Research articles

Research Articles

  • (Forthcoming) The new mass unenfranchised? Mapping unenfranchised adults and the case for residence-based voting in the UK, Political Quarterly, with Jamie Underwood, accepted, in press.

Universal suffrage is a defining feature of democracy.  The UK electoral franchises, however, prohibit voting on the basis of some, but not all, nationalities.  Residence-based voting involves allowing all adults who are legally resident in a country to vote and it has been introduced in Scotland and Wales.  This article reports estimates on the number of  unenfranchised adults in the UK.  There has been an increase in the number of unenfranchised adults from 2.3 million in 2011 to 4.4 million in 2025. There are also 1.2 million unenfranchised adults in England and Northern Ireland.  Unenfranchised adults tend to be concentrated in electoral constituencies in the UK, where they outnumber the number of votes cast for the sitting MP in 36 seats.  If all residents could vote, 257 seats could have had a different outcome at the 2024 general election.  This raises important political, constitutional and legitimacy questions about excluding those who contribute to society from the ballot.

Emergency situations caused by natural and technological hazard

s have often been thought to pose a major threat to democratic practices. This article introduces the concept of electoral integrity resilience as the configuration of actors, resources and properties which enable societies to adapt to an external shock which could damage electoral integrity. The COVID-19 pandemic was a critical case which was thought to pose as a major threat to election quality and democracy worldwide. Although there have been many country-specific studies of the effects of the pandemic, cross-national analysis has been limited due to the unavailability of data. The article uses a new original dataset to identify the properties of polities which had the greatest electoral integrity resilience to the pandemic. The findings point to the importance of overall democratic quality, but also EMB capacity and the availability of multiple methods of voting as key aspects of electoral integrity resilience. These are proposed as key components for investment if countries want to build their electoral integrity resilience ahead of forthcoming crises and emergencies. The article has important lessons for the study and praxis of how future national and global risks can be prepared for – and the construction of resilient institutions.

Elections are the pivotal political institution used to confer legitimacy in almost all states. Decision making on election policy is usually elite-driven and top-down in nature. This article applies the concept of workplace democracy, originally proposed by Carole Pateman, to explore the voices of poll workers involved in delivering elections on the ground. Theories of workplace democracy argue participation should not be limited to the ballot box, but should also include other voices with views on how an organisation is run. The article uses original data from poll workers who implemented an important election policy reform – voter identification – at the first countrywide English elections that made this a formal requirement. It explores their views about how the electoral process could be improved. It argues that poll workers’ perspectives are important to facilitate bottom-up policy design and learning – and to detect democratic defects. Poll workers reported virtually no suspected cases of personation, although this was no different to previous elections. Voter identification did, however, restrict legitimate participation, particularly of women. Poll workers made several suggestions for improving the voter experience. Listening to these voices provides an important input to strengthen electoral democracy with bottom-up voices contributing to the design of political institutions.

There have been concerns about democratic backsliding in many countries around the world. A new research agenda, identifying the impact of democratic erosion on public administration – and whether public administration can act as a firewall to democratic backsliding – has arisen as a result. The relationship between public administration and democracy has often been a source of ambiguity, however. The article argues that the relationship depends upon the concept of democracy that is used. Using a maximalist real democracy approach, good public administration is argued to be an essential component of democracy – rather than an adjunct. Indicators of good public administration quality are developed and patterns of quality are mapped around the world. The article provides a general model of public administration reform connecting political leaders’ attempts to enact executive aggrandizement and bureaucratic resistance into a wider political context. It then develops five clusters of causal linkages between public administration and other aspects of democracy which frame the inquiry of the special issue ahead.

Despite rapid advancements in electoral integrity research, our understanding of how and to what extent a confluence of contemporary crises—ranging from the rise of digital electoral manipulation and increasing domestic political polarization to international confrontations between democracy and autocracy, as well as natural hazards such as the COVID-19 pandemic—affects the practices and processes of electoral integrity remains critically underexplored. This special issue thus examines the question: What are the potential impacts of emerging crises on electoral integrity and, consequently, the resilience of democracy? We argue that the current overlapping crises play a crucial role in shaping how political leaders manipulate electoral processes and influence election outcomes. The evolving conditions of electoral processes in response to these crises introduce new challenges for electoral administration, necessitating further scholarly attention.

This article presents an alternative general model of democracy to traditional minimalist (electoral and liberal) and deliberative theories by drawing from critical realist philosophical thought.   Realist or real democracy is proposed as a societal system where preconditions exist to fully empower all citizens to realise their individual capabilities.   This includes empowerment opportunities at the ballot box – but also other preconditions such as health, educational and living standards. Real democracy also separates democratic preconditions from democratic outcomes.  Democratic outcomes require the absence of inequalities in power as result from the contingent interaction preconditions and human agency.  The new approach is argued to provide a more holistic and dynamic concept of democracy which is also more grounded in the everyday experience of the citizen compared to traditional approaches.  It reconnects democracy with theories of human development and enables a new classification of political regimes and conception of democratic politics.  An initial empirical mapping of patterns of global real democracy shows evidence of rising preconditions since 1990 – but stagnation since 2010 and some signs of decline.  Democratic outcomes by socio-economic position saw the most notable decline.

The experiences that voters have of elections are pivotal in the democratic experience of citizens. However, there has been relatively few multidirectional theorisations of the nature of this experience and the implications. This article reviews existing canonical approaches to understanding the voter experience which are informed by rational choice theory, behaviouralism and constructivism. It offers an alternative human reflexivity approach which anchors the voter experience in structure-agency relationships using realist social theory. The voter experience is defined as the simultaneous process of gathering and responding to knowledge, perceptions and emotions about the electoral process through observing and (non)participating in electoral activities. The citizen is reflexively situated in this experience and is involved in a process of interpreting, re-interpreting, and responding to stimuli, structures and other actors. Using cross-national data, the article identifies the overall global characteristics of the voter experience around the world. Older and more educated voters tend to have a more positive voter experience. Poor voter experiences are also found to lead to citizens ‘checking out’ of future elections or disengaging from the voting process. The article concludes by setting out the research agenda that arises from the new framework which the special issue takes forward.

Throughout the world, scholars and international organisations have voiced their concern in recent years that democracy appears to be ‘backsliding.’ Elections are an indispensable part of the democratic system, but there has been relatively little focus on whether we have witnessed ‘electoral backsliding’. This special issue introductory article considers three rival theses (backsliding, strengthening and divergence) about the trajectory of election quality in response to new structural changes – which are evaluated against empirical datasets. The evidence provides little support electoral backsliding at the aggregate level. There is a continued need to monitor patterns of election quality for signals of future electoral backsliding. The research agenda on electoral integrity therefore remains an indispensable one. However, existing narratives about democratic backsliding should be more nuanced to the more complex and varied trajectories in the integrity of key democratic institutions.

Electoral management, understood as the application and implementation of electoral rules, is a critical part of democratic governance. But there are often concerns about the quality of electoral management and the performance of electoral management bodies around the world. Despite recent advances, there remains a need for new systematic evidence on the quality of electoral management and analysis of the factors that lead to poorly- or well- run elections. This article therefore maps out global variations in the quality of the public management of elections using a new cross-national dataset and measure. It then explains variations by evaluating the relative importance of bureaucratic culture, the autonomy of electoral authorities, political polarisation in the electorate and the capacity of electoral management bodies. The results provide support for the importance of each of these factors. The effect of political polarisation is an important finding as it is a new threat to elections.

There is strong evidence that we have entered into a democratic recession – where the quality of democracy is being reversed around the world. As the organisations responsible for running elections, election management bodies (EMBs) are at the fulcrum of the challenge of protecting democracy. This article introduces the special issue on ‘Safeguarding Election Management Bodies in the Age of Democratic Recession’ which aims to consider the emerging challenges that EMBs are facing, and how they can be best equipped to respond to them. It begins by defining some characteristics of a democratic recession and mapping global trends in democratic quality. It charts global trends in election quality and maps variation in the quality of electoral management worldwide. The article then considers the implications of a democratic recession for EMBs and how international and regional organisations have sought to address these problems. Finally, it introduces articles in the special issue.

The safe delivery of elections is a pivotal international issue in an era of widespread concerns about global democratic backsliding. Despite this, there remains little research on the training provided to electoral officials – those responsible for delivering elections and democracy on the front line. This article introduces the concept of electoral training institutionalisation, which refers to the extent to which training is embedded into electoral processes by electoral management bodies. It then presents original data from a survey of electoral management bodies to give an overview of the global provision of training. An original index of training institutionalisation is developed from the dataset. These data are analysed to identify the patterns of training. The results suggest that training institutionalisation tends to be associated with the overall quality of democracy and economic development. Deepening the embeddedness of electoral training is recommended as a step towards the strengthening of electoral democracy.

Electoral registers provide the definitive record of who can participate in an election, but there is often thought to be considerable variations in their quality cross-nationally. This leads to concerns about eligible voters being de facto disenfranchised on election day; but also ineligible voters or fictitious names appearing on the roll which can enable electoral fraud. In either case, the legitimacy of the election can be questioned. The electoral register is also used for other purposes such as drawing electoral boundaries. This article introduces some common international terminology for electoral register quality and a conceptualisation of the different ways in which an electoral register can be compiled. It then introduces a new global dataset on registration procedures (n = 159). The article hypotheses that automatic voter registration, as well as organisational and structural factors, strongly affects accuracy and completeness. The results show that automatic voter registration increases the completeness of the electoral register and also has a positive impact on accuracy. The organisational performance of the electoral management body was also shown to have positive effects on completeness and accuracy, suggesting an additional means of improving electoral registers beyond the registration model, which also rest in the hands of policy makers.

Pressing new (and old) challenges has put systems of governance and public administration under pressure around the globe. In this era, there is an ever greater need to globalize academic knowledge and learn from divergent systems. China has traditionally been held up as a suis generis exemplar of a particular mode of governance. An updated understanding of modern China and Chinese research on public administration stands to enrich the discipline by challenging old myths and assumptions – or by empirically demonstrating some enduring features. Given China’s size and geopolitical significance, it is also an important focus of study. This article outlines the key features of the Chinese system of government, governance and public administration. It maps the contours of the evolution of the study of public administration in China from the start of the twentieth century to a more mature and globally connected discipline in the present day. It also summarizes articles in this volume which shed new light on power, governance and public administration in modern China. They also provide new insights into governance and public administration theory. The volume shows that China has seen some localization and decentralization, alongside experiments with collaboration and networked-based policy making. However, the system of governance and public administration remains innately top-down and centralized with the center holding strong policy levers and control over society. As the pandemic revealed, this statist approach provided both governing opportunities and disadvantages.

The promotion of democracy has long been a cornerstone of states’ foreign policy and the work of international organizations. However, the online diffusion of gray literature on “best practices” by the international community is one method of democracy promotion which has been overlooked by the literature on democratization and international organizations. This essay provides a heuristic model for understanding the diffusion pathways, accelerants, and barriers to use for this democracy promotion method. The model is constructed using analysis of original data about the nature, volume, and direction of downloads from a major democracy promotion IGO between 2006 and 2017, alongside the process tracing of the impact of one key publication. The analysis suggests that the resources were more likely to be used by electoral management bodies lacking capacity as well as by universities worldwide with reduced educational and research resources. Internet access was a barrier to diffusion. The use of the
materials in the policy process is found to be dependent on actors’ strategically using them during decision-making policy windows. This notwithstanding, the production of gray literature provides a useful tool for democracy promotion.

What effect did Donald Trump have within and beyond America? This article assesses the policy impact of the President using the new layered framework for understanding the impact of political leaders, which considers their effect on the connected layers of societal structures, political institutions and policy. Firstly, the article extends the framework with a new typology of change. Secondly, it draws from the empirical articles in this volume to map his effects under the new typology and the layered approach. Trump is found to have largely acted as an accelerant for already existing causal processes in society, rather than providing a radical break with past politics in many areas. By undermining democratic institutions and encouraging hyper-partisanship within political institutions, for example, he was strengthening prevailing causal forces rather than constructing new forces. However, there were some more substantial effects such as the reversal of progress towards racial equality. In the layer of policy, he crucially failed to slow or reverse destructive pressures on the economy and public health or even fulfil major campaign promises on healthcare. Overall, Trump illustrates neither the strength nor weakness of the office of presidency, but instead the dangers of poor political leadership to citizens in America and beyond, especially in times of crisis.

How should political leaders be evaluated? This article reviews existing approaches and argues that they are insufficiently developed to map the more complex policy effects of political leaders, since they tend to focus on electoral and broader regime level outcomes. In response, it maps out a layered framework based on scientific realism. The layered approach argues that analysis should focus on the effects of leaders within societal structures, formal political institutions, the framing of policy problems as well as policy. The approach requires that we are sensitive to the structure and agency relationships between layers when identifying where leaders brought about policy and political change, as well as the effects on the international system and on other polities. It is proposed that the new approach will help to develop a more complete and nuanced understanding of the policy effects of leaders that will uncover their effects in hidden spaces as well as broader societal shifts.

The integrity of the electoral process is vitally important for the delivery of democracy. However, there is an ongoing debate about how the integrity of elections can be measured. This article makes the theoretical and normative case for the use of practitioner knowledge. Unlike public and expert perceptions, electoral officials have unique practice-based, experiential, tacit knowledge about the conduct of elections, and more insights about the technical aspects of administration of which the public and even experts may be unaware. The article presents results from the first ever cross-national datasets based on a survey of electoral officials in 31 countries. Practitioner assessments are then compared to expert and public assessments, the traditional methods for assessing electoral integrity, and are found to be a reliable measure of electoral integrity. Analysis also shows that gender does shape practitioner assessments, suggesting that some electoral malpractices might be gendered in nature. Job satisfaction is also significant, which suggests that it should be controlled for in future studies. Overall, this study is significant for identifying the utility of a new method for assessing electoral integrity and provides important lessons for how they should be surveyed in the future.