Monitors and Meddlers
How Foreign Actors Influence Local Trust in Elections

Investigates how foreign actors influence citizens' trust in elections, and cases where outside intervention has enhanced or undermined election integrity.

Sarah Sunn Bush (Author), Lauren Prather (Author)

9781009204316, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2022

280 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.61 kg

'By centering citizens and their reactions to foreign influences in their own country's elections, Bush and Prather provide an insightful investigation of how both democracy promotion and partisan interference matter on the ground. They demonstrate that Who is interfering, and why, powerfully influence citizen trust in their own elections.' Susan D. Hyde, Professor and Chair, Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Foreign influences on elections are widespread. Although foreign interventions around elections differ markedly-in terms of when and why they occur, and whether they are even legal-they all have enormous potential to influence citizens in the countries where elections are held. Bush and Prather explain how and why outside interventions influence local trust in elections, a critical factor for democracy and stability. Whether foreign actors enhance or diminish electoral trust depends on who is intervening, what political party citizens support, and where the election takes place. The book draws on diverse evidence, including new surveys conducted around elections with varying levels of democracy in Georgia, Tunisia, and the United States. Its insights about public opinion shed light on why leaders sometimes invite foreign influences on elections and why the candidates that win elections do not do more to respond to credible evidence of foreign meddling.

1. Introduction
2. How foreign actors influence election credibility
3. Research strategy
4. Monitors' effects
5. Meddlers' effects
6. Intervener identity
7. Individual vote choice
8. Elections with foreign influences.

Subject Areas: International organisations & institutions [LBBU], International relations [JPS], Comparative politics [JPB]