Abstract
Until recently, the monitoring of elections in a sovereign country by outside actors was extremely rare. The United Nations (UN) had significant experience in conducting plebiscites and elections in dependent territories but did not monitor an election in a formally independent country until 1989 when it reluctantly became involved in the Nicaraguan electoral process. At the regional level, the Organization of American States (OAS) occasionally sent small delegations to witness elections in member states, but these missions were too brief to permit any real observation of the processes, and failed to criticize fraud.1 Since the 1980s election-monitoring has become increasingly common in transitional elections from authoritarian to democratic rule. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), domestic and international, were the first to become involved in election-monitoring in the 1980s followed by international and regional organizations like the UN, the OAS and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the 1990s. Election-monitors played a crucial role in transitional elections held in the Philippines (1986), Chile (1989), Panama (1989), Nicaragua (1990) and Haiti (1990). In addition, elections began to form a crucial element of UN ‘peacebuilding’ strategies in countries torn apart by civil strife such as Namibia (1989), Cambodia (1993) and El Salvador (1994).
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Notes
R. A. Pastor, ‘Elections, monitoring’, in Seymour Martin Lipset (ed.), Encyclopedia of Democracy (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1995), p. 409.
R. D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), especially Chapter 6.
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See F. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Avon Books, 1992).
M. W. Doyle, ‘Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12 (3 and 4), Summer and Fall 1983, pp. 205–35 and 323–53. Doyle was not the first to point out the connection between peace and democracy.
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D. H. Levine, ‘Religion and politics, politics and religion: an introduction’, in Daniel H. Levine (ed.), Churches and Politics in Latin America (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979;
see also, S. P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), p. 78.
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J. McCoy, L. Garber, and R. Pastor, ‘Pollwatching and peacemaking’, in L. Diamond and M. F. Plattner (eds), The Global Resurgence of Democracy (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. 181.
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see also L. Cliffe, The Transition to Independence in Namibia (Boulder Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1994), especially Chapters 4, 6–8.
See M. W. Doyle, UN Peacekeeping in Cambodia: UNTAC’s Civil Mandate (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995).
On the relationship between the OAS and the UN in Latin America, see R. Greene, ‘El Debate ONU-OEA: nuevas competencias en el ambito de la paz y la seguridad international’, in O. Pellicer (ed.), Las Naciones Unidas: Visión de México (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1994), pp. 72–102;
and S. N. MacFarlane and T. G. Weiss, ‘The United Nations, regional organizations, and human security: building theory in Central America’, Security Studies, 2 (1), Autumn 1992, pp. 6–37.
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See, for example, Franck, ‘The emerging right to democratic governance’. See also, G. H. Fox, ‘The right to participation in international law’, Yale Journal of International Law, 17 (539), 1992, pp. 539–607;
and F. Tesón, ‘Changing perceptions of domestic jurisdiction and intervention’, in T. J. Farer (ed.), Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 29–51.
For a sceptical view of Western efforts to promote human rights in Asia, see B. Kausikan, ‘Asia’s different standard’, Foreign Policy, 92, Fall 1993, pp. 24–51.
See National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute for International Affairs, The May 9, 1989 Panamanian Elections (Washington, DC: NDI/IRI, 1990).
For a discussion of UN recognition practices and an argument in favour of democratic legitimacy as the standard for recognition see, G. H. Fox, ‘Multinational election monitoring: advancing international law on the high wire’, Fordham International Law Journal, 18 (5), May 1995, pp. 1658–67.
A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969), Vol. 1, Part I, pp. 62–84; Part II, pp. 174–95 and 262–311.
R. Pastor, in the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government, Mission to Haiti #3: Elections for Parliament and Municipalities (Atlanta, Ga.: The Carter Center of Emory University, 1995), p. 19.
See also, Robert Maguire et al., Haiti Held Hostage: International Responses to the Quest for Nationhood 1986–1996 (Providence, RI: Watson Institute, 1996), Occasional Paper No. 23.
See, for example, R. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971);
S. M. Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1960);
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R. A. Pastor, Integration with Mexico: Options for U.S. Policy (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1993), especially pp. 27–8 and 65–7.
See Huntington, The Third Wave. See also L. Diamond, J. Linz and S. M. Lipset (eds), Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1990) and Diamond and Plattner (eds), The Global Resurgence of Democracy.
See Unidad de Asistencia Electoral, Posibilidades de Apoyo a Organizaciones No Gubernamentales de Observadores Electorales en Mexico (Mexico City: UN Mission, 23 May 1994).
Instituto Federal Electoral, Informe Sobre Observadores y Visitantes Extranjeros (Mexico City: Instituto Federal Electoral, 1994).
For the view of international observers (including this author) on the 1994 elections, see the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government, The August 21, 1994 Mexican National Elections: Fourth Report (Atlanta, Ga.: The Carter Center of Emory University, November 1994).
On the views of Mexico’s most important domestic observer group, the Civic Alliance, see Alianza Civica, La Calidad de la Jornada Electoral del 21 de Agosto de 1994: Informe de Alianza Civica Observación ’94, (Mexico City: 19 September 1994).
For the views of other domestic and international groups, see Instituto Federal Electoral, Proyecto de Informe a la Camara de Diputados, Addenda 21, 22 and 23 (Mexico City: Instituto Federal Electoral, 1994).
For examples from other countries on the possible functions of international observers, see J. McCoy, L. Garber and R. Pastor, ‘Pollwatching and peacekeeping’, Journal of Democracy, 2 (4), Fall 1994, pp. 102–14.
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Chand, V.K. (1998). Democratization from the Outside In: NGOs and International Efforts to Promote Open Elections. In: Weiss, T.G. (eds) Beyond UN Subcontracting. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26263-2_8
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