Does it matter what observers say? The impact of international election monitoring on legitimacy

ABSTRACT Scholars and democracy promoters often suggest that electoral observers’ (EOs’) assessments impact public opinion in a straightforward manner, yet, research on communication cautions against these sanguine assumptions. We test the impact of EO statements on public opinion in two very different contexts using survey experiments conducted among 3,361 Jordanians and Tunisians. Our results demonstrate the need for democracy promoters to consider negative consequences when implementing democracy promotion programmes, and for scholars to undertake further research regarding the impacts of election monitoring on domestic attitudes.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  Mediterranean Politics

• Publication date

  2020-04-24

• Fields of study

  Political Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1080/13629395.2020.1730601
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Why the Gender of Traditional Authorities Matters: Intersectionality and Women’s Rights Advocacy in Malawi

  2019cited by this paper
• Who's There? Election Observer Identity and the Local Credibility of Elections

  2018cited by this paper
• The Promise and Limits of Election Observers in Building Election Credibility

  2017influential reference
• Using the Qur’ān to Empower Arab Women? Theory and Experimental Evidence From Egypt

  2016cited by this paper
• Is It Gender, Religiosity or Both? A Role Congruity Theory of Candidate Electability in Transitional Tunisia

  2015cited by this paper
• Political Orientation, Information and Perceptions of Election Fraud: Evidence from Russia

  2015cited by this paper
• Listening to Outsiders: The Impact of Messenger Nationality on Transnational Persuasion in the United States†

  2015cited by this paper
• Information and Self-Enforcing Democracy: The Role of International Election Observation

  2014cited by this paper
• Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata

  2013cited by this paper
• Context Matters for Size: Why External Validity Claims and Development Practice Don't Mix-Working Paper 336

  2013cited by this paper
• Taking Sides in Other People’s Elections: The Polarizing Effect of Foreign Intervention

  2012cited by this paper
• Can International Election Monitoring Harm Governance

  2012cited by this paper
• Making Voters Count: Evidence from Field Experiments about the Efficacy of Domestic Election Observation

  2012cited by this paper
• Deterring or Displacing Electoral Irregularities? Spillover Effects of Observers in a Randomized Field Experiment in Ghana

  2012cited by this paper
• Monitoring Democracy

  2012cited by this paper
• The Pseudo-Democrat’s Dilemma: Why Election Observation Became an International Norm. By Susan Hyde. (Cornell University Press, 2011)

  2012cited by this paper
• Field experiment estimate of electoral fraud in Russian parliamentary elections

  2012cited by this paper
• It’s All in the Name: Source Cue Ambiguity and the Persuasive Appeal of Campaign Ads

  2011cited by this paper
• The Pseudo-Democrat's Dilemma: Why Election Observation Became an International Norm

  2011cited by this paper
• When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions

  2010cited by this paper
• In the Shadow of Democracy Promotion

  2009cited by this paper
• THE OBSERVER EFFECT IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

  2007cited by this paper
• Attitude polarization

  2007cited by this paper
• Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata (rev.)

  2005cited by this paper
• Motivated Thinking

  2004cited by this paper
• Hot Cognition or Cool Consideration? Testing the Effects of Motivated Reasoning on Political Decision Making

  2002cited by this paper
• Biased Assimilation of Sociopolitical Arguments: Evaluating the 1996 U.S. Presidential Debate

  2002cited by this paper
• Bringing Democracy into International Law

  2001cited by this paper
• Examination of psychological processes underlying resistance to persuasion

  2000cited by this paper
• The Rise of Election Monitoring: The Observers Observed

  1997influential reference
• Attitude importance and resistance to persuasion : It's not just the thought that counts

  1996cited by this paper
• A disconfirmation bias in the evaluation of arguments.

  1996cited by this paper
• The attitude polarization phenomenon : role of response measure, attitude extremity, and behavioral consequences of reported attitude change

  1993cited by this paper
• Motivated Skepticism: Use of Differential Decision Criteria for Preferred and Nonpreferred Conclusions

  1992cited by this paper
• The case for motivated reasoning.

  1990cited by this paper
• Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence

  1979cited by this paper
• On the nature of prejudice.

  1961cited by this paper
• Political Analysis Advance Access published November 16, 2006 doi:10.1093/pan/mpl008 The Logic of the Survey Experiment Reexamined

  year unknowncited by this paper

• International Election Observers’ Perception of Nigeria’s 2023 General Election: Lessons for 2027

  2024cites this paper
• Democratic Erosion, Partisanship, and Election Observers: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

  2024cites this paper
• Do Islamist parties help or hinder women? Party institutionalization, piety and responsiveness to female citizens

  2022cites this paper
• Do People Want Democracy Aid? Survey Experimental Evidence from Africa

  2022cites this paper
• International actors as critics of domestic freedoms: the role of expertise and benefits

  2021cites this paper
• The Politics and Ethics of Resistance, Feminism and Gender Equality in Saudi Arabian Organizations

  2021cites this paper
• The elusive sources of legitimacy beliefs: Civil society views of international election observers

  2019cites this paper