IFES will be presenting four papers on the electoral process at this year’s International Political Science Association (IPSA) annual conference Whatever Happened to North-South? Held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from 16-19 February 2011 the conference is expected to host hundreds of scholars and practitioners across the field of political science and provide attendants the opportunity to discuss current political issues across the world.
The four papers are:
A Practitioner’s Guide to Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Election Disputes by Chad Vickery, IFES regional director for Europe and Asia
Assessing Electoral Fraud in New Democracies: A Basic Conceptual Framework by Dr. Rafael Lopez-Pintor, IFES chief of party in Nicaragua
International Election Support: Helping or Hindering Democratic Elections? by Dr. Staffan Darnolf, IFES senior advisor
Analysing Recent Trends in Political Finance Regulation in the South and in the North by Dr. Magnus Ohman, IFES senior advisor in political finance.
Mr. Vickery’s paper addresses the fact that an effective election process requires a dispute resolution system that: is effective, competent, and responsive; protects the political rights of citizens; establishes and maintains the legitimacy of a system of government and prevents post-election violence. Election Dispute Resolution (EDR) is distinct from the typical judicial process in many ways, and existing courts are often ill-prepared to adjudicate election complaints. This paper will include the main findings of the forthcoming IFES publication, Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections (GUARDE).
GUARDE identifies seven key standards for effective, legitimate adjudication of election complaints and disputes. These standards have their foundation in international public law documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It can also be found in the legal systems of stable, mature democracies around the globe. The seven standards serve as guidelines in the field to design, implement, or revise an EDR system.
Dr. López-Pintor’s paper, previously released to the international development and elections community, addresses the latest concerns emerging from the growing focus within the technical election assistance community on anti-fraud strategies. The paper, the first in a series of three on combating electoral fraud, offers a conceptual framework and methodology for deterring, detecting and mitigating the effects of electoral fraud.
Dr. Darnolf’s paper seeks to understand the impact of the support offered by the international community on elections. At present, the methodologies used to measure the freeness and fairness of the electoral process are plentiful and elaborate. However, it is only relatively recently that the work of the election management body (EMB) has formed an integral part of the analysis. The influence international election support potentially has on the electoral process has largely been ignored to date, despite the fact that EMBs often accept both financial and technical advice from international organizations. Likewise, international election observation missions have become part of the regular electoral fabric in many countries but their impact on the electoral process has largely been overlooked by scholars. Based on an analysis of the effectiveness of the various modalities of electoral support utilized by international organizations to promote democracy, this paper seeks to identify improvements to these democracy-promoting tools.
Dr. Ohman’s paper reviews international trends in political finance regulations during the last 10 years. More specifically, the paper looks at regulations of political party and campaign finance, with a particular focus on disclosure solutions and the provision of public funding. The paper uses a combination of macro-level data and country level case studies from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe to increase our understanding of global trends in campaign finance regulation. Unlike most studies on political finance, this paper will not be limited to democracies, but will include countries with very limited democratic credentials. It will be shown that political finance regulations exist in all contexts, though motives for their use may differ.