“Tying Incumbents’ Hands”: The Effects of Election Monitoring on Electoral Outcome

Electoral observation missions (EOM) are designed to promote improvements in democratic quality by overseeing elections, but how successful are they? We argue that EOM tie the hands of incumbents, who have to adjust their electoral misconduct strategies, thus opening up political competition and making it more likely that the opposition will do well. Moreover, we propose that monitoring effects are conditioned by regime type, expecting that EOM presence has a stronger impact on electoral competition in autocracies than in democracies. Using a dataset of 580 parliamentary and presidential elections in 108 countries between 1976 and 2009 we find support for our theoretical claims. EOM increase electoral competitiveness in dictatorships by reducing margins of victory for incumbents, but leave competition unaffected in democracies. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that, contrary to previous findings, EOM increase the probability of electoral turnover in dictatorships but have no effect on democracies

Towards a gendered evaluation of (highly) skilled immigration policies in Europe

Immigration policies reflect to varying degrees the calibration and stratification of desirable knowledge. The criteria adopted have varied across countries and immigration systems. However, despite the evidence that skilled women migrate more than men, little attention has been paid to the extent to which immigration policies impact differently on women and men and result in gender inequalities, and how the valuation of skills is gendered in its criteria and outcomes. The article explores how European policies for the (highly) skilled produce and reinforce inequalities in gendered circulations, not just between women and men, but also in terms of intersectional differences, such as race/nationality and age