La fabrique du vote : placer la matérialité au cœur de l’analyse

Perrot, Sandrine; Pommerolle, Marie‐Emmanuelle; Willis, Justin

doi:10.3917/polaf.144.0005

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The introduction of electoral technology in Kenya is the political component of a wider modernizing project for a self-described ‘digital country’ (Poggiali, 2017). 16 It is also the most recent component of the never-ending discussions on electoral techniques common to African countries: Ever-changing electoral laws, voting materials and systems are temporary responses to a continuing sense of discontent over electoral management (Perrot et al, 2016).…”

Section: Before the 2017 Election: The Irresistible Rise Of The Techn...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In sub-Saharan Africa, the debate on electon materiality is more alive than ever for historical reasons related to electoral discontent but also because of the proliferation of digital technologies. Perrot et al (2016) point out how a fine-grained analysis of the materiality of voting challenges the disciplinary, socialization, and social appropriation aspects of elections. This work echoes the tradition of the French sociological history of politics (Garrigou, 2002) and the anthropology of democracy (Coles, 2004), and also connects to the strand of research on the African biometric state (Awenengo Dalberto et al, 2018;Breckenridge, 2014).…”

Section: Making Electoral Transparency Through Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The (un)making of electoral transparency through technology: The 2017 Kenyan presidential election controversy

Passanti

Pommerolle

2022

Soc Stud Sci

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Marked by the killing of a senior ICT professional working for the Electoral Commission and the invalidation of the presidential election by the Supreme Court, the 2017 Kenyan elections make for a good case through which to study how digital technologies shape contemporary electoral practice. This article examines the practice of electoral transparency through technology and argues that it can be conceived as a socio-technical device based both on distancing people from knowledge of the electoral infrastructure and on staging a simplified discourse on public access to the electoral infrastructure. Drawing on interviews with key actors in election technology implementation and ethnographic observations of public events around it, the article argues that digital technology has had three sets of implications for elections. First, it has shaped the electoral infrastructure and the nature of the final result (now a paper and digital hybrid). Second, it has shaped the distribution of knowledge among electoral professionals, giving a central role to ICT actors, objects, and knowledge in the definition of electoral transparency. Third, the centrality of ICTs in elections and the order of knowledge they bring are highly controversial and criticized by other electoral actors who demand for material proof for understanding the inner workings of elections.

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Section: Before the 2017 Election: The Irresistible Rise Of The Techn...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Making Electoral Transparency Through Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The (un)making of electoral transparency through technology: The 2017 Kenyan presidential election controversy

Passanti

Pommerolle

2022

Soc Stud Sci

Self Cite

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Digital dilemmas: the unintended consequences of election technology

2018

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Digital technologies are increasingly used in elections around the world. Where the resources and capacity of the state are limited, some have argued that such technologies make it possible to rapidly "leapfrog" to cleaner and more credible elections. This article argues that the growing use of these technologies has been driven by the fetishization of technology rather than by rigorous assessment of their effectiveness; that they may create significant opportunities for corruption that (among other things) vitiate their potential impact; and that they carry significant opportunity costs. Indeed, precisely because new technology tends to deflect attention away from more "traditional" strategies, the failure of digital checks and balances often renders an electoral process even more vulnerable to rigging than it was before. These observations are not intended as a manifesto against the digitization of elections; apart from anything else, we argue that the drivers of the adoption of these new methods are too powerful to resist. But the analysis draws attention to the importance of more careful assessments of the problems, as well as the benefits, of such technologiesand to the need for more careful planning in their deployment.

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La biométrie électorale au Tchad : controverses technopolitiques et imaginaires de la modernité

Debos¹

2019

Politique Africaine

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Les technologies d’identification biométrique, de plus en plus utilisées lors des élections en Afrique, sont vendues comme un moyen de lutter contre la fraude. À partir du cas de l’enregistrement des électeurs au Tchad pour la présidentielle de 2016, l’article étudie comment s’est développé un imaginaire de la biométrie qui oppose la rationalité et la neutralité supposées de la technologie à la perversion de la politique. Il montre que, si la biométrie a été construite comme une nécessité et une « solution » pour résoudre la crise politique, elle a été repolitisée par des controverses sur le choix de la « bonne » technologie, ses utilisations et le rôle des acteurs internationaux, notamment des industriels français.

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La fabrique du vote : placer la matérialité au cœur de l’analyse

Cited by 8 publications

References 6 publications

The (un)making of electoral transparency through technology: The 2017 Kenyan presidential election controversy

The (un)making of electoral transparency through technology: The 2017 Kenyan presidential election controversy

Digital dilemmas: the unintended consequences of election technology

La biométrie électorale au Tchad : controverses technopolitiques et imaginaires de la modernité

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