Electoral institutions and popular confidence in electoral processes: A cross-national analysis

There is a growing interest among comparative political scientists in electoral integrity, yet little is known about what motivates citizen confidence in the electoral process. This article explores the factors that shape perceptions of electoral conduct in a cross-national context, testing the hypothesis that institutional structures that promote a ‘level playing field’ at each stage of the electoral process will enhance the extent to which voters perceive their elections to be fair. The analyses carried out here are based on 28 elections that formed part of Module 1 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Project. Multilevel models including both individual- and election-level variables demonstrate that proportional electoral systems and the public funding of parties have positive impacts on confidence in the conduct of elections, while the formal independence of electoral management bodies is negatively associated with this variable.