Theorists and policymakers frequently prescribe democracy for reducing human rights violations. It is perceived that elections, as one of the most important features of democracy, affect human rights protection. The logic of electoral accountability suggests that:
(1) people can hold politicians accountable through democratic elections by punishing politicians who should be to blame for human rights abuses;
(2) because politicians who want to win elections are aware of this, they have incentives to reduce human rights violations, in turn resulting in better human rights performance; and
(3) their electoral incentives can be influenced by some components of elections, such as certain electoral rules.
Although it is not surprising that democracies have better human rights records than authoritarians, empirical evidence has shown that fully democratic countries have engaged in more abuses of physical integrity, such as torture, than expected. Therefore, it is important to investigate the question of whether and how the factors of electoral democracy contribute to human rights protection.
ELECTORAL PRACTICE: PARTICIPATION AND COMPETITION
As Beer and Mitchell put it, “without electoral democracy including high voter turnout and political competition, leaders are free to act with impunity against their citizens and will be less concerned to monitor the actions of the security agents who implement their decisions”. It should be expected that candidates or the incumbents facing a competitive election with high voter turnout have more incentives to promote human rights or reduce abuses to win elections. Considering participation, the role of active citizenry as an influential actor has been highlighted because widespread participation can help candidates or elected leaders discover the best interests of people, increase their awareness of accountability and enhance legitimacy and representation of the government. Elections provide a direct opportunity for voters to express their opinions towards policies and evaluate performance of the government. Through this process, all candidates have to weigh public reaction. The larger the number of voters taking part in the election, the more likely the candidates and officials pay attention to their behaviour and policies. Therefore, politicians facing elections with higher voter turnout may have more incentive to be accountable and reduce human rights abuses than those elected through lower turnout.
Competition is another important indicator of electoral practice that may increase incentives and accountability. Cingranelli and Filippov believe that it is “electorally beneficial for politicians to monitor abuses and publicly expose incumbent officials who fail to protect human rights”. When incumbent leaders or presidential candidates have several strong competitors, they can be cautious about human rights policies and practice and avoid being criticised by the opposition. Without fierce competition, politicians can pursue their personal interests with less concern that they will lose elections. Thus, a competitive election with attentive citizenry can establish “a relationship of formal accountability between policymakers and citizens,” which leads to better human rights performance.
ELECTORAL RULES: SINGLE-ROUND VS TWO-ROUND
In addition to competition and participation, different electoral rules should be taken into account. Presidential election systems vary in terms of the single-round and two-round system, which may have different abilities to provide incentives for politicians to protect human rights. It is believed that the two-round presidential election can create a coalition-style of government as the parliamentary regime in which multiple political parties cooperate. Through two-round elections, it is likely that former candidates or influential politicians from different parties can be appointed to cabinet-level positions in the government, contributing to monitoring and restricting the government as a “veto player,” which could hold the government accountable and increase incentives for politicians to engage in less violence. Politicians in two-round elections require larger vote margins to win than those in the single-round, incentivising commitments to respect human rights instead of just focusing on economies.
ELECTORAL FAIRNESS
The level of incentives is also affected by the extent to which the process of elections is fair and free. Concerning the definition of “fair and free,” Freedom House put forward several standards, including “independent and established election monitoring organizations, transparent and nondiscriminatory registration of voters and candidates, no undue delays, no intimidation, women suffrage, honest counting...”. These standards guarantee the high quality of elections and ensure that elected officials can be representable and responsible. Without fairness in elections, politicians can act freely and ignore basic human rights and needs. When fair and free elections are in place, more responsible officials who have committed themselves to better human rights practices are more likely to be elected by voters who meet the voting age regardless of ethnicity, gender, or wealth. Therefore, politicians elected through a series of fair rules have more incentives to pursue what voters want rather than those who want to pursue personal interests.
REALITY MAY TURN OUT DIFFERENTLY
Despite democratic election mechanisms, many democracies still engage in more human rights violations than expected, particularly in abuses of physical integrity. From 1975, 78% of governments, including democratic ones, have tortured at least one person per year in the state’s control. There are some possible explanations. First, in practice, citizens and opponents may focus less on human rights issues in elections, providing less incentive for politicians to protect human rights. In elections, some sub-issues have more priority over others, for example, the economy usually gains a lot of attention over other issues like human rights. Politicians focus on the issue that can bring them the largest returns of votes. In this case, the economy is usually the dominant issue in elections, as politicians, their opponents, and voters are more likely to engage in the economic policy debates rather than those for human rights protection.
In reality, even candidates in presidential democracies that have competitive elections with high turnout are not willing to mention their future human rights policies. For example, in Indonesia’s elections in 2019, none of the candidates answered questions about how to promote minority rights, which is one of the key human rights issues in Indonesia. In Brazil in 2018, Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential election even though he publicly supported the use of torture and made racist and homophobic statements. Thus, it is likely that neither higher participation nor fierce competition can provide politicians with enough incentive to address human rights issues as citizens, and politicians may have weaker political interest in human rights than in the economy.
Second, electoral competition and popular participation are only a small part of the mechanisms guaranteeing the accountability of politicians. Political accountability has numerous requirements. Electoral democracy may affect politicians’ human rights performances only if it combines sufficient institutional constraints. Moreover, under some circumstances, people in democracies see human rights abuses such as the use of torture acceptable. Almost half of U.S. respondents (48%) in a poll accept the use of torture by the U.S. government to counter terrorism whereas the other half believe under no circumstances shall torture be acceptable.
Even though generally more people reject torture, the trend in recent years appears to be that the number of people endorsing torture in some democracies has increased. Thus, it is doubtful whether most citizens are willing to punish political leaders who have used torture.
While it is assumed that certain practices, rules, and the assumed-fairness in democratic elections can help decrease human rights abuses by supplying different incentives to politicians, it is not always the case. But democracy and the election process can still affect future policy, and two ways to support these processes are as follows: First, democracy promotion in the form of electoral technical assistance needs to be provided. Empirical findings suggest that the free and fair process matters more than competition and participation in terms of human rights protection, indicating that the priority is to set up the Electoral Commission and other institutions to ensure clean elections. Second, institutional reforms will help electoral democracies that aim to transfer into full democracies do so successfully. Even though some countries are viewed as democracies, their human rights records are not much better than authoritarians. Therefore, all institutional arrangements, including strong checks and balances, should be improved in order to bolster the prospects that democracies and elections strongly affirm human rights.
Zining graduated from UCL in 2019 with a Master's degree in International Public Policy. With experience in OHCHR and several NGOs, she has been interested in democracy, political and civil rights, and international relations.