Free and fair elections
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343316642508 |
| Author | Sylvia Bishop,Anke Hoeffler |
| Published date | 01 July 2016 |
| Date | 01 July 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Special Data Features |
Free and fair elections: A new database
Sylvia Bishop & Anke Hoeffler
Department of Economics, University of Oxford
Abstract
The holding of elections has become universal but only about half of all elections are free and fair. Electoral
malpractice not only distorts the quality of representation but has implications for political, social and economic
outcomes. Existing datasets either provide information on election quality for a large number of elections but offer
little detail, or they provide very detailed information for a small number of elections. Our data collection effort closes
this gap by providing ten variables of election quality for all leadership elections for the period 1975–2011. We use
these data to provide an assessment of elections that is closely tied to the commonly used term ‘free and fair’. We
define ‘freeness’ of the election as the rules of the election and the process leading up to the election, and ‘fairness’ of
the election refers to the events on the election day. Our data show that the quality of elections has declined over
time. These electoral problems are mainly due to issues in the run-up to the elections. Using probit regressions we
investigate the possible causes of election malpractice. Our analysis suggests that the freeness and the fairness of the
elections are related to a number of variables, such as income, aid, executive constraints and the presence of election
monitors, but that these variables have differential effects on freeness and fairness.
Keywords
database, democracy, elections
Introduction
Almost all countries hold elections to determine their
leaders but we argue that electoral malpractice is wide-
spread and many elections are not free and fair according
to international standards. Electoral malpractice is an
important issue because it reduces the objective quality
of representation and has implications for political, social
and economic outcomes (Birch, 2011).
In this new database, covering 169 countries over the
period 1975–2011, we provide ten variables to assess the
quality of elections. Our election variables range from
the laws governing the elections, to the de facto applica-
tion of these rules to events during the campaign process
and on the election day. Our main aim is to generate
indicators that enable us to judge whether an election is
‘free and fair’. Although this is a very popular term,
political scientists concentrate on value-free measures,
such as the quality of elections (Kelley, 2012), electoral
self-determination (Cingranelli, Richards & Clay, 2014)
or electoral integrity (Norris, Frank & Martı
´nez i Coma,
2014). One exception is the recent Varieties of
Democracy (V-Dem) project (Coppedge et al., 2015)
which offers a subjective measure of free and fair elec-
tions. However, their measure is not based on their other
objective measures of the election. In contrast, we focus
on providing ten objective measures of the electoral pro-
cess and suggest how these measures can be used to
derive a measure on whether the elections were free and
fair.
We consider the rules of the election and the process
leading up to the election as assessing the ‘freeness’ of the
election. ‘Fairness’ of the election refers to the events on
the election day. Using our ten variables we find that
about half of all elections are marred by malpractice.
These elections were either unfree or unfair or both.
Our definition of ‘free and fair’ elections is of course
open to criticism. One might argue that an election
cannot be fair if the run-up to the election was not free
(Elklit & Svensson, 1997). However, our definition can
Corresponding author:
anke.hoeffler@economics.ox.ac.uk
Journal of Peace Research
2016, Vol. 53(4) 608–616
ªThe Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343316642508
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