Date of Award

1-1-2019

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

Josef Korbel School of International Studies

First Advisor

Timothy D. Sisk, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Martin Rhodes

Third Advisor

Seth Masket

Keywords

Africa, Electoral systems, Electoral violence, Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

An increasing trend of violent elections is undermining the former optimism over multi-party elections in Africa. Electoral systems are frequently associated with election violence, but the effects of different systems are relatively unknown. This study addresses this gap and assesses whether conditions for electoral violence are greater under certain electoral systems compared to others. Using a new time-series cross sectional (TSCS) dataset, I conduct an analysis of election violence in sub-Saharan Africa from 1995-2013. Overall, I find evidence for the violence-permitting nature of majoritarian systems, and the violence-constraining nature of proportional representation systems. These findings remain after controlling for the timing of violence (in relation to the election), the effect of informal institutions, and the presence of violence-mobilizing factors.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Gavin Kiger

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

85 p.

Discipline

Political science

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