Rapid: The Impact of Domestic Election Observers on Electoral Violence, Integrity , and Voting Behavior

本研究利用了一个独特的机会，在加纳2012年12月大选期间，将选举观察员随机分配到该国21,000个投票站中的1,000多个样本中。在加纳最著名的国内观察组织国内选举观察员联盟（CODEO）及其秘书处民主发展中心（CDD）的直接合作下，该项目随机分配了一大批选举观察员，可以对观察员对选举暴力和选民恐吓的影响进行因果估计。该项目将观察员高度集中的选区投票站的结果与观察员较少集中的选区投票站的结果进行比较。这些比较将对在今后选举中部署观察员的最佳方式和最具成本效益产生直接的政策影响。这个项目的学术价值在于它促进了对政治暴力和恐吓的理解。如果选举观察员像捐助者和民间社会团体所认为的那样是有效的，他们在投票站的存在将显著减少暴力和恐吓。收集到的数据将有助于估计这种影响的大小。此外，暴力减少也可用于估计暴力和恐吓对一系列其他相关结果的影响。这些指标包括选民投票率、妇女和其他弱势群体的政治参与、选民对现任议员的支持程度以及公民对选举合法性的看法。该项目还将产生一个可公开获取的微观层面数据集，用于测试有关暴力最有可能发生的地方的理论。该项目将对在选举有暴力和恐吓历史的国家安排选举观察员产生广泛影响。这将是第一个实验研究选举观察员对暴力和恐吓的影响。这些调查结果将对今后观察员特派团的最佳地理空间和人数部署产生直接的政策影响。

This study leverages a unique opportunity to randomly assign election observers to a sample of over 1,000 of Ghana's 21,000 polling places during the country's December 2012 general elections. With the direct collaboration of the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), Ghana's most prominent domestic observation group, and CODEO's secretariat, the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), the project's random assignment of a large subset of election observers permits causal estimates of the effects of observers on electoral violence and voter intimidation. The project compares outcomes at polling places located in constituencies with a high concentration of observers to outcomes at polling places in constituencies with a low concentration of observers. These comparisons will yield direct policy implications with respect to the optimal and most cost effective deployments of observers in future elections. The intellectual merit of this project lies with how it advances understanding of political violence and intimidation. If election observers are effective, as donors and civil society groups believe, their presence at a polling place will generate a noticeable reduction in violence and intimidation. The data collected will allow estimations of the size of this effect. In addition, reductions in violence can also be used to estimate the impact of violence and intimidation on a range of other relevant outcomes. These include voter turnout, the political participation of women and other vulnerable groups, the extent of electoral support for incumbent legislators, and citizen perceptions of the election's legitimacy. The project will also produce a publicly-available micro-level dataset with which to test theories about where violence is most likely to occur. The project will have broad impact on the placement of election observers in countries whose elections have histories of violence and intimidation. It will be the first to experimentally study the impact of election observers on violence and intimidation. The findings will yield direct policy implications regarding the optimal geo-spatial and numerical deployment of observers for future observer missions.