Organization of Elections and the Level of Democracy: Cross-national Aspect

Abstract

The subject of the article is the relationship between the structure of claims to the conduct of elections and the level of democracy in various countries of the world. It is stated that the countries that have begun to hold elections relatively recently show complaints in all areas, but primarily in the area of politics and law. On the contrary, the claims against the countries with long-standing democratic traditions are of a point nature and relate mainly to financing and the introduction of digital technologies. The specificity of the relationship between the structure of claims to elections and the level of democracy in different regions is also revealed. In Europe, this relationship is quite complex; the claims to less democratic countries are primarily related to the legal framework and the electoral system; the ones to more democratic ones are in the field of financing. In the post-Soviet space, the main differences between democratic and authoritarian countries lie in the organization of elections and campaigning, while the leading predictors of these differences are the quality of functioning of the state apparatus and political culture, which indicates the special role of the ‘administrative resource’ in the electoral process. In Latin America, like in Europe, the level of democracy is reflected primarily in the ratio of the “political” and “technical” sides of the electoral process, the relationship of which with the structure of claims to elections concerns mainly political participation and political culture, conditioned by the degree of maturity of civil society. Finally, in Africa, less democratic countries still face the challenge of securing and preventing unrest on the election day and immediately after the elections.