Election Observation and Perceptions of Elections

Abstract

This study evaluates the effects of election observers (EOs) on local beliefs about the credibility of elections. It examines those effects using an innovative research design implemented in Tunisia during the 2014 election cycle. A two-wave panel study contains experiments that convey information to randomly selected respondents about the nationality of EOs and their evaluations of the elections. It leverages the unique timing of Tunisia’s elections – two general elections separated by just one month – to investigate how election monitoring and beliefs about election credibility in one election affect political behaviors around future elections. In addition to advancing the literature on the effects of election observation and democracy promotion more generally, the findings from this research contribute to a growing body of work on election credibility, which scholars posit is an important determinant of a number of political behaviors from democratic engagement and voter turnout to protest and election violence.
 

Speaker Bio

Lauren Prather is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Stanford University and a future Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego in the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. She conducts research in the fields of international relations and comparative politics focusing on political behavior, public opinion, and foreign aid. Her dissertation work examines how ideology, transnational ties, and material interests shape public opinion and individual behaviors related to foreign aid in donor countries. Other ongoing work includes a lab-in-the-field experiment developed to understand the effects of authoritarian iconography on political compliance and a field experiment designed to examine how cost-effectiveness and the location of climate change programs affects willingness to donate to environmental projects.