Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Judith G. Kelley is associate professor of public policy and political science at Duke University. She is the author of Ethnic Politics in Europe: The Power of Norms and Incentives (Princeton).

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"This probing, nuanced, and insightful analysis of international election monitoring splendidly illuminates and assesses a key area of international democracy support. The book's conclusions about the mixed utility and many dilemmas of election monitoring are persuasive and deserve wide attention. Extra kudos to Judith Kelley for providing an all-too-rare example of sophisticated, rigorous political science methods being brought to bear on the domain of democracy promotion."--Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

"Judith Kelley has written not only the definitive book on election monitoring for scholars and practitioners, but also an important new work on the modern practice of democracy itself. Her persuasive and carefully conducted analysis of election monitoring reveals its positive effects as well as its ambiguities and shortcomings. Election monitoring organizations should makeMonitoring Democracy required reading for all their staff."--Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota

"In this book, Judith Kelley shows her skills as a political detective, demonstrating with impressive social science that under certain conditions--not all--election monitoring promotes democracy. If you read only one book on election monitoring, readMonitoring Democracy."--Robert O. Keohane, Princeton University

"This timely book provides the first inclusive study of election monitoring as it has developed since the mid-1970s. It contains strong arguments, meticulous analysis, and a genuine understanding of the complexities of individual elections throughout the world."--Jørgen Elklit, Aarhus University

"No other book compares the operations of different monitoring organizations and offers such a comprehensive overview of their effectiveness."--Amanda Sives, University of Liverpool

"Monitoring Democracy answers a host of foundational questions about international election observation. What is novel about this book--and what stands as Judith Kelley's singular achievement--is her comprehensive and systematic collection of evidence. Her interpretation of this evidence is, happily, always nuanced, judicious, and just plain smart. A must-read book."--Frederic C. Schaffer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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Monitoring Democracy

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Illustrations..........................................................................xiTables.................................................................................xiiiPreface................................................................................xvAbbreviations..........................................................................xixChapter 1: Introduction................................................................3Chapter 2: The Rise of a New Norm......................................................16Chapter 3: The Shadow Market...........................................................43Chapter 4: What Influences Monitors' Assessments?......................................59Chapter 5: Do Politicians Change Tactics to Evade Criticism?...........................77Chapter 6: International Monitors as Reinforcement.....................................97Chapter 7: Are Monitored Elections Better?.............................................112Chapter 8: Long-Term Effects...........................................................131Conclusion: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly............................................155Appendix A: Data Description...........................................................181Appendix B: Statistical Supplement to Chapter 3........................................195Appendix C: Statistical Supplement to Chapter 4........................................197Appendix D: Statistical Supplement to Chapter 7 with Mark Buntaine.....................199Appendix E: Case Summaries with Kiril Kolev............................................211Notes..................................................................................265References.............................................................................293Index..................................................................................321

Chapter One

Look at these foreign observers. What they see is only the surface; they don't know anything about our country. —Nepalese voter outside a polling station, 20081

Despite contentious debate over the years about whether it is putting the cart before the horse, the international community continues to push countries to hold elections as a way to promote freedom and democracy. Indeed, international election monitoring has become the primary tool of democracy promotion. Today diverse organizations flock to observe elections all over the world and broadcast their findings to the domestic and international communities. These efforts have become a true growth industry, involving global and regional intergovernmental organizations as well as nongovernmental agencies and organizations (Figure 1.1). Given that countries have traditionally guarded elections as a strictly domestic affair and a sacred hallmark of sovereignty, the rapid expansion of monitoring is stunning.

International monitors oft en play central roles in election dramas. Consider Georgia, where in 2003 denouncement of election fraud by international and domestic monitors helped trigger the Rose Revolution. Four years later, President Mikheil Saakashvili responded to sudden political riots by calling a presidential election for early 2008. To boost votes in the first round and prevent opposition voters from uniting against him in a runoff , he combined the implementation of social welfare programs with campaigning, stacked the central election commission (CEC) with partisan members, and occasionally used intimidation and pressure. The international community feared further instability. The West was pulling for Saakashvili, Russia for the opposition, leaving the election observers in a difficult and prominent position. The Financial Times noted on the eve of the vote: "Pressure is mounting on more than 1,000 international observers who will play the key role in deciding the legitimacy of votes cast at some 3,400 ballot stations."

Yet despite the sweeping prevalence of international monitors, global political developments are unsettling: After 2005, the democratic gains of the past two decades have stagnated, perhaps even begun to recede. In 2009, the year marking the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, freedom declined in no less than forty countries. This was the fourth consecutive year that declines trumped gains and the longest continuous period of deterioration in the forty years of reporting by Freedom House, the independent watchdog organization. The downward trend continued in 2010. With backsliding in Honduras, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, Niger, Ukraine, and several others countries, by 2010 the number of what Freedom House calls "electoral democracies" dropped to 115—its lowest level since 1995. It remains to be seen whether the Arab Spring will bring any relief at all to this downward slide. The elections in Kyrgyzstan in 2005, Pakistan in 2008, and Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010, among many others, were all monitored by international observers, yet these elections made it painfully obvious that elections cannot be equated with democracy and, furthermore, that simply holding an election does not ensure progress toward democracy, even if international actors invest heavily in monitoring it.

So is international election observation a good idea? Is it worth all the effort put into it? Does it actually promote democracy by strengthening elections? It would be naïve to expect all monitoring efforts to succeed or to infer from these broader developments that election monitoring itself is failing. Furthermore, regardless of the trends, elections remain a necessary component of a democratic society. Yet, the signs of slippage in democracy and freedom around the world are clearly alarming. Given that measures of democracy rightly lean so heavily on the quality of elections, the declining scores suggest that in some countries the quality of elections is not improving or may even be worsening. This makes it more pressing to ask whether election monitoring is worthwhile. Furthermore, monitoring has become such a central tenet of democracy promotion that it is imperative to examine its role. Although monitors do not have as much prominence in every election as in the Georgia case, when they do, it is usually in the more critical and interesting cases. The domestic and international media listen to their statements, as do governments around the world. Thus, what international election monitors say and do is of great consequence.

Unfortunately, the answer to the question of whether international election monitoring is a good idea is: We do not really know. Despite the significance of international election monitors, their activities receive little real scrutiny. Critics were vocal in the early years of election monitoring, but they usually based their criticism on their unique experiences with particular elections. Today, commentators occasionally question individual missions, as when the press accused the International Republican Institute (IRI) of withholding exit poll results after the 2007 election in Kenya, but—by and large—few commentators question their credentials and most simply treat them as a force for good. This is true of scholars, who repeatedly point to international election monitors as an effective way to improve elections without providing any evidence. It is also true of the media. For example, reporting on the downfall of a corrupt regime in Ukraine in 2004, The New York Times argued that the election monitors' report "lent credibility to Mr. Yushchenko's opposition movement and his supporters' mass demonstrations, provided a basis for an international outcry, and helped lead to a complaint to the Supreme Court, which nullified the voting." Naturally, international monitoring organizations likewise promote their own brand, arguing that they strengthen democratic institutions, boost public confidence, and deter fraud, intimidation, and violence.

Yet, as early critics noted, international election monitoring organizations are highly complicated actors and monitoring is a complex undertaking. Despite the experience they have gained over the years, they face several serious challenges. Elections are much more than a polling exercise: They begin months before polling day, and they involve a legislative framework, extended campaigns, and complicated administrational and logistical issues. Assessing elections is difficult, organizations have limited capacity, and, on top of that, organizations have to juggle multiple political and practical concerns. Although they do not like to speak too openly about them, monitoring organizations are aware of the problems and many try to address them. However, the will to improve varies considerably among the motley profusion of organizations and solutions are rarely apparent and oft en difficult. On some issues, organizations are stuck between a rock and a hard place. For example, they gain their leverage from their ability to legitimate or invalidate elections, yet this very task of assessment can also lead to thorny political entanglement. Even when monitoring organizations can prescribe solutions, they oft en lack the capacity to follow up and are at the mercy of domestic politicians to implement them.

Thus, it is not as straight forward as proponents suggest to assert that international election monitoring is worthwhile. Given their intrusiveness into domestic affairs and the weight their opinions receive, a critical third-party perspective on their activity is necessary. As the Roman poet Juvenal asked in his Satire IV in which a man places male guards outside his wife's house to prevent her adultery: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" [Who will guard the guardians?]. In a world that places so much emphasis on elections and on international election monitoring, this book assesses the guardians.

By injecting themselves into the domestic political process, monitoring organizations raise many interesting questions about their conduct and effects and, by extension, about the motivations of the international actors who sponsor them. For example: Do monitoring organizations actually reduce election violence by their presence or mediation? Do monitors influence domestic politics in other ways, for example, by influencing the decision of opposition parties to boycott elections? And what role do international monitors play in the training and effectiveness of domestic monitors?

This book touches on many of these questions, but it focuses exhaustively on two central and related questions: Do monitors assess elections accurately and objectively? Do monitors help improve the quality of elections? By focusing on the credibility of international institutions and the methods the international community uses to promote good domestic governance, these two questions focus the book on fundamental issues of global governance and democracy promotion.

Two questions

Do Monitors Assess Elections Accurately and Objectively?

T e purported raison d'être of international monitors—their core mission—is to provide reliable and accurate information to the international community and to domestic actors. This role is particularly important in countries without credible domestic watchdogs such as a free media, an independent judicial system, or domestic observer groups. By taking on the role of producers of such information, however, monitoring organizations inevitably also become "legitimizers," because they assess whether the election conformed to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards and thereby determine the legitimacy of the elected officials.

Although some organizations claim that they do not make categorical or simplistic "free and fair" or "thumbs up/thumbs down" statements, most organization do just that—or at a minimum are perceived by domestic and international audiences to be doing just that. Indeed, the official commission created by Kofi Annan to review the contested 2007 election in Kenya notes that "one of the most common purposes of electoral observation is to assess the legitimacy of an electoral process." Partly due to the international community's obsession with elections as the litmus test of democracy, election monitoring is, by extension, oft en the primary tool the international community uses to assess the legitimacy of governments. If international election monitors signal that elections were satisfactory, adequate, fair, legitimate—or whatever language they may employ—this has consequences for both international and domestic acceptance of the outcome. When Viktor Yanukovych claimed victory in the 2010 Ukraine presidential election, this did not prompt a second Orange Revolution, as it had in 2004, when international monitors disputed his claim. Instead, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who had opposed him for the presidency, dropped her election challenge partly because this time international monitors had approved of the election, thus reducing her political ammunition.

Yet, are monitoring organizations as impartial as they profess? Assessing elections is difficult. Monitors can only cover a fraction of polling stations and can only stay for a limited time at each station. Thus, choices are necessary. They may make pre-election assessment trips or have delegations in countries far in advance, but their resources are still limited, they lack local knowledge, and they may be up against politicians who work to deceive them. Thus, the efforts of international observers sometimes meet with cynicism, as expressed by the Nepalese voter in the chapter's opening quote.

In addition to these logistical challenges, sometimes the political pressures on monitoring organizations are considerable. In the 2008 election in Georgia, the problematic pre-election period was followed by a fairly organized and peaceful polling day, although some precincts were chaotic and had problems with the ink used to safeguard against multiple voting. The counting was also slow and had "procedural shortcomings." When exit polls showed Saakashvili with 52 to 53 percent, barely enough to avoid a second round, the opposition cried foul. The observers did endorse the election, albeit hesitantly. However, reactions were highly polarized as to the validity of that assessment; U.S. and Russian officials made contradictory statements and an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observer openly criticized the mission. Thus, assessing the quality of an election is frequently contentious, and when more than one organization monitors an election, the monitoring organizations sometimes generate controversy by disagreeing on their assessments.

It was perhaps with such complications in mind that, when monitoring began to spread in the early 1990s, the renowned legal scholar, Thomas Franck, noted the importance of considering "the legitimacy of the emerging international rules and processes by which the governance of nations is increasingly being monitored and validated." In other words, what rights does the international community at large have to assess and judge elections around the world? And when organizations do so, do they really base their opinions on "the highest standards for accuracy of information and impartiality of analysis"?

Because of the practical, ideological, normative, and political difficulties inherent in monitoring, the quality of the monitors' assessments cannot be taken for granted. This is an issue in global governance in general. Numerous monitoring bodies exist in global governance, but many of them are ineffective. This is particularly true in areas related to quality of government such as human rights, labor rights, gender equality, and similar issues on which governments have incentives to distort information about their less acceptable behaviors. Much of this monitoring occurs through self-reporting to various treaty organizations. Is the quality of election monitoring different from these processes? Do monitors provide more reliable information because they are present on the scene? Does the quality of the information vary between the different monitoring organizations or across different electoral contexts? If the quality of information varies, what does this mean for the legitimacy of international election monitoring itself and for the legitimacy that organizations bestow on governments? Thus, the question of quality of monitoring information has important normative implications as well as implications for the design of monitoring regimes more generally.

In addition, the quality of election monitoring assessments is important for the broader study of the nature of transnational actors. In the past this research has tended to assume that transnational actors are neutral and benign. Only recently have scholars begun to explore how the politics and preferences of transnational actors influence their behavior, and subsequently their ability to advance democracy both domestically and in international governance. Studying what factors influence the quality of monitors' information encourages a deeper inquiry into the politics and norms of transnational actors in global governance.

To study the quality of information, this book asks a series of questions to help understand the motivations and methods of the actors involved: Why did election monitoring evolve in the first place? What sorts of organizations first became active, and what were their motivations? What countries invited monitors in the early days and why, and has the motivation to invite monitors since changed? How has the monitoring industry as a whole changed over time? When evaluating elections, what sort of considerations might monitoring organizations make? Is it possible to detect patterns in their assessments? Chapters 2–4 address these and other questions about the quality of election monitoring information.

Do Monitors Improve the Quality of Elections?

Most international election organizations seek not only to inform domestic and international actors about the legitimacy of elections, but also to improve the quality of elections. Indeed, the main thrust of election observation is to promote good elections as an essential building block to better democracy. Election monitoring has indeed become the central component of the democracy promotion efforts of many organizations and governments. A study of whether election monitoring improves elections therefore gets at the core of many prominent democracy promotion programs around the world.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Monitoring Democracyby Judith G. Kelley Copyright © 2012 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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