Electoral violence: An introduction
| Published date | 01 January 2020 |
| Author | Sarah Birch,Kristine Höglund,Ursula Daxecker |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343319889657 |
| Date | 01 January 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Introduction |
Introduction
Electoral violence: An introduction
Sarah Birch
Department of Political Economy, King’s College London
Ursula Daxecker
Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam
Kristine Ho
¨glund
Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University
Abstract
Elections are held in nearly all countries in the contemporary world. Yet despite their aim of allowing for peaceful
transfers of power, elections held outside of consolidated democracies are often accompanied by substantial violence.
This special issue introduction article establishes electoral violence as a subtype of political violence with distinct
analytical and empirical dynamics. We highlight how electoral violence is distinct from other types of organized
violence, but also how it is qualitatively different from nonviolent electoral manipulation. The article then surveys
what we have learned about the causes and consequences of electoral violence, identifies important research gaps in
the literature, and proceeds to discuss the articles included in the special issue. The contributions advance research in
four domains: the micro-level targeting and consequences of electoral violence, the institutional foundations of
electoral violence, the conditions leading to high-stakes elections, and electoral violence in the context of other forms
of organized violence. The individual articles are methodologically and geographically diverse, encompassing ethno-
graphy, survey vignette and list experiments and survey data, quantitative analyses of subnational and crossnational
event data, and spanning Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Keywords
conflict, democracy, elections, violence
Introduction
The institution of elections is virtually ubiquitous in the
contemporary world. With the exception of a handful of
states, including Brunei, China, Eritrea, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, and South Sudan, citizens today have the oppor-
tunity to elect their leaders in national elections. Elec-
tions are held even during periods of armed conflict; for
example, since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan
in 2001, voters have gone to the polls eight times. In
theory, the employment of elections to select leaders
ought to provide a nonviolent alternative to the use of
force to adjudicate between rival claims to rule, and it
ought to be a mechanism that allows citizens greater say
over how they are governed. Yet in practice, these expec-
tations often fail to conform to reality. Many elections,
especially those in democracies not yet fully consoli-
dated, are fraught with significant levels of violence dur-
ing the campaign period, on polling day or in the
aftermath of voting. Electoral violence can result in casu-
alty tolls that meet the threshold of civil war within days
or weeks; when this occurs, it can undo years of peace
building and development work, it can undermine dem-
ocratic institutions, and it can even trigger civil war.
Post-election violence after the 2010 polls in Co
ˆte
d’Ivoire led to more than 1,000 civilian deaths, one
million internally displaced people and 100,000 refugees
in neighboring countries. Recent elections in
Corresponding author:
u.daxecker@uva.nl
Journal of Peace Research
2020, Vol. 57(1) 3–14
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343319889657
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