Damaging democracy? Security provision and turnout in Afghan elections^†

Abstract

In emerging democracies, elections are encouraged as a route to democratization. However, not only does violence often threaten these elections, but citizens often view as corrupt the security forces deployed to combat violence. We examine the effects of such security provision. In Afghanistan's 2010 parliamentary election, polling centers with similar histories of pre‐election violence unintentionally received different deployments of the Afghan National Police, enabling identification of police's effects on turnout. Using data from the universe of polling sites and various household surveys, data usually unavailable in conflict settings, we estimate increases in police presence decreased voter turnout by an average of 30%. Our results adjudicate between competing theoretical mechanisms through which security forces could affect turnout, and show behavior is not driven by voter anticipation of election‐day violence. This highlights a pitfall for building government legitimacy via elections in weakly institutionalized and conflict‐affected states.

Civil Wartime Political Parties: Evidence from Four Rebellions in India

“…Evidence from four civil war zones in India demonstrates that when these political parties win elections, voter turnout in the next election consistently drops and can be explained by a mechanism composed of rebel and counterinsurgent threats, operations, and attacks. The results are consistent with findings from Condra et al (2018Condra et al ( , 2019 that insurgent attacks and security force patrols reduced voter turnout in Afghanistan.…”

The Logic of Insurgent Electoral Violence

“…Naxalites in India's Maoist insurgency target election officials, polling locations, and citizens in an effort to disrupt voting by planting IEDs along road networks, assassinating security personnel and candidates, and cutting off voters' fingers. 5 In Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia has attacked candidates and electoral institutions during campaigns to "display its might and remind the government that its guerrillas are still capable of disrupting democracy." 6 Similarly, Al-Shabaab Islamists in Somalia threatened the country's 2016 elections, calling on members to "kill anyone who participates in the so-called election" 7 and targeting election officials, candidates, and polling centers.…”

“…Second, the Afghan government and ISAF could alter their force positions in the early morning hours of election days, and insurgents may respond to different levels or quality of targets if, for instance, more patrols were deployed and acted as targets on election mornings. However, while force deployments changed to provide protection for the electoral process and voters, the deployments and force lay-downs were enacted several days before the election, and would have been in place from then through election day and the conclusion of voting and counting at polling centers (Condra et al 2017). Therefore, changes in deployments cannot account for the specific timing of attacks on election day.…”

“…Most investigations of election violence examine cases where formal political actors, like incumbent governments and opposition parties, commit violence as a strategy to retain or gain office, but cross-national data are incomplete and not comprehensive enough to make strong claims about patterns of insurgent-produced election violence 5. Navin B. Chawla, "The Naxal Challenge to Electoral Process," The Hindu, January 13, 2015 6.…”

Preventing rather than punishing: An early warning model of malfeasance in public procurement

“…Inefficiency and corruption are pervasive problems in the developing world. 3 Troves of literature discuss the negative impact of these phenomena on many important outcomes such as growth ( Mauro, 1995 ), the quality of democracy ( Mungiu-Pippidi, 2015 ), and service delivery in terms of security ( Condra et al, 2019 ), education ( Dufflo et al, 2012 ), and health ( Chaudhury et al, 2006 ). As noted in the seminal study of Bandiera et al (2009) , corruption, especially in the context of public procurement—the process through which the government acquires goods and services—is only the active version of a more general problem in which the government is the damaged party in a transaction.…”