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International election observation has been scrutinized over the past two decades by scholars trying to explain its aim, scope, and consequences. As it is now a standard practice in democratizing countries, scholarly literature has almost reached a consensus on the ability of observers to deter election-day fraud, one of the most positive unintended consequences of election observation. Using data from the 2004 Ukraine presidential election, this article extends our knowledge through a natural experiment on polling station-level election results. I will show that observation during counting does not have a stronger effect than observation during opening and/or polling. Results support previous studies showing the usefulness of election observation in reducing election-day fraud but add an important finding that deserves further scholarly attention.

International election observation has become a standard practice in democratizing countries. Doubts have been cast on the ability of electoral observers to accurately judge the freedom and fairness of an electoral process, and the scholarly literature has still not reached a consensus on the unintended consequences of election observation. This article empirically tests the hypothesis that observers can deter election-day fraud through a natural experiment on polling-station-level election results. Using data from the Ukraine 2004 presidential election, it will show that OSCE/ODIHR observation has both immediate and lasting effect on domestic political actors' behavior. Results do support the usefulness of election observation in reducing election-day fraud.

AbstractWhat is the role of referendums in different regimes from authoritarian electoral democracies to democratic systems? In this article we use the Direct Democracy Integrity Index to analyse the Turkish (2017) and Italian (2020) referendums to understand if they can be seen as contributing to majoritarianism or to consensus democracy, depending on rules such as who can call a referendum and on the integrity of the referendum itself and considering the misuse of the instrument by the executive especially in the initial phase of the referendum. Turkey and Italy are used as a most different systems design: a modern autocracy and a consolidated democracy are actually similar in their extensive and frequent use of nationwide constitutional referendums. We conclude that the constitutional referendum in modern autocratic Turkey contributed to majoritarian developments and strengthened the president, while in democratic Italy the referendum also offered incentives for minorities and regions to express dissent. Integrity was more problematic in the pre-referendum phase.

AbstractThe study of electoral system reform is often focused on consolidated democracies. This special issue on electoral reforms in the Mediterranean region selects both consolidated democracies and moderate authoritarian systems. It analyses reforms under the aspects of how they deal with the dilemma between improving 'governability' by majoritarian instruments versus increasing proportionality of representation. While governability also depends on other factors, public debates are frequently structured along this dichotomy, which also affects the outcome of the reform process. The Mediterranean focus reflects the higher degree of reform activities in this policy area (for instance compared to the Nordic countries), which helps to focus on drivers, scope, direction, and vested interests of electoral reforms.