In Poznan, IPSA-ECP will cosponsor a one-day pre-IPSA Workshop on Contentious Elections, Conflict and Regime Transitions.
Previous workshop events organized by the IPSA-ECP research committee include a two-day workshop at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 3-4 June 2013, a one-day pre-APSA workshop in Chicago 28th August 2013, and a workshop, panels and business meeting held in Madrid 7-12th July 2012 in conjunction with the IPSA General Congress.
Workshop organizers: Pippa Norris (Harvard and Sydney Universities), Alessandro Nai (University of Sydney) and Annette Fath-Lihic (International IDEA)
Workshop coordinator: Alexandra Kennett (University of Sydney) Email: electoralintegrity [at] gmail.com
Where: IPSA World Congress, Poznan, Poland.
Date: 8.30am-7.00pm on Saturday July 23rd 2016
Co-organisers: Electoral Integrity Project and International IDEA
Co-sponsors: International IDEA, the Electoral Integrity Project, and IPSA RC23 Elections, Citizens and Parties
Preliminary program: Download the preliminary program and abstracts
Register to confirm attendance and meal requirements: Click here (Deadline 1 June 2016)
Deadline to receive your workshop papers to post here online: 1 July 2016
For IPSA travel discounts and to register for the full World Congress program see: http://bit.ly/1pALXBW
For IPSA hotel accommodation with discounts see: http://bit.ly/1WsMWTe
This workshop presents paper panels and breakout discussion workgroups which examine and explain the consequences of contentious elections and election-related conflict for regime stability and change. When does such conflict strengthen processes of democratization, such as where an outcry over election fraud and corruption destabilizes the old regime? When does it trigger a backlash or coup d’état which sets back democratic transitions? And when does conflict fizzle out without achieving any substantive reforms or opposition gains? New research on these issues will be presented using multiple methods, including comparative cross-national time-series evidence and/or case-studies of historical processes within particular countries. Previous work on electoral violence often focused on Sub-Saharan Africa. By contrast, this workshop will feature papers comparing countries around the world, including cases in Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Sub-Saharan Africa.
Global concern about contentious elections has risen as elections have spread worldwide, becoming a standard part of the initial phases of peace-building and state-building processes even in inhospitable conditions, such as in Afghanistan, Libya, Nepal, and Iraq.
The workshop builds upon the foundation established earlier in the edited book on Contentious Elections.[i]
Contentious elections are conceptualized as contests involving major challenges to the legitimacy of electoral actors, procedures, or outcomes, with different degrees of manifest severity in outbreaks of conflict and violence.
In this understanding, contentious elections are apparent in contests experiencing popular or elite-level disputes challenging either the authority of electoral actors (such as the impartiality, authority, and independence of Electoral Management Bodies); the fairness of electoral procedures throughout the electoral cycle (including the rules of the game used to draw boundaries, register voters, candidates and parties, allocate elected offices, regulate campaigns, cast ballots, and translate votes into seats), and/or the legitimacy of outcomes and thus of those winning office (including representatives and political parties).
In practice, the phenomenon of ‘contentious elections’ becomes evident if there is evidence of one or indeed several symptoms, which can be regarded as inter-related in a descending slope of growing severity, including:
Much attention has focused upon the contemporary problems of voting conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighted by cases such as Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Togo, and Nigeria. In fact, however, electoral violence has been most common in South Asia, including in countries such as Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar/Burma), as well as in the Pacific (e.g. the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea).[iii]
What causes electoral protests and violence? And what can be done to mitigate this conflict? Case-studies, based upon field reports, observer missions, media reports, and policy briefs have examined electoral violence in many specific countries, including in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. IFES’s Election, Violence, Education and Resolution (EVER) project has worked with Election Management Bodies and civil society organizations to prevent or mitigate conflict in many countries.[iv] The UNDP published a report investigating electoral violence in Asia through analyses of case studies for seven countries in South and South-East Asia (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand).[v] International IDEA has focused upon issues of electoral justice and dispute resolution mechanisms as a way to mitigate violence.[vi]
Research has commonly sought to explain the occurrence of electoral violence in terms of factors typically associated with the onset or recurrence of civil wars. Studies have emphasized three types of drivers electoral violence: long-term drivers arising from “fixed social conditions (for instance, the existence of lack of development, poverty and inequality, ethnic divisions[vii]), medium-term factors arising from the design of political institutions (such as the role of electoral laws as the use of winner-take-all electoral systems, the party systems, the presence of executive checks and balances[viii], the role and capacity of security forces, the strength of EMBs[ix], the effectiveness of courts[x]), and short-term proximate factors (as the role of mass/social media in exacerbating or reducing conflict[xi], the sequential timing of elections[xii] , the role of international community and observers in preventing and reducing tensions[xiii], or more generally the presence of electoral malpractices, real or perceived fraud, corruption and patronage[xiv]).
Despite a growing body of case-study research, however, little consensus surrounds the importance of each of the underlying causes, and even less is known about the consequences of electoral conflict.
Scholars and policymakers need to identify the risks of contentious elections and understand their impact more fully as this phenomenon is widely acknowledged to have important consequences. In particular, outbreaks of violent conflict involving civilian casualties and even deaths during contentious elections can trigger widespread bloodshed, exacerbate inter-communal mistrust, and destabilize societies. Election-related violence and severe legitimacy challenges can undermine fragile democracies and reduce the capacity of the state to manage the delivery of effective welfare services and pro-poor growth. Thus many stakeholders, including Electoral Management Bodies, the courts and judiciary, security forces, the media and community leaders, face major challenges in minimizing electoral violence.
The risks are highlighted by the Report of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security, Deepening Democracy: A Strategy to Improve the Integrity of Elections Worldwide (2012). Estimates suggest that one in five contemporary elections worldwide involve violence (involving at least one civilian fatality), and many also trigger post-election protests.[xv]
This issue has risen in concern given the spread of elections worldwide, including as part of peace-building initiatives in fragile states. It has been estimated that more than 1.5 billion people live in fragile and conflict-affected countries.[xvi] In these places, as AusAID highlights, “Fragile states are countries where the government has limited capacity, or will, to provide basic services and security to its citizens and the relationship between the government and its citizens is weak. These states lack the institutions needed to resolve conflict peacefully. Few fragile or conflict-affected countries have achieved a single Millennium Development Goal and many are unlikely to do so by 2015.”[xvii]
Not only does electoral conflict potentially undermine fragile democracies and generate humanitarian disasters, it can also have disproportionate effects upon vulnerable populations who are the victims of conflict, including the poor, women, and young people, and displaced populations. Understanding the drivers of electoral violence can help to mitigate risk, promote effective mediations, and build institutions which can encourage sustainable peace and stable democracies.
At the same time, one of the most striking observations about election-related conflict is that this phenomenon has generated several divergent outcomes for regime stability and change.[xviii] Some notable cases have led to subsequent regime transitions and revolutionary change strengthening processes of democratization (exemplified by the color revolutions in Eurasia).[xix] Alternatively, many cases of repeated, violent, or prolonged electoral-related conflict have failed to catalyze any reform concessions or process of regime change (exemplified by the relatively peaceful Hong Kong ‘umbrella’ protests).[xx]Finally, some cases of electoral-related conflict have led to anti-democratic reversals through a repressive backlash or, in some dramatic cases, military coups (such as in the February 2014 election in Thailand).
The reasons for these divergent outcomes are complex and may be context-dependent, including the calculations of regimes in power and divisions within ruling elites (especially the role of the security forces); the level of peaceful or violent mass activism and the capacity of opposition forces and leaders to mobilize protest coalitions; the level of socio-economic inequality and inter-communal or ethnic divisions within society; the type of electoral malpractice triggering protests; contagion effects arising from politics in regional neighbors; and the response of the international community.
This workshop will therefore present diverse contributions focusing on the causes and impacts of election-related conflict for regime stability and change in countries around the world.
*Note: this program is subject to change*
Download the preliminary program and abstracts
8.30-9.00 Arrival and registration
9.00-9.30 Welcome to the workshop
Pippa Norris (Harvard and Sydney Universities)
Annette M. Fath-Lihic (International IDEA)
9.30-11.00 Paper Panel 1. Comparing contentious elections: Triggers and risks
Chair: Alessandro Nai (University of Sydney)
Discussant: Geoffrey Macdonald (George Washington University)
1.1. Svend-Erik Skaaning (Aarhus University) and Merete Seeberg (Aarhus University)
Intra-party competition and electoral violence
1.2. Simon Finley (UNDP)
Political Settlements and the Impact on Transitions in the Asia-Pacific Region
1.3. Sarah Birch (University of Glasgow) and David Muchlinski (University of Glasgow)
Uncertainty, Risk and Electoral Violence
1.4. Philipp Kuntz (University of Bochum)
Contentious elections and popular uprisings: explaining transitions and non-transitions
1.5. Pippa Norris (Harvard and Sydney Universities)
To be thus is nothing...: Risks of contentious elections in hybrid states
11.00-11.30 Coffee/tea break
11.30-1.00 Paper Panel 2. Minorities at risk and electoral violence
Chair: Pippa Norris (Harvard and Sydney Universities)
Discussant: Ursula Daxecker (University of Amsterdam)
2.1. Jessica Huber (IFES) and Rakesh Sharma (IFES)
EVER-Women: Election Violence Education and Resolution with a gender lens
2.2. Ludovico Alcorta, Jeroen Smits and Haley Swedlund (Radboud University)
Do socioeconomic and political inequalities coalesce or merely coincide in the build-up to conflict?
2.3. Aditi Malik (Penn State University)
Electoral Competition and Communal Violence in Rural India: The Muzaffarnagar and Shamli Riots of 2013
2.4. Johan Saravanamuttu and Maznah Mohamad (National University of Singapore)
Civil Action for Electoral Reform in an Ethnic Democracy: BERSIH in Malaysia
2.5. Kerim Kavakli (Sabanci University) and Kerim Can Kavakli (Sabanci University)
Exit, Voice and Contentious Elections: Who Stays and Who Leaves?
11.30-1.00 Paper Panel 3. The consequences of electoral violence for democratic legitimacy
Chair: Elin Bjarnegard (Uppsala University)
Discussant: Alessandro Nai (University of Sydney)
3.1. Maria Sofia Jonsson (Gothenburg University)
Organized Crime and Democratization
3.2. Inken von Borzyskowski (Florida State University) and Patrick Kuhn (Durham University)
Does Election Violence Make You Hate Democracy But Love Autocracy?
3.3. Andrea Iff (swisspeace & University of Basel) and Martina Santschi (swisspeace)
Elections, legitimacy and statebuilding in South Sudan and Nepal
3.4. Hassan Nasir Mirbahar and Shafaq Kiani (Democracy Reporting International)
Electoral Conflicts in Pakistan: Setback in Democratic Stability?
3.5. Irma Mendez (FLACSO) and Nicolas Loza (FLACSO)
Violence and institutional design at local elections in Mexico 2015
1.00-2.30 Breakout roundtables during buffet lunch
In this breakout session, moderated by a practitioner, groups at each table will be asked to discuss two issues: What are the most important practical barriers to reducing electoral conflict? What could be done to reduce the risks of violence? Each table group will select a rapporteur to report back the key points to the plenary during the final 15-20 minutes.
Table 1. Simon Finley (UNDP)
Table 2. Eva Palmans (ECES)
Table 3. Mohan Vasu (IFES)
Table 4. Andrea Iff (Swisspeace)
Table 5. Munyikwa Hamadziripi (EISA)
2.30-4.00 Paper Panel 4. Dynamics of electoral competition and political elites
Chair: Ferran Martinez i Coma (University of Sydney)
Discussant: Jørgen Elklit (Aarhus University)
4.1. Gabrielle Bardall (University of Montreal)
Opposition Parties and Hybrid Regime Elections: Classifying and Interpreting Strategy
4.2. Hamadziripi Munyikwa (Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa)
(Dis)incentives for violence: The unresolved sources of election related violence in Zimbabwe
4.3. Lily Rahim (University of Sydney) and Naser Ghobadzadeh (Australian Catholic University)
Electoral authoritarian regimes, Islamist parties and contentious elections: Malaysia and Iran
4.4. Gail Buttorff (University of Kansas) and Douglas Dion (University of Iowa)
Authoritarian Elections, Legitimacy and Regime Stability Revisited
4.5. Ursula Daexecker (University of Amsterdam)
Electoral Contention and Violence (ECAV): A New Dataset
2.30-4.00 Paper Panel 5. Preventing electoral malpractices
Chair: Sarah Birch (University of Glasgow)
Discussant: Andrea Iff (swisspeace & University of Basel)
5.1. Juvence Ramasy (University of Toamasina) and Eva Palmans (European Centre for Electoral Support)
Elections, Political Instability and Failure of Democratization in Madagascar
5.2. Geoffrey Macdonald (George Washington University)
Keeping Elections Peaceful Ahead of the Crisis
5.3. Vasu Mohan (IFES)
Role of Leadership with Integrity in Preventing Electoral Violence: Sri Lanka Case Study
5.4. Amal Hamdan (King's College London)
Exclusion and Civil War: The Impact of the Electoral System in the Destabilisation of Lebanon
4.00-4.30 Coffee/tea break
4.30-6.00 Panel 6: Roundtable on programs reducing contentious elections: Goals, approaches and effectiveness
This session will give electoral practitioners from organizations involved in electoral assistance the opportunity to describe their experiences when operating with contentious elections. While electoral violence is regarded as the worst consequence of contentious elections, one should not disregard other risks related to electoral processes such as … and for the wider political and social context in which the elections are taking place. Electoral practitioners will share their understanding of the matter with colleagues from the academia and see if current research and practices in the field can benefit from each other. Further know-how and practical tools of engagement by those organizations will be explained and shared.
Chair: Annette Fath-Lihic (International IDEA)
Discussant: Simon Finley (UNDP)
6.1. Craig Jenness (UNEAD)*
6.2. Gerardo de Icaza (OAS)*
6.3. Jessica Huber (IFES)*
6.4. Catalina Uribe Burcher (International IDEA)*
6.5 EISA representative (TBC)*
6.05-7.00 Drinks reception and book launch celebrating
Checkbook Elections (Eds) Pippa Norris, and Andrea Abel van Es New York: Oxford University Press
7.30-9.00 Dinner for invited participants and discussants
[i] Norris, Pippa, Richard W. Frank and Ferran Martínez i Coma. 2015. Contentious Elections: From Ballots to Barricades. New York: Routledge
[ii] Following UNDP’s definition, electoral violence is further understood as follows: “Any acts or threats of coercion, intimidation, or physical harm perpetrated to affect an electoral process, or that arise in the context of electoral competition. When perpetrated to affect an electoral process, violence may be employed to influence the process of elections — such as efforts to delay, disrupt or derail a poll — or to influence the outcomes: the determination of winners in competitive races for political office, or securing the approval or disapproval of referendum questions.” UNDP. 2011. Understanding Electoral Violence in Asia. Bangkok: UNDP Asia-Pacific.
[iii] Susan D. Hyde and Nikolay Marinov. Codebook for National Elections across Democracy and Autocracy (NELDA) Nov 10th 2011.
[iv] See http://www.ifes.org/Content/Projects/Applied-Research-Center/Cross-Cutting/Election-Violence-Education-and-Resolution.aspx
[v] UNDP. 2011. Understanding Electoral Violence in Asia. Bangkok: UNDP Asia-Pacific. http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/democratic-governance/electoral_systemsandprocesses/understanding_electoralviolenceinasia/
[vi] Jesús Orozco-Henríquez. Ed. 2010. Electoral Justice: The International IDEA Handbook. Sweden: International IDEA.
[vii] Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler, and Nicholas Sambanis. 2005. ‘The Collier-Hoeffler model of civil war onset and the case study project research design.’ Ch 1 in Understanding Civil War. Eds Paul Collier and Nicolas Sambanis. Washington DC: The World Bank
[viii] Timothy Sisk and Andrew Reynolds. Eds. 1998. Elections and Conflict Management in Africa. Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Press; Krishna Kumar. 1998. Post-conflict elections, democratization, and International Assistance. Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner; Benjamin Reilly. 2002. ‘Post-conflict elections: Constraints and dangers.’ International Peacekeeping 9(2): 118; Pippa Norris. 2004. Electoral Engineering. New York: Cambridge University Press; Pippa Norris. 2008. Driving Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press
[ix] UNDP. 2011. Understanding Electoral Violence in Asia. Bangkok: UNDP Asia-Pacific.
[x] Jesús Orozco-Henríquez. Ed. 2010. Electoral Justice: The International IDEA Handbook. Sweden: International IDEA.
[xi] Nicole Stremlau and Monroe E. Price. 2009. Media, Elections and Political Violence in Eastern Africa: Towards a Comparative Framework. Oxford: An Annenberg-Oxford Occasional Paper in Communications Policy Research; Pippa Norris. Ed. Public Sentinel. Washington DC: The World Bank.
[xii] Jack Snyder. 2000. From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict. New York: Norton; Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder. 2007. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies go to War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Dawn Brancati and Jack L. Snyder. 2011. ‘Rushing to the polls: The causes of premature postconflict elections.’ Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3): 469-492.
[xiii] Njunga Mulikita. 1999. ‘Democratization and conflict resolution in Afria: The role of international/regional electoral observers.’ Peacekeeping and International Relations 28(3); Ursula E. Daxecker, 2012. ‘The cost of exposing cheating: International election monitoring, fraud, and post-election violence in Africa.’ Journal of Peace Research 49(4): 503-516
[xiv] UNDP. 2011. Understanding Electoral Violence in Asia. Bangkok: UNDP Asia-Pacific.
[xv] Jendayi E. Frazer and E. Gyimah-Boadi (Editors). 2011. Preventing Electoral Violence in Africa. Carnegie Mellon University; Dorina Bekoe. Ed. 2012. Voting in Fear: Electoral Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.
[xvi] See AusAID’s Framework for working in fragile and conflict-affected states: http://dfat.gov.au/aid/Pages/australias-aid-program.aspx
[xvii] AusAID. 2011. Australia’s Aid in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States. Canberra: AusAID. http://www.ausaid.gov.au/Publications/Documents/aid-fragile-conflict-affected-states-brochure.pdf
[xviii] Kuntz, Philipp and Mark R. Thompson. 2009. ‘More than just the final straw stolen elections as revolutionary triggers.’Comparative Politics 41(3): 253-+; Pippa Norris. 2014. Why Electoral Integrity Matters. NY: Cambridge University Press.
[xix] Bunce, Valerie J. and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2006. ‘Favorable conditions and electoral revolutions.’ Journal of Democracy 17: 5–18; Tucker, Joshua. 2007. ‘Enough! Electoral fraud, collective action problems, and post-communist colored revolutions.’Perspectives on Politics 5(3): 535-551; Bunce, Valerie J. and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2011. Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in Post-Communist Countries. New York: Cambridge University Press; Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2010. ‘Defeating dictators: Electoral change and stability in competitive authoritarian regimes.’ World Politics 62(1): 43–86.
[xx] Kalandadze, Katya and Orenstein, Mitchell A. 2009. ‘Electoral protests and democratization beyond the color revolutions.’Comparative Political Studies 42(11): 1403-1425.