The Politics of Election Monitoring: The Case of Ethiopia and the EU

Abstract

My dissertation examines the construction of power relations in the international system, through the lens of international election monitoring and its politics. Focusing on the relationship between the European Union and Ethiopia, I argue that election monitoring reflects a complex hierarchy of power and serves contradicting purposes.

In the hands of the monitors, it is an instrument of discipline, intended to monitor domestic behavior and enforce a standard of performance. The recipient of monitors, while accepting the general rule, finds interstices to manoeuvre within, playing with and against interests and agendas of external actors. Ultimately, the politics of election observing functions as an arena of struggle where power strategies are at stake. Power relations are eventually reversed when international actors are weakened, giving more space for the recipient country to pursue its own electoral strategies.