Mémoire
| Résumé : | The international promotion of democracy is one of the fundamental principles of the external action of the United States and the European Union, to shape internal processes in authoritarian countries and achieve the political liberalisation of the regime, they resort to different pressure mechanisms that can be hard (leverage) or softer (linkage). Many authoritarian regimes hold competitive elections to avoid such pressures. But, to what extent do external pressures contribute to improving the elections? The purpose of this research is, therefore, to evaluate the impact of external pressures for democratisation on the electoral integrity in authoritarian regimes. Through the qualitative approach and the comparative method, the effect of Western external pressures for democratisation on electoral processes is explored in three cases: Algeria, Belarus, and Venezuela between 2012 and 2018. The results show that the capacity to influence electoral integrity is limited, despite the geographical proximity, due to the imbalance between the leverage and linkage. |
