Taking Sides in Other People’s Elections: The Polarizing Effect of Foreign Intervention
with Daniel Corstange, University of Maryland.
Winner of the Best Paper Award in International Relations at the 2010 Midwest Political Science Conference, Chicago, IL.
Forthcoming, American Journal of Political Science
Advance view: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00583.x/pdf
We conducted a series of survey experiments in the wake of the Lebanese Parliamentary elections in June 2009 to understand the reaction of voters to two different types of electoral interventions from the outside: a one-sided message of support for a particular partisan slate vs a message of support for the democratic process. This is the first paper to come out of that project.
Abstract:
What do voters think when outside powers become de facto participants in a country’s election? We conceptualize two types of foreign intervention: a partisan stance, where the outsider roots for a particular candidate slate, and a process stance, where outsiders support the democratic process. We theorize that a partisan outside message will polarize partisan actors domestically on the issue of appropriate relations with the outsiders: partisans who are supported will want closer relations with the outside power, and partisans who are opposed will favor more distant relations. A process message, in contrast, will have a moderating effect on voters’ attitudes. We present evidence of partisan polarization along those lines from a survey experiment we conducted in Lebanon in the wake of the 2009 Parliamentary elections. We discuss the implications of our findings for future studies of how outsiders can encourage moderate electoral outcomes in democratizing states.
Replication data: http://isps.research.yale.edu/data/D075/
We thank ISPS at Yale University, the MacMillan Center at Yale and the University of Maryland for generous financial support. We thank Information International in Beirut, Lebanon, and specifically Alicia Jammal for dedicated service to the project.
American Journal of Political Science, 2005, vol. 49, pp. 564-576.
Abstract:
Do economic sanctions destabilize thhe governments they target? A form of foreign pressure, sanctions are typically meant to alter the policies of other countries. There is much pessimism on whether they ever work. This paper shows that economic pressure works in at least one respect: it destabilizes the leaders it targets. I present a theoretical argument that explains why destabilization is a necessary condition for successful coercion. I find evidence that pressure destabilizes in a large panel of cross-country time-series data. The destabilization finding indicates that sanctions may be more ef- fective at altering policies than we think. I conclude by noting that greater optimism regarding the effectiveness of sanctions should be balanced by a careful consideration of the policy’s real and sizeable costs for those caught in the middle.
Click to download the STATA do file and STATA data file
Voter Attitudes When Democracy Promotion Turns Partisan: Evidence from a Survey-Experiment in Lebanon
Forthcoming, Democratization
Abstract:
We study how voters react when foreign powers support a particular political party in a fragile democracy. We want to know which voters believe the intervention plays a positive role in the electoral process and which ones are of the opposite opinion. We argue that educated and politically sophisticated voters will reject such interventions because of the negative role those play in the democratization process. We develop specific hypotheses based on this argument and we test them in randomized framing experiment embedded in a post-election survey of 2,500 voters in Lebanon 2009. We find support for the argument in the survey. We derive implications for the risks and benefits of “guiding” democratic outcomes from abroad.
Keywords : democratization, democracy promotion, survey experiment, public opinion, partisanship, sophistication, education
The Effects of Aid on Rights and Governance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
with Peter Aronow (Yale University) and Allison Sovey (Yale University)
Abstract
Electoral Authoritarianism and Credible Signaling in International Crises
with Brandon Kinne, University of Texas, Dallas
Forthcoming, Journal of Conflict Resolution.
How, if at all, do nondemocratic elections affect credible signaling in international crises? While the literature on credible signaling emphasizes the importance of electoral competition, it does not specify the minimal conditions that elections must satisfy in order to enhance the credibility of threats. We address this oversight by focusing on two fundamental properties of electoral institutions: (1) the degree of pro-incumbent bias, and (2) the vulnerability of the incumbent to a de facto loss of power following an opposition victory. Our theory argues that both decreases in electoral bias and increases in incumbent vulnerability introduce greater accountability into the electoral process and thus enhance the credibility of public threats, even when elections fail to meet basic democratic standards. We apply these insights to the case of electoral authoritarianism, i.e., regimes in which some form of electoral competition exists but basic principles of democratic governance are commonly violated. Using data on reciprocation rates in militarized crises, we show that, so long as electoral biases are sufficiently low and incumbent vulnerability is sufficiently high, even electoral authoritarian regimes are able to credibly signal resolve.
Replication materials and an online appendix are available at http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/bkinne and at http:/jcr.sagepub.com.
Information and Self-Enforcing Democracy: The Role of International Election Observation
with Susan Hyde, Yale University
Under review (revise and resubmit)
Abstract:
with Susan Hyde from Yale University
Forthcoming, Political Analysis
Abstract:
In democracies, political institutions are structured such that all elections, at least in theory, can be lost. Elections can also be lost in many non-democracies. The concept of electoral competition is relevant to a variety of research agendas in political science, yet the question of how to measure electoral competition has received little direct attention. We revisit the distinction proposed by Giovanni Sartori between competition as a structure or rule of the game and competitiveness as a particular outcome of that game, and argue that to understand which elections can be lost (and therefore when parties and leaders are potentially threatened by electoral accountability), scholars may be better off considering the full range of elections where competition is allowed. If opposition is allowed, multiple parties are permitted, and more than one candidate appears on the ballot, the minimal structural conditions for competition are present. Using this set of elections, future research can better determine which additional factors are likely to contribute to electoral accountability or political transitions. The argument is illustrated with a simple model, followed by the introduction of new global data on elections and the minimal conditions necessary for electoral competition with the goal of providing a foundation for scholars to distinguish between elections that can be lost and those that cannot. We then outline the pitfalls of other measures used by scholars to define the potential for electoral competition, and show why such methods are likely to lead to biased or incomplete findings regarding the causes and consequences of electoral competition.
Replication data: IQSS Dataverse Network, V1, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/16678.
With Hein Goemans, University of Rochester. Under review.
Abstract:
We use new data on coup d’etats and elections to uncover a striking development: whereas the vast majority of successful coups before 1991 installed the leader durably in power, after that the picture reverses, with the majority of coups leading to competitive elections. We argue that after the Cold War international pressure fundamentally influenced the consequences – and causes – of coups. In the post-Cold War era those countries that are most dependent on Western aid have been the first to embrace competitive elections after the coup. Our theory also sheds light on the pronounced decline in the number of coups since 1991. While the coup d’etat has been and still is the single most important factor leading to the downfall of democratic government, our findings indicate that the new generation of coups has been less nefarious for democracy than their historical predecessors.
Also Available: Online Appendix I and Appendix II
