A Socio-Historical Look at Electoral Integrity : Ruanda-Urundi 1956-1959

The issue of electoral integrity is a persistent concern, particularly in first-time electoral contexts. Based on a micro-sociological case study, this paper aims to provide an overview of an ongoing revisit of a study conducted between 1956 and 1959 at the behest of the Belgian colonial government. This fieldwork was carried out during the first instance of universal male suffrage in Rwanda and Burundi, then Ruanda-Urundi, and was the first of its kind in Africa. The research team comprised two Belgian ethnographers, Jean-Jacques Maquet and Marcel d’Hertefelt, along with the help of civil servants of European and African descent. They organized several mock elections, with the aim of testing and refining electoral technologies before their implementation. They also observed the first elections in real conditions, collected hundreds of written testimonies, and analyzed and mapped the results. Meanwhile, the colonial demographic and statistical services conducted an opinion survey among 3,500 voters. Both studies provide insight into how electoral malpractice was conceptualized and feared in this context. In particular, they provide insight into how the issue of electoral integrity has been linked to the issue of voters' "learning" to vote correctly and dealing with an unknown technology. In this regard, the paper will analyze the (often forgotten) educational projects and the technological innovations of the time, then supposedly intended to mitigate the risk of electoral fraud. By re-examining these anthropological writings against the grain and comparing them with archival records and the materials collected at the time (notebooks, interviews, photographs, films, etc.), we can enhance our understanding of a relatively unknown aspect of electoral observation's history. This will facilitate a discussion on the evolution of the actors and methodologies involved in the formation of expert knowledge in the field of vote governance and electoral integrity, as well as its colonial origins. Combined with a study of the reception of this work in the 1950s, it will also offer a better understanding of the interconnections between the social sciences and various forms of expertise in electoral monitoring and integrity implemented on the African continent since decolonization. Most importantly, this research will provide a new historical perspective on the ways in which political scientists understand electoral integrity, especially in former colonized countries, that can inform current research. In brief, this paper aims to demonstrate how recent research in historical sociology and colonial history can contribute to electoral integrity research.