Can Parties Police Themselves? Electoral Governance and Democratization
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512102023001002 |
| Author | Fabrice E. Lehoucq |
| Date | 01 January 2002 |
| Published date | 01 January 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Can Parties Police Themselves? Electoral
Governance and Democratization
FABRICE E. LEHOUCQ
ABSTRACT. This article outlines the logic and consequences of the
classical theory of electoral governance. By empowering the executive
with the administration of elections and the legislature with the
certification of the vote tally, the theory expected elected officials to
generate widely acceptable election results. This article argues that the
classical theory breaks down when the same party controls the executive
and the legislature. Developments in several presidential systems offer
tentative support for its central hypothesis. Only when parties delegated
election governance to an autonomous court system did election
conflicts stop promoting political instability. Comparisons between US
and Latin American separation of power systems also suggest that
political developments in North and South America are much more
similar than commonly assumed.
Keywords: Democratization • Electoral commissions • Electoral fraud
Electoral governance • Presidentialism.
Introduction
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, electoral fraud continues to plague many
political systems. Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori claimed victory in the 2000
elections decried by international and domestic observers as irregular and stacked
against anti-government critics (Schmidt, forthcoming a). Even in the stable
United States, an extremely close election generated a storm of protest as election
procedures in Florida failed to produce an unambiguous result (Issacharoff,
Karlan, and Pildes, 2001; Merzer, 2001; New York Times, 2001; Washington Post, von
Drehle, and Nakashima, 2001). Indeed, the entire world looked upon the US 2000
election in disbelief as local canvassing boards (tallying agencies), elected and
appointed officials, state and federal courts entered the fray to decipher the
general will—with confusion and uncertainty being the principal outcomes.
International Political Science Review (2002), Vol 23, No. 1, 29–46
0192-5121 (2002/01) 23:1, 29–46; 020422 © 2002 International Political Science Association
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Far from being a set of activities consigned to the dustbin of history, electoral
fraud and administrative irregularities are very much problems of the present. Yet,
aside from numerous anecdotes, we know very little about the nature and
dynamics of electoral fraud (Cox and Kousser, 1981; Eisenstadt, 1998, and this
issue; Lehoucq, forthcoming; Lehoucq and Molina, 2002; Molina and Lehoucq,
1999; Posada-Carbó, 2000). Nor do we understand very much about its antidotes.
Though much electoral legislation consists of procedures to reduce fraud and
irregularities, our knowledge of election governance consists of lessons learned
from particular circumstances to guide the design of neutral and fraud-free
election procedures (Choe, 1997; López-Pintor, n.d.). Both Latin American
(Nohlen and Sabsay, 1998; Orozco Henriquez, 1998) and North American
(Issacharoff, Karlan, and Pildes, 1998; Lowenstein, 1995) legal scholars have been
calling for the development of electoral law to fill this lacuna.
This article contributes to an emerging field of study by examining the origins
and consequences of electoral tribunals or, as they are now typically called,
commissions—independent court systems responsible for the organization of
elections, the tally of the vote, and the adjudication of conflicts about procedures
and outcomes. Here I chart the origins of commissions in the Americas because
parties, by the second decade of the twentieth century, began to establish them to
solve incessant partisan conflicts about election results. Though framers first gave
these bodies constitutional status within the Austrian (1920), Czechoslovakian
(1920), and Greek (1927) constitutions, politicians and parties have most fully
developed electoral commissions in Latin American countries—places often (and
incorrectly) depicted as unstable, violent, and having little to contribute to
constitutional law. Indeed, one of Latin America’s most important contributions to
the architecture of constitutional democracy is to have isolated the “electoral
function” from the executive and legislative branches of government. This often
unnoticed institutional innovation is, in fact, the model that most third-wave
democracies have adopted (Elklit, 1999; Elklit and Reynolds, 2000; Pastor, 1999).
Historically, liberal and republican constitution-makers have invested executive
bodies with the administration of elections, and legislatures with the final approval
of election results (for an overview, see Gros-Espiell, 1990: 11–59; Orozco
Henriquez, 1998). By splitting the tally from the certification of the vote, legal
theorists hoped to encourage executives to be impartial by empowering
congressional bodies to review their work. Furthermore, the defense of
parliamentary prerogatives in nineteenth-century Europe led legislators to
demand that they—and not some Royal commission—be responsible for the
election of their own members. Whatever the precise justification, the classical
approach to electoral governance remains alive and well in advanced, industrial
democracies. Robert Pastor (1999: 7) finds that parties in three-quarters of first
world democracies continue to split electoral governance between the executive
and legislative branches of government.
This article outlines the political consequences of using or not using the
classical approach to electoral governance. The first section argues that
establishing fair electoral procedures is a key question of institutional design. As a
question of choice—though one very much made under constraint—institutions
need to be examined politically. Fair electoral governance, as a key characteristic
and guarantor of democracy, does not emerge as a simple by-product of economic
modernization. The second section offers a highly stylized model of political
competition, one that reflects essential features of electoral politics in separation
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