Biometric voter registration: A new modality of democracy assistance?

Abstract

It has been argued that we are witnessing a retreat from democracy promotion in liberal interventionism. Focusing on the roll-out of biometric voter registration (BVR) across Africa, as supported by institutions such as the United Nations Development Programme, this article suggests that rather than a retreat we are seeing the emergence of a new and seemingly lighter approach to liberal democracy promotion. Through an analysis of the use of BVR in Kenyan elections, the article illustrates some key implications of this development. At the local level, the framing of BVR as a ‘solution’ omits important challenges to democratic elections in Kenya. At the global level, the roll-out of BVR reinforces unequal global power structures, for example by constituting an increasing number of African states as laboratories for the trialling of a technology which, due to fears of hacking, has now been rolled back in the US. To make this argument, the article combines insights from recent debates about the state of liberal interventionism, with insights from Michel Foucault and Sheila Jasanoff about the politics of technology.

Keywords

Intervention liberal democracy biometric voter registration Kenya politics of technology Science and Technology Studies Jasanoff

Introduction

Interventions of various kinds have been justified with reference to the aim of transforming entire nations into or assisting their development towards liberal democracy (Ayers, 2006; Jahn, 2007; Kurki, 2011; Pickering and Peceny, 2006). As part of long-standing debates about liberal democracy promotion, it has been argued, that we are witnessing ‘a retreat from democracy in liberal interventionism’ (Cooper, 2007: 614) – debates that US President Trump’s emphasis on retreat from developmental and other ‘soft’ programmes in Africa has revitalized (Campbell, 2017). Yet, as noted regarding other forms of intervention, retreat is not necessarily antithetical to expansion (Aaronson et al., 2016; Duffield, 2010), an important point, which is echoed in this article’s analysis of liberal institutions’ support of the roll-out of biometric voter registration (BVR) in democracy-promoting interventions throughout Africa. Though not the only region that has seen a turn to biometrics in electoral processes, Africa is an example of a continent where biometrics is currently rolled out in an increasing number of states with high hopes invested in the ability of BVR to bring about ‘free, fair and credible’ elections.¹ Different versions of BVR have been implemented in 28 African states² and, as noted by a biometric vendor: ‘with more than 40 legislative and presidential elections in Africa in 2018 and 2019, the question of electoral processes is a very topical issue’ (Gemalto, 2018). Taking note of this turn to BVR in Africa, and of the role of external actors in supporting this process, this article suggests that, rather than having retreated, the promotion of democracy through liberal interventionism has taken new forms, with BVR representing one new modality of democracy assistance. Put differently, with the roll-out of BVR we are seeing the contours of a modality, which places greater emphasis on the use of technocratic strategies to resolve complex political challenges. Though BVR makes up a relatively small component of international engagement in Africa, it nonetheless tells us something interesting about the ways in which donors turn to technical ‘solutions’ when faced with intractable political issues, and thus about the ways in which democracy is increasingly promoted through new technology rather than, for example, through military intervention (e.g. Peceny, 1995) or conditionality (e.g. Baylies, 1995). Although the analysis focuses in particular on the role of external actors, this is not to neglect the significance of agency on the part of African actors. Certainly, demands made by various local actors are an important aspect of the political landscapes across which these new democracy-promoting technologies are being rolled out.

To make this argument and to frame the analysis of externally supported BVR in Africa, the article engages insights from two sets of literatures; namely debates about Science and Technology Studies (STS) in international relations (IR) and debates about liberal interventionism. Drawing on insights from the STS literature in an analysis of important material aspects of contemporary democracy promotion offers a novel framing of the significance of the increasing use of BVR across Africa. Specifically, STS insights are translated into three analytical steps. First, the article explores the socially constructed framing of BVR technology as found in United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) accounts. UNDP is one of the main institutions to offer support for the use of BVR in elections throughout Africa. This analysis illustrates how an important dimension of its appeal is that BVR is considered a neutral and apolitical form of technical democracy assistance. Second, by zooming in on the roll-out of BVR in Kenya, the article challenges this framing by exploring the politics of BVR technology. Specifically, the politics of BVR is explored at two levels: local and global. At the local level, the analysis explores how the turn to BVR has implications for how ‘the problem’ of democracy in Kenya gets framed. It is shown how critical factors such as corruption and the financing of election campaigns with money gained via links to drugs smuggling risk being omitted from a BVR-guided problem framing. At the global level, the analysis highlights how the turn to BVR has political implications, when considering, for example, the hierarchical power structures of which the roll-out of BVR across Africa forms a part. For instance, as the technology is deployed in the name of democracies whose faith in electronic election processes is challenged by hacking and other security concerns. Third, findings are discussed in relation to broader debates about liberal interventionism, notably whether we are witnessing a retreat from democracy in liberal interventionism or whether the turn to BVR is perhaps indicative of the emergence of a new, ‘lighter’ and more technical modality of liberal democracy promotion. As such, this article adds to recent calls for a broader conceptualization of intervention practices (e.g. Doucet, 2016), and concurs with analyses of contemporary intervention as ‘an omnipresent and increasingly diverse instrument in world politics’ (Schroeder, 2018). More specifically, the type of diversity, which this article pays particular attention to, concerns the introduction of BVR as an ever more common component of democracy assistance offered by liberal intervention actors to an increasing number of states throughout the African continent.

The existing literature has helped unpack important empirical details including potential benefits, such as the reduction of ‘ghost voters’ from electoral rolls (Davies, 2015) as well as risks such as ‘the exclusion of many potential voters’ (Piccolino, 2016: 513), the displacement of ‘fraudulent activities into other areas of the process’ (Evrensel, 2010: 50) and ‘unintended consequences’ such as the surfacing of new opportunities for corruption (Cheeseman et al., 2018: 1397). This article aims to build an analytical framework through which to begin unpacking the significance of this turn to BVR in Africa vis-à-vis debates about liberal democracy promotion. Accordingly, ‘BVR in Africa’ is not a case study but rather the object of analysis through which it is suggested that this development raises important theoretical as well as empirical questions, including questions about how donors increasingly turn to technical means when confronted with long-standing political challenges and questions about the implications of this.

Analytical framework: local and global dimensions of the politics of technology

Insofar as technology is a central component of liberal democracy promotion, indeed of contemporary interventions more broadly (Bachmann and Schouten, 2018), this calls for careful consideration of how to conceptualize the role of technology in intervention practices, with much to learn from ongoing debates about how STS insights can inspire IR to advance a richer analytical vocabulary for understanding the politics of technology (e.g. Aradau et al., 2015: 62). Much has already been said about how insights from Actor Network Theory can, for example, be translated into IR (Barry, 2013; Best and Walters, 2013; Bueger and Bethke, 2014; Nexon and Pouliot, 2013; Salter and Walters, 2016; Schouten, 2014). Indeed, different parts of the rich body of STS-literature have gained attention from IR scholars studying phenomena ranging from ‘security facts’ (De Goede, 2018) and big data (Chandler, 2015) to body scanners (Bellanova and Fuster, 2013) and drones (Walters, 2014). While valuable insights have indeed been gained from drawing on different parts of the STS-literature, this article aims to contribute to wider conversations about STS and politics, by going beyond the current focus on security and a relatively small circle of STS authors.

To do so, the article draws on a lesser-explored STS-concept, namely that of co-production.³ Initially developed by Jasanoff, co-production has since been used by other STS-scholars to explore the mutual production of science and society, technology and politics. Indeed, the co-productionist idiom has encouraged analyses of ‘both how particular scientific framings of problems call forth certain kinds of responses and of how such framings themselves do not emerge in a social vacuum but through social processes’ (Beck et al., 2017: 1066). Jasanoff uses co-production as a lens to explore how ‘concepts of objectivity and reliability affect the uptake of science and technology by state institutions’ and, of particular relevance for the operationalization of this idiom, Jasanoff links this to analyses of how technologies ‘are factored into the framing and “solution” of public problems’ (Jasanoff, 2004a: 34). Using this as the starting point for an analytical framework, which is particularly sensitive to the politics of BVR in interventions aimed at promoting liberal democracy in Africa, I operationalize the idiom of co-production through two broad research questions: (a) how does the social production of BVR as a democracy-promoting technology affect the subsequent framing of the problem of democracy? And (b) in what sense does BVR give rise to productive effects of socio-political importance? Both questions are explored with reference to the use of BVR in Kenyan elections.

STS, technology, solution/problem framings and omissions

An often-overlooked ‘effect’ of how technology is constituted or produced socially, is how a specific framing, in turn, has implications for our very understanding of the problem, as ‘the problem’ is commonly assumed to exist as a given prior to the use of technology. Yet, as highlighted by STS-scholars in relation to how socially constituted knowledge affects the framing of the problem of global environmental change, ‘different modes of environmental knowledge making have framed the issue of global environmental change in different ways’ (Beck et al., 2017: 1064). Indeed, exploring the social production of ‘framings’ of science and technology can show ‘how different aspect of problems are given priority, and which solutions are rendered thinkable’ (Beck et al., 2017: 1064). For example,

Displacing earlier, ecological conceptions of climate-society interactions, which emphasised local conditions and extreme events, global ‘trend detection’ techniques, supported by extensive observational and computational infrastructures, rendered climate change as something linear, gradual, and thus manageable through conventional economic and political means (Beck et al., 2017: 1064).

An example of how IR scholars have drawn on this STS attention to problem/solution framings, is Abdelnour and Saeed’s analysis of ‘the stove’ in which they show how ‘the stove’ helps render particular aspects of a far more complex problem ‘solvable’, thus overlooking crucial dimensions such as rape, which ‘was omitted from concomitant understandings of “the problem” implied in considering stoves as solutions’ (Abdelnour and Saeed, 2014). Drawing on these insights in an analysis of BVR in Africa, one important question becomes: what dimension(s) of the problem of democracy are omitted as BVR is constituted as a ‘solution’?

With reference to Winner (1986), Jasanoff notes how ‘technology in these terms is a “solution” to political order in the sense that it sustains particular structures of established power’ (Jasanoff, 2004a: 31). Indeed, Jasanoff highlights how ‘complex technological systems … may embody or necessitate opaque and illiberal forms of political organization’ (Jasanoff, 2004a: 31). Thus, one question that this approach invites us to pose is: what political order does BVR as a ‘solution’ help sustain? In the STS literature such questions have, again, been highlighted in relation to climate science: In the 1990s ‘concerns about the framing of climate change through global, universalizing metrics were expressed … This controversy concerned the relationship between scientific representations and different visions of appropriate levels of social and economic development’ (Agarwal and Narain, 1991). Bringing this to bear on our analysis of BVR, the following questions will guide the exploration of the donor-supported turn to BVR in African elections: What specific framing of the problem emerges from the production of BVR as ‘solution’, and what is left out (when looking at the local context in Kenya)? What global power structures does the constitution of BVR as ‘solution’ help sustain?

Linking STS insights and intervention debates: the politics of intervention technology

To further develop an analytical lens through which to explore the politics of BVR in contemporary democracy-promoting interventions, the article also draws on Foucault’s account of a sovereign power’s search for new techniques of punishment, in response to growing opposition to existing techniques.⁴ In his detailed history of the prison, Foucault illustrates how, when confronted with protests against public executions, as they proliferated in the second half of the 18th century (Foucault, 1975: 73), the response of the sovereign was not to ‘retreat’ from using technologies of punishment as an instrument of power. Rather, the response was to conclude that ‘another form of punishment was needed’ to resolve the crisis of the current economy of punishment (Foucault, 1975: 75). Having meticulously detailed various adjustment efforts aimed at making techniques of punishment ‘be humane’ (Foucault, 1975: 74), Foucault makes a set of observations about the broader context, and notes that this refinement of techniques of punishment formed part of a broader ‘effort to adjust the mechanisms of power’ (Foucault, 1975: 77). In describing these changes and adjustments Foucault exposes a ‘double movement’ whereby punishment lost some of its intensity (the abandonment of public executions) but ‘at the cost of greater intervention’ (Foucault, 1975: 75). What emerged, according to Foucault, was ‘not so much a new respect for the humanity of the condemned, as a tendency towards a more finely tuned justice, a closer penal mapping of the social body’ (Foucault, 1975: 78). Though aimed at making punishment more ‘humane’, Foucault highlights how this ‘rearrangements of the power to punish’ (Foucault, 1975: 80) had a different effect. What emerged was ‘a new “economy” of the power to punish, … capable of operating everywhere, in a continuous way’, and according to modalities that render it ‘more constant and more detailed’ (Foucault, 1975: 80).

Without suggesting that any simple comparison can be made between ‘techniques of punishment’ and techniques of liberal intervention, revisiting Foucault’s account of a sovereign power’s search for new techniques of punishment can however help formulate critical questions, such as whether we are seeing an intensified search for new techniques of intervention in response to the fatigue (Richmond and MacGinty, 2015: 179) and growing opposition that liberal interventionism confronts. Also, considering debates about ‘new materialism’ and the compatibility of insights from Foucault’s scholarship in relation to this (Lemke, 2015), it is important to note that the work of Jasanoff explicitly acknowledges how Foucault’s work has ‘added new depth to flat, triumphalist accounts of scientific progress’ (Jasanoff, 2000: 629). Drawing on the work of Foucault can help highlight not only the politics of technology, but also questions of power and governance, which in turn helps bring the value of STS insights back to the aim of offering a critical analysis of contemporary intervention practices, with specific attention to the role of new technology.

Democracy promotion and BVR in Africa

Biometric registration originates from 19th century’s criminology (Maguire, 2010: 36; Pugliese, 2012). Since then the development of biometrics has accelerated and spread to numerous other fields. Today biometrics is deployed for various purposes including humanitarian relief (Jacobsen, 2017), distribution of social welfare services (Wayman et al., 2005), border control (Epstein, 2007; Frowd, 2018), anti-terror (Amoore, 2006; Baldaccini, 2008) and counter-piracy (Westberg, 2016). Yet, the spread of biometrics in the name of democracy promotion has received fairly limited attention. While BVR is currently used in 28 countries throughout Africa, few scholars have explored the use of BVR in these contexts, with notable exceptions including Makulilo who calls attention to the use of BVR to reboot African democracy (Makulilo, 2017; see also Cheeseman et al., 2018).

As background to the emergence and scope of BVR in Africa, two contextual factors must be noted. First, BVR represents a rather small component of international engagement in Africa, and its significance should therefore not be overstated. Indeed, the turn to BVR does not entirely replace but rather sits within a broader set of democracy promotion instruments – such as the use of ‘aid sanctions’ to promote democracy (Del Biondo, 2011: 660), the tying of foreign aid to political reform (Brown, 2005: 179–180) or the European Union (EU)’s emphasis on political dialogue as an instrument through which to address issues of ‘human rights, democracy and the rule of law’ (Crawford, 2005: 576). Indeed, there are multiple aspects of democracy promotion in Africa, yet the turn to BVR is particularly interesting as an instrument whose significance – judging from the steady increase in the number of African states using BVR – seems to be growing and, moreover, as signalling a different modality of democracy promotion, in which great hope is invested in the ability of technology to resolve complex political challenges. Second, it is important to note that BVR was already introduced in the late 1990s and early 2000s (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), 2017: 2). Back then, biometrics was used to identify and verify voters, on the basis that the use of this technology would result in more credible, accurate and effective election systems (Kumar and Singh, 2013: 193). Subsequently, the rapid expansion and advancement of biometrics brought forth an electronic-based electoral system (Väyrynen, 2012: 170), which is now adopted in many countries. Yet, looking at the geography of BVR, significant regional differences become apparent. While no European state has deployed BVR, approximately half of all states in Africa and Latin America now use biometrics for national elections (International IDEA, 2017: 2).

Biometric voter registration: appeal and assumptions

‘Free and fair’ elections are regarded as being at the very heart of liberal democracy. Accordingly, support for elections has long been an important area of focus for liberal institutions such as the EU and different UN bodies (UNDP, United Nations Democracy Fund and UN Department of Political Affairs). These are all examples of institutions that have offered assistance to countries ‘working to build democratic institutions and improve electoral processes’ (UNDP, 2013). Recently, helping support states to build improved electoral processes has increasingly taken the form of support for BVR. Perceived as an instrument to streamline and improve voter registration, donors highlight various benefits when explaining their support for the implementation of BVR. Some stress that the implementation of BVR will prevent election fraud – mainly in regards to the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ (International IDEA, 2017: 1).⁵ Other expected advantages include efficiency and effectiveness in the electoral process. BVR has been said to reduce both time and resources devoted to voter registration (the most costly element of elections). Against a backdrop of strong narratives to modernize voter registration, international organizations such as the EU, the UNDP and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) have been influential agenda setters in the promotion of BVR as a means of democracy promotion (Piccolino, 2016: 502). With reference to the use of BVR in Sierra Leone, UNDP, for example, stresses how these ‘new procedures contribute to credible elections, high voter turnout in Sierra Leone’ (UNDP, 2017c).⁶ Indeed, UNDP sees biometrics as capable of ‘strengthening the Electoral Cycle’, ‘establishing a reliable electoral roll’ and ‘reducing the likelihood of fraud’ (UNDP, 2017d).

The reduction of fraud, important to the appeal of BVR, is twofold. With respect to voters, biometrics is considered capable of reducing ‘the risk of double registration’ (UNDP, 2017c). The expectation is that fraud is prevented since once a voter has registered his or her fingerprint then that person cannot register (and vote) again without being ‘caught’ by the system. Thereby, BVR is said to boost credibility and accountability of the election. With respect to election results, the expectation is that BVR will offer more credible accounts of votes, reducing issues around rigging of elections results. With reference to these expected benefits, UNDP presents biometrics as important in ensuring the success of elections in countries like Sierra Leone, stressing, for example, how new procedures, including the use of Biometric Voter Registration, contributed not only to ensuring ‘credible elections’ but also a ‘high voter turnout in Sierra Leone’ (UNDP, 2017c).

Not only do such expectations exist within democracy-promoting institutions such as UNDP, they also exist among technology providers,⁷ as well as in various receiving countries. Concerning elections in Niger and Burkina Faso, it has been noted how the use of BVR is ‘viewed by African authorities as a guarantee of social tranquillity’ (UNDEF, 2012a: 17). This further illustrates how various actors in different African contexts frame BVR as capable of ensuring ‘free, fair and credible’ elections, and through this, BVR comes to be framed as a ‘solution’ to fragile election procedures. These expectations are bound up with broader ideas about the link between democracy and security.⁸ It has for example been pointed out how BVR is often presented as capable of boosting the credibility of voting procedures, which, in turn, is expected to reduce the risk of potentially violent disputes over election results. As noted in the case of Chad, ‘biometric technology has frequently been proffered as an effective way to avoid disputes over the voters’ roll and to minimize electoral fraud’ (Debos, 2016). Surely, there is also a broader context within which to situate these expectations. As Kurki points out, in an analysis that also draws on STS insights, ‘donors of democracy support are seeking to be intensely “factual”’ and democracy support is ‘pushed to become’ more rigorous and evidence based (Kurki, 2017: 761). Arguably, this broader tendency lends itself well to a framing of, and focus on, biometrics as a technology capable of delivering facts, rigour and evidence.

To summarize, the appeal of BVR to institutions such as UNDP, adds to a story about how ‘democracy in liberal interventionism’ (Cooper, 2007: 614) is not simply retreating, but taking new forms, and different modalities, for instance, through the use of BVR. To further develop this argument, the article proceeds by taking stock of ‘democracy promotion’ debates and by elaborating on the STS-inspired analytical framework, which structures the rest of the analysis.

On BVR as a new approach to the promotion of liberal democracy

Following the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy seemed the only legitimate way to organize the internal affairs of sovereign states, and undemocratic state structures became a justification for intervention. In countries such as Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia (Von Hippel, 2000), a key objective of liberal interventionism was to establish democratic states. Though much debated and critiqued, the promotion of liberal democracy in the global periphery often took the form of military intervention (Meernik, 1996; Pickering and Peceny, 2006). Adding to debates about the use of military means to promote democracy (De Mesquita and Downs, 2006), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan further intensified criticism of the appropriateness of this approach. Though democracy was not initially the main objective for intervening in Iraq, it became an important part of the justification offered for the continued engagement. These interventions have now become key to what critics refer to as a crisis of liberal interventionism, a ‘crisis of both confidence and credibility’ (Cooper, 2007: 605; see also Jacobsen and Engell, 2018).

The promotion of democracy by interventionist means (Chandler, 2010) has not only occurred through military intervention. We have also seen a favouring of ‘lighter’ approaches, including various ‘parliamentary strengthening programmes’ (e.g. Schuetze, 2018) and the EU’s use of conditionality as a means of promoting liberal democracy (Baracani, 2009; Reinhard, 2010; Schimmelfennig, 2005). Yet, these ‘lighter’ approaches have also been critiqued, for example with reference to their ‘contradictory effects’ (Schuetze, 2018: 237) or as seemingly ‘light-touch approach to aid provision’ (Duffield and Hewitt, 2013: 60) and ‘light footprint’ approaches to counterinsurgency (Moe, 2016: 100). In short, the promotion of liberal democracy by interventionist means – military or ‘lighter’ forms – has come under criticism, and, more generally, the appeal of liberal interventionism seems to have waned. As reasons for this, some have highlighted the lack of results (Gillespie and Whitehead, 2002), others have critiqued the appropriateness of different interventionist development means and models (Abrahamsen, 2004), and others again have highlighted critical double standards (Simes, 2003: 95).⁹ It was with reference to some of these developments, that Cooper noted in 2007 that ‘we may certainly be witnessing a retreat from democracy in liberal interventionism’ (Cooper, 2007).

Yet, retreat from grandiose interventionist projects may not mean retreat from a long-standing desire to influence developments in various African states. So while we may be witnessing an intervention fatigue, there is arguably also reluctance on the part of liberal states to leave it to other actors to shape developments in Africa. On that note, this article explores the turn to BVR as potentially exemplifying a search for new interventionist means and new modalities to achieve familiar aims of democracy promotion. In some cases, biometrics is introduced to register voters, which for example helps eliminate ‘ghost voters’ – as stressed in the case of Zimbabwe (Team Pachedu, 2018).¹⁰ In other contexts, biometrics is also used to verify voters. In Kenya, for example, voters were required, when arriving at their assigned polling stations, ‘to verify their identity by having their fingerprints digitally rescanned and compare with the biometric data stored on the computerised national register’ (Barkan, 2013: 158).¹¹ The point to stress here is that by including BVR in an increasing number of electoral assistance programmes (Gemalto, 2017; UNDP, 2017b), liberal institutions such as UNDP are back in the business of – rather than retreating from – democracy promotion. Indeed, considering the high cost of biometric technology, the increasing use of BVR across Africa is likely to make ‘many new democracies increasingly dependent on international support to run elections’ (Cheeseman et al., 2018: 1404; see also Evrensel, 2010). This issue of donor dependence is one that we shall return to.

Exploring the expectations through which BVR is framed as a solution is only one step in the analysis of solution/problem framings. The other step is to explore what parallel conceptions of the problem it entails to consider BVR a ‘solution’. In what follows, this article suggests that BVR as solution makes it possible to frame ‘democratic election’-problems in Kenya in a manner that makes this challenge seem amenable to ‘resolution’ by the provision of ‘technical’ assistance from external actors such as UNDP. In taking this approach, the analysis offered in this article follows the recent call made by Schuetze and others to shift the discussion of democracy promotion to a more sustained concern with ‘democracy promotion’s constitutive effects’ (2018: 237). In this article, such effects are explored in relation to the introduction of BVR as a new modality of democracy promotion.

The politics of BVR technology: zooming in on Kenya

Challenging the abovementioned expectations, experience with BVR in countries across Africa has highlighted a number of shortcomings and technical failures that may potentially turn into risks. For example, in the case of Kenya, a report published by the United States Institute of Peace stressed how “The failure of the biometric voter registration equipment and electronic voter identification devices presented a huge blow to democratic fervor”, further undermining rather than bolstering “citizen confidence in political parties and leaders” (Elder et al., 2014: 21). In such cases, BVR may in fact have aggravated discontent rather than strengthened the reliability of the voting process – though, of course, challenges around the elections were not simply about registration credibility. Other instances of technical failures have also been reported, not only in Kenya but also in other African states.¹² In Ghana, for example,

the combination of late delivery of materials and the failure of biometric verification machines led the Electoral Commission to announce a second voting day for 412 polling stations, which led to a delay in the declaration of results in the affected constituencies (Coffey, 2013: 22).¹³

And, more generally, an evaluation of ‘electoral support through UNDP’ notes with reference to the use of biometrics how ‘deploying such sophisticated technologies in difficult environments has a high failure rate’ (ICAI, 2012: 13). While attention to such failures is important (we return to this in the section on experimentation), it is also important to explore questions that are not about failures but about the local and global effects that BVR ‘successfully’ produces.

When exploring the influence of BVR on local power politics and global power structure, it also becomes possible to challenge the idea that risks (such as those stemming from failures) can be overcome by ‘perfecting’ the technology. Paying attention to productive effects of the successfully implemented technology renders visible another set of risks, including questions about accessing the newly produced biometric data of entire voting populations. Such attention to potentially ‘risky’ implications of successfully deployed BVR illustrates the significance of the technology by taking seriously the STS point that (a) technology can affect the very framing of socio-political problems, and (b) technology may serve as a ‘solution’ to political order insofar as it sustains specific structures of established power. In the following section both of these dimensions are attended to in an analysis of local power politics and global power structures that the roll-out of BVR in Kenya must be seen in relation to. Not only does this offer insight about the use of BVR in Kenya, it also offers a new perspective on the significance of the roll-out of BVR across Africa, with support from liberal institutions.

Local: framing biometric voter registration as solution

Kenya’s roll-out of BVR since 2009 and more recently in the 2017 election serves as an example of how supporting BVR has come to be seen as a way for liberal institutions to promote democracy in Kenya, and in other African states. But not only from a donor perspective is BVR considered an attractive tool; governments and opposition parties in many African countries also find reasoning in digitalizing elections. For example, during his campaign in the 2017 general election, Uhuru Kenyatta branded himself as a ‘Digital President’ capable of leading the ‘digital generation’ (BBC, 2017). But what conception of ‘the problem’ of Kenyan democracy underwrites this idea of BVR as a solution? With BVR considered a ‘solution’ what is then emphasized about the problem of democratic elections in Kenya is the issue of ‘credible voter registers’ (International IDEA, 2017). In this sense, BVR serves as a technology through which the problem of democratic election processes can be simplified and linked to an actionable solution. Now, by critically exploring two sets of often-overlooked implications of this framing, this section asks what dimensions of the challenge of elections in Kenya are constituted as solvable by the idea of BVR as ‘solution’ and what challenges are left unaddressed.

What democratic challenges are constituted as ‘solvable’ in the BVR solution framing?

In the aftermath of the political violence that emerged around the general election in 2007, and to bring about a more progressive governance setup, BVR was introduced in Kenya in the 2013 election (Kenya Law, 2013). Specifically, BVR was introduced as a solution to problems with inefficacies of manual paper registration and ‘ghost’ voters from former Kenyan elections (ISS, 2012). From this perspective, the ‘solution’ was constituted as a matter of providing a sufficient number of BVR kits, on the assumption that this was key to creating ‘a reliable and secure voter register’ (IMEDIA, 2016), which in turn was expected to ensure a nonviolent and globally accepted election process (IMEDIA, 2016). Through this framing of ‘the problem’ that becomes co-constituted with the idea of BVR as ‘solution’, strengthening Kenyan democracy and electoral processes first and foremost became a matter of trust in technological systems rather than trust in political parties, candidates and so on. However, in the case of Kenya, rather than simply providing a solution, BVR contributed to further contestation and disputes. For example, the opposition claimed that the collapse of the digital system on the day of the election was caused by deliberate sabotage (Ausseill, 2017). Similar accusations of interference and hacking also dominated debates in the 2017 election (Ausseill, 2017; Maina, 2017).¹⁴ Introduced to eliminate fraud and human error, BVR had instead come to be framed as a source of insecurity and undue interference. Rather than boosting credibility, election observers noted how BVR was considered ‘a black box that very few people can look into’ and therefore not a source of trustworthy election results (Ausseill, 2017). Technical failures or not, BVR did not turn out to offer the expected solution to challenges around trustworthy voting procedures – rather heated debate emerged about the reliability of BVR.

Such critical perspective did not only exist among different local actors who were ‘not convinced of the transparency and accountability of these systems’. Scepticism also existed among donors who had supported the 2017 election in Kenya with more than €133m (Leftie and Namunane, 2016). Through UNDP, bilateral donors including USAID, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the EU had worked closely with the Government of Kenya to develop and strengthen electoral management institutions, systems and process in Kenya (UNDP, 2017e). Yet, in an evaluation of its electoral support through UNDP, DFID notes that: ‘deploying such sophisticated technologies in difficult environments has a high failure rate and does not usually represent good value for money’ (DFID, 2012). Making such concerns and debates visible helps illustrate the politics of what is frequently presented as a technical matter, expected to unproblematically enhance democratic accountability.

What challenges are left unaddressed?

In a recent report on the impact of drugs smuggling in Eastern Africa, a critical finding concerns the relationship between ‘an urgent requirement to fund political party campaigning and wider political patronage networks’ (Haysom et al., 2018). With reference to Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa, the report documents how illicit economies that operate in Eastern Africa are closely linked to ‘democratic structures’, for example because financial gains acquired from politicians’ involvements in illicit activities help fund their election campaigns (Haysom et al., 2018). Traffickers and organized criminals have been shown to have connections to key political figures in each of these countries, including Kenya. In return for providing drug smugglers access to ports and protection from interference, political figures are offered financial benefits. Importantly, the report concludes that: ‘heroin and cocaine money has now been used to fund multiple election campaigns’ (Haysom et al., 2018). Put differently, the drugs trade ‘sustains undemocratic political figures and parties’ (ENACT, 2018). Conducting interviews in Kenya to gain insights about local perceptions of the ‘problem’ of democracy and elections, this issue of links between drugs networks and political figures was regularly brought up by interviewees, ordinary voters as well as law enforcement officials. Thus, one aspect of the problem of democracy in Kenya, as experienced by locals and documented by international researchers, is this link between criminal activity and politicians. The framing of BVR as a ‘solution’ is not only oblivious to and unable to address this challenge, but potentially risks furthering it (a) by exacerbating a trend towards expensive elections, and (b) by implicitly ‘okaying’ (or at least not challenging) drugs-funded election campaigns. In other words, insofar as drugs money and bribery are integral to election campaigns, drugs smuggling is linked to democracy in important ways that are, however, omitted from the framing of BVR as a solution. Furthermore, others have argued that the growing use of digital elections technology may actually ‘create significant opportunities for corruption’ (Cheeseman et al., 2018: 1397).

Not only in Kenya but also beyond has it been said that BVR ‘has become a new standard for voter registration in Africa’ (Debos, 2016). Yet, while this ‘drive towards biometrics has been facilitated by its largely apolitical nature’ (International IDEA, 2017: iii), the above analysis challenges this idea of BVR as apolitical, and shows how important concerns related to Kenyan elections remain unaddressed in the ‘technologizing’ of democracy promotion resulting from this framing of BVR as a solution (Abdelnour and Saeed, 2014).

Global: political order and established power structures

One may be surprised that ‘democratization in Africa’ is still unfolding after years of critique (Abrahamsen, 1997; Ayers, 2006, 2009; Brown and Kaiser, 2007; Moss, 1995). However, BVR is not explicitly framed as democracy promotion but rather as the provision of ‘neutral’, technical and procedural assistance, a framing that leaves aside important implications, not only locally but also in terms of global power structures that the use of this technology helps sustain.

Discriminatory technology uses and hierarchical global power structures

For example, to varying degrees, the use of BVR is formulated as an experiment aimed at discovering new knowledge about questions such as ‘What factors influence the performance of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) systems,’¹⁵ or how to overcome ‘barriers to voter registration in Africa’ in the case of Kenya (Harris and Windt, 2017) or ‘elections fraud’ in the case of Ghana (Golden et al., 2014).¹⁶ Other BVR trials, such as the use of BVR for elections in Somaliland, have focused more on determining the relative superiority of one biometric technology (iris scanning) over others (face recognition and fingerprinting) (Bowyer et al., 2015), thus turning electoral processes and voting populations in Somaliland into subject of trials aimed at improving first and foremost technological processes rather than democratic processes. As Piccolino also notes in her analysis of biometrics in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire as a possible solution to electoral irregularities: ‘A number of solutions have been experimented with in recent years, particularly the introduction of computerized biometrics’ (Piccolino, 2016: 499). Thus, when paying attention to these aspects of the use of BVR in Africa, it becomes possible to appreciate how the roll-out of this technology partakes in producing ‘particular structures of established power’ (Jasanoff, 2004a: 31), namely a particular hierarchical power structure, where certain democracies and voting populations are exposed to risks from electronic voting processes in general and experimental uses of BVR in particular. Indeed, the notion of co-productionist demands that we take seriously the ability of agentic technology to influence ‘social norms and hierarchies’ (Jasanoff, 2004b: 2). Put differently, discriminatory power structures are constituted in the process of ‘making’ African democracies a test-ground for the trialling of technology which is currently not being rolled out in any western democracies (notably not in the midst of concerns about foreign powers’ meddling in domestic election processes).

Much more could indeed be said about the implications of the experimental nature of technologies such as biometrics, often supported by liberal institutions in the name of aiding democracy. Indeed, the testing of BVR is arguably not only about testing a new technology. Importantly, it is also about trialling a new and ‘lighter’ approach to the promotion of liberal democracy abroad. Indeed, an intervention fatigue (expressed, for example, in President Trump’s withdrawal policy), combined with a reluctance to leave room for other external actors to increase their influence on developments across the continent, are some of the drivers that help account for this push for new and ‘lighter’ approaches to liberal democracy promotion. In addition, increased competition by other intervention actors (e.g. China) has buttressed the need to develop forms of intervention and democracy promotion that are more acceptable to African policymakers – as seen for example in the above analysis of African governments’ acceptance of ‘digital’ assistance. To appreciate this point about the trialling of new, lighter and more technical approaches to intervention, it is useful to combine STS insights with Foucault’s point about adjustment of technologies of power. In other words, an analysis of BVR must consider how the roll-out of this new technology in an increasing number of African states forms part of contemporary liberal interventionism’s search for new interventionary means.

Put differently, the experimental use of BVR to promote liberal democracy in Africa illustrates Jasanoff’s point that an analysis of ‘the political of technology’ must also explore the global dimensions, including how, in this case BVR, ‘may embody or necessitate opaque and illiberal forms’ (2004a: 31), here the production of experimental sites, alongside a production of modern statehood on behalf of western development agencies. In this way, the use of BVR in Kenya also becomes exemplary of how not only biometrics itself was at stake, but so too was its function as a global governance instrument. Rather than a retreat from liberal interventionism and democracy promotion we are seeing a new wave of experiments with ‘adjusted’ technologies of intervention. As such, not only does interventionism continue, but so too does a long history of experimentation including ‘Democratic Experiments in Africa’ (see for example Bratton and van de Walle, 1997). Indeed, the trialling of BVR arguably contributes to the making of global power structures with discriminatory categories of states, with some states exposed to and other states increasingly concerned to protect themselves from ‘interference in elections’. Also at the level of populations, or rather ‘voters’, the roll-out of BVR produces an African voter population that is more vulnerable and exposed in terms of visibility and ‘accessibility’ to interference. With BVR, those who decide to vote are, when registering their fingerprint or iris pattern, made, at least in technical terms, ‘accessible’ insofar as the biometric data being collected and stored can potentially be shared (or leaked, or hacked). Indeed, the use of BVR as a ‘solution’ may in fact contribute to the production of global power structures where some populations are made more vulnerable to such ‘risks’ than others. As noted by Makulilo (2017: 198) in his analysis of BVR in Africa, ‘the nexus between elections and technology poses challenges on protection of personal information’. What this means is that implied in liberal interventionism’s response to critique and search for new interventionary means is a hierarchical global power structure that, for example, constitutes some states as legitimate ‘sites’ for the trialling of new intervention technology. These technologies, paradoxically, are presented not only as capable of ensuring ‘free, fair and credible’ democratic elections, but also as both non-political and without mentioning this inbuilt discriminatory dimension.

Governance ‘light’ through new means of liberal democracy promotion?

Through an analysis of the roll-out of BVR across Africa, this article has argued that the role of this new technology represents the contours of a new approach to liberal democracy promotion in Africa. This argument not only challenges the idea that the promotion of ‘democracy’ in liberal interventionism across Africa seems to be retreating. It also illustrates the importance of paying attention to these more technical aspects of contemporary interventionism from a perspective that allows us to bring out the politics of technology – only then to appreciate the various implications of introducing BVR as a means of ‘liberal democracy promotion’. Indeed, with careful attention to the local and global effects of BVR, neither does the promotion of ‘democracy’ seem to be retreating, nor does the use of BVR seem particularly ‘light’. For as the analysis shows, with the turn to BVR among institutions involved in democracy promotion across Africa, a number of important effects on local and global power dynamics require more attention. One is the risk of leaving unaddressed crucial dimensions of the problem of democratic elections in Kenya, at the risk of also ‘okaying’ the dimensions to which one thus turns a blind eye. Another is the risk of perpetuating a double standard such as the difference in discourses and principles for how BVR is used in African contexts versus in ‘the West’.

A third risk is that of creating new forms of dependence at the global level; dependence on expensive technology, providers thereof and institutions (e.g. UNDP and the EU) willing to provide funding for this particular kind of assistance (Cheeseman et al., 2018). In response to such criticism, UNDP has defined a new role for itself as ‘facilitator’ in a process where one country ‘borrows’ BVR kit from another:

UNDP has made significant efforts to promote greater South-South and regional co-operation with respect to hardware, software and the technical expertise necessary for ICT in electoral processes. For example, UNDP helped organize a loan to Togo of biometric registration kits in 2007 from the DRC (UNDP, 2013: 22).

While this may lessen – though not do away with – the risk of technology dependence, it creates a dependence on UNDP in this new role.

Adding to this are questions about the vulnerabilities emerging as a result of the reliance on BVR or from the production of sensitive biometric data of entire voting populations across Africa. Questions that seem to call for further attention are for example whether external powers could have an interest in trying to manipulate electronic voting processes and/or gain access to the newly generated biometric voting registers – and if so, for what purposes and with what consequences for African democracies and population safety? The analysis offered above as well as these additional questions all help illustrate how the kinds of questions raised as institutions of liberal democracy turn to biometrics as a new approach to democracy promotion are not just about whether the West should be intervening, but also whether the West is intervening in an appropriate manner, considering the kinds of risks that the use of BVR may introduce. Indeed, the exploration of BVR presented in this article merely calls attention to some of the questions that this development gives rise to. Examples of further avenues of research include analyses of the role of technology companies, unintended consequences such as ‘BVR kits’ being stolen by al-Shabaab (Muthuri et al., 2018: 4), and analyses that in greater detail shed light on questions of local agency, including resistance to as well as espousal of BVR by different actors confronted with this technology at the local level.‘’’’

Crucially, including such global dimensions, and the kinds of security concerns that have now occasioned a roll-back of electronic voting systems in the US, sheds lights on another important issue, namely the introduction of new risks. Insofar as BVR renders countries in Africa open to interference in their elections, in ways that they were not exposed to before, and in ways that western states are increasingly protecting themselves from, there is a risk that the result of this roll-out of BVR in a significant number of African states, may contribute to introducing new risks – rather than simply the stated aim of boosting democracy and stability. Far more attention should be paid to questions such as: how does the promotion of digitalized democracy in contemporary liberal interventionism risk creating new insecurities? Yet, this question risks remaining overlooked when democracy promotion is regarded as being in retreat. Rather, as shown in this article, it seems that for agencies such as UNDP the ambition to consolidate liberal democracies in Africa has not diminished, yet the effectuation of this objective has changed and taken a more subtle and indirect character. As argued in this article, drawing on STS insights when framing analyses of the role of new technology in global politics can help unpack the significance of these largely depoliticized forms of democracy promotion, and help us appreciate the turn to BVR as indicative of the emergence of new forms of intervention.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

ORCID iD

Katja Lindskov Jacobsen

Author biography

Katja Lindskov Jacobsen is Senior Researcher at the University of Copenhagen, in the Department of Political Science, Centre for Military Studies. Her research looks at a broad range of intervention practices, from capacity building to coalition warfare - often with a particular interest in the role of new technology.

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