As increasing numbers of countries have sought to evolve living constitutions based on democratic processes, so have elections emerged as delicate instruments of governance along the Frontier. Many systems have had little or no experience in the conduct of elections or the preliminary campaigns and registration procedures that culminate in the voting booth. In more than a few other instances, prior experience has been confined to the rituals of one-party elections which offer little guidance for participating in open and free elections. Accordingly, a major institution of modern governance is still very much in the process of evolution and, in an increasing number of cases, it is being shaped by the parametric transformations that have brought turbulence and the dynamics of globalization to world affairs. As the epigraph suggests, however, there can be little doubt as to where the path of this evolving institution is leading.

Perhaps the most conspicuous impact of the skill revolution, authority crises, and bifurcated structures on electoral institutions is the recent surge of occasions whereon the international community, represented by any one of numerous organizations, has monitored, supervised, or otherwise participated in the elections of developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the former Soviet empire.