Fighting your friends? A study of intra-party violence in sub-Saharan Africa. Issue 6 (18th August 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Reeder, Bryce W.; Seeberg, Merete Bech
• Is Part Of: Democratization. Volume 25:Issue 6(2018)
• Page Start: 1033
• Page End: 1051
• Publication Date: 2018-08-18
• Subjects: elections -- election violence -- intra-party violence -- competitiveness -- candidate nominations -- sub-Saharan Africa; Democracy -- Periodicals; Economic history -- 1990- -- Periodicals; Democratization -- Periodicals; 321.8
• DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2018.1441291
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1351-0347

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article focuses on a less visible and less studied type of political violence, namely violence that occurs within political parties. We use new, district-level data to compare the temporal and spatial dynamics of intra-party violence to those of general election violence across selected sub-Saharan African countries, including both democracies and autocracies, from 1998 to 2016. Relying on cross-national and sub-national analyses, we show that intra-party violence follows a unique pattern. First, unlike general election violence, intra-party violence peaks prior to election day as it is often sparked by individual parties' candidate nomination processes. Second, low levels of competitiveness – typically theorized to reduce the risk of election violence – increase the risk of intra-party violence on the sub-national level. Thus, dominant party elections do not necessarily see less election-related violence than hotly contested elections. Rather, violence may be pushed from election day to intra-party competitions. If we neglect the study of violence within political parties, we thus risk underestimating the threat of election violence and misdiagnosing its causes.