Political Life after Ethnic War

• In Event: Strategies of Political Violence Re-examined: New Datasets Perspectives & Methods

Abstract

In postwar elections, a large number of citizens vote for political parties with deep roots in the violent organizations of the past. However, despite the prevalence of rebel, militia, and military successor parties, their success varies dramatically. This project explores the correlates of civil war belligerent party performance in contexts emerging from ethnic and secessionist wars. It seeks to understand party and voter strategies in these contexts: how do parties with coercive legacies seek votes and why, in turn, do citizens go to the polls and elect these parties to political office? The project embeds case studies of ethnic wars within an original cross-national database of founding postwar elections 1970-2015 and sub-national data on violence and voting.

Author

• Sarah Zukerman Daly, Columbia University