Should We Worry about Partisan Electoral Interventions? The Nature, History, and Known Effects of Foreign Interference in Elections

Abstract

Ever since the exposure of the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections for the Donald Trump campaign, there has been much discussion of its causes mixed with deep concerns about the possibility of future meddling of this kind by Russia. There has been far less discussion, however, about the wider phenomena this particular intervention is just one recent example of. This chapter provides an overview of what scholars have found so far about partisan electoral interventions. It first describes the main methods through which foreign powers are known to have tried to intervene in elections in other countries in order to determine their results, as well as the long history of such efforts, going back to the very start of competitive national-level executive elections. The chapter then briefly summarizes the current academic research on the effects of such interference on the target, from its immediate effects on the intervened election results to their medium- and long-term post-election effects on the targets welfare (such as the quality of its democracy). Both parts illustrate that concerns about such foreign interference are indeed quite justified—it is a common, multifaceted phenomenon that can, in many cases, cause serious harm to its unfortunate targets.​