National Security & Defense

According to Dov H. Levin's 2020 book Meddling in the Ballot Box: The Causes and Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions, the United States intervened in the largest number of foreign elections between 1946 and 2000.[2][3]

A previous 2018 study by Levin found that foreign electoral interventions determined the identity of the winner in "many cases".[4] The study also found suggestive evidence that such interventions increased the risk of democratic breakdown in the targeted states.[4]

Among 938 "competitive national level executive elections" examined by Levin from 1946 to 2000,[a] the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections, while the Soviet Union or Russia intervened in 36 foreign elections. Combining these figures, the U.S. and Russia (including the Soviet Union) thus intervened in 117 of 938 competitive elections during this period—about one in nine—with the majority of those interventions (some 68%) being through covert, rather than overt, actions.[3]

Also "on average, an electoral intervention in favor of one side contesting the election will increase its vote share by about 3 percent," an effect large enough to have potentially changed the results in seven out of 14 U.S. presidential elections occurring after 1960.[3][c]...

In a 2012 study, Corstange and Marinov theorized that there are two types of foreign intervention:[5] partisan intervention, where the foreign power takes a stance on its support for one side, and process intervention, where the foreign power seeks "to support the rules of democratic contestation, irrespective of who wins".

Their results from 1,703 participants found that partisan interventions had a polarizing effect on political and foreign relations views, with the side favored by the external power more likely to favor improvements in relations between the two, and having the converse effect for those opposed by the power....