Violence in African Elections: Between Democracy and Big Man Politics

No Abstract

Violence in African elections

The benefits of winning elections, and the disadvantages of losing them, must be reduced to avoid the violence that a winner-takes-all situation can trigger. Election observers should pay more attention to subtle forms of violence, intra-party tensions and incumbents playing the security card to justify increased use of force. This policy note considers how to curb the increase of violence in African elections.This policy note is based on the book Violence in African Elections, edited by Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs and Jesper Bjarnesen (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:nai:diva-2185). It is a collection of eleven case studies from different Sub-Saharan countries, offering a comprehensive examination of the causes of Africa’s violent electoral clashes, and the consequences for African democratization and peace-keeping.</p

Revisiting an Elusive Concept : A Review of the Debate on Spoilers in Peace Processes

In a seminal article, Stedman (International Security, 22, 1997, 5) suggested that the greatest source of risk to civil war peace processes comes from so-called spoilers, leaders, and groups that perceive peace as threatening and use violence to undermine attempts to achieve it. The spoiler concept has since gained significant ground and widespread legitimacy both in the academic literature and in critical policy circles. In the footsteps of this development, however, we suggest that the spoiler concept has been stretched beyond its original meaning and given raise to a number of ambiguities concerning its definition and empirical applicability. This lack of clarity in regard to some of the key aspects of the spoiler concept does not only risk undermining the usefulness of the concept itself, but also risks hampering the accumulation of valuable research on this pertinent topic. This article presents a reflection on a burgeoning research field and aims to contribute to the same by attempting to offer greater conceptual clarity in regard to a number of issues that are the core of the spoiler debate and by presenting a conceptual framework for analyzing spoilers in future research

Dealing with Divergence : Intra-party Dynamics and Spoiler Management in Civil Wars

Civil war peace processes are frequently accompanied by spoiler behavior relating to intra-party divergence, such as leadership struggles or breakaway groups, which risk undermining the implementation of a peace accord. However, previous literature has not sufficiently explored how third-party actors can address spoiler behavior linked to such intra-party aspects. This study addresses this gap by providing an empirical analysis of a few illustrative cases of spoiler behavior by armed actors in two peace processes in West Africa—Sierra Leone after the 1999 Lomé peace accords and Liberia after the 2003 Accra peace agreement. We find that in contexts where there is a vertical divergence between the leader and the rest of the group, divisive strategies—aimed to divide and rule or marginalize—are effective. In contrast, in situations of horizontal divergence between different factions that are more equal in power, integrative strategies—aimed at unifying the ranks or reconciling a divided leadership—are more appropriate. This study enhances our understanding of how third-party strategies can be devised to manage intra-party divisions that otherwise may threaten a transition from war to peace