Methodological Considerations for Evaluation and Measurement of Electoral Management and Quality of Elections

• Free and fair election is one of the key democratic institutions for building and maintaining legitimacy of the representative democracy. Despite its theoretical and methodological significance in explaining democratic performance of the representative democracies, scholarly research on the free and fair election as well as functions of the electoral management bodies has seldom drawn attentions for comparative studies. Malfunctions and technical errors detected in the process of voting and counting in the US Presidential election in 2000 triggered both political and academic interests in the study of fair electoral management. Korea is no exception. The political discord and party strife surrounding the involvement of the National Intelligence Service and Defence Security Command have drawn academic attention on the study of free and fair election and the role of the electoral management bodies. Despite magnified quantity and attention internationally and locally, both the scope of and depth in comparative research have been extremely restricted arguably due to the lack of clear conceptualization and methodological tools in the measurement of free and fair election as well as the role of electoral management bodies. This study attempts to fill this gap. Defining and measuring tool of the 11-steps free and fair election as well as the role of election management bodies can be regarded as a proper indicator for assessing the quality of election which is believed to have a useful role in the study of measuring performance of the democratic function. Broader research with national and international empirical data based on interviews with not only experts and voters but also polling workers, party candidates, party workers and journalists seems to be of great use for further development of methodological tool to enhance the theoretical capacity of the role of the electoral management bodies as a necessary and sufficient condition for achieving high performance of the procedural and electoral democracies.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

electoral management

quality of election

electoral process

free and fair election

electoral democracy

procedural democracy

Statsvetenskap

Political Science

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