The violence of democracy : electoral violence in sub-Saharan Africa, 1997 to 2012

Abstract

This study is concerned to address the following (question: Why are some elections in Sub-Saharan Africa marked by violence while other elections are not? Some 20% of elections in this region have experienced violence to some degree or another since the (re-)introduction of multiparty elections and political competition more generally in the early 1990s. Despite the prevalence of election-related violence in this region and further afield, scholars have yet to address this question in a systematic fashion. To be sure, there is a large literature on elections and an equally large literature on violence in Sub-Saharan Africa and the developing world more generally, but the relationship between the two phenomena remains understudied.