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Why electoral integrity matters,

by Pippa Norris
a
Sarbeswar Sahoo
a
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
Published online: 10 Jun 2015.

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To cite this article: Sarbeswar Sahoo (2015) Why electoral integrity matters, by Pippa
Norris, Democratization, 22:6, 1158-1159, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2015.1022149

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 1158 Book reviews

Why electoral integrity matters, by Pippa Norris, Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press, 2014, 297 pp., $29.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-107-68470-6

Following the “third-wave” of global democratization, many communist and author-

itarian regimes have made a transition to democratic governance. According to
Freedom House, since 1974 the number of democratic political systems has more
than tripled – from 39 to 125 as by 2015. Many of these newly democratic countries
adopted the “procedural” democracy; their success was measured through the way
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elections were held and the transfer of power occurred. While elections do not
reveal much about the level of equality or distribution of power in a society, they
do, however, constitute an important aspect of democracy. It is in this context that
Pippa Norris’s Why Electoral Integrity Matters makes a significant contribution.
Electoral integrity is broadly defined as a process of conducting free and fair elec-
tions by addressing electoral fraud and malpractices, administrative irregularities,
and violation of democratic principles throughout an electoral cycle, beginning
with the campaign period to the counting of final results. This book, a part of a
six-year research project on electoral integrity, “is the first of a planned trilogy on
the challenges of electoral integrity around the world, including why it matters,
why electoral integrity fails and what can be done to address these problems” (xi).
The central questions in this book are: what are the instrumental consequences of
electoral integrity? And, why might flawed elections matter? Norris uses multiple
sources of evidence to address these questions. The Electoral Integrity Project’s
global comparative expert survey data are used to understand where elections
succeed and fail and the sixth-wave of the World Value Survey 2010–2014 is used
to measure perceptions of electoral integrity. In order to complement these two
large-scale cross-national data sets, Norris has used selected historical case studies cov-
ering a series of elections from around the world since the 1990s. Based on this unique
mix of quantitative and qualitative data and an extensive survey of the literature, Norris
arrives at several important theoretical and empirical conclusions. The book is divided
into four parts. Part I (Chapters 1–3) deals with the theoretical and conceptual foun-
dations of electoral integrity. Part II (Chapters 4–5) discusses the problem of flawed
elections; Part III (Chapters 6–9) examines the consequences of electoral integrity.
And, the final part (Chapter 10) discusses the major findings and conclusions.
Norris begins the book by reviewing the theoretical literature. According to her,
most of the existing literature has focussed narrowly on practices that are described
as “fraudulent”, “unclean” and “manipulated” or “free and fair” and “democratic”.
For Norris, such works provide insufficient analytical boundaries and hence there
is a need to redefine concepts. Her alternative conceptualization refers to electoral
integrity as “agreed upon international conventions and universal standards about
elections reflecting global norms applying to all countries worldwide throughout
the electoral cycle, including during the pre-electoral period, campaign, on
polling day, and its aftermath” (21). Norris argues that electoral malpractices,
which can violate the integrity of elections, could occur at any of these stages.
 Book reviews 1159
The questions then are: what are the problems associated with flawed elections?;
and, most importantly, “is the public aware of electoral malpractices (91)?”
Addressing these questions, Norris, in the second part, discusses the public per-
ceptions of electoral integrity and international concerns about electoral malpractices.
According to her, the public is well aware of electoral malpractices in their societies;
very often such knowledge is shaped by their access to independent media and the
education system. Norris further argues that “the quality of elections in each
society do shape public concern about integrity” (110). The question is: how can
we improve electoral integrity? According to Norris, since the post-Cold War
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period, the international community has played an active role and taken several
measures to improve electoral integrity around the world. Through United Nations
agencies, non-governmental organizations and various activist groups, they have pro-
vided technical assistance and aid to overcome logistical problems. Despite such firm
efforts, electoral integrity continues to be undermined by vested interest groups such
as local strongman rulers, hereditary absolute monarchs and military juntas. Given
this, one may ask, what happens when electoral integrity is undermined?
In Part III, Norris examines the consequences of electoral integrity for legitimacy,
for political behaviour, for conflict and security, and for different political systems. The
evidence presented in the book shows that while electoral integrity strengthens democ-
racy, flawed elections undermine confidence in the political institutions. They lead to
lower voting participation and often trigger outbreaks of mass protests and violence.
Fraudulent and rigged contests also worsen tensions between the supporters of the
winning and the losing candidates and heavily undermine the legitimacy of democratic
systems. However, under certain circumstances, “persistent and sustained public disaf-
fection with electoral malpractices, coupled with discontent with the broader political
system, have the capacity to mobilize significant reforms to the electoral process”
(187). Norris concludes that “in certain exceptional cases, mass discontent can be
one of the catalysts leading to revolutionary regime transitions” (187).
The major strength of this book is its systematic organizational structure and coher-
ence of argument. The chapters are systematically linked, with each chapter generating
new questions which are addressed in the succeeding chapters. The book clearly suc-
ceeds in answering why electoral integrity matters and what happens when it is under-
mined. One minor point, however, is that the book does not give much attention to the
role played by civil society organizations in strengthening electoral integrity. I would
have liked a specific chapter on this. Nevertheless, the book is theoretically sophisti-
cated and provides a brilliant comparative account of the relationship between electoral
integrity and democracy around the world. The book will be immensely useful to stu-
dents and scholars of political science and comparative political sociology.

Sarbeswar Sahoo
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
sarbeswar@hss.iitd.ac.in
# 2015, Sarbeswar Sahoo
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2015.1022149