59 research outputs found
Third-Party Actors and the Success of Democracy: How Electoral Commissions, Courts, and Observers Shape Incentives for Electoral Manipulation and Post-Election Protests
When and how do third-party actors—most prominently electoral commissions, courts, and observers—contribute to
the integrity of the electoral process? We approach these questions by studying how third-party actors shape politicians’
incentives to comply with the outcomes of elections. Third parties are most beneficial in close elections, when the threat
of a post-election confrontation alone fails to ensure self-enforcing compliance with election outcomes. Our analysis
highlights that third parties do not need to be impartial to be politically consequential, that it is third parties with a
moderate pro-incumbent bias that will be acceptable to not only the opposition but also the incumbent, and that
incumbents adopt politically consequential third-party institutions when they fear that their narrow victory might
result in a costly post-election confrontation. Extensions of our model address the role of repression and urban bias,
examine the differences between commissions, courts, and observers, and clarify not only the potential but also the
limits to institutional solutions to the problem of electoral compliance in new and transitioning democracies
Deliver the Vote! Micromotives and Macrobehavior in Electoral Fraud
Most election fraud is not conducted centrally by incumbents but rather locally by a machinery consisting of hundreds of political operatives. How does an incumbent ensure that his local agents deliver fraud when needed and as much as is needed? We address this and related puzzles in the political organization of election fraud by studying the perverse consequences of two distinct incentive problems: the principalagent problem between an incumbent and his local agents, and the collective action problem among the agents. Using the global game methodology, we show that these incentive problems result in a herd dynamic among the agents that tends to either oversupply or undersupply fraud, rarely delivering the amount of fraud that would be optimal from the incumbent’s point of view. This equilibrium dynamic predicts overwhelming victories for incumbents that are punctuated by his rare but resounding defeats and it explains why incumbents who enjoy genuine popularity often engage in seemingly unnecessary fraud. A statistical analysis of anomalies in precinct-level results of Russian legislative and presidential elections supports our key claims
Which Democracies Will Last? Coups, Incumbent Takeovers, and the Dynamic of Democratic Consolidation
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