Fabrice Lehoucq and Ivan Molina's research into electoral fraud and reform in Costa Rica is one of only a handful of studies examining the internal politics of a democratizing republic. Analysis begins in 1901, when competitive party politics took off, and ends in 1948, when institutional reforms completely removed the executive and legislature from electoral governance. During the interregnum, leaders used ballot fraud and violence to gain public office, but gradually they reformed political institutions to permit increasing numbers of adults to vote.

The authors explore the development of fair electoral practices in Costa Rica in order to shed light on the politics of institutional reform. The key reforms that undercut the ability of political parties to rig the ballot box appear to have been made against the best interests of those who implemented them. This presents three important puzzles, the ones that animate the book. First, why do politicians reform the institutions that keep them in power? Second, why do party leaders relinquish their ability to rig electoral results? Finally, why do incumbents consent to having—and respecting—the outcome of fair elections?

Stuffing the Ballot Box relies on a peculiar collection of documents known as the petitions to nullify electoral results (demandas de nulidad), commonly published in the official record of laws and government announcements. These petitions were the legal vehicle for aggrieved parties to file complaints about the electoral behavior of their opponents. Molina examined 123 petitions containing more than 1,300 accusations of ballot rigging. Lehoucq analyzed congressional and public debates about electoral reform and assembled roll-call data on deputy behavior, organized the effort to identify the partisan affiliation of congressmen, and took the lead in putting them together. The authors' approach provides new data and insights.

Three kinds of findings emerge from this work: those that concern the nature, extent and magnitude of electoral fraud; those that shed light on the effectiveness of classical theories of electoral governance; and those that assist in assessing the usefulness of theories of institutional change.

From the perspective of ballot-rigging dynamics, Lehoucq and Molina find that the institutionalist approach makes better sense of that process than social, cultural, or economic differences. Only the former perspective can explain why political competition was more intense in the periphery and why levels of fraud declined over the long term. In addition, after establishment of the secret franchise, the nature of fraud changed: Parties spent more time in fabricating their own votes than in reducing that of their rivals. Finally, institutional arrangements best explain locational changes in the number of accusations of fraud, which by the 1940s were concentrated overwhelmingly in the provinces where most voters lived.

Findings about the effectiveness of the classical theory of electoral governance center on the postulate of constitutional doctrine, which states that the executive should organize the election. The legislature ensures honesty by certifying election results. Lehoucq and Molina marshal empirical evidence to assess the validity of this postulate by examining the behavior of the Credentials Committee—a congressional body that initially reviewed the petitions—and of congress as a whole. They found that splitting the “administrative” from the “political” functions of electoral administration failed to eliminate charges of unfairness. Compliance with democratic norms increased only as political parties removed the executive and legislature from electoral governance.

The third category of conclusions provides insights into the usefulness of three theories of institutional change. The most common explanation of why parties do not change laws that permit them to stuff the ballot box, the office-seeking theory, states that incumbents do whatever is necessary to augment their share of power. It does a reasonably good job of accounting for most opposition to far-reaching institutional reform examined in this volume. The second theory contends that class backgrounds, socialization, and the international demonstration effects encourage party leaders to make choices that run counter to their short-term electoral interests. In a few instances, Lehoucq and Molina found that ideology led some conservatives to support reform, but in general, the strategic interest of the parties was the best predictor of choices. Finally, an institutionalist perspective explains seemingly irrational choices because it delineates the incentives that politicians faced in different arenas. What might appear irrational in the legislative arena could seem perfectly rational given the incentives that politicians faced in other institutional environments.

One important shortcoming marks this work. Most of the institutions, opportunities, and strategic choices that led to democracy in Costa Rica were present in other Central American polities. Yet the path to democracy in those countries proved quite different; even today the quality of Costa Rican democracy is unique in the subregion. This suggests that the cultural, economic, and social explanations that Lehoucq and Molina find wanting may be more important in determining the course of political change than they admit. This possibility, which they themselves concede, should be the focus of future research that examines relationships between electoral fraud and democratization.

Finally, Stuffing the Ballot Box is a significant work in comparative politics. Not only does it focus attention on the institutional constraints and strategic behavior that set Costa Rica apart from the rest of Central America, but it also casts doubt on the argument that pacts among oligarchs, industrialists, middle classes, peasants, and workers determine regime type. Lehoucq and Molina also show that the absence of severe ethnic and class conflicts does not deprive political life of serious conflicts. Their account of the struggle to control the Costa Rican state is one that led to insurrections, under-mined political stability, and thwarted democratic reform. They are persuasive when they affirm that the choice-theoretic perspective best explains the triumph of democracy in Costa Rica in the late 1940s. The arguments that they present in defense of this position are an important contribution to the debate within political science over the relative explanatory power of the rational choice, culturalist, and institutionalist approaches.