All Quiet on Election Day? International Election Observation and Incentives for Pre-Election Violence in African Elections
Do governments strategically adapt the use of electoral manipulation when international election observers monitor elections?
Conceptualizing electoral violence as a form of manipulation, this article hypothesizes that incumbents respond to the greater scrutiny of elections by shifting manipulation to less supervised parts of the electoral process, such as the pre-election period. Empirical findings from a set of African elections show that the risk of pre-election violence increases for internationally monitored elections.
Publication details
Daxecker, Ursula E. 2014. “All Quiet on Election Day? International Election Observation and Incentives for Pre-Election Violence in African Elections.” Electoral Studies 34: 232-243.