Suchergebnisse

Many nondemocracies hold multiparty elections while also adopting institutions of de jure judicial independence; yet there is debate over how nondemocratic courts can affect election integrity. This paper argues that increased de jure independence creates incentives for opposition recourse to the courts, which reduces election fraud due to greater legal exposure for election-manipulating agents and the ruling party. However, this effect occurs only when competition is low and the ruling party has limited incentive to intervene. These predictions are distinct from those of prior work, and they are supported by an analysis of cross-national election-year data from 1945 to 2014. Preprocessing techniques are used to reduce concerns about endogeneity and confounding. The results show that principal-agent dynamics can occur in manipulated elections even when incumbents remain in office, challenge the centrality of protest risk as a deterrent to manipulation, and offer a framework for predicting when de jure reforms translate to behavioral independence.

AbstractThe risk of popular protest is one of the few deterrents against election manipulation in authoritarian regimes and unconsolidated democracies, but why are some fraudulent elections met with popular protest while others are not? We use data from elections in 108 countries, from 1980 to 2004, to show that the regime's choice of election manipulation tactics affects the likelihood of post-election protest. Leaders signal their strength and resources by manipulating elections, but some manipulation tactics send stronger signals than others. We find that opposition groups are more likely to protest when relatively cheap administrative fraud is employed, but not when more costly forms of manipulation – extra-legal mobilization and voter intimidation – are used. This study demonstrates the importance of accounting for variation in electoral manipulation tactics, and the information communicated by those tactics, in explaining post-election protest and the stability of electoral authoritarian and newly democratic regimes.

"Cross-Strait Relations Since 2016: The End of the Illusion examines the situation in the Taiwan Strait since the election of Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party in the January 2016 general elections. Tracking the pragmatic approach taken by the Tsai administration, this book positions the recent developments within a changing geopolitical context and analyzes Beijing's reactions to an environment which has become increasingly skeptical of its intentions. It shows that despite President Tsai's commitment to the "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait and pro-democracy policies, which have been well received by the international community, Xi Jinping continues to advocate for a unification policy which remains very unpopular in Taiwan. With in-depth, on-the-ground analysis based on access to various government actors in Taiwan and abroad, the author takes a deep dive into a highly complex relationship that is often misunderstood abroad, with stakes that have direct implications for the future stability of the Indo-Pacific region. The first English language book to provide a full assessment of the four years of DPP rule since 2016, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Asian Studies and Taiwan Studies, as well as Security Studies, Politics and International Relations"--