Serving Two Masters: Professionalization versus Corruption in Ukraine's Election Administration

Abstract

The development of a neutral, professional bureaucracy has been a profound concern for emerging democracies. International and domestic actors have expended significant resources to encourage the development of the rule of law, yet many postcommunist societies remain mired in corruption. When corrupt behaviors are integrated with a core function of democratic states, such as the implementation of free and fair elections, the implications of failures to professionalize bureaucrats are enhanced. This article empirically evaluates how professionalization and corruption interact in election administration, using unique survey data from Ukraine. We assess the results of pre‐ and postelection surveys of administrators conducted across Ukraine during the 2014 parliamentary elections. Our results suggest that aspects of a professionalized bureaucracy coexist with corruption and that mitigating incentives for state capture is a major challenge for democratization.

Building impartial electoral management? Institutional design, independence and electoral integrity

“…Rather, contextual factors such as the level of democracy, the rule of law, and the presence of institutional checks and balances are likely to affect the degree that EMBs can operate independently in practice van Ham and Lindberg, 2015). In addition, de facto EMB independence might also be affected by other dimensions of EMB organizational design, such as capacity and personnel (Herron et al, 2017;van Ham and Lindberg, 2015). Finally, the link between de facto EMB independence and electoral integrity is mediated by other factors shaping electoral integrity, such as the presence of free media, civil society and election observers (Birch, 2011;Lehoucq, 2003;.…”

Electoral management and the organisational determinants of electoral integrity: Introduction

“…But attempts to systematically deal with these issues at an international level remain a major failure for political science and public administration. There are examples of case study work outside of the USA (Herron et al, 2017), but cross-national work remains rare (exceptions include Garnett, 2017b; James, forthcoming; Norris, 2015; van Ham and Lindberg, 2015).…”

Evaluating electoral management body capacity

“…One of the major expenses of EMBs is the recruitment and retention of high-quality permanent and temporary staff to run elections. A number of studies that examine the impact of EMB personnel on public confidence in elections consider EMB personnel capacity according to the professional qualifications or experience of EMB members or commissioners (Herron et al, 2017).…”