{"title":"Narratives of Electoral Violence: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria","authors":"Faith I. Okpotor","doi":"10.1080/21520844.2020.1848139","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article addresses post-election violence (PEV) in Africa by drawing on the lived experiences of respondents in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria. It takes an actor-centered approach steeped in interpretivism and reflexivity in analyzing Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010–2011 and Nigeria’s 2011 PEV. It examines PEV from the viewpoint of a variety of actors, including political party leaders, party activists, electoral commission officials, non-governmental organization (NGO) officials, academics, scholars, and human rights experts. With attention to methodological and personal positionality, the study draws on interviews conducted in 2014 and 2015. It also analyzes the dominant discourses that contributed to a violent reaction to a contested election outcome, and thus highlights the socially-constructed conditions that allow for the possibility of violence. Salient issues arising from these narratives include: the role of decades-long unresolved violence episodes in fueling PEV, the role of political leaders in exploiting grievances associated with these past violence episodes, and the power of electoral violence prevention strategies targeted at principal actors in curbing the progression to violence.","PeriodicalId":37893,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Middle East and Africa","volume":"11 1","pages":"431 - 450"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/21520844.2020.1848139","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the Middle East and Africa","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2020.1848139","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT This article addresses post-election violence (PEV) in Africa by drawing on the lived experiences of respondents in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria. It takes an actor-centered approach steeped in interpretivism and reflexivity in analyzing Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010–2011 and Nigeria’s 2011 PEV. It examines PEV from the viewpoint of a variety of actors, including political party leaders, party activists, electoral commission officials, non-governmental organization (NGO) officials, academics, scholars, and human rights experts. With attention to methodological and personal positionality, the study draws on interviews conducted in 2014 and 2015. It also analyzes the dominant discourses that contributed to a violent reaction to a contested election outcome, and thus highlights the socially-constructed conditions that allow for the possibility of violence. Salient issues arising from these narratives include: the role of decades-long unresolved violence episodes in fueling PEV, the role of political leaders in exploiting grievances associated with these past violence episodes, and the power of electoral violence prevention strategies targeted at principal actors in curbing the progression to violence.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, the flagship publication of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to include both the entire continent of Africa and the Middle East within its purview—exploring the historic social, economic, and political links between these two regions, as well as the modern challenges they face. Interdisciplinary in its nature, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa approaches the regions from the perspectives of Middle Eastern and African studies as well as anthropology, economics, history, international law, political science, religion, security studies, women''s studies, and other disciplines of the social sciences and humanities. It seeks to promote new research to understand better the past and chart more clearly the future of scholarship on the regions. The histories, cultures, and peoples of the Middle East and Africa long have shared important commonalities. The traces of these linkages in current events as well as contemporary scholarly and popular discourse reminds us of how these two geopolitical spaces historically have been—and remain—very much connected to each other and central to world history. Now more than ever, there is an acute need for quality scholarship and a deeper understanding of the Middle East and Africa, both historically and as contemporary realities. The Journal of the Middle East and Africa seeks to provide such understanding and stimulate further intellectual debate about them for the betterment of all.