Electoral violence prevention: what works?

Abstract

Elections are in theory democratic means of resolving disputes and making collective decisions, yet too often force is employed to distort the electoral process. The postCold War increase in the number of electoral authoritarian and hybrid states has brought this problem into relief. In recent years the prevention of electoral violence has played an increasingly large role in the democratic assistance activities undertaken by international agencies, following increased awareness within the international community of the specific security challenges that elections entail. However, there has to date been little systematic evaluation of the success of different electoral violence prevention (EVP) strategies in reforming electoral institutions so as to enable them to maintain the peace during the electoral period. This article assesses the effectiveness of two common types of international EVP activity. Using a new global dataset of EVP strategies between 2003 and 2015, this article finds evidence that capacity-building strategies reduce violence by non-state actors, whereas attitude-transforming strategies are associated with a reduction in violence by state actors and their allies. The findings are relevant both for understanding the dynamics of electoral violence, and also for policymakers and electoral assistance providers in the international community who have responsibility for the design of democratic assistance projects in states at risk of electoral violence.

Mitigating election violence locally: UN peacekeepers’ election-education campaigns in Côte d’Ivoire

“…Collier & Vicente (2014) demonstrate that an election-education campaign in Nigeria reduced vote shares for violent candidates, increased turnout and even reduced actual political intimidation. Existing research shows that education interventions have security benefits in usually peaceful countries (Vicente, 2014; Fujiwara & Wantchekon, 2013; Birch & Muchlinski, 2017: 4). Yet, as Finkel, Horowitz & Rojo-Mendoza (2012: 64) write: ‘[t]he impact of civic education in more chronically inhospitable contexts is still very much an open question’ (for exceptions, cf.…”

The Role of the Courts in Mitigating Election Violence in Nigeria

“…These efforts are informed by the theoretical argument that political exclusion is the main driver for electoral violence and political inclusivity might lower the likelihood of electoral violence. To this end, electoral violence prevention strategies have been based around interventions such as capacity building (Birch & Muchlinski, 2018;Claes & von Borzyskowski, 2018;Darnolf & Cyllah, 2014), attitude transformation (Birch & Muchlinski, 2018;Finkel, 2014;Fischer, 2017;Höglund & Jarstad, 2011), security planning (Claes, 2016;Claes & 6 Conceptualized as violence related specifically to elections, starting six months before elections to include election day. 7 We conceptualize and measure post-election violent events as election related violent events that happen right after polling stations close to three months after polling.…”

“…Additionally, because public opinion can be temporarily influenced by short term shocks or specific events close to the timing of the survey (i.e., a corruption scandal or the like), we chose to take the average of the past several surveys (round 3 fielded in 2005 through round 7 fielded in 2017) as an alternative measure of trust and the findings still stay consistent and significant compared with using round 6 and 7 trust indices for 2015 and 2019 elections, respectively. 14 The role of competent electoral commissions in reducing the likelihood of election violence taking place has been extensively examined by works such as Birch and Muchlinski (2018); Darnolf and Cyllah (2014); Claes and von Borzyskowski (2018). 15 While we acknowledge that election violence has many consequences other than death, ranging from physical, psychological, displacement, destruction, etc., our paper focuses on fatality because it is a consequence that is both measurable and readily accessible in available datasets.…”

The effect of alternation in power on electoral intimidation in democratizing regimes

“…Elections are generally recognized as a peaceful means of resolving social differences, yet violence often besets electoral processes, even in democracies. A burgeoning literature on electoral conflict has identified this as a distinct form of political violence (Bhasin & Gandhi, 2013; Birch & Muchlinski, 2018; Collier & Vicente, 2014; Daxecker, 2012; Fjelde & Höglund, 2016; Taylor, Pevehouse & Straus, 2017). In this article, we focus on incumbent-instigated intimidation, the most common type of electoral violence worldwide (Birch & Muchlinski, 2017).…”