TY - UNPB

T1 - When War Rigs the Vote

T2 - The impact of civil war on electoral manipulation

AU - Hansen, Bertel Teilfeldt

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - This paper investigates the effect of intrastate conflict on electoral manipulation. It argues that actors in post-conflict elections have increased incentive for obtaining political power and often easier access to manipulation of election results. Thus electoral fraud should be more frequent in countries that have recently seen conflict. It tests this hypothesis using discontinuities in the density of the seat shares of the largest parties in all of the world’s parliamentary elections from 1975 till 2010. The parties show a clear tendency to sort into single-party majority and this tendency is entirely driven by elections in countries that have recently experienced conflict. Further, this pattern appears not to be due to other variables identified by the literature as determinants of electoral manipulation. Through a number of auxiliary tests, the paper concludes that the observed sorting indicates conflict-induced electoral fraud.

AB - This paper investigates the effect of intrastate conflict on electoral manipulation. It argues that actors in post-conflict elections have increased incentive for obtaining political power and often easier access to manipulation of election results. Thus electoral fraud should be more frequent in countries that have recently seen conflict. It tests this hypothesis using discontinuities in the density of the seat shares of the largest parties in all of the world’s parliamentary elections from 1975 till 2010. The parties show a clear tendency to sort into single-party majority and this tendency is entirely driven by elections in countries that have recently experienced conflict. Further, this pattern appears not to be due to other variables identified by the literature as determinants of electoral manipulation. Through a number of auxiliary tests, the paper concludes that the observed sorting indicates conflict-induced electoral fraud.

M3 - Working paper

BT - When War Rigs the Vote

PB - Københavns Universitet, Institut for Statskundskab

CY - København

ER -