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Why Do States Intervene in the Elections of Others? The Role of Incumbent–Opposition Divisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2020

Johannes Bubeck Open the ORCID record for Johannes Bubeck [Opens in a new window] ,
Kai Jäger Open the ORCID record for Kai Jäger [Opens in a new window] ,
Nikolay Marinov Open the ORCID record for Nikolay Marinov [Opens in a new window]  and
Federico Nanni Open the ORCID record for Federico Nanni [Opens in a new window]
Johannes Bubeck
Affiliation:
Independent scholar
Kai Jäger
Affiliation:
Department of Political Economy, King's College London, Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim
Nikolay Marinov*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
Federico Nanni
Affiliation:
Alan Turing Institute, British Library, London
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Why do states intervene in elections abroad? This article argues that outsiders intervene when the main domestic contenders for office adopt policy positions that differ from the point of view of the outside power. It refers to the split between the government's and opposition's positions as policy polarization. Polarization between domestic political forces, rather than the degree of unfriendliness of the government in office, attracts two types of interventions: process (for or against democracy) and candidate (for or against the government) interventions. The study uses a novel, original data set to track local contenders’ policy positions. It shows that the new policy polarization measurement outperforms a number of available alternatives when it comes to explaining process and candidate interventions. The authors use this measurement to explain the behavior of the United States as an intervener in elections from 1945 to 2012. The United States is more likely to support the opposition, and the democratic process abroad, if a pro-US opposition is facing an anti-US government. It is more likely to support the government, and undermine the democratic process abroad, if a pro-US government is facing an anti-US opposition. The article also presents the results for all interveners, confirming the results from the US case.

Keywords

election interventionspolicy polarizationtext analysis
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 85 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Bubeck et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DDLCMO
Link
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Bubeck et al. supplementary material

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