Does electoral violence affect vote choice and willingness to vote? Conjoint analysis of a vignette experiment

Gutiérrez-Romero, Roxana; LeBas, Adrienne

doi:10.1177/0022343319892677

Cited by 64 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The first considers the effects of electoral violence on political behavior (Birch, 2011). Survey experimental evidence suggests that politicians who use electoral violence may be punished by voters (Rosenzweig, 2020;Gutiérrez-Romero and LeBas, 2020). Of course, the Marikana massacre is not an example of election violence itself, but both are forms of transgressive state violence perpetrated by the state against denizens, and the results presented here are consistent with these prior experimental findings.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

State violence, party formation, and electoral accountability: The political legacy of the Marikana massacre

Kadt¹,

JOHNSON-KANU²,

Sands³

2020

Preprint

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Democratic states often wield coercive force against ordinary people, yet little is known about the electoral consequences thereof. We analyze how incumbent electoral support in South Africa was affected by the Marikana massacre, one of the most high-profile examples of state violence in contemporary democratic Africa, using panel data constructed from polling station returns. In communities proximate to the violence the incumbent party was punished at the polls. We investigate the sources of this change using survey data, and find that these effects are almost exclusively driven by voters switching to a new opposition party that formed in the wake of the massacre, rather than (de-)mobilization. These findings suggest two lessons about the promises and limits of electoral accountability in the context of state violence.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

State violence, party formation, and electoral accountability: The political legacy of the Marikana massacre

Kadt¹,

JOHNSON-KANU²,

Sands³

2020

Preprint

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“…This is particularly true in contexts where the electoral marketplace is essentially local and political nationalization is low. Survey experiments may identify that voters are less likely to vote for perpetrators of violence (Gutiérrez-Romero & LeBas, 2020; Mares & Young, 2016; Rosenzweig, 2017), but the external validity of such experiments may be questionable if violence is used as a tool to effectively distort local political competition and shape the electoral environment in which voters make decisions on political action.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Collier & Vicente, 2012; Robinson & Torvik, 2009). Some have even questioned its effectiveness as an electoral strategy and argued that voters respond negatively to parties engaging in violence (Gutiérrez-Romero & LeBas, 2020; Rosenzweig, 2017).…”

Section: Pre-election Violence and Political Campaigns In Polarized Ementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most plausible answer is provided by scholars who stress the potentially demobilizing effect that violence may have among voters. Through peddling fear, parties can utilize pre-election violence to reduce turnout for rival parties (Collier & Vicente, 2012; Gutiérrez-Romero & LeBas, 2020; Rauchenbach & Paula, 2019). 3 Although this theory is intuitively sound, Bekoe & Burchard (2017) found no aggregate negative relationship between levels of pre-election violence and electoral turnout in African countries.…”

Section: Pre-election Violence and Political Campaigns In Polarized Ementioning

confidence: 99%

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

Wahman

Goldring

2020

Journal of Peace Research

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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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“… 4 The reputational effects of violence are, however, far from straightforward. See Gutiérrez-Romero & LeBas (2020). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Carrots and sticks: Experimental evidence of vote-buying and voter intimidation in Guatemala

González-Ocantos

Jonge

Meléndez

et al. 2019

Journal of Peace Research

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How do parties target intimidation and vote-buying during elections? Parties prefer the use of carrots over sticks because they are in the business of getting voters to like them and expect higher legitimacy costs if observers expose intimidation. However, their brokers sometimes choose intimidation because it is cheaper and possibly more effective than vote-buying. Specifically, we contend that brokers use intimidation when the cost of buying votes is prohibitively high; in interactions with voters among whom the commitment problem inherent to clientelistic transactions is difficult to overcome; and in contexts where the risk of being denounced for violence is lower. We probe our hypotheses about the different profile of voters targeted with vote-buying and intimidation using two list experiments included in an original survey conducted during the 2011 Guatemalan general elections. The list experiments were designed to overcome the social desirability bias associated with direct questions about illegal or stigmatized behaviors. Our quantitative analysis is supplemented by interviews with politicians from various parties. The analysis largely confirms our expectations about the diametrically opposed logics of vote-buying and intimidation targeting, and illuminates how both are key components of politics in a country with weak parties and high levels of violence.

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Does electoral violence affect vote choice and willingness to vote? Conjoint analysis of a vignette experiment

Cited by 64 publications

References 42 publications

State violence, party formation, and electoral accountability: The political legacy of the Marikana massacre

State violence, party formation, and electoral accountability: The political legacy of the Marikana massacre

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

Carrots and sticks: Experimental evidence of vote-buying and voter intimidation in Guatemala

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