Electoral management and the organisational determinants of electoral integrity: Introduction
| Author | Holly Ann Garnett,Toby S James,Carolien van Ham,Leontine Loeber |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512119828206 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial Introduction |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512119828206
International Political Science Review
2019, Vol. 40(3) 295 –312
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512119828206
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Electoral management and the
organisational determinants of
electoral integrity: Introduction
Toby S James
University of East Anglia, UK
Holly Ann Garnett
Royal Military College of Canada, Canada
Leontine Loeber
University of East Anglia, UK
Carolien van Ham
University of New South Wales, Australia
Abstract
Achieving the ideals of electoral democracy depends on well-run elections. Persistent problems of electoral
integrity in transitional and established democracies have prompted a burgeoning literature seeking to
explain the determinants of electoral integrity around the world. However, the study of the organisations
responsible for managing the electoral process has been limited to isolated national case studies. This article
opens up an interdisciplinary and international research agenda on the global study of the organisational
determinants of electoral integrity. It defines the concept of electoral management and provides a framework
to understand how electoral management body (EMB) institutional design, EMB performance and electoral
integrity are related. Findings from new data derived from cross-national surveys of EMBs are described,
providing new insights into how elections are managed worldwide.
Keywords
Electoral integrity, democratisation, electoral management bodies, electoral malpractice
Corresponding author:
Toby S James, School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich
Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
Email: t.s.james@uea.ac.uk
828206IPS0010.1177/0192512119828206International Political Science ReviewJames et al.
editorial2019
Editorial Introduction
296 International Political Science Review 40(3)
Introduction
While many elections across the world are conducted to very high standards, there remains evi-
dence of problems with poor election quality worldwide. In the past ten years, research on electoral
integrity has greatly expanded, and we now know much more about the drivers of electoral mal-
practice (Alvarez et al., 2012; Birch, 2011; Lehoucq, 2003; Norris, 2015). This includes the soci-
etal structure, institutional factors such as constitutional design and actor-based factors (van Ham,
2012; van Ham and Lindberg, 2015). However, we still know very little about the organisations
responsible for implementing elections and how their organisational design affects electoral integ-
rity and other political outcomes.
This oversight is remarkable. We know that the quality of public services such as schools and hos-
pitals can depend upon the (mis)use of staff, technology, organisational design and capacity, so we
should expect the same to hold true of elections too – the public service whose outcomes shape all
other public policies and the provision of all other public services. The quality of the delivery of elec-
tions is thought to affect confidence in the electoral process and democratic consolidation. High-profile
domestic commissions have been set up to investigate problems, such as the US Presidential
Commissions in 2000 and 2012. The international community has likewise poured money and
resources into improving elections. The professionalisation of electoral management bodies (EMBs)
was defined as an important policy objective by Kofi Annan’s Global Commission on Elections (2012).
There has been some work on the organisational characteristics of the public bodies responsible
for implementing elections, but for the most part research has been focused on single countries.
Part of this lack of research can be explained by the difficulties that scholars face in straddling dif-
ferent disciplines: law, public administration and politics. It is also in part because of the lack of
availability of comparative data.
This special issue therefore aims to make a major advance in one of the most overlooked aspects
of democratic governance: electoral management. This introductory article opens up the research
agenda by providing a new conceptual framework to identify the characteristics of EMBs that
might be important in linking EMB design to EMB performance, and outlines the potential conse-
quences for election integrity. This agenda is then advanced in the collection of articles that follow,
which mostly use new data on variations in the institutional design of electoral management bodies
worldwide.
Following these opening remarks, the next part of this article argues that the organisational
determinants of electoral integrity have long been overlooked, with a focus on structural factors,
institutional checks and the design of electoral laws dominating. We then argue that there are rich
literatures in organisational theory which identify themes of direct relevance for the study of elec-
toral integrity that could be better explored. Following from this, we provide a new broader frame-
work to conceptualise different dimensions of the organisations involved in electoral management.
We introduce two new datasets on the organisational characteristics of EMBs around the world and
present the descriptive results – mapping them onto the characteristics of EMBs provided earlier.
We finish with an overview of the articles in this special issue, which use these and other data to
answer core questions about the organisational determinants of electoral integrity.
Existing approaches to understanding the determinants of
electoral integrity
The expanding literature on electoral integrity has identified a number of determinants of electoral
integrity, ranging from structural factors such as historical experiences with democratic elections
and socio-economic features of societies, to institutional explanations focused on electoral systems
and the presence of institutional checks and balances, to more proximate explanations that focus on
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