Project description DEENESFRITPL What causes violence at elections In an ideal scenario, elections pave the way for peaceful transition of power. However, this has not been the case in many emerging democracies. Since 1990, a third of all elections held in developing countries have been marred by political violence. For instance, thousands of people were killed in the lead up to, during and immediately following the elections in Kenya in 2007 and the Ivory Coast in 2010. The EU-funded EVaP project will develop an innovative party-centred theory to explain the nature and organisation of political violence. Testing the theory in India and Nigeria, the project will explain how and why violence at elections takes place; moreover, it will identify the main motivation behind that violence as well as its consequences for citizens. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Since 1990, deadly violence has occurred in more than 30% of elections held outside of advanced, industrialized democracies. In the 2007 Kenyan elections and the 2010 Côte D’Ivoire elections, violence killed thousands of people in just a few months, undoing years of institution-building and undermining democracy. Much of contemporary politics unfolds in countries holding competitive elections but lacking institutionalized democracy. In these countries, election violence still happens routinely because politicians use violence to influence election outcomes in their favor. A major political and scholarly problem is that we know a lot about the conditions that make elections more or less violent, but lack insight into the more fundamental issues of how violence plays out on the ground. Departing from the focus on intensity in existing work, I develop a novel party-centered theory to explain the nature, organization, and consequences of election violence. Political parties are crucial actors linking politicians and citizens, and I attribute a central role to parties’ organizational and social links. The diversity of parties’ social support influences whether violence provides electoral benefits, implying that parties supported by a single group benefit more from violence. Party organization at the local level in turn explains whether groups can engage in targeted violence or have to rely on poorly-controlled thugs-for-hire. This theory changes how we think about election violence, explaining (1) how and why election violence happens and (2) the consequences of election violence for citizens. EVaP breaks new empirical ground by testing these claims subnationally in India and Nigeria, two of the world’s largest emerging democracies. EVaP uses a multi-method approach to examine within-country variation in party institutions, social support, and election violence in India and Nigeria, combining fieldwork interviews, quantitative data, survey experiments, and surveys. Fields of science social scienceslawhuman rightshuman rights violationspolitical violencesocial sciencespolitical sciencespolitical transitionselectionssocial sciencespolitical sciencesgovernment systemsdemocracy Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2019-STG - ERC Starting Grant Call for proposal ERC-2019-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-STG - Starting Grant Host institution UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM Net EU contribution € 1 499 991,00 Address SPUI 21 1012WX Amsterdam Netherlands See on map Region West-Nederland Noord-Holland Groot-Amsterdam Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 499 991,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM Netherlands Net EU contribution € 1 499 991,00 Address SPUI 21 1012WX Amsterdam See on map Region West-Nederland Noord-Holland Groot-Amsterdam Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 499 991,00
