Event Host: Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Robert Bosch Foundation Alumni Association
Election observers are an important component of transatlantic democracy promotion efforts. Prior research has sought to understand the rise of election observers and their consequences for outcomes such as fraud, protest and violence. These studies are important, but they overlook a significant individual-level dynamic that observers themselves care about: the effect that election observers have on local attitudes about elections. How does election observer identity affect the local credibility of elections? Are American and European observers regarded as legitimate by local audiences, or are local observers more effective? We argue that the activities of election observers can enhance the local credibility of elections, but only when locals perceive observers as being both capable of detecting fraud and unbiased in that pursuit. Importantly, not all observer groups are seen as equally capable and unbiased.
Sarah Bush is an assistant professor of political science at Temple University. Prior to starting at Temple, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in November 2011.
You can register for this event by clicking here.