What Do Election Monitoring Missions Tell and to Whom?: A Theoretical Study of the Effects of Election Monitoring

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Other Title
  • 選挙監視は誰に何を伝えるか
  • 選挙監視は誰に何を伝えるか : 選挙監視の効果についての理論的考察
  • センキョ カンシ ワ ダレ ニ ナニ オ ツタエル カ : センキョ カンシ ノ コウカ ニ ツイテ ノ リロンテキ コウサツ
  • ―選挙監視の効果についての理論的考察―

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Abstract

<p>A striking tendency of the post-Cold War international community is its designation of a specific political system—namely democracy—as ideal domestic regimes as well as the rewards (and sanctions) that it hands out in response to democratization (and autocratization). As part of this, international election monitoring has become standardized as a representative method for promoting democratization. Existing theoretical research on international election monitoring has come to examine why election monitoring suddenly spread as an accepted practice. At the same time, despite limited case studies on the influence or effects of international monitoring, theoretical research has been scarce.</p><p>This paper examines the effects of election monitoring by taking the theoretical perspective of “three types of information.” I posit that the assessment resulting from election observation is transmitted as information respectively to 1) the international community, 2) the population of the country under observation, and 3) the government of the country under observation, and that this influences the subsequent behavior of those actors.</p><p>In the first instance, the election monitoring informs the international community about the level of democratization achieved by the country under observation. This information may at times lead to sanctions in the form of a withdrawal of aid. At the same time, election monitoring becomes an important way for a developing country that hopes to be rewarded for its democratization to demonstrate to the international community that it is now truly democratic.</p><p>In the second instance, it informs the people of the country under observation about whether or not the political process is democratic. Reports about electoral fraud may lead to popular protests, but for a government that is operating an actual democratic system, election observers play a deeply significant role as third-party witnesses who can attest to it before the people.</p><p>In the third instance, it serves to clarify the international standard for fair elections to the government of the country under observation. This paper takes particular note of the international dimension of the creation of electoral authoritarianism, which refers to how the acquisition of the aforementioned information has allowed some states to adapt to the international standard and become so-called “electoral authoritarian” states.</p><p>Furthermore, when we consider that a single report from an election monitoring mission imparts information to multiple recipients, this allows us to integrate and organize the arguments of previous studies into a single framework from the viewpoint of information. This opens up the possibility for an examination of the political consequences of election observation from a composite perspective.</p>

Journal

  • International Relations

    International Relations 2018 (192), 192_81-192_96, 2018-03-30

    JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

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