Abstract
Election violence is common in many developing countries and has potentially detrimental implications for democratic consolidation. Drawing on political psychology, we argue that citizens’ fear of campaign violence undermines support for democracy while increasing support for autocracy. Using individual-level survey data from 21 electoral democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa, we find robust support for our argument. Citizens fearing campaign violence are less likely to support democracy and multi-party competition, more likely to favor a return to autocracy, and less likely to turn out to vote. Our findings have important implications for democratic survival and provide further impetus for reducing electoral violence.
Highlights
With the end of the Cold War, autocratic regimes gave way to multiparty elections across the world, including many Sub-Saharan African countries
Building on research on emotions in political psychology, we argue that fearing election violence is detrimental to democratic survival, contributes to increased support for autocracy, and reduces turnout
How does fear of election violence influence political attitudes and participation? Research on election violence has largely focused on its causes, paying less attention to its consequences
Summary
With the end of the Cold War, autocratic regimes gave way to multiparty elections across the world, including many Sub-Saharan African countries. We expect that fear of election violence reduces citizens’ attitudinal support for democracy as a form of government. The questionnaires survey individuals’ fear of campaign violence, attitudes toward democracy, autocratic governments, and various institutional elements of democracy, whether a respondent voted in the last election, and a large battery of socio-economic and political control variables.13 The Afrobarometer surveys offer the longest time series on the key variables of interest across a broad set of countries, providing the ideal testing ground for our hypotheses.
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