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Electoral Engineering: Electoral Rules and Voting Choices
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E
LECTORAL
E
NGINEERING
~ C
HAPTER
1 ~ N
ORRIS
8/9/2003
5:09
PM
2
Do Rules Matter? Structure versus culture
From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade has witnessed growing interest in ‘electoral
engineering’. The end of the Cold War, the global spread of democracy, and new thinking about development spurred this process. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the flowering of transitional and consolidating third wave democracies around the globe generated a wave of institution building. International agencies like the World Bank came to understand that good governance was not a luxury that could be delayed while more basic social needs were being met, like the provision of clean water, basic health care and schooling. Instead the establishment of democracy was understood as an essential pre-condition for effective human development and management of poverty, inequality and ethnic conflict
1
. The donor community recognized
that the downfall of many corrupt dictatorships in Latin America, Central Europe, Asia and Africa created new opportunities for political development
2
. Subsequent histories show that the
process of deepening democracy and good governance has proved fraught with many difficulties, with little change to many repressive regimes in the Middle East, only fragile and unstable consolidation in Argentina and Venezuela, and even occasional reversions back to authoritarian rule exemplified by Zimbabwe and Pakistan
3
.
International agencies have used a triple strategy to promote democracy. Institution
building has been one priority, by strengthening independent judiciaries and effective legislatures designed to curb and counterbalance executive powers. Civic society has been another, with attempts to nurture grassroots organizations, advocacy NGOs, and independent media. But among all the strategies, attempts to establish competitive, free and fair elections have attracted the most attention. Only the ballot box provides regular opportunities for the public to select representatives, to hold governments to account, and to ‘kick the rascals out’, where necessary. Electoral systems are commonly regarded as some of the most basic democratic structures, from which much else flows. Elections are not sufficient by themselves for representative democracy, by any means, but they are a necessary minimal condition. Views differ sharply about the appropriate evaluative criteria but most agree that at minimum elections must meet certain essential conditions to ensure democratic legitimacy. They should be free of violence, intimidation, bribery, vote rigging, irregularities, systematic fraud, and deliberate partisan manipulation. Contests should provide an unrestricted choice of competing parties and candidates, without repression of opposition parties or undue bias in the distribution of campaign resources and media access. Elections should use fair, honest, efficient and transparent procedures from voter registration to the final vote tally. Parliamentary representatives should reflect the society from which they are drawn and not systematically exclude any minority group. And campaigns should generate widespread public participation
4
.
Where rulers have blocked, derailed or corrupted the electoral process in attempts to retain power, as in Burma, Zimbabwe or Iraq, this has undermined their legitimacy and attracted critical scrutiny.
Until the 1980s, international electoral assistance was fairly exceptional, applied only
in special cases, such as in the first transfer of power following decolonization or the end of civil wars. Yet from the early 1990s onwards, international observers, technical aid experts, and constitutional advisers played a leading role as dozens of transitional elections occurred throughout Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Attempts to deepen and strengthen good governance have focused on the basic design of electoral systems, and more
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E
LECTORAL
E
NGINEERING
~ C
HAPTER
1 ~ N
ORRIS
8/9/2003
5:09
PM
2
Do Rules Matter? Structure versus culture
From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade has witnessed growing interest in ‘electoral
engineering’. The end of the Cold War, the global spread of democracy, and new thinking
about development spurred this process. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the flowering of
transitional and consolidating third wave democracies around the globe generated a wave of
institution building. International agencies like the World Bank came to understand that good
governance was not a luxury that could be delayed while more basic social needs were being
met, like the provision of clean water, basic health care and schooling. Instead the establishment
of democracy was understood as an essential pre-condition for effective human development
and management of poverty, inequality and ethnic conflict
1
. The donor community recognized
that the downfall of many corrupt dictatorships in Latin America, Central Europe, Asia and
Africa created new opportunities for political development
2
. Subsequent histories show that the
process of deepening democracy and good governance has proved fraught with many
difficulties, with little change to many repressive regimes in the Middle East, only fragile and
unstable consolidation in Argentina and Venezuela, and even occasional reversions back to
authoritarian rule exemplified by Zimbabwe and Pakistan
3
.
International agencies have used a triple strategy to promote democracy. Institution
building has been one priority, by strengthening independent judiciaries and effective
legislatures designed to curb and counterbalance executive powers. Civic society has been
another, with attempts to nurture grassroots organizations, advocacy NGOs, and independent
media. But among all the strategies, attempts to establish competitive, free and fair elections
have attracted the most attention. Only the ballot box provides regular opportunities for the
public to select representatives, to hold governments to account, and to ‘kick the rascals out’,
where necessary. Electoral systems are commonly regarded as some of the most basic democratic
structures, from which much else flows. Elections are not sufficient by themselves for
representative democracy, by any means, but they are a necessary minimal condition. Views
differ sharply about the appropriate evaluative criteria but most agree that at minimum
elections must meet certain essential conditions to ensure democratic legitimacy. They should
be free of violence, intimidation, bribery, vote rigging, irregularities, systematic fraud, and
deliberate partisan manipulation. Contests should provide an unrestricted choice of competing
parties and candidates, without repression of opposition parties or undue bias in the
distribution of campaign resources and media access. Elections should use fair, honest, efficient
and transparent procedures from voter registration to the final vote tally. Parliamentary
representatives should reflect the society from which they are drawn and not systematically
exclude any minority group. And campaigns should generate widespread public participation
4
.
Where rulers have blocked, derailed or corrupted the electoral process in attempts to retain
power, as in Burma, Zimbabwe or Iraq, this has undermined their legitimacy and attracted
critical scrutiny.
Until the 1980s, international electoral assistance was fairly exceptional, applied only
in special cases, such as in the first transfer of power following decolonization or the end of civil
wars. Yet from the early 1990s onwards, international observers, technical aid experts, and
constitutional advisers played a leading role as dozens of transitional elections occurred
throughout Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Attempts to deepen and
strengthen good governance have focused on the basic design of electoral systems, and more
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