Contentious Politics: Elections, Social Movements, and Violence

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel examines the macrohistorical and micro-level dynamics of contentious politics, with a particular focus on elections and democratic participation. Fjelde, Knutsen, Metternich and Wig chart the rise and fall of different types of “archetypical” revolutionary movements in different historical eras. Using a new global database revolutionary social movements, they document how democratization and the rise of mass-based electoral politics altered the aims and social composition of revolutionary groups. Examining a more modern historical development, Donno, Morrison and Savun focus on the post-2000 rise of non-Western election monitoring groups that challenge the verdicts more established groups. Using new data on a variety of election monitoring groups, they examine whether competing verdicts from different monitoring groups are associated with different patterns of post-election contention and violence. Turning to the micro-level dynamics of contentious electoral politics, Daxecker and Prasad theorize the conditions under which electoral violence is used either to demobilize or to polarize and mobilize voters. They test their theory using data from more than 90,000 polling booths in West Bengal India, documenting a divergence in the perpetrators and effects of election violence in opposition strongholds versus competitive districts. Finally, Von Borzyskowski and Wahman similarly explore the demobilizing effects of electoral violence, focusing on how fear of violence dampens the democratic participation of minority groups in urban Africa. Drawing from original survey data in Zambia, they show that electoral violence supports local political hegemony and reinforces political exclusion by de-mobilizing marginalized groups.

Sub Unit

• Division 21: Conflict Processes

Chair

• Adrienne LeBas American University

Discussants

• Adrienne LeBas American University

• Lauren E Young University of California, Davis

Individual Presentations

• New Evidence on the Social Composition of Political Uprisings - Hanne Fjelde, Uppsala University; Carl Henrik Knutsen, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo; Nils W. Metternich, University College London; Tore Wig, University of Oslo

• Competing Verdicts: Multiple Election Monitors and Post-Election Violence - Daniela Donno, University of Oklahoma; Kelly Elizabeth Morrison, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Burcu Savun, University of Pittsburgh

• Violence as an Electoral Strategy: Booth-Level Evidence from West Bengal, India - Ursula E. Daxecker, University of Amsterdam; Neeraj Vimal Prasad, University of Amsterdam

• Fear of Election Violence, Urban Geography, and Democratic Participation - Inken von Borzyskowski, University College London (UCL); Michael Wahman, Michigan State University