Can Parties Police Themselves? Electoral Governance and Democratization

Abstract

This article outlines the logic and consequences of the classical theory of electoral governance. By empowering the executive with the administration of elections and the legislature with the certification of the vote tally, the theory expected elected officials to generate widely acceptable election results. This article argues that the classical theory breaks down when the same party controls the executive and the legislature. Developments in several presidential systems offer tentative support for its central hypothesis. Only when parties delegated election governance to an autonomous court system did election conflicts stop promoting political instability. Comparisons between us and Latin American separation of power systems also suggest that political developments in North and South America are much more similar than commonly assumed.