Why Electoral Integrity Matters

Abstract

This book is the first in a planned trilogy by Pippa Norris on challenges of electoral integrity to be published by Cambridge University Press. Unfortunately too often elections around the globe are deeply flawed or even fail. Why does this matter? It is widely suspected that such contests will undermine confidence in elected authorities, damage voting turnout, trigger protests, exacerbate conflict, and occasionally lead to regime change. Well-run elections, by themselves, are insufficient for successful transitions to democracy. But flawed, or even failed, contests are thought to wreck fragile progress. Is there good evidence for these claims? Under what circumstances do failed elections undermine legitimacy? With a global perspective, using new sources of data for mass and elite evidence, this book provides fresh insights into these major issues.

Research Note: Methodological framework of the electoral integrity model

“…About the first, the electoral integrity model's vision is emphatic in the representative democracy but reductionist in the liberal democracy. However, Norris (2014) has recognized that the democratisation is more than free and fair elections because in the extreme it would fall in a type of fallacy of electoralism. Another weakness is related to the theoretical model that the ten hypotheses compose it because it's not clear if there is a correlation or a cause-effect relationship between them.…”

“…But this cause, despite being legitimate, needs to be separated from the strictly academic. Now, concerning methodological strengths, Norris (2014) demonstrates that there is a strong external consistency among the PEI Index 2013 and other expert indices and mass surveys like the Quality of Elections Data, the Freedom House Liberal Democracy datasets or the World Values Survey. The PEI Index 2014 is more explanatory than the 2013 in providing a scale of how much perception of electoral integrity is in the countries because it is calculated based on standard deviations from the mean.…”

Vote Buying is a Good Sign: Alternate Tactics of Fraud in Africa 1986-2012

“…election integrity can be undermined at any step in the process, generating a large "menu of manipulation" that political actors can choose from (Norris 2014, Schedler 2002, Mozaffar and Schedler 2002. 4 Vote buying is defined here as "the exchange of money, goods or services in exchange for votes" (Schaffer 2007:1).…”

“…While in a range of countries, the quality of elections improves with successive elections, in others elections continue to be marred by irregularities and fraud. Hence, while almost all African nations currently hold multi-party elections, the quality of these elections varies widely, ranging from elections plagued by violence and fraud Research on election fraud and electoral malpractice has identified several factors explaining cross-national variation in the quality of elections (Birch 2011, Donno 2013, Simpser 2013, Norris 2014. However, there are many different forms of electoral manipulation, and little is known about their use as possibly alternative strategies during democratization.…”

“…The emerging literature on electoral manipulation has identified several factors explaining crossnational variation in overall levels of election integrity (Birch 2011, Van Ham 2012, Donno 2013, Simpser 2013, Norris 2014. Much less is known about trade offs between different strategies of electoral manipulation, nor about the differences between incumbent and opposition actors' manipulative strategies.…”