scholarly journals Local ethno-political polarization and election violence in majoritarian vs. proportional systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 002234332097372
Author(s):  
Carl Müller-Crepon
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Ethnic Composition ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Monthly Data ◽  
Local Populations ◽  
Election Violence

How does local ethnic demography affect the conduct of majoritarian elections? Because legislative elections in majoritarian systems are contested locally, local ethno-political polarization increases the risk of pre-election violence. In districts that are polarized between politically competing ethnic groups, violence can be targeted with comparative ease at opposing voters, and can, if perpetrated collectively, mobilize the perpetrators’ co-ethnics. I do not expect such dynamics in PR systems where political competition plays out at higher geographical levels. To test this argument, I combine new data on the ethnic composition of local populations in 22 African countries with monthly data on riots and survey data on campaign violence. Ethno-politically polarized districts in majoritarian and mixed electoral systems see substantively larger increases in the number of riots prior to legislative elections and more fear of pre-election violence among citizens than non-polarized districts in the same country and at the same time. I do not find these patterns in PR systems. The results enhance our understanding of how electoral systems interact with local ethnic demography in shaping pre-election violence.

Populism and Polarization in Comparative Perspective: Constitutive, Spatial and Institutional Dimensions

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Kenneth M. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Consistent Effect ◽  
The Us ◽  
Issue Dimensions

Abstract Polarization may be the most consistent effect of populism, as it is integral to the logic of constructing populist subjects. This article distinguishes between constitutive, spatial and institutional dimensions of polarization, adopting a cross-regional comparative perspective on different subtypes of populism in Europe, Latin America and the US. It explains why populism typically arises in contexts of low political polarization (the US being a major, if partial, outlier), but has the effect of sharply increasing polarization by constructing an anti-establishment political frontier, politicizing new policy or issue dimensions, and contesting democracy's institutional and procedural norms. Populism places new issues on the political agenda and realigns partisan and electoral competition along new programmatic divides or political cleavages. Its polarizing effects, however, raise the stakes of political competition and intensify conflict over the control of key institutional sites.

scholarly journals National Culture and Africa Revisited: Ethnolinguistic Group Data From 35 African Countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert van Pinxteren
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Ethnolinguistic Group

Africa is a continent of considerable cultural diversity. This diversity does not necessarily run in parallel to the national boundaries that were created in Africa in the colonial period. However, decades of nation building in Africa must have made their mark. Is it possible nowadays to distinguish national cultures in Africa, or are the traditional ethnolinguistic distinctions more important? This article uses an approach developed in cross-cultural psychology to examine these questions. In 2012, Minkov and Hofstede published an article in this journal analyzing World Values Survey data from seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa at the level of subnational administrative regions. They argued that national culture is also a meaningful concept in this region. This study reexamines the matter. It uses an innovative approach, looking at ethnolinguistic groups instead of at administrative regions and using the much more extensive Afrobarometer survey data set. It finds that although the Minkov/Hofstede study still has merit, the picture is more nuanced in several important ways. There is not one pattern that adequately describes the situation in the whole of Africa.1

scholarly journals Public Opinion in Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Development ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Health And Economic Development

Projects to measure public opinion in Africa have increased considerably in the last two decades. Earlier data-collection efforts focused on health and economic development, with limited attempts to gauge public opinion before the late 1990s. Possibilities expanded as a wave of political liberalizations swept the continent after the Cold War, and as government limitations on speech freedoms and survey research loosened. Knowledge about public opinion remains uneven, however; more surveys are conducted in wealthier, more stable, and more democratic countries. Various actors are leading these efforts. Academic and research organizations have been at the forefront, with Afrobarometer, which has conducted surveys in about two-thirds of African countries since 1999, the most prominent. The majority of studies are conducted by for-profit companies, media houses, and political campaigns, and many results are never publicly released. The growth in surveys of public opinion in Africa has had important ramifications across a number of realms. Academics have developed and tested new theories on how Africans respond to and shape their political and economic systems, and some long-standing theories have been challenged with newly available empirical evidence. Candidates and parties attempt to measure public opinion as they develop mobilizational and persuasive campaign strategies. Election observers have used survey data collected before and after voting to assess whether official results comport with citizens’ preferences. And international and domestic policymakers have increasingly used public opinion data from Africa to determine economic and political development priorities, and to assess the effectiveness of various programs. However, there is evidence that the survey enterprise in Africa is becoming increasingly politicized, with some officials attempting to block the release of potentially embarrassing results, or preventing surveys from being conducted altogether, and other political actors attacking survey organizations when they do not like what the data show. As organizations conducting public opinion surveys in Africa modify their strategies in the face of new technologies and changing political contexts, the ever-increasing availability of data on what Africans think about how their countries are and should be governed continues to fundamentally change academic understanding, policymaking, and actual political competition.

Digital Campaigning across Space

2020 ◽  
pp. 44-71
Author(s):  
Rachel K. Gibson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Multilevel Modeling ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Voter Mobilization ◽  
Internet Penetration ◽  
Digital Campaigning ◽  
The Comparative Study

This chapter examines developments in digital campaigning in comparative perspective. It does so using survey data from Wave 4 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) to measure the extent of digital voter contact occurring in eighteen countries (2011–2015). Based on the understanding that extensive voter mobilization is a key feature of a country’s entry into phase IV digital campaigning, the authors infer which nations have progressed more rapidly through the four phases, and are thus most advanced in their use of digital campaign tools. Using this measure, they find that the United States is the most advanced nation and Thailand the least. They investigate the rankings more systematically using multilevel modeling techniques, and find that presidential elections and higher internet penetration rates are most predictive of higher rates of digital campaign contact. The results are helpful in building expectations about the digital campaign performance of the four national case studies.

The Effects of Compulsory Voting on Individuals

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-132
Author(s):  
Shane P. Singh
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
The Comparative Study

This chapter empirically tests the expectation that compulsory voting moderates the effects of orientations toward democracy on political attitudes, behavior, and sophistication. It first employs cross-national survey data from the AmericasBarometer and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to estimate multilevel models. It also uses cross-cantonal data from the Swiss Election Study, and novel survey data from Argentina collected for this book. The analyses of the Swiss and Argentine data leverage age-based thresholds in the application of compulsory voting with discontinuity models. Results suggest that, in line with the predictions of the theory advanced in Chapter 3, compulsory voting polarizes behavior and attitudes, and broadens gaps in political sophistication levels, among those with negative and positive orientations toward democracy.

Right populist parties and support for strong leaders

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406882092085
Author(s):  
Todd Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
World Values Survey

This article tests if radical right populist (RRP) parties draw support from voters with non-mainstream, illiberal attitudes. This follows from assumptions that these parties have rhetorical, stylistic and practical critiques of liberal democracy that appeal to people with politically authoritarian attitudes. I use Module 5 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data and Wave 7 World Values Survey data to test how authoritarian attitudes, in particular, approval of strong, unchecked leaders, may be associated with support for RRP parties. Of 12 unique cases where RRP parties received at least 5% support in a recent election, in most cases preferences for strong, unchecked leaders differentiated RRP party supporters from supporters of other parties generally, and from supporters of centre-right parties. In some cases, negative views of democracy, and acceptance of army rule, also characterized RRP supporters. Most cases have evidence consistent with the hypotheses, with the strongest evidence from supporters of Austria’s FPÖ and Germany’s AfD.

Using survey data: towards valid estimates of poverty in the South

2019 ◽  
pp. 79-90
Author(s):  
Roy Carr-Hill
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Health Surveys ◽  
Urban Slums ◽  
Demographic And Health Surveys ◽  
Household Surveys ◽  
Death Registration ◽  
East African ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The World

It is important to be cautious about making inferences from survey data. This chapter focuses on one very important but unexamined problem, that of the undercount of the poorest in the world. This arises both by design (excluding the homeless, those in institutions and nomadic populations) and in practice (those in fragile households, urban slums, insecure areas and servants/slaves in rich households). In developing countries, it is difficult to make inter-censal estimates because essential data like birth and death registration are not systematically collected. Donors have therefore promoted the use of international standardized household surveys. A possible alternative is Citizen surveys initiated by an Indian NGO (Pratham). Comparisons are made between citizen surveys and contemporaneous Demographic and Health Surveys in three East African countries

scholarly journals Pre-election violence and territorial control: Political dominance and subnational election violence in polarized African electoral systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wahman ◽  
Edward Goldring
Keyword(s):  
Political Competition ◽  
National Level ◽  
National Literature ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Political Dominance ◽  
Dominant Parties ◽  
Territorial Control ◽  
Election Violence ◽  
Expert Surveys ◽  
Cross National

Cross-national research on African electoral politics has argued that competition increases the prospects for pre-election violence. However, there is a dearth of systematic research on the effect of political competition on pre-election violence at the subnational level. We theorize that in African democracies characterized by competition at the national level but low subnational competitiveness (polarization), violence is often a manifestation of turf war and a tool to maintain and disrupt political territorial control. Consequently, contrary to expectations derived from the cross-national literature, pre-election violence is more likely in uncompetitive than competitive constituencies. Locally dominant as well as locally weak parties have incentives to perpetrate violence in uncompetitive constituencies. For locally dominant parties, violence is a tool to shrink the democratic space in their strongholds and maintain territorial control. For locally weak parties, violence can disturb the dominance of the opponent and protect their presence in hostile territory. We hypothesize that pre-election violence will be particularly common in opposition strongholds. In such locations, ruling parties can leverage their superior repressive resources to defend their ability to campaign, while the opposition can use their local capacity to reinforce the politics of territoriality. We test our hypotheses with original constituency-level election violence data from the 2016 Zambian elections. Data come from expert surveys of domestic election observers and represent a novel way of measuring low-level variations in election violence. Our analysis shows patterns of pre-election violence consistent with our theory on pre-election violence as a territorial tool.

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