Hanne Fjelde
Biographic Data
| ID | 93633 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hanne Fjelde |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hanne |
| FAMILY NAME | Fjelde |
| SIGNATURE | FJELDE H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5251-7309 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 937 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
The impacts of armed conflict on human development: A review of the literature
The detrimental impacts of wars on human development are well documented across research domains, from public health to micro-economics. However, these impacts are studied in compartmentalized silos, which limits a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of conflicts, hampering our ability to effectively sustain human development. This article takes a first step in addressing this gap by reviewing the literature on conflict impacts throug…
Misinformation, Narratives, and Intergroup Attitudes: Evidence from India
Much research examines citizens' beliefs in misinformation and whether these beliefs can be corrected, but we know far less about how misinformation impacts social attitudes. We propose that misinformation can induce affective shifts that increase out-group animosity and fuel polarization. Politicians amplify these effects by embedding misinformation into larger narratives of threat from out-groups. We conduct a preregistered vignette experiment …
Voter Intimidation as a Tool of Mobilization or Demobilization? Evidence from West Bengal, India
This study presents new theory and evidence on the repertoire of electoral intimidation, suggesting that threats can be used to deter rival party supporters from voting but also to mobilize citizens to vote for a particular party. We expect these strategies to unfold in the same electoral context, but differ in targeting and incidence; while threats to demobilize are concentrated in closely contested areas and occur more frequently overall, threa…
Viewing Violence through a Partisan Lens: How Electoral Violence Shapes Citizens' Support for Democracy
In many elections across the world, the regime in power uses violence to influence electoral dynamics and outcomes. What is the effect of such violence on citizens' attitudes to democracy? We argue that the effect of government-perpetrated electoral violence on citizens' democratic commitment will diverge depending on whether the individual supports the ruling or opposition party. While those affiliated with the opposition should become more like…
Militarized elections and citizens’ support for democratic rights: Evidence from India
Across the world, many citizens go to the polls amidst armed threats from both state and non-state actors. How do militarized elections affect citizens’ willingness to accept restrictions on democratic rights? We argue that when forming opinions about appropriate limits to state powers, citizens navigate competing threats from state and non-state actors. The display of state coercive force should make citizens more protective of civil and politic…
Mass Mobilization in the Modern Era: Introducing the Opposition Movements and Groups (OMG) Dataset, 1789–2019
The nature and consequences of mass mobilization are core topics in the social sciences. How have mass mobilization movements evolved over time? How do key characteristics of such movements, including their social composition or ideology, influence their ability to overthrow or alter political institutions? We introduce the Opposition Movements and Groups (OMG) dataset, which – due to its unique contents and extensive coverage – will help researc…
Do the Lights Stay on? Deployment and Withdrawal of Peacekeepers and Their Effect on Local Economic Development
How does the deployment and withdrawal of UN peacekeepers affect local economic development in civil war countries? This study provides a large-N subnational analysis across UN peacekeeping operations that assesses their impact on the local economy both during deployment and after their withdrawal. We expect a positive association between UN peacekeeping and economic development. Besides providing a sizeable cash injection into the economy, peace…
Could vote buying be socially desirable? Exploratory analyses of a ‘failed’ list experiment
List experiments encourage survey respondents to report sensitive opinions they may prefer not to reveal. But, studies sometimes find that respondents admit more readily to sensitive opinions when asked directly. Often this over-reporting is viewed as a design failure, attributable to inattentiveness or other nonstrategic error. This paper conducts an exploratory analysis of such a ‘failed’ list experiment measuring vote buying in the 2019 Nigeri…
Pathways from research to sustainable development: Insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience
Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowle…
Violent Elections and Citizens’ Support for Democratic Constraints on the Executive: Evidence From Nigeria
How do violent elections affect the willingness of citizens to defend democratic institutions? We argue that in the wake of violent elections, support for democratic constraints on the executive will diverge amongst ruling and opposition party supporters. To protect their position, ruling party supporters become more likely to endorse weakening constraints on executive power, even if it violates democratic principles. Opposition supporters, on th…
Introducing the Deadly Electoral Conflict Dataset (Deco)
This article introduces the Deadly Electoral Conflict dataset (DECO): a global, georeferenced event dataset on electoral violence with lethal outcomes from 1989 to 2017. DECO allows for empirical evaluation of theories relating to the timing, location, and dynamics of deadly electoral violence. By clearly distinguishing electoral violence from related (and sometimes concurrent) instances of organized violence, DECO is particularly suitable for in…
Electoral Violence, Partisan Identity, and Perceptions of Election Quality: A Survey Experiment in West Bengal, India
What are the consequences of election violence for citizens' political attitudes? We argue that in polarized contexts, citizens' interpretation of electoral violence depends on their partisan affiliations. When presented with information alleging co-partisans' involvement in violence, people with strong partisan identities become more likely to assert that elections were free and fair. We test this expectation with a vignette experiment in West B…
Protecting the Vote? Peacekeeping Presence and the Risk of Electoral Violence
Democracy assistance, including the promotion of electoral security, is often a central component of contemporary peacekeeping operations. Preventing violence during post-conflict elections is critical for the war-to-democracy transition. Yet little is known about the role of peacekeepers in this effort. To fill this gap, this study provides the first comprehensive sub-national study of peacekeeping effectiveness in reducing the risk of electoral…
A Conditional Model of Local Income Shock and Civil Conflict
Common political economy models point to rationalist motives for engaging in conflict but say little about how income shocks translate into collective violence in some cases but not in others. Grievance models, in contrast, focus on structural origins of shared frustration but offer less insight into when the deprived decide to challenge the status quo. Addressing these lacunae, we develop a theoretical model of civil conflict that predicts incom…
Which Institutions Matter? Re-Considering the Democratic Civil Peace
Despite decades of research, there is no consensus on the relationship between democratic institutions and risk of civil war. We alleviate measurement issues and theoretical ambiguity in much existing work by theoretically and empirically unpacking core features of democracy and their relationship to civil war. We distinguish between institutions that impose vertical constraints on leaders from the population at large, and institutions that allow…
Mapping blue helmets: Introducing the Geocoded Peacekeeping Operations (Geo-PKO) dataset
In this article, we introduce the Geocoded Peacekeeping Operations (Geo-PKO) dataset, which presents new data on subnational peacekeeping deployment for all UN missions to Africa, 1994-2014. The Geo-PKO dataset is the most comprehensive dataset of its kind and enables scholars to address new questions about peacekeeping operations and their effects by exploring variations in peacekeeping at the subnational level. The dataset offers information on…
Electoral violence and the legacy of authoritarian rule in Kenya and Zambia
Why do the first multiparty elections after authoritarian rule turn violent in some countries but not in others? This article places legacies from the authoritarian past at the core of an explanation of when democratic openings become associated with electoral violence in multi-ethnic states, and complement existing research focused on the immediate conditions surrounding the elections. We argue that authoritarian rule characterized by more exclu…
Political party strength and electoral violence
Existing research on the causes of electoral violence has focused on structural determinants and election-specific characteristics but has paid less attention to the role of political agents that contest elections. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between the organizational strength of political parties and the risk of electoral violence. The study argues that strong political parties enhance the prospect for peaceful e…
Introducing the Ethnic One-Sided Violence dataset
This article introduces the Ethnic One-Sided Violence dataset (EOSV) that provides information on the ethnic identity of civilian victims of direct and deliberate killings by state and non-state actors from 1989 to 2013. The EOSV dataset disaggregates the civilian victims in the one-sided violence dataset from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program by identifying which ethnic group they belong to, using the list of politically relevant ethnic groups f…
Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians
Are UN peacekeepers effective in protecting civilians from violence? Existing studies examine this issue at the country level, thereby making it difficult to isolate the effect of peacekeepers and to assess the actual mechanism at work. We provide the first comprehensive evaluation of UN peacekeeping success in protecting civilians at the subnational level. We argue that peacekeepers through their sizable local presence can increase the political…
The Consequences of Contention: Understanding the Aftereffects of Political Conflict and Violence
What are the political and economic consequences of contention (i.e., genocide, civil war, state repression/human rights violation, terrorism, and protest)? Despite a significant amount of interest as well as quantitative research, the literature on this subject remains underdeveloped and imbalanced across topic areas. To date, investigations have been focused on particular forms of contention and specific consequences. While this research has le…
ViEWS: A political violence early-warning system
This article presents ViEWS - a political violence early-warning system that seeks to be maximally transparent, publicly available, and have uniform coverage, and sketches the methodological innovations required to achieve these objectives. ViEWS produces monthly forecasts at the country and subnational level for 36 months into the future and all three UCDP types of organized violence: state-based conflict, non-state conflict, and one-sided viole…
Ethnic politics and elite competition: The roots of electoral violence in Kenya
The rise of rebel contenders: Barriers to entry and fragmentation in civil wars
Fragmentation of armed opposition movements through the rise of new rebel groups constitutes a significant challenge to conflict termination and peacebuilding. Yet, the question of why some rebel movements remain cohesive whereas others see a number of contending groups during the course of the armed conflict has received limited attention in existing research. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the determinants of the rise of rebel con…
Offsetting Losses: Bargaining Power and Rebel Attacks on Peacekeepers
In recent years, international third parties have increasingly sought to manage the dire consequences of civil war, often by deploying peacekeeping operations. However, peacekeepers sometimes face deliberate attacks by armed groups. These attacks hamper efforts to provide humanitarian relief and security. This raises a critical question: what factors lead rebel groups to target peacekeepers? We argue that internal conflict dynamics are important …
Weakening the Enemy: A Disaggregated Study of Violence against Civilians in Africa
While case-based narratives from civil wars often stress the ethnic dimension of civilian atrocities, cross-national studies have found limited evidence in support of such contentions. Addressing this debate, we argue that warring actors often use ethnic affiliation to identify groups of suspected enemy supporters when individual wartime affiliations are not known. Since warring actors depend on their civilian constituencies for support, collecti…
Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians
Are UN peacekeepers effective in protecting civilians from violence? Existing studies examine this issue at the country level, thereby making it difficult to isolate the effect of peacekeepers and to assess the actual mechanism at work. We provide the first comprehensive evaluation of UN peacekeeping success in protecting civilians at the subnational level. We argue that peacekeepers through their sizable local presence can increase the political…
Electoral Institutions and Electoral Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa
Political violence remains a pervasive feature of electoral dynamics in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, even where multiparty elections have become the dominant mode of regulating access to political power. With cross-national data on electoral violence in Sub-Saharan African elections between 1990 and 2010, this article develops and tests a theory that links the use of violent electoral tactics to the high stakes put in place by majoritari…
Rebels against Rebels: Explaining Violence between Rebel Groups
Rebel groups that confront the government frequently become engaged in fierce and violent struggles with other groups. Why does a rebel group who is already fighting with the government become engaged in yet another struggle, thereby sacrificing scarce resources in the fight against other rebel groups? This article addresses this puzzle by providing the first global study on the determinants of interrebel violence. The authors argue that this vio…
Climate triggers: Rainfall anomalies, vulnerability and communal conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
Generals, Dictators, and Kings: Authoritarian Regimes and Civil Conflict, 1973—2004
Recent years have seen a surge of literature examining how political institutions influence the risk of civil conflict. A comparatively neglected aspect of this debate has been the heterogeneous impact of different forms of authoritarianism. In this article, I theoretically and empirically unpack the authoritarian regime category. I argue that authoritarian regimes differ both in their capacity to forcefully control opposition and in their abilit…
Coercion, Co-optation, or Cooperation: State Capacity and the Risk of Civil War, 1961—2004
Recent research identifies state capacity as a crucial determinant of civil peace. Scholars often interpret the association between wealth and peace as state capacity effects, but they have not clearly distinguished the impact of administrative reach and capacity for coercion from those effects that may capture good governance related to the provision of political goods and quality of institutions.We revisit the relationship between state capacit…
The Consequences of Contention: Understanding the Aftereffects of Political Conflict and Violence
What are the political and economic consequences of contention (i.e., genocide, civil war, state repression/human rights violation, terrorism, and protest)? Despite a significant amount of interest as well as quantitative research, the literature on this subject remains underdeveloped and imbalanced across topic areas. To date, investigations have been focused on particular forms of contention and specific consequences. While this research has le…
Socioeconomic Inequality and Communal Conflict: A Disaggregated Analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990–2008
This article examines the role of economic inequality in influencing the risk of armed conflict between communal groups in Sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that socioeconomic inequality can generate intergroup grievances, which, due to the exclusionary legitimacy of the African state and elite incentives to engage in competitive mobilization of communal groups, precipitate violent communal conflict. To examine this argument, we rely on a series of ho…
Buying Peace? Oil Wealth, Corruption and Civil War, 1985-99
This article argues that, contrary to received wisdom, political corruption is not necessarily associated with a higher risk of civil war in oil-rich states. Political corruption can be used to accommodate opposition and placate restive groups by offering private privilege in exchange for political loyalty. Since oil wealth is associated with large rents accruing in state treasuries, it provides an economic foundation for such clientelist rule. T…
Farming or Fighting? Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa
Offsetting Losses: Bargaining Power and Rebel Attacks on Peacekeepers
In recent years, international third parties have increasingly sought to manage the dire consequences of civil war, often by deploying peacekeeping operations. However, peacekeepers sometimes face deliberate attacks by armed groups. These attacks hamper efforts to provide humanitarian relief and security. This raises a critical question: what factors lead rebel groups to target peacekeepers? We argue that internal conflict dynamics are important …
Mapping blue helmets: Introducing the Geocoded Peacekeeping Operations (Geo-PKO) dataset
In this article, we introduce the Geocoded Peacekeeping Operations (Geo-PKO) dataset, which presents new data on subnational peacekeeping deployment for all UN missions to Africa, 1994-2014. The Geo-PKO dataset is the most comprehensive dataset of its kind and enables scholars to address new questions about peacekeeping operations and their effects by exploring variations in peacekeeping at the subnational level. The dataset offers information on…
Is the hidden hand an iron fist? Capitalism and civil peace, 1970-2005
There is surprisingly little empirical scholarship on the spread of capitalistic economic policies under the rubric of 'globalization' and domestic peace. While the classical liberals saw free markets leading to social harmony because of self-interest of individuals, who cooperate for profit, Marxists and others viewed markets as anarchical, requiring state intervention for obtaining justice and peace. The authors argue from an opportunity-cost p…
The rise of rebel contenders: Barriers to entry and fragmentation in civil wars
Fragmentation of armed opposition movements through the rise of new rebel groups constitutes a significant challenge to conflict termination and peacebuilding. Yet, the question of why some rebel movements remain cohesive whereas others see a number of contending groups during the course of the armed conflict has received limited attention in existing research. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the determinants of the rise of rebel con…
Introducing the Deadly Electoral Conflict Dataset (Deco)
This article introduces the Deadly Electoral Conflict dataset (DECO): a global, georeferenced event dataset on electoral violence with lethal outcomes from 1989 to 2017. DECO allows for empirical evaluation of theories relating to the timing, location, and dynamics of deadly electoral violence. By clearly distinguishing electoral violence from related (and sometimes concurrent) instances of organized violence, DECO is particularly suitable for in…
Including peace: The Influence of Electoral Management Bodies on Electoral Violence
What accounts for the difference between peaceful and violent elections in semi-authoritarian countries? This article analyses the influence of electoral management bodies (EMBs) on the likelihood of widespread violence triggered by opposition protest during election times. It is argued that by establishing inclusive and collaborative relationships through which political actors can jointly negotiate important electoral issues, EMBs influence the…
A Conditional Model of Local Income Shock and Civil Conflict
Common political economy models point to rationalist motives for engaging in conflict but say little about how income shocks translate into collective violence in some cases but not in others. Grievance models, in contrast, focus on structural origins of shared frustration but offer less insight into when the deprived decide to challenge the status quo. Addressing these lacunae, we develop a theoretical model of civil conflict that predicts incom…
Which Institutions Matter? Re-Considering the Democratic Civil Peace
Despite decades of research, there is no consensus on the relationship between democratic institutions and risk of civil war. We alleviate measurement issues and theoretical ambiguity in much existing work by theoretically and empirically unpacking core features of democracy and their relationship to civil war. We distinguish between institutions that impose vertical constraints on leaders from the population at large, and institutions that allow…
Political party strength and electoral violence
Existing research on the causes of electoral violence has focused on structural determinants and election-specific characteristics but has paid less attention to the role of political agents that contest elections. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between the organizational strength of political parties and the risk of electoral violence. The study argues that strong political parties enhance the prospect for peaceful e…
Introducing the Ethnic One-Sided Violence dataset
This article introduces the Ethnic One-Sided Violence dataset (EOSV) that provides information on the ethnic identity of civilian victims of direct and deliberate killings by state and non-state actors from 1989 to 2013. The EOSV dataset disaggregates the civilian victims in the one-sided violence dataset from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program by identifying which ethnic group they belong to, using the list of politically relevant ethnic groups f…
ViEWS: A political violence early-warning system
This article presents ViEWS - a political violence early-warning system that seeks to be maximally transparent, publicly available, and have uniform coverage, and sketches the methodological innovations required to achieve these objectives. ViEWS produces monthly forecasts at the country and subnational level for 36 months into the future and all three UCDP types of organized violence: state-based conflict, non-state conflict, and one-sided viole…
Property rights in dictatorships: Kings Protect Property Better Than Generals or Party Bosses
This paper investigates whether types of dictatorships differ systematically when it comes to the protection of property rights. Differentiating between monarchies, military regimes, one-party and multiparty autocracies, the paper argues that different dictatorial institutions create different incentives to protect property and enforce contracts by influencing the time horizon of the ruling elite. Where rulers fear losing power and regime insider…
Electoral Violence, Partisan Identity, and Perceptions of Election Quality: A Survey Experiment in West Bengal, India
What are the consequences of election violence for citizens' political attitudes? We argue that in polarized contexts, citizens' interpretation of electoral violence depends on their partisan affiliations. When presented with information alleging co-partisans' involvement in violence, people with strong partisan identities become more likely to assert that elections were free and fair. We test this expectation with a vignette experiment in West B…
Protecting the Vote? Peacekeeping Presence and the Risk of Electoral Violence
Democracy assistance, including the promotion of electoral security, is often a central component of contemporary peacekeeping operations. Preventing violence during post-conflict elections is critical for the war-to-democracy transition. Yet little is known about the role of peacekeepers in this effort. To fill this gap, this study provides the first comprehensive sub-national study of peacekeeping effectiveness in reducing the risk of electoral…
Coercion, Co-optation, or Cooperation: State Capacity and the Risk of Civil War, 1961—2004
Recent research identifies state capacity as a crucial determinant of civil peace. Scholars often interpret the association between wealth and peace as state capacity effects, but they have not clearly distinguished the impact of administrative reach and capacity for coercion from those effects that may capture good governance related to the provision of political goods and quality of institutions.We revisit the relationship between state capacit…
Buying Peace? Oil Wealth, Corruption and Civil War, 1985-99
This article argues that, contrary to received wisdom, political corruption is not necessarily associated with a higher risk of civil war in oil-rich states. Political corruption can be used to accommodate opposition and placate restive groups by offering private privilege in exchange for political loyalty. Since oil wealth is associated with large rents accruing in state treasuries, it provides an economic foundation for such clientelist rule. T…
Generals, Dictators, and Kings: Authoritarian Regimes and Civil Conflict, 1973—2004
Recent years have seen a surge of literature examining how political institutions influence the risk of civil conflict. A comparatively neglected aspect of this debate has been the heterogeneous impact of different forms of authoritarianism. In this article, I theoretically and empirically unpack the authoritarian regime category. I argue that authoritarian regimes differ both in their capacity to forcefully control opposition and in their abilit…
Is the hidden hand an iron fist? Capitalism and civil peace, 1970-2005
There is surprisingly little empirical scholarship on the spread of capitalistic economic policies under the rubric of 'globalization' and domestic peace. While the classical liberals saw free markets leading to social harmony because of self-interest of individuals, who cooperate for profit, Marxists and others viewed markets as anarchical, requiring state intervention for obtaining justice and peace. The authors argue from an opportunity-cost p…
Rebels against Rebels: Explaining Violence between Rebel Groups
Rebel groups that confront the government frequently become engaged in fierce and violent struggles with other groups. Why does a rebel group who is already fighting with the government become engaged in yet another struggle, thereby sacrificing scarce resources in the fight against other rebel groups? This article addresses this puzzle by providing the first global study on the determinants of interrebel violence. The authors argue that this vio…
Climate triggers: Rainfall anomalies, vulnerability and communal conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
Property rights in dictatorships: Kings Protect Property Better Than Generals or Party Bosses
This paper investigates whether types of dictatorships differ systematically when it comes to the protection of property rights. Differentiating between monarchies, military regimes, one-party and multiparty autocracies, the paper argues that different dictatorial institutions create different incentives to protect property and enforce contracts by influencing the time horizon of the ruling elite. Where rulers fear losing power and regime insider…
Including peace: The Influence of Electoral Management Bodies on Electoral Violence
What accounts for the difference between peaceful and violent elections in semi-authoritarian countries? This article analyses the influence of electoral management bodies (EMBs) on the likelihood of widespread violence triggered by opposition protest during election times. It is argued that by establishing inclusive and collaborative relationships through which political actors can jointly negotiate important electoral issues, EMBs influence the…
One effect to rule them all? A comment on climate and conflict
A recent Climatic Change review article reports a remarkable convergence of scientific evidence for a link between climatic events and violent intergroup conflict, thus departing markedly from other contemporary assessments of the empirical literature. This commentary revisits the review in order to understand the discrepancy. We believe the origins of the disagreement can be traced back to the review article’s underlying quantitative meta-analys…
Farming or Fighting? Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa
Socioeconomic Inequality and Communal Conflict: A Disaggregated Analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990–2008
This article examines the role of economic inequality in influencing the risk of armed conflict between communal groups in Sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that socioeconomic inequality can generate intergroup grievances, which, due to the exclusionary legitimacy of the African state and elite incentives to engage in competitive mobilization of communal groups, precipitate violent communal conflict. To examine this argument, we rely on a series of ho…
Political Corruption and Institutional Stability
Weakening the Enemy: A Disaggregated Study of Violence against Civilians in Africa
While case-based narratives from civil wars often stress the ethnic dimension of civilian atrocities, cross-national studies have found limited evidence in support of such contentions. Addressing this debate, we argue that warring actors often use ethnic affiliation to identify groups of suspected enemy supporters when individual wartime affiliations are not known. Since warring actors depend on their civilian constituencies for support, collecti…
Pre-designing democracy: Institutional Design of Interim Governments and Democratization in 15 Post-Conflict Societies
Does the institutional design of interim governments influence post-conflict democratization? Based on the logic of political engineering we examine whether designing interim regimes to incorporate inclusive representation of all warring parties, constraints on executive power, and decentralized governance enhances the prospects of post-conflict democratization. By analysing 15 interim regimes between 1989 and 2006, we find that while inclusivene…
Offsetting Losses: Bargaining Power and Rebel Attacks on Peacekeepers
In recent years, international third parties have increasingly sought to manage the dire consequences of civil war, often by deploying peacekeeping operations. However, peacekeepers sometimes face deliberate attacks by armed groups. These attacks hamper efforts to provide humanitarian relief and security. This raises a critical question: what factors lead rebel groups to target peacekeepers? We argue that internal conflict dynamics are important …
Electoral Institutions and Electoral Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa
Political violence remains a pervasive feature of electoral dynamics in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, even where multiparty elections have become the dominant mode of regulating access to political power. With cross-national data on electoral violence in Sub-Saharan African elections between 1990 and 2010, this article develops and tests a theory that links the use of violent electoral tactics to the high stakes put in place by majoritari…
Ethnic politics and elite competition: The roots of electoral violence in Kenya
The rise of rebel contenders: Barriers to entry and fragmentation in civil wars
Fragmentation of armed opposition movements through the rise of new rebel groups constitutes a significant challenge to conflict termination and peacebuilding. Yet, the question of why some rebel movements remain cohesive whereas others see a number of contending groups during the course of the armed conflict has received limited attention in existing research. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the determinants of the rise of rebel con…
Introducing the Ethnic One-Sided Violence dataset
This article introduces the Ethnic One-Sided Violence dataset (EOSV) that provides information on the ethnic identity of civilian victims of direct and deliberate killings by state and non-state actors from 1989 to 2013. The EOSV dataset disaggregates the civilian victims in the one-sided violence dataset from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program by identifying which ethnic group they belong to, using the list of politically relevant ethnic groups f…
Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians
Are UN peacekeepers effective in protecting civilians from violence? Existing studies examine this issue at the country level, thereby making it difficult to isolate the effect of peacekeepers and to assess the actual mechanism at work. We provide the first comprehensive evaluation of UN peacekeeping success in protecting civilians at the subnational level. We argue that peacekeepers through their sizable local presence can increase the political…
The Consequences of Contention: Understanding the Aftereffects of Political Conflict and Violence
What are the political and economic consequences of contention (i.e., genocide, civil war, state repression/human rights violation, terrorism, and protest)? Despite a significant amount of interest as well as quantitative research, the literature on this subject remains underdeveloped and imbalanced across topic areas. To date, investigations have been focused on particular forms of contention and specific consequences. While this research has le…
ViEWS: A political violence early-warning system
This article presents ViEWS - a political violence early-warning system that seeks to be maximally transparent, publicly available, and have uniform coverage, and sketches the methodological innovations required to achieve these objectives. ViEWS produces monthly forecasts at the country and subnational level for 36 months into the future and all three UCDP types of organized violence: state-based conflict, non-state conflict, and one-sided viole…
Mapping blue helmets: Introducing the Geocoded Peacekeeping Operations (Geo-PKO) dataset
In this article, we introduce the Geocoded Peacekeeping Operations (Geo-PKO) dataset, which presents new data on subnational peacekeeping deployment for all UN missions to Africa, 1994-2014. The Geo-PKO dataset is the most comprehensive dataset of its kind and enables scholars to address new questions about peacekeeping operations and their effects by exploring variations in peacekeeping at the subnational level. The dataset offers information on…
Electoral violence and the legacy of authoritarian rule in Kenya and Zambia
Why do the first multiparty elections after authoritarian rule turn violent in some countries but not in others? This article places legacies from the authoritarian past at the core of an explanation of when democratic openings become associated with electoral violence in multi-ethnic states, and complement existing research focused on the immediate conditions surrounding the elections. We argue that authoritarian rule characterized by more exclu…
Political party strength and electoral violence
Existing research on the causes of electoral violence has focused on structural determinants and election-specific characteristics but has paid less attention to the role of political agents that contest elections. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between the organizational strength of political parties and the risk of electoral violence. The study argues that strong political parties enhance the prospect for peaceful e…
Political science (39 works) · Law (32 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (30 works) · Politics (28 works) · Political economy (25 works) · Law (23 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Economics (20 works) · Democracy (16 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (10 works)