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Cheating Incumbents, International Observers, and Election Boycotts:

Evidence of the Second Image Reversed after the Cold War

Emily Beaulieu

University of California, San [email protected]

Susan D. Hyde

University of California, San [email protected]

Prepared for delivery at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science

Association, April 7-10, 2005.

mailto:[email protected]







Abstract

International efforts to promote democracy have unanticipated and sometimes perverse

effects. We argue that western foreign aid donors’ decision to make aid dependent on minimally

fair elections, certified by international observers, sparked a wave of discreet election-rigging in

the developing world. This wave, in turn, had an interesting effect on opposition party behavior.

Over the course of the 1990s, as incumbents wishing to retain power and maximize foreign aid

improved types of electoral manipulation to make them less likely to be detected by international

monitors, opposition parties attempted to expose this prudent manipulation by boycotting more

often when international observers were present. We support these hypotheses with data on the

secular increases in the rate of election boycotts and internationally observed elections. We also

examine aspects of the relationship between the two phenomena, which serve to further

demonstrate the rise in prudent manipulation, from 1990-2000.

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Introduction

Politicians everywhere want to stay in power. In the developing world, many political

leaders also want to maximize foreign aid receipts. Since the end of the Cold War, such aid

comes almost exclusively from western democracies. These donors have made it clear that they

prefer giving aid to governments elected in free and fair elections, certified as such by teams of

international election observers (Geisler 1993, 613; Huntington 1991, 8).

What's an aid-hungry autocrat to do, given western donors' insistence on internationally

legitimate elections? The obvious answer is to invite the monitors to observe the election and rig

the outcome in a way that will not provoke a negative report from international observers. As

politicians in the developed world demonstrated long ago, there are many less obvious ways to

stack the electoral deck, including malapportionment, gerrymandering, ballot restrictions, and

asymmetric access to mass media, to mention but a few. Although high-quality missions deploy

long-term observers that witness the entire electoral process, international election observers are

best equipped to document and expose the most obvious forms of electoral unfairness, such as

the intimidation of voters, violence against political opponents, ballot-box stuffing, and the like.

Our thesis is that making aid conditional on minimally fair elections has sparked a renaissance of

election-rigging artistry in the developing world. i

Although observers include all irregularities in their reports, more subtle forms of

electoral manipulation do not provoke the same level of international attention and foreign aid

withdrawal as blatant electoral fraud. For example, in a number of elections, observers have

documented and reported incumbent use of state resources for campaigning and the limitation of

television-time for opposition candidates. Although this makes it nearly impossible for

opposition candidates to compete on a level playing field, these types of incumbent-sponsored

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electoral manipulations have rarely drawn international fire, nor provoked significant withdrawal

of foreign aid. When the manipulation is indirect, it is difficult for monitors to be certain that

observed irregularities are intentional, that they affected the outcome, or that they are harmful

enough to democracy to require censure.

Although observers may hesitate when evaluating subtle forms of electoral manipulation,

opposition parties have no incentive to hold back. If they believe the incumbent will rig the

election in such a way that observers are unlikely to acknowledge, the benefits of boycotting the

election increase dramatically. Subtle forms of electoral manipulation in the presence of

international observers make it less likely that opposition parties will win, and more likely that

an election will be viewed as legitimate, stripping validity from opposition complaints of election

rigging. Thus, the wave of concealed electoral manipulation stimulated by international

democracy promotion has brought with it an increase in opposition party election boycotts.

To substantiate this argument, we look at several macro trends that have played out in the

1990s: a secular increase in the proportion of elections that are monitored; a secular increase in

the proportion of elections that are boycotted; and a secular increase in the correlation between

monitoring and boycotting. We shall explain why, on the hypothesis that incumbents have

become more skilled at indirect election manipulation, these very prominent trends make sense.

[FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE]

The paper proceeds in three sections. First, we discuss why foreign aid donors

increasingly focused on democratization in the 1990s, and give a brief background of

international election observation and election boycotts. Second, we examine the relationship

between international election observers and election boycotts, showing empirical evidence that

observers increase the probability of a boycott. Finally, we introduce “prudent manipulation” of

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elections as the explanation for the initially puzzling finding concerning boycotts and monitors.

We provide empirical tests to substantiate our claims, and consider alternative hypotheses.

Post-Cold War Trends

The Link between Elections and Foreign Aid

The end of the Cold War brought about marked change in the substance of international

pressure on domestic political institutions, particularly in countries that were neither fully

democratic nor fully autocratic. During the Cold War, the intense ideological polarization

between the USSR and the United States allowed developing countries to choose between two

broadly defined political regimes, or play one off against the other in the hopes of attracting the

maximum amount of international aid. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the language of donors

pivoted toward democracy with an emphasis on government accountability through elections.

Bilateral donors and multilateral lending institutions began to apply pressure on countries to

develop “good” institutions.

Post-Cold War democracy promotion might better be described as a push for electoral

democracy. What it actually means for a country to be democratic is very much a matter of

debate, and aside from holding a string of free and fair elections, there is little agreement on what

a country must do to become a consolidated democracy.ii Although multiparty elections are not

sufficient in themselves to create a democratic regime, they are one of the few widely recognized

necessary conditions for democracy. Every healthy democracy has free and fair multiparty

elections at its foundation. For this reason, elections have become the focal point for

international audiences interested in promoting democratization as well as for domestic political

groups jockeying for increased power in a context of fluctuating institutions (Schedler 2002a).

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The myopic push for January 2005 elections in Iraq following the US-led invasion is an example

of the degree to which international actors have accepted that legitimate elections are a necessary

first step toward democratization.

Thus, in a “second image reversed” fashion (Gourevitch 1978) the end of the Cold War

changed the focus of foreign aid donors and, in turn, the motivations of aid recipients, providing

a good example of how change in the international system can affect domestic politics. Many

countries wanted to prove they were holding free and fair elections and formally adopted other

democratic processes as signals that they were willing to democratize. Leaders of other states

were wary of opening their political process, and cleverly cultivated the image of a

democratizing country while maintaining their hold on power. As with every law seeking to

regulate human behavior, delinquents find ways of evading the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.

Schedler (2002b) makes the point that many such countries are better described as electoral

autocracies.iii Electoral autocracies “…neither practice democracy nor resort regularly to naked

repression. By organizing periodic elections they try to obtain at least a semblance of democratic

legitimacy, hoping to satisfy external as well as internal actors.” (Schedler 2002b, 36)

Therefore, international pressure to democratize has produced more electoral autocracies, or

countries that pretend to democratize in order to curry the favor of the international community.

This development is closely associated with the proliferation of international election

observation.

The Election Observation Trend

International election observation began in the late 1970s as a way for incumbent leaders

to demonstrate their commitment to holding free and fair elections. Since then, and particularly

since the end of the Cold War, the practice of international election monitoring has burgeoned

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throughout the world. By the mid-1990s, inviting international election observers had become a

necessary condition for any non-consolidated democracy wishing to have an internationally

legitimate election.

Why did this trend develop even though it is costly to many incumbents? Although all

leaders wish to maintain power, other factors can surpass this desire. Some leaders are truly

committed to leading their country toward democracy and are willing to accept the

“institutionalized uncertainty” (Przeworski 1991) of free and fair elections. They wish to be

recognized and rewarded for their commitment to democracy by the international community. In

the late 1980s, true-democrats began signaling their type to international audiences by inviting

non-partisan international observers to validate the legitimacy of their elections. Another type of

incumbent leader is intent on imitating the actions of the true-democrats in order to reap the

benefits of appearing to be a democratizing country without actually risking their hold on power.

Soon after election observation began, pseudo-democrats recognized that if they did not also

invite observers, they signaled their type with certainty. Therefore, they preferred to invite

observers and risk being caught rather than having no chance of being recognized as a

democratizing country.

The decision by an incumbent leader to invite international election observers is

determined by the size of the benefits, primarily in foreign aid, associated with holding

internationally certified elections (Hyde 2004), and the potential costs of having observers

present. If an incumbent is already committed to free and fair elections, there is little to risk and

much to be gained by inviting observers. The decision to invite observers and cheat depends on

the incumbent’s perception of the chances of winning and the probability that the observers will

discover and punish cheating. Pseudo-democrats are willing to gamble with the chances that

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they will be uncovered and exposed as cheats if this risk is likely to have international payoffs.

The fact that they can ensure their victory in the election ex ante, and still maintain a high

probability that the observers will not punish the electoral manipulation, makes these cheating

incumbents more likely to invite international observers.

The Boycott Trend

Over the course of the 1990s, election boycotts have occurred primarily in the developing

world, with the exception of two elections in Spain. Opposition parties initiated boycotts in

South and Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Boycotts technically

occur on election day. Although they are always called for after the incumbent has announced

an election, the specific timing of a boycott announcement varies from case to case. In some

instances, boycotts are advocated well before the election occurs, iv but in other cases boycotts are

called shortly before the election.v In either of these instances, parties may initially call for a

boycott and later decide to participate,vi but here we are concerned with actual boycotts, rather

than threats.

From existing news reports and the small body of work to date on political party

boycotts, we know a few pieces of information about the behavior of boycotting political parties.

Boycotting is not an idle activity for political parties. Witnesses of election boycotts report that

there are typically quite active campaigns in support of boycotting. In Zambia in 1996, for

example, UNIP engaged in an active boycott campaign that included buying vote cards to

prevent their use by registered voters on election day, and the mobilization of of its youth wing

to intimidate voters and discourage their participation in the election.vii

Parties justify boycotts with reasons ranging from general claims about the unfairness or

illegitimacy of the current electoral process (as in Ghana in 1992) to criticisms of specific laws

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or practices. Opposition parties in Mauritanian elections of 1997 attributed their boycott to the

government’s refusal to establish an independent electoral commission. In the Sudanese elections

of 2000, opposition parties boycotted because the state of emergency that had been imposed in

1999 was not lifted for the elections. For the most part, the reasoning provided by boycotting

parties to explain their actions suggests desire for fundamental reform of the current regime. The

emphasis in academic discussions of boycotts to date takes these explanations at face value, with

little attention to the fact that boycotting parties may have the incentive to misrepresent their

motives.

Similarly, existing academic explanations of election boycotts have focused exclusively

on domestic factors that influence the decisions of opposition parties (see Lindberg 2004,

Beaulieu 2004) with no discussion of an international context. Beaulieu highlights the potential

costs of boycotting that opposition parties face. Such costs include a reduction in representation

or the loss of public finance. When there is less for parties to lose, they are more likely to

boycott (Beaulieu 2004). Consistent across all explanations of boycotts, however, is the role of

unfairness (Bratton 1998, Lindberg 2004). According to Lindberg, opposition parties are less

likely to boycott when elections are free and fair. Beaulieu also finds that parties are more

likely to boycott when the political institutions do not allow fair competition. In addition to

these domestic considerations, we argue that international factors also influence the decision to

boycott.

Observers and Boycotts

Out of all elections in non-consolidated democracies from 1990-2000, 12% were

boycotted by one or more opposition parties. Even though monitors are thought to encourage

free and fair elections, a surprisingly non-trivial number of internationally observed elections in

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the decade were boycotted. Out of all internationally observed elections, 16% experienced an

election boycott, compared with 11% of non-monitored elections (Table 1). This five percent

difference does not appear statistically significant in an uncontrolled comparison; however the

results from a controlled logit regression explaining the occurrence of election boycotts indicate

a significant relationship between boycotts and the presence of monitors (Table 2). In the model

presented in Table 2, in which the domestic-level variables that influence the decision to boycott

are included, the presence of international observers increases the probability that a boycott will

occur.

The magnitude of this effect is demonstrated with results from CLARIFY (Tomz,

Wittenberg, and King 2003). Using the same data and model presented in Table 2, the average

probability of a boycott is 8% when all independent variables are set at their mean.viii All else

held equal, the presence of international observers increases the probability of a boycott by 9%,

plus or minus 7%. Put differently, in an average case the presence of observers more than

doubles the chances that a boycott will occur. However, because the probability of a boycott in

an average election is still less than 50%, this simulation of an average scenario does not predict

a boycott when observers are present.

What is the magnitude of the effect of international observers when domestic factors

make an election boycott more likely? In a hypothetical “most-likely” scenario, all independent

variables are set at values that are associated with boycotts. In a country in the Middle East or

North Africa that has a low Polity score (indicating a low level of democracy), a low per-capita

GDP, and low levels of institutional competitiveness, the probability of a boycott is 32%.ix If

international observers are added to this scenario, the probability of a boycott increases by 26%,

plus or minus 20%.x This demonstrates that, at the macro level, if domestic conditions are ripe

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for a boycott, the presence of international observers can push the probability of an opposition

party boycott well over 50%.

[TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]


Finally, Figure 2 shows that the general trend over the decade was for more boycotts to

occur in elections where international observers were invited. In the year 2000, for example,

77% of election boycotts were in elections where monitors were present. Compare this ratio to

1992 where only 37% of election boycotts occurred in the presence of international observers.


These findings demonstrate the opposite relationship between election observers and

boycotts from what one might expect, given current thinking about the role of election monitors.

If international observers are a signal that the election will be objectively evaluated according to

international standards, and are associated with free and fair elections, why would the presence

of election monitors increase the probability of an election boycott?

Unlike the incumbent party, opposition parties do not have any say in whether or not

international election observers are invited, but they do have the ability to influence the reports

that the international observers make. If the opposition believes that significant, but well

concealed, electoral fraud is likely to occur, they can draw attention to this matter by staging a

boycott and potentially costing the incumbent a great deal—both in terms of decreased

international legitimacy as a democratic leader and potentially in terms of reduced foreign aid.

Prudent Manipulation

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As we indicated in the introduction, the international community’s success in motivating

regimes to become more electoral, if not more broadly democratic, has resulted in a renaissance

of electoral rigging artistry. We describe these cheating innovations under the watchful eyes of

international observers as “prudent manipulation.” The prudent nature of this electoral

manipulation should be understood in the Machiavellian sense. For Machiavelli, a prudent ruler

is one who knows when to be good and when not to be good, as required to maintain power. But

most importantly, a prudent ruler knows how to navigate such moral ambiguities while

maintaining, at all times, a superficial appearance of goodness.xi

Similar to The Prince, incumbents who are prudent in their compliance with (and

manipulation of) current democratic electoral norms have developed a number of tactics to

ensure their success while maintaining the appearance of fair electoral competition for the

benefit of the international community. The increase in prudent manipulation explains the

concurrent increase in monitored elections and election boycotts.

Prudent Manipulation in the 1990s: Increase and Effects

The rise in international election observation has triggered an evolving game of strategy

between incumbent politicians and international election observers. Even electoral autocrats

who have no intention of giving up power if they were to lose in a fairly contested election are

motivated to invite international observers. This has become the only way for them to gain the

“semblance of international legitimacy” (Schedler 2002b) that affords them an increased chance

of access to foreign aid. However, the sophistication of international election observation has

increased along with these politically conditioned international benefits. Consequently, in order

to gain the international stamp of approval while avoiding the risk of losing the election, some

incumbents have proven very inventive in manipulating the election results.

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Although it is clear that electoral manipulation occurs, to some extent, in every country

with multiparty elections (Cox and Kousser 1981, Lehoucq and Molina 2002), attempts to

manipulate elections in electoral autocracies exhibit particular characteristics. They are much

more likely to experience election day fraud, voter intimidation, monopolization of the state run

media by the incumbent, and manipulation of voter registration lists, to name a few (Schedler

2002a). The growing practice of international election observation, however, has influenced the

form of electoral manipulation by inadvertently encouraging more prudent manipulation.

Early election observation missions found it nearly impossible to catch any type of

electoral fraud, blatant or concealed. These initial missions consisted primarily of one or two

individuals sent to the capitol city on election day. As the trend of monitoring increased, and

monitors were criticized for failing to catch and sanction fraudulent activity, they responded by

improving their methods. The Organization of American States (OAS) describes the transition

that most election observation organizations underwent in the late 1980s and early 1990s:

OAS activities in the area of electoral observation have evolved from short-termmissions to larger and more systematic programs that focus on entire electoral processes. Prior to 1990, electoral observation missions were generally composedof a few high-level observers… who remained in the country for a short periodduring the actual election…Electoral observation missions since those to Nicaragua (1990) and Haiti (1990-1991) have largely had a broader scope,involving a large number of observers and observing all aspects of the electoral process, including the monitoring of the electoral campaign, the voting process,vote tallying, and verification of results by electoral authorities (OAS).

Increasingly sophisticated election observation has spread across all reputable inter-

governmental and non-state observer groups, and they continue to improve their methods. A

number of innovations in observation techniques have made it more difficult for incumbent

leaders to cheat with impunity. These advances include the parallel vote tabulation, large

delegations of both long and short-term observers (reaching a record of 12,000 international

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observers in the 2004 Ukrainian re-vote), more extensive training of international observers,

formalized standards and questions across missions, and coordination with vast networks of

domestic election observers.

As monitors have increased their vigilance and improved their tactics, cheating

incumbents have been forced to become more and more creative in their methods. Thus, as the

number of monitored elections worldwide increased, prudent manipulation has become more

refined and more widespread. In some measure, the overwhelming increase in monitored

elections has continued as a result of electoral autocrats adopting prudent manipulation. As

incumbents realized that they could invite monitors, guarantee their victory, and still get the

international stamp of approval on their elections, they were even more likely to invite monitors.

Advancements in prudent manipulation soon attracted the attention of international observers. By

the end of the decade, as the following excerpt shows, many observation organizations

recognized prudent manipulation and cautioned its observers and donors to be on alert for it.

Sometimes politicians in power may be tempted to organise manipulated electionsin order to obtain international legitimacy (Togo 1998, Kazakhstan 1999). Careshould be taken if … an EU observation mission could contribute to legitimisingan illegitimate process. (Commission of the European Communities, 2000, 5)

This increase in prudent manipulation and international observation has, in turn, had an

effect on opposition party behavior. Opposition political parties in electoral autocracies are

motivated to find flaws in the incumbent government’s administration of the election, because

they understand that these elections are primarily for show. If incumbents and international

election observers are aware of the potential for prudent electoral manipulation, we can assume

opposition parties are as well. It is also logical to assume that some opposition parties would be

well equipped to expose cheating which might otherwise have been carried out without the

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knowledge of international observers. Therefore, prudent manipulation increases the probability

of a boycott in the following two ways.

First, the expected benefit of participation for opposition parties is reduced if they are

placed at a competitive disadvantage through prudent manipulation on the part of an incumbent.

Not only are they less likely to win representation in a biased election, if the incumbent secures

victory and is legitimized by the international observers, opposition participation will have

furthered the appearance of democratic legitimacy. When opposition parties are presented with

such a “lose-lose” situation, there is an increased incentive for boycotting.

Second, since the option of prudent manipulation increases the chances that electoral

autocrats will invite observers, it also increases the expected benefit of boycotting in absolute

terms. International observers provide an attentive and primed global audience for an opposition

party wishing to expose the incumbent regime as fraudulent. Although voicing its complaints

and participating in the election might cause monitors to take note, this could be perceived as

cheap talk and standard political finger pointing. Opposition complaints, particularly from a

major party, are likely to receive even more attention if they are accompanied by the costly

action of refusal to participate in the election. So, not only does the expectation of prudent

manipulation provide the opposition with less to gain from participating in an election, the

presence of an objective third party also provides opposition parties with a greater opportunity to

have their objections heard by international actors.

An examination of election observer statements following boycotted elections shows that

boycotting parties in the late 1990s could, at the minimum, expect to show up in international

print.1 In the best cases, such as the 2000 election in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,

1 In the early days of election observation, the reports focused on election day. The primary

object of the observers was to determine whether the election result was consistent with the “will

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opposition political parties and international election observers worked together to ensure that

the election was de-legitimized. The international observers were primed to give a negative

report well before election day and had previously been very critical of Milosevic, as the

following excerpt shows.

In previous elections, ethnic-Albanians from Kosovo municipalities haveoverwhelmingly boycotted Serbia and Federal elections, although official resultswere reported fraudulently to indicate a higher level of participation. Clear examples of such fraud were reported by the OSCE/ODIHR Election ObservationMission during the 1997 Serbia presidential re-run elections, concluding that“blatant election fraud” had been committed in Kosovo. For the current elections,some 600,000 ballots have been printed in the Albanian language when theoverwhelming majority of the Kosovo population is likely to boycott the

elections. The possibility cannot be excluded that blatant fraud may be committedagain in the two constituencies, Prokuplje and Vranje, in which Kosovo voters areincluded. (2000 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia OSCE Post-Election Report)

Indeed, as a result of their criticism, the bulk of the planned OSCE short-term observers were

denied visas, and the final report by the election observers was based on “unofficial” election-

day observations, and included a scathing critique of the Yugoslav elections, some of which

of the people”, and their reports tended to gloss over dissent if they believed that the election

was a step in the right direction. The following demonstrates this tendency: “In 1992, The

Carter Center sent an election-monitoring team to Ghana's first democratic presidential election

in more than 30 years. Jerry Rawlings, in power since 1981, won with 58 percent of the vote.

Election monitors in Ghana observed ballot counting, the installation of voting booths and ballot

boxes, the numbering of ballot packs, and post election activities to assess the transparency of

the election. Four hundred Ghanaians were recruited and trained as local monitors. Although

opposition parties protested the results, the observers declared the election free and fair.”

16



focused on the fact that the conditions were so bad that even local governments participated in

the boycott.

The electoral process in Kosovo and Montenegro was organized on ad hoc basis

without basic environment required for a democratic vote. In Montenegro, theGovernment boycotted the elections and regarded the polls as illegitimate. It didnot allow voting in public places in municipalities controlled by the Republic’sgoverning coalition and instructed the State-controlled media not to report on thecampaign (ibid).

Likewise, in the 2000 presidential election in Belarus, the OSCE report condemned the

election and the treatment of opposition groups. The report states that because the Belarusian

government had not made enough progress in the areas identified by the EU, the OSCE, and its

member states, the seven boycotting parties were justified in their non-participation. In addition,

they took pains to document the treatment of the participants in the boycott:

While the Freedom Marches of 1 and 8 October organized by those advocating the boycott passed off without serious incident, a number of activists were charged withvarious offenses, often several days after the marches in question. In total, more than 100advocates of the election boycott were charged under the provision of Article 167(3) of the Administrative Code and other boycott and unauthorized picket-related offenses. Thiscould only have a chilling effect on the campaign environment as a whole (OSCE 2000

Belarus Post-Election Report)

An opposition party is by no means guaranteed favorable treatment by international

observers. If the observers do not find evidence justifying the boycott, or suspect that the

boycotting parties are simply sore losers at the fringe of the political arena, they are liable to

ignore the boycott in the report or discredit it. Therefore, opposition parties must be confident

that the conditions are bad enough to justify non-participation. Furthermore, if the opposition

party expects prudent manipulation, they are more likely to view boycotting as a rational

strategy.

Uncovering Prudent Manipulation

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The following section provides statistical tests to support the hypothesis that prudent

manipulation explains the increase in boycotts of internationally monitored elections. The

challenge with a statistical test of the relationship between prudent manipulation, international

election observation, and party boycotts is that prudent manipulation is rarely observable. By its

very definition, prudent manipulation is difficult to capture and nearly impossible to measure

systematically. But if prudent manipulation does, in fact, exist, and has increased over time as

we assert, the following five premises should hold.

Regarding increases in monitoring and boycotts over time:

P1. The rate of monitored elections should increase throughout the 1990s.

P2. The rate of boycotts in monitored elections should increase throughout the 1990s.

P3. The rate of boycotts in unmonitored elections should remain constant across the decade.

Regarding correlation of errors:

P4. The error terms for explanations of monitor invitation and election boycott should be

positively correlated.

Regarding the effect of monitors on boycotts over time:

P5. The presence of monitors should not affect the probability of a boycott in the early part of

the decade but should have an effect later on.

Empirical evidence

Figures 3 through 5 create a lowess line to capture the uncontrolled trends of monitoring

and boycotts over time.xii Figure 3 shows the general trend of increased election monitoring over

the decade, while Figures 4 and 5 demonstrate the differences between the rate of boycotts in

monitored and unmonitored elections.

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Figures 3 through 5 corroborate our argument. The rate of monitored elections increased

over the 1990s to nearly 70% by the year 2000 (Figure 1). The rate of boycotts in monitored

elections has also increased over the course of the decade, rising from zero in 1990 to

approximately 20% of all monitored elections in 2000 (Figure 2). By contrast, the rate of

boycott in unmonitored elections has hovered near 10% for the entire decade (Figure 3). Clearly,

the relatively static domestic factors cannot explain the increase in boycotted elections over the

course of the 1990s.

Thus, the first three premises regarding the existence and increase of prudent

manipulation obtain. As incumbents have improved means of securing electoral victory without

attracting the attention of monitors, their willingness to invite monitors has increased. Faced

with this increasingly unfair, undetected behavior of incumbents, and the presence of an

international audience, opposition parties are more likely to resort to an election boycott. The

constant rate of boycott in unmonitored elections indicates elections where prudent manipulation

is not at work. In other words, when monitors are not present, incumbents can proceed as usual,

and do not need to be concerned with hiding their un-democratic ways. Under such

circumstances, opposition parties need not consider prudent manipulation in their decision of

whether or not to boycott.



Explanatory variables that are not explicitly modeled in a regression equation are

represented in the regression’s residuals, or error term. Since current explanations of election

boycotts do not explicitly account for prudent manipulation, if the phenomenon is at work, it

19



would appear as part of the error term of the regression model. The same follows for

explanations of monitored elections. If prudent manipulation has an effect on both the rate of

observed elections and election boycotts,xiii then we expect the error terms from models that

explain each of the phenomena to be correlated. Thus, we expect the error terms in a model

explaining the presence of election monitors to be correlated with the error terms from a model

explaining election boycotts, given that neither of these models explicitly accounts for prudent

manipulation. Furthermore, we expect a positive correlation, suggesting that prudent

manipulation increases both the probability of inviting monitors and the probability of an

election boycott.

To test this premise, we compare the regression residuals from two logit regressions,

whose linear components were specified as follows:xiv

1. P(monitors|xi) = 1/(1+e- xi β ) Where

Xi β = Constant + β 1 lagged polity score + β 2 regional rate of monitoring + β 3 interaction term + emonitor

2. P(boycott|xi) = 1/(1+e-xiβ) Where

Xi β = Constant + β 1 polity score + β 2 conditional party finance + β 3 per capita GDP + β 4 opposition seat share + β 5 legislative competitiveness + β 6 executive competitiveness + eboycott

Results from this comparison appear in Table 3.


As Table 3 shows, a pair-wise comparison of the errors for the model explaining

monitoring and the model explaining boycotts reveals a positive, statistically significant

correlation. This suggests our current models are missing some common factor, which

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contributes to both an increase in the probability of monitors being invited, and probability of an

election boycott. We believe this common factor is prudent manipulation.

The fifth and final premise pertains to the relationship between monitors and boycotts

over time. If prudent manipulation has been increasing over time, as we argue, we would expect

the presence of monitors to have a greater effect on the probability of boycott later in the decade,

when prudent manipulation is more prevalent. Table 4 compares two logit models where boycott

is the dependent variable. The explanatory variables for the two models are identical;xv the only

difference between the two models in Table 4 is the time period.


When the data are separated into two different time periods the increasingly pronounced

effects of prudent manipulation can be observed. From 1990-1996,xvi the presence of monitors

does not have a statistically significant effect on the probability of a boycott. From 1997-2000,

however, the presence of monitors has a positive, significant effect on the probability of an

election boycott. All else held at its mean, from 1997 to 2000 the presence of international

observers increases the probability of a boycott from 6% to 16%.xvii In the same hypothetical

“most-likely” case described earlier in the paper,xviii international observers increase the

probability of a boycott by 32%, from 34% to 66%.xix This finding suggests that as the decade

progressed, and prudent manipulation increased, opposition parties were more likely to boycott

in an attempt to expose incumbent duplicity to the international election observers, and avoid

legitimizing what they predicted would be a biased process.

Thus, all five premises hold that we set forth to support our argument that prudent

manipulation explains the concurrent increase in monitoring and boycotts. In order to further

strengthen the internal validity of the claims we have made, we consider alternative explanations.

21



First, we consider the presence of a different unspecified explanatory variable, that of democratic

maturation. Then, we entertain the possibility that the sequence of decision-making among

incumbents and opposition is different from what we have described to see if the potential for a

boycott influences invitation of international observers.

It may be that some other unobserved phenomenon has the same effect on both invitation

of election monitors and instances of election boycotts, and has also been increasing over time,

as we argue prudent manipulation has. Such a variable would produce similar empirical results

to those we have observed in testing our premises. We consider democratic maturation as the

most likely alternative to prudent manipulation. It is plausible that as less democratic countries

liberalized their political systems over the course of the 1990s, they were more likely to invite

monitors, but also more likely to experience “growing pains”, or electoral protests such as

election boycotts.

For this alternative explanation to hold, we expect an increase in democracy to have a

positive effect on the incumbent’s decision to invite monitors, and also a positive effect on the

opposition decision to boycott.xx If Polityxxi scores are used as a proxy for democratic maturation,

this alternative explanation does not hold. Appendix C presents regression results which show

that Polity scores are significantly related to opposition boycotts, but do not have a statistically

significant relationship with the presence of international observers.xxii For a visual comparison,

Table 5 shows average Polity scores by monitored and boycotted elections.

[Table 5 about Here]

This table reflects the same pattern that the regression results describe in Appendix C. The

difference in average Polity score for countries inviting monitors (3.420) and those not inviting

monitors (2.337) is only 1.083, indicating that the level of democracy in these two countries is

22



not vastly different. The difference in mean Polity scores between countries experiencing

boycotts and those with no boycotts is 4.909. This difference is over four times greater than the

difference in mean Polity scores for countries inviting vs. those not inviting monitors. Although

this comparison provides no test of statistical significance, it does show a large observable

distinction in levels of democracy between the two groups of elections.

Furthermore, the mean Polity scores for the elections in which monitors were present and

those elections where monitors were absent are within .57 of the mean Polity score for the entire

sample. This limited evidence shows that although the level of democracy has a large, negative

effect on whether or not a boycott will occur, it does not appear to influence whether monitors

will be invited.

One final observation should be made regarding the relationship between election

boycotts, international observers, and democratic maturation. Out of the four types of elections

separated by whether there were observers or boycotts, the elections with the highest mean Polity

score are those where monitors were invited but no boycott occurred. Conversely, the group of

elections with the lowest average Polity score is the group where monitors were not invited and a

boycott occurred. If democratic maturation were the true lurking variable driving monitors and

boycotts, we would have expected an extreme Polity value to appear where monitors were

invited and boycotts occurred. This evidence allows us support the null hypothesis that the level

of democracy is not responsible for the observed trends of increases in election monitoring and

election boycotts.

The second alternative explanation that we consider suggests a reversed causal arrow

between monitoring and boycotts. It could be the case that given post-Cold War pressure for

free and fair elections, the opposition’s decision to boycott motivates the incumbent to invite

23



monitors, rather than the other way around. If an opposition boycott is a signal of very low

levels of democratization, incumbents who fear boycott might be motivated to invite

international observers in an attempt to mitigate any democratic backsliding or loss of

international credibility they might incur as a result of an opposition boycott. At the same time,

if the international community was increasingly insistent on free and fair elections, opposition

parties would have more of an incentive to boycott elections in order to discredit the incumbent

regime.

If this argument were true, we would expect the original premises 1-4 to hold. The rate

of monitored elections should increase, as incumbents try harder to achieve international

legitimacy in the face of oppositions determined to defame them (P1). An increase in boycotts

should also be accompanied by an increase in monitored elections (P2). Unmonitored elections

with the constant rate of boycott would reflect instances where incumbents did not anticipate the

boycott, or had other concerns that trumped any desire to invite monitors (P3). We would also

expect the error terms for models explaining boycotts and monitors to be correlated, as with P4,

since international pressures would be driving both opposition boycotts and monitor invitations,

though a distinct mechanism from the effects of prudent manipulation.

The final premise (P5) would need to be modified in order to test this alternative

explanation of causality. If it were the case that anticipation of boycotts predicted internationally

observed elections, we would expect that as the decade progressed and observers were being

invited to more elections, boycotts would help us predict whether or not monitors are invited,

particularly later in the decade. A test of this alternative premise shows that boycotts have no

statistically significant effect on the presence of monitors.xxiii Therefore we conclude that

24



incumbent anticipation of an opposition boycott is not the driving force behind the concurrent

increase in election boycotts and internationally observed elections.

Conclusion

This paper has demonstrated one way in which international-level variables affect

electoral politics at the domestic level. Since Peter Gourevitch’s 1978 assertion that “second

image reversed” causal arguments are neglected, and that we should better understand how

domestic politics may be a result of international politics (882), few scholars have empirically

demonstrated this causal mechanism in relation to the global spread of democratization.xxiv As

long as the international community continues to pour money into developing countries with the

intention of improving their political institutions and conditions even greater rewards upon

progress in reforming these institutions, there are likely to be a number of side effects that are

neither intended nor recognized.

This paper has demonstrated two unintended consequences of the international

community’s emphasis on internationally certified elections. For power and aid-hungry

politicians, it has triggered a renaissance in electoral rigging artistry. Second, within non-

consolidated democracies, opposition parties are increasingly likely to boycott when

international observers are present. Because of the increase in prudent manipulation, opposition

parties are more likely to feel that their time is better spent attempting to discredit the incumbent

by boycotting instead of participating in the election.

Discussion

As the excerpt from the Commission of European Communities report (page 14)

demonstrates, international observers are well aware that some incumbents attempt to manipulate

their observations. However, they are in a diplomatically challenging situation. If observers

25



make it clear that they are likely to denounce an election, it can cost them the opportunity to

observe it (as in Zimbabwe in 2002) as well as eliminate any chance they have of being invited

to future elections. On the other hand, if they always overlook unfair practices and announce

that the election was free and fair enough given the level of democratization, their reports are

unlikely to be respected or useful to the organizations that support their missions. Also, they are

unlikely to receive future cooperation from opposition political groups and local pro-democracy

organizations. In the early 1990s several observer groups drew severe criticism from many

corners for “sprinkling holy water on a rigged process” (Beigbeder 1994, Geisler 1993) and

slowing true political liberalization by falsely legitimizing autocrats. With some incumbents

constantly innovating new forms of cheating and opposition parties increasingly feeling their

energy is better spent in electoral protest rather than electoral competition, the future of

democratization through elections may appear bleak.

On the bright side, however, observers have responded to criticism proactively by

improving their methods to the point where it is difficult for an incumbent to get away with any

direct manipulation of the results. Current best practice is to deploy dozens of long-term

observers throughout the country for a minimum of three months up to several years in order to

observe all parts of the electoral process, from the registration of voters to the certification of the

results. In addition, some groups, such as the UN, The Carter Center, and the OSCE refuse to

send delegations of short-term election day observers if they determine prior to the election that

there is no possibility that there will be a competitive process.

Innovations in monitoring technology continue to make it more difficult to bias an

election without being caught. The 2004 Carter Center mission to Indonesia randomly assigned

their teams of international observers to polling stations. This methodologically sound

26



deployment strategy allows the international observers to measure the degree to which observed

irregularities biased the results, and gives them increased confidence that their observations are

representative of the entire process. In addition, the use of random assignment of international

observers undermines some forms of prudent manipulation (specifically any strategy that would

involve targeted manipulation of the voting process where observers were not deployed), and

provides another means by which international observers can catch prudently manipulative

incumbents. Coupled with other innovations of the last fifteen years, it is increasingly difficult

for an incumbent to get away with many forms of election day fraud.

Despite all the improvements in election observation technology and methods, the menu

of possible ways to bias an election remains long. For the time being, election observers and

electoral autocrats will continue trying to outsmart each other, and we therefore predict the

continuation of election boycotts in the presence of international observers. However, the fact

that international observation methods have continued to progress has moved electoral

manipulation away from overt fraud such as ballot box stuffing and intimidation of voters. It is

plausible that less direct methods such as gerrymandering and restrictions on voter registration,

while not desirable, are more compatible with democracy than jailing political opponents or

directly changing the vote totals. International observers have made it very difficult for

incumbents to cheat on election day without consequences, and have given opposition parties a

voice of protest in the international media when their option of political participation is curtailed.

Certainly, the consequences of prudent manipulation for democracy are debatable, but

there should now be no doubt that international pressures are working to shape electoral politics

in developing countries. Greater awareness of the domestic effects of international democracy

promotion is an important first step in understanding how this type of foreign aid should progress

27



if it is to succeed. The process of democratic consolidation is neither linear nor inevitable. If

democratization via electoral democracy is to continue toward democratic consolidation, it will

require careful attention to the dynamics of international intervention in domestic politics.

28



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33



In-Text Tables and Figures

Figure 1: Percentage of all elections in non-consolidated democracies that were boycotted

(dotted line) and percentage of all elections that were internationally observed (dashedline), 1990-2000.

0

2 0

4 0

6 0

8 0

P e r c e n t a g e

1 9 9 0 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 8 2 0 0Y E A R

P e r c e n t

M o n i t o r e d

P e r c e n t

B o y c o t t e d

34



Table 1. Boycotted and Monitored Elections in Non-consolidated democracies (1990-2000)

Monitor?

Boycott? No Yes Total

No 176 155 331

(88.0%)

Yes 23 30 53

(12.0%)

Total 199

(51.8%)

185

(48.2%)

384

Pearson chi2(1) = 1.7488 Pr = 0.186

35



Table 2. Binary Logit: Political Party Election Boycotts (robust standard errors adjusted

for clustering by country)

Independent Variables

MODEL 1(DV: Election

Boycott)

Coefficient Robust SE

Constant -.8731766 (.830127)Internationally Observed ElectionVariable = 1

1.265636** (.4712662)

Democracy Score (Polity2)-10 to 10

-.1783875** (.0438367)

GDP per capita -.3286558* (.5331964)

Easy Conditional Party Finance -.3286558 (.5331964)

Percent Share of seats for opposition party(lagged one year)

.7248089 (.9809243)

Executive Index of Electoral Competitiveness(lagged by one year)

.1433461 (.1493913)

Legislative Index of ElectoralCompetitiveness (lagged by one year)

-.0501969 (.1576406)

N 321

Wald Chi2 (11) 61.43

Prob > chi2 0.0000Log pseudo-likelihood -100.7459Pseudo R2 0.2362

**p<.01, two tailed z-test*p<.05, two-tailed z-test

Regional Control Variables included, but not reported.

36



Figure 2. Percentage of Boycotted Elections that were Internationally Observed

(1988-2000)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

Year

P e r c e n t a g e

37



Figure 3. Annual Rate of Monitored Elections (1990-2000)

. 2

. 3

. 4

. 5

. 6

. 7

% m

o n i t o r e d e l e c t i o n s b y y e a r

1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

YEAR

bandwidth = .8

Lowess smoother

38



Figure 4. Annual Rate of Election Boycott for Monitored Elections (1990-2000)

0

. 1

. 2

. 3

% b

o y c o t t e d e l e c t i o n s b y y e a r

1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

YEAR

bandwidth = .8

Lowess smoother

39



Figure 5. Annual Rate of Election Boycotts for Unmonitored Elections (1990-2000)

0

. 0 5

. 1

. 1 5

. 2

% b

o y c o t t e d e l e c t i o n s b y y e a r

1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

YEAR

bandwidth = .8

Lowess smoother

40



Table 3. Correlation between Errors from models explaining Monitors and Boycotts

Monitor Residuals

(emonitor )

Boycott Residuals

(e boycott)Monitor Residuals

(emonitor)

R = 1.00

Boycott Residuals

(eboycott)

R = .2104** R = 1.00

** p<.01

41



Table 4. Logit Regression Results explaining Boycotts in two Different Time Periods

DV = Boycott


1990-1996

Coefficient(Robust Standard Error)

1997-2000

Coefficient(Robust Standard Error)

Constant .0071528

(1.196368)

-1.083936

(1.63188)

Internationally Observed ElectionVariable = 1

.7356316 (.5894488)

1.960744*(.8430287)

Democracy Score (Polity)-10 to 10

-.1098846*(.0536706)

-.3041524**(.0756959)

GDP per capita -.000164(.0000889)

-.0001901(.0001501)

Easy Conditional Party Finance -.7128763(.8657381)

-.3554652(.723078)

% Share of seats for opposition party (lagged one year)

4.747929*(2.227857)

-1.460966 (1.66749)

Executive Index of ElectoralCompetitiveness (lagged by oneyear)

.1082015

(.2064819)

.0862353

(.2388249)

Legislative Index of ElectoralCompetitiveness (lagged by oneyear)

-.1869806 (.2101362)

.0549772(.1986322)

N 146 129

Wald Chi2(11) 29.64 39.18

p>Chi2 0.0010 0.0000

Log pseudo-liklihood -55.374845 -35.155133

Pseudo R2 0.1716 0.3866

* p < .05, two-tailed z test

** p < .01, two-tailed z test Regional control variables are included in both models, but not reported.

42



Table 5. Comparison of Mean Polity Scores by Boycotts and Presence of International

Observers

Overall:

2.854167

Boycott:

-1.377358

No Boycott:

3.531722No Invite:2.336683

-2.956522 3.028409

Invite:3.410811 -.1666667 4.103226

43



Appendix A. Summary Statistics

Summary Statistics of Variables from Tables 2 & 4

Variable

Name

N Mean

(Standard

Deviation)

Min. Max.

Boycott 384 .1197917(.3251414)

0 1

Monitor 384 .4817708(.5003195)

0 1

Polity 384 2.854167(5.818812)

-9 10

GDP per capita 384 4671.885(4134.471)

433.6 26755.9

Pct opposition

lagged

384 .2423104

(.2306902)

0 .9264706

EIEC 362 5.471074(1.975993)

1 7

LIEC 363 5.791436(1.807191)

1 7

Easy CPF 384 .3255208(.4691804)

0 1

Appendix B: Data Appendix for Model 1.

Operationalization of Dependent Variable

The dependent variable (boycott) is a dichotomous indicator of whether one or more

political parties organize an election boycott. It was hand-coded from major news sources and

Keesing’s Record of World events. This variable does not include regional boycotts, nor

boycotts that took place after the election. Because the variable is dichotomous, binary logit

analysis is an appropriate statistical technique.

Operationalization of Independent Variables

The primary independent variable that is explored in this paper is whether or not the

election was observed by an international NGO, IGO or other state. “International observers”

refer to official delegations of foreign citizens invited in to a country in order to observe the

domestic election process. This was coded this as a dummy variable in the dataset, with one

44



indicating that a given election was monitored. The data on monitored elections likely

underestimates its presence. This is due to the fact that election monitoring is not centrally

coordinated, and no organization records all election monitoring efforts. Because of the larger

number of small regional organizations and states that sporadically participate in observer

missions and keep poor records, all observed elections have not been recorded.

Democracy is measured using the Polity2 variable from the POLITY IV dataset

(Marshall and Jaggers 2000). The scale ranges from –10 to 10, with 10 being the most

democratic. Interruption scores have been replaced with actual polity scores rather than with

missing observations. This measure is considered a proxy for the overall fairness of the

democratic process.

GDP per capita is from Gleditsch’s 2002 Expanded Trade and GDP data.

Ease of campaign finance reform was coded by one of the authors. The financial cost of a

boycott was computed by creating a variable called SACRIFICE. SACRIFICE is an ordinal

variable that ranges from 0-5 based on how much the party likely forfeits by boycotting. The

less stringent the conditions to attain party finance, the greater the sacrifice. xxv If sacrifice equals

4 or 5, implying that an easily attainable form of conditional party finance exists, the

dichotomous CPF variable was coded as 1.

The lagged share of seats for the opposition party is a percentage calculated from

opposition seats won in the previous election as recorded in the DPI (Keefer 2000). EIEC and

LIEC are scales from DPI measuring the level of institutional executive and legislative

competitiveness (Keefer 2000). The scale of LIEC is as follows, and is modified slightly to fit

the EIEC. 1= No legislature, 2= Unelected legislature, 3_= Elected, 1 candidate, 4= 1 party,

multiple candidates, 5 = multiple parties are legal but only one party won seats, 6= multiple

45



parties DID win seats but the largest party received more than 75% of the seats, and 7= largest

party got less than 75%. We have lagged these variables by one year.

Regional dummies were included in order to control for the regional diffusion of

democratization (Gleditsch 2004) and other diffusion related topics.

Appendix C: Regression results for Table 3

1. P(monitor|xi) = 1/(1+e- xi β ) Where

Xi β = Constant + β 1 lagged polity score + β 2 regional rate of monitoring +

β 3 interaction term between polity score and regional rate of monitoring + emonitor

Binary Logit: International Monitoring (1990-2000)

Independent Variables Coefficient Robust

SE

Constant -2.975592 (.3507102)

Lagged Polity Score .0327993 (.7165366)

Percentage of Monitored Elections per Region 6.404487**

*

(.7165366

)Interaction between Polity and % Monitored Elections -.187441 (.1076085

) N 348Wald Chi2(3) 91.91Prob> chi2 0.0000Pseudo R2 0.2784***p<.001, two-tailed test**p<.01, two-tailed z-test*p<.05, two-tailed z-test

2. P(boycott|xi) = 1/(1+e-xiβ) Where

Xi β = Constant + β 1 polity score + β 2 conditional party finance + β 3 per capita GDP + β 4 opposition seat share + β 5 legislative competitiveness + β 6 executive competitiveness + eboycott

Binary Logit: Boycotted Elections (1990-2000)

46



Independent Variables Coefficient Robust

SE

Constant -1.522293* (.6085546)

Polity Score -.1805549***

(.0355701)

Ease of Access to Conditional Party Finance -.4359203 (.4895869)

GDP per capita -.0001235* (.0000534)

Opposition Seat Share (lag) .3876296 (.9536844)

LIEC (lag) -.0650941 (.158814)EIEC (lag) .1523294 (.1531939

)

N 321Wald Chi2(6) 51.95Prob> chi2 0.0000Pseudo R2 0.1737***p<.001, two-tailed test**p<.01, two-tailed z-test*p<.05, two-tailed z-test

Appendix D: Test of alternative explanation that boycotts cause monitors to be invited.

Binary Logit: International Monitoring

DV = Internationally Monitored

Election


(1990-1996)

Coefficient Robust SE (1997-2000)

Coefficient

Robust SE

Constant -3.798991 .8472226Boycott -.0490345 (.5753426) .0908479 (.1202642)

Lagged Polity Score -.1498511 (.0582569) -.0908479 (.1202642)

Percentage of Monitored elections byregion

5.970204*** (.8425766) 7.741622*** (1.507122)

Interaction between Polity and PercentageMonitored Elections

-.1482938 (.1245469) -.3015546 (.2298144)

N 206 142

***p<.001, two-tailed test**p<.01, two-tailed z-test*p<.05, two-tailed z-test

47



i The idea of election-rigging artistry plays off Cox & Katz (2002) description of “redistricting artistry”

post-Baker V. Carr.

iiFor examples of this debate see Schumpeter 1942, Dahl 1971, Diamond 1999, Hanson 2001, Linz and

Stepan 1996, O’Donnell 1996, Schmitter and Karl 1991, and Zakaria 1997.iii Electoral democracies, as defined by Schedler, are also included in the universe under study in this

paper.

iv Opposition leaders in Azerbaijan called for an election boycott of the October 1998 election in

August.

v During the Jordan elections of 1997, a total of 10 opposition parties decided to boycott the election

just days before polling took place.

vi In the 1994 elections in Mozambique, RENAMO called for a last-minute boycott, but then decided to

participate.

vii First-hand account from Michael Bratton 4/2/04.

viii With a 95% confidence interval, the presence of international observers increases the probability of a

boycott by 5-11%.

ix With a 95% confidence interval, the probability of a boycott in the “most-likely” scenario is between

12 and 60%.

x For all percentage values presented in the above paragraph, the 95% confidence interval around a

simulated first difference did not contain zero, signifying statistical significance. The predicted

probabilities are based on a logit model estimated in Stata 8.0, with first differences drawn from 1000

simulations performed by CLARIFY (Tomz, Wittenberg, and King 2003).

xi Machiavelli, 48 & 54 (1994 translation by Wooton).



xii Lowess carries out a locally weighted regression of a dependent variable on one independent

variable. For all three figures, the independent variable is simply time.

xiii The degree of the effects need not be identical, and indeed we suspect that prudent manipulation has

a much stronger effect on boycotts than it does on monitors.xiv Regression results appear in Appendix C

xv They are also identical to the explanatory variables used in Table 2.

xvi This particular cut point of the data was chosen because it divides the observations into the two most

equal groups, given missing data. Similar results obtain when 1994, and 1995 are chosen as the upper

bound for the first model.

xvii The 95% confidence interval for the 6% figure ranges from 2% to17%. For the simulated first

difference, the presence of observers increases the probability of a boycott by 11%, plus or minus 9%.

xviiiIn the hypothetical “most-likely” case, the country is in the Middle East or North Africa, the Polity

score is two, the GDP per capita income is $2000, and the lagged institutional competitiveness

measures are set at the low level of two. Again, for all percentage values presented in the above

paragraph, the 95% confidence interval around a simulated first difference did not contain zero,

signifying statistical significance. Based on a logit model estimated in Stata 8.0, with first differences

drawn from 1000 simulations performed by CLARIFY (Tomz, Wittenberg, and King).

xix The confidence intervals are larger in this example because of the smaller N. The 95% confidence

interval still does not contain zero, indicating statistical significance. The predicted probability of a

boycott ranges from 4% to 82%, and the 32% increase in the probability of a boycott is plus or minus

29%.

xx This hypothesis could be reversed to posit that a decrease in democratic maturation could better

describe both of these phenomena. In that case an increase in democracy would have to have a

negative effect on both monitor presence and boycotts in order to hold.



xxi We use the combined democracy and autocracy scores in the Polity dataset (Marshall and Jaggers

2002) as a proxy for democratic maturation. Rather than the standard Polity scores that include

interruption codes, we use the Polity2 score in which the interruption codes are scaled to standard

Polity scores rather than treated as missing values.xxii Polity scores are clearly related to boycotts (as evidenced in the difference in means for boycotted

elections, -1.377e vs. elections not boycotted, 3.532, without taking monitors into consideration) the

same can not be said about the decision to invite monitors.

xxiii See Appendix E for these results.

xxiv Gleditsch (2004) being the biggest exception. xxv 0 = No CPF , 1 = CPF only if donors provide funds, 2 = CPF based on seats in parliament, 3 = CPF

based on some percentage threshold of votes, 4 = CPF based on vote percentages, 5 = CPF based on

number of candidates

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