An Academic Course provided by the Election Commission Nepal, the Kathmandu University School of Law and the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo in collaboration
Teaching staff: Bishal Khanal, Ila Sharma, Nils A Butenschøn and Kåre Vollan Discipline: democracy Electoral Systems and Electoral Rights Year of study: 2015 Kathmandu University Credits: 3 credits
GENERAL DESCRIPTION AND THE AIMS OF THE COURSE
Course Objective
The objective of the course is to convey the concept of elections and election law, and an understanding on how to convert basic electoral rights into electoral systems, including the system of representation and all the operational issues which form elements of the electoral system. In particular the understanding of the role of on one side international standards and on the other side the special needs of a country is important.
General Description of the Course:
The Course in Electoral Rights covers a broad spectrum of issues related to representative democracies. It will start by the fundamentals of transferring the ‘will of the people’ to decisions in representatives bodies and then cover systems of representation, electoral standards, minority and group representation, post conflict issues, the independence of the election management bodies, operational issues and election observation.
Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of the course, the following learning outcomes will be received:
The students should know the international obligations to multi-party elections and be able to interpret the general requirements and their ramification for national legislation. They should be able to analyse the qualities of systems of representation, the needs for special representation and the link to decision-making systems. In particular they should get a good understanding of the complexity and diversity of systems of representation and the importance of independent electoral management bodies and adherence to accepted standards to secure the integrity of an election.
Teaching Methodology
Teaching will be held through a combination of lecturing and seminars in the class, where the students are expected to show up in class with advance preparation based on set reading. Reading sources for each seminar will be provided to the students a week prior to the seminar, or will be included in the course reader. The seminar will stimulate group discussions on the topics covered in the course and individual presentations by the students.
Resource Materials
A list of bibliography is attached to the Syllabus, which will include optional reading as well as some of the pieces from the bibliography will be copied and provided to the students through the teaching process. All the materials in the bibliography are available either as PDF files, online or as material given to them. In additions hand-outs will be provided for most of the lectures.
Assessment of the learning outcomes
Students will be assessed based on the system established at Kathmandu University School of Law.
Teaching Staff: The course will be conveyed by Bishal Khanal (BK), Nils A. Butenschøn (NAB), Neel Uprety, (NU), Ila Sharma (IS) and Kåre Vollan (KV.
COURSE CONTENTS
Part I Concepts, International Commitments and Elections Role in Representative Democracies
Lecture 1. Conceptualization
Key concepts and terms: Decision-making in representative democracies, majority rule and consociational democracies, systems of representation, group representation and minorities, electoral standards, operational issues and observation will be explained.
Lecture 2. International Conventions and Obligations
The international binding obligations on elections, representation of genders, minorities etc. Lecture 3. International Standards and Best Practices
The international and regional standards and standards developed by INGOs are presented. In addition, best practices are presented. Lecture 4. Representative Democracies and Decision-making
What is elections’ role in transferring the ‘will of the people’ into collective decisions? State Structures, Forms of Government, Periodic Elections, and the role of political parties Part II Power-sharing Post Conflict, Minority and Group Rights
Lecture 5. Group Rights and Individual Rights; Identity, group rights and individual rights.
Lecture 6. Protection of minorities, balancing groups after conflict and affirmative action The different motivations for group representation. Sunset clauses.
Lecture 7. Institutional Design Levels of governments, councils representing minorities, minorities within minorities
Lecture 8. Power-Sharing Agreements – The Four Elements
What are the differences between majority rule and consociational democracies? The Four elements: Delegation of powers, representation, grand coalitions and veto powers. Part II Electoral Operational System, the Roles of Election Management Bodies, Civil Societies and Voters during the Course of the Electoral Cycle
Lecture 9. The Electoral Cycle An overview of pre-election, elections, and post-election activities. Electoral Disputes.
Lecture 10. The Role of the Election Management Body (EMB) The EMB administers the rules of the game and a credible election is dependent on the credibility of the EMB. Different models and traditions are explained.
Lecture 11. Legal and Operational Challenges The legal provisions are very important for any election and the laws are scrutinised in detail by domestic experts, parties and international organisations to assess if they meet international standards. But good elections may be conducted under very sketchy laws and bad elections are held with very good laws. What does it take to make an election credible?
Lecture 12. Elections in Nepal A historic overview and elements of the current legal framework.
Lecture 13. Election Observation Election observation became a very important tool for the transfer to democracy in the 1990s. The methodologies and the challenges will be discussed.
Lecture 14. Electronic Voting The use of IT in elections has become widespread. To support the actual voting, machines in the polling station is the most common but Internet voting is also used in some countries. The challenges are in particular related to secrecy and transparency and the various aspects will be discussed in this lecture.
Part III System of Representation, Electoral Quotas
Lecture 15. Electing Head of State Presidential elections depend to a large extent of the role of the president and the form of government. Electoral systems will be discussed for parliamentary systems, presidential systems and hybrid systems.
