This study takes a new tack on the question of modernization and democracy, focused on the outcome of theoretical interest. We argue that economic development affects the electoral component of democracy but has minimal impact on other components of this diffuse concept. This is so because...

The study of electoral contestation generally focuses on districts or regions rather than polities. We present a new dataset that measures electoral contestation through historical records of elections in sovereign and semi-sovereign polities throughout the world from 1789 to the present. We...

In this paper I purport to explain how and why electoral corruption was abolished in the case of Sweden, drawing on original data from second-instance election petitions filed in 1719-1909. These petitions reveal fraudulent practices in the electoral history of Sweden, most notably systematic...

Over 90 percent of the world's states currently select their national leaders through multi-party elections. However, in Africa the quality of elections still varies widely, ranging from elections plagued by violence and fraud to elections that are relatively “free and fair”. The literature...

How do political actors choose between different tactics of electoral manipulation, and how does the context in which elections take place shape those decisions? In this paper we argue that choices for specific manipulative tactics are driven by available resource and cost considerations, as...

This paper is one of the first to systematically identify the relative influence of ethnic identity, campaign strategies of political parties' candidates , poverty, evaluations of public and private goods performance in making citizens turning new democracies into swing voters. It brings...

This article summarizes some of the key findings from a forthcoming book, Democratization by Elections: A New Mode of Transition? (Johns Hopkins, 2009, edited by the author), and brings together the following three articles by Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik, Lise Rakner and Nicolas van de...

What makes African voters “up for grabs”? Existing approaches to the swing voter have several liabilities. This article introduces a new measure enabling a more comprehensive assessment of swing voting, including the differentiation between clientelistic and collective goods motivations. The...

A vast literature suggests that voters in new democracies “sell” their vote to patrons providing private or small-scale club goods, or alternatively, that such goods are distributed along ethnic lines to reinforce ethnic voting. In either case the outcome is undermining democratic...