Polls of fear? Electoral violence, incumbent strength, and voter turnout in Côte d’Ivoire
| Published date | 01 July 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221147938 |
| Author | Sebastian van Baalen |
| Date | 01 July 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221147938
Journal of Peace Research
2024, Vol. 61(4) 595 –611
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433221147938
journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr
1225162JPR0010.1177/00223433221147938Journal of Peace Researchvan Baalen
research-article2023
Regular Article
Polls of fear? Electoral violence, incumbent
strength, and voter turnout in Co
ˆte d’Ivoire
Sebastian van Baalen
Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University
Abstract
How, and under what conditions, does electoral violence influence voter turnout? Existing research often presumes
that electoral violence demobilizes voters, but we lack knowledge of the conditions under which violence depresses
turnout. This study takes a subnational approach to probe the moderating effect of local incumbent strength on the
association between electoral violence and turnout. Based on existing work, I argue that electoral violence can reduce
voter turnout by heightening threat perceptions among voters and eroding public trust in the electoral system,
thereby raising the expected costs of voting and undermining the belief that one’s vote matters. Moreover, I propose
that in elections contested across multiple local rather than a single national voting district, the negative effect of
electoral violence on turnout should be greater in districts where the incumbent is stronger. This is because when the
incumbent is stronger, voters have lesser strategic and purposive incentives to vote than voters in localities where
the opposition is stronger. I test the argument by combining original subnational event data on electoral violence
before Co
ˆte d’Ivoire’s 2021 legislative elections with electoral records. The results support the main hypothesis and
indicate that electoral violence was associated with significantly lower voter turnout in voting districts where the
incumbent was stronger, but not where the opposition was stronger. The study contributes new knowledge on the
conditions under which electoral violence depresses voter turnout, and suggests that voters in opposition strongholds
can be more resilient to electoral violence than often assumed.
Keywords
Co
ˆte d’Ivoire, elections, electoral violence, political participation, voter turnout
Introduction
Democracy is the institutionalization of peaceful political
competition. Nevertheless, polls are often marred by
violence (Daxecker, Amicarelli & Jung, 2019; Fjelde &
Ho
¨glund, 2022). Electoral violence is the use of coercion
by political actors against humans or property that is
substantially linked to an electoral contest (Birch,
Daxecker & Ho
¨glund, 2020: 4; Fjelde & Ho
¨glund,
2022: 166). Such violence constitutes a threat to human
security and democratic consolidation (Burchard, 2015;
Ho
¨glund & Piyarathne, 2009). Existing research often
assumes that electoral violence discourages political par-
ticipation (Staniland, 2014: 114–115). In addition,
scholars are increasingly interested in understanding the
consequences of electoral violence for democratization
(von Borzyskowski & Kuhn, 2022; Young, 2020). How-
ever, our knowledge of how electoral violence shapes
political participation is still inconclusive (Bekoe &
Burchard, 2017; Bratton, 2008; Burchard, 2015,
2020; Gutie
´rrez-Romero & LeBas, 2020). This study
addresses this gap by probing: How, and under what
conditions, does electoral violence influence voter turnout?
The study takes a subnational approach and explores
how electoral violence shapes local voter turnout in elec-
tions contested across multiple local rather than a single
national voting district, a system typical for legislative
elections. Turnout is an important aspect of political
participation to examine because it is a key indicator of
democratic health (Burchard, 2015: 124). I view voting
as a ‘marginal decision’ that entails low costs and benefits
and is therefore malleable to small changes in electoral
Corresponding author:
sebastian.van-baalen@pcr.uu.se
596 journal of P R 61(4)
context (Aldrich, 1993; Ley, 2018). Existing research
expects that electoral violence depresses turnout because
it heightens voters’ threat perceptions and undermines
their belief that voting matters. Adding to previous work,
I propose that for elections where local majorities
overrule national majorities, the relationship between
electoral violence and turnout is moderated by local
political geography. In particular, I argue that voters
in voting districts where the incumbent is stronger are
less resilient to electoral violence because voters in such
districts have weaker incentives to ensure large victory
margins, and because such districts have a larger pool of
opportunistic voters.
I examine these propositions through a subnational
analysis of the 2021 legislative election in Co
ˆte d’Ivoire,
a country with a long history of electoral violence. Elec-
toral violence in the seven months before the polls left 91
people dead and 682 injured.
1
The analysis builds on
original georeferenced event data on electoral violence,
which facilitates a spatially disaggregated analysis that
takes into account both higher- and lower-intensity vio-
lent events. I find that while electoral violence was not
generally associated with lower turnout, electoral vio-
lence was related with lower turnout in voting districts
where the incumbent was stronger. In contrast, electoral
violence was not negatively associated with lower turnout
in opposition strongholds.
The study makes two contributions. First, it contri-
butes knowledge on how electoral violence shapes voter
turnout at the subnational level. Democracy watchdogs
often recommend that violent polls be postponed to
ensure political participation. The fear that electoral vio-
lence may discourage voting is not new and makes intui-
tive sense, yet existing scholarship remains inconclusive
(Burchard, 2020: 591). While some studies demonstrate
that electoral violence depresses turnout (Bratton, 2008;
Ho
¨glund, 2009; Mac-Ikemenjima, 2017; Mohamed,
2018), other studies find that electoral violence has no
effect or even boosts popular participation (Bekoe &
Burchard, 2017; Burchard, 2020; Hafner-Burton, Hyde
& Jablonski, 2016). These contradictory findings make
it important to further study the democratic costs of
electoral violence.
Second, I contribute by theorizing and probing under
what conditions electoral violence shapes voter turnout.
Although some studies examine how individual-level fac-
tors shape political participation and preferences after
violent elections (Gutie
´rrez-Romero & LeBas, 2020; von
Borzyskowski & Kuhn, 2022; Young, 2020), our under-
standing of how local political geography influences vot-
ing amidst violence is still limited. Electoral violence is a
tool that is often intended to shape the local electoral
environment (Wahman & Goldring, 2020: 96). There-
fore, it is important to gain new knowledge on the con-
ditions under which electoral violence reduces turnout.
Such knowledge can help election observers gauge where
violence is most likely to limit popular participation and
whether violence shaped the electoral outcome.
Previous research
Electoral violence is ‘violence that is substantially linked
to an electoral contest’ in the sense that there is a ‘direct
connection of violence to features of the electoral process
and dynamics through political parties, voters, candi-
dates, polling, or the institutional arrangements sur-
rounding elections’ (Fjelde & Ho
¨glund, 2022: 166).
Such violence can take place before, during, and after
elections (Daxecker, Amicarelli & Jung, 2019: 717), and
can target humans, property, and electoral infrastructure
(Harish & Toha, 2019: 693). Electoral violence is a
common phenomenon. Straus & Taylor (2012: 23)
show that more than half of all elections held in sub-
Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2008 experienced vio-
lence. Daxecker, Amicarelli & Jung (2019) find that
10,972 violent electoral contention events took place
around the world between 1990 and 2012. Likewise,
Fjelde & Ho
¨glund (2022: 174) estimate that some
24,000 people were killed in electoral violence between
1989 and 2017. Although elections rarely cause wide-
spread violence, some electoral contests trigger consider-
able death and displacement. For example, Kenya’s
2007–2008 election crisis caused some 1,500 deaths and
700,000 displacements, whereas Co
ˆte d’Ivoire’s 2010–
2011 electoral crisis left 3,000 dead and 500,000 dis-
placed (Klaus & Mitchell, 2015: 623).
A large body of scholarship examines the causes and
dynamics of electoral violence (for an overview, see
Birch, Daxecker & Ho
¨glund, 2020) and shows that elec-
toral system type (Fjelde & Ho
¨glund, 2016), presidential
term limits (Taylor, Pevehouse & Straus, 2017), elec-
toral competition (Wahman & Goldring, 2020), under-
lying land conflicts (Klaus & Mitchell, 2015), and
patronage politics (Berenschot, 2020) drive electoral
violence. Scholars have paid less attention to the conse-
quences of electoral violence for political attitudes and
behaviour (Birch, Daxecker & Ho
¨glund, 2020: 10).
This is surprising given that the purpose of electoral
violence is often to ‘influence the process and outcome
1
Author’s estimates based on data described below.
2journal of PEACE RESEARCH XX(X)
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