Linkage to the West and Electoral Manipulation
| Author | Jaroslav Bílek |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920920104 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920920104
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(2) 262 –273
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1478929920920104
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Linkage to the West and
Electoral Manipulation
Jaroslav Bílek
Abstract
The relationship between linkage to the West and the survival of political regimes has gained
increasing attention in recent years. Despite this attention, one aspect of this linkage remains
poorly understood, and that is the effect of linkage to the West on electoral manipulation. Scholars
have suggested that linkage to the West raises the cost of government abuse because it increases
the probability of Western governments taking action in response to reported abuse. This
assumption then suggests that incumbents should choose the forms of repression more wisely.
Consequently, in cases of the higher level of linkage to the West incumbents are less likely to use
the more visible forms of repression and manipulation. I test the aforementioned assumptions on
time series, cross-national data set with observations of 147 elections in competitive authoritarian
regimes between 1990 and 2010. I find that extensive international relations to the West have
only minimal and statistically non-significant effect on visible forms of repression and manipulation.
These results contribute to our understanding of international linkage as they show that linkage to
the West does not provide sufficient protection to opposition leaders and groups.
Keywords
international linkage, competitive authoritarianism, repression, menu of manipulation, elections
Accepted: 24 March 2020
Introduction
The international Zeitgeist after the Cold War has made it much harder for explicitly
authoritarian and politically closed regimes to emerge and survive. However, we cannot
say that with the third wave of democratization (Huntington, 1991), all forms of authori-
tarianism would cease to exist around the globe. The very specific international constel-
lation, a significant feature of which was a distinctive emphasis of the international
community on free elections, led to a formation of numerous political regimes where
democratic institutions exist, yet those who are at the control of power often resort to
regular violations of democratic principles in order to retain the power they possess
Department of Politics, University of Hradec Králové, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
Corresponding author:
Jaroslav Bílek, Department of Politics, University of Hradec Králové, Rokitanskeho 62, 500 03 Hradec
Králové, Czech Republic.
Email: jaroslav.bilek@uhk.cz
920104PSW0010.1177/1478929920920104Political Studies ReviewBílek
research-article2020
Article
To continue reading
Request your trial