Election observation in Nigeria & Madagascar: diplomatic vs. technocratic bias (original) (raw)
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African Journal of Political Science and International Relations, 2017
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The election observer is one of the stakeholders of the electoral process in Africa. The role of the international observers just like other players of the electoral process, is to ensure free, fair and credible election. This body mostly work hand in hand with civil society group/organization in order to ensure smooth conduct of election. Election observers have been seen as democracy police in Africa which has added value to the conduct and manner at which election is being managed in the society. Although, many studies have been conducted on both positive contribution and negative impact of the election observers into the system, but this study will juxtapose the two sides of a coin to examine whether the role of the observer is a blessing or curse to the development of Africa and its democratic consolidation. The study makes use of Normative Theory to explain the role and contribution of election observers to the democratic consolidation in Africa. The study is a qualitative, and it employs the use of secondary source of data to explain the pros and cons of the international election observers towards monitoring election that mostly usher-in the transition of power from one democratically elected leader to another in Africa.
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Since the onset of the "third wave" of democratization in the mid-1970s, many have hailed elections as the hallmark of democracy. Expectations for what elections can accomplish have been especially high among democracy-promotion agencies, many of which focus on supporting elections. Among scholars, however, there is skepticism regarding the true value of elections for democratization. In 2002, Thomas Carothers argued in the pages of this journal that "greatly reduced expectations are in order as to what elections can accomplish as generators of deep-reaching democratic change." 1 In declaring "the end of the transition paradigm," he argued that elections are in and of themselves largely insignificant to democratization. This begs the question: Is there a value inherent in the holding of elections, or is the holding of elections merely an indicator of democratization? I believe that the former is the case. My analysis of more than two hundred third-wave elections in Africa shows that an uninterrupted series of competitive elections imbues society with certain democratic qualities. Repeated elections-regardless of their relative freeness or fairness-appear to have a positive impact on human freedom and democratic values. With a few exceptions, 2 most theories of democratization and democratic consolidation have failed to recognize this causal relationship. 3 To gauge the strength of this relationship, we need a consistent measure of democratization. In order to avoid tautology, such a measure needs to be sufficiently independent of electoral processes. One way of assessing the extent of democratization in a country, without consulting election data, is by looking beyond the arena of contesta