THE DISPUTE ABOUT THE UNIFICATION of Moldovia and Wallachia following the Crimean War led to a manipulated election,1 which the Ottomans finally nullified under international pressure.2 As a result, in 1857 a European Commission established by the Treaty of Paris observed the elections in the territories.3 Since this first observer mission, international election monitoring developed in several ways. After its founding in 1945, the United Nations (UN) supervised many elections in “Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories.”4 The Organization of American States (OAS) also started observing elections on a small scale in sovereign states in 1962, and starting in 1964, the Commonwealth Secretariat (CS) undertook several missions in territories controlled by Britain. The United States has likewise been active in Central America, the Caribbean, and Europe5 and—spearheaded by the Carter Center (CC)—myriad U.S.-funded nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) began observing elections in the 1980s.6
Despite these activities, international election monitoring remained a rarity for a long time. Starting in the late 1980s, however, international election monitoring grew remarkably. As Figure 2.1 shows, monitoring in nonestablished democracies increased from an average below 10 percent of elections between 1975 and 1987 to a high of 85 percent of elections in 2004. The most drastic increase occurred between 1989 and 1991, when the rate rose from 30 to 46 percent.
Around this time international organizations also created new institutional capacity for monitoring elections and embedded the concept in their organizational agreements. In 1989, at the first meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), member states began to discuss elections and monitors.7 In October 1989, the commission recommended that it formally engage in election monitoring of member states,8 and in November 1989, the OAS General Assembly officially recommended sending observation missions to member states that requested them.9 In June 1990, the CSCE member states issued a standing invitation to election monitors, effectively obligating themselves to accept monitors in the future,10 and the OAS called for the creation of the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy.11 The CSCE likewise established an Office of Free Elections in November 1990,12 soon after expanding to become the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Along with this institutional growth, the quantity and the scope of monitoring activities also expanded. With some notable exceptions, early missions typically consisted of a short visit by a few people. Soon, however, organizations began to send pre-election assessment missions and long-term missions, and significantly increased the number of observers present on polling days.
Figure 2.1: Percent of elections monitored in nonestablished democracies
Nonestablished democracies are defined as countries with a democracy score equal to or less than 7 in the year before the election. Democracy scores are based on the polity2 measure (see Appendix A). Monitoring is defined as described in the notes for Table 2.4.
The rapid rise of election monitoring is surprising. In the early 1990s, the expectation was that at best election monitoring might spread “through gradual, incremental steps,” before possibly one day becoming a “universal habit.”13 But this was only expected to happen if established democracies showed the way by inviting monitors to their own elections. Without this, it was considered unlikely that states would volunteer, because this was “tantamount to a government’s admission that it does not have credibility with its own people.”14 However, to this day established democracies are unlikely to invite full-scale monitoring missions. Only after the troubled 2000 U.S. presidential election has the OSCE begun to send missions to its most democratic member states, but most of these are not full-fledged traditional missions.15 Accordingly, the rapid spread of election monitoring should not have occurred. Nonetheless, as the CC notes, “International election observation is now common around the world and is accepted as an international norm.”16
The rise of election monitoring is a fascinating example of how global norms change and how world order evolves despite recalcitrant opposition.17 Scholars generally argue that norms evolve through stages, each characterized by different actors, motives, and mechanisms.18 New norms usually emerge despite considerable contestation. At some point so many states subscribe to the norm that its adaptation reaches a tipping point that then leads to a cascade of states joining, such that the norm becomes consolidated among a broader set of actors. This may then eventually lead to true internalization of the norm. This chapter discusses how the rise of international election monitoring exemplifies this pattern.
To begin the story of the evolution of election monitoring, however, it is important first to recall that election monitoring requires the consent of two parties: Governments must invite the monitors and the monitors must be willing to come. However, monitors need not simply await invitations; they often actively solicit them. As the CC described its 2002 mission in Mali, “It was initially unclear who was responsible for inviting international observers to Mali. Ultimately a letter indicating Carter Center interest in observing the election was sent to the government of Mali, and the Center received an invitation from Minister Ousmane Sy of MATCL [Ministere de l’administration territorial des collectivites locales] inviting the Center to observe the elections.”19 In other cases monitors may refuse to observe an election, as in 1993 when the CC and other international observers left Togo a few days before the polling, citing conditions too atrocious to permit a meaningful election. Because monitoring decisions derive from both governments and organizations, the motivations of both are important to consider. Why did the NGOs, the UN, and many regional organizations decide to engage in monitoring? Why did states permit these organizations to interfere in a highly sensitive and traditionally purely domestic matter such as elections? Perhaps most puzzling, why did even governments that were planning to cheat invite monitors?
The most obvious explanations for the rise of election monitoring are inadequate. For example, monitoring did not become popular simply because democratic transitions created a need for third-party verification. Earlier waves of democratic transitions had not required or prompted similar needs, so this does not explain why third-party verification was suddenly needed in the early 1990s. Indeed, the pace of democratic transitions between the mid-1970s and 1980s was similar to that of the 1990s,20 so if a surge of transitions alone drove the rise of election monitoring, then election monitoring should have begun to spread during the late 1970s and risen rapidly during the 1980s.
The spread of monitoring was also not regional. As Figure 2.2 shows, international monitoring does vary considerably between regions. Between 1975 and 2004, the most heavily monitored regions were Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, followed by Africa and the Americas.21 But despite these patterns, regional developments alone did also not spur monitoring; early cases of election monitoring occurred on most continents. Freedom House sent a mission to the 1979 election in then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). NGOs operated around the world without major difficulty in elections in Guyana in 1980,22 Malaysia in 1982, Zimbabwe in 1985, the Philippines in 1986, South Korea in 1987, and the Soviet parliamentary election in 1989. It is true that the OAS pioneered monitoring in sovereign states,23 but the early missions were mostly symbolic and had little resemblance to modern election monitoring. As the CC notes: “The OAS had sent observers to 19 elections in 15 countries from 1962 to 1982. . . . But the principal purpose of these missions was to legitimize an election, not to monitor or assess its fairness.”24 Indeed, Latin American countries opposed the push to expand UN monitoring facilities,25 because they feared that election monitoring could lead to Panama-style unilateral military interventions and a new colonialism.26 Thus, no one region drove the global rise of election monitoring.
The rise in election monitoring was also not simply a byproduct of the changes in the global normative environment about elections and human rights. New norms do not automatically change behaviors. Indeed, efforts to monitor many well-developed norms fail. The strong regime of human rights norms, for example, has not facilitated institutionalized monitoring of human rights practices to nearly the same degree as has occurred with election monitoring. Even though Article 40 of the Covenant on Civil, Political, and Social Rights obligates states to report on their domestic human rights, countries routinely fail to do so, and most human rights monitoring measures are low profile. Why has election monitoring flourished when monitoring of human rights has not?
A unique combination of normative and systemic changes created an environment in which it became rational for an increasingly broadening set of governments to invite monitors. This chapter explains the evolution of election monitoring based on analysis of hundreds of primary documents from the UN and regional organizations, historical analysis of legal standards, research on voting patterns in the UN, and data about election monitoring. The chapter also provides useful descriptive data on the practice of election monitoring. It concludes by discussing the variation in monitoring organizations and monitoring practices.
Figure 2.2: Geographic distribution of monitoring, 1975–2004
Frequency of monitoring is calculated based on the “Monitors” variable (see Appendix A).
The human rights and democratic entitlement norms that grew steadily after World War II were central in creating and shaping the concept of election monitoring. Three principles were particularly important: the principle of self-determination, the principle of free expression, and the principle of genuine and periodic elections.27 Many different actors, or so-called norm entrepreneurs, connected election monitoring to these norms28 by discussing and framing election monitoring in the context of human rights and democratic rights. Early proponents of election monitoring were essentially grafting ideas about election monitoring onto these recently developed principles.
The connections between these norms developed over a long time. Woodrow Wilson renewed the American commitment to self-determination during World War I. Self-determination then became associated with elections when many countries were first gaining independence.29 During the process of decolonization, the UN developed the ability to observe and supervise elections, sometimes taking on “direct responsibility in order to ensure that the popular consultation is conducted in an atmosphere of complete freedom and impartiality.”30 This foreshadowed the growing role of the UN in electoral assistance, and as the Trusteeship Council promoted self-determination through supervision of elections in these non-self-governing territories, it also associated “monitoring” with the legitimacy of elections and governments. The principle of self-determination thus directly linked elections and the process of legitimation with some form of monitoring.
The principles of the freedom of expression and participatory rights, some of the core attributes of democracy as defined by Robert Dahl,31 also enabled the emergence of international monitoring by institutionalizing election-related standards to which governments could be held accountable. In 1948, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man referred to voting rights and periodic popular elections held in a free and fair manner, and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized the universal rights to freedom of opinion and expression and to peaceful assembly and association. In 1966, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights specified the forms of expressions required to support freedom of expression and provided that all citizens should have the right to participate in public affairs either directly or through freely chosen representatives.32 The covenant also declared rights to vote and be elected in genuine, periodic, and secret elections.33 Regional developments such as the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights, as well as their respective courts, also bolstered the expectations of political rights and electoral competition. The CS’s 1971 “Declaration of Commonwealth Principles”34 and the 1975 Helsinki Final Act further supported these conventions by bolstering the norms of freedom of expression and participatory rights. These new declarations and conventions paved the way for the rise of external supervision of these new obligations.
These norms, however, could not in and of themselves propel the rise of monitoring. The longstanding norms of sovereignty and noninterference still hampered external engagement in elections.35 Just as important for the emergence of election monitoring, therefore, were attacks on these normative prohibitions on external engagement in domestic affairs.
Global abhorrence of South African apartheid was particularly important in this respect. In 1954, the UN Commission on the Racial Situation in the Union of South Africa declared that South Africa’s racial laws violated the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UN Assembly followed up with successive resolutions rebuking South Africa and threatening expulsion. Throughout the following three decades the international community condemned South Africa and endorsed mandatory sanctions.36 In the 1970s, states also began to claim more legitimate uses of external intervention.37 The topic became a favorite in international law journals in the 1980s.38 The UN Security Council passed Resolution 688 in 1991 insisting that the government of Iraq “allow immediate access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance.” The criteria for intervention were effectively broadened to include the promotion of human rights and democracy.39
Finally, as more states signed international human rights treaties, the notions of domestic jurisdiction and nonintervention became subject to these commitments.40 In 1986, for example, the International Court of Justice ruled that a state is “sovereign for the purpose of accepting a limitation of its sovereignty in this field [of elections].”41 A 1990 opinion by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights refuted Mexico’s contention that the commission lacked the right to address three claimants who alleged fraud in the recent local elections. The opinion stated that “the right of the state to develop its internal life freely has a counterpart in its obligation to respect the rights of individuals. . . . The correct interpretation of the principle of nonintervention is, therefore, one based on protection of the rights of states to self-determination provided that right is exercised in a manner consistent with respect for the rights of individuals.”42 Similarly, in 1991, the OSCE member states declared that “the commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the OSCE are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating states and do not belong exclusively in the internal affairs of the state concerned.”43
Thus, the permissive norms of self-determination, freedom of expression, and participatory rights gained strength while the prohibitive norms of sovereignty and noninterference weakened. This created an environment conducive to the emergence of election monitoring.
New behaviors that violate existing norms are likely to meet with protest and efforts to derail the new behaviors,44 and proponents of election monitoring had a difficult fight. States whose power balanced on these traditional noninterference norms fiercely opposed election monitoring. Entrenched regimes45 such as East Timor and Ethiopia, which used the shield of sovereignty to abuse their populations without much scrutiny,46 felt threatened and argued that elections should remain a purely domestic matter. Furthermore, the notion of “competitive” elections was still not part of international law, and consequently difficult to defend.
However, several elections fueled the debate. The UN observation of Nicaragua’s election was embedded in a 1987 peace agreement, and therefore was legally justified on the basis of international peace and security. Nevertheless, it focused attention on monitoring because of its scale and because it was in a sovereign state. The debate truly escalated, however, with the 1990 election in Haiti, where even the UN secretary general expressed concern that the international dimension was less clear.47
The debate was most visible in the series of twin resolutions in the UN General Assembly. These resolutions, which recurred almost annually for fifteen years, began with the 1988 resolution on “The Principle of Periodic and Genuine Elections” (henceforth the “elections resolution”) that was countered by a series of resolutions on “Sovereignty and Non-interference” (henceforth the “sovereignty resolution”). The UN secretary general commented: “This series of General Assembly resolutions, together with the respondent reports submitted by myself and other relevant UN entities, illustrates the ongoing process of dialogue, assessment, debate, and reform in the area of electoral assistance that has emerged in response to the rising tide of interest in democratization and requests for UN support.”48
The language in the “elections resolutions” strongly connected competitive elections to human rights norms. They typically mentioned human rights in the first paragraph and then noted the provisions on elections in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and similar provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Once again linking apartheid to human rights and then elections more broadly, the following paragraph condemned the system of apartheid and stated that “the right of everyone to take part in the government of his or her country is a crucial factor in the effective enjoyment by all of a wide range of other human rights and fundamental freedoms.”49 So in every way these resolutions linked elections and participatory rights to human rights, not to good governance, economic stability, or other general aims. Furthermore, the debate related directly to the role of external actors in elections, and specifically to election monitoring. The 1990 “elections resolution” praised UN support for elections in member states and authorized greater efforts for the UN secretary general to explore how to build that role. The 1991 resolution endorsed several steps for the UN secretary general to streamline UN election assistance. The link between human rights, the “elections resolutions,” and external actors was very clear.
The language in the “sovereignty resolutions” was equally revealing. The early resolutions were entitled “Respect for the Principles of National Sovereignty and Non-Interference in the Internal Affairs of States in Their Electoral Processes”; they stressed Article 2, Paragraph 7 of the UN Charter50 and argued that individual states have the right to determine their own destiny and system of government. After 1999, the language of the “sovereignty resolution” had become so muted that it no longer was the same resolution. The 2001 resolution even “reiterates that periodic, fair, and free elections are important elements for the promotion and protection of human rights.”51 By 2003, the term noninterference was dropped from the title and replaced with “respect for the principles of national sovereignty and diversity of democratic processes as an important element for the promotion and protection of human rights.”52
In February 1991, UN Secretary General Perez de Cuellar asked member states to comment on the apparent conflict of the principles in the twin resolutions. In their replies many countries highlighted sovereignty, nonintervention, and noninterference. However, Western countries in particular portrayed these as compatible with external electoral assistance. They explicitly endorsed election monitoring and advocated a UN role in it. The European Union (EU) countries did not even mention sovereignty or noninterference. In contrast, countries such as the Soviet Union, Brazil, Ecuador, and Indonesia did not explicitly support monitoring and instead stressed sovereignty and nonintervention as well as the importance of a request. Most opposed were Cuba, China, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uganda, which all criticized any increased role for the UN.53
The votes on the resolutions clearly reflected this battle of ideas. The first and second “elections resolutions” in 1988 and 1989 were adopted without a vote. The first counter-resolution on sovereignty was adopted in 1989. Figure 2.3 shows the number of states voting for and against each of the resolutions over time. There is a steady gain of support for the “elections resolution” and a steady decline of support for the “sovereignty resolution,” until the latter softened its language.
Figure 2.3: Voting for and against the twin resolutions
The 1988 and 1989 resolutions for elections were adopted without a vote and are therefore not recorded. There was no sovereignty resolution in 1988.
Source: UNBISnet.
Figure reproduced with permission based on Kelley 2008.
The principles of self-determination, freedom of expression, and participatory rights thus promoted the emergence of election monitoring. Election monitoring emerged out of an intensive debate that specifically pitted democracy and human rights norms against traditional sovereignty norms. However, the rise in humanitarian interventions strengthened the link between democracy and human rights as entitlements54 while whittling away at sovereignty objections to intrusions in domestic affairs.55 The growth of election monitoring in turn ignited new debates that then further bolstered the norms of external action in domestic affairs. The process of “contestation,” or debate of the prevailing norms, thus helped foster the new election monitoring norms.56
The end of the Cold War provided a crucial opening for these emerging norms. Just as ideas associated with the losing side of war or with economic failure often get discredited57 and winning coalitions get to construct a new order after political upheavals,58 the end of the Cold War allowed the victors to change the rules. The collapse of the Soviet Union further strengthened the emerging election norms by revealing the failure of autocratic governments and communist doctrine in particular. Indeed, because the Cold War partly began with Joseph Stalin’s prohibition of free elections in Eastern Europe, its end naturally led to a focus on elections there and boosted the emerging democracy and election norms.59 Thus, at the 1990 CSCE conference, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker noted, “We are present at the creation of a new age of Europe” and “the free-elections proposal . . . has gathered strength from the dramatic events of last fall and the new elections of this spring.”60
Furthermore, whereas the Cold War had forced Western countries to prioritize security concerns,61 the war’s end freed Western countries to push for democratic changes.62 Indeed, democracy increasingly came to be seen as strengthening rather than undermining security interests. Western countries thus became increasingly willing to push for elections and spearheaded democracy promotion efforts in countries such as Namibia, Cambodia, Angola, and El Salvador.
Thus, Western actors led the advocacy, practice, and funding of election monitoring. Western countries spearheaded the movement to engage the UN in election monitoring and other election-related activities, to press for a set of international obligations establishing norms about elections and citizens’ rights, and to normalize external engagement in elections more generally. For example, it was U.S. President George H. W. Bush who proposed the establishment of a UN special coordinator for electoral assistance and a UN electoral commission to monitor elections in emerging democracies,63 and who spoke for the many General Assembly resolutions calling for an enhanced role for the UN in electoral matters. Western states also staffed and funded many of the observer missions in the post-communist states.64 Most early NGO missions were trained, organized, and, although multinational, dominated by U.S. personnel and often included elected U.S. representatives.65 Even the Center for Electoral Promotion and Assistance (CAPEL) based in Costa Rica operated principally on USAID and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funds. Similarly, in 1984 when the Human Rights Law Group wrote “Guidelines for International Election Observing,” the first standard in the field, that project was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).66
But the end of the Cold War did not just generate a supply of monitoring. The domestic turmoil generated by the war’s end also boosted demand for election monitoring.67 At times of transition, international monitors could help convince citizens that the domestic institutions were reliable and deserved respect,68 so many governments invited monitors to help them refute accusations of fraud. Such need for legitimacy drove Mexico’s invitation of monitors in 1994. The shocking level of irregularities in the 1988 presidential race,69 the Chiapas uprising, and the assassination of the leading Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) presidential candidate all made outside observers essential to overcome the distrust and accusations of fraud.70 Likewise, Mozambique also invited monitors to its 1994 election to strengthen domestic legitimacy. Without monitors, the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO) would have been more likely to reject the result.71 As Canada observed in a UN debate, “Peoples around the world are demanding more responsible and representative governments and expecting from their representatives greater transparency in managing their resources and governing their countries.”72 Domestic monitoring groups multiplied and opposition parties such as those in Guyana and Zambia increasingly called for international observers.73 The domestic turmoil generated by the end of the Cold War thus made many countries particularly receptive to monitors.
The data also show that many of the governments that invited monitors right after the end of the Cold War were honest and seeking legitimacy. Consequently, in these years, monitored countries demonstrated large democratic gains. As Figure 2.4 shows, in 1989 monitored countries averaged a gain of 6 on the Polity IV democracy scale, led by Chile and Panama (after an atrocious election led to the U.S. invasion). In 1990, monitored countries averaged a 5.5 gain led by mostly Eastern European countries; in 1991, monitored countries averaged a 3.75 gain; and in 1992, a 2.35 gain. After this, net gains decreased. Interestingly, as Chapter 7 discusses further, this is not because monitoring becomes less effective over time; indeed, some countries continue to make gains in the presence of monitors. However, the effect in Figure 2.4 is because more dishonest governments begin to invite monitors, as we will see later. The point here, however, is that the wave of governments that pushed monitoring past a trivial threshold in the early 1990s was led by honest governments that needed monitors to verify their conduct.
In sum, the breakthrough of election monitoring depended both on the pre-existing normative environment and on the systemic shift in power and priorities brought by the end of the Cold War. This is why the years 1989–92 demonstrated the sharpest rise in election monitoring and the greatest push toward institutionalization within the major regional organizations. The end of the Cold War presented both a normative and a practical “policy window,”74 as it bolstered the emerging norms, spurred the development of institutional capacity, increased demand for legitimation, and supplied a new set of actors to promote these norms.
Figure 2.4: Average changes in democracy scores for nonmonitored versus monitored elections, 1989–95
Democracy scores are based on the Polity IV democracy scale ranging from −10 to 10.
Still, why didn’t monitoring recede after the initial Cold War transition? Instead, by 2004 monitoring had spread to nearly 85 percent of all nonestablished democracies. This expansion could not be driven purely by the countries in transition.
The spread of monitoring continued because a peculiar dynamic arose: Many dishonest governments began to invite monitors. As evidenced by the fact that deliberate cheating occurred in at least one-quarter of all the monitored elections in this study, it has become common for governments that fully intend to cheat to nevertheless invite scrutiny by monitors. As discussed more in the following chapter, they do so because the wave of invitations extended by honest governments made monitoring sufficiently prevalent to stigmatize governments that refused to invite monitors. Contrary to the expectation that governments would not invite monitors because it was tantamount to an admission of lack of domestic credibility,75 the rising acceptance of monitoring by many honest governments reversed this logic. A cheating incumbent now had to consider that although rejecting monitors could allow a staged win it would also assure international criticism and jeopardize both domestic and international approval.
Such international criticism became important, because, as the Cold War ended, so did the patronage system whereby the superpowers doled out support conditional only on alliance stability. Governments could no longer survive just by “picking sides.” Instead, democracy and good governance became more salient criteria for external political and financial support.76 The international donor community such as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development also began to link aid to democracy77 and inviting international monitors became a prerequisite for “loosening the purse-strings” of donor governments.78 For example, after Alberto Fujimori’s 1992 coup, many countries, as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, cut aid to Peru, forcing Fujimori to hold parliamentary elections and invite monitors. Elections in Indonesia in 1999, Kenya in 1992, Zimbabwe in 2002, and Uganda in 1996 are just a few other examples of donor countries pressuring governments to invite monitors. In a 1992 speech, Kenya’s President Daniel arap Moi thus specifically welcomed foreign observers from the CS and the European Community as “our friends who have been helping us economically.”79
The relationship between foreign aid and monitoring presence is evident. In the year before an election, the countries that were monitored received on average nearly U.S.$350 million, or about twice as much foreign aid as those countries that were not monitored.80 As Table 2.1 shows, countries that had received any amount of foreign aid in the year before an election were monitored about 43 percent of the time, whereas countries that had not received any aid were monitored only about 6 percent of the time.81
Sanctions also became a more common tool for promoting democracy.82 As Figure 2.5 shows, the number of sanctions with a core goal of promoting democracy spiked in 1991–92. Regional organizations, particularly the EU, linked democracy to institutional membership83 and the OSCE made it a requisite for all members to welcome monitors for all their elections. In 1991, for example, the Council of Europe (COE) linked Albania’s admission to the conduct of elections and sent its own team to monitor the election.
TABLE 2.1
Foreign aid and monitoring, 1975–2004
Notes: See Appendix A for data information. Pearson chi2(1) = 159.8146; Pr = 0.000.
The data also demonstrate the relationship between sanctions and monitoring. As Table 2.2 shows, elections in countries that were subject to sanctions were monitored about twice as often as countries that were not subject to sanctions.
Finally, governments may have yet other reasons to seek external legitimacy. For example, Mexico’s government decided to invite monitors to the 1994 election when negotiations for North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations were ongoing84 and President Carlos Salinas was campaigning for the World Trade Organization presidency.85
Figure 2.5: Number of democracy-related sanctions in a given year
For information in the measurement of sanctions, see Appendix A.
Because legitimacy was increasingly connected to so many different types of rewards or punishments in the international community, many incumbents calculated that inviting monitors was worth the risks, and might even have some domestic benefits as well. In the best-case scenario, monitors would not detect the cheating and the incumbent could then reap some reward for conducting a seemingly honest election. Even if monitors detected cheating, international criticism might not be much worse than if the incumbent had outright refused monitors. Indeed, given the imperfections, biases, and geopolitical constraints on monitors,86 perhaps criticism would be muted or less harsh than if the government had refused monitors outright. If not, then governments could always try to spin the criticism in the media to minimize damages.87
The following two chapters explore these dynamics in greater depth and show how this demand for monitoring by dishonest governments led to the development of a shadow market, and how observing dishonest elections placed monitoring organizations in difficult dilemmas.
For now, however, the main point is that election monitoring continued to spread because external actors increased democratic conditionality and because the stigma associated with not inviting monitors motivated even cheating governments to invite monitors to avoid an automatic stamp of illegitimacy. Only strong pariah governments or governments whose geopolitical importance makes them immune to international criticism have nothing to lose by refusing monitors. These governments are therefore among the few that continue to refuse monitors and include Jordan, Kuwait, Cuba, Syria, and Uzbekistan, and—as least until the fall of President Hosni Mubarak—Egypt. Indeed, single-party states are practically never monitored.88
As a result of these demand and supply factors, monitors traditionally avoid both staunch autocracies and full democracies. Thus, elections in the middle of the democracy range are most likely to get monitored (Figure 2.6). Figure 2.6 is based on the Polity IV democracy score in the year before the elections, but an analysis using Freedom House data displays a similar pattern where countries Freedom House calls “partly free” are much more likely to be monitored.
Monitoring has also been sustained because domestic instability has continued to put pressure on governments to invite monitors. Data on corruption and government stability show that countries that invite monitors tend to be those that are less able to demonstrate their own credibility. Political Risk Group provides a measure of corruption that focuses on practices that can “lead to popular discontent,” such as “excessive patronage, nepotism, job reservations, ‘favor-for-favors,’ secret party funding, and suspiciously close ties between politics and business.”89 This variable is 6 for the least corrupt country years, and 0 for the most corrupt. As Table 2.3 shows, the level of corruption in the year before the election is higher in countries that are monitored than in those that are not.90
TABLE 2.2
Sanctions and monitoring, 1975–2004
Notes: An indicator of sanctions in the year before an election is used to avoid conflating the effect of hosting monitors on the enactment of the sanctions. See Appendix A for data information. Pearson chi2(1) = 20.8581; Pr = 0.000.
The Political Risk Group also provides a measure of stability, defined as “the government’s ability to carry out its declared program(s), and its ability to stay in office.”91 The measure considers how unified the government is, its legislative strength, and measures of popular support, such as polls. The most stable country-years are coded 12, while the least stable are coded 0. Table 2.3 shows that the level of stability in the year before the election is lower in countries that are monitored than in those that are not. The weaker credibility and greater instability increase the need of countries for external monitoring to gain domestic and international approval.
Figure 2.6: Percent of elections monitored, by democracy score in year before election, 1975–2004 Elections total: 1,171 (the number is lower than total number of elections in the study because of missing lags of polity variable). Democracy scores are based on the Polity IV democracy scale ranging from −10 to 10. Countries with a democracy score of 10 are considered fully democratic, those with a score of −10 are fully autocratic.
In addition, special elections, such as first multiparty elections or postconflict or post-coup elections have continued to stimulate the demand for monitors. Nearly 10 percent of all the elections in the data, or 127 elections, are first multiparty elections. As Figure 2.7 shows, nearly 75 percent of these first multiparty elections have been monitored.
Monitors are also more likely to go to the first election after a conflict or a coup. Post-conflict elections may necessitate monitoring partly to assist with security matters. The UN engages in monitoring, particularly in such high-security settings. In post-conflict elections parties are also less likely to trust each other and demand some form of external validation of the election process. Classic cases include Nicaragua in 1990, Afghanistan in 2004, Angola in 1992, Serbia in 1997, and Cambodia in 1998. Because of these factors, two-thirds of all post-conflict elections have been monitored compared to only about one-third of non-post-conflict elections. Elections after a coup also signal a break with the past and sometimes a long period without elections, when external monitoring may be beneficial. Examples include Argentina in 1983, Bangladesh in 1986, the Ivory Coast in 2000, and Peru in 1992. Forty-six percent of post-coup elections were monitored compared to only 32 percent of non-post-coup elections.
These figures contrast with those for elections that are neither first multiparty elections, nor post-conflict elections, nor post-coup elections. Of these, only 27 percent have been monitored, but of course that figure includes both single-party elections and fully established democracies.
TABLE 2.3
Mean values of government stability and corruption in the year before the election
Note: See Appendix A for data information. T-test of the probability that the difference in means is equal to zero: ***p < 0.01.
Figure 2.7: Percent of elections monitored, by type, 1975–2004
For more information on the variables, see Appendix A.
The acceptance of international monitoring still varies regionally, but monitoring has become an international standard. As the National Democratic Institute (NDI) president noted in 2000 when Zimbabwe rejected his organization, “The refusal to accredit certain observers violates international standards for democratic elections and is counter to the practice of Zimbabwe’s neighbors and virtually all democratic countries.”92
Today, monitoring organizations are extremely active and new organizations continue to emerge. However, monitoring organizations differ greatly.93 Some of the major organizations that engage in monitoring are NGOs, or nonprofit institutes, while others are intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Table 2.4 lists the number of missions to national legislative or presidential elections by the organizations included in this study, along with information about their scope, years of activity, and the number of reports that this study was able to locate.
Between 1991 and 2004, the most active organization was the OSCE, with a total of 124 missions. The OSCE has acted both through the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE parliamentary assembly, although in reality these have often coordinated their activities, if not cooperated. Both the OSCE and the COE have been particularly active because of the post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe and their strong democracy promotion focus. Both organizations have highly formalized standards on elections and human rights. The new member states or longstanding members emerging from Soviet dominance adopted these standards in the 1990s, and this has led to a high level of engagement by these organizations.
The EU has conducted monitoring by the European Commission and by the European Parliament (EP). The EP usually coordinates with the efforts of the commission, but if the commission is not sending a mission, the EP may still send its own delegation of parliamentarians. The EP also often cooperates with the OSCE or the COE. Monitoring by the European Commission was only really formalized in the late 1990s and prior missions were ad hoc.94 However, since 2000 the EU has been on the forefront of election monitoring and has issued detailed guidelines and a thorough compendium on election standards globally.95 The EU is unique in that it is a regional organization that specifically monitors only nonmember states, in complete contrast with other regional organizations, which monitor primarily their own member states.96
TABLE 2.4
The activities of international monitoring organizations in national electionsa
Notes: A monitoring mission is defined as the presence of a formal monitoring delegation from an international agency on the day(s) of the election. Smaller national delegations or local embassy activities are not counted, because they are ubiquitous and their observations usually remain internal. Missions of pure technical assistance (such as the OAS mission in Argentina in 2003) are also not considered monitoring events. Pre-election missions that leave before the day of the election and are not followed by another delegation present for the polling day itself are also not counted as missions. In many organizations, much of this information was originally in disarray. For more details on the process of gathering this information, see Appendix A.
*Active in just this year.
aMany organizations also attend local and regional elections, but these are not tallied here.
bThe reports of La Francophonie were only coded for the “Main Assessment” variables. See Appendix A for more information.
cThe AU claims to have conducted close to one hundred missions, but given the lack of documentation, this study was able to verify only forty-seven national-level elections. Some missions may have been to local or regional elections.
Although the European organizations have become more active since the 1990s, monitoring organizations have been active in Latin America much longer than in Europe. Indeed, with its 1962 observation mission to the Dominican Republic, the OAS was the first regional organization to monitor an election in a sovereign country. However, the seventeen missions in the 1960s and 1970s were usually quite small and were more a form of electoral assistance than formal observation. The missions did not audit the elections in any way or make public statements on the quality of the elections.97 It was not really until the creation of the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy in 1990 that the OAS began to perform more rigorous election monitoring.
The UN has conducted some election observation, but, as discussed, it has taken more of a backseat as regional organizations have developed capacity for routine monitoring of situations that do not require extensive security presence or logistical operations. The UN plays several different official functions in connections with elections,98 and not all of them have a strong observer component. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is also extensively involved in elections, but not directly as observer missions. The UN still undertakes observations in connection with peacekeeping missions, but today it is generally more active in providing logistical election assistance. Furthermore, the UN rarely publicizes standard observer assessments.
The Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union (AU), began monitoring in 1989 with a mission to Namibia together with the UN. However, although the AU claims to have sent more than one hundred missions by 2003,99 the work has not been well documented and some of these missions may well have been pre-election visits or visits to local elections. Indeed, formal reports are impossible to find until the most recent years, although AU officials have often expressed their assessments in the media. A formal Democracy and Elections Assistance Unit was only adopted in 2006. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has also become involved in election observation more recently, but most missions are ad hoc rather than conducted by an institutionalized branch within the ECOWAS with responsibility for election monitoring. Like those of the African Union, ECOWAS missions have been poorly documented.100
The CS, the main intergovernmental agency and central institution of the Commonwealth of Nations, was also a standard-bearer of election monitoring, as it began to monitor elections in the then British-controlled territories in the 1960s. However, its first foray into national monitoring came in 1980 in then-Rhodesia’s transitional election, and in an election in Uganda. After this, the secretariat did not engage in monitoring until 1989, but its missions since then have been numerous and well documented. The Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the intergovernmental organization uniting countries with French culture and language, has also been highly active in international election observation since 1992. It has generally sent only small missions, although some recent missions have been larger. The latest regional intergovernmental organization to join in international election observation is the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), whose efforts sprung up in 2000 partly as a response to the work of the OSCE and the COE in the region, as discussed in the following chapter.
The two most active nongovernmental organizations are the U.S.-funded NDI and International Republican Institute (IRI). The other active NGO is the CC, which, led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, first observed elections as “The Council of Freely Elected Heads of Government,” in the fateful election in Panama in 1989 and played a central role in promoting the practice of international election monitoring.101 American NGOs often send multinational missions. It is not unusual for an IRI or NDI delegation to consist of observers with more than twenty different nationalities. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) has also been active in monitoring, but today it is more involved in electoral assistance than in traditional monitoring. The International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG), the NGO pioneer in election observation, sent missions as early as 1983 and formulated some of the first guidelines for international election observers. However, by the early 1990s it began to change focus and ceased its election observation activities.
Because of the high profile and experience of OSCE and COE, smaller European NGOs, such as the Norwegian Helsinki Council (NHC), have often joined the OSCE or COE missions, or worked as subcontractors to monitor specific aspects of an election such as the media. Thus, in contrast to U.S. NGOs, few European NGOs run completely independent missions. Toward the end of the 1990s, NGOs also began to spring up in other parts of the world. In Africa, the South African Development Community (SADC) and the associated Electoral Commission Forum of SADC (ECF)102 both started sending missions in 1999. The Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA), a South Africa–based NGO, began sending missions in 1998. In Asia the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) has been conducting monitoring since 1998 and has a strong record of documentation. New organizations continue to join the monitoring scene.
The scope of activities varies widely between organizations and between elections (Table 2.5). On average, organizations have eighty observers present on election day and spend twenty-four days in the country. However, the variation around these averages is considerable and organizations that have been practicing longer may have lower averages because the activities in the earlier years were not as developed. This is particularly true of the OSCE, which initially issued very short reports, for example, and sent fairly small missions. The UN rarely sends actual formal monitoring missions, but when it does, they tend to be enormous because of the added security role. The length of the UN missions is difficult to estimate as the UN often has an ongoing security presence in countries when it monitors elections. The relatively new organization, the CIS, also tends to report large numbers of observers, but its reports are very short and lack much substance. Apart from these organizations, the organizations with the broadest scope are the OSCE, the EU, and the OAS, which send substantially sized missions and stay longer. The lower resources of the NGOs are reflected in their shorter and slimmer presence. Still, these organizations tend to work in countries where they have longstanding programs and contacts, so their monitoring missions may benefit from their other activities.
Finally, monitors engage in a wide variety of activities. For example, many monitoring organizations also send pre-election missions to study the legal framework and the administrative election infrastructure. As Figure 2.8 shows, roughly 40 percent of monitoring missions sent at least one pre-election visit. Of these, about one-quarter sent more than one pre-election mission. As will be discussed in Chapter 6, these pre-election missions may play important roles in pushing for changes.
Most missions interview members of political parties, election officials, and other election stakeholders. Sometimes they train domestic officials, conduct voter education, check voter registers and lists, observe election rallies, monitor the use of government resources and the ability of the candidates to run for office, and engage in general campaign activities. Many organizations systematically survey the media coverage of election issues. Most organizations also have legal experts who evaluate the electoral legislation and the legal framework for the elections. The organizations gather significant information about the pre-election environment and monitor the factors that contribute to the fairness of an electoral campaign. Some organizations issue press releases and reports prior to the election to report their activities and findings.
On election day organizations spend most of their time observing the voting. A severe limitation on observation efforts, however, is that even large organizations can only cover a small percentage of the voting stations, and even then each voting station may only be visited once during the day, leaving plenty of opportunities for fraud at other times. In addition to observing the actual voting, usually organizations try to monitor aspects of the vote processing such as counting of votes, the transport of ballot boxes, the tabulation of results, and the announcements of results. They also observe the area around the polling stations and interview ordinary voters about their experiences, collecting reports of intimidation or deficiencies in the organization of the vote, and so on. In some cases organizations conduct or help organize parallel vote tabulations, which apply statistical sampling methods to predict the outcome of the vote, thus making tabulation fraud harder.
TABLE 2.5
Mission characteristics, 1975–2004
Notes: The AU, the ECOWAS, and the OIF are not included, because this information was not available. For a list of acronyms, see page xix.
After the vote, nearly all organizations hold press conferences or make statements to the press about what they observed. They often issue a quick post-election statement in writing. They typically, though not always, end their observation by issuing an extensive public report containing specific recommendations. Indeed, many organizations have signed the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation and Code of Conduct for International Election Observers,103 which includes a commitment to transparency and the publication of reports. However, sometimes organizations get so preoccupied with their next task that they fail to issue final reports, or, as will be discussed in Chapter 4, they may have concerns about their findings that lead them to purposefully avoid publicly issuing a final report. Figure 2.8 also shows the percent of monitoring organizations that engage in various activities. As evident, nearly two-thirds of missions conduct some form of media monitoring. However, only a few organizations conduct quick counts, or parallel vote tabulations, as checks on the tabulation process. This practice is quite effective, but because it is resource intensive and potentially highly intrusive, it is quite rare.104
Figure 2.8: Frequency of monitoring activities
Includes missions between 1975 and 2004. Does not include the AU/OAU, the ECOWAS, and the OIF for which this detailed information was not available.
A combination of several factors led to the rapid rise of monitoring. First, proponents were able to frame monitoring as a mechanism for upholding evolving political and civil rights at the same time as historical changes made relatively strong intrusions into domestic affairs more acceptable. Second, the end of the Cold War shifted the focus from security to democracy promotion and the domestic turmoil in many transition states created a demand for monitoring. Finally, donors and international organizations increased their use of political conditionality and, as the following chapter discusses further, this led even more governments—honest or not—to invite monitors.
Today monitoring is widespread and involves many different types of organizations, ranging from global and regional intergovernmental organizations to NGOs. These organizations take on a range of activities and vary greatly in their resources and activities. These factors as well as those driving the rise of monitoring are important for understanding the practice of election monitoring. They reveal the range of motivations involved in the practice of monitors as discussed further in the following chapters.
