Nine contributors offer pioneering work on the scope and nature of electoral violence in Africa; investigate the forms electoral violence takes; and analyze the factors that precipitate, reduce, and prevent violence. The book breaks new ground with findings from the only known dataset of electoral violence in sub-Saharan Africa, spanning 1990 to 2008. Specific case studies of electoral violence in countries such as Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria provide the context to further understanding the circumstances under which electoral violence takes place, recedes, or recurs.

Multiparty elections have become the bellwether by which all democracies are judged, and the spread of these systems across Africa has been widely hailed as a sign of the continent’s progress towards stability and prosperity. But such elections bring their own challenges, particularly the often intense internecine violence following disputed results. While the consequences of such violence can be profound, undermining the legitimacy of the democratic process and in some cases plunging countries into civil war or renewed dictatorship, little is known about the causes. By mapping, analysing and comparing instances of election violence in different localities across Africa – including Kenya, Ivory Coast and Uganda – this collection of detailed case studies sheds light on the underlying dynamics and sub-national causes behind electoral conflicts, revealing them to be the result of a complex interplay between democratisation and the older, patronage-based system of ‘Big Man’ politics. Essential for scholars and policymakers across the social sciences and humanities interested in democratization, peace-keeping and peace studies, Violence in African Elections provides important insights into why some communities prove more prone to electoral violence than others, offering practical suggestions for preventing violence through improved electoral monitoring, voter education, and international assistance.

An analysis of land and natural resource conflict as a source of political violence, focusing on election violence in Kenya.

After years of economic and social crisis, Zimbabweans went to the polls in March 2008 to vote for members of parliament, local government councillors and a president. The ruling ZANU(PF) party's defeat in the 2000 constitutional referendum created shockwaves that echoed into the new millennium. The harmonized March 2008 elections saw the party lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since Independence, and left the hitherto impregnable Robert Mugabe trailing behind Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential poll. Defying the Winds of Change reviews the social and economic context of the election, its coverage in the media, its legitimacy, and the consequences of the decision to hold a presidential run-off three months later. The intervening period was marked by the worst violence the country had seen in twenty years: many were killed, hundreds injured, thousands displaced. Tsvangirai withdrew from the run-off to prevent even more bloodshed, leaving Mugabe to win a hollow victory in an election that was condemned throughout the world. Defying the Winds of Change is a penetrating analysis of the political turmoil that spawned Zimbabwe's power-sharing government, and laid the foundations for a new political future.

The authors of this ambitious book address a fundamental political question: why are leaders who produce peace and prosperity turned out of office while those who preside over corruption, war, and misery endure? Considering this political puzzle, they also answer the related economic question of why some countries experience successful economic development and others do not. The authors construct a provocative theory on the selection of leaders and present specific formal models from which their central claims can be deduced. They show how political leaders allocate resources and how institutions for selecting leaders create incentives for leaders to pursue good and bad public policy. They also extend the model to explain the consequences of war on political survival. Throughout the book, they provide illustrations from history, ranging from ancient Sparta to Vichy France, and test the model against statistics gathered from cross-national data. The authors explain the political intuition underlying their theory in nontechnical language, reserving formal proofs for chapter appendixes. They conclude by presenting policy prescriptions based on what has been demonstrated theoretically and empirically.

Explores the history and significance of election violence in Zimbabwe from the 1980s to the present day.

Zimbabwe¿s July 2013 election brought the country¿s ¿inclusive¿ power-sharing interlude to an end and installed Mugabe and ZANU-PF for yet another¿its seventh¿term. Why? What explains the resilience of authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe? Tracing the country¿s elusive search for political stability across the decades, Michael Bratton offers a careful analysis of the failed power-sharing experiment, an account of its institutional origins, and an explanation of its demise. In the process, he explores key challenges of political transition: constitution making, elections, security-sector reform, and transitional justice.

The 2013 general elections in Zimbabwe were widely expected to mark a shift in the nation's political system, and a greater role for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. However, the results, surprisingly, were overwhelmingly in favour of long-time President Robert Mugabe, who swept the presidential, parliamentary and senatorial polls under relatively credible and peaceful conditions. In this book, a valuable and accessible read for both students and scholars working in African politics, and those with a general interest in the politics of the region, Stephen Chan and Julia Gallagher explore the domestic and international context of these landmark elections. Drawing on extensive research among political elites, grassroots activists and ordinary voters, Chan and Gallagher examine the key personalities, dramatic events, and broader social and political context of Mugabe's success, and what this means as Zimbabwe moves towards a future without Mugabe.

Methodology -- I. Background -- A History of Impunity -- Impunity in the Context of Elections -- II. Impunity and International Law -- III. Impunity through Amnesties and Clemency -- IV. Failure to Investigate and Prosecute Serious Political Crimes -- V. Failure to Investigate Torture by State Agents -- VI. Response of the Power-Sharing Government -- Recommendations -- To the Government of National Unity -- To the Member States of the Southern African Development Community -- To the European Union and the United States.