Resource for researching elections
Lisa Van Gemert wrote from Texas with a simple recommendation that I have turned into two complicated blog posts.Thanks, Lisa, this is great.
I've tried to keep the vital information at the top where you can easily get at it.
Here's the first part of my complex story. It's probably more complex than it needs to be, so here's the prize right up front.
IFES maintains an Election Guide. It's one of the sites your students should consult if they're doing research on elections. (See below for another.)
There's an interactive map displaying upcoming elections and profiles of elections going back to 1998.
The profiles include (sometimes) an overview of the stakes and participants, results, explanations of details, and links associated with the site. I have to say "sometimes" because, for instance, the results of last year's legislative elections in Nigeria are not online yet (8 February 2008).
Here's the complexity, if you're interested. If not, you can return to what you were doing.
I found out about the IFES Election Guide when Lisa Van Gemert wrote to say that Paige Johnson Tan's course web page at the University of North Carolina Wilmington is a valuable resource.
Lisa says she has found the lectures there useful. (More about that in the next entry, which in the perverse logic of the blog appears above this one.)
I was looking at that site and found the link to the IFES site mentioned above. It's a great addition to my usual source for election information, Election World.
Back in ancient times when the World Wide Web was just a baby, i.e. 1995-96, Wilfried Derksen started a project called Election World. It was a catalog of elections and results. It also became a catalog of political parties. It was a valuable and useful source of information.
Election World grew and grew and grew, and I suspect it became unmanageable for Derksen. At some point a few years ago, it became part of Wikipedia. Derksen is managing editor of the Election World section of Wikipedia. The catalog is still there and more complete than the IFES site.
So, Election World is another site your students should consult when researching elections.
Since we need to be skeptical of all our sources (not just Wikipedia), one of my first questions about the IFES Election Guide is, "What is IFES?"
IFES describes itself as "a nonprofit democracy development organization that works to give people a voice in the way that they are governed." But it's not easy to find that information. In fact, I had to go to a different web site, the IFES site to find out this much.
On their web site IFES says its name "used to stand for the International Foundation for Election Systems when we were dedicated exclusively to elections. While we remain the world’s premiere technical elections assistance organization, now we also provide a more comprehensive menu of democracy building services."
Those services are funded by U.S., British, Canadian, Swedish, and Finnish government grants, private contributions, and contracts with the United Nations and countries to which IFES is a consultant.
IFES describes five main areas of activity:
- Civil Society programs:
IFES works to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) to mobilize citizens to participate in democratic politics in a constructive and effective manner. Our civil society programs encourage citizens to develop civic initiatives, advocate for change and demand governmental accountability. We also offer civic education to citizens and CSOs around the world to increase their knowledge of and ability to affect their political systems. - Election Services:
Emerging democracies often lack the institutional capacity and political will to manage elections or educate their citizens about democratic politics. To meet these needs, IFES provides comprehensive assistance to governments, political parties and civil society organizations in election planning and administration, electoral law development, and voter education. IFES seeks to bring transparency to elections by involving civil society in the process (in observer training, negotiations with national election commissions, etc.) and by incorporating anti-fraud mechanisms, such as political finance instruments, transparent ballot boxes, or inking voters’ fingers. - Governance programs:
IFES helps to improve the transparency and efficiency of government institutions by building the management capacity, independence and professionalism of public officials in order to enable them to better serve their constituents. - Rule of Law work:
The global experience and guiding philosophy of IFES supports the view that an independent judiciary, an independent media, and an informed and engaged civil society are crucial to achieving the Rule of Law. IFES' Rule of Law programs include multidisciplinary initiatives designed to promote more demand for reform as well as best practices in a number of inter-related areas, including judicial independence, judicial enforcement, transparency, accountability, open government, access to information, whistle blowing, coalition building and human rights. - Research:
Current trends in research on democracy and civil society revolve around abstract or theoretical issues, examining the ideas that lie behind democracy building. Much of the work on the ground in democracy and civil society must focus on tangible realities and obstacles of day-to-day work in challenging environments. By bridging theory and practice with its nearly two decades of experience in both fieldwork and research, IFES seeks to balance the discussion and create appropriate democratization policies and strategies that are valuable to policy, academic, NGO, and donor communities.
That list and descriptions of IFES project areas would make the foundation of a good exercise with students. Give each area to a small group and ask them to explain, in theoretical terms, why and how the activities described promote democratic governance. Then ask them how Russian policies for the upcoming presidential election or Iranian policies for the upcoming legislative elections are in conflict with those principles.
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home