Person:

Norris, Pippa

Since the end of the Cold War, security studies have broadened to take into account a wide range of non-military threats ranging from poverty to environmental concerns rather than just national defense. Security scholars, backed by international organizations and a growing number of national governments, have developed the concept of Human Security, focusing on the welfare of ordinary people against a broad range of threats. This has aroused vigorous debate. Part I of this paper proposes an analytical model of Human Security. Part II argues that it is important to measure how ordinary people perceive risks, moving beyond state-centric notions of Human Security. We examine new evidence, drawing upon survey items specially designed to monitor perceptions of Human Security, included for the first time in the 6th wave of the World Values Survey (WVS), with fieldwork conducted in 2010-2012.Part III demonstrates that people distinguish three dimensions: national, community, and personal security and then explores some structural determinants driving these perceptions. Part IV discusses why perceptions of Human Security matter, in particular for explaining cultural values and value change around the world. The conclusion argues that the shift from a narrow focus on military security toward the broader concept of Human Security is a natural response to the changing challenges facing developed societies, in which the cost-benefit ratio concerning war has become negative and cultural changes have made war less acceptable. In this setting, valid measures of perceptions of Human Security have become essential, both to understand the determinants of Human Security among ordinary people, and to analyze their consequences.

Does democratic governance expand wealth and prosperity? There is no consensus about this issue despite the fact that for more than half a century, rival theories about the regime-growth relationship have been repeatedly tested against the empirical evidence, using a variety of cases, models and techniques. To consider the issues, Part I of this paper reviews and summarizes theories why regimes are expected to influence economic growth directly, either positively or negatively. After considering these debates, Part II discusses the technical challenges facing research on this topic and how it is proposed to overcome these. Part III presents the results of the comparative analysis for the effects of democratic governance on economic growth during recent decades. The descriptive results illustrate the main relationships. The multivariate models check whether these patterns remain significant after controlling for many other factors associated with growth, including geography, economic conditions, social structural variables, cultural legacies, and global trends. The evidence supports the equilibrium thesis suggesting that regimes combining both liberal democracy and bureaucratic governance are most likely to generate growth, while by contrast patronage autocracies display the worst economic performance. The conclusion considers the implications.

In many countries, polling day ends with disputes about ballot-box fraud, corruption, and flawed registers. Which claims are accurate? And which are false complaints from sore losers? New evidence gathered by the Electoral Integrity Project has just been released in an annual report which compares the risks of flawed and failed elections, and how far countries around the world meet international standards. The EIP is an independent research project based at the University of Sydney and Harvard University, under the direction of Professor Pippa Norris. This annual report evaluates all national parliamentary and presidential contests occurring in 66 countries worldwide holding 73 election from 1 July 2012 to 31 December 2013 (excluding smaller states with a population below 100,000), from Albania to Zimbabwe. Data is derived from a global survey of 855 election experts. Immediately after each contest, the survey asks domestic and international experts to monitor the quality based on 49 indicators. These responses are then clustered into eleven stages occurring during the electoral cycle and summed to construct an overall 100-point expert Perception of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index and ranking.

The standard explanation of electoral reform is offered by rational choice accounts. These regard the choice of rules as an elite-level issue, dominated by partisan interests bargaining within the legislature, where citizens are usually marginalized and powerless. Such accounts may help to explain what specific reforms are enacted but they lack the capacity to account satisfactorily for the logically prior questions: when and why are any successful reforms raised on the policy agenda? Part I presents a general policy cycle model identifying multiple actors in the process of electoral change. Working within this framework, the study seeks to test the proposition that political culture -- notably citizen dissatisfaction with regime legitimacy -- heightens the salience of institutional reform on the policy agenda. Part II summarizes the research design testing this proposition. Perceptions of regime legitimacy are measured at three levels: citizens’ aspirations for democracy, satisfaction with the performance of democracy, and confidence in regime institutions. Evidence draws upon the 2nd and 3rd waves of the World Values Survey (WVS), in the early to mid-1990s, covering almost fifty countries around the globe. Patterns of institutional reform are measured by major changes to the electoral systems used for the lower house of parliament during the following decade. The study uses binary logistic regression to test whether macro-level perceptions of regime legitimacy in the early to mid-1990s influenced whether electoral reforms were passed during the subsequent decade, controlling for levels of democracy and development. Part III presents the results. The evidence demonstrates that democratic aspirations (support for democracy as an ideal) are a strong, significant, and robust predictor of the occurrence of subsequent electoral reforms. The conclusion in Part IV considers the implications of these findings, both for theories concerning regime legitimacy, as well as for revising standard accounts of processes of institutional change.

When international observers criticize the quality of elections, do these expert evaluations reflect ‘Western/American’ values? Or are there universal global norms of electoral integrity and malpractice which are shared by ordinary people living in diverse cultures? To consider these issues, Part I of this paper unpacks the core concept of electoral integrity. Part II introduces a new battery of nine items carried for the first time in the 6th wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) 2010-12. This battery is designed to gauge perceptions of common types of electoral integrity and malpractice. Part III describes the results of the survey. Part IV then compares mass perceptions in each country against five summary indices based on expert evaluations. The conclusion summarizes the main findings and considers their implications.