Michal Mochtak is a Research Associate at the Institute of Political Science, University of Luxembourg. His research interests cover hybrid regimes, electoral violence and conflicts. See more at www.mochtak.com.
First published 2018. Introduction -- From violence to electoral violence -- Contexts of electora... more First published 2018. Introduction -- From violence to electoral violence -- Contexts of electoral violence -- Patterns of electoral violence -- Recipes for electoral violence in the Western Balkans -- Conclusion.
The paper analyses almost fifteen years of Croatian parliamentary debates and identifies a discou... more The paper analyses almost fifteen years of Croatian parliamentary debates and identifies a discourse of war legacies. Using the latest advancements in natural language processing, the paper utilizes models based on latent semantic analysis and discusses how politicians talk about war in terms of common narratives and shared frameworks. Using a complex vector representation of war-related concepts, the paper specifically focuses on their framing in the context of right-wing authoritarianism. The results show a negative trend of pushing the most frequent war-related concepts to more extreme framing as a potential reflection of their political abuse and ongoing mythologization.
How do politicians in post-war societies talk about the past war? How do they discursively repr... more How do politicians in post-war societies talk about the past war? How do they discursively represent vulnerable social groups created by the conflict? Does the nature of this representation depend on the politicians’ ideology or their record of combat service? We answer these questions by pairing natural language processing tools and a large corpus of parliamentary debates with an extensive data set of biographical information including detailed records of war service for all members of parliament during two recent terms in Croatia. We demonstrate not only that veteran politicians talk about war differently from their non-veteran counterparts, but also that the sentiment of war-related political discourse is highly dependent on the speaker's exposure to combat and ideological orientation. These results improve our understanding of the representational role played by combat veterans, as well as of the link between descriptive and substantive representation of vulnerable groups in post-war societies.
The paper addresses the question of what settings are empirically relevant for the occurrence of ... more The paper addresses the question of what settings are empirically relevant for the occurrence of electoral violence in the region of Western Balkans and what theoretical paths may cover their logic. Electoral violence has been part of the electoral arenas in the region for decades and although it has evolved and in some cases disappeared, a number of countries still experience it. The paper analyses original data on electoral violence collected from the OSCE monitoring reports covering fifty‐six parliamentary elections organized between 1990 and 2015. Applying fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), the paper identifies four sub‐models under which electoral violence is observed. The conjunctural logic that defines each and every of the discussed paths within the sub‐models shows that the scenarios of electoral violence in the Western Balkans are always complex and potentially relevant conditions are never sufficient for the outcome on their own.
The paper identifies and analyses the acts of electoral violence that occurred during the 2011 pa... more The paper identifies and analyses the acts of electoral violence that occurred during the 2011 parliamentary and 2012 presidential elections in the Russian Federation, and connects them with the practices of modern authoritarian regimes. The analytical tool employed is based on an electoral violence research framework, which provides insight into the negative dynamics of an electoral competition and its outcomes. The authors argue that electoral violence is used to advance the Russian authoritarian regime, which is a modern form of authoritarian rule. By analysing the post-electoral turmoil and the response of authorities to public demonstrations, we depict the regime's ability to adapt its position to maximise outcomes in the political conflict and opportunistically select the best tool to achieve its goals. We further argue that Russia, with its authoritarian tendencies, utilises confrontation dynamics during elections in order to allow the politicisation of various latent conflicts (interest- or value-oriented) that are impossible to solve in the everyday depoliticised routine of the undemocratic system.
The article focuses on an analysis of incidents of electoral violence in Serbia in the period of ... more The article focuses on an analysis of incidents of electoral violence in Serbia in the period of 1990-2014. The main objective is to identify potential sources of contentious behavior in the electoral arena and, using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to select potential causal paths that can explain it. Theoretical discussion combined with the original data collected from OSCE monitoring reports open a space for the systematic assessment of the explanatory power of various arguments concerning electoral violence while discussing its sources and logic. The fsQCA analysis identifies two causal paths that explain the occurrence of the phenomenon in the country covering Milo{\v{s}}evi{\'{c}} and the post-Milo{\v{s}}evi{\'{c}} era.
Electoral disputes accompanied by violent outbreaks have become an emerging problem in societies ... more Electoral disputes accompanied by violent outbreaks have become an emerging problem in societies under transformation, in authoritarian regimes, as well as in young democracies. The truth is that many politicians elected to office, their supporters, and political activists have altered their perceptions of electoral competition in a form of zero-sum logic with direct consequences for their opponents. After the fall of Communism in the beginning of the 1990s, Central and Eastern Europe stood at a crossroads. This period of imbalance and uncertainty affected the violent interaction in newly reformed electoral arenas with serious consequences for legitimizing democratic change. Despite the well-documented tension that existed in the region, the importance of violence in the electoral arena is rather neglected. The article approaches this gap as the first attempt to map electoral violence in a new typological environment where the process of transformation has affected political pluralism and the patterns of political contest. It argues that electoral violence is not a rare phenomenon in the region of post-Communist Europe and the dynamic varies on a great scale. Moreover, the article presents a picture of electoral violence occurring in different settings with potentially different contextual preconditions that need to be studied separately.
Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2015
Taking as its starting point the existing theoretical debate on electoral violence, this paper an... more Taking as its starting point the existing theoretical debate on electoral violence, this paper analyses election-related violence in Montenegro in the country's post-communist era. The objective is to gather data concerning violence tied to national elections for president and parliament, and to identify patterns present in the data. The role played by electoral violence in Montenegro during the period of democratization is subsequently evaluated. The analytical portion of the discussion, follows target shortcomings in the existing theoretical framework and puts forward tentative ways in which they might be addressed. Aggregated data concerning electoral violence in Montenegro are provided in simple matrix form, ready for further analysis.
This paper addresses the influence of organized crime on the performance of democracy in the Czec... more This paper addresses the influence of organized crime on the performance of democracy in the Czech Republic and seeks to determine which dimensions of its political system (if any) are most endangered. We construe organized crime in terms of corruption networks, questioning in effect the predominant understanding of these two concepts as distinct or even exclusive phenomena. The paper thus construes corruption and organized crime as concepts referring to transgressive acts (i.e., behavior that involves a violation of moral or social boundaries that need not be legally codified), rather than in terms of legal norms. The influence of corruption networks is demonstrated using the “Nagygate” affair, which is analyzed using Maltz's framework of potential harm. We argue that the debate on organized crime in the Czech Republic is, in fact, inherently tied to the study of corruption, since corruption constitutes an integral part of organized crime activity. Our findings are that transgressive behavior has a mostly negative impact, including loss of trust, the widespread belief that injustice goes unpunished, a weakening of the political system, and degeneration of the democratic regime. Moreover, the Nagygate scandal provides evidence that democratic institutions are not solely victims of organized crime but also a potential source of transgressive acts.
This article analyzes a structure of relations among the members of the Chamber of Deputies, the ... more This article analyzes a structure of relations among the members of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, as reported through their memberships in bilateral and multilateral groups of friendship which establish professional contacts between the Chamber of Deputies and foreign parliaments. We approach the structure as a social network of members of parliament and interpret the memberships as proxy indicators of their interests/preferences in foreign affairs. This research shows that interparliamentary groups construct a self-sustained independent structure for parliamentary diplomacy which may significantly differ from the official positions of the government. We find that the studied network has a centralized core–periphery structure, in which deputies who are less prominent and those interested in authoritarian regimes occupy more central positions. This research connects the findings with the current debates on Central European tendencies to look for allies in large authoritarian regimes (Russia and China), for which we argue the interparliamentary groups might play the role of an important communication channel.
Journal of International Relations and Development, 2018
The institution of power-sharing has over the past years become known as a mechanism for conflict... more The institution of power-sharing has over the past years become known as a mechanism for conflict resolution and even a factor of democratization. While power-sharing proved certain effectiveness in overcoming political crises, its positive impact on democratization is contested. Although existing research has focused extensively on the relationship between power-sharing and democratization, some areas of this phenomenon remain under-researched. This is particularly true of power-sharing in the form of ad hoc political practices based on a temporary agreement of political elites resulting in the establishment of a government of national unity. This paper approaches the gap in understanding both conceptual levels of the phenomena through a case study of Kenya as a country which underwent a period of power-sharing and where elections have historically played an important role in the country’s path towards democratization. The paper provides an analysis of the impact of power-sharing on the democratic quality of elections and argues that the power-sharing government in Kenya eventually contributed to democratization although its impact on different areas of assessment varied.
The paper analyses more than 20 years of evidence on electoral violence as reported by OSCE monit... more The paper analyses more than 20 years of evidence on electoral violence as reported by OSCE monitoring mission reports. It identifies prevailing trends of electoral violence in the OSCE participating states in order to better understand how the phenomenon is understood and framed by the leading international monitoring organizations in the region. The analysis utilizes a unique approach based on automated content analysis employing counting algorithms and latent semantic indexing. The results of the analysis show how electoral violence differs throughout the region while highlighting the qualitative variations in regional patterns of the reported incidents of election-related violence.
Employing the framework of conflicting goals in democracy promotion as departure point, the paper addresses the issue of arms exports to non-democratic countries as an important research topic which points to a reconsideration of certain fundamental conceptual and normative commitments underpinning democracy promotion. Empirically, we remind of the lingering hypocrisy of Western arms exporters, knowing that exports to non-democratic countries often hinder or block democratisation. This is not easily circumvented, because of the many conflicting objectives both internal and external to democracy promotion itself. Yet democracy and human rights promotion remain, ethically and pragmatically, important policy goals. Noting that the self-evident character of the state-based liberal democratic model is being increasingly questioned in the literature, we then critically explore a radical if surprisingly natural alternative vision: Namely that if the commitment to democracy and human rights is to be genuine, only global democracy remains a viable way of resolving the many dilemmas, as it aspires to deal both with regulating arms exports and building of accountable decision-making structures. Although we ultimately reject the globalist solution and lean towards a less radical constructivist approach, we endorse the underlying rationale, namely that democracy promotion needs to sincerely embrace normative democratic theory.
First published 2018. Introduction -- From violence to electoral violence -- Contexts of electora... more First published 2018. Introduction -- From violence to electoral violence -- Contexts of electoral violence -- Patterns of electoral violence -- Recipes for electoral violence in the Western Balkans -- Conclusion.
The paper analyses almost fifteen years of Croatian parliamentary debates and identifies a discou... more The paper analyses almost fifteen years of Croatian parliamentary debates and identifies a discourse of war legacies. Using the latest advancements in natural language processing, the paper utilizes models based on latent semantic analysis and discusses how politicians talk about war in terms of common narratives and shared frameworks. Using a complex vector representation of war-related concepts, the paper specifically focuses on their framing in the context of right-wing authoritarianism. The results show a negative trend of pushing the most frequent war-related concepts to more extreme framing as a potential reflection of their political abuse and ongoing mythologization.
How do politicians in post-war societies talk about the past war? How do they discursively repr... more How do politicians in post-war societies talk about the past war? How do they discursively represent vulnerable social groups created by the conflict? Does the nature of this representation depend on the politicians’ ideology or their record of combat service? We answer these questions by pairing natural language processing tools and a large corpus of parliamentary debates with an extensive data set of biographical information including detailed records of war service for all members of parliament during two recent terms in Croatia. We demonstrate not only that veteran politicians talk about war differently from their non-veteran counterparts, but also that the sentiment of war-related political discourse is highly dependent on the speaker's exposure to combat and ideological orientation. These results improve our understanding of the representational role played by combat veterans, as well as of the link between descriptive and substantive representation of vulnerable groups in post-war societies.
The paper addresses the question of what settings are empirically relevant for the occurrence of ... more The paper addresses the question of what settings are empirically relevant for the occurrence of electoral violence in the region of Western Balkans and what theoretical paths may cover their logic. Electoral violence has been part of the electoral arenas in the region for decades and although it has evolved and in some cases disappeared, a number of countries still experience it. The paper analyses original data on electoral violence collected from the OSCE monitoring reports covering fifty‐six parliamentary elections organized between 1990 and 2015. Applying fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), the paper identifies four sub‐models under which electoral violence is observed. The conjunctural logic that defines each and every of the discussed paths within the sub‐models shows that the scenarios of electoral violence in the Western Balkans are always complex and potentially relevant conditions are never sufficient for the outcome on their own.
The paper identifies and analyses the acts of electoral violence that occurred during the 2011 pa... more The paper identifies and analyses the acts of electoral violence that occurred during the 2011 parliamentary and 2012 presidential elections in the Russian Federation, and connects them with the practices of modern authoritarian regimes. The analytical tool employed is based on an electoral violence research framework, which provides insight into the negative dynamics of an electoral competition and its outcomes. The authors argue that electoral violence is used to advance the Russian authoritarian regime, which is a modern form of authoritarian rule. By analysing the post-electoral turmoil and the response of authorities to public demonstrations, we depict the regime's ability to adapt its position to maximise outcomes in the political conflict and opportunistically select the best tool to achieve its goals. We further argue that Russia, with its authoritarian tendencies, utilises confrontation dynamics during elections in order to allow the politicisation of various latent conflicts (interest- or value-oriented) that are impossible to solve in the everyday depoliticised routine of the undemocratic system.
The article focuses on an analysis of incidents of electoral violence in Serbia in the period of ... more The article focuses on an analysis of incidents of electoral violence in Serbia in the period of 1990-2014. The main objective is to identify potential sources of contentious behavior in the electoral arena and, using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to select potential causal paths that can explain it. Theoretical discussion combined with the original data collected from OSCE monitoring reports open a space for the systematic assessment of the explanatory power of various arguments concerning electoral violence while discussing its sources and logic. The fsQCA analysis identifies two causal paths that explain the occurrence of the phenomenon in the country covering Milo{\v{s}}evi{\'{c}} and the post-Milo{\v{s}}evi{\'{c}} era.
Electoral disputes accompanied by violent outbreaks have become an emerging problem in societies ... more Electoral disputes accompanied by violent outbreaks have become an emerging problem in societies under transformation, in authoritarian regimes, as well as in young democracies. The truth is that many politicians elected to office, their supporters, and political activists have altered their perceptions of electoral competition in a form of zero-sum logic with direct consequences for their opponents. After the fall of Communism in the beginning of the 1990s, Central and Eastern Europe stood at a crossroads. This period of imbalance and uncertainty affected the violent interaction in newly reformed electoral arenas with serious consequences for legitimizing democratic change. Despite the well-documented tension that existed in the region, the importance of violence in the electoral arena is rather neglected. The article approaches this gap as the first attempt to map electoral violence in a new typological environment where the process of transformation has affected political pluralism and the patterns of political contest. It argues that electoral violence is not a rare phenomenon in the region of post-Communist Europe and the dynamic varies on a great scale. Moreover, the article presents a picture of electoral violence occurring in different settings with potentially different contextual preconditions that need to be studied separately.
Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2015
Taking as its starting point the existing theoretical debate on electoral violence, this paper an... more Taking as its starting point the existing theoretical debate on electoral violence, this paper analyses election-related violence in Montenegro in the country's post-communist era. The objective is to gather data concerning violence tied to national elections for president and parliament, and to identify patterns present in the data. The role played by electoral violence in Montenegro during the period of democratization is subsequently evaluated. The analytical portion of the discussion, follows target shortcomings in the existing theoretical framework and puts forward tentative ways in which they might be addressed. Aggregated data concerning electoral violence in Montenegro are provided in simple matrix form, ready for further analysis.
This paper addresses the influence of organized crime on the performance of democracy in the Czec... more This paper addresses the influence of organized crime on the performance of democracy in the Czech Republic and seeks to determine which dimensions of its political system (if any) are most endangered. We construe organized crime in terms of corruption networks, questioning in effect the predominant understanding of these two concepts as distinct or even exclusive phenomena. The paper thus construes corruption and organized crime as concepts referring to transgressive acts (i.e., behavior that involves a violation of moral or social boundaries that need not be legally codified), rather than in terms of legal norms. The influence of corruption networks is demonstrated using the “Nagygate” affair, which is analyzed using Maltz's framework of potential harm. We argue that the debate on organized crime in the Czech Republic is, in fact, inherently tied to the study of corruption, since corruption constitutes an integral part of organized crime activity. Our findings are that transgressive behavior has a mostly negative impact, including loss of trust, the widespread belief that injustice goes unpunished, a weakening of the political system, and degeneration of the democratic regime. Moreover, the Nagygate scandal provides evidence that democratic institutions are not solely victims of organized crime but also a potential source of transgressive acts.
This article analyzes a structure of relations among the members of the Chamber of Deputies, the ... more This article analyzes a structure of relations among the members of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, as reported through their memberships in bilateral and multilateral groups of friendship which establish professional contacts between the Chamber of Deputies and foreign parliaments. We approach the structure as a social network of members of parliament and interpret the memberships as proxy indicators of their interests/preferences in foreign affairs. This research shows that interparliamentary groups construct a self-sustained independent structure for parliamentary diplomacy which may significantly differ from the official positions of the government. We find that the studied network has a centralized core–periphery structure, in which deputies who are less prominent and those interested in authoritarian regimes occupy more central positions. This research connects the findings with the current debates on Central European tendencies to look for allies in large authoritarian regimes (Russia and China), for which we argue the interparliamentary groups might play the role of an important communication channel.
Journal of International Relations and Development, 2018
The institution of power-sharing has over the past years become known as a mechanism for conflict... more The institution of power-sharing has over the past years become known as a mechanism for conflict resolution and even a factor of democratization. While power-sharing proved certain effectiveness in overcoming political crises, its positive impact on democratization is contested. Although existing research has focused extensively on the relationship between power-sharing and democratization, some areas of this phenomenon remain under-researched. This is particularly true of power-sharing in the form of ad hoc political practices based on a temporary agreement of political elites resulting in the establishment of a government of national unity. This paper approaches the gap in understanding both conceptual levels of the phenomena through a case study of Kenya as a country which underwent a period of power-sharing and where elections have historically played an important role in the country’s path towards democratization. The paper provides an analysis of the impact of power-sharing on the democratic quality of elections and argues that the power-sharing government in Kenya eventually contributed to democratization although its impact on different areas of assessment varied.
The paper analyses more than 20 years of evidence on electoral violence as reported by OSCE monit... more The paper analyses more than 20 years of evidence on electoral violence as reported by OSCE monitoring mission reports. It identifies prevailing trends of electoral violence in the OSCE participating states in order to better understand how the phenomenon is understood and framed by the leading international monitoring organizations in the region. The analysis utilizes a unique approach based on automated content analysis employing counting algorithms and latent semantic indexing. The results of the analysis show how electoral violence differs throughout the region while highlighting the qualitative variations in regional patterns of the reported incidents of election-related violence.
Employing the framework of conflicting goals in democracy promotion as departure point, the paper addresses the issue of arms exports to non-democratic countries as an important research topic which points to a reconsideration of certain fundamental conceptual and normative commitments underpinning democracy promotion. Empirically, we remind of the lingering hypocrisy of Western arms exporters, knowing that exports to non-democratic countries often hinder or block democratisation. This is not easily circumvented, because of the many conflicting objectives both internal and external to democracy promotion itself. Yet democracy and human rights promotion remain, ethically and pragmatically, important policy goals. Noting that the self-evident character of the state-based liberal democratic model is being increasingly questioned in the literature, we then critically explore a radical if surprisingly natural alternative vision: Namely that if the commitment to democracy and human rights is to be genuine, only global democracy remains a viable way of resolving the many dilemmas, as it aspires to deal both with regulating arms exports and building of accountable decision-making structures. Although we ultimately reject the globalist solution and lean towards a less radical constructivist approach, we endorse the underlying rationale, namely that democracy promotion needs to sincerely embrace normative democratic theory.
Uploads
Books by Michal Mochtak
Papers by Michal Mochtak
Employing the framework of conflicting goals in democracy promotion as departure point, the paper addresses the issue of arms exports to non-democratic countries as an important research topic which points to a reconsideration of certain fundamental conceptual and normative commitments underpinning democracy promotion. Empirically, we remind of the lingering hypocrisy of Western arms exporters, knowing that exports to non-democratic countries often hinder or block democratisation. This is not easily circumvented, because of the many conflicting objectives both internal and external to democracy promotion itself. Yet democracy and human rights promotion remain, ethically and pragmatically, important policy goals. Noting that the self-evident character of the state-based liberal democratic model is being increasingly questioned in the literature, we then critically explore a radical if surprisingly natural alternative vision: Namely that if the commitment to democracy and human rights is to be genuine, only global democracy remains a viable way of resolving the many dilemmas, as it aspires to deal both with regulating arms exports and building of accountable decision-making structures. Although we ultimately reject the globalist solution and lean towards a less radical constructivist approach, we endorse the underlying rationale, namely that democracy promotion needs to sincerely embrace normative democratic theory.
Employing the framework of conflicting goals in democracy promotion as departure point, the paper addresses the issue of arms exports to non-democratic countries as an important research topic which points to a reconsideration of certain fundamental conceptual and normative commitments underpinning democracy promotion. Empirically, we remind of the lingering hypocrisy of Western arms exporters, knowing that exports to non-democratic countries often hinder or block democratisation. This is not easily circumvented, because of the many conflicting objectives both internal and external to democracy promotion itself. Yet democracy and human rights promotion remain, ethically and pragmatically, important policy goals. Noting that the self-evident character of the state-based liberal democratic model is being increasingly questioned in the literature, we then critically explore a radical if surprisingly natural alternative vision: Namely that if the commitment to democracy and human rights is to be genuine, only global democracy remains a viable way of resolving the many dilemmas, as it aspires to deal both with regulating arms exports and building of accountable decision-making structures. Although we ultimately reject the globalist solution and lean towards a less radical constructivist approach, we endorse the underlying rationale, namely that democracy promotion needs to sincerely embrace normative democratic theory.