International election observers. This interview as part of book tv College Series and it is about 20 minutes. Duke professor ken judith kelley, the author of monitoring democracy when International Election observation works, and why it often fails. Professor, when did International Election monitoring come in to vote . This started ticking off in the late 80s, beginning 90s. I think, you know, there had been election monitoring under un regimes in different ways, but this is a new flavor of it. Outsiders going in the sovereign state some of turner elections. And the way it came and, the way it rose is very important for understanding how works today. Initially we had all lot of governments toward the end of the cold war that had not been democratic. Now they wanted to show off their intentions to behave more democratically. And so they have an incentive to invite monitors and even though this is sort of a sacred thing. It is the heart of democracy, one could cite. But to invite someone in and say, are we doing hardcore exercise of collective our government the right way, often times especially toward the end of the cold war there was so many oldtimers as continued. They needed external verification. And so invitations starts to become more common. As this was happening this started happening where the ones that had no incentive and the ones that were not with honest intentions started looking obviously bad for not doing so. It became a self declaration of cheating. And so you get this tipping where if you dont invite someone in your look bad. And some more and more countries start inviting monitors and. That starts to create a dilemma of who should be the monitors. Where should this authority reside. There was a push within the united nations. A lot of latin american countries were quite wary. They have the oas which had been doing formal symbolic monitoring for a long time. There was a push back on the u. N. Being the watch dogs and overall monitor. Of fragmentation of the monitoring regime. Became regional organization, ngo that took off this mantle of monitoring which then led to his use down the road of who gets to act as a monster and are they all of equal quality. Where today does the Authority Like . Know where really. There is no accreditation. Should there be . It would probably be a good idea. As the declaration of principles that came out. And some organizations of signon to that, but that does not in any way guarantee that they abide by it. Whether that is actually following the practice is that that declaration seeks. But then if you want to have accreditation process, who does the accreditation . Who watches the monitors . It is the old question. Who is going to be watching the watchman. Host judith kelley, when people think of election monitoring that think of jimmy carter. Guest and rightfully so and he deserves a lot of credit for building election monitoring he and his center, people there, and they have been on the forefront of helping to develop the standards and the u. N. As well. They have been major movers the election monitoring, defining what it is. And carter has done all lot of good work, but it is important. No organization out there has complete ability to rid itself of any kind of constraint, you know, and position by concerns about donors. There are other operations within countries. Even jimmy carter faces dilemmas about how to conduct his missions in different countries. Host lets start. Where has it worked well . Guest so, it works best where it is least glamorous, shall we say. And that is the problem from the perspective of organizations are trying to drive and survive. You know, it is for some of these organizations it is their livelihood, what they do. Even when they are within intergovernmental organizations you have some agencies that that is what they do. Tens to work when the train, shall we say, is already in motion. When there are reforms under way, when companies 55 countries want to make reforms and are receptive to people coming in way in advance looking at the systems, providing advice and help the war with the board of registers, helping to build domestic monetary capacities. So this is not a revolutionary tool. It works on the margins to my would say, and places where there is not, you know, a conflict that is just quelled. May still be simmering. Conflict is the worst setting for this type of election monitoring. There were about stoking the violence its not a winnertakeall system. To push further everything. So in the middle ground, the middle countries. That is the way it works best. Host we all remember purple figures. Were there election monitors . Or have there been . Guest it has not been a highprofile thing. It is not a big issue there. Host the condo 2007 im sorry, kenya 2007. That was a big you know, can goes to show how you can make progress in one election and then a few years later the lack of followup or violence can restock and you can have a mess again. So, you know, it is very, very difficult to set the country on a path when we have fixed it and now they know how to run elections and it is just going to work. In candidate has been up and down with election monitoring. It is not the election monitors fault to say, but it is a good example of where they have been very worried about being critical because of the violent potential. If they come out and condemn the elections. What do you teach here at duke . Guest enter action the Public Policy, policy analysis, i help undergraduates right thesis. And that teach these types of topics like tools of international pressure, external actors to promote domestic reforms and other countries. Host my maturing democracy, you read you can float anywhere in the world. Why is that . Guest well, because i am a danish citizen, and danish laws require residency in order to vote. I am not an american citizen because the danish laws dont allow dual citizenship, and americas laws require citizenship to vote. I cant vote in either place. Had been an american living in denmark erotically activision to places, but i cant go anywheres. Host besides the Carter Center waters of the other major groups that monitor democracy that have a lot of legitimacy in International Life . Guest so, in the United States people might be familiar with the in the eye, the National Democratic institute. The our ally, the asa republican institute, these are agencies that are independent. They are not, you know, government falls, nongovernmental is, but they have a special status. And they do pretty good work. Europe we have dsc of various parliamentary organizations from the european parliament, council of europe. And, of course, the European Union as a lot of monitoring. The u. N. Still does monitoring, but not in the same high flashing away. It out, with public statements a lot anymore. They have toward assistance, and they do more in conflict setting, supportive of the modern organizations. We are seeing organizations popup all of the world. Regional organizations in africa , south African Development community, the african union, election monitoring, of secretariat. Even in asia we have organizations. Which ones are more credible . You know, it varies. I would put my money mostly on coming out on top. They do a pretty good job. The democracy and human rights arm. You have several different, you know, monitoring organizations come sometimes out of the same organization that sometimes contradict each other. The European Union, i had initially thought the European Union was going to be a great organization. Im a citizen of the European Union myself. The European Union has a lot of political clout but also a lot of political tentacles and a lot of ties and the law of constraints on what it can and cannot say. Yet some observers, people to work for the European Union often tell me that they get criticized if they dont follow the line of the European Union, what they are supposed to be saying after the election. It is not that they are not critical. When they dont want to be, you know, it is a good example of an organization that we think should have a lot of credibility but that has so many Different Things stake the sometimes they have to weigh things. And it is not a failure in the sense that these organizations are not, you know, mean, terrible people who want to go out there and lie and cheat and cover things up. It is that they have different ideals, different norms. To we want violence . No, probably not. Do we think that it is better to call the Glass Half Full than halfempty . If a country seems to be plugging along the we say that, yes, this was great what she did or do we point out the flaws . Which leg do we stand on . So that can be a difficult balance to find. And then you get different organizations that make different choices and get things like last year were you have different organizations coming out saying vastly Different Things about the quality of the elections. And that is sometimes, i think among the governments that is why they in by so many different monitors. There are some organizations that can be relied on to come in and be friendly to the governments. And so then the government can invite some good ones, some, you know, ones that they know are going to be critical. By good i mean friendly. Then they can stand them against each other. While i think you cannot fool all the people all the time, the lot of these organizations like the cis of the shanghai corporation, easily can fool western leaders, but you might be able to fool some of the people some of the time. Host what are the nuts and bolts of monitoring elections . Guest there are two waves of it. The longterm and shortterm monetary. A Good Organization will comments make multiple visits. You know, if you go back to south africa historic elections, a whole year before coming in, looking at the loss, meeting with different types of people, trying to understand the electoral landscape. And they come back. And then maybe three or four months before or two months before depending on the magnitude of the election there will send a smaller team that will stay there and follow everything as it is developing. In the short term observers, and a few days before. That is the, like, really big groups that descend on the scene. Many of them may not even speak the local language, never been out of the country before, may have some experience an election monitoring, but maybe not. They are then distributed throughout the country to try and observers going on. They go from one station to the devastation to the next station. And then there is usually a team that stays a little after word. The shortterm relief, but depending on how the election is unfolding that he may stay longer if there are issues that have to be resolved. But the observation goes on a lot of levels. Observers are aware that it is not just the ballot stuffing on the day, not just about counting of ballots. For longtime observers of been aware that the laws have to be written in a way that is conducive to competitive elections. The Voter Registration rosters have to be not have dead people on the mend things like this, but the commission has to be not stacked in favor of the ruling party. So they are looking at for sorts of levels of where and on a level Playing Field can occur. To observers have to be invited by the host government . They do. And sanctioned. They essentially have to be to be official observers they have to be invited and they have to be get some registration are some things of that they can go into the polling booth. Sometimes they dont get invited and they may work with domestic observers or any other sort of undercover ways, but it really is, you know, a sovereign decision on the part of the country. For example, egypt, a case in point that for a long time has been pressured to invite monitors and just refuse to do so. Even the u. S. President would say you ought to invite monitors. They just refuse to do so. Some countries say no. They have enough clout that they dont have to out to the system. But it is getting harder and harder. Even proven realizes that he cant just say no to these International Observers. He is obliged to invite. In previous elections sometimes it just makes logistics completely impossible of their refuse to go sometimes. And then in make sure he invites other observers so that he can, as i said before, spend them against each other. As the u. S. Invited International Observers . The u. S. Is also a member of the osce. It is technically obliged. They dont have to be invited. There is some declaration at some point a says that they can, and observe the elections, and the election that they want to a member state. And so they have observed elections in the United States a couple of times, especially, you know, since we have the floridian debacle and all those singing chants and all that stuff. Theres been more interested coming, but they dont get much publicity over here. And countries like the United States, so much domestic screwed in the situation, but it is actually interesting. Theyre is a project about harvard call electoral integrity they have just come out of their first report in which they did not monitor elections, but they sort of grated elections of last it in months. The United States, ranked light 26, you know, countries that have held elections. We could certainly use some help. Host what is your conclusion . The to the i think it is broken, but we are fixing. I dont know that we have a choice. Is here to stay for good or for bad. The important thing, i think, is to understand for Public Policy makers, journalists to understand that monitors are mixed bag. We have a tendency to think of the mess monitors. There are monitors. We think theres some our credit we can rely on what they say, but that is not so. We have to understand that they, too, are agents of donors, of states. And they have their constraints. And if there is any one thing that we can do to improve it, i think, it is to come up with a way to provide them with more independence from the people who finance them. Right now they end up having to go to places that they realize theyre not going to be effective in love with those places are sexy to go to, government wants them to go messy places. The monitors are not going to make a difference of all. And they are pushed to go from one to the other. They dont have time for good follow. So there are reforms that could be made to make the system better. We can stop it because it is out of the bank. There are organizations. If you start pulling back the good ones saying the system is working, thats just getting worse. Host Duke University Political Science professor judith kelley, the book monitoring democracy when International Election observation works, and why it often fails he says, well, i did not give up on him, but you did not give up on me. We were having a rough time. Even when he was in prison i remember the call and jumped on me. I told him, well, okay, but you want such a good sign either. Why dont we just stop this nonsense lets just stop it. Lets just loved each other. Lets just change. That is not easy. And when you tell people to change, you cannot make that like a magic wand. The hard days. I see my son. I am proud of him. I know the terrible things he is faced. He had known and liked for me. I used to hit him when i should have, but he had abuse from other guys that his mother was around. His poor mom, too. And i want to give her credit. She stood by. She stepped of. So it is good to hear [inaudible] we went on a trip last year. He got off parole so he could finally, the california. I held some with it. We drove all the way from chicago california. One of the most beautiful trips. We came with our friend. We had a great time. I never argued with him once. We just had a great time talking and sharing. My come my son has become wise in his age. That is partly what i am saying. It is important to point out. We can make the change. He has become one of these people. We were able to do poetry. Now hes a poet, my son. I want to thank him. Sincere and honest. It was rough, mean, angry, violent, but he is sincere and honest. That is important because i had to go through that. I have seen other people do it. To see my son is powerful and is really what were talking about. I dont want to apologize. It is possible we forget. I was told not to cry. Dementia not cry. Their tears of being all. It is important. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. For this months book tv book club join other readers to discuss it calls you back, an odyssey through love, addiction, revolution, and hearing. Former gang member turned governor of california, luis j. Rodriguez. Go to booktv. Org and click on book clubs into the chat room. 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