Analyzing the Effects of International Election Monitoring

大多数关注世界政治的人都听说过国际选举监督员，他们通过联合国（UN）等政府间组织或美国卡特中心（Carter Center）等非政府组织工作，以确保选举的自由和公正。通过他们的努力，这些监测员为记者和决策者提供了宝贵的信息。它们帮助捐助国政府确定国家是否符合民主治理的要求，它们为投资者（关心稳定的投资者）提供信息，并向致力于确保公民在政府中拥有有意义的发言权的人权活动人士提供有价值的信息。然而，国际选举监督并不总是如此普遍。起初，它主要与联合国在非主权领土上的活动有关。然而，随着冷战的结束，这种做法急剧增加，各国和各组织花费大量资源向世界各地的选举派遣观察员小组。对实践的热情是广泛的；许多人称赞它是改善选举行为和建立民主的工具。然而，批评人士认为，选举监督并没有真正减少舞弊，更糟糕的是，它有时最终会使舞弊选举合法化。事实上，许多重要的问题仍未得到解答：监督工作是否能使政府减少欺诈？如果监控会影响政府行为，为什么会发生，又是如何发生的？监测评估后来被证明是不准确的频率是多少？对于这些错误有一个共同的解释吗？要回答这些问题，就必须彻底调查选举监测的兴起，以及各种监测组织本身的行动：如何解释国际监测员对某一选举的参与程度，以及监测小组对个别选举得出的结论？为什么有些政府仍然拒绝让监察员进入，而另一些同样腐败的政府却邀请监察员？不同的监测机构对这些问题的回答有何不同？有许多关于个别选举的个案研究，特别是选举观察员的个人叙述，但是缺乏对国际选举监测的系统分析。这项研究是纠正这一不足的重要一步；自1980年代中期监测员成立以来，收集和分析了他们的存在和结论的数据。这涉及对来自监测组织的数百份报告和主要文件进行编码。这个项目提高了我们对选举监督效果的理解，但所有数据都将以数字方式存档，供其他研究人员使用。这些数据为其他涉及衡量民主组成部分的研究提供了全新的变量。这个最初的项目为继续研究选举在民主过渡和民主巩固中的作用的问题开辟了许多后续问题和机会。民主显然比选举更重要。然而，真正的选举是一项重要的人权，也是言论自由的重要组成部分。通过增进对选举监督的了解，该项目将支持个人人权的传播，并帮助外部行动者设计有效的政策和方案来实现这些目标。

Most people who follow world politics are used to hearing about international election monitors, who work through intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations (UN) or non-governmental organizations like the U.S.-based Carter Center, in order to ensure that elections are free and fair. Through their efforts, these monitors provide valuable information for journalists and policy makers alike. They help donor governments determine whether countries are meeting requirements for democratic governance, they inform investors (who care about stability), and they provide valuable information to human rights activists working to ensure that citizens have a meaningful voice in government.International election monitoring was not always so prevalent, however. At first it was mostly associated with the UN activity in non-sovereign territories. With the end of the Cold War, however, the practice has skyrocketed and countries and organizations spend vast resources to send observer teams to elections worldwide. Enthusiasm for the practice is broad; many people laud it is as a tool to improve the conduct of elections and build democracy. Critics, however, argue that election monitoring does not really reduce fraud and, worse that it sometimes ends up legitimizing fraudulent elections. Indeed, many important questions remain unanswered: Do monitoring efforts cause governments to reduce fraud? If monitors influence government behavior, why and how does that happen? How often do monitor assessments later turn out to be inaccurate? Is there a common explanation for such errors? Answering these questions require a thorough inquiry into the rise of election monitoring, and into the actions of various monitoring organizations themselves: What explains the level of engagement of international monitors in a given election as well as the conclusions monitoring groups draw about individual elections? Why do some governments still refuse to let in monitors, while other, similarly corrupt governments invite monitors? How do the answers to these questions vary with different monitoring organizations?There is an abundance of case studies of individual elections, particularly personal accounts of election observers, but systematic analyses of international election monitoring are lacking. This study represents an important step toward correcting this shortfall; data are collected and analyzed on the presence and conclusions of monitors since their inception in the mid-1980s. This involves coding of hundreds of reports and primary documents from monitoring organizations. This project improves our understanding of the effects of election monitoring, but all data will be digitally archived and made available to other researchers. These data provides entirely new variables for other research, which involves measures of the components of democracy. This initial project opens up many follow-up questions and opportunities for continued research on questions about the role of elections in democratic transitions and democratic consolidation.There is clearly more to democracy than elections. However, genuine elections are an important human right and an essential component of freedom of expression. By improving understanding of election monitoring, this project will support the spread of individual human rights and help external actors design effective policies and programs to achieve these ends.