Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T15:28:15.563Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Constitutional Structures, Sovereignty, and the Emergence of Norms: The Case of International Election Monitoring

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2005

Arturo Santa-Cruz
Arturo Santa-Cruz
Affiliation:
Pacific Studies Department at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico, arturosc@hotmail.com
Get access

Abstract

International election monitoring (IEM) has partially redefined sovereignty. In this article I locate the origins of this change in the Americas, claiming that the Western Hemisphere's normative structure, what I call the Western Hemisphere Idea, was particularly conducive to this new understanding of state sovereignty. In the first section, I introduce the continental normative structure, highlighting the way in which it contributed to the eventual emergence of the monitoring practice in the early 1960s, and I discuss methodological issues. In the second section, I briefly review the emergence of IEM, looking at the pioneering work of the Organization of American States (OAS) in election monitoring. In the third section, I review the subsequent appearance of IEM outside the regional organization. The convergence of intergovernmental organizations and international nongovernmental organizations in election monitoring is then considered in the fourth section. Finally, I present the conclusions and theoretical implications of this piece.I would like to thank Peter Katzenstein, Lisa Martin, Valerie Bunce, Mat Evangelista, Aida Hozic, Kathleen O'Neil, Hector Schamis, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous versions of this article.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , July 2005 , pp. 663 - 693
Copyright
© 2005 The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Acevedo, Domingo E. 1993. The Haitian Crisis and the OAS Response: A Test of Effectiveness in Protecting Democracy. In Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts, edited by Lori Damrosch, 119–55. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.
Acharya, Amitav. 2004. How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism. International Organization 58 (2):239–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler, Emanuel. 2002. Constructivism and International Relations. In Handbook of International Relations, edited by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse-Kappen, and Beth Simmons, 95–118. London: Sage Publications.
Arendt, Hannah. 1990. On Revolution. New York: Penguin.
Ashley, Richard. 1984. The Poverty of Neorealism. International Organization 38 (2):225–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baena Soares, João Clemente. 1994. Profile of a Mandate: Ten Years at the OAS. Washington, D.C.: Organization of American States.
Ball, M. Margaret. 1969. The OAS in Transition. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Barnett, Michael N. 1997. Bringing in the New World Order: Liberalism, Legitimacy, and the United Nations. World Politics 49 (4):526–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartelson, Jens. 1995. A Genealogy of Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beigbeder, Yves. 1994. International Monitoring of Plebiscites, Referenda and National Elections: Self-Determination and Transition to Democracy. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.
Benítez Manaut, Raúl. 1996. La ONU en México: Elecciones presidenciales de 1994. Foro Internacional 36 (3):533–65.Google Scholar
Boutros-Ghali, Boutros. 1995. Democracy: A Newly Recognized Imperative. Global Governance 1 (1):3–11.Google Scholar
Braumoeller, Bear F., and Gary Goertz. 2000. The Methodology of Necessary Conditions. American Journal of Political Science 44 (4):844–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Stephen G., and William C. Wohlforth. 2002. From Old Thinking to New Thinking in Qualitative Research. International Security 26 (4):93–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buss, Andreas. 1999. The Concept of Adequate Causation and Max Weber's Comparative Sociology of Religion. British Journal of Sociology 50 (2):317–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callcott, Wilfrid Hardy. 1968. The Western Hemisphere: Its Influence on United States Policies to the End of World War II. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Carozza, Paolo G. 2003. From Conquest to Constitutions: Retrieving a Latin American Tradition of the Idea of Human Rights. Human Rights Quarterly 25 (2):281–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter Center. 1996. The Journey to Democracy: 1986–1996. Atlanta, Ga.: Carter Center.
Checkel, Jeffrey. 1997. International Norms and Domestic Politics: Bridging the Rationalist-Constructivist Divide. European Journal of International Relations 3 (4):473–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comité Jurídico Interamericano. 1965. Estudio sobre la relación jurídica entre el respeto de los derechos humanos y el ejercicio de la democracia. Washington, D.C.: Organization of American States.
Corrales, Javier, and Richard E. Feinberg. 1999. Regimes of Cooperation in the Western Hemisphere: Power, Interests, and Intellectual Traditions. International Studies Quarterly 43 (1):1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cortell, Andrew P., and James W. Davis_Jr. 2000. Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms: A Research Agenda. International Studies Review 2 (1):65–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Robert W. 1989. Production, the State, and Change in World Order. In Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s, edited by Ernst-Otto Czempiel and James N. Rosenau, 37–50. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.
Degregori, Carlos Iván. 2001. La década de la antipolítica: auge y huida de Alberto Fujimori y Vladimiro Montesinos. 2d ed. Lima, Peru: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Dessler, David. 1999. Constructivism Within a Positivist Social Science. Review of International Studies 25 (1):123–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodd, Thomas J. 1992. Managing Democracy in Central America: A Case Study: United States Election Supervision in Nicaragua, 1927–1933. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books.
Farer, Tom J. 1993. A Paradigm of Legitimate Intervention. In Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts, edited by Lori Damrosch, 316–47. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.
Fearon, James D., and Alexander Wendt. 2002. Rationalism v. Constructivism: A Skeptical View. In Handbook of International Relations, edited by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse-Kappen, and Beth Simmons, 52–72. London: Sage Publications.
Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. International Norm Dynamics and Political Change. national Organization 52 (4):887–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flynn, Gregory, and Henry Farrell. 1999. Piecing Together the Democratic Peace: The CSCE, Norms, and the “Construction” of Security in Post–Cold War Europe. International Organization 53 (3):505–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Gregory H. 1995. Multinational Election Monitoring: Advanced International Law on the High Wire. Fordham International Law Journal 18 (5):1658–67.Google Scholar
Franck, Thomas M. 2000. Legitimacy and the Democratic Entitlement. In Democratic Governance and International Law, edited by Gregory Fox and Brad Roth, 25–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guzzini, Stefano. 1993. Structural Power: The Limits of Neorealist Power Analysis. International Organization 47 (3):443–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1989. The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume Two: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Hartz, Louis. 1983. The Liberal Tradition in America. San Diego. Calif.: Harvest/HBJ.
Hegel, Georg W. F. 1991. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ikenberry, G. John. 1993. Creating Yesterday's New World Order: Keynesian “New Thinking” and the Anglo-American Postwar Settlement. In Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, edited by Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, 57–86. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Inter-American Institute of International Legal Studies. 1966. The Inter-American System: Its Development and Strengthening. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications.
International Human Rights Law Group. 1988. Supplemental Report on the Chilean Electoral Process. Washington, D.C.: International Human Rights Law Group.
International Human Rights Law Group, and?the Washington Office on Latin America. 1985. From Shadow into Sunlight: A Report on the 1984 Uruguayan Electoral Process. Washington, D.C.: International Human Rights Law Group-Washington Office on Latin America.
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. 2004. Hegel's House, or “People are States Too.” Review of International Studies 30 (2):281–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jason, Karen J. 1992. The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in International Election Observing. International Law and Politics 24 (4):1795–843.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Kratochwil, Friedrich. 1984. Thrasymmachos Revisited: On the Relevance of Norms and the Study of Law for International Relations. Journal of International Affairs 37 (2):343–56.Google Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich. 1995. Sovereignty as Dominium: Is There a Right of Humanitarian Intervention? In Beyond Westphalia? State Sovereignty and International Intervention, edited by Gene Lyons and Michael Mastanduno, 21–42. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Larsen, Henrik. 1997. Foreign Policy and Discourse Analysis: France, Britain, and Europe. London: Routledge.
Lutz, Ellen L., and Kathryn Sikkink. 2000. International Human Rights Law and Practice in Latin America. International Organization 54 (3):633–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClellan, Edwin North. 1933. Supervising Nicaraguan Elections, 1928. United States Naval Institute Proceedings 59 (1):37–38.Google Scholar
McCoy, Jennifer L. 1998. Monitoring and Mediating Elections During Latin American Democratization. In Electoral Observation and Democratic Transitions in Latin America, edited by Keith Middlebrook, 53–90. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.
Miller, Richard W. 1987. Fact and Method: Explanation, Confirmation and Reality in the Natural and the Social Sciences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
O'Gorman, Edmundo. 2003 [1958]. La Invención de América: Investigación acerca de la estructura histórica del nuevo mundo y del sentido de su devenir, 3d ed. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1962a. Annual Report of the Secretary General. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1962b. Informe de la misión de asistencia técnica de la Organización de los Estados Americanos sobre las elecciones presidenciales en la República de Costa Rica. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1963. Informe de la Misión de Asistencia Técnica de la Organización de los Estados Americanos a la República de Honduras en Materia Electoral. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1965. Informe de la Comisión Preparatoria de la Reunión de Consulta de Ministros de Relaciones Exteriores sobre Democracia Representativa sometido al Consejo de la Organización de los Estados Americanos el 26 de febrero de 1965. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1968. Report Presented by the Mission of Observers to the President of the Republic of Ecuador. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1978. Note Dated 24 January 1978, from the Chairman of the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs Regarding the Topic of the Appointment of Election Observers. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1980. Note from the Permanent Mission of Guatemala Requesting Dispatch of a Mission of Observers Designated by the Organization of American States to Witness the Municipal Elections to be Held in that Country on 20 April 1980. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1984a. Request by the Government of Guatemala That Observers Be Sent to Witness the Election That Will Be Held on 1 July 1984. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 1984b. Request from the Government of El Salvador for Observers to Be Sent to Witness the Elections to Be Held on 25 March 1984. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Organization of American States (OAS). 2000. Manual para la Organización de Misiones de Observación Electoral. Washington, D.C.: OAS.
Outhwaite, William. 1994. Habermas: A Critical Introduction. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Pastor, Robert, ed. 1989. Democracy in the Americas: Stopping the Pendulum. New York: Holmes and Meier.
Pastor, Robert. 1990. Nicaragua's Choice: The Making of a Free Election. Journal of Democracy 1 (3):13–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pastor, Robert. 2002. Not Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Raymond, Gregory A. 1997. Problems and Prospects in the Study of International Norms. Mershon International Studies Review 41 (2):205–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 1997. The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions. International Organization 51 (4):555–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 2001. Human Rights and the Social Construction of Sovereignty. Review of International Studies 27 (4):519–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 2003. Politics and International Legal Obligation. European Journal of International Relations 9 (4):591–625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 2000. “Let's Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics. International Organization 54 (1):1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ronning, C. Neale. 1963. Law and Politics in Inter-American Diplomacy. New York: Wiley.
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1983. Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Sythesis. World Politics 35 (2):261–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1998. What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constuctivis Challenge. International Organization 52 (4):855–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santa-Cruz, Arturo. 2000. Un debate teórico empíricamente ilustrado: la construcción de la soberanía japonesa, 1853–1902. Guadalajara, Mexico: University of Guadalajara Press.
Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press.
Sikkink, Kathryn. 1997. Reconceptualizing Sovereignty in the Americas: Historical Precursors and Current Practices. Houston Journal of International Law 19 (3):705–29.Google Scholar
Slater, Jerome. 1967. The OAS and United States Foreign Policy. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Smith, Tony. 1994. America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Stoelting, David. 1992. The Challenge of UN-Monitored Elections in Independent Nations. Stanford Journal of International Law 28 (1):371–424.Google Scholar
Thérien, Jean-Phlippe, Michel Fortman, and Guy Gosselin. 1996. The Organization of American States: Restructuring Inter-American Multilateralism. Global Governance 2 (2):215–39.Google Scholar
United States Department of State. 1931. Nicaragua. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
Weber, Cynthia. 1992. Writing Sovereign Identities: Wilson Administration Intervention in the Mexican Revolution. Alternatives 17 (3):313–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1998. On Constitution and Causation in International Relations. Review of International Studies 24 (5):101–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Whitaker, Arthur P. 1954. The Western Hemisphere Idea: Its Rise and Decline. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Wight, Colin. 2004. State Agency: Social Action Without Human Activity? Review of International Studies 30 (2):269–80.Google Scholar
Wilson, Larman C., and David W. Dent. 1995. The United States and the OAS. In U.S.-Latin American Policymaking: A Reference Handbook, edited by D. W. Dent, 24–44. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Zehfuss, Maja. 2001. Constructivism and Identity: A Dangerous Liaison. European Journal of International Relations 7 (3):315–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar