Routledge Studies in Elections, Democracy and Autocracy – serie

Democratic countries vary widely in the extent to which the administration of the electoral process facilitates voter participation, showing a great deal of variation in everything from voter registration to the casting of ballots.This book is the first systematic study to investigate why it is easier to vote in some democracies than in others. It develops the concept of election administration inclusiveness, which considers all of the administrative requirements and procedures that a citizen confronts in exercising his or her right to vote. It then draws on in-depth case studies from Central America and data from Latin America more broadly to address how political parties and other actors interact in constructing election administration rules and procedures. Using a theoretical framework centred on electoral threat, party capacity, and electoral management body composition, the author identifies multiple pathways to inclusive and restrictive election administration. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of elections, democracy studies, Latin American politics, and more broadly comparative politics and law.

From the perspective of a number of different social science disciplines, this book explores the ways in which the election of politicians can be made more fair and credible by adopting a human rights approach to elections. It discusses existing international standards for the conduct of elections and presents case studies relating to jurisdictions within Europe, especially those emerging from conflict or from an authoritarian past, which demonstrate how problems occur and can be addressed.Significant advances have been achieved through the Council of Europe’s soft and hard law frameworks but the book demonstrates that much more needs to be done to ensure that these and other standards are fully adhered to and developed. This collection offers a fresh examination of electoral rights and practices – and their impact on the quality of democracy – by superimposing a human rights perspective on existing election theories derived from the literatures of law, political science and international relations.This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of electoral democracy and human rights, as well as those working in the areas of comparative politics and European politics.

Although the phenomenon of authoritarian elections has been a focal point for the literature on authoritarian institutions for more than a decade, our understanding of the effect of authoritarian elections is still limited.Combining evidence from cross-national studies with studies on selected cases relying on recent field work, this book suggests a solution to the "paradox of authoritarian elections". Rather than focusing on authoritarian elections as a uniform phenomenon, it focuses on the differing conditions under which authoritarian elections occur. It demonstrates that the capacities available to authoritarian rulers shape the effect of elections and high levels of state capacity and control over the economy increase the probability that authoritarian multi-party elections will stabilize the regime. Where these capacities are limited, the regime is more likely to succumb in the face of elections. The findings imply that although multi-party competition and state strength may be important prerequisites for democracy, they can under some circumstances obstruct democratization by preventing the demise of dictatorships. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of democratization, and to those who study autocracy and electoral authoritarianism, as well as comparative politics more broadly.

Following a normative approach that suggests international norms and standards for elections apply universally, regardless of regime type or cultural context, this book examines the challenges to electoral integrity, the actors involved, and the consequences of electoral malpractice and poor electoral integrity that vary by regime type. It bridges the literature on electoral integrity with that of political regime types. Looking specifically at questions of innovation and learning, corruption and organized crime, political efficacy and turnout, the threat of electoral violence and protest, and finally, the possibility of regime change, it seeks to expand the scholarly understanding of electoral integrity and diverse regimes by exploring the diversity of challenges to electoral integrity, the diversity of actors that are involved and the diversity of consequences that can result. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of electoral studies, and more broadly of relevance to comparative politics, international development, political behaviour and democracy, democratization, and autocracy.

Democratic countries vary widely in the extent to which the administration of the electoral process facilitates voter participation, showing a great deal of variation in everything from voter registration to the casting of ballots.This book is the first systematic study to investigate why it is easier to vote in some democracies than in others. It develops the concept of election administration inclusiveness, which considers all of the administrative requirements and procedures that a citizen confronts in exercising his or her right to vote. It then draws on in-depth case studies from Central America and data from Latin America more broadly to address how political parties and other actors interact in constructing election administration rules and procedures. Using a theoretical framework centred on electoral threat, party capacity, and electoral management body composition, the author identifies multiple pathways to inclusive and restrictive election administration. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of elections, democracy studies, Latin American politics, and more broadly comparative politics and law.

This book offers the first comparative monograph on the management of elections. The book defines electoral management as a new, inter-disciplinary area and advances a realist sociological approach to study it. A series of new, original frameworks are introduced, including the PROSeS framework, which can be used by academics and practitioners around the world to evaluate electoral management quality. A networked governance approach is also introduced to understand the full range of collaborative actors involved in delivering elections, including civil society and the international community. Finally, the book evaluates some of the policy instruments used to improve the integrity of elections, including voter registration reform, training and the funding of elections. Extensive mixed methods are used throughout including thematic analysis of interviews, (auto-)ethnography, comparative historical analysis and, cross-national and national surveys of electoral officials. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners interested and involved in electoral integrity and elections, and more broadly to comparative politics, public administration, international relations and democracy studies.Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license: https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138682412_oachapter01.pdfChapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license: https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138682412_oachapter04.pdf

Although the phenomenon of authoritarian elections has been a focal point for the literature on authoritarian institutions for more than a decade, our understanding of the effect of authoritarian elections is still limited.Combining evidence from cross-national studies with studies on selected cases relying on recent field work, this book suggests a solution to the "paradox of authoritarian elections". Rather than focusing on authoritarian elections as a uniform phenomenon, it focuses on the differing conditions under which authoritarian elections occur. It demonstrates that the capacities available to authoritarian rulers shape the effect of elections and high levels of state capacity and control over the economy increase the probability that authoritarian multi-party elections will stabilize the regime. Where these capacities are limited, the regime is more likely to succumb in the face of elections. The findings imply that although multi-party competition and state strength may be important prerequisites for democracy, they can under some circumstances obstruct democratization by preventing the demise of dictatorships. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of democratization, and to those who study autocracy and electoral authoritarianism, as well as comparative politics more broadly.

From the perspective of a number of different social science disciplines, this book explores the ways in which the election of politicians can be made more fair and credible by adopting a human rights approach to elections. It discusses existing international standards for the conduct of elections and presents case studies relating to jurisdictions within Europe, especially those emerging from conflict or from an authoritarian past, which demonstrate how problems occur and can be addressed.Significant advances have been achieved through the Council of Europe’s soft and hard law frameworks but the book demonstrates that much more needs to be done to ensure that these and other standards are fully adhered to and developed. This collection offers a fresh examination of electoral rights and practices – and their impact on the quality of democracy – by superimposing a human rights perspective on existing election theories derived from the literatures of law, political science and international relations.This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of electoral democracy and human rights, as well as those working in the areas of comparative politics and European politics.

Following a normative approach that suggests international norms and standards for elections apply universally, regardless of regime type or cultural context, this book examines the challenges to electoral integrity, the actors involved, and the consequences of electoral malpractice and poor electoral integrity that vary by regime type. It bridges the literature on electoral integrity with that of political regime types. Looking specifically at questions of innovation and learning, corruption and organized crime, political efficacy and turnout, the threat of electoral violence and protest, and finally, the possibility of regime change, it seeks to expand the scholarly understanding of electoral integrity and diverse regimes by exploring the diversity of challenges to electoral integrity, the diversity of actors that are involved and the diversity of consequences that can result. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of electoral studies, and more broadly of relevance to comparative politics, international development, political behaviour and democracy, democratization, and autocracy.