Perils of pluralism: Electoral violence and incumbency in sub-Saharan Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Fernandes Taylor ◽  
Jon CW Pevehouse ◽  
Scott Straus
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Executive Level ◽  
Election Violence

Why do some multiparty elections lead to political violence while others do not? Despite extensive literatures on democratization, civil war, and violence against civilians in civil war, the topic of electoral violence has received less attention. We develop a set of theoretical propositions to explain this variation, testing them on an original dataset on African elections from 1990 to 2008. We find that elections in which an incumbent presidential candidate is running for re-election are significantly more likely to experience electoral violence, both prior to the election and after voting has taken place. We argue that clientelism is behind this pattern, and that clients often resort to electoral violence to protect a reliable incumbent patron. On the other hand, when an incumbent candidate is not running for office, we argue that clients are less willing to assume the risks of participating in electoral violence because candidates in the election have not established a record of delivering patronage at the executive level. We further find some evidence that pre-existing social conflicts increase the risk of pre-election violence. We suggest that this finding is due to the tendency of political elites to mobilize voters around pre-existing political and economic grievances to promote their candidacies, in turn heightening tensions and divisions. We also examine, but find little support for, a number of other possible determinants of electoral violence, such as regime type, income level, international observers, ongoing civil war, pathway to power, and first elections after civil war. The article contributes not only to a small but growing literature on electoral violence but also to a burgeoning literature on political behavior in African elections.

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.

scholarly journals Fear of Electoral Violence and its Impact on Political Knowledge in Sub-Saharan Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 869-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Söderström
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
Political Citizenship ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior

The literature on electoral violence has focused on its causes as well as its scope, ignoring the implications for citizens trying to practice their political citizenship. Informed citizens are a central part of a functioning democracy. The emotive response to violence may play an important role here. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of how the voter responds to violence. Recent work on the role of emotions in politics has demonstrated its positive role for cognition, as fear can increase the individual’s propensity to amass information and reevaluate attitudes and behavior. This is tested in a hitherto unexamined context, namely, Sub-Saharan Africa, using the Afrobarometer survey (20 different countries). In general, political fear is a significant predictor of political knowledge, but in the opposite direction compared to the hypothesis. The affective intelligence hypothesis only receives partial support using this data, namely, in countries with high levels of political violence.

The Contradictions of Pre-election Violence: The Effects of Violence on Voter Turnout in Sub-Saharan Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorina A. Bekoe ◽  
Stephanie M. Burchard
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Suppressive Effect ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Anecdotal Evidence ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Effects Of Violence ◽  
Election Violence

Abstract:Politicians often foment violence before elections to reduce competitiveness and, hence, increase their chances of winning. Given that fear and intimidation may be used to prevent voters from casting their ballots, many case studies, as well as anecdotal evidence, suggest that electoral violence has a suppressive effect on voter turnout. However, until now there has been no large-scale, multi-year analysis on the effect of pre-election violence on one of its primary targets, voter turnout. Looking across sub-Saharan Africa, and more specifically at Kenya, this article examines the influence of pre-election violence on voter turnout and finds, in the aggregate, no significant effect. Nevertheless, electoral violence may be used to depress turnout, to mobilize supporters, or to punish victors. It is a persistent trend in sub-Saharan Africa and one that threatens to undermine democratic development.

scholarly journals Fear of campaign violence and support for democracy and autocracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 073889422110263
Author(s):  
Inken von Borzyskowski ◽  
Ursula Daxecker ◽  
Patrick M. Kuhn
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Political Psychology ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Election Violence

Election violence is common in many developing countries and has potentially detrimental implications for democratic consolidation. Drawing on political psychology, we argue that citizens’ fear of campaign violence undermines support for democracy while increasing support for autocracy. Using individual-level survey data from 21 electoral democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa, we find robust support for our argument. Citizens fearing campaign violence are less likely to support democracy and multi-party competition, more likely to favor a return to autocracy, and less likely to turn out to vote. Our findings have important implications for democratic survival and provide further impetus for reducing electoral violence.

Mixed regimes and political violence in Africa

2010 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur A. Goldsmith
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Violent Behaviour ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTPolitical violence in sub-Saharan Africa is down. The number of military dictatorships and one-party states is also down. Are the two trends related? Conventional democratic peace theory says the answer is yes, because the relationship between democracy and peace is linear and positive. A revisionist view, however, raises questions. The majority of Africa's new regimes are not full democracies but mixed regimes that some studies find to have the greatest propensity to violent behaviour. Using statistical analysis of a trichotomous classification of African regimes from 1960 to 2008, this article suggests that neither argument fits the facts. Autocracies and partial democracies in this region appear to have similar exposure to conflict, with both types of systems suffering more conflict than full democracies. Variables other than regime type appear to be the driving forces behind these trends.

Changing Patterns of Political Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate M. Carter ◽  
Scott Straus
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Funding Opportunities

Contrary to common assumption, major forms of large-scale organized political violence in sub-Saharan Africa have declined in frequency and intensity, and the region is not uniquely prone to the onset of warfare. African civil wars in the 2000s and 2010s are less common compared to the mid-1990s. The character of warfare has also changed. Contemporary wars are generally small-scale, fought on state peripheries and increasingly across multiple states, and involve factionalized insurgents who typically cannot hold significant territory or capture state capitals. Episodes of large-scale mass killing of civilians are also on the decline. That said, other forms of political violence that receive less attention in the academic literature are increasing or persistent. These include electoral violence and violence over access to livelihood resources, such as land and water. Geopolitical shifts since the end of the Cold War are a leading candidate to explain the changing frequency and character of warfare in sub-Saharan Africa. New global priorities, including changes in external state funding opportunities for insurgents, an emphasis on change through elections, investments in conflict mediation strategies, and the rise of China are hypothesized as critical factors shaping the new patterns of warfare.

Conceptualizing Militias in Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Tapscott
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Analytic Elements ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Legitimate Violence

Although militias have received increasing scholarly attention, the concept itself remains contested by those who study it. Why? And how does this impact contemporary scholarship on political violence? To answer these questions, we can focus on the field of militia studies in post–Cold War sub-Saharan Africa, an area where militia studies have flourished in the past several decades. Virtually all scholars of militias in post–Cold War Africa describe militias as fluid and changing such that they defy easy definition. As a result, scholars offer complex descriptors that incorporate both descriptive and analytic elements, thereby offering nuanced explanations for the role of militias in violent conflict. Yet the ongoing tension between accurate description and analytic definition has also produced a body of literature that is diffuse and internally inconsistent, in which scholars employ conflicting definitions of militias, different data sources, and often incompatible methods of analysis. As a result, militia studies yield few externally valid comparative insights and have limited analytic power. The cumulative effect is a schizophrenic field in which one scholar’s militia is another’s rebel group, local police force, or common criminal. The resulting incoherence fragments scholarship on political violence and can have real-world policy implications. This is particularly true in high-stakes environments of armed conflict, where being labeled a “militia” can lead to financial support and backing in some circumstances or make one a target to be eliminated in others. To understand how militia studies has been sustained as a fragmented field, this article offers a new typology of definitional approaches. The typology shows that scholars use two main tools: offering a substantive claim as to what militias are or a negative claim based on what militias are not and piggy-backing on other concepts to either claim that militias are derivative of or distinct from them. These approaches illustrate how scholars combine descriptive and analytic approaches to produce definitions that sustain the field as fragmented and internally contradictory. Yet despite the contradictions that characterize the field, scholarship reveals a common commitment to using militias to understand the organization of (legitimate) violence. This article sketches a possible approach to organize the field of militia studies around the institutionalization of violence, such that militias would be understood as a product of the arrangement of violence. Such an approach would both allow studies of militias to place their ambiguity and fluidity at the center of analyses while offering a pathway forward for comparative studies.

African Politics: A Very Short Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
African State ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Politics ◽  
African Continent ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan

African Politics: A Very Short Introduction explores how politics is practised on the African continent, providing an overview of the different states and their systems. It considers the nature of the state in sub-Saharan Africa and why its state structures are generally weaker than elsewhere in the world. Exploring the historical and contemporary factors that account for Africa’s underdevelopment, it also analyses why some African countries suffer from high levels of political violence while others are spared. Unveiling the ways in which African state and society actually function beyond the formal institutional façade, this VSI discusses how external factors—both inherited and contemporary—act upon the continent.

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