Toby S James
Biographic Data
| ID | 1534551 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Toby S James |
| GIVEN NAMES | Toby S |
| FAMILY NAME | James |
| SIGNATURE | JAMES T S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of East Anglia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5826-5461 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 259 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
What is Electoral Integrity?
There are worldwide concerns about the quality of elections and democracy. There is also an ambiguity in academia, the international community and popular discourse about how to define and measure good elections. This Element develops an original concept of electoral integrity based on human empowerment. Elections serve a purpose: They should give citizens a voice, empower the everyday citizen against the powerful and act as mechanisms for politi…
Oxford Handbook of Electoral Integrity
The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Integrity
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title w…
Democracy, public administration, and democratic backsliding
There have been concerns about democratic backsliding in many countries around the world. A new research agenda, identifying the impact of democratic erosion on public administration – and whether public administration can act as a firewall to democratic backsliding – has arisen as a result. The relationship between public administration and democracy has often been a source of ambiguity, however. The article argues that the relationship depends …
The New Mass Unenfranchised? Mapping Unenfranchised Adults and the Case for Residence‐Based Voting in the UK
Universal suffrage is a defining feature of democracy. The UK electoral franchises, however, prohibit voting on the basis of some, but not all, nationalities. Residence‐based voting involves allowing all adults who are legally resident in a country to vote. It has been introduced in Scotland and Wales for some elections. This article provides estimates of the number of unenfranchised adults in the UK. There has been an increase in the number of u…
The value of poll-worker voice in the delivery of elections
Elections are the pivotal political institution used to confer legitimacy in almost all states. Decision making on election policy is usually elite-driven and top-down in nature. This article applies the concept of workplace democracy, originally proposed by Carole Pateman, to explore the voices of poll workers involved in delivering elections on the ground. Theories of workplace democracy argue participation should not be limited to the ballot b…
Electoral integrity resilience
Emergency situations caused by natural and technological hazards have often been thought to pose a major threat to democratic practices. This article introduces the concept of electoral integrity resilience as the configuration of actors, resources and properties which enable societies to adapt to an external shock which could damage electoral integrity. The COVID-19 pandemic was a critical case which was thought to pose as a major threat to elec…
The effects of wars
Introduction and theoretical framework to Policy Studies, Volume 45, 2024 - Issue 3-4: The effects of wars: lessons from the war in Ukraine; Guest editors: Pierre Bocquillon, Suzanne Doyle, Toby S. James, Ra Mason, Soul Park and Matilde Rosina
The Determinants of Electoral Registration Quality
Electoral registers provide the definitive record of who can participate in an election, but there is often thought to be considerable variations in their quality cross-nationally. This leads to concerns about eligible voters being de facto disenfranchised on election day; but also ineligible voters or fictitious names appearing on the roll which can enable electoral fraud. In either case, the legitimacy of the election can be questioned. The ele…
The Voter Experience Around the World
The experiences that voters have of elections are pivotal in the democratic experience of citizens. However, there has been relatively few multidirectional theorisations of the nature of this experience and the implications. This article reviews existing canonical approaches to understanding the voter experience which are informed by rational choice theory, behaviouralism and constructivism. It offers an alternative human reflexivity approach whi…
The Voter Experience Around the World
This special issue has introduced the human reflexivity approach as a framework for studying elections. Empirical studies in the volume have then considered how institutional design, cultural practices and strategic actions come together to inform the voter experience – and how this experience, in turn, has broader consequences for the quality of elections and democracy. This concluding piece summarises some of the key empirical findings and draw…
Real Democracy
This article presents an alternative general model of democracy to traditional minimalist (electoral and liberal) and deliberative theories by drawing from critical realist philosophical thought. Realist or real democracy is proposed as a societal system where preconditions exist to fully empower all citizens to realize their individual capabilities. This includes empowerment opportunities at the ballot box - but also other preconditions such as …
Are polarised elections the hardest to deliver? Explaining global variations in electoral management body performance
Electoral management, understood as the application and implementation of electoral rules, is a critical part of democratic governance. But there are often concerns about the quality of electoral management and the performance of electoral management bodies around the world. Despite recent advances, there remains a need for new systematic evidence on the quality of electoral management and analysis of the factors that lead to poorly-or well-run e…
Policy transfer during the Covid era
Electoral administration and the problem of poll worker recruitment
Elections depend on the thousands of people who give up their time to administer this crucial public service. They staff polling stations and ensure votes are issued, cast and counted. Poll workers are effectively ‘stipended volunteers’, receiving some limited financial compensation, but working for the broader public good. It is important to understand why people choose to give up their time to provide this fundamental public service to their fe…
Safeguarding election management bodies in the age of democratic recession
There is strong evidence that we have entered into a democratic recessionwhere the quality of democracy is being reversed around the world.As the organisations responsible for running elections, election management bodies (EMBs) are at the fulcrum of the challenge of protecting democracy.This article introduces the special issue on 'Safeguarding Election Management Bodies in the Age of Democratic Recession' which aims to consider the emerging cha…
Election staff training
The safe delivery of elections is a pivotal international issue in an era of widespread concerns about global democratic backsliding. Despite this, there remains little research on the training provided to electoral officialsthose responsible for delivering elections and democracy on the front line. This article introduces the concept of electoral training institutionalisation, which refers to the extent to which training is embedded into elector…
Electoral backsliding? Democratic divergence and trajectories in the quality of elections worldwide
Throughout the world, scholars and international organisations have voiced their concern in recent years that democracy appears to be ‘backsliding.’ Elections are an indispensable part of the democratic system, but there has been relatively little focus on whether we have witnessed ‘electoral backsliding’. This special issue introductory article considers three rival theses (backsliding, strengthening and divergence) about the trajectory of elect…
Labour market policies during an age of uncertainty
Governance and public administration in China
Pressing new (and old) challenges has put systems of governance and public administration under pressure around the globe. In this era, there is an ever greater need to globalize academic knowledge and learn from divergent systems. China has traditionally been held up as a suis generis exemplar of a particular mode of governance. An updated understanding of modern China and Chinese research on public administration stands to enrich the discipline…
Assessing the policy effects of political leaders
How should political leaders be evaluated? This article reviews existing approaches and argues that they are insufficiently developed to map the more complex policy effects of political leaders, since they tend to focus on electoral and broader regime level outcomes. In response, it maps out a layered framework based on scientific realism. The layered approach argues that analysis should focus on the effects of leaders within societal structures,…
Policy Studies during an age of uncertainty
Policy Studies is a long-standing journal concerned with public policy and governance. Like the real world that it studies, the journal itself has undergone many changes since it was launched. This
The effects of Donald Trump
What effect did Donald Trump have within and beyond America? This article assesses the policy impact of the President using the new layered framework for understanding the impact of political leaders, which considers their effect on the connected layers of societal structures, political institutions and policy. Firstly, the article extends the framework with a new typology of change. Secondly, it draws from the empirical articles in this volume t…
Delivering electoral integrity under pressure
The management and delivery of elections is a core task for local government officials in many countries, but often overlooked by research and policy makers. This article charts the nature and consequences of emerging pressures on local government officials to deliver high profile electoral events in an established democracy. Through a rigorous and comprehensive survey of local electoral administrators and in-depth interviews, it examines how ele…
Building Inclusive Elections
Statecraft and the Assessment of National Political Leaders
This article makes the case for employing the statecraft approach (associated with the late Jim Bulpitt) to assess political leadership in Britain. Rather than ‘importing’ methodologies from the US, as some scholars have done, statecraft is preferred in the UK context for two main reasons. First, statecraft is concerned with the motives and behaviour of leadership cliques, and as a result, it is more appropriate for the collective leadership styl…
Electoral management and the organisational determinants of electoral integrity
Achieving the ideals of electoral democracy depends on well-run elections. Persistent problems of electoral integrity in transitional and established democracies have prompted a burgeoning literature seeking to explain the determinants of electoral integrity around the world. However, the study of the organisations responsible for managing the electoral process has been limited to isolated national case studies. This article opens up an interdisc…
Neo-Statecraft Theory, Historical Institutionalism and Institutional Change
This article provides a critical examination of the contribution that statecraft theory, which has been subject to recent revision and development, makes to the literature on institutional change. It articulates an emergentneo-statecraft approach that offers an agent-led form of historical institutionalism. This overcomes the common criticism that historical institutionalists underplay the creative role of actors. The article also argues that the…
Democracy, public administration, and democratic backsliding
There have been concerns about democratic backsliding in many countries around the world. A new research agenda, identifying the impact of democratic erosion on public administration – and whether public administration can act as a firewall to democratic backsliding – has arisen as a result. The relationship between public administration and democracy has often been a source of ambiguity, however. The article argues that the relationship depends …
The Spill-Over and Displacement Effects of Implementing Election Administration Reforms
The UK government intends to replace household electoral registration with individual electoral registration (IER). This article assesses the likely effects of the reform using an innovative methodology. A thematic analysis of extensive qualitative interviews with local election officials, conceived as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ responsible for implementing elections, was undertaken. Their local knowledge provides evidence that IER might improve …
Fixing failures of U.K. electoral management
Better workers, better elections? Electoral management body workforces and electoral integrity worldwide
Building better elections is a central task for the study of democracy and democratisation. Despite this, there have been no cross-national studies on the staff who manage and implement elections: electoral management body (EMB) workforces. This article provides the first macroscopic worldwide picture of workforce characteristics, human resource management practices and employee outcomes, and analyses the effects they have on electoral integrity,…
Assessing the policy effects of political leaders
How should political leaders be evaluated? This article reviews existing approaches and argues that they are insufficiently developed to map the more complex policy effects of political leaders, since they tend to focus on electoral and broader regime level outcomes. In response, it maps out a layered framework based on scientific realism. The layered approach argues that analysis should focus on the effects of leaders within societal structures,…
Only in America? Executive partisan interest and the politics of election administration in Ireland, the UK and the USA
What role does executive partisan interest play in the reform of election administration? The forces for reform and continuity in the USA, the UK and Ireland from 1980 to 2007 are compared. Partisan involvement is found to be present in the USA and the UK but less so in Ireland. This is explained by conceiving partisan interest as a context-specific causal mechanism which varies according to three factors. First, an issue trigger may be required …
Electoral Administration and Voter Turnout
In recent years many states have reformed (or considered reforming) their electoral administration to increase turnout. This article uses the existing international literature on electoral administration and voter turnout to construct a continuum on which electoral procedures can be classified according to whether they have ‘restrictive’ or ‘expansive’ effects on participation. This continuum is argued to be a useful heuristic device for politica…
Electoral integrity, voter fraud and voter ID in polling stations
Polling stations are at the fulcrum of the democratic process. They are the location where most voters exercise their democratic rights, but also one place where electoral fraud and irregularities may occur, both in consolidating and established democracies. This study provides a detailed analysis of the nature and frequency of electoral irregularities that are found in English local elections using original surveys of poll workers in 2018 and 20…
The effects of Donald Trump
What effect did Donald Trump have within and beyond America? This article assesses the policy impact of the President using the new layered framework for understanding the impact of political leaders, which considers their effect on the connected layers of societal structures, political institutions and policy. Firstly, the article extends the framework with a new typology of change. Secondly, it draws from the empirical articles in this volume t…
Integrating Structural Context into the Assessment of Political Leadership
How should we assess the performance of political leaders? As many scholars note, it is important to take into account the structural context politicians govern when appraising their record in office. However, many existing approaches used to assess political leaders have not integrated a notion of structure into their research in an explicit or detailed way. This article tries to respond to this gap by first discussing a range of issues involved…
Electoral modernisation or elite statecraft
Governance and public administration in China
Pressing new (and old) challenges has put systems of governance and public administration under pressure around the globe. In this era, there is an ever greater need to globalize academic knowledge and learn from divergent systems. China has traditionally been held up as a suis generis exemplar of a particular mode of governance. An updated understanding of modern China and Chinese research on public administration stands to enrich the discipline…
Real Democracy
This article presents an alternative general model of democracy to traditional minimalist (electoral and liberal) and deliberative theories by drawing from critical realist philosophical thought. Realist or real democracy is proposed as a societal system where preconditions exist to fully empower all citizens to realize their individual capabilities. This includes empowerment opportunities at the ballot box - but also other preconditions such as …
Electoral administration and the problem of poll worker recruitment
Elections depend on the thousands of people who give up their time to administer this crucial public service. They staff polling stations and ensure votes are issued, cast and counted. Poll workers are effectively ‘stipended volunteers’, receiving some limited financial compensation, but working for the broader public good. It is important to understand why people choose to give up their time to provide this fundamental public service to their fe…
Delivering electoral integrity under pressure
The management and delivery of elections is a core task for local government officials in many countries, but often overlooked by research and policy makers. This article charts the nature and consequences of emerging pressures on local government officials to deliver high profile electoral events in an established democracy. Through a rigorous and comprehensive survey of local electoral administrators and in-depth interviews, it examines how ele…
Political leadership as statecraft? Aligning theory with praxis in conversation with British party leaders
How should prime ministerial and party leadership be understood and assessed? One leading approach posits that we should assess them in terms of whether they achieve statecraft, that is, winning and maintain office in government. This article supplements and then assesses that theory by drawing from Pawson and Tilley’s concept of the realistic interview, in which practitioners are deployed as co-researchers to assess and revise theory. Unpreceden…
The Determinants of Electoral Registration Quality
Electoral registers provide the definitive record of who can participate in an election, but there is often thought to be considerable variations in their quality cross-nationally. This leads to concerns about eligible voters being de facto disenfranchised on election day; but also ineligible voters or fictitious names appearing on the roll which can enable electoral fraud. In either case, the legitimacy of the election can be questioned. The ele…
Introduction
The voter turnout gap has plagued many elections around the world, with differential levels of participation between groups having the potential to effect election results and policy outcomes. Despite this, there has been little empirical or normative theorization of the interventions that can be used redress the turnout gap and other inequalities within the electoral process. This article defines the concept of inclusive voting practices to refe…
Electoral backsliding? Democratic divergence and trajectories in the quality of elections worldwide
Throughout the world, scholars and international organisations have voiced their concern in recent years that democracy appears to be ‘backsliding.’ Elections are an indispensable part of the democratic system, but there has been relatively little focus on whether we have witnessed ‘electoral backsliding’. This special issue introductory article considers three rival theses (backsliding, strengthening and divergence) about the trajectory of elect…
The effects of centralising electoral management board design
The public administration of elections frequently fails. Variation in the performance of electoral management bodies around the world has been demonstrated, illustrated by delays in the count, inaccurate or incomplete voter registers, or severe queues at polling stations. Centralising the management of the electoral process has often been proposed as a solution. There has been little theorisation and no empirical investigations into the effects t…
Researching Electoral Administration in America
This article reviews four new additions to the growing literature on electoral administration. It argues that each book adds usefully to the literature, but that there remains an absence of cross-national reflection. The books make important contributions by highlighting the importance of electoral administration, which is often overlooked in democracies; by making important normative contributions to the case for particular procedures; and by de…
The Voter Experience Around the World
The experiences that voters have of elections are pivotal in the democratic experience of citizens. However, there has been relatively few multidirectional theorisations of the nature of this experience and the implications. This article reviews existing canonical approaches to understanding the voter experience which are informed by rational choice theory, behaviouralism and constructivism. It offers an alternative human reflexivity approach whi…
Whatever happened to Régulation theory? The Régulation approach and local government revisited
This article contributes to an ongoing debate about the causal source of policy change by considering whether the Régulation approach, which has been largely discarded since the 1990s, can help to explain change in economic development polices at the level of local government in the UK. First, the ‘decline’ of the approach is explained by interviewing key exponents of the approach from the 1990s. Second, the approach is applied to a narrative of …
Electoral modernisation or elite statecraft
Electoral Administration and Voter Turnout
In recent years many states have reformed (or considered reforming) their electoral administration to increase turnout. This article uses the existing international literature on electoral administration and voter turnout to construct a continuum on which electoral procedures can be classified according to whether they have ‘restrictive’ or ‘expansive’ effects on participation. This continuum is argued to be a useful heuristic device for politica…
Researching Electoral Administration in America
This article reviews four new additions to the growing literature on electoral administration. It argues that each book adds usefully to the literature, but that there remains an absence of cross-national reflection. The books make important contributions by highlighting the importance of electoral administration, which is often overlooked in democracies; by making important normative contributions to the case for particular procedures; and by de…
Democratic drift
Statecraft and the Assessment of National Political Leaders
This article makes the case for employing the statecraft approach (associated with the late Jim Bulpitt) to assess political leadership in Britain. Rather than ‘importing’ methodologies from the US, as some scholars have done, statecraft is preferred in the UK context for two main reasons. First, statecraft is concerned with the motives and behaviour of leadership cliques, and as a result, it is more appropriate for the collective leadership styl…
Only in America? Executive partisan interest and the politics of election administration in Ireland, the UK and the USA
What role does executive partisan interest play in the reform of election administration? The forces for reform and continuity in the USA, the UK and Ireland from 1980 to 2007 are compared. Partisan involvement is found to be present in the USA and the UK but less so in Ireland. This is explained by conceiving partisan interest as a context-specific causal mechanism which varies according to three factors. First, an issue trigger may be required …
The Myth of Voter Fraud ‐ by Lorraine C. Minnite
Fixing failures of U.K. electoral management
The Spill-Over and Displacement Effects of Implementing Election Administration Reforms
The UK government intends to replace household electoral registration with individual electoral registration (IER). This article assesses the likely effects of the reform using an innovative methodology. A thematic analysis of extensive qualitative interviews with local election officials, conceived as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ responsible for implementing elections, was undertaken. Their local knowledge provides evidence that IER might improve …
Integrating Structural Context into the Assessment of Political Leadership
How should we assess the performance of political leaders? As many scholars note, it is important to take into account the structural context politicians govern when appraising their record in office. However, many existing approaches used to assess political leaders have not integrated a notion of structure into their research in an explicit or detailed way. This article tries to respond to this gap by first discussing a range of issues involved…
Assessing Political Leadership in Context
The effects of centralising electoral management board design
The public administration of elections frequently fails. Variation in the performance of electoral management bodies around the world has been demonstrated, illustrated by delays in the count, inaccurate or incomplete voter registers, or severe queues at polling stations. Centralising the management of the electoral process has often been proposed as a solution. There has been little theorisation and no empirical investigations into the effects t…
Neo-Statecraft Theory, Historical Institutionalism and Institutional Change
This article provides a critical examination of the contribution that statecraft theory, which has been subject to recent revision and development, makes to the literature on institutional change. It articulates an emergentneo-statecraft approach that offers an agent-led form of historical institutionalism. This overcomes the common criticism that historical institutionalists underplay the creative role of actors. The article also argues that the…
The cost of elections
Concerns have been raised that insufficient funding has been affecting the delivery of elections in many countries. This paper presents a case study of England and Wales from 2010–2016. It demonstrates that many local authorities saw major real terms cuts and were increasingly over-budget. Those subject to cuts were less likely to undertake public engagement activities. State efforts to encourage voter participation may therefore be a casualty of…
The higher education impact agenda, scientific realism and policy change
Political leadership as statecraft? Aligning theory with praxis in conversation with British party leaders
How should prime ministerial and party leadership be understood and assessed? One leading approach posits that we should assess them in terms of whether they achieve statecraft, that is, winning and maintain office in government. This article supplements and then assesses that theory by drawing from Pawson and Tilley’s concept of the realistic interview, in which practitioners are deployed as co-researchers to assess and revise theory. Unpreceden…
Electoral management and the organisational determinants of electoral integrity
Achieving the ideals of electoral democracy depends on well-run elections. Persistent problems of electoral integrity in transitional and established democracies have prompted a burgeoning literature seeking to explain the determinants of electoral integrity around the world. However, the study of the organisations responsible for managing the electoral process has been limited to isolated national case studies. This article opens up an interdisc…
Better workers, better elections? Electoral management body workforces and electoral integrity worldwide
Building better elections is a central task for the study of democracy and democratisation. Despite this, there have been no cross-national studies on the staff who manage and implement elections: electoral management body (EMB) workforces. This article provides the first macroscopic worldwide picture of workforce characteristics, human resource management practices and employee outcomes, and analyses the effects they have on electoral integrity,…
Building Inclusive Elections
Inclusive voting practices
Inclusive voting practices have been defined in this special issue to refer to policy instruments which can reduce turnout inequality between groups and mitigate other inequalities within the electoral process. This concluding article reflects on the lessons learnt from the empirical studies about (a) how citizens come to be excluded at the ballot box; (b) which electoral processes are effective at bringing about greater inclusion; (c) what the w…
Electoral integrity, voter fraud and voter ID in polling stations
Polling stations are at the fulcrum of the democratic process. They are the location where most voters exercise their democratic rights, but also one place where electoral fraud and irregularities may occur, both in consolidating and established democracies. This study provides a detailed analysis of the nature and frequency of electoral irregularities that are found in English local elections using original surveys of poll workers in 2018 and 20…
Introduction
The voter turnout gap has plagued many elections around the world, with differential levels of participation between groups having the potential to effect election results and policy outcomes. Despite this, there has been little empirical or normative theorization of the interventions that can be used redress the turnout gap and other inequalities within the electoral process. This article defines the concept of inclusive voting practices to refe…
Assessing the policy effects of political leaders
How should political leaders be evaluated? This article reviews existing approaches and argues that they are insufficiently developed to map the more complex policy effects of political leaders, since they tend to focus on electoral and broader regime level outcomes. In response, it maps out a layered framework based on scientific realism. The layered approach argues that analysis should focus on the effects of leaders within societal structures,…
Policy Studies during an age of uncertainty
Policy Studies is a long-standing journal concerned with public policy and governance. Like the real world that it studies, the journal itself has undergone many changes since it was launched. This
Political science (42 works) · Law (35 works) · Politics (31 works) · Law (30 works) · Public Administration (26 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Economics (24 works) · Public Administration (23 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (22 works) · Political economy (19 works)