Political violence in democracies: An Introduction

Abstract

It is well established that democracies experience less political violence than autocracies. Paradoxically, however, this widely accepted fact has led scholars to overlook the existence of various forms of political violence within democracies. This special issue introduction article sees political violence as collective violence aimed at achieving political goals, encompassing electoral, ethnic, criminal, and terrorist violence. It reviews what we know about variation in political violence across democracies, which turns out to be surprisingly little. The article argues that normative preconceptions, rationalist theoretical traditions, and measurement challenges may explain gaps in our knowledge, such as insufficient attention to the strategies used by violent actors, the partisan and demographic determinants of support for violence, and the purpose of violence. We proceed to introducing the 14 special issue articles, which study political violence with cutting-edge methodologies in the three most democratic regions in the world. The individual articles advance research in four key areas: (1) strategies of violent actors to avoid the accountability constraints of democracy; (2) the actors sponsoring violence; (3) the effects of political violence in democracy; and (4) the debate on popular support for political violence. Addressing theoretical and methodological shortcomings in prior work, this introduction and special issue highlight that democracy – despite its many merits – was never quite as peaceful as it may have seemed.