Helsinki's Counterintuitive Effect? Osce/Odihr's Election Observation Missions & Solidification of Virtual Democracy in Post-Communist Central Asia: The Case of Tajikistan, 2000-2010

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the processes and effects of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) election observations in post-communist Central Asia and the case study of Tajikistan. As OSCE participating States (pS), Central Asian governments have since the late-1990s been asked by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to invite the organization’s observers to monitor national parliamentary and presidential elections. The OSCE’s objectives have been to assist the Central Asian pS in holding free and fair elections and accelerate a presumed ongoing post-Soviet democratization process. The qualitative research of this thesis demonstrates, however, that repeated OSCE/ODIHR election observations in post-communist Central Asian states with histories of fraudulent elections has not contributed to the flourishing of democracy and political pluralism, and may instead have aided in the solidification of virtual, not real, democracy in Central Asia—aka “Helsinki’s counterintuitive effect.” I argue that the realpolitik objectives of European Union and North American OSCE pS, which includes the privileging of hard security objectives over democratization, is among the reasons for the continuation of election observations in the region despite the fact that—save the case of Kyrgyzstan—there have been clear signals in the past decade that the fraudulent nature of all national elections in the region has been a foregone conclusion, and despite OSCE/ODIHR’s recommendations for electoral reforms regularly being disregarded by the post-communist Central Asian leaderships. I argue that the OSCE/ODIHR’s lack of questioning of the efficacy of such election observation missions is due to ODIHR’s eagerness to gain material benefits in the way of budgetary outlays and to maintain its raison d’être as a post-Cold War institution. I also sought, in turn, to determine the reasons behind the Central Asian governments’ readiness to regularly invite OSCE/ODIHR’s election observers, despite the expected critical reports that the same election missions generate. I argue that the willingness by Central Asian states to invite OSCE/ODHIR’s election observers is due to the expectations of material and moral benefits from Western states in way of foreign aid as well as the granting of external legitimacy through the act of holding elections with the presence of observers representing a prestigious entity as the OSCE.