Contesting the Status Quo- A comparative study of democratic electoral outcomes in electoral authoritarian regimes

Michael Wahman

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper, not in proceeding

Abstract

There has recently been an increased interest among academic scholars on the importance of elections per se as promoters for democratic change in semi-democratic contexts. This study positions itself somewhat on the side of this debate asking; when do elections in electoral authoritarian regimes result in democratic consequences?
Recognising that elections can be as well a tool for democratic empowerment as authoritarian legitimisation, the study tries to avoid an obviously democratic bias and seeks the causes for as well democratic improvements as erosion in connection with elections.
Using a quantitative method with a global population of 283 elections in the period 1973-2004, the sample of the study is significantly larger than previous investigations on this subject.
The main findings of the analysis is that while most of the theories laid out in the theoretical literature do not stand the test of a large scale quantitative analysis, a high number of demonstrations preceding the election and a larger historical experience of previous elections, is important for the democratic electoral outcome.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 2008
EventAnnual Meeting of the Swedish Political Science Association, 2008 - Uppsala, Sweden
Duration: 2008 Sept 262008 Sept 26

Conference

ConferenceAnnual Meeting of the Swedish Political Science Association, 2008
Country/TerritorySweden
CityUppsala
Period2008/09/262008/09/26

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Political Science

Free keywords

  • authoritarianism
  • comparative
  • demonstrations
  • democracy
  • multiple regression analysis
  • elections

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