Abstract
Why Elections Fail is the second volume in a trilogy, arising from a study of electoral integrity around the world. While the first book set out the concept of ‘electoral integrity’ and examined electoral malpractice, this one turns to the ‘deep drivers’ of structure, institutions and international factors to explain patterns of electoral quality around the globe.
Its approach and methods are signature Pippa Norris. She confronts big questions at the forefront of political inquiry, which often, and in this case certainly, have relevance to political practice. Beneath the quest for explanation, there is a clear underlying motivation to secure confidence in elections as essential, if insufficient, components of democracy. Given the rise of new democracies – the numbers have tripled worldwide from 39 in 1974 to more than 120 by 2015 – this is a timely effort. Moreover, older established democracies are not immune to problems of electoral integrity, most notably the United States, which Norris ranks as 32nd out of the 97 countries that held national elections between 2012 and the end of 2014. Thus, the land of the free stands roughly between Micronesia and Mexico in terms of electoral quality.
Typically, also for Norris, the book provides masses of valuable data. The original data in this book come from a rolling survey of electoral experts covering each of the 97 countries, supplemented by a battery of public opinion questions in the World Values Survey. The expert survey method enables evaluation not just of malpractice and flaws at the polls but of the entire electoral cycle, from election law, district boundaries, voter registration, campaign media, money and election administration right up to the voting and counting processes. Data are compiled for each of the cycle’s 11 components, and this in itself is a hugely important contribution, enabling evaluation of a country’s electoral quality as a whole and also at individual component levels. It is used to create an index that ranks each country into high, moderate and low levels of integrity. It will be no surprise that Norway tops the table nor that northern and western European countries fare well, but among those also ranking highly are Costa Rica, Slovenia, Slovakia, Tunisia and Brazil. Bottom of the pile comes Equatorial Guinea, while Belarus, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Congo, Syria and Djibouti are other notable backmarkers.
A Norris book is virtually guaranteed to be an accessible read and Why Elections Fail is clearly intended for a broad audience beyond the academy. From the outset, her 6-year Electoral Integrity Project has sought to build bridges with policymakers and practitioners in the field. The core concept ‘electoral integrity’ stems from Kofi Annan’s initiative to support democratization in countries wracked by political instability. Electoral integrity, as defined by Norris, ‘refers to contests respecting international standards and global norms governing the appropriate conduct of elections’ (p. 4): that is, standards that have been endorsed repeatedly by conventions, treaties and protocols of the international community.
Integrity is interrogated through three levels of plausible explanatory theory: structural, including wealth, measured by per capita gross domestic product (GDP), geographic size, religion and ethnic heterogeneity; international forces, including cross-border information flows (‘cosmopolitan communications’), regional contagion effects and the impact of direct international interventions through aid, technical assistance and monitoring missions; and, institutional, including electoral systems, election administration bodies and the judiciary.
Ultimately, the findings spring few surprises but are nonetheless important, often providing confirmatory evidence for existing theory. Norris finds a strong correlation between power-sharing arrangements (including proportional representation and strong parliaments) free media and high electoral integrity. Many, maybe most, political scientists have long championed the virtues of proportional representation (PR), but what is new here is the direct link between PR and electoral quality. Similarly, sociological theory often highlights economic development as the key factor in democratic transitions. Norris’ analysis confirms a compelling link between wealth and electoral quality. Wealth was clearly a stronger predictor than other structural factors such as physical size, ethnic differences or colonial legacy. However, she argues, this is a ‘stepped shift’; electoral quality is strengthened once a minimum threshold is reached (approximately, US$15,000 per capita).
There are a few minor surprises. Norris challenges the conventional wisdom that electoral quality is likely to be higher if administration agencies are completely independent from government. The formal-legal structure turns out to be far less important than government competence and the impartiality of public servants. Disappointingly for Norris, the data do not produce any significant correlation between international interventions and electoral quality. It is a conclusion Norris seems reluctant to accept, arguing that the qualitative methods and field experiments planned for the third book are more likely to give definitive answers than the ‘broad brush’ aggregate data of Why Elections Fail. Cosmopolitan communications, however, were positively linked to higher standards. Relatively, free flows of information and trade, and membership of multilateral organisations ‘spreads global norms and international standards of electoral integrity’ (p. 167).
Overall, the Elections Integrity Project, of which this book is a product, is an impressively energetic programme that, ultimately, will provide data covering national parliamentary and presidential elections in about 160 countries. It will be a hugely important resource and provide benchmark data for research in the field. It is certain to provoke considerable interest for students of comparative politics and democratisation as well as policy-making and practice communities.
Having said that, there is something of a ‘middle of the project’ feel to Why Elections Fail. It was obviously necessary to repeat some introductory material of the first volume (Why Electoral Integrity Matters, Cambridge, 2014), while the concluding chapter has a distinct air of work-in-progress. It lacks the memorable lines of Norris at her provocative best. Instead, we are told that there is ‘no magic bullet’ to explain failure nor any ‘off-the-peg’ solutions (p. 171) to mitigate problems; rather ‘countries are most likely to demonstrate electoral integrity if they combine state capacity (allowing public officials to deliver effective services) with the broader institutional checks … derived from power-sharing arrangements’.
Reviewers are apt to apply three basic tests: Does this piece of work pass the memory test? Is it useful for teaching? And, does it advance the research agenda? Normally, Norris’ prolific output sails through all three. This book passes but with caveats. It is obviously highly teachable for comparative politics and democratisation studies, but it is harder to see its place in political communication courses. The general points about the importance of free media and cosmopolitan communications echo her previous work, where they are made at greater length and in punchier style. There is no patchouli in this one.
Although, it analyses all countries holding elections in the 2012–2014 period, it is clearly most relevant for younger and emerging democracies. Malpractice is fairly a minor problem in older democracies compared to the crises of participation and trust, and the threats from the extremes. Moreover, even if free media are generally beneficial for electoral integrity, this is not likely to end debates about press inadequacies and a crisis of public communication. Finally, it is not abundantly clear that the book ever explicitly states at what point elections are deemed to have failed. The country index is a valuable guide to the big picture, but practitioners and monitors will want to know, given that there is no such thing as perfect election, by what criteria and at what threshold can one say, ‘this is good enough’.
Given the ambition and huge global scope of the project, these criticisms are fairly minor. It is an important book, and it is a good bet that if you read this one, you will want the final instalment when it is published next year.