Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order

224 Pages·2020·5.021 MB·English

by  Sarah Birch

ELECTORAL VIO LENCE, CORRUPTION,
AND PO LITI CAL ORDER

Electoral Vio lence,
Corruption, and
Po lit ical Order
Sarah Birch
PRINCE TON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCET­ ON­AND­OXFORD
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
Preface and Acknowl edgments ix
1 Introduction 1
Context and Argument 3
Definition and Typology 7
Data and Global Patterns 14
Chapter Preview 23
2 Carrots and Sticks: Toward a Theory of Electoral Vio lence 26
Power Structures and Electoral Vio lence 29
Choices for Incumbents: Carrots, Sticks, and Cheating 31
Opposition Reactions: Exit, Voice, or Disloyalty 37
The Production of Electoral Vio lence 41
Conclusion 49
3 Coercive Electoral Governance: The Use of Force by State
Actors 52
Choices for State Actors 54
Overall Patterns 56
State Vio lence, Fraud, and Electoral Manipulation 60
Case Studies 72
Conclusion 84
Appendix to Chapter 3: Robustness Checks 85
v
vi Contents
4 Vio lence by Nonstate Actors 88
The Concept of Nonstate Electoral Vio lence 89
The Causes of Nonstate Electoral Vio lence 93
Protest and the Production of Viol ence by Nonstate Actors 99
Case Studies 104
Conclusion 116
5 Divergent Contexts and Patterns of Violent Elections 118
Vio lence before, during, and after Elections 119
Temporal and Geographic Patterns 124
Conclusion 139
6 Strategies of Electoral- Violence Prevention 141
Electoral- Violence Prevention in Theory and in Practice 142
The Impact of Electoral- Violence Prevention: Existing Evidence 146
Electoral- Violence Prevention and Institutional Design 148
Electoral- Violence Prevention and Electoral Governance 154
Case Studies 159
Conclusion 166
7 Conclusion: Implications for Theory, Policy, and Practice 168
Summary of Findings 170
Implications for Po liti cal Science 175
Implications for Institutional Design 177
Implications for Electoral Administration 178
Implications for International Electoral Assistance 178
Directions for Future Research 180
References 185
Index 207
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1.1. Electoral vio lence and electoral misconduct 10
1.2. Trends in NELDA indicators of electoral vio lence
(share of elections exhibiting the form of vio lence in
question), 1945–2012 18
1.3. Trends in V- DEM indicators of electoral vio lence,
1945–2012 19
1.4. Patterns of electoral vio lence by level of democracy
(NELDA), 1945–2012 21
1.5. Patterns of electoral vio lence by level of democracy
(V- DEM), 1945–2012 22
1.6. Patterns of electoral vio lence by level of democracy
(CREV), 1995–2012 23
4.1. Executive constraints and nonstate vio lence 97
4.2. Boycotts, close races, and nonstate electoral vio lence 99
4.3. Postelectoral protests, boycotts, and nonstate
electoral vio lence 104
5.1. Electoral vio lence by point in the electoral cycle 120
5.2. Reactive patterns of vio lence over the electoral
period: state vio lence 123
5.3. Reactive patterns of vio lence over the electoral
period: nonstate vio lence 123
6.1. Electoral- authority autonomy and state vio lence 158
6.2. Electoral- authority capacity and nonstate vio lence 158
6.3. High- court in de pen dence and state vio lence 159
Tables
1.1. Examples of Electoral Vio lence by Type 11
1.2. Distribution of Electoral Vio lence by Po liti cal Region 20
vii
viii IllustratIons
2.1. Options for Manipulation by Actor 29
3.1. Electoral Vio lence, Misconduct, and Vote Buying:
Global Patterns 1945–2012 58
3.2. State- Initiated Electoral Vio lence, 1945–2012 64
3.3. State- Initiated Electoral Vio lence and Electoral
Misconduct, 1945–2012 71
3.4. State- Initiated Electoral Vio lence, 1945–2012,
Robustness Checks 86
4.1. Nonstate- Initiated Electoral Vio lence, 1945–2012 94
4.2. Nonstate- Initiated Electoral Vio lence and Protest,
1945–2012 103
5.1. Contextual Variations on Electoral Vio lence:
A Typology 127
6.1. A Typology of Electoral- Violence Prevention 145
6.2. Electoral Institutional Design and Electoral Vio lence 153
6.3. Electoral Governance and Electoral Vio lence 157
PREFACE AND ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
Vio lence is perhaps the worst thing that can happen in an election. Voting
is meant to be a tool of democracy— a fair and above all peaceful means of
resolving differences. When force intrudes into the electoral pro cess, some-
thing has gone profoundly wrong. Yet a surprising number of elections
around the world are marred by violent conflict of some kind. The challenge
addressed in this study is how electoral vio lence is to be explained and how
it might be prevented. Though not by any means intended as the last word
on the topic, the analyses presented h ere go a considerable way t oward con-
ceptualizing the prob lem, synthesizing what we already know about it, and
developing a novel theoretical approach to understanding where and u nder
what circumstances the electoral peace is likely to be disturbed.
The book is the culmination of a four- year research proje ct that began in
2015, but the origins of the proj ect go back to the late 1990s, when I met Jeff
Fischer in Bosnia while we w ere both involved in efforts to improve electoral
administration. It was Jeff who focused my mind on the topic of electoral vio-
lence and cajoled me into undertaking research on it, and it is to him that I
owe my principal intellectual obligation. My second main debt is to David
Muchlinski, who provided me with research assistance between 2015 and 2017
and has been a close collaborator throughout the period during which this
manuscript was drafted.
I am very grateful to Sead Alihodzic, Inken von Borzyskowski, Jeffrey
Carlson, Jonas Claes, Ursula Daxecker, Kristine Höglund, Niall McCann, Vasu
Mohan, Pippa Norris, Rubén Ruiz- Rufino, Emre Toros, and Michael Wah-
man for helping me to understand the prob lem of electoral vio lence and for
providing feedback on portions of the analyses that came together to form
this monograph. Hannah Paul at Prince ton University Press has also been
extremely helpful in offering encouragement and keeping the book on the
right track, and the book’s two anonymous reviewers are to be thanked
for providing very useful comments on an e arlier draft. I would also like to
thank Maia Vaswani for superb copyediting. In addition my gratitude is due
ix
x PrefaCe and aCknowl edgments
to the University of Glasgow and to King’s College London for supporting
me while I was working on this proj ect, and to the Economic and Social
Research Council for Research Grant ES/L016435, which funded the bulk
of the research that contributed to this study. N eedless to say, I retain full
responsibility for any errors of fact and interpretation herein.
Sarah Birch
June 2019