Why Elections Matter

Elections are the indispensable marker of the progress of democracy throughout the world. Skeptics, however, murmur loudly that this global village of new democracies is a Potemkin village, as democratizing countries go through formalistic election paces to satisfy international funding institutions while democracy disappears entirely between elections. In this view, without the proper scaffolding, democracy can collapse at any minute. Further deepening the skepticism, a debate rages on whether the holding of elections is itself the façade which impedes the building of genuine democracy. This debate is usually cast in terms of sequencing (i.e., in what order the building blocks of democracy should be laid). Although some analysts argue that elections give transitional countries experience with organizing parties and civil society, improving the protection of civil liberties, others argue that well-functioning rule of law must proceed elections. A vibrant middle class and a functioning state apparatus are also offered as prerequisites of meaningful elections. ¹

Foreign Affairs editor Fareed Zakaria set the parameters of the current debate in his 1997 article "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy." Zakaria holds that advanced democracies are making a mistake in their approach to countries in transition and have "overemphasized multiparty elections and neglected the basic tenets of liberal governance." Without the precondition of constitutional and legal limits on power, elected leaders can consolidate unchecked power. In Zakaria's view, these "illiberal" democracies are not moving toward constitutional liberalism but toward heightened illiberalism. In addition, the introduction of democracy often "brings with it war mongering and hypernationalism."

Adrian Karatnycky, president of Freedom House--which rates countries worldwide on their protection of political and civil liberties--has been a leading spokesman for the other side of the debate that argues that elections have a positive impact on democratization. He argues that the 1998 and 1999 Freedom House rankings of 120 countries on scales of adherence to civil and political rights demonstrate a decline in the number of illiberal democracies and an increase in the number and proportion of the world's electoral democracies that respect the rule of law as well as the rights of minorities and have checks and balances on power. Although many electoral democracies do not guarantee civil liberties, Karatnycky writes that "the emergence of electoral democracies has been the best indicator of subsequent progress in the areas of civil liberties and human rights."

Aside from civil liberties and human rights, the thesis that there are economic preconditions for democracy has also been challenged. A team of scholars studied the longevity of political regimes from 1950 (or the year of independence in the case of ex-colonies) to 1990. The study found that there was a correlation between the longevity of a democracy and of economic growth and low inflation. There was no correlation, however, between the initiation of a democratic regime or its longevity and the level of economic development, as measured by gross national product (GNP)--except that at a level of $6,000 per capita GNP, democracies become "impregnable." ² The study found that authoritarian governments are no more likely than democracies to stimulate economic growth, a finding that undermines--along with lessons from the Asian economic crisis--the assertion of the Zakaria school that liberal authoritarian governments are better at bringing along the economies of less-developed countries.

Despite such research, the "pro-elections" side of the debate is often forced into a defensive posture, partly because, in the early days of electoral monitoring, a "good" election meant a good election-day performance. In that context, the "electoralist" position never made sense as a claim that elections alone produced democracy. Guarantees of civil and political liberties in the pre- and post-election environment should have been a part of the election evaluation package. Today it is. Major democracy promotion organizations have adjusted and expanded their monitoring operations appropriately. These changes, however, have not yet had an impact on the sterile framing of the debate as "electoralists" versus "anti-electoralists."

The...