Course Description:
One of the greatest contemporary challenges to democracy globally arises from the strategies that nefarious political actors use to rig elections and undermine electoral integrity. Why are elections worth stealing; who (tries to) steal them and in what ways; and what, if anything, can be done to secure elections in the 21st century?
This course will survey the many strategies political actors use to influence elections unfairly and illicitly in modern democracies, and present emerging evidence-based methods that can improve electoral integrity.
In Module 1, the course will begin by defining “democracy” and why democratic elections are the preferred method to decide political order across the globe today. In Module 2, the course delves into the diversity of strategies that a range of political actors use to undermine elections and gain unfair advantage, including (but not limited to): violations of campaign finance laws, vote-buying, campaign violence, online misinformation, altering vote totals, weaponizing electoral integrity, security breaches of sensitive electoral infrastructure, rejecting fair results, and lawfare prosecutions. For each strategy, the course will outline the problem, the theoretical underpinnings driving rigging strategies, empirical applications in a set of cases, and in Module 3, review how institutions, actors, and the general public can work to prevent election fraud.
The course will draw on cases from both older and wealthier democracies (e.g., US, Great Britain, France, Italy); emerging, developing democracies (e.g., India, Kenya, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil); and countries where democracy has all but recently collapsed (e.g., Afghanistan, Russia, Venezuela).