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ABSTRACT
Transitional justice aims to promote democratization, but previous research has found that it has mixed effects. We address this puzzle by focussing on how transitional justice affects a necessary condition for democracy: clean elections. We test for the effects of four transitional justice mechanisms – truth commissions, lustration policies, amnesties, and trials – on two different types of electoral manipulation, using data from 187 post-transition elections held in 63 countries around the world from 1980 to 2004. We find that post-transition trials limit illegal forms of electoral manipulation, such as vote-buying and falsification of results, but have no effect on legal forms of manipulation. By contrast, lustration policies limit legal manipulation tactics, like intimidation and harassment of opponents by the security services, but do not affect illegal tactics. By showing that different aspects of transitional justice can have varying influence on electoral integrity, this project improves understanding of the mechanisms that link transitional justice and democratization.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Liesbet Hooghe, Jelle Koedam, Paula Mukherjee, Bilyana Petrova, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Another form of transitional justice, financial reparations, is focused on assisting victims, not on punishing perpetrators, building institutional capacity, or directly fostering democracy. Thus, this article does not include reparations in its analysis.
2 Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “The Justice Balance.”
3 Birch, Electoral Malpractice; Harvey, “Changes in the Menu of Manipulation.”
4 Sartori, “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics.”
5 We select these four mechanisms because they are most commonly analysed in the literature on transitional justice and democratization and because they are the mechanisms most frequently used in practice. As a result, we exclude some forms of transitional justice, like reparations and memorialization, which provide moral or financial restitution to victims of human rights abuses.
6 Thoms, Ron, and Paris, “State-Level Effects.”
7 de Greiff, “Transitional Justice and Development”; Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “The Justice Balance.”
8 Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “Transitional Justice in the World.”
9 Bakiner, “Truth Commission Impact”; Fletcher, Weinstein, and Rowen, “Context, Timing and the Dynamics of Transitional Justice”; The International Center for Transitional Justice, “Focus: Truth Commissions”; Snyder and Vinjamuri, “Trials and Errors.”
10 Dancy and Wiebelhaus-Brahm, “Timing, Sequencing and Transitional Justice Impact”; Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “The Justice Balance”; Sikkink and Walling, “The Impact of Human Rights Trials in Latin America.”
11 Dukalskis, “Interactions in Transition”; Roht-Arriaza, “After Amnesties are Gone”; Snyder and Vinjamuri, “Trials and Errors.”
12 Roht-Arriaza, “After Amnesties are Gone.”
13 Kim and Sikkink, “Explaining the Deterrence Effect”; Vinjamuri, “Deterrence, Democracy.”
14 Huntington, “The Third Wave”; Snyder and Vinjamuri, “Trials and Errors”; Vinjamuri and Snyder, “Advocacy and Scholarship”; Sikkink and Walling, “The Impact of Human Rights Trials in Latin America”; Sikkink, The Justice Cascade; Meernik, Nichols, and King, “The Impact”; Stensrud, “New Dilemmas.”
15 Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “The Justice Balance.”
16 Jeffery, “Amnesty and Accountability”; Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “The Justice Balance”; Snyder and Vinjamuri, “Trials and Errors.”
17 Lie, Binningsbø, and Gates, “Postconflict Justice.”
18 Mallinder, “Can Amnesties and International Justice be Reconciled?”
19 David, “Lustration Laws in Action”; Horne, “The Impact of Lustration.”
20 Letki, “Lustration and Democratisation”; Horne, “Assessing the Impact.”
21 David, “From Prague to Baghdad.”
22 Moltz, “Dealing With Communist Legacies.”
23 Norris, Why Electoral Integrity Matters.
24 Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation.”
25 Birch, Electoral Malpractice.
26 Rundlett and Svolik, “Deliver the Vote!”
27 Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation.”
28 Birch, Electoral Malpractice.
29 Lehoucq and Molina, Stuffing the Ballot Box; Lehoucq, “Electoral Fraud.”
30 Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy.
31 Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose.
32 Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections.
33 Donno and Roussias, “Does Cheating Pay?”
34 Birch, “Electoral Systems.”
35 Birch, Electoral Malpractice; Ziblatt, “Shaping Democratic Practice.”
36 Lehoucq and Molina, Stuffing the Ballot Box; Lehoucq, “Electoral Fraud”; Rundlett and Svolik, “Deliver the Vote!”; Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections; Ziblatt, “Shaping Democratic Practice.”
37 Kitschelt and Wilkinson, “Patrons, Clients and Policies.”
38 Larreguy, Marshall, and Querubín, “Parties, Brokers, and Voter Mobilization.”
39 Frye, Reuter, and Szakonyi, “Political Machines.”
40 Popova, “Watchdogs or Attack Dogs?”
41 Sjoberg, “Autocratic Adaptation.”
42 Simpser and Donno, “Can International Election Monitoring Harm Governance?”
43 Harvey, “Changes in the Menu of Manipulation.”
44 Howard and Roessler, “Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes”; Magaloni, “The Game of Electoral Fraud”; Schedler, “The Nested Game”; Rundlett and Svolik, “Deliver the Vote!”
45 Holley, “Ex-Leader of S. Korea Defends Slush Fund.”
46 Lev, “South Koreans View Trials as a Cleansing Moment.”
47 Kim and Sikkink, “How Do Human Rights.”
48 Matsueda, Kreager, and Huizinga, “Deterring Delinquents.”
49 Kim and Sikkink, “How Do Human Rights.”
50 Helmke and Rosenbluth, “Regimes and the Rule of Law.”
51 Of course, legal forms of manipulation (like gerrymandered districts) may be struck down by courts, but it is unlikely that legislators will face personal legal penalties for engaging in such practices.
52 David, “From Prague to Baghdad.”
53 David, “Lustration Laws in Action”; Grigorescu, “The Corruption Eruption.”
54 Horne, “The Impact of Lustration.”
55 David, “Lustration Laws in Action”; Stan, “Witch-hunt or Moral Rebirth?”
56 David, “Lustration Laws in Action,” 401.
57 Bačinský, “Speech to the Federal Assembly.”
58 David, “Lustration Laws in Action.”
59 Ibid.
60 Calingaert, “Election Rigging.”
61 Stokes et al., Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism.
62 The dataset contains nearly equal numbers of amnesties for supporters of the prior regime as for opponents of the prior regime. The models were run three different ways: with all amnesties, with amnesties for former regime supporters, and with amnesties for former regime opponents, and the results remained the same throughout.
63 Kelley, Monitoring Democracy.
64 Horne, “Late Lustration Programmes”; Blakeley, “Digging Up Spain’s Past.”
65 Kelley, Monitoring Democracy; Hyde, “Catch Us If You Can.”
66 Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “Transitional Justice in the World.”
67 Dancy et al., “The Transitional Justice Research Collaborative.”
68 An alternative approach, using the most severe violations noted by any observation mission, is employed in the online appendix, with substantively similar results.
69 Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “Transitional Justice in the World.”
70 Ibid.
71 Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, “The Justice Balance.”
72 Harvey, “Changes in the Menu of Manipulation”; Sjoberg, “Autocratic Adaptation”; Birch, Electoral Malpractice.
73 Linzer and Staton, “A Global Measure of Judicial Independence.”
74 Kim, “Structural Determinants.”
75 Cruz, Keefer, and Scartascini, “Database of Political Institutions.”
76 Vachudova, Europe Undivided; Olvera, “The Elusive Democracy.”
77 Transition type is based on the ‘How end’ variable in Geddes, Wright, and Franz, as follows (GWF code in parentheses). ‘Peaceful’ transitions are those in which regime insiders instituted liberalizing reforms (1), authoritarian parties lost elections and abided by the result (2), or competitive transitional elections were held (3). ‘Contested’ transitions follow popular uprising (4), coups (5), civil war (6), or foreign invasion (7). ‘Independence’ was coded for states that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which were coded by Geddes, Wright, and Franz as the end of the parent state (9). ‘Continuity’ was coded for transition from one authoritarian system to another (8); Geddes, Wright, and Franz, “Autocratic Breakdown.”
78 The modal transition type is peaceful. Predicted probability plots for contentious transitions are included in the online appendix.
79 Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation.”
80 Howard and Roessler, “Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Claire Greenstein
Claire Greenstein is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Her interests include transitional justice, particularly reparations, and German politics.
Cole J. Harvey
Cole J. Harvey is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. His research interests include authoritarian politics, electoral manipulation, and the politics of Russia and the former Soviet Union.