Can Courts in Nondemocracies Deter Election Fraud? De Jure Judicial Independence, Political Competition, and Election Integrity

Abstract

Many nondemocracies hold multiparty elections while also adopting institutions of de jure judicial independence; yet there is debate over how nondemocratic courts can affect election integrity. This paper argues that increased de jure independence creates incentives for opposition recourse to the courts, which reduces election fraud due to greater legal exposure for election-manipulating agents and the ruling party. However, this effect occurs only when competition is low and the ruling party has limited incentive to intervene. These predictions are distinct from those of prior work, and they are supported by an analysis of cross-national election-year data from 1945 to 2014. Preprocessing techniques are used to reduce concerns about endogeneity and confounding. The results show that principal-agent dynamics can occur in manipulated elections even when incumbents remain in office, challenge the centrality of protest risk as a deterrent to manipulation, and offer a framework for predicting when de jure reforms translate to behavioral independence.

Autocratic Electoral Management: Lessons From Thailand

“…For example, Chernykh and Svolik (2015: 409; original emphasis) show that alternative oversight institutions do not need to be independent to have a positive effect on the quality of polls, they need to be “acceptable to both the opposition and the incumbent” which often requires a level of proincumbent bias. Similarly, when it comes to the role of the courts, Popova (2012: 100) and Harvey (2022: 1326) demonstrate that high electoral competition incentivises incumbents to interfere with the courts more as it increases incumbents’ likelihood of losing the polls. Low electoral competition, on the other hand, can reduce electoral manipulation.…”

“…Low electoral competition, on the other hand, can reduce electoral manipulation. Incumbents who are electorally secure can tolerate a level of judicial independence and may "voluntary engage in less [electoral] manipulation" over time to avoid potential legitimacy costs of adverse court rulings (Harvey, 2022(Harvey, : 1325(Harvey, -1326.…”