The Paradox for Legimatization: Electoral Governance Reforms in Europe and Asia

• In Event: Poster Session: Politics and History & International History and Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Politics and History

Abstract

The electoral governance is one of the cruces for contemporary democracies. The argument of democratic backsliding shows that the qualities of the governance influence the conditions of democracy itself. However, most of the research has focused on developing countries but has understudied advanced democracies. This paper tries to fill such a gap by exploring the political economy of recent reforms on electoral governance in Europe and Asia.
The institutional design of electoral governance has been criticized fiercely for their malpractice. Therefore, some countries have reformed their government-led EMB(Electoral Management Body) into a more independent one, such as France and Korea. However, other countries, such as Italy and Japan, have still maintained the original model, though suffering from the mounting troubles of vote-buying or miscalculations. The author argues that such a difference reflects not only institutional path-dependencies but also the legitimation of electoral governance institutions.
Paradoxically, in Italian and Japanese cases, the complex balances of mixed parties in electoral governance have given strong legitimacy to the existing institutions, though with a lot of difficulties. The comparative evaluation of electoral management has classified Italian & Japanese one into an administrative model, but the actual institutions have been more plural and democratic.
From a theoretical perspective, the paper can shed new light on the nexus between institutions and the discourse. Strong beliefs and discourses on the democratic nature of electoral governance could legitimate the dilemma of systemic reform by crowding out the possibility for changing the equilibrium of existing institutions of electoral governance.

Author

• Takeshi Ito, University of Tokyo