Elections are a democratic process intended to create peaceful and legitimate transfers of power. However, since the second and third waves of democratisation, policymakers and researchers have observed that electoral processes are transformed into arenas for political gain through violence. To counteract this destructive phenomenon, research needs to uncover why, where, how, by or on whom electoral violence occurs. A common denominator for countries that face election violence is colonial legacies. Therefore, this study attempts to explain the occurrence of electoral violence in postcolonial states through variance in colonial governance type, as they produce diverging societal aspects that can create conditions for electoral violence. The study applies an established theoretical framework from postcolonial theory on a regression testing the effect of indirect colonial rule, contra direct colonial rule on the occurrence of electoral violence. The regression results support the theory until colonial rulers and geographical location are controlled for, ultimately going against the proposed theory. However, the multivariate regression models are statistically insignificant, which makes the result of the study inconclusive. Robustness tests support the inconclusive result of the primary model and indicate the importance of segregating electoral violence based on perpetrator.

Electoral violence in democratizing countries results in hundreds of deaths each year and undermines democratic practices and the legitimacy of elections. Although identifying several societal and institutional factors increasing the risk of electoral violence, prior research has largely failed to consider gender equality when exploring the causes of electoral violence. This essay aims to fill this gap by addressing the following research question: How does gender inequality affect the occurrence of government-initiated electoral violence during the pre-election period in democratizing countries? By arguing that the norms of respect, tolerance and inviolability prevalent in societies with high levels of gender equality heighten the cost of violent tactics, I hypothesize that gender equality reduces government-initiated electoral violence. Through a qualitative cross-case analysis of the national elections in Liberia in 2011 and Guinea in 2015, this study finds evidence suggesting that gender equality has a pacifying effect on government-initiated electoral violence in the pre-election period. To some extent, the empirical data also supports the underlying mechanism, although evidence for potential alternative explanations for the relationship was also recognized. This could potentially make the observed relationship spurious and call for further research on the topic.

Elections are a core democratic process in the world to ensure a peaceful transition of power between governing actors, yet it is too often the case that violence is employed to disturb the democratic process. Incumbents’ use of violence in order to maintain power and control over the procedure has become common as political violence and autocratisation has seen an upsurge in recent years. There is a lack of previous research in how electoral violence perpetrated by incumbents against the opposition affects democratisation. This thesis aims to fill the gap and analyse the proposed relationship. Based on previous theories on the topic I suggest that electoral violence by incumbents against the opposition negatively affects democratisation. Using a time span of 1974-2018 in a quantitative analysis the results support the hypothesis. This outcome is of relevance to the future literature of electoral violence as well as policy makers looking to understand how the consequences of electoral violence fits into the greater picture of democratic consolidation.

In a quantitative study in 2007, Davenport found that autocratic military regimes statistically face a higher risk of electoral violence than authoritarian party-backed regimes. This thesis has attempted to link Davenports findings with theories on military belligerence presented by Lai and Slater (2006) as well as Geddes et al. (2014), and thereby contribute to our understanding of the matter by investigating the potential causal mechanisms connecting regime type and electoral violence. The analysis specifically focuses on differences in pre-election violence by comparing the 2008 election in Pakistan and the 2007 election in Uzbekistan. Evidence from the cases suggest that there is some support for a covariation between regime type and levels of pre-election violence, although there are alternative explanations worth considering before one can determine whether or not a causal relationship can be observed. Finally, the findings indicate that military regime belligerence or lack of knowledge on how to use nonviolent political repressive tools in order to sway the elections do not explain the observed variation. Rather, the thesis suggests that levels of pre-election violence is more likely to be affected by other conflicts in the region, the design of the election campaign and whether there are established influential opposition parties present in the country.

A handful of studies have shown that National Inter-religious Councils (NIRCs) contribute to electoral violence prevention. However, no quantitative study has evaluated the impact of their interventions and the conditions under which they lower electoral violence. Using data on African national elections from 1992-2019, I examine whether NIRCs' electoral-related peacebuilding interventions lower the severity of electoral violence and if their ability to do so depends on NIRCs' social power. The results in this thesis indicate that the presence of NIRCs' interventions during electoral rounds lowers the likelihood of severe electoral violence. The findings also reveal a significant disordinal interaction between NIRCs' interventions and their power, where the predicted probability of severe electoral violence reduces by 42% when powerful NIRCs implement peacebuilding interventions and, on the other hand, increases by 20% when less powerful NIRCs intervene. While this thesis fails to explain the disordinal interaction effect, it details this study's methodological tools and limitations and contributes an original dataset of NIRCs' interventions and power for future research.

This thesis starts by arguing that the civil conflicts that erupted in the African Great Lakes are rooted in a continuous pursuit of power, in which ethnic, regional and political identifiers are used by the contenders for power to rally community support. In an introductory chapter, I go back to the colonial era, drawing attention to Burundi and Rwanda, and then describe in more details Burundi's refugee crisis, ex-combatants' demobilization and the 2010 elections, all of which will be addressed in the subsequent chapters. <p><p>In the second chapter, entitled "On the Instrumental Power of Refugees: Household Composition and Civil War in Burundi", I study changes in household composition following household's exposure to civil war in Burundi. The analyses rely on a panel dataset collected in rural Burundi in 2005 and 2010. To address concerns over the endogenous distribution violence, I use an instrumental variables strategy using the distance to refugee camps, in which the Hutu rebellion was organized from the mid-1990s onwards. The analysis focuses on the impact of violence on demographic changes within households.<p><p>The third chapter, entitled "Who Benefited from Burundi's Demobilization Program?" and co-authored with Olivier Sterck (University of Oxford) and Philip Verwimp (ULB), assesses the impact of the demobilization cash transfers program, which took place from 2004 onwards in post-war Burundi. In the short run, we find that the cash payments had a positive impact on beneficiaries' consumption, non-food spending and investments. Importantly, it also generated positive spillovers on civilians in their home villages. However, both the direct impact and the spillovers seem to vanish in the long run. Ex-combatants' investments in assets were not productive enough to sustain their consumption pattern in the long run, as they ultimately ran out of demobilization money. <p><p>In the fourth chapter, entitled "From Rebellion to Electoral Violence. Evidence from Burundi" and co-authored with Andrea Colombo (ULB) and Olivier Sterck (University of Oxford), we aim at understanding the triggers of electoral violence in 2010, only a few months after the end of the war. We find that an acute polarization between ex-rebel groups -capturing the presence of groups with equal support - and political competition are both highly conducive to electoral violence. Disaggregating electoral violence by type, we show that these drivers explain different types of violence. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that ethnic diversity is not associated with electoral violence in post-conflict Burundi. <p><p>In the last chapter, entitled "Who Benefits from Customary Justice? Rent-seeking, Bribery and Criminality in sub-Saharan Africa" and co-authored with Olivier Sterck (University of Oxford), we have a closer look at the judicial system of Uganda, an important institution in a post-conflict economy. In many African countries, customary and statutory judicial systems co-exist. Customary justice is exercised by local courts and based on restorative principles, while statutory justice is mostly retributive and administered by magistrates' courts. As their jurisdiction often overlaps, victims can choose which judicial system to refer to, which may lead to contradictions between rules and inconsistencies in judgments. In this essay, we construct a model representing a dual judicial system and we show that this overlap encourages rent-seeking and bribery, and yields to high rates of petty crimes and civil disputes. <p><p>In Burundi, history has shown that instability in one country of the Great Lake region may destabilize the whole area, with dramatic effect on civilian population. Understanding the dynamics laying at the origin of violence, during and after civil conflict, is crucial to prevent violence relapse in any form, from petty criminality to larger scale combats. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished