Violence in election campaigns is common across the African continent and beyond. According to some estimations, most African elections contain some degree of violence and most of this violence happens before elections, during the campaign. While campaign violence is a common problem, it affects citizens differently across localities. When violence and intimidation become an integral part of election campaigns in a locality, they become tools of sub-national authoritarianism that may effectively dismantle local democracy. This book focuses on the political geography of election violence in Africa, building on one important observation: elections in many African countries are highly regional and the support for political parties are rarely nationalized. Wahman argues that in such environments, campaign violence becomes an important tool used by parties to control and regulate access to space. Building on a wealth of data and extensive fieldwork in Zambia and Malawi, the author uses a combination of electoral geography analysis, constituency-level election violence data collected from local election monitors, focus group interviews, archival material, and individual-level survey data to show how campaign violence in both countries is used as a territorial tool, predominantly within party strongholds. Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations is a series for scholars and students working on African politics and International Relations and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on contemporary developments in African political science, political economy, and International Relations, such as electoral politics, democratization, decentralization, the political impact of natural resources, the dynamics and consequences of conflict, and the nature of the continent's engagement with the East and West. Comparative and mixed methods work is particularly encouraged. Case studies are welcomed but should demonstrate the broader theoretical and empirical implications of the study and its wider relevance to contemporary debates. The series focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, although proposals that explain how the region engages with North Africa and other parts of the world are of interest. General Editors Nic Cheeseman, Peace Medie, and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira.

The Political Logic of Poverty Relief places electoral politics and institutional design at the core of poverty alleviation. The authors develop a theory with applications to Mexico about how elections shape social programs aimed at aiding the poor. They also assess whether voters reward politicians for targeted poverty alleviation programs.

One of the most surprising developments in Mexico's transition to democracy is the outbreak of criminal wars and large-scale criminal violence. Why did Mexican drug cartels go to war as the country transitioned away from one-party rule? And why have criminal wars proliferated as democracy has consolidated and elections have become more competitive subnationally? In Votes, Drugs, and Violence, Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley develop a political theory of criminal violence in weak democracies that elucidates how democratic politics and the fragmentation of power fundamentally shape cartels' incentives for war and peace. Drawing on in-depth case studies and statistical analysis spanning more than two decades and multiple levels of government, Trejo and Ley show that electoral competition and partisan conflict were key drivers of the outbreak of Mexico's crime wars, the intensification of violence, and the expansion of war and violence to the spheres of local politics and civil society.

This book shows that Taiwan, unlike other countries, avoided serious economic disruption and social conflict, and arrived at its goal of multi-party competition with little blood shed. Nonetheless, this survey reveals that for those who imagine democracy to be the panacea for every social, economic and political ill, Taiwan's continuing struggles against corruption, isolation and division offer a cautionary lesson. This book is an ideal, one-stop resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of political science, particuarly those interested in the international politics of China, and the Asia-Pacific.

The democratization of a national government is only a first step in diffusing democracy throughout a country's territory. Even after a national government is democratized, subnational authoritarian 'enclaves' often continue to deny rights to citizens of local jurisdictions. Gibson offers new theoretical perspectives for the study of democratization in his exploration of this phenomenon. His theory of 'boundary control' captures the conflict pattern between incumbents and oppositions when a national democratic government exists alongside authoritarian provinces (or 'states'). He also reveals how federalism and the territorial organization of countries shape how subnational authoritarian regimes are built and how they unravel. Through a novel comparison of the late nineteenth-century American 'Solid South' with contemporary experiences in Argentina and Mexico, Gibson reveals that the mechanisms of boundary control are reproduced across countries and historical periods. As long as subnational authoritarian governments coexist with national democratic governments, boundary control will be at play.

This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the history of democracy in Africa and explains why the continent's democratic experiments have so often failed, as well as how they could succeed. Nic Cheeseman grapples with some of the most important questions facing Africa and democracy today, including whether international actors should try and promote democracy abroad, how to design political systems that manage ethnic diversity, and why democratic governments often make bad policy decisions. Beginning in the colonial period with the introduction of multi-party elections and ending in 2013 with the collapse of democracy in Mali and South Sudan, the book describes the rise of authoritarian states in the 1970s; the attempts of trade unions and some religious groups to check the abuse of power in the 1980s; the remarkable return of multiparty politics in the 1990s; and finally, the tragic tendency for elections to exacerbate corruption and violence.

How do discontented masses and opposition elites work together to engineer a change in electoral authoritarian regimes? Social movements and elections are often seen as operating in different terrains – outside and inside institutions, respectively. In this Element, I develop a theory to describe how a broad-based social movement that champions a grievance shared by a wide segment of the population can build alliances across society and opposition elites that, despite the rules of the game rigged against them, vote the incumbents out of power. The broad-based nature of the movement also contributes to the cohesion of the opposition alliance, and elite defection, which are often crucial for regime change. This Element examines the 2018 Malaysian election and a range of cases from other authoritarian regimes across Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa to illustrate these arguments.

Scholars and students of African politics address some of the thorniest issues of our time. Indeed, over the last thirty years or so, the subdiscipline has expanded in scope and ambition, and leads the way in major fields of research, such as the study of ethnicity and identity politics. Now, this timely new collection from Routledge brings together the classic and essential texts of African politics, creating a top-quality and easily accessible resource for students, researchers, and policymakers alike. Each volume is introduced by a comprehensive summary chapter, newly written by the editor, which both provides a valuable overview of the key trends in the literature and explains what we know, what we don't know, and what controversies remain.