Concluding Workshop for the ERC Project EVaP and Book Discussion

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Book Synopsis
Why do political parties use violence to compete in elections? The Logic of Party Violence argues that politicians and parties use violence for one of two reasons, either to deter or to mobilize participation from voters. In the first logic, incumbents use violence to deter participation, targeting opposition voters along partisan cleavages to suppress their rivals’ vote share. In the second, opposition parties use violence around secondary cleavages to make those identities politically salient and mobilize new and existing voters. The two logics have distinct implications for the patterns and consequences of violence, which the book explores with a multi-method approach in the Indian state of West Bengal. As expected by the theory, incumbent and opposition parties use violence differently; the incumbent party Trinamool Congress (TMC) uses coercion to deter the opposition from competing, while the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is involved in religious violence aiming to make Hindu identities more salient and partisan. To demonstrate the argument’s broader relevance, the book conducts analyses of other Indian states, case studies of Nigeria and Germany, and cross-national analyses. The book addresses tensions between democracy and violence that remain common in contemporary societies.