Spatial Dynamics of Election Fraud in Autocracies: Evidence from Cambodia

• In Event: Poster Session: Democracy and Autocracy

Abstract

Election manipulation is part and parcel of competitive authoritarian regimes. Typically, fraudulent tactics such as vote count falsification, voter intimidation, or tampering with the voter list cluster geographically. But what accounts for this variation? While the autocrat may want to centrally allocate fraud to maximise information acquisition or other strategic goals, their ability to do so may be diminished through inefficient monitoring and/or learning or competition among local agents. This paper draws on transaction cost economics, principal-agent theory, and diffusion of innovations to derive expectations about the spatial patterns of election manipulation in competitive authoritarian regimes. It then develops a single case study of the Cambodian election 2013 to examine these arguments empirically with a granular dataset of domestic election observer reports and leaked data on voter registration. This contributes to scholarly debates on authoritarian stability, electoral integrity, and spatial interdependence in social behaviour.

Author

• Max Grömping, Griffith University