Political Violence in Democracies

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The puzzle of political violence in democracies is the central theme of this panel. Democratic institutions help process conflicts relatively peacefully. Indeed, democracies have succeed in constraining incumbents from engaging in the worst excesses. For example, instances of large scale violence such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, repression, or civil war are much less common in democratic regimes. But political violence in democracies, even if on a lower scale, remains surprisingly common. For example, violence against immigrants and other minorities happens routinely in democracies in the Global North and South. Similarly, concerns about violence against voters, political candidates, and election officials have increased in recent years, even in wealthy democracies such as the United States. Finally, terrorism continues to affect democracies more than any other type of regime. Scholarship on political polarization, radical parties, hate crimes, electoral violence, ethnic violence, and terrorism has studied violent tendencies in democracies; but often in isolation and without problematizing their persistence in democratic contexts. In this direction, this panel seeks to examine the puzzling persistence of violence in democracies. It challenges prevailing prescriptive views on the incompatibility of violence and democracy, suggesting instead that democratic competition can create rather than curb incentives for some forms of violence. For example, citizens may abhor violence in principle and condemn it in the abstract, but even in democracies, voters are rarely willing or able to punish co-partisans or co-ethnics who sponsor or support violence. Moreover, in light of the success of radical right and ethnonationalist parties in democracies around the world, it seems that political elites can benefit from condoning or inciting violence rather than be punished for it. Papers in this panel advance our knowledge on four themes pertaining to the persistence of violence: i) Popular support for violence; ii) Elite motives for violence; iii) The legitimization of violence; and iv) Exposure to political violence and effects on democracy.

Sub Unit

• Division 21: Conflict Processes

Individual Presentations

• Democracy Dismissed: When Leaders and Citizens Choose Election Violence - Kathleen Klaus, Uppsala University

• Does Violence Breed Radicalization? Evidence from US Twitter after Capitol Riots - Krzysztof Krakowski, King’s College London; Juan S. Morales, Wilfrid Laurier University

• Unexpected Democrats? Protecting Democratic Norms Given Affective Polarization - Morgan Le Corre Juratic, Aarhus University; Markus Wagner, University of Vienna; Daniel Bischof, Aarhus University

• Sowing Discord: How Violence Transforms Political Identities and Cleavages - Ursula E. Daxecker, University of Amsterdam; Neeraj Vimal Prasad, University of Amsterdam

• Consequences of Indirect Exposure to Violence for Descriptive Representation - Thomas Tichelbaecker, Princeton University

Chair

• Ursula E. Daxecker University of Amsterdam

Discussants

• Gareth Nellis University of California, San Diego

• Neeraj Vimal Prasad University of Amsterdam