What explains violence in elections?

Voters at the polls in West Bengal, India (Flickr/Al Jazeera English/Photo by Goutam Roy) - Last year, more than one hundred people died during the general elections in Nigeria. When and why do we see such violence? How can we understand why politicians sometimes engage in violence themselves, while in other cases gangs and thugs beat up or threaten voters? And how do we explain why some parts of a country experience lots of election violence while others are peaceful? UvA political scientist Ursula Daxecker received an ERC grant to study these questions. Nearly every country in the world today holds elections. Elections should in principle peacefully transfer power. But in many countries, they still often come with substantial violence. Daxecker wants to explain the nature, organisation, and consequences of election violence. 'My research wants to understand why things go wrong in elections.