Higashijima Masaaki, Kadoya Hisashi, Yanai Yuki
Associate Professor, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
Public Opin Q. 2024 Jul 11;88(SI):472-494. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfae022. eCollection 2024.
This paper explores the dynamic relationship between electoral manipulation and popular trust in political institutions. Governments often manipulate election results by resorting to electoral fraud. They also tilt the electoral field by opportunistically deciding when to hold elections, in other words, election timing maneuvering. How do these two different types of electoral manipulation affect citizens' trust in the government, legislature, and election management bodies (EMBs)? We suggest that although the short-term effects of election timing manipulation are unclear due to its ambiguous nature as an electioneering strategy, substantial electoral margins created by timing maneuvering facilitate smooth decision-making, leading to boosting trust in the government and legislature over the long run. In contrast, as electoral fraud is an unambiguous form of manipulation, it may undermine trust in the government and parliament, although such effects may not last. By combining an original dataset of election timing with existing survey data comprising 335,000 citizens from fifty-eight democratic countries, we find evidence in support of our theoretical expectations.
本文探讨了选举操纵与民众对政治机构信任之间的动态关系。政府常常通过选举舞弊来操纵选举结果。他们还会通过机会主义地决定选举时间（即选举时间操纵）来倾斜选举局面。这两种不同类型的选举操纵如何影响公民对政府、立法机构和选举管理机构（EMB）的信任呢？我们认为，尽管由于选举时间操纵作为一种竞选策略的性质模糊，其短期影响尚不清楚，但通过时间操纵创造的大幅选举优势有助于顺利决策，从长远来看会增强对政府和立法机构的信任。相比之下，由于选举舞弊是一种明确的操纵形式，它可能会破坏对政府和议会的信任，尽管这种影响可能不会持久。通过将一个关于选举时间的原始数据集与包含来自58个民主国家的33.5万名公民的现有调查数据相结合，我们找到了支持我们理论预期的证据。
