Abstract
Abstract Post-election violence is a common form of conflict, but its underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Using data from the 2007 Philippine mayoral elections, this paper provides evidence that post-election violence is particularly intense after narrow victories by incumbents. Using a density test, the study shows that incumbents were substantially more likely to win narrow victories than their challengers, a pattern consistent with electoral manipulation. There is no evidence that the increase in post-election violence is related to the incumbents’ political platform or their performance in past elections. These results provide support for the notion that post-election violence is triggered by election fraud or by the failure of democratic ways of removing unpopular incumbents from office.
Highlights
Election-related violence has long been associated with civil conflict and is believed to be responsible for a substantial number of casualties worldwide in the wake of competitive national and local elections
Some examples include the January 2007 elections in Bangladesh where the discovery of 12 million voters illegally listed on the electoral roll precipitated violence and civil unrest; the December 2007 elections in Kenya where violence erupted after the Orange Democratic Movement, a popular political party, accused the Election Commission of Kenya (ECK) of large scale vote rigging; and the 2009 elections in Iran where scores of people were killed and injured as they protested the suspected fraudulent reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
There is a widespread belief among academics and practitioners that elections perceived as fraudulent can increase support for non-democratic actors and serve as a catalyst for civil conflict (World Bank, 2012; Donno, 2013; Norris, 2014; Hall et al, 2015)
Summary
Election-related violence has long been associated with civil conflict and is believed to be responsible for a substantial number of casualties worldwide in the wake of competitive national and local elections. In addition to providing evidence that narrow incumbent wins are associated with an increase in post-election conflict, this paper adds to a growing literature on forensic measurements of corruption and institutional weaknesses.. In addition to providing evidence that narrow incumbent wins are associated with an increase in post-election conflict, this paper adds to a growing literature on forensic measurements of corruption and institutional weaknesses.4 Contributions to this literature recognize that observer reports of corruption cannot always be trusted because, “the agents engaged in a particular behavior prefer to keep it hidden” (Zitzewitz, 2012), and that measures of institutional weaknesses may be systematically influenced by unobserved variables (Olken, 2009). This approach facilitates the identification of electoral irregularities and other possible governing failures without relying on potentially biased reports from election observers
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