HIRD WORLD ELECTIONS PROVIDE AN EXCELLENT TESTING
ground for a propaganda model. Some elections are held in friendly
client states to legitimize their rulers and regimes, whereas others are
held in disfavored or enemy countries to legitimize their political sys-
tems. This natural dichotomization is strengthened by the fact that
elections in the friendly client states are often held under U.S. sponsor-
ship and with extensive U.S. management and public-relations support.
Thus, in the Dominican Republic in 1966, and periodically thereafter,
the United States organized what have been called "demonstration
elections" in its client states, defined as those whose primary function
is to convince the home population that the intervention is well inten-
tioned, that the populace of the invaded and occupied country wel-
comes the intrusion, and that they are being given a democratic choice.l
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