Angola.

Finally, a third factor increasing the stakes of the elections is the closeness of the particular race. In elections with stronger electoral competition, the perceived need to cheat may be higher.ix Summarizing, I would expect the stakes of the electoral race to be high, and consequentially, the incentives to engage in electoral fraud to be high, in countries that have power-concentrating political institutions and heterogeneous societies; in elections that give access to concentrated power, extraordinary rule-making power, and state resources; and in elections that are close.

However, whether or not political actors competing in a high stake electoral race subsequently decide to play by the rules or not, of course depends not only on the perceived need to cheat, but also on the possibilities to cheat. The possibilities to cheat are likely to depend on firstly, the likelihood of detection; secondly, the legitimacy costs of cheating; and thirdly, the degree to which the rule of law is enforced. Regarding the first, irregularities are more likely to be detected and denounced if there is an independent media, when there are active civil society organizations and vigilant opposition parties monitoring the elections, and when there are domestic and international election monitors present. If the perceived risks of
10

detection are higher, political actors may be less likely to cheat (Birch 2011, Lopez-Pintor 2010). However this may vary in different regime types, depending on the domestic and international legitimacy costs of cheating. For example, if electoral fraud is obvious, the new incumbent lacks domestic legitimacy which might lead to civilian protests and even armed rebellions or attempted coup detats. Obvious fraud might also affect international legitimacy, and possibly lead to political pressure and/or economic sanctions by international organizations and states. However, the degree to which legitimacy is of any concern to regimes differs markedly. For example, domestic legitimacy costs are lower in electoral authoritarian regimes where incumbens have alternative sources of power (i.e. supportive selectorate, strong internal security apparatus), compensating for lacking electoral legitimacy towards citizens.x Likewise, international legitimacy costs are likely to be lower for countries that are economically powerful, dispose of natural resources, or trade predominantly with non-democratic countries (Levitsky and Way 2010, Kelley 2010, Donno 2010).xi

In addition to the likelihood of detection, and whether or not detected cheating has legitimacy costs, possibilities to cheat also depend on whether cheating is actively counteracted and punished. This implies for example an independent electoral management body (EMB) that is committed to enforcing electoral legislation, monitoring electoral conduct and adjudicating electoral disputes (Hartlyn et al. 2008), as well as a judiciary that prosecutes cases of fraud. Clearly, these aspects represent a grey area between the administrative and political dimensions of election integrity, as the effectiveness of EMBs in administering elections and of judiciaries in prosecuting fraud can be undermined both due to lacking capacity as well as due to lack of political neutrality. Moreover, this also implies that the two dimensions may reinforce each other, as problems of administrative incapacity may render intentional manipulation relatively easier. Combining the administrative dimension and the political dimension of election integrity results in the following four by four table, that illustrates how the different combinations of factors can play out (building on Norris 2012). In the empirical analyses, we will evaluate the relative importance of administrative and political factors for election integrity.

Table 1 about here

Why do elections fail? Distant, intermediate and proximate causes of election integrity
11

Building on the explanatory factors identified in the previous paragraph, we can construct an explanatory model of election integrity that takes the shape of a funnel of causality, starting with the more distant historical, socio-economic and cultural factors influencing election integrity, and then shifting to intermediate and proximate causes. Doing so allows us to differentiate structural causes of election integrity, i.e. distant, non-changing factors, such as previous experiences with democracy or colonial legacy, from more immediate causes of election integrity that may change from one election to the next, such as the presence of election observers.xii Figure 2 below gives an overview of the explanatory variables.

Figure 2 about here

Considering the distant causes, these are mainly historical and structural socioeconomic factors. The first four variables relate to administrative capacity. If countries have held democratic elections in their (recent) past, as was the case in Greece and many of the Latin American transitions, there may be a degree of institutional memory and knowledge retained about how to organize elections. As to colonial legacies, another type of institutional memory may be relevant, namely the degree to which state institutions were built up under colonial rule. It has been argued that there is an important difference between so-called settler colonies (many former British colonies) and extraction colonies (man y former French, Portuguese and Belgian colonies) (Acemoglu et al. 2001, Acemoglu and Robinson 2006, Norris 2008). Whereas in settler colonies colonial powers often built up more extensive institutions to govern the colony, institutions that remained after decolonization, in extraction colonies the institutional infrastructure remained confined to what was needed to optimize production and transport of resources, leaving very little behind in terms of broader government institutions at decolonization.xiii Hence, settler colonies may have left more effective bureaucracies, strengthening administrative capacity to organize elections. Finally, a third explanatory factor relating to capacity may be simply the number of elections a country has organized. This hypothesis, put forward by Lindberg (2006a) in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, proposes that election integrity should increase as successive elections are being held, as organizational experience and knowledge about how to organize elections is built up and norms of democratic elections gain acceptance. Finally, economic development is considered here as a proxy for state financial capacity to organize elections. The other three distant causal
12

factors refer rather to the political dimension of election integrity. Above we argued that the stakes of the race are higher in heterogenous societies, especially if societal divisions form a basis for electoral competition. Ethnic or religious fractionalization, as well as a history of civil war, might generate such societal divisions, and potentially undermine election integrity. Another distant causal factor increasing the stakes of the race is the presence of natural resources, and ownership by the government of these resources, also referred to as the resource curse.

Turning to intermediate causes, these refer mainly to institutions. Effectiveness of the state bureaucracy is an indicator of administrative capacity. As noted above, the independence of the judiciary and electoral management body may be effective both in preventing intentional manipulation of elections as well as administrative irregularities. Finally, presidentialism and majoritarian electoral systems are hypothesized to increase the stakes of the electoral race, and thereby undermine election integrity.

As regards proximate causes of election integrity, the only factors relating to administrative capacity included here are whether there was a peacekeeping mission present at the time of the elections and whether the country received election assistance to organize the elections. The other factors refer to political conditions for election integrity, where presidential elections, constituent assembly elections, and close elections are hypothesized to increase the stakes of the race, undermining election integrity. Conversely, the presence of independent media, opposition strength and the presence of international and domestic observers is expected to increase the likelihood of detection, strengthening election integrity. Finally, the degree of international trade with high income economies was included to measure international legitimacy costs.

4. Data and methods

The data used for the empirical analyses originate partly from the Quality of Government dataset from the University of Gothenburg (version April 6 2011, Teorell et al. 2011) and partly from data collected by the author (Van Ham 2012). The data for election integrity are partly collected from existing datasets (i.e. Anglin 1998, Van de Walle 2003, Lindberg 2006, Birch 2008/2011, Hartlyn et al. 2008, Donno 2009, and Kelley and Kiril 2010), and partly collected by the author (all missing elections and elections on which
13

existing datasets strongly disagreed were coded by the author). This resulted in election integrity data for over 800 elections from 1974 to 2009 in 97 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union, SubSaharan Africa, South America and Central America.xiv Apart from the data on electoral integrity, data for which no precise indicators were available in the QoG dataset, such as the structure of the party system, opposition and incumbent vote and seat shares, legislative electoral systems, and experiences with civil war were gathered by the author on the basis of information from the Electoral Handbooks on Africa, South and Central America, Central and East Asia and Europe edited by Dieter Nohlen (Nohlen 1999, 2001, 2005, 2010), as well as the data handbook by Rose and Munro (2003) on Central and Eastern Europe, and the Parline Database of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

The dependent variable election integrity is measured as a continuous variable ranging from 0 indicating low election integrity to 1 indicating high election integrity.xv As for the independent variables, previous democratic experience with elections is measured as a dummy variable indicating whether or not countries had held elections that met the minimal international standards before their third wave transition. Colonial legacy is a dummy variable that indicates whether the country has been under British colonial rule or not. Election experience measures the sequence number of the election starting from the first election meeting minimal international standards. Economic development is measured as GDP per capita using data from the World Bank WDI indicators. Ethnic and religious fragmentation is measured by the fractionalization indices developed by Alesina et al (2003), and has a theoretical range between 0 and 1 (1 meaning higher fractionalization). The experience of civil war was measured by a dummy variable indicating whether or not the country had experienced civil war in the 2 years before the elections. Resource curse is measured by the proportion of total exports made up of fuel, ores and metals (WDI).

Turning to institutions, effectiveness of the bureaucracy is measured by the index of government effectiveness constructed by the World Bank governance indicators that measures the quality of public service provision, the quality of the bureaucracy, the competence of civil servants, the independence of the civil service from political pressures, and the credibility of the governments commitment to policies (QoG 2011: 100). Independence of the electoral management body was measured using the classification by IDEA (2006) that distinguishes governmental, mixed or independent EMBs, and recoded as a dummy
14

separating governmental and mixed from independent EMBs. The independence of the judiciary was measured using data from the CIRI dataset (and to limit endogeneity with election integrity this variable was measured 2 years before the elections (Cingranelli and Richards 2010).xvi Presidentialism was measured by a dummy variable indicating whether the political system is presidential or parliamentary. The electoral system is a dummy distinguishing majoritarian from proportional systems in the case of legislative elections and absolute majority from plurality systems in the case of presidential elections.

Finally, regarding the proximate causes, the presence of peacekeeping operations in the country at the time of the elections was coded as a dummy based on UN data, and another dummy indicated whether the country received election assistance for these particular electons (based on Bjornlund 2004). As regards the type of elections, presidential elections and constituent assembly elections are both coded as dummies. Closeness was measured by the difference between the incumbent candidate/party vote/seat share and the largest opposition candidate/party vote/seat share in the elections preceding the actual elections.xvii The reason for this is that opposition and incumbent strength are to a certain extent endogenous to election integrity: in clean elections, opposition parties are more likely to gain votes than in fraudulent elections and vice versa, and hence measuring closeness by data based on the outcome of the elections would generate faulty analyses.xviii The independence of the media is coded by using data from the CIRI dataset (and also this variable was measured 2 years before the elections (Cingranelli and Richards 2010). Opposition strength was measured by the number op opposition candidates or parties running in the elections. The presence of international observers was measured using data from Bjornlund (2004). International legitimacy costs were measured by international trade, measured as merchandise imports and exports from high-income economies as % of total merchandise (World Development Indicators). Control variables were geographical region and lagged election integrity.

Turning to methods, since the sample includes 97 third wave regimes with multiple elections held at different time-points within each regime, this allows us to study variation in election integrity between countries as well as over time. The advantage of between country comparisons is that it enables the assessment of effects of factors that do not change over time, or at least do not change rapidly, such as political institutions or social structure. The disadvantage is however that, for variables that do change over time, it is more difficult to assess the direction of causality in such analyses: since we aggregate to the country-level, a
15

statistically significant (negative) association between for example economic development and electoral integrity might indicate that economic development is driving electoral integrity, or the other way around. Over-time analyses within the same country allow for a more precise assessment of causality: does economic development in the year(s) before an election lead to higher electoral integrity (correcting for other time-changing independent variables)? The power of such analyses is that it holds non-changing variables constant (by virtue of the within-country analyses, fixing the country-level variation), allowing for a ceteris paribus test of the effect of variables that do change over time. However, the bottleneck of these analyses is that inferences are based on the number of observations within each country, and hence the number of time-points (T) needs to be large enough to allow for sufficient degrees of freedom to draw statistical inferences. Moreover, by holding non-changing variables constant, the effects of such variables are corrected for, not tested.

Ideally, one would have data on many countries and on many elections within each country, in order to be able to both model the average level of election integrity for each country as well as the over-time development in election integrity within countries. Timeseries cross-sectional analyses (TSCS) typically allow for such a combination of between effects (country-level effects) and within-effects (over-time effects) analyses. However, in the case of third wave regimes it is questionable to what degree TSCS models will provide reliable estimates, for a number of reasons. First of all, T is typically limited and varying across countries, resulting in unreliable estimates for countries with small T as well as highly unbalanced panels generating heteroskedastic errors. Moreover, since the number of elections held in any third wave regime is generally not arbitrary but related to the level of democratic consolidation (i.e. more stable democracies will have held more elections), excluding those countries with limited observations in T to create a sample with a more balanced panelstructure will lead to a biased sample. In addition, whereas in more common political economy TSCS data, time observations will be successive years and all countries will have been observed over the same period, in our case time observations are election years, which are not the same in all countries, and moreover, are held at different intervals in different countries (the reasons of which are often not arbitrary either, such as when elections have not been held for several years due to civil war). Finally, even if we were to solve these issues, T would remain rather low for a substantial number of countries in our sample, especially the

16

countries of the so-called fourth wave of democratization1. An alternative way of modeling data with this structure as proposed by Beck (2008) is to think of the data as having a hierarchical structure, with elections (level 1) being nested within countries (level 2). Timechanging variables, i.e. variables that take on different values with each election, can then be considered as level 1 variables, and non-changing variables, i.e. variables that are the same for each election within a country, as level 2 variables. Of course, also with this modeling approach one needs to test for serial autocorrelation and heteroskedastic errors, but the approach seems to fit the particularities of the data better.

5. Results

Table 2 shows the results of the empirical analyses. Model 1 shows the results for distant factors. Clearly, previous experience with organizing elections strengthens election integrity, and election integrity also appears to gradually improve over time as more successive elections are being held. Countries with higher levels of economic development also tend to have higher integrity elections, and colonial legacy appears to have only a weak and insignificant effect. As regards structural political factors, we hypothesized that the presence of natural resources and politicized societal divisions would heighten the stakes of the electoral race, and thereby undermine election integrity. The presence of natural resources indeed appears to weaken the integrity of elections. Election integrity is also significantly lower in countries that have experienced civil war in the years before elections. The effects of ethnic and religious fractionalization are in the expected direction, but do not reacht statistical significance in this reduced model. Model 2 shows the results for intermediate factors. Again, factors relating to administrative capacity turn out to be quite significant for election integrity: election integrity is higher in countries with a more effective bureaucracy and an independent judiciary. The effect of EMB independence is in the opposite direction as expected and insignificant, however, this is probably due to the limited quality of the data used to measure this variable.xix As regards institutional factors that increase the stakes of the electoral race, all variables are in the expected direction: election integrity tends to be lower in presidential political systems and under majoritarian electoral systems. In this reduced model only
1

Counting the number of legislative, executive and total elections per country in our sample, the median T is between 4 to 6 legislative elections (with a long tail of countries that have held more legislative elections) and about 3 to 5 executive elections (with a group of countries that have held only one executive election, or none in the case of the 14 parliamentary systems in our sample). When counting legislative and executive elections as forming part of a single sequence of elections assigning concurrent elections the same sequence number-, the median lies between 5 and 9 elections, with long tails to both sides of the distribution.

17

majoritarian electoral systems for legislative elections reach statistical significance, however in the more fully specified models 4 and 5, presidentialism also results significant.

Table 2 about here Model 3 presents the results for proximate factors. Here, factors strengthening administrative capacity appear more weakly related to election integrity. Election assistance is in the expected direction but does not reach statistical significance in this reduced model, in more fully specified models it does turn out significant. Peacekeeping missions do not significantly affect election integrity and moreover the coefficient is opposite to what was expected, however this may be due to a selection effect (peacekeeping missions being sent to countries with weak administrative capacity in the first place). Turning to political factors, the results seem to confirm the importance of the likelihood of detection in reducing electoral manipulation. Election integrity is significantly higher if there is independent media and if there is a larger number of opposition parties and / or candidates participating in the elections. The type of elections seem to matter less, as neither presidential elections nor constituent assembly elections are significantly associated with lower election integrity (the effect for constituent assembly election is however close to one-tailed significance). Finally, model 4 shows the results of the full model.xx Model 5 subsequently tests for the effect of closeness of the elections, lagged election integrity and includes regional controls (note that this model leads to the loss of all first elections due to the fact that we include lagged closeness and election integrity).

Interestingly, while I would expect the more distant explanatory factors to be weaker in a full model (because their effect on election integrity might run through other, more proximate explanatory variables), most remain significant and for some their effect is even strengthened in the full model. As such, previous experience with democracy and organizing elections, and economic development, significantly strengthen election integrity, even when many other factors are controlled for. Conversely, the presence of natural resources, a history of civil war and religious fractionalization appear to significantly weaken election integrity. Turning to intermediate institutions, the positive effects of independence of the judiciary as well as negative effects of presidentialism and majoritarian electoral systems on election integrity appear robust to the inclusion of controls. Finally, independence of the media, presence of opposition parties and candidates, and election assistance also significantly strengthen election integrity.
18

Model 5 demonstrates that these results remain robust even if we include further controls for election integrity in the previous election and regional dummies. Model 5 also demonstrates the effect of closeness in the previous elections, measured as the vote/seat differential of the incumbent and main opposition party or candidate in the previous elections (the coefficient is close to one-tailed significance). I expected that closeness would increase the stakes of the electoral race and hence undermine election integrity. However, the negative coefficient appears to indicate that the closer the race in the previous election was, the higher election integrity is in the current elections. Hence closeness seems to constrain electoral manipulation, rather than fuelling it. This finding will require further analysis however. Another interesting finding in model 5 is the effect of election integrity of the previous elections on the current elections. Here, contrary to the self-reinforcing mechanism of increasing election integrity as countries hold successive elections, for which we also find evidence, this result seems to point at the existence of a lock-in mechanism of election integrity, i.e. high election integrity reproduces high election integrity in the next elections and vice versa. Comparing the coefficients for election experience with previous election integrity seems to indicate that the effect of previous election integrity is about twice as strong as the effect of election experience, suggesting that the lock-in mechanism is stronger. However, more thorough analyses of these over-time dynamics is needed to disentangle these effects.

6. Conclusion

In this paper I have explored a number of explanations for why some countries manage to get their elections right, while in others they seem to fail. I proposed that election integrity can be understood as having an administrative as well as a political dimension, and attempted to identify the distant, intermediate and proximate causal factors that may explain variation in election integrity across countries and over time. Evaluating whether elections fail due to lacking capacity or intentional manipulation, or both, is important to provide clues for effective interventions for strengthening election integrity. If elections fail due to lacking skills, experience or knowledge, technical assistance and training provides the solution to get elections right. However, if elections fail due to intentional manipulation, finding ways to lower the stakes of the electoral race and to increase the likelihood of detection may be more successful for improving election integrity. Likewise, it is also important to evaluate the
19

relative importance of long-term structural versus short term contingent causes of election integrity. If election integrity is to a large extent driven by past experiences with democracy, and structural social and economic conditions, there is not much that can be done to strengthen election integrity. If on the other hand, election integrity is driven by factors that are more amenable to change, such as the type and functioning of institutions, or the presence of independent media and observers, this leaves more agency for citizens and organizations seeking to improve the integrity of their elections.

A preliminary empirical test of these ideas appears to indicate the importance of both structural and more contingent explanations of election integrity. Structural factors undermining election integrity include historical factors (history of civil war, lack of previous democratic experience, previously fraudulent elections), as well as socio-economic factors (social fractionalization, low economic development, resource curse), and institutional factors (presidentialism, majoritarian electoral systems, non-independent judiciaries). These factors shape both the administrative capacity to organize elections as well as the incentives for political actors to engage in intentional manipulation. Once these structural factors have been accounted for, more contingent explanations seem to point at the importance of the presence of citizens, observers or organizations capable to detect and denounce irregulatities in elections, such as independent media and vigilant opposition parties and candidates. However, these are only preliminary results, requiring further specification and testing.

Clearly, much work remains to be done to understand the causal dynamics underlying election integrity. This requires not only further elaboration of explanatory models of election integrity, and empirical testing of those models. It also requires considering many more aspects not explored here, such as the temporal dynamics of election integrity, and the possibly different logics of electoral fraud in electoral democracies and electoral autocracies (Ghandi and Lust-Okar 2009).

In addition to that, further research should explore dynamics of election integrity at the disaggregate level as well, investigating specific types of irregularities, the actors involved and within-country variation. Irregularities can take many different forms and have many different actors involved, hence analyzing its empirical variety with more precise and disaggregate indicators is very important. Secondly, better theorizing and subsequent empirical testing is needed on the conditional nature of irregularities: under what conditions
20

can different actors be expected to engage in intentional manipulation, and what types and combinations of irregularities are more likely under what conditions. Such disaggregate and conditional analyses would not only advance academic understanding of this topic, but would also generate more useful advice for practitioners, both in terms of mapping the menu of manipulation as well as gathering more concrete insights in how to strengthen election integrity.

21

Figures and tables Figure 1. Election integrity: differences in kind and degree

Table 1. The administrative and political dimension of election integrity (EI) Administrative dimension Political dimension Low intentionality High intentionality Low capacity Medium EI Low EI High capacity High EI Medium EI

22

Table 2. Explaining election integrity in third wave regimes 1974-2009

Model 1 4 Model 5 Distant Intermediate Distant factors Administrative dimension Prev. democratic experience (0-1) 0.060+ (0.050) Colonial legacy British (0-1) 0.030 (0.071) Election sequence (1-20) 0.006+ (0.003) Economic development 3.83e-6** GDP/cap t-2yrs (118-26193) (4.53e-6) Proximate Full model Full w controls Model 2 Model 3 Model

0.154** (0.039) 0.045 (0.060) 0.007* (0.003) 1.36e-5** (5.06e-6)

0.096* (0.036) 0.013 (0.060) 0.007* (0.003) 8.29e-6+ (4.68e-6)

Political dimension Resource curse t-2yrs (0 99.70) -0.001** -0.001** (0.001) Ethnic fractionalization (0 0.93) -0.155 (0.116) Religion fractionalization (0.01-0.86) -0.085 0.167+ (0.125) Civil war: occurred in 2 yrs -0.089* before elections? (0-1) Intermediate factors Administrative dimension Bureaucratic effectiveness (-1.80 - 1.37) Independence EMB (0-1) Independence judiciary t-2yrs (0-1) 0.082** (0.028) Political dimension Presidentialism (0-1) 0.107* Electoral system majoritarian -0.061* legislative (0-1) Electoral system absolute maj. executive (0-1) Proximate factors Administrative dimension Election assistance (0-1) 0.042+ (0.025) Peacekeeping mission (0-1) (0.041) -0.064 -0.050 (0.050) -0.089** (0.029) -0.031 (0.021) -0.095** (0.033)

-0.001** (0.000) -0.037 (0.095) -0.198* (0.100) (0.087) -0.086** (0.033) (0.036) (0.089) (0.000) 0.003

0.214*** (0.032) -0.023 (0.046) 0.119*** (0.027) -0.137** (0.048) (0.046) -0.078** (0.029) (0.048) -0.007 0.011 (0.049) 0.115*** (0.027) -

(0.030)

0.034 (0.025)

0.061* (0.026) -0.005 (0.041) (0.040) -0.025

23

Political dimension Presidential elections (0-1) (0.017) Constituent assembly elections (0-1) (0.054) Independence media t-2yrs (0-1) 0.115*** (0.030) Number of opposition candidates 0.003+ (0-28) Exports to high income economies 0.001 t-2yrs (0 - 99.75) (0.001) Closeness in previous election (0-100) -0.001 Lagged election integrity (0-1) Region Former Soviet Republics (0-1) 0.174** Constant 0.516*** 0.604** 0.519*** (0.081) (0.057)

0.018 (0.019) -0.021 (0.053) 0.222*** (0.030) 0.008*** (0.002) 0.002*** (0.000)

-0.002 (0.018) 0.023

-0.008 -0.094 (0.065) 0.185*** (0.031) 0.007*** (0.002) 0.001**

(0.002)

(0.000)

(0.000) 0.246*** (0.035) (0.065) 0.736*** 0.345*** (0.093) 667 89 9% 82%

(0.040) (0.110) N level 1 (elections) 837 837 837 837 N level 2 (countries) 90 90 90 90 Variance explained level 1 2% 2% 7% 9% Variance explained level 2 32% 59% 32% 63% Standard errors in parentheses. P-values: ^ 0.1, * 0.05, ** 0.01, *** 0.001.

24

Figure 2. Explaining election integrity: distant, intermediate, and proximate causal factors

25

Appendix Conceptualizing election qualitya

Authors I. Background concepts II. Systematized concept
Attributes Components of attributes

III. Indicators

Conceptualizations of democracy Schumpeter (1975) - Political leaders are elected by citizens - Competition between political leaders for citizens votes Dahl - Elected officials (1989) - Free and fair elections - Inclusive suffrage - Right to run for office - Freedom of expression, - Alternative information - Associational autonomy Huntington (1991) - Elections for most powerful decision-makers - Fair and honest elections - Periodic elections - Universal suffrage - Free competition Przeworski et al. - Ex ante uncertainty (1996) - Ex post irreversibility - Repeated elections Schmitter and Karl Dahls 7 criteria plus 2: (1991) - Absence of reserved power domains - State sovereignty Conceptualizations of election quality (concept-based) Hermet et al. - Freedom voters (1978) - Competition candidates - Effects elections on policies Elklit &Svensson - Free elections (before, during & after polling day) (1997) - Fair elections (before, during & after polling day) ODonnell (2001) - Competitive, Free, Egalitarian, Decisive, Inclusive Lindberg - Participation (2006a) - Competition - Legitimacy Munck - Inclusive elections (2009) - Clean elections - Competitive elections - Elective public offices Lopez-Pintor - Political framework: periodic elections, free expression of the will of the (2010) people - Free and fair elections: right of the people to vote, guarantees for secret ballot and genuine elections

1. Elected officials 1.1. Object of choice: most powerful collective decisionmakers selected through elections. 1.2. Consequences of choice: election results are irreversible & elected officials have control over policymaking. 2. Periodic elections 2.1. Elections held at regular intervals. 3. Participation

- Elected legislature - Elected executive (directly or indirectly) - Winners of elections assume office - Elected officials have discretion over policy-making, influence of reserved power domains is limited.

- Elections held periodically, according to constitution/electoral law.

- De jure universal & equal suffrage - De facto possibility to participate: - Possibility to form preferences: 3.1. De jure right to vote - Freedom of expression 3.2. De facto conditions for the - Alternative sources of information use of the right to vote - Voter education - Possibility to cast a vote: - Freedom of movement - Freedom from intimidation/coercion - Voter registration (register, registration requirements) - Polling station access - Secret balloting - Votes cast are counted: - Accurate vote counting

4. Competition Continued on next page.

26

- Right to franchise: right of universal & equal suffrage - Right to participate: right to stand for election & assume office

Authors

I. Background concepts

II. Systematized concepts

Attributes Components of attributes

III. Indicators

Conceptualizations of election quality (process-based) Schedler (2002a) - Object of choice - Range of choice - Formation of preferences - Agents of choice - Expression of preferences - Aggregation of preferences - Consequences of choice Mozaffar & - Rule-making (choosing rules of electoral game) Schedler (2002) - Rule application (organizing electoral game) - Rule adjudication (certifying results & solving disputes) Elklit & Reynolds - Legal framework (2005a) - Electoral management - Constituency& polling district demarcation - Voter education - Voter registration - Ballot paper design & party/candidate registration - Campaign regulation - Polling - Counting and tabulating the vote - Resolving election related complaints, verication & certication - Post-election procedures Birch - Manipulation election rules (2008, 2011) - Manipulation voting process / election administration - Manipulation of vote choice International legal conventionsb Universal - Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly Declaration of or Human Rights through freely chosen representatives; (UDHR 1948, art. - The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government, this 21, 1 & 3) will shall be expressed in: periodic and genuine elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage, and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures International - Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, [] without

4. Competition 4.1. De jure right to run for office - De jure multi-party/candidate elections 4.2. De facto conditions for the use - De facto possibility to compete: of - Registration requirements the right to run for office - Ballots accurate - Freedom from intimidation/coercion - Freedom of movement, expression, assembly, association - Alternative sources of information / media coverage - Use of state resources - Campaign finance regulation 5. Free - Campaign activities elections 5.1. Freedom to form preferences - Access to dispute adjudication and vote free of coercion (for - Freedom of movement, expression, voters) information. 5.2. Freedom to run in elections - Freedom of movement, expression, and information, assembly, and association. compete for popular support 6. Fair electionsfree of coercion (for parties/ candidates) - Impartial Electoral Management Body - Implementation according to electoral 6.1. Unbiased application of rules law: of - Before elections: electoral competition & - Constituency & polling district electoral demarcation governance before, during - Ballot paper design and - Registration of voters and after elections. parties - Campaign regulation - During elections: - Polling

27

Covenant on Civil unreasonable - After elections: and Political Rights restrictions: to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through - Counting and tabulating the (ICCPR 1966, freely vote art.25a&b) chosen representatives; to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic - Resolving election complaints elections, which - Post-election procedures shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors. a. The studies by Anglin (1998), Pastor (1999), Van de Walle (2003), Hartlyn et al (2008), Donno (2010), Kelley and Kiril (2010) and Hyde and Marinov (2010) are not included here because they do not provide an elaborate conceptualization of election quality, but rather give an operational definition based on how wide-spread, intentional and consequential irregularities are, or, in the case of Pastor, whether all major parties accept the results. b. For reasons of space, I only report the conditions mentioned for elections in the UDHR and ICCPR. Other instruments are described in the text.

Notes
Over 85% of the worlds states now select their national leaders through elec tions (Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive). This is interesting since, as Lehoucq describes, electoral fraud was by no means uncommon in the early years of first wave democracies. In his excellent review, Lehoucq mentions historical accounts of electoral fraud in the US, Latin America and Europe at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. Accounts range from voter intimidation, vote buying and stuffing the voter registry with ineligible voters, to pressure from landlords, employers and the church, in countries ranging from the UK and Ireland, to Germany and Spain (Lehoucq 2003). The fact that these countries by now have had such long experiences of democratic rule, in which electoral processes have come to be seen as straightforward administrative procedures, probably has contributed to the illusion of transparency and the concomittant neglect of the topic of electoral governance in research on the third wave regimes (Guennifey 1993, Mozaffar and Schedler 2002, Lehoucq 2003, Pastor 1999). iii Most inferential work has been done in the form of case studies, with Lehoucq and Molinas (2002) study of Costa Rica, Eisenstadts (2004) and Magalonis (2006) work on Mexico, and Nyblade and Reed Chuos (2008) research on Japan as excellent examples (cf. Leh oucq 2003 and Birch 2011 for a more extensive overview of case studies on electoral fraud). Also, more extensive research has been done on specific types of electoral fraud, most notably on vote-buying and to a lesser extent on election violence. Vote buying has been analyzed in a mix of country-studies, qualitative analyses and surveys, as well as experiments (cf. Schaffer 2007; Brusco, Nazareno and Stokes 2004; Calvo and Murillo 2007; Vicente 2010; Bratton 2008; and a forthcoming volume by Stokes et al.). As regards election violence, the literature is expanding rapidly, however most research seems to have concentrated on Sub-Saharan Africa, using both survey and experimental methods to gauge the extent and causes of election violence (Bratton 2008, Collier and Vicente 2011, Von Borzyskowski 2011). iv As Mair points out: However understandable it is to avoid the apodictic free and fair, it is even more problematic to specul ate on voter intentions and election results. How else can the voters intention be registered than by an election, and how can this take place correctly other than in a free and fair election? (as quoted in Bjornlund). Mair, International Election Observation; Bjornlund, Beyond Free and Fair, 119. v Remarkably however, as the Appendix shows, despite the disagreement about election integrity at the conceptual level, when it comes down to measurement scholars identify very similar indicators. These indicators mostly match the stages of the electoral process described above, i.e. identifying irregularities that can occur before, during and after election day, vi However, Lehoucq (2007) proposes that different types of electoral fraud might be common in rural versus urban areas, as voter intimidation might be relatively easier in rural areas were traditional patron-client relationships are more common, while in urban areas politicians might need to resort to other methods of manipulation such as buying votes; and Molina and Lehoucq (1999) also show in the case of Costa Rica that such regional patterns may shift over time as the consequence of changes in the nature of political competition. vii Of course, the resource curse not only provides incumbents with funds to finance electoral manipulation, it also gives incumbents more leeway to disregard international pressure for holding high integrity elections.
i ii

28

viii

As Bjornlund (2004) describes, the degree of involvement of the international community in elections varies strongly, ranging from providing limited technical training and advice, to large-scale assistance in organizing the elections. Examples of the latter are the first elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina after the Dayton Accords, the elections in Afghanistan and the first elections in DR Congo. As far as I am aware, thusfar little comparative research exists evaluating the effectiveness of international assistance to elections for strengthening election integrity, a topic that will be taken up in the third part of the Electoral Integrity Project. ix However, increased competition may also limit possibilities to engage in fraud as parties monitor each other. Moreover, the effect of closeness of elections on election integrity may only hold in electoral democracies, as in electoral authoritarian regimes successive fraudulent elections have generated such a non-level playing field that close elections are unlikely to occur, and yet election integrity continues to be undermined (presumably to maintain the status quo). x As Simpser (2005) has suggested, in these regimes overt fraud may in fact be a use ful signalling tool for incumbents to demonstrate their strength to voters and opposition, deterring opposition participation and votes- in future elections. xi For example, for many countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States, that have important trade and aid relationships predominantly with Russia, holding flawed elections might not be that costly, as clean elections are not a condition for these relationships to thrive. The increasing economic influence of China in Sub-Saharan Africa might have a similar effect on third wave regimes there (Levitsky and Way 2010). On the other hand, for countries in Central and Eastern Europe, holding clean elections was one of the many conditions that the European Union required to be met for accession, presumably increasing legitimacy costs of fraud. xii This also allows for the evaluation of the relative importance of these different factors in explaining election integrity, a s well as the use of different theoretical lenses to look at election integrity. For example, distant causal factors allow us to evaluate more historical and structuralist explanations, intermediate causal factors relate to institutional explanations, and proximate causal factors allow for rational choice explanations. xiii The debate is still ongoing whether these differences are due to natural conditions in former colonies that either stimulated or discouraged settlement or rather due to the specific characteristics of the colonizing powers. As such, it has often been argued that former British colonies tend to have achieved higher levels of democratic quality compared to former French, Spanish and Portuguese colonies, due to the development of democratic political institutions, the traditions of British common law, and the development of a democratic culture under British rule. xiv Since election integrity measures de facto variation in election integrity for elections that meet, at a minimum, de jure international norms for elections, I first selected all elections that met the minimal international criteria held in third and fourth wave regimes between 1974 and 2009. Conditions for de jure democratic elections are met if elections are held for both legislative and executive (directly or indirectly), if elections are irreversible, and if elections allow for de jure multi-party or multi-candidate competition and de jure universal suffrage. The first criterion implies that both the executive and the legislative should be selected through elections, either directly or indirectly. This means that elections held under military governments holding only parliamentary elections, such as Brazil between 1964 and 1982, or elections held under monarchy governments holding only parliamentary elections, such as Swaziland, are excluded. The second criterion means that elections immediately followed by a coup detat and/or civil war that prevent the elected government from taking power are excluded. Elections held under conditions o f civil war where nevertheless the elected government was able to assume po wer are included, as are elections held just after a coup detat. The third criterion implies that elections should be held u nder de jure multiparty conditions, i.e. it should be legally possible for multiple parties or candidates to contest elections. This means that elections held under a constitution forbidding the formation of political parties, such as Sudan between 1989 and 1998, or allowing for only one state party, like Malawi between 1966 and 1993, are excluded. Finally, the fourth criterion implies that elections should allow de jure universal suffrage, i.e. it should be legally possible for all adult citizens to participate in elections. This means that elections where suffrage was restricted on the basis of gender, race, income or literacy were excluded. The absence of a de jure secret ballot is also considered as a suffrage restriction, as public voting limits the possibilities for opposition supporters to cast a free vote. Elections where secret ballots were not legally required were hence also excluded. Elections with suffrage restrictions for non-adults, detainees, and specific occupations (such as police or army officials) were included. Note that these criteria are meant to capture the full range of variation in election integrity, thus mere ly specifying the minimal conditions that need to be met for elections to be de jure democratic. This means that elections held under conditions of de facto limitations on party competition and voter participation are included, as long as the de jure conditions specified above hold. (cf. Van Ham 2012 for a full description of this dataset).

29

xv

The existing data were merged in a single dataset and combined after extensive validity tests. I subsequently coded missing elections and recoded elections on which there was strong disagreement. Elections were coded based on election observation reports, academic articles, human rights reports, and news media reports. For these scores I used a hierarchy of sources, with the academic and election observation reports with well-established methodologies and professional observer teams given priority over reports in news media. I coded elections along a 3-point ordinal scale, based exclusively on the frequency and spread of irregularities, rather than intentionality or perceived consequences for the outcome. Elections were coded using the following categories: 0 = widespread irregularities, whether intentional or not, that seriously affected the conduct of the elections in a large part of the country; 0.5 = considerably frequent irregularities, but not so widespread that the election is outright rejected by observers; 1 = no irregularities or some isolated, non-frequent irregularities. For more information on the merging procedure, validity tests and the coding of missing and disagreed elections see Van Ham (2012). For the purpose of the analyses presented here, I use a continuous variable of election integrity that takes the average of the election integrity scores for elections on which there was low disagreement, and my own scores for elections that had missing data and high disagreement. I reran the analyses using a dichotomous dependent variable that recodes elections with widespread and considerably frequent irregularities in one category of flawed elections and compared to clean elections (i.e. elections with no or isolated irregularities). The results are essentially similar to the ones presented here. xvi Note that for a number of variables, the values tested are indicated as lagged values (t-2), indicating that these variables will be measured 2 years before the elections. This is to prevent endogeneity or reversed causality. For example, an increase in international aid in the year of the election might be the result of a clean election, rather than a cause of it. Taking the level of international aid some time before the elections as an indicator helps to diminish such reverse causality, even if not completely solving it. The time lag of 2 years is chosen to also reduce the likelihood of potential anticipation effects. For example, if elections will take place in the following year, and are expected to be fraudulent or problematic, foreign investors might already retreat in anticipation and hence international trade might drop before elections, as a consequence of the anticipated low integrity of the electoral process, rather than causing such lower integrity (and in fact I expect trade to have a positive effect). Finally, a time lag of 2 years also reduces the likelihood of temporal overlap between the measurement of independent variables and the electoral process, which, counting the campaign period prior to elections as well as adjudication of complaints and the final publication of results, can take up to anywhere between 3 to 6 months, and sometimes even longer (Lindberg 2006). xvii Note that closeness is measured as the vote differential for presidential elections, but due to a large proportion of missing data for vote shares in legislative elections, as the seat differential for legislative elections. xviii Of course, many things change between elections, among which the popularity of candidates and parties, so this is a very imperfect measure of closeness. However, lacking comparative poll data that would allow us to assess parties and candidates popularity during t he election campaign, this seems the best alternative. xix Data on EMB independence was collected by IDEA in 2006, when many countries that had had problems with election integrity had adopted formally independent EMBs in reaction to those problems, blurring the effects of this variable. xx Note that bureaucratic effectiveness, presidential electoral system type and the presence of international observers had to be dropped from the full model due to multicollinearity. Bureaucratic effectiveness is highly collinear with economic development and bureaucratic effectiveness were highly collinear, indicating that economic development is indeed a good proxy for administrative capacity. Economic development was left in the full model as it is more precisely measured. Presidential electoral system type was collinear with presidential elections, since the formed was already insignificant in a the reduced model 2 I left it out. Finally, the presence of international observers is collinear with election assistance, however, while election assistance remains significant in the full model, the effect of international observers is insignificant, and hence the latter was dropped.

30

31