Political Participation and Electoral Practices in Ghana: The Role of Domestic Election Observers and Information

这项研究将调查国内选举观察员和有关选举进程完整性的信息对新民主国家的政治参与和选举舞弊发生率的影响。尽管选举舞弊的报告在新的民主政体中非常常见，选举观察员被部署以尽量减少舞弊行为，但很少有研究审查这些观察员的有效性。此外，现有的研究侧重于国际观察员，他们通常只在选举日前后短时间内在场。有关方面可能在国际观察员到达之前很久就参与选民登记舞弊、恐吓反对派、填充投票箱，以及以其他方式改变结果。这项研究将围绕2008年12月全国大选前后在加纳与设在阿克拉的加纳民主发展中心合作进行的实地试验展开。这项研究的实验设计将使人们能够推断长期国内观察者的影响，而不会被未观察到的因素混淆。这项研究还将有助于了解选举期间社会差异转化为暴力的条件，以及选举舞弊的程度和地点。对于第一种治疗，CDD将在加纳选区的子集上随机选择国内选举观察员。这些观察员将从2008年年中开始报告其选区内的政党活动和可能的选举舞弊行为，例如选民恐吓和政治暴力。第二种处理方式是在社区一级引入关于观察员及其调查结果的外部信息。这些处理的随机性将使人们能够估计国内观察员的存在的影响，以及关于选民和政党在选区一级行为的信息的作用。在接受和不接受这些治疗的社区中进行的调查将被用来评估它们对个人政治态度和投票行为的影响。这项研究的结果应对改进新民主政体选举的完整性产生更广泛的影响，并增加公民对民主进程的信心。国内观察员和公民教育会议是以地方为基础、以非政府组织为中心的干预措施，很容易扩大规模，在新的民主政体中已经很常见；分析将指出在哪些具体条件下这些措施可以产生最大效果，这是在资源有限的情况下运作的非政府组织的一个重要考虑因素。CDD与撒哈拉以南非洲的研究和政策导向组织有很强的联系，并将把这项研究的结果传播给非洲民主社区的其他实地机构。

This study will investigate the effect of domestic election observers and information about the integrity of the election process on political participation and the incidence of electoral malpractice in a new democracy. Although reports of electoral malpractice are very common in new democracies and election observers are deployed to minimize them, very few studies have examined the effectiveness of these observers. Moreover, existing studies have focused on international observers who are usually present only for a short period around election day. Interested parties may engage in fraud in voter registration, intimidate the opposition, stuff ballot boxes, and otherwise alter the outcome long before international observers arrive. The study will revolve around a field experiment that will be conducted in Ghana around the December 2008 national elections, in collaboration with the Accra-based Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana). The experimental design of the study will enable inferences about the impact of long-term domestic observers that is not confounded by unobserved factors. The study will also contribute to knowledge about the conditions under which social differences translate into violence during elections and about the extent and location of electoral malpractice. For the first treatment, CDD will randomize domestic election observers over a subset of Ghanaian constituencies. These observers will report on party activities and possible electoral malpractice, such as voter intimidation and political violence, in their constituencies from mid-2008. The second treatment is the exogenous introduction of information about the observers and their findings at the community level. The randomized nature of these treatments will allow for an estimate of the impact of the presence of domestic observers as well the role of information on both voter and party behavior at the constituency level. Surveys in communities with and without these treatments will be used to assess their impact on individual political attitudes and voting behavior. The results of this study should have broader impacts upon improving the integrity of elections in new democracies and increase citizens' confidence in the democratic process. Domestic observers and civic education meetings are locally-based, NGO-centered interventions that easily scale up and are already common in new democracies; the analysis will point to the specific conditions under which these measures can have the greatest effect, a significant consideration for NGOs operating under resource limitations. CDD has strong links to both research and policy-oriented organizations in sub-Saharan Africa and will disseminate this study's findings to other on-the-ground agencies in the African democracy community.