Electoral Governance Matters

Abstract

This article provides a systematic cross-national analysis of the role of electoral administration in explaining acceptable democratic presidential elections in 19 countries in Latin America since the year 1980 or the first pivotal, transitional election. The authors provide two alternative measures of election administration, one focused on the degree of partisanship or professional independence and another on formal—legal institutional independence, as well as on other key factors, to test partial proportional odds-ordered logit models predicting the probability of an acceptable, flawed, or failed electoral process. The results show an important positive role for professional, independent electoral commissions on electoral outcomes in Latin America, controlling for other socioeconomic and political factors; formal-legal independence matters when the rules of the game are likely to be respected. In addition, low-quality elections are found disproportionately where incumbents seek reelection and where victory margins are extremely wide rather than narrow.

Election commissions and non-democratic outcomes: Thailand’s contentious 2019 election

“…Yet, the link between formal EMB independence and electoral integrity remains unclear. While some regional studies have shown that formally independent EMBs have had positive impact on electoral integrity in Latin America and Africa (Fall et al, 2012: 5–8; Hartlyn et al, 2008: 76), an increasing number of global studies suggests that formal EMB independence has either negative (Birch, 2011: 122) or no direct effect at all (Birch and van Ham, 2017: 496; Norris, 2015: 151; van Ham and Garnett, 2019: 329). van Ham and Garnett (2019: 315) offer the following three explanations for this empirical dissonance: (1) the lack of detailed comparative data on institutional EMB design, (2) different contextual variables and (3) the way scholars conceptualise EMB independence – some tend to concentrate more on the formal aspects of institutional EMB design or de jure independence, some focus primarily on EMBs’ conduct or de facto independence, while others conflate the two (van Ham and Garnett 2019: 315).…”

“…Conversely, EMBs in countries such as Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Venezuela, have low de facto independence although they are legally and structurally autonomous from government. Many studies find strong positive effect of de facto independence on the quality of elections but weaker correlations (Fall et al, 2012: 9; Hartlyn et al, 2008: 90) or no evidence (Norris, 2015: 151; van Ham and Garnett, 2019: 329) for that of de jure independence. A number of important questions thus remain: does de jure independence matter?…”

“…Birch and van Ham (2017: 489) point out that all formally independent EMBs are vulnerable to undue political influence as they rely on ‘politicians and politicized administrators’ to select their members. Although it is true that the member selection process exposes formally independent EMBs to partisan interests, empirical evidence on the effect of partisan EMB representation remains mixed, which point to the broader importance of political context (see Birch, 2011: 124; Hartlyn et al, 2008: 88; van Ham and Garnett, 2019: 324). As Estévez et al (2008: 258) show on the example of the Federal Election Institute, the formally independent EMB in Mexico, partisan representation in EMBs might be more effective in countries with high levels of political polarisation than the non-partisan expert model.…”

Vote Buying in Brazil: From Impunity to Prosecution

“…In addition, most observers view the TSE to be relatively well insulated from political influence. Various metrics, including the appointment and tenure of justices, also suggest the overall independence of electoral governance in Brazil (Hartlyn, McCoy, and Mustillo 2008). Lower-level judges in the overall legal system, who also form the corps of first-instance electoral judges, are selected by rigorous competitive examination.…”

Voting for bureaucracy? Contestation, suffrage and meritocracy

“…A second shortcoming is the broad focus on bureaucratic quality or ‘government effectiveness’, which to varying degrees is understood as the (non‐)corrupt or (im)partial behaviour of bureaucrats or politicians. While these concepts and their related measures are standard in comparative analysis, they are conceptually very closely related to the management of clean elections and the protection of civil and political rights (Hartlyn et al., 2008; Rothstein, 2011), which are included in common understandings of democracy (e.g., Dahl, 1971).…”