Battle over the box: International election observation missions, political competition and retrenchment in the post-Soviet space

International Affairs

Volumn 82, Issue 6, 2006, Pages 1133-1153

  Fawn, Rick ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33846418033     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2006.00592.x     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. As the article will make clear through reference to policy documents, the term 'post-Soviet states' here refers to Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan; the governments of Kyrgyzstau and Ukraine removed themselves from this grouping following the regime changes that form part of the focus of this article.
2. All post-Soviet states are members of the OSCE. That the OSCE as an organization is perceived by post-Soviet states to be taking measures against their interests is part of the political tensions examined in this article.
3. See Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference of the Human Dimension of the CSCE, 5-29 June 1990, at http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/ 1990/06/13992_en.pdf
4. Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, 3 Oct. 1991.
5. OSCE/ODIHR has not observed elections in three post-communist states: Poland and Slovenia, which can be considered frontrunners in democratic transition; and Turkmenistan, to which the body pointely declined to send observers in (and since) 1999, because of 'grave concerns that the broad electoral framework in Turkmenistan falls far short of what is required for democratic elections'. 'OSCE/ODIHR will not deploy observation mission to Turkmenistan elections', OSCE/ODIHR press release, 9 Dec. 1999.
6. The Azerbaijani president did riot meet with ODIHR director Christian Strohal (or with the head of the PACE delegation). See RFE/RL Newsline 7: 220, part I, 21 Nov. 2003.
7. The inclusion in IEOMs of more citizens from post-Soviet states is arguably a response by the OSCE to criticisms from those states, which are discussed later in this article.
8. Quoted in RFE/RL Newsline 7: 174, part I, 12 Sept. 2003.
9. See RFE/RL Caucasus Report 3: 26, 29 June 2000, and 3: 29, 20 July 2000.
10. Personal observations in Azerbaijan, Nov. 2005. The day after the elections an Azerbaijani newspaper boldly ran a headline that quoted Council of Europe officials who were part of the IEOM: 'In several electoral districts the election results should be annulled' : Zerkalo, 8 Nov. 2005.
11. 'OSCE/ODIHR Limited Election Assessment Mission. Republic of Uzbekistan. Election of Deputies to the Oliy Majlis (Parliament), 5 Dec. 1999. Preliminary Statement', 6 Dec. 1999.
12. 'Russian election monitors positive', Financial Times, 21 Dec. 1999, p. 6.
13. See the assessment in Sarah E. Mendelson, 'Democracy assistance and political transition in Russia : between success and failure', International Security 25: 4, Spring 2001, p. 104.
14. http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/13765.html.
15. OSCE/ODIHR Statement on the Ukrainian Elections, 21 Nov. 2004.
16. Latvia, the Czech Republic and Hungary in 2002 ; Estonia in 2003 ; and Slovakia in 2004.
17. 'Putin aide sees "Color Revolutions" as threat to Russian sovereignty', RFE/RL Newsline 10: 41, part I, 6 March 2006.
18. Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., 'Georgia's rose revolution', Journal of Democracy 15: 2, April 2004, p. 115.
19. Stephen F.Jones, 'The rose revolution: a revolution without revolutionaries?', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19: 1, March 2006, p. 36.
20. See Han van Zon, 'Why the orange revolution succeeded', Perspectives on European Politics and Society 6: 3, 2005, pp. 373-402.
21. Paul D'Anieri, 'What has changed in Ukrainian politics? Assessing the implications of the orange revolution', Problems of Post-Communism 52: 5, Sept.-Oct. 2005, p. 87.
22. US Agency for International Development, Rising Democracy, Sept. 2005, p. 9.
23. Paul Kubicek, 'The European Union and democratization in Ukraine', Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38: 2, June 2005, p. 286.
24. Address by OSCE Chairman-in-Office Dimitrij Rupel at the 540th plenary meeting of the Permanent Council, p. 4.
25. Christopher H. Smith, 'Democracy in the CIS', Washington Times, 12 Jan. 2005.
26. Interfax, 21 July 2005.
27. Fred Weir, 'Revolution echoes around Russia: Kyrgyzstan's people-power revolt spurs others' protests against corruption throughout the region', Christian Science Monitor, 30 March 2005.
28. See Eugen Tomiuc, 'OSCE: several CIS states rebuke democracy watchdog', RFE/RL, 9 July 2004, at http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/07/7335a25f- 6b7C-41aa-bc8f-94d973103166.html.
29. Sergei Lavrov, 'Reform will enhance the OSCE's relevance', Financial Times, 29 Nov. 2004, p. 19.
30. Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the OSCE, 'Statement by Mr Alexey N. Borodavkin, permanent representative of the Russian Federation, at the meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council', 13 Jan. 2005, in response to the statement by the OSCE chairman-in-office and minister for foreign affairs of Slovenia, Mr Dimitrij Rupel, at http://www.osce.org/documents/pc/2005/01/ 4086_en.pdf.
31. Roland Eggleston, 'OSCE: election experts debate Russian criticism', RFE/RL, 22 April 2005.
32. Cited at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4129547.stm, 28 Dec. 2004, accessed 1 June 2006.
33. See Peter Burnell, 'Political strategies of external support for democratization', Foreign Policy Analysis 1: 3, 2005, pp. 361-84. For commentary on hostile recent reactions to US democracy promotion,
34. see Thomas Carothers, 'The backlash against democracy promotion', Foreign Affairs 85: 2, March-April 2006, pp. 55-65.
35. Vladimir Socor, 'Moscow criticizes EU and OSCE over Kyrgyz election', Eurasia Daily Monitor 2: 59, 25 March 2005.
36. 'Mikhail Kamynin, the spokesman of Russia's ministry of foreign afiairs, answers questions from RIA Novosti regarding the assessments of the March 19, 2006 Belarusian presidential election by the observation mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)', Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 21 March 2006.
37. 'Russian MFA information and press department commentary regarding the "revoking the accreditation" of a Russian member of the OSCE/ODIHR mission of international observers of the presidential elections in Belarus', Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 27 March 2006.
38. 'CEC: ODIHR OSCE election evaluation biased', Belarusian Telegraph Agency, 19 March 2006.
39. Ukrayinska pravda, 22 Nov. 2004,
40. cited in Taras Kuzio, 'International comniunity denounces mass election fraud in Ukraine as CIS upholds official results', Eurasia Daily Monitor 1: 134, 24 Nov. 2004.
41. 'CIS observers find violations in nomination of Belarusian candidates', Interfax, 20 March 2006.
42. Quoted in e.g. Roman Kupchinsky, 'CIS: monitoring the election monitors', RFE/RL, 2 April 2005.
43. 'CIS observer: Belarusian presidential election well-arranged', Belarus Telegraph Agency, 20 March 2006.
44. Quoted in 'Minsk recommends reform of OSCE election monitoring practices', Interfax, 23 March 2006.
45. See OSCE/ODIHR election assessment mission report on the implementation of election reforms during general elections in the United States of America, 5 Nov. 2002, released 15 Jan. 2003.
46. Inreporting the international observation of British postal voting, The Times made direct reference to ODIHR's observation of the Ukrainian rerun elections and entitled the article (somewhat selectively) 'Observers from Ukraine will fly to scrutinise postal voting' : The Times 16 April 2005, p. 33.
47. See ODIHR press release, 'ODIHR sends assessment team for Canadian elections', at http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/item_1_17731.html.
48. 'Statement by press secretary of the Belarusian foreign ministry Andrei Popov with regard to the statements by European Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and President of the European Parliament Josef Borrel Fontelles of 16 March 2006', 17 March 2006.
49. See RFE/RL Newsline, 15 March 2005, and Kupchinsky, 'CIS : monitoring the election monitors'.
50. 'CIS observers outraged by deportation of colleagues', Moldova Azi, 7 March 2005, at http://www.azi.md/news?ID=33324.
51. Izvestia, 11 March 1994;
52. Andrei Kozyrev, 'The lagging partnership', Foreign Affairs 73: 3, May-June 1994, p. 65.
53. See Victor-Yves Ghebali, 'Growing pains at the OSCE: the rise and fall of Russia's pan-European expectations', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 18: 3, Oct. 2005, pp. 375-88;
54. Wolfgang Zellner, 'Russia and the OSCE: from high hopes to disillusionment', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 18: 3, Oct. 2005, pp. 389-402.
55. Both quotations are from Jeffrey Donovan, 'Russia: OSCE faces crisis over budget - and values - with Moscow", RFE/RL, 29 March 2005.
56. Smith, 'Democracy in this CIS'.
57. James Goodby, 'Mandate for change: the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe', Helsingin Sanomat, 2 Aug. 2005.
58. Most OSCE operations are concentrated in post-Soviet states, with the remainder in former Yugoslavia.
59. RFE/RL Newsline 10: 55, part I, 24 March 2006.
60. See e.g. Daniel Dombey, 'Russia-US clash highlights tensions', Financial Times, 7 Dec. 2005.
61. Vladimir Socor, 'OSCE's election-monitoring role under Russian-led attack', Eurasia Daily Monitor 2: 224, 2 Dec. 2005.
62. See Thomas Carothers, 'The end of the transition paradigm, Journal of Democracy 13: 1, 2002, pp. 5-21.
63. Recent findings based on new public opinion surveys are given in Stephen White, Margot Light and Ian McAllister, 'Russia and the West : is there a values gap?', International Politics 42: 3, 2005, pp. 314-33,
64. and Viatcheslav Morozov, 'Resisting entropy, discarding human rights : romantic realism and securitization of identity in Russia', Conflict and Cooperation 37: 4, 2002, pp. 409-29.
65. Fairbanks, 'Georgia's rose revolution', p. 115.
66. US Agency for International Development, Rising Democracy, Sept. 2005, p. 12.
67. Ronald D. Asmus and Alexandr Vondra, 'The origins of Atlanticism in Central and Eastern Europe', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 18 : 2, July 2005, p. 210.
68. Carothers, 'Backlash'.
69. See 'Belarus KGB head warns of foreign-backed coup', RFE /RLNewsline 10: 49, part II, 16 March 2006.
70. See Rick Fawn, 'Chechnya, the Council of Europe and the advocacy of human rights in the toughest of cases', in Douglas W. Blum, ed., Russia, security and globalization (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, forthcoming).
71. OSCE press release, 'Russian election generally well administered but lacking elements of a genuine democratic context', 15 March 2004