Autocratization Verity: Insights from Democratic Setbacks in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Uchenna C. Obiagu ◽  
Ifeanyichukwu Michael Abada ◽  
Peter Oluchukwu Mbah
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Research Institutes ◽  
Democratic Principle ◽  
Group Control ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Acquisition Strategy ◽  
Political Groups

Abstract This study builds on extant literature on autocratization by critically analyzing democratic setbacks, arising from widespread incidents of electoral and political violence in democratic processes in Africa. The study leverages on frustration-aggression propositions to analyze the politico-electoral dynamics in autocratization trends in climes where the incentives to use violence as power acquisition strategy have become a dominant norm either by the ruling elites who seek to remain in power (sometimes by all means – both legal and, mostly, illegal) or by the opposition groups seeking to dislodge the former. As a qualitative research, the study squarely relies on available documented textual materials and rich datasets developed by reputable international research institutes. The analysis of data reveals that autocratization is real, gradual and subtle in Africa, and it is fostered by weak electoral institutions that are helpless in checkmating the use of violent strategies to win an election, which is the most visible element of modern democracy. Based on these findings, deliberate efforts should be made to build and/or strengthen electoral institutions that will rise above group interests and group control and ensure equal playing ground for all political groups in the contestation for state power. This will guarantee stable democratic growth within the context of the democratic principle of equal political opportunity premised on one man, one vote in Africa.

scholarly journals Electoral Institutions and Electoral Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne Fjelde ◽  
Kristine Höglund
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Dominant Mode ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
Cross National

Political violence remains a pervasive feature of electoral dynamics in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, even where multiparty elections have become the dominant mode of regulating access to political power. With cross-national data on electoral violence in Sub-Saharan African elections between 1990 and 2010, this article develops and tests a theory that links the use of violent electoral tactics to the high stakes put in place by majoritarian electoral institutions. It is found that electoral violence is more likely in countries that employ majoritarian voting rules and elect fewer legislators from each district. Majoritarian institutions are, as predicted by theory, particularly likely to provoke violence where large ethno-political groups are excluded from power and significant economic inequalities exist.

Black Sun Rising: Political Opportunity Structure Perceptions and Institutionalization of the Azov Movement in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 774-800
Author(s):  
Ivan Gomza ◽  
Johann Zajaczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Winning Coalition ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Strategic Vision ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Leadership Structure

AbstractThis article explores the rise of the Azov movement and explains the process through the political opportunity structure theory. We argue that a loosely coherent winning coalition of the post-Euromaidan ruling elites enabled Azov’s participation in conventional politics. As a result, Azov launched the ongoing institutionalization process which is largely responsible for Azov’s success as compared to other far-right movements. We show that two movement entrepreneurs’ profiles, namely political activist and radical, dominated the Azov leadership structure and managed to promote their strategic vision on cooperation with state officials effectively combined with contentious action. We find that political activist entrepreneurs tend to push institutionalization alongside particular institutionalization axes, namely adaptability, reification, and systemness, whereas radical entrepreneurs are responsible for Azov’s transformation into an intense policy demander.

The Virtues of Violence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Duong
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Paris Commune ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

This book uncovers an unfamiliar vision of political violence that nonetheless prevailed in modern French thought: that through “redemptive violence” the people would not rend but regenerate society. It homes in on invocations of popular redemptive violence across four historical moments in France specifically: the French Revolution, Algeria’s colonization, the Paris Commune, and the eve of the first World War. In each of these cases, the book reveals how French thinkers experienced democratization as social disintegration. Yet, before such danger, they also proclaimed that virtuous violence by the people could repair the social fabric. The path leading from an anarchic multitude to an organized democratic society required, not violence’s prohibition, but its virtuous expression by the people. Understanding this counterintuitive vision of violence in French thought offers a new vantage point on the meaning of modern democracy. It alerts readers to how struggles for democracy do not merely seek justice or a new legal regime but also liberating visions of the social bond.

scholarly journals Technology and Collective Action: The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage on Political Violence in Africa

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAN H. PIERSKALLA ◽  
FLORIAN M. HOLLENBACH
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Cell Phone ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Group Cooperation ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Disaggregated Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Groups

The spread of cell phone technology across Africa has transforming effects on the economic and political sphere of the continent. In this paper, we investigate the impact of cell phone technology on violent collective action. We contend that the availability of cell phones as a communication technology allows political groups to overcome collective action problems more easily and improve in-group cooperation, and coordination. Utilizing novel, spatially disaggregated data on cell phone coverage and the location of organized violent events in Africa, we are able to show that the availability of cell phone coverage significantly and substantially increases the probability of violent conflict. Our findings hold across numerous different model specifications and robustness checks, including cross-sectional models, instrumental variable techniques, and panel data methods.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Millington
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
State Police ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Groups

In the wake of the Clichy riot the head of the state police in Nice wrote an exasperated report on the reaction of niçois political groups to the violence. On the right, parties such as the PSF and the PPF were growing increasingly frustrated at the continual harassment of their meetings. ‘They affirm’, the report noted, ‘that they are the partisans of order’, yet they were nonetheless ‘ready to defend themselves vigorously when attacked.’ The report continued, ‘it is without doubt that they are individually armed like […] their political opponents’. As for the left, the author noted murmurings in the radical and socialist parties about the seriousness of political violence in France: given that it now seemed impossible to state one’s opinion without drawing a violent response, had the country lost its taste for republican freedom?...

scholarly journals Relative Poverty, Perceived Violence, and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Christine Fair ◽  
Rebecca Littman ◽  
Neil Malhotra ◽  
Jacob N. Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Direct Effects ◽  
Relative Poverty ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Psychological Mechanism ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
Psychological Perceptions ◽  
Political Groups

Challenging conventional wisdom, previous research in South Asia and the Middle East has shown that poverty and exposure to violence are negatively correlated with support for militant organizations. Existing studies, however, provide evidence consistent with two potential mechanisms underlying these relationships: (1) the direct effects of poverty and violence on attitudes toward militant groups and (2) the psychological effects of perceptions of poverty and violence on attitudes. Isolating whether the psychological mechanism is an important one is critical for building theories of mass responses to political violence. We conducted a series of original, large-scale survey experiments in Pakistan (n=16,279) in which we randomly manipulated perceptions of both poverty and violence before measuring support for militant organizations. We find evidence that psychological perceptions do in part explain why the poor seem to be less supportive of militant political groups.

scholarly journals Explaining Support for Political Violence: Grievance and Perceived Opportunity

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (9) ◽  
pp. 1724-1753
Author(s):  
Karin Dyrstad ◽  
Solveig Hillesund
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Political Efficacy ◽  
Potential Interaction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Individual Level

What explains support for violence against the state? The surge in survey-based studies in (former) conflict areas has improved our understanding of the determinants of armed conflict. Yet, the potential interaction between grievances and political opportunity structure has received little attention in microlevel studies. Integrating common arguments from the civil war literature with the political behavior tradition, this article argues that perceived political efficacy, a central component of the political opportunity structure, moderates the association between individual and group grievance and people’s support for political violence. It represents a first individual-level test of the argument that perceived political opportunity structure and grievances combine to explain internal armed conflict. Using original survey data from Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ireland (2016), we find robust empirical evidence that support for violence increases with perceived grievance and decreases with political efficacy; and some evidence of an interaction between the two.

Organizational and Institutional Approaches

2019 ◽  
pp. 132-147
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Bosi ◽  
Donatella della Porta ◽  
Stefan Malthaner
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Organizational Dynamics ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Conflict Escalation ◽  
Resource Mobilization Theory ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Mobilization Theory ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures ◽  
Subsequent Section

In this chapter we take a closer look at organizational and institutional approaches that study political violence from a social movement studies (SMS) perspective. The first section discusses the way “classic” approaches—such as those focusing on resource mobilization theory (RMT) and political opportunity structures (POS)—have been applied to the study of political violence. In the subsequent section we present a relational approach, focusing on organizational dynamics and inter-organizational interactions, as well as suggesting mechanisms that shape processes of conflict escalation or de-escalation, in three different arenas of interactions: between armed groups and the state; intra-movement and movement–counter-movement; organizational dynamics of armed groups.

Fighting for France

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Millington
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
Physical Punishment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Regime ◽  
Democratic Culture ◽  
Interwar France ◽  
Culture Of Violence ◽  
Political Groups

Fighting for France is the first book to examine the violent confrontations between political groups in interwar France. A range of groups at the political extremes employed physical aggression against their enemies and threatened to bring about the violent demise of the democratic regime. The scale of confrontations ranged from encounters between individuals to large clashes involving hundreds of activists. Until now, historians have denied and downplayed the frequency and seriousness of French political violence in favour of an interpretation that emphasises France's weddedness to democracy. Fighting for France demonstrates that the democratic culture of the late Third Republic co-existed with a culture of violence in which the physical punishment of rivals and opponents was considered acceptable. Drawing on the narratives constructed around outbreaks of violence, the book reconstructs the lived experience of fighting and the sense that contemporaries made of conflict. It examines violence in a variety of settings, from the street to the factory floor. A range of actors come under investigation, including fascists, communists, and the police. Fighting for France forces us to reconsider the place of political violence in a democratic society. It transforms our understandings of the course of interwar France and Europe.

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