When do elections in authoritarian regimes lead to democracy? Building from the distinction between competitive and hegemonic authoritarian regimes, I argue that presence of relatively weaker incumbents renders competitive authoritarian elections more prone to democratization, but only when domestic and international actors choose to actively pressure the regime. The effects of two forms of pressure-opposition electoral coalitions and international conditionalityare theorized. Propositions are tested using a comprehensive dataset of elections in authoritarian regimes from 1990 to 2007. Results support two core claims: that the effect of electoral pressure is conditional on the type of authoritarianism and that this greater vulnerability to pressure is the reason why competitive authoritarian elections are more likely to lead to democracy. In contrast, several alternative explanations-that differences across regime type are explained by alternation in power, better electoral conduct, or ongoing processes of liberalization-are not supported by the evidence.
Scholars have found an association between membership in regional intergovernmental organizations~IGOs! and democracy, and IGO enforcement is often credited as an important factor explaining this link+ But empirical evidence reveals great variation in whether these organizations actually respond to violations of democratic norms, even in democratic regions+ Why do IGOs punish some norm-violating countries but not others? What does this variation imply for theories about how IGO membership helps states make credible commitments? This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding variation in multilateral norm enforcement+ It identifies two obstacles to enforcement-the presence of competing geopolitical interests and uncertainty about the nature and scope of norm violations-and it argues that international monitoring can help mitigate these obstacles by revealing and publicizing information that pressures reluctant member states to support enforcement+ An original data set of democracy enforcement in Latin America and postcommunist countries is used to examine regional IGO enforcement in response to one prevalent type of democratic norm violation: electoral misconduct+ I find that enforcement is less likely in countries of high geopolitical importance, but the presence of election observers increases the probability of enforcement, and the content of observers' reports influences the type of enforcement that is imposed+ These findings suggest that the link between IGO membership, credible commitments, and democracy should be theorized and tested as a conditional relationship, depending on country-and incident-specific factors that influence the likelihood of enforcement+ Proponents of the liberal peace theory have long argued that membership in intergovernmental organizations~IGOs! promotes and reinforces democracy+ 1 Evidence suggests that regional IGOs play a particularly important role+ Members of "densely democratic" regional organizations-IGOs whose member states are democracies-I thank
While dictatorships perform worse than democracies in respect for most human rights, a large number of autocracies have prioritized the advancement of women’s rights. We present a theory of authoritarian rights provision that focuses on the incentives for dictatorships to secure women’s loyalty, and we identify the particular capacity of institutionalized party-based regimes to supply—and capitalize from—women’s rights policies. Analyzing a comprehensive sample of authoritarian regimes from 1963 to 2009, we find that party-based regimes are associated with greater economic and political rights for women irrespective of whether they hold multiparty elections. A comparative exploration of authoritarian Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya sheds further light on these findings and examines alternative explanations. Our account of women’s rights as a tool of autocratic party coalition-building contrasts with the provision of civil and associational rights—so-called “coordination goods”—which represents a concession to the opposition and tends to accompany liberalization.
The monitoring of elections by international groups has become widespread. But can it have unintended negative consequences for governance? We argue that high-quality election monitoring, by preventing certain forms of manipulation such as stuffing ballot boxes, can unwittingly induce incumbents to resort to tactics of election manipulation that are more damaging to domestic institutions, governance, and freedoms. These tactics include rigging courts and administrative bodies and repressing the media. We use an original-panel dataset of 144 countries in 1990-2007 to test our argument. We find that, on average, high-quality election monitoring has a measurably negative effect on the rule of law, administrative performance, and media freedom. We employ various strategies to guard against endogeneity, including instrumenting for election monitoring.
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