Explanatory Blog Post 2- Enough!

"Electoral fraud doesn't cause protest, but the belief that it has happened does."

Joshua Tucker, Associate Professor of Politics at New York University, uses this paper to essentially explain why elections and their processes are good environments for regime change to occur, with particular reference to the Colour Revolutions of Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. It essentially describes the 'collective action problem' with regard to major electoral fraud and linking protest against this with the costs of participation, the benefits of achieving the goal and the likelihood of achieving that goal.

Tucker states that individual incentives prevent some from participating in collective action. While he clearly establishes this point, it seems that this, along with other aspects of his paper, is very blatant and simplistic and stems from fear of consequence. It seems to be a flow-on effect: one individual, who has most likely been grieved by the state on a large scale, protests for his own personal reasons. These reasons may reflect a more general opinion held by a collective of people, particularly in states who have suffered electoral fraud. More and more citizens join the protest, all with different levels of grievance, and as they do, the incentive changes from individual to collective, creating the collective action.

Perhaps a recurring theme throughout this paper is the idea that revolution can incur high costs taken by those citizens who are protesting in some way. These costs can become higher or lower depending on the situation. However, it is the risk of these costs that cause some of the public to choose not to protest, regardless of how strong their grievances against the state are. Tucker highlights the fact that despite these fears, if one brave citizen begins to protest and the grievances are strong enough, more will eventually follow. The idea that the more people there is, the less intense the cost will be, is particularly noted by Tucker. Other ways for citizens to believe there is a reduced risk stem directly from past events in other countries. As the immediate costs while protesting can be violent and therefore will be considered risky, if other countries have undergone a regime change due to protest without incurring violent consequences, it encourages other hopeful states to do the same and assess that the risk is therefore lower. The more people there are, the less likely one is to be punished individually.

More specifically, Tucker describes that in cases of electoral fraud, citizens are less likely to worry about costs. Major electoral fraud is widely considered to provide a means of solving collective action problems for government-grieved citizens as it changes individual assessments of costs and benefits of participation in protest. Additionally, in states where they are abusive or unrestrained and therefore commit electoral fraud, citizens would prefer not to tolerate that type of corruption. Tucker details the focal points of elections, limited time frame, the attraction of an international audience and occurrence at regular and repeated intervals, to be an ideal background for protest against electoral fraud. However, Tucker doesn't particularly delve into the reasoning as to why electoral fraud is such a 'sore point' for citizens as he analyses the framework specifically for the collective action problem. 

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the Coloured Revolutions that Tucker suggests in passing is the surprise of the international community. Here were four states, all with very high levels of corruption, who were all capable of revolution. If one looks at history, three out of four states were involved in the Soviet Union and therefore would have been not only accustomed to the winds of change that revolution brings but also held the tools needed to effectively protest to bring about change. Despite being familiar with extremely violent protests, this would have provided them with knowledge of how to protest more effectively in future, which they did. Tucker describes a similar point by singling out the origin of Ukraine's very organised protest; civil society and opposition groups had been working since the  Kuchmagate Crisis of 2004 to ensure that the predicted future protest was "orderly and peaceful." It seems that states who are grieved by their states can improve their revolutionary tactics and learn from other events and off each other, as seemed to happen with the Colour Revolutions. This is particularly highlighted by the fact they occurred one after another and seemed to give other states courage to induce their own regime changes. So should the international community really be surprised that THESE people sought regime change?

Implications are assessed in light of Tucker's research. Firstly, the success and national support for the emergence of new regimes tend to be overstated. The reason for this can be derived for the reason for the outrage over the Ukrainian elections, where it was the abuse of power that allowed Yushchenko's failure, rather than the failure itself, that caused complain and as a result, Ukraine remains dissatisfied with its regime. Secondly, the assumption that as dissatisfied, post- communist states tend use the support of more democratic states, policies that are favoured by these states are likely to be implemented in the dissatisfied states new regime. Despite this, Serbia has still been able to oppose democratic interests and maintain its interests with Russia, whereas Ukraine now wishes to join the European Union. More obviously, the grieved states tend to be more fragile than first expected and not all who have undergone major electoral fraud and attempted regime change will be successful.

Future research areas are discussed, however, one question in particular stood out. It asks, why are some countries able to carry out fraudulent elections with little response from the citizenry, despite the fact that fraudulent elections can make protest more likely for the reasons described previously? I believe that this could be answered if Tucker had looked more closely at why citizens are grieved in particular by electoral fraud and looking more generally at history, culture and the people of each country.

Sources
"Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-Communist Colored Revolutions" by Joshua A. Tucker.
https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CD0QFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffiles.nyu.edu%2Fjat7%2Fpublic%2FTucker_EFCA_2005.pdf&ei=73tMUteXKu2WiQei7YCwCQ&usg=AFQjCNFFPdTcrqEx0XDwLeSdFCMG2Mcihg&bvm=bv.53371865,d.aGc