Signaling Democratic Progress through Electoral System Reform in Post-Communist States

• Author: William O’Brochta,Patrick Cunha Silva
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211043865
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2022, Vol. 75(4) 1037–1050

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129211043865

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Signaling Democratic Progress through

Electoral System Reform in

Post-Communist States

William O’Brochta

1

and Patrick Cunha Silva

2



Abstract

The international community invests heavily in democracy promotion, but these efforts sometimes embolden leaders not

interested in true democratic reform. We develop and test a formal model explaining why this occurs in the context of

electoral system reform—one of the most important signals of democratic quality. Our formal model characterizes

leaders as either truly reform minded or pseudo-reformers, those who increase electoral system proportionality in

order to receive international community benef‌its while engaging in electoral fraud. We hypothesize that the inter -

national community will be more (less) likely to detect fraud when leaders decrease (increase) proportionality, regardless

of whether there is evidence of numerical fraud. Using a mixed-methods approach with cross-national and case study

data from post-Communist states, we f‌ind that the international community is generally less likely to detect fraud

following an increase in proportionality and vice versa. We suggest that democracy promoters over-reward perceived

democratic progress such that pseudo-reformers often benef‌it.

Keywords

proportionality, electoral fraud, electoral system reform, democracy promotion, post-Communist states

Introduction

Democratic governments and non-governmental organi-

zations spend billions of dollars each year promoting

democracy in developing nations. Despite the time, en-

ergy, and money that the international community pours

into democracy promotion, these efforts have produced

mixed results (e.g., Goldsmith, 2008). Indeed, scholars

have identif‌ied cases where democracy promotion results

in unintended consequences that enable recipient country

leaders to obtain benef‌its from the international com-

munity without making serious democratic progress (e.g.,

Asunka et al., 2019). How and why do these unintended

consequences come about? We develop and test the

predictions of a formal model that captures the conditions

under which democracy promotion results in no true

democratic progress.

While the international community invests in a wide

range of democracy promotion strategies, elections are of

particular interest (Carothers, 2009), as substantial de-

mocratization of the electoral process enables the de-

velopment of strong opposition parties, helping to ensure

long-term political change. We focus on reforms that

change the proportionality of electoral systems.

1

Such

reforms are visible to members of the international

community: changing electoral rules typically involves a

constitutional amendment, legislative approval, or exec-

utive order. More importantly, proportionality reforms are

common. Crisp and Cunha Silva (2020) show that be-

tween 1980 and 2018, Latin American countries reformed

their electoral systems 44 times.

The international community has long backed reform

efforts to increase electoral system proportionality and

seemingly places weight on whether country leaders do so

(e.g., Tomini, 2014). Leaders perceived as democratizing

stand to gain from international organizations who value

democracy promotion. Even weak signs of democratic

progress—like institutional rules changes—can generate

increased international goodwill, favorable electoral ob-

servation reports, and foreign aid (Dimitrova and

1

Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, USA

2

Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA

Corresponding Author:

William O’Brochta, Louisiana Tech University, 1308 West Railroad

Avenue, Ruston, LA 71272, USA.

Email: obrochta@latech.edu