The Disappearing Middle: How Polarization Makes Credible Elections Harder to Deliver

There is a growing literature on how polarization puts pressure on democratic institutions, and James and Garnett (2023) have found that greater political polarization can make elections harder to deliver. However, little comparative work has been done on how it impacts the functioning of election management bodies (EMBs) in practice. This paper draws on the public administration literature to develop an original framework of election management capacity. It uses this model to identify how polarization affects EMB workloads and constrains their operational independence, exploring possible causal mechanisms through a series of brief qualitative case studies. Australia, Brazil, Ghana, and the United States of America are selected to represent emerging and mature democracies, as well as varying levels of political polarization (according to V-Dem data) and socioeconomic development. Affective polarization, characterized by partisans’ negative feelings towards those who are perceived to be aligned with political rivals, undermines pluralism and democratic norms. It disincentivises cooperation between political parties, and in its extreme leads to competing camps denying each other’s legitimacy. This creates challenges for EMBs, whose task it is to coordinate complex networks of stakeholders to deliver processes that inspire confidence and results that are accepted. First, there is a reduction in institutional trust so EMBs attract greater (often hostile) scrutiny and must work much harder to persuade stakeholders that they are delivering robust and reliable processes. Second, the incentives for political parties to adhere to electoral rules become weaker as elections become a zero-sum game, increasing the demands on those involved in regulating the campaign and preventing electoral violence. Incumbents may also pursue reforms that erode EMB powers, resources, and independence to improve their chances of winning in future contests. Third, divided communities and siloed information environments makes it harder to cultivate common civic education narratives, counter electoral disinformation, and disseminate accurate voter information. The paper poses that even relatively low levels of polarization can be damaging for EMBs if it is weaponized by political actors, but it also highlights how these institutions are responding to the new political landscape. Electoral institutions are critical to the realization of electoral integrity, so a detailed understanding of contemporary pressures is necessary to enhance their resilience and enable them to navigate polarized environments. By shedding light on the institutional pressures that polarization creates in both emerging and established democracies, the study therefore offers a timely contribution to both the academic and practitioner literature on democracy and electoral management.