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Election Violence

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies

Definition

Election violence is used to influence the electoral process or the electoral actors. The purpose of election violence is to provide benefits to a particular political party, participating in the election process.

Introduction

Free and fair election acts as one of the prerequisites of a healthy democracy. But it is evident in transitional democratic countries or sometimes in established democracies that election and violence can go hand in hand threatening the credibility of the electoral process. Election violence is not a new phenomenon in many countries around the world, and different forms of electoral violence are common in practice, along with loss of life on the day of the elections and the destruction of property before, during, and after the elections (Akwei 2018).

Electoral violence may lead to casualties at a level that may place a country at the threshold of civil war. If election violence continues for several days or weeks, it can hamper ongoing peace-building...

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© 2020 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Momen, M.N., Markony, G.A.U.Z. (2020). Election Violence. In: Romaniuk, S., Thapa, M., Marton, P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_37-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_37-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74336-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74336-3

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