eBook

Monitoring democracy

Kelley, Judith G

2012

Overview

In recent decades, governments and NGOs--in an effort to promote democracy, freedom, fairness, and stability throughout the world--have organized teams of observers to monitor elections in a variety of countries. But when more organizations join the practice without uniform standards, are assessments reliable? When politicians nonetheless cheat and monitors must return to countries even after two decades of engagement, what is accomplished? Monitoring Democracy argues that the practice of international election monitoring is broken, but still worth fixing. By analyzing the evolving interaction between domestic and international politics, Judith Kelley refutes prevailing arguments that international efforts cannot curb government behavior and that democratization is entirely a domestic process. Yet, she also shows that democracy promotion efforts are deficient and that outside actors often have no power and sometimes even do harm. Analyzing original data on over 600 monitoring missions and 1,300 elections, Kelley grounds her investigation in solid historical context as well as studies of long-term developments over several elections in fifteen countries. She pinpoints the weaknesses of international election monitoring and looks at how practitioners and policymakers might help to improve them.

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Subject: Authoritarianism / Ballot box / Bias / Carter Center / Case studies / Case study / Coefficient / Conditionality / Council of Europe / Criticism / Democracy / Democracy promotion / Democratization / Economic Community of West African States / Effectiveness / Election / Election commission / Election law / Election monitoring / Election monitoring -- Case studies / Elections / Electoral fraud / Electoral reform / Employment / Estimation / European Commission / Executive summary / Foreign relations / Fraud / Freedom House / Governance / Government / Incumbent / Inference / Institutional Revolutionary Party / Intergovernmental organization / International community / International Foundation for Electoral Systems / International Monetary Fund / International organization / International Relations / International Republican Institute / Intimidation / JPA / JPHF / JPS / Legislation / Lesotho / Likelihood function / Member state / Monitoring / National Democratic Institute / National Science Foundation / Nicaragua / Non-governmental organization / Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights / Opposition Party / Organisation internationale de la Francophonie / Organisation of African Unity / Organization / Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe / Organization of American States / Policy making / Political party / Political Process / POLITICAL SCIENCE / POLITICAL SCIENCE / General / POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / General / Politician / Politics / Probability / Quick count / Regime / Requirement / Rose Revolution / Southern African Development Community / Sovereignty / Subset / Thought / United Nations Development Programme / United Nations resolution / United States Agency for International Development / United States Department of State / Voting / World / Zimbabwe
• ISBN: 0691152772, 9780691152783, 9780691152776, 0691152780, 9781400842520, 1400842522