POLI 129: How to Steal an Election: Room: Solis 111 Times: Tuesday and Thursday 11-1:50

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1 POLI 129: How to Steal an Election: Room: Solis 111 Times: Tuesday and Thursday 11-1:50 Instructor: Office hours: Paul Schuler Tuesday and Thursday 2-3 or by appointment at 326 SSB Course Overview: Most countries in the world democratic or not have elections. However, having elections does not mean a country is democratic. Autocrats have a bevy of tactics at their disposal to undermine the quality of elections to serve their ends. Democracies are also not immune to imperfect elections. Vote buying and clientelism can undermine the meaning of elections and consequently the quality of democracy. This course introduces students to the politics of electoral fraud in the contemporary world. It covers topics such as the logic of elections in authoritarian states, vote buying, electoral violence, institutional design and rigging, and election monitoring. Assignments: Presentation (see below) 20% Mid-term: Take home essay due July 22 nd 20% Final: In-class essay (August 2, Saturday 11:30) 30% Reading Quizzes: Worst 2 scores dropped 20% Participation: 10%

2 Readings: July 1 st : Intro on manipulation and authoritarianism vs. democracy (Lecture 1) The Economist: What's Gone Wrong With Democracy? Hyde, Susan and Nikolay Marinov "Which Elections Can Be Lost." Political Analysis. (focus on the figures on the first 5 pages of the article) Daniel Calingaert Election Rigging and How to Fight It Journal of Democracy, Volume 17, Number 3, July 2006, pp Andreas Schedler The Menu of Manipulation Journal of Democracy, Volume 13, Number 2, April 2002: July 3 rd. Benefits of elections for dictators Reuter, Ora John and Graeme Robertson Legislatures, Co-optation, and Protest in Contemporary Authoritarian Regimes. Paper Presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Lust-Okar, Ellen Elections Under Authoritarianism: Preliminary Lessons from Jordan. Democratization. Rustow, Dankwart Elections and Legitimacy in the Middle East. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Cox, Gary Authoritarian Elections and Leadership Succession: Unpublished Manuscript. Background Introduction (1-42) Magaloni, Beatriz Voting for Autocracy July 8 th : Risks of Elections and Boycotts Tucker, Joshua Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post- Communist Color Revolutions. Perspectives on Politics Huntington, Samuel The Third Wave. Pages Schuler, Paul, Dimitar Gueorguiev, and Francisco Cantu Risk and Reward: The Differential Impact of Authoritarian Elections on Regime Decay and Breakdown.

3 Lindberg, Staffan Why do Opposition Parties Boycott Elections? in Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition. Ed Andreas Schedler. July 10 th : Institutional causes, socio-economic, and international causes Miller, Michael The Origins of Electoral Authoritarianism and Democracy. Presented and the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association Kitschelt, Herbert and Steven I. Wilkinson, editors Patrons, Clients, and Politics: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Way, Lucan The Real Causes of Color Revolutions. Journal of Democracy Hicken, Allen How Rules and Institutions Encourage Vote Buying in Allen Hicken in Frederic C. Shaffer eds. Elections for Sale: The Causes And Consequences of Vote Buying, Lynne Rienner 2007, pp July 15 th : Undermining Authoritarian Elections Kai Ostwald How to Win a Lost Election: Malapportionment and Malaysia s 2013 General Election manuscript. Kenneth McElwain Manipulating Electoral Rules to Manufacture Single-Party Dominance American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 52, No. 1, January 2008, pp Lehoucq, Fabrice Electoral Fraud: Causes, Types, and Consequences. Annual Review of Political Science BBC. Yushchenko and the Poison Theory. New York Times. Afghan Candidate Alleges Voting Fraud by Karzai and Aides. The Observer. Election Fraud in Russia Caught on Video: Ballot Stuffing, Erasable Ink, and More. New York Times. After Election, Putin Faces Challenges to Legitimacy.

4 July 17 th : Violence Paul Collier and Pedro C. Vicente Votes and Violence: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria manuscript, October Kjetil Tronvoll Voting, violence and violations: peasant voices on the flawed elections in Hadiya, Southern Ethiopia The Journal of Modern African Studies Volume 39 Issue 04 December 2001, pp Roxana Gutiérrez Romero An Inquiry into the Use of Illegal Electoral Practices and Effects of Political Violence manuscript, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Emilie M. Hafner Burton., Susan D. Hyde, and Ryan S. Jablonski When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence? British Journal of Political Science FirstView: July 22 nd : Vote Buying, Clientelism, and Poor Technology Undermining Democratic Elections Stokes, Susan Is Vote Buying Democratic. Chapter 6 in Elections for Sale: The Causes and Consequences of Vote Buying. Edited by Frederic Charles Schaffer. Fabrice Lehoucq When Does a Market for Votes Emerge? in Allen Hicken in Frederic C. Shaffer eds. Elections for Sale: The Causes And Consequences of Vote Buying, Lynne Rienner 2007, pp Simeon Nichter Vote Buying or Turnout Buying? Machine Politics and the Secret Ballot American Political Science Review Vol. 102, No. 1 February Sasha Abramsky A Growing Gap in American Democracy New York Times July 27, Background Andy Harris Bring Out Your Dead!" How the Accumulation of Dead Voters Affects the Quality of Electoral Rolls in Kenya manuscript Cruz, Cesi Social Networks and the Targeting of the Vote Buying. July 24 th : The Who and How of Monitoring Eric Bjornlund Chapter 3 Elections and Election Monitoring in Eric Bjornlund Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy Woodrow Wilson Center Press Eric Bjornlund Chapter 4 From Non-Governmental to Governmental Organizations.

5 Eric Bjornlund Chapter 5 Jimmy Carter, and Eric Bjornlund Chapter 11 Domestic Monitoring Judith Kelley D-Minus Elections: The Politics and Norms of International Election International Organization Volume 63 Issue 04 October 2009, pp Background: Beber, Bernd and Alexandra Scacco What the Numbers Say: A Digit Based Test for Election Fraud. Political Analysis. Cantu, Francisco and Sebastian Saiegh Fraudulent Democracy? An Analysis of Argentina s Infamous Decade Using Supervised Machine Learning. Political Analysis. July 29 th : Consequences of Anti-Fraud Efforts Frederic Schaffer How Effective is Voter Education? Frederic Schaffer ed. Elections for Sale: The Causes and Consequences of Vote Buying Lienne Reinner Beaulieu, Emily and Susan Hyde In the Shadow of Democracy Promotion: Strategic Manipulation, International Observers and Election Boycotts. Comparative Political Studies. Michael Callen, James Long, Danielle Jung and Clark Gibson Reducing Electoral Fraud with Information and Communications Technology under submission The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Danielle Jung, Karen Ferree, Robert Dowd, and Clark Gibson Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Electoral Inking on Turnout in a Fragile Democracy manuscript. Alberto Simpser Unintended Consequences of Election Monitoring in Alvarez, Hall, and Hyde eds. Election Fraud Brookings July 31 st : US commitment to democracy? Presentations Kurlantzick, Joshua The Decline of Democracy. Dimitrov, Martin Popular Autocrats. Journal of Democracy. Bjornlund, Eric Beyond Free and Fair. Chapters 1 and 2.

6 Presentation: Using Lexis-Nexis, Newsbank, Google Scholar, each student will find articles in the most recent election in a regime coded as not fully free that holds elections. Using these two countries, presentations will be held in the class on July 31 st on the most recent experience of the countries. In the July 15 th lecture, the student will present a short 2-3 minute brief on the country and elections chosen along with the most recent results. In the final lecture on July 31 st, the student will present a 5 to 10 minute Power Point presentation on the following themes, including: 1. Why those countries held those elections? 2. What the leaders hoped to gain? 3. What types of manipulation were used? 4. Was there any violence associated with the election? 5. What types of monitoring were in place? 6. Which groups attempted to monitor? 7. Did the regime face any sanctions due to its efforts? 8. What is the country s relationship to the West and how has this impacted its election? The regions with examples of some countries 1. Asia: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines 2. Sub-Saharan Africa: Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa? Nigeria. 3. Eastern Europe/Central Asia Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia 4. North Africa and the Middle East Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine