Electoral Malpractice and Electoral Manipulation

in New and Semi-Democracies

Principal Researcher: Sarah Birch.
 

Project Overview: 

This project, which began in April 2007, is designed to investigate electoral malpractice and manipulation in new and semi-democracies.

It aims to delineate the mechanisms of electoral malpractice and manipulation, the frequency of different forms of malpractice, and the manipulation strategies employed by political actors under different conditions. It also explores the causes and the consequences of electoral malpractice, together with the viability of different types of reform.

The project employs a variety of data, including existing datasets and a new dataset created specifically for this research.
 

Data:

This website provides access to the Index of Electoral Malpractice database, which includes data on 15 different forms of electoral malpractice in 136 elections held between 1995 and 2006 in 57 new and semi-democracies in three regions of the world: Latin America, Eastern Europe & the Former Soviet Union, and Sub-Saharan Africa. This dataset can be accessed at: Data: Index of Electoral Malpractice.

The database has been generated by coding election observation reports conducted by international organizations in the regions under consideration (see the Methodology page for details).

Results:

The 'Summary of Findings' and 'Working Papers' pages contain the results of the project so far.

All comments and enquiries should be addressed to Sarah Birch, email bircsi (non-Essex users add @essex.ac.uk).