The observer effect in international politics: Evidence from a natural experiment

World Politics

Volumn 60, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 37-63

  Hyde, Susan D ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRACY; DEMOCRATIZATION; DEVELOPING WORLD; ELECTION; ELECTORAL SYSTEM; EXPERIMENTAL STUDY; POLITICS;

ARMENIA; ASIA; EURASIA; WEST ASIA;

EID: 42149178633     PISSN: 00438871     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/wp.0.0001     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. For examples of this literature, see Paul W. Drake "The International Causes of Democratization, 1974-1990," in Paul Drake and Matthew McCubbins, eds., The Origins of Liberty: Political and Economic Liberalization in the Modern World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998);
2. Kristian S. Gleditsch, All International Politics Is Local: The Diffusion of Conflict, Integration, and Democratization (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002);
3. Kristian S. Gleditsch and Michael D. Ward, "Diffusion and the International Context of Democratization," International Organization 60 (October 2006);
4. Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, "International Linkage and Democratization," Journal of Democracy 16 (July 2005);
5. Jon C. Pevehouse, "Democracy from the Outside-In? International Organizations and Democratization," International Organization 56 (August 2002);
6. idem, Democracy from Above? Regional Organizations and Democratization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005);
7. Philippe C. Schmitter, "The Influence of the International Context upon the Choice of National Institutions and Policies in Neo-Democracies," in Laurence Whitehead, ed., The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996);
8. Laurence Whitehead, ed., The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
9. For work specifically addressing international influences on elections, see Vikram K. Chand, "Democratisation from the Outside In: NGO and International Efforts to Promote Open Elections," Third World Quarterly 18 (September 1997);
10. Jorgen Elklit and Palle Svensson, "What Makes Elections Free and Fair?" Journal of Democracy 8 (July 1997);
11. Liisa Laakso, "The Politics of International Election Observation: The Case of Zimbabwe in 2000," Journal of Modern Aftican Studies 40 (September 2002).
12. Gleditsch and Ward (fn. 1).
13. Author's calculations. Evidence of the trend is presented in Eric C. Bjornlund, Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004).
14. Thomas Carothers, "The Observers Observed," Journal of Democracy 8 (July 1997).
15. Przeworski, "Institutions Matter?" Government and Opposition 39 (Autumn 2004), 528.
16. Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971);
17. Larry J. Diamond, "Is the Third Wave Over?" Journal of Democracy 7 (July 1996);
18. G. Bingham Powell, Jr., Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000);
19. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
20. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper, 1942).
21. William H. Riker, Democracy in the United States (New York: Macmillan Company, 1965), 25.
22. Przeworski (fn. 6);
23. Powell (fn. 6).
24. Gary W. Cox and J. Morgan Kousser, "Turnout and Rural Corruption: New York as a Test Case," American Journal of Political Science 25 (November 1981);
25. Fabrice E. Lehoucq and Iván Molina, Stuffing the Ballot Box: Fraud, Electoral Reform, and Democratization in Costa Rica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
26. Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
27. James D. Fearon, "Self-enforcing Democracy" (Manuscript, Institution of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, April 2006).
28. This argument is generally based on Przeworski (fn. 6)
29. and Barry R. Weingast, "The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of Law," American Political Science Review 91 (June 1997).
30. See also Joshua A. Tucker, "Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-Communist Colored Revolutions," Perspectives on Politics 5 (September 2007).
31. Beth A. Simmons and Lisa L. Martin, "Theories and Empirical Studies of International Institutions," International Organization 52 (October 1998).
32. Peter G. Gourevitch, "The Second Image Reversed," International Organization 32 (Autumn 1978);
33. Robert D. Putnam, "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games," International Organization 42 (Summer 1988).
34. Carlos Santiso, "International Cooperation for Democracy and Good Governance: Moving toward a Second Generation?" European Journal of Development Research 13 (June 2001).
35. Thomas Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999), 8.
36. Mikhail Myagkov, Peter C. Ordeshook, and Dimitry Shakin, "Fraud and Fairytales: Russia and Ukraine's Electoral Experience," Post-Soviet Affairs 21(April-June 2005).
37. Bjornlund (fn. 3);
38. Carothers (fn. 4);
39. Carothers (fn. 15).
40. The statement is made based on the reading of numerous international observer reports citing firsthand evidence of election fraud.
41. Schedler, "The Nested Game of Democratization by Elections," International Political Science Review 23 (January 2002).
42. Ian Bremmer and Cory Welt, "Armenia's New Autocrats," Journal of Democracy 8 (July 1997), 78.
43. Ibid.
44. Larry J. Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 55.
45. Bremmer and Welt (fn. 20).
46. OSCE/ODIHR, Final Report on Presidential Elections in Armenia, 19 February and 5 March 2003 (Warsaw: Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, 2003).
47. Armenian politics are characterized by violence, which overshadowed the 2003 elections. Most notably, in 1999, the parliament was attacked by gunmen, and eight prominent politicians were assassinated. The 2003 presidential elections were the first to be held after the attack.
48. Alan S. Gerber and Donald R Green, "The Effects of Canvassing, Phone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnour: A Field Experiment," American Political science Review 94 (September 2000);
49. Edward Miguel and Michael Kremer, "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities," Econometrica 72 (January 2004);
50. Benjamin Olken, "Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy 115 (April 2007);
51. Leonard Wantchekon, "Clientetism and Voting Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Benin," World Politics 55 (April 2003).
52. For examples of natural experiments, see John Snow, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera (London: Churchill, 1849);
53. and Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky, "Property Rights for the Poor: Effects of Land Titling" (Manuscript, March 16, 2006).
54. Thad Dunning, "Improving Causal Inference: Strengths and Limitations of Natural Experiments" (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 31-September 4, 2005).
55. Mei Guan and Donald P. Green, "Noncoercive Mobilization in State-Controlled Elections: An Experimental Study in Beijing," Comparative Political Studies 39 (December 2006);
56. Macartan Humphreys, William A. Masters, and Martin E. Sandbu, "The Role of Leaders in Democratic Deliberations: Results from a Field Experiment in São Tomé e Príncipe," World Politics 58 (July 2006);
57. Wantchekon (fn. 26).
58. Alan S. Gerber, Donald P. Green, and Edward H. Kaplan, "The Illusion of Learning from Observational Research," Working Paper (New Haven: Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, 2002).
59. James N. Druckman, Donald P. Green, James H. Kuklinski, and Arthur Lupia, "The Growth and Development of Experimental Research in Political Science," American Political Science Review 100 (November 2006), 627.
60. Economist, "Democracy, It's Wonderful," February 22, 2003.
61. Government-reported election results were made available online at http:/ /www.elections.am by the Central Election Commission of Armenia.
62. Even if this information were inaccurately communicated to me, if observers were more likely to visit stations they believe to be problematic, as suggested by one reviewer, then this would dampen an observed effect of observers on fraud. For the reasons cited, however, this is an unlikely scenario.
63. Carothers (fn. 4);
64. Gisela Geisler, "Fair? What Has Fairness Got to Do with It? Vagaries of Election Observations and Democratic Standards," Journal of Modern African Studies 31 (December 1993).
65. The same tests for the other candidates are available upon request. They do not change the conclusions drawn from these results.
66. Outside of the Yerevan region (where polling stations were equally likely to be visited in both rounds) polling stations that were visited in round 1 were twice as likely to be visited again in round 2.
67. Additional tests compare vote share for all candidates and show that the only candidate to perform better in unmonitored polling stations was Sargsian, who received only 0.04 percent more of the vote in unmonitored polling stations.
68. Demirchian vote share is used to make the comparison clearer. If there were systematic biases in the polling stations monitored in round 2, they should show as a statistically significant difference between these two groups. Comparisons using round 1 Kocharian vote share are available from the author, but for reasons that are likely related to polling-station accessibility, round 1-monitored polling stations are more likely to be monitored in round 2, thus making it unlikely that observed round 1 Kocharian vote share would be statistically independent of round 2 monitoring.
69. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this be included as an alternative explanation.
70. In the first round, observers visited 42 percent of polling stations. The 5.8 percent average reduction in Kocharian vote share, reflected nationally, was 2.44 percent (aggregate observer effect = 42% * 5.8%).
71. Olken (fn. 26).