Book Talk: Meddling in the Ballot Box: The Causes and Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions

The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies presents

Book Talk:

“Meddling in the Ballot Box: The Causes and Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions” (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

Dov H. Levin, Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Hong Kong

Moderated by Keren Yarhi-Milo

Director, Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies and International Affairs

Monday, September 14, 2020

12:00pm-2:00pm

Saltzman Webinar Via Zoom

Advance Registration via the Columbia/SIPA Calendars

Registrants will be sent a Zoom link the day prior to the event

Register Here.

Abstract:

Why do world powers sometimes try to determine who wins an election in another country? What effects does such meddling have on the targeted elections results? Great powers have attempted for centuries to intervene in elections occurring in other states through various covert and overt methods, with the American intervention in the 2013 Kenyan elections and the Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections being just two recent examples. Indeed, the Americans and the Soviets/Russians intervened in one out of every nine national-level executive elections between 1946 and 2000. Meddling in the Ballot Box is the first book to provide a comprehensive analysis of foreign meddling in elections from the dawn of the modern era to the 2016 Russian intervention in the US election. Dov Levin shows that partisan electoral interventions are usually an “inside job” occurring only if a significant domestic actor within the target wants it. Likewise, a great power will not intervene unless it fears that its interests are endangered by an opposing party or candidate with very different preferences. He also finds that partisan electoral interventions frequently have significant effects on the results—sufficient in many situations to determine the winner. Such interference also tends to be more effective when it is conducted overtly. However, it is usually ineffective, if not counterproductive, when done in a founding election. A revelatory account that explains why major powers have meddled so frequently across the entire postwar era, Meddling in the Ballot Box also provides us with a framework for assessing the cyber-future of interference.

Bios:

Dov H. Levin is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 2016-2018 he was a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University. Levin’s main current research project is on the causes, effects, and effectiveness of partisan electoral interventions by great powers, a topic on which he has published multiple scholarly articles in prestigious academic venues including International Studies Quarterly, Terrorism and Political Violence and Journal of Conflict Resolution. References to his research on this topic have been made, for example, during hearings in the US senate about the Russian interference in the 2016 US elections and in a 2017 UK House of Commons report about Russia and Russian foreign policy. Levin has given interviews on partisan electoral interventions to CNN, NPR, BBC World, and other media outlets, and has served as a consulted/ quoted expert for multiple news segments and articles on this and related topics for various media organs around the world.

Keren Yarhi-Milo is the Director of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Her research and teaching focus on international relations and foreign policy, with a particular specialization in international security, including foreign policy decision-making, interstate communication and crisis bargaining, intelligence, and US foreign policy in the Middle East.Yarhi-Milo’s first book (Princeton University Press, 2014) titled, Knowing The Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence Organizations, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations, received the 2016 Furnnis Award for best book in the field of international security. Also, it is Co-Winner of the 2016 DPLST Book Prize, Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association. This book explores how and why civilian leaders and intelligence organizations select and interpret an adversary’s signals of intentions differently. Her new book, titled Who Fights for Reputation? The Psychology of Leaders in International Conflict  came out with Princeton University Press (2018) and received the 2019 Best Book Award on Foreign Policy from the American Political Science Association. Yarhi-Milo’s articles have been published or are forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, International Security, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Affairs, and Security Studies. Before joining the faculty at Columbia University, she was an Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs, tenured, at Princeton University’s Politics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. She was previously a post-doc fellow at the Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a pre-doc fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Yarhi-Milo has worked at the Mission of Israel to the United Nations, as well as served in the Israeli Defense Forces, Intelligence Branch. Her dissertation received the Kenneth Waltz Award for the best dissertation in the field of International Security and Arms Control in 2010. She also has received awards for the study of Political Science from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Arthur Ross Foundation, and the Abram Morris Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in Political Science from Columbia University.