When will parties comply with electoral results? Political institutions and strategic choices of political parties following electoral defeat
This study examines the electoral compliance of political parties. In recent decades the number of countries holding multi-party elections has increased dramatically. Often times, however, one or more of the parties participating in the election refuse to comply with the announced results and frequently resort to extra-legal strategies to dispute electoral outcomes. I develop and test a model of electoral compliance based on both election-level and party-level factors. I model the decisions of political parties to reject electoral outcomes as well as their selection of post-electoral strategies, taking into account legal and extra-legal tactics. The analysis focuses on post-electoral strategies of political parties in elections held in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2009. My findings indicate that political parties likely employ several types of strategic calculations when deciding how to respond to electoral defeat. Most prominently, political parties take into account their chances of winning in the future electoral cycles when responding to current electoral outcomes. Moreover, the characteristics of individual political parties, including their political histories and ideology, play an important role in their decision to reject electoral results. This study shows that approaching the phenomenon of electoral compliance from both the election- and the party-level offers a more accurate perspective of, and new insights into, the questions of post-electoral compliance.
Election, Electoral Compliance, Political Institutions, Political Parties, Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign