The Game of Electoral Fraud and the Ousting of Authoritarian Rule

The Game of Electoral Fraud and the Ousting of Authoritarian Rule

How can autocrats be restrained from rigging elections when they hold a huge military advantage over their opponents? This article suggests that even when opposition parties have no military capacity to win a revolt, opposition unity and a consequent threat of massive civil disobedience can compel autocrats to hold clean elections and leave office by triggering splits within the state apparatus and the defection of the armed forces. Opposition unity can be elite-driven, when parties unite prior to elections to endorse a common presidential candidate, or voter-driven, when elites stand divided at the polls and voters spontaneously rebel against fraud. Moreover, the article identifies some conditions under which autocrats will tie their hands willingly not to commit fraud by delegating power to an independent electoral commission. The article develops these ideas through a formal game and the discussion of various case studies.

Most autocracies today hold multiparty elections. What accounts for ruling parties' decision to commit fraud or respect the election results, and why would rulers ever tie their hands by delegating the organization of elections to independent electoral bodies? What explains that opponents protest against fraud or tacitly acquiesce to electoral tyranny? Why and when is the opposition expected to challenge clean elections? This article answers these fundamental questions by presenting a theory of the dynamics of electoral fraud and postelection opposition protest against it.

The article simultaneously seeks to contribute to the study of democratization and to shed light on the politics of what some scholars call "electoral authoritarianism," where a democratic façade covers authoritarian rule. Schedler calculates that the most common form of autocracy today is hidden behind elections: "The dream [ of these regimes] is to reap the fruits of electoral legitimacy without running the risks of democratic uncertainty." Diamond and Levitsky and Way also highlight the prevalence of electoral authoritarianism. After the end of the Cold War, this form of multiparty autocracy became the most common in the world, above single-party regimes, military dictatorships,

and monarchies. Despite their commonality, there has not been much theorizing about the dynamics of electoral politics in these regimes.

The article spells out the strategic calculations of autocrats and their opponents during critical elections that might or might not lead to alternation of political power in office even when structural preconditions for the emergence of democracy are fulfilled. The theoretical model in the article builds on Weingast, who conceives democracy and dictatorship as two distinctive equilibria, the former a coordinating one where society is able to unite to police and sanction potential abuses, and the latter a noncoordinating one where autocrats violate citizens' rights by dividing their opponents. However, in Weingast's approach citizens act in an institutional vacuum, and thus we fail to understand how the institution of elections shapes the strategic interaction between the autocrat and his opponents; we also fail to comprehend how societies shift from one equilibrium to the other.

The theory allows for alternative ways to defeat an electoral authoritarian regime. A first possibility is a "train crash" scenario where the autocrats hold clean elections and step down from office because a united opposition can credibly threaten to rebel in unison against potential transgressions. This was the route followed, for example, in Senegal in two thousand and Kenya in two thousand two.

The model offers a second route to democracy that entails "pacting over the institutions" such that the autocrats credibly tie their hands to not commit fraud by delegating the organization and monitoring of the elections to an independent electoral body. Mexico in the nineteen nineties fits this characterization. The theory argues that autocrats will create institutions to restrain their ability to commit fraud when one, they expect to win the elections; two, parts of the opposition will protest even if elections are clean; and three, this lack of credibility of the electoral process becomes too costly. After these types of "political pacts," the ruling party can go on winning, yet having established the conditions for elections to take place under democratic conditions.

A third way to defeat an electoral authoritarian regime is through what I call a "civil revolution." In this equilibrium outcome, the ruling party steals the elections and voters respond with massive street protests. The outcome of this conflict is uncertain and depends on the choices made by the repressive apparatus. If the armed forces back the ruling party, the autocracy is likely to survive. But they can also switch sides and refuse to repress the masses, in which case democracy can emerge. This is what happened, for example, during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in two thousand four and the Rose Revolution in Georgia in two thousand three. Despite the presence of military capacity, citizens were able to overpower the autocrats because their protesting in the streets induced the armed forces and other regime insiders to switch sides.

olution in Ukraine in 2004 and the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003. Despite the presence of military capac- ity, citizens were able to overpower the autocrats because their protesting in the streets induced the armed forces and other regime insiders to switch sides.

The article is organized as follows. The first section discusses the prevalence of electoral authoritarianism. The next section develops the theory of electoral fraud through the use of a game theory model where perfect voter information about the election results is presumed, and the third section discusses the implications to the game when there is limited voter information about whether there was fraud or not. I end with a conclusion that highlights the main findings and offers an agenda for future research.

Elections in Autocratic Regimes

Most autocracies employ at least some repression to disarticulate the opposition-they murder or imprison its leaders and followers. "Electoral autocracies" do not ban the opposition, but allow it to organize into independent political parties and contest elections. This form of autocracy is the most common in the world today. Figure one displays the number of electoral autocracies in the world from nineteen fifty until two thousand. Electoral autocracies are defined broadly as autocratic regimes that allow opposition parties to contest elections.

Electoral autocracies include "hegemonic regimes" in which multiparty elections are little more than window dressing (e.g., Singapore, Uzbekistan, Mexico in the nineteen sixties), as well as "competitive authoritarian" regimes in which elections generate at least some uncertainty (e.g., Malaysia, Kenya, Senegal, Russia, Ukraine, Gabon, Mexico after nineteen eighty-eight, among many others). Regime dynamics are different in these cases. Authoritarian rulers turn to their nastiest levels of repression, intimidation, and fraud when they are vulnerable, not when their political domination is secured at the polls. In the hegemonic regimes, electoral fraud often may not even be necessary because other steps have been taken to weaken or eliminate the opposition. By contrast, in competitive authoritarian regimes, electoral fraud and other malpractices are often present. The model developed in this article mostly applies to competitive authoritarian regimes.

The figure shows how the number of countries that can be considered democratic has increased in the last decade. But the graph clearly shows that after the nineteen nineties electoral autocracies have become the most prevalent form of dictatorships-by two thousand, sixty-two percent of the autocracies in the world were holding multiparty elections. Thus, the end of the Cold War is unquestionably associated with an explosion of competitive elections around the world. The multiparty autocracies in two thousand are predominantly concentrated in Africa, forty-eight percent, followed by the Middle East/North Africa, twenty-one percent, the former Soviet Bloc, ten percent, and Asia, eight point three three percent. It should be noted that during the nineteen nineties, the world is almost evenly distributed between democracy and autocracy, democracy becoming slightly more frequent at the end.

Elections in autocracies differ significantly from elections in democracies. In stable democracies, the armed forces are neutral and committed to enforce the result of the elections regardless of who wins. In autocratic regimes, by contrast, the armed forces are often partisan, giving rulers ample leeway to subvert elections by fraud and force. Years of uninterrupted control of the state apparatus give autocratic parties huge incumbency advantages that come from their indiscriminate and asymmetrical access to the state resources and

Patronage networks. Ruling parties under autocracy normally exert strong control over the mass media, which tends to sponsor the rulers, misrepresent the balance of forces, and thwart the propagation of accusations of electoral corruption. In autocratic regimes the electoral rules tend to be biased in favor of the ruling party and are often used to fabricate and divide the opposition. Finally, in autocratic regimes most of the state organs such as courts, electoral commissions, and prosecutors' offices are in the hands of the ruling party, allowing it to unilaterally control the organization, monitoring, certification, and adjudication of elections. Thus, when opposition parties participate in autocratic electoral arenas, they are compelled to contest in biased playing fields, where their votes might not be counted fairly and the military might turn against them if they protest.

The next section discusses the set of strategic variables that spell out how opposition parties and their voters can coerce autocratic rulers to leave power when they lose. The theory presents two permutations of the game of electoral fraud. One game assumes perfect voter information about whether there was fraud or not, and in the other, voters do not know the actual election results.