Peacemaking and Election Violence

False information, rumours and hate speech can incite violent protest and rioting during electoral periods. To counter such disinformation, United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKOs) routinely organize election-education events. While researchers tend to study how PKOs affect armed group and state behaviour, this study shifts the focus to civilians. It argues that PKOs’ election education reduces violent protest and rioting involving civilians during electoral periods via three pathways. First, learning about PKOs’ electoral security assistance during election-education events may convince people that political opponents cannot violently disturb elections, thereby mitigating fears of election violence. Second, election-education events provide politically relevant information that can strengthen political efficacy and people’s ability to make use of peaceful political channels. Finally, peace messages during election-education events can change people’s calculus about the utility and appropriateness of violent behaviour. Together, these activities mitigate fears, reduce political alienation and counter civilians’ willingness to get involved in violence. To test these expectations, I combine survey data on people’ perceptions and attitudes, events data on violent protest and rioting, and a novel dataset on local-level election-education events carried out by the PKO in Côte d’Ivoire before four elections held between 2010 and 2016. The results show that when the PKO is perceived to be an impartial arbiter, its election-education events have violence-mitigating effects at the individual and subnational levels.

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Symptoms of PTSD in Frontline Journalists: A Retrospective Examination of 18 Years of War and Conflict

The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1177/0706743718777396 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 63 (9) ◽

pp. 629-635 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Anthony Feinstein ◽

Jonas Osmann ◽

Viral Patel

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Civil Wars ◽

Ptsd Symptoms ◽

Impact Of Event Scale ◽

Event Scale ◽

The Balkans ◽

War And Conflict ◽

The Mean ◽

Migration Crisis ◽

Election Violence

Objective: The objective of the current study was to determine the frequency and severity of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in journalists covering conflict. Methods: PTSD data (Impact of Event Scale–Revised) collected over an 18-year period from 684 conflict journalists were analyzed retrospectively for frequency and severity of reexperiencing, avoidance, and arousal symptoms. Conflicts covered were civil wars in the Balkans ( n = 140 journalists), 9/11 attack in New York City ( n = 46), Iraq war ( n = 84), Mexico drug wars ( n = 104), civil war in Syria ( n = 59), Kenya election violence/Al-Shabab terror ( n = 57), state-sanctioned media intimidation in Iran ( n = 114), and the current migration crisis in Europe ( n = 80). Results: The mean age of the sample was 38.59 (SD = 8.35) years, 461 (67%) journalists were men, and the mean duration of conflict work was 13.42 (SD = 7.74) years. The 5 most frequently endorsed symptoms were in the reexperiencing/intrusion category. Mean intrusion (1.31, SD = 0.97), avoidance (1.08, SD = 0.89), and arousal (1.07, SD = 0.96) scores for the entire sample were in the mild range. Being female and less educated independently predicted PTSD symptoms. Conclusions: PTSD phenomenology in a group of conflict journalists with well over a decade of frontline experience is dominated by reexperiencing symptoms. While symptom severity is for the most part mild, group means can obscure those individuals with significantly more severe difficulties.

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Local Peace Committees and Election Violence in Burundi, 2015

Infrastructures for Peace in Sub-Saharan Africa ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-14694-8_8 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 127-145

Author(s):

Mulanda Juma

Keyword(s):

Election Violence

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Election Security and Violence in Ghana: The Case of Ayawaso West Wougon and Talensi By-elections

Asian Research Journal of Arts & Social Sciences ◽

10.9734/arjass/2020/v10i130139 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 32-46

Author(s):

Frank Bitafir Ijon

Keyword(s):

Content Analysis ◽

Political Parties ◽

National Security ◽

Voter Turnout ◽

Vital Role ◽

Analysis Method ◽

Content Analysis Method ◽

Security Challenges ◽

The Government ◽

Election Violence

Conducts of by-elections in recent times have been fraught with a lot of security challenges. This has been as a result of the violence that characterized the conduct of by-elections in recent times in Ghana. Violence during by-elections in Ghana plays a vital role in securing election victories for political parties. In all the by-elections characterized by violence in Ghana, they were won by parties that were accused of inciting the violence. The main tenets of election violence as identified by the paper included, actors, motives, timing, consequences, and patterns. The paper adopted the content analysis method in its investigation of the two violent by-elections in Ghana. The paper revealed that there was a correlation between violence during by-elections and victories of incumbent parties. This was because, in the two by-elections understudy, those accused of starting the violence and using national security operatives won the elections. The paper also found out that by-election violence impacted negatively on Ghana’s democratic maturity in several ways, such as; low voter turnout, weakening of democratic foundation and breeding an atmosphere of insecurity. Finally, the paper also revealed that political parties especially those in government resort to violence during by-elections in Ghana because they fear losing it will mean the government was underperforming as argued out by Feigert and Norris and also because they want to add to their tally in parliament.

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Utilising the due diligence standard to interrogate Kenya's accountability efforts with regard to survivors of sexual violence in the 2007-2008 post-election violence

African Human Rights Law Journal ◽

10.17159/1996-2096/2021/v21n1a17 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Buluma Bwire ◽

Migai Akech ◽

Agnes Meroka-Mutua

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Violence Against Women ◽

Legal Services ◽

Due Diligence ◽

Special Rapporteur ◽

Community Based ◽

Legal Responses ◽

Election Violence ◽

Human Rights Violation

SUMMARY Sexual violence is a human rights violation and is addressed under a growing number of international agreements including the 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, among others. This article uses the due diligence standard, as elaborated on by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, to interrogate Kenya's domestic accountability efforts with regard to sexual violence in the 2007/2008 post-election violence. It finds that Kenya suffered from a number of structural and systemic shortcomings that resulted in its failure to meet its obligation to prevent, investigate, prosecute and compensate for such acts of sexual violence perpetrated by both state and non-state actors. Key among them are a lack of well-coordinated multi-sectoral approaches to address sexual violence; human capacity gaps in the provision of medico-legal services to survivors; and systemic failures in the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence cases. The article further highlights the hope for future accountability inherent in the recent ruling in Constitutional Petition 112 of 2013 which held the state accountable for all gaps and shortcomings in responding to sexual violence during the post-election violence. The article concludes by advocating community-based multi-sectoral approaches in prevention and response to sexual violence in the Kenyan context with an emphasis on improving both human and technical capacities for provision of medico-legal services to survivors. Key words: sexual violence; human rights; Kenya 2007-2008 postelection violence; medico-legal responses to sexual violence

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