Competing judgments: Multiple election observers and post-election contention

By influencing beliefs about electoral quality, international election observation missions (EOMs) play an important role in shaping post-election contention. As the number and variety of international organizations (IOs) involved in election observation has grown, many elections host multiple missions and disagreement among them is common. This phenomenon of competing judgments is particularly prevalent in electoral authoritarian regimes, as leaders seek to invite ‘friendly’ IOs to counteract possible criticism from more established EOMs. Drawing from research about the varying domestic credibility of EOMs and the demobilizing effects of disinformation, we argue that compared to unified criticism, competing judgments among EOMs increase uncertainty about electoral quality, which in turn dampens post-election contention. Using newly available data on EOM statements as reported in the international media, we show that competing judgments reduce post-election contention in a sample of 115 countries from 1990–2012. A survey experiment in Turkey solidifies the micro-foundations of our argument: individuals exposed to competing judgments have more positive perceptions of election quality and less support for post-election mobilization, compared to those receiving information only about EOM criticism. Our findings provide systematic evidence that governments holding flawed elections have incentives to invite multiple election observation missions to hedge against the political risks of criticism.