Armed challengers strike at elections where state capacity is weak

Evidence

For a very different picture, look up the Annual Register entry for Peru in the same year, remembering the Peruvian regime’s precarious location at the edge of democracy and in a zone of uncertain governmental capacity: … Violence escalated steeply, 690 deaths being recorded in the first three months of the year. On 28 April the Peruvian army successfully ambushed a column of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) near the village of Molinos (in Junin department), killing 62. But the hard-line Maoist Sendero Luminoso (SL) remained active. Following the assassination of a deputy of the ruling Aprista Party on 6 May, the Prime Minister, Armando Villanueva del Campo, resigned and was immediately replaced by the 88-yearold First Vice-President, Luis Alberto Sanchez… . … On 10 May the SL declared an “armed strike” in the central Andean departments of Junin, Pasco and Huancano, whereafter both the violence and criticism of President Alan García spread rapidly. The death on 25 May of a British tourist at Olleros (Ancash department) was thought to represent a deliberate extension of violence. An “armed strike” in Lima in July was successful in keeping the buses off the streets and closed many shops in the shanty towns but had little effect on industry. Later in the year SL tactics focused on the disruption of the municipal elections on 12 November. A daring demonstration in the heart of Lima on 1 November became a lengthy gun-battle in which several passers-by were casualties, and led President García to place the capital under martial law. In the countryside, where more than 50 mayors had been killed and many candidates had in consequence withdrawn, it proved impossible to hold elections in some sparsely-populated areas. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 381

Categorization

• DEFINE: Contrast case: how contention against a partial democracy at the edge of state capacity differs in form from contention within consolidated democracies.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 381
• XREF: connects to: Low-capacity, nondemocratic regimes rely on military force against armed challengers — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 388; Low state capacity correlates with insurgent mass abduction and civilian militia formation — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 502; Well-organized extremist factions exploit low primary turnout to unseat even ideologically aligned incumbents — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1228 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Low-capacity, nondemocratic regimes rely on military force against armed challengers #expands (0.82) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 388
• Well-organized extremist factions exploit low primary turnout to unseat even ideologically aligned incumbents #exemplifies (0.78) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1228
• The NRA’s political power is far weaker in competitive general elections. #exemplifies (0.76)
• Low state capacity correlates with insurgent mass abduction and civilian militia formation #expands (0.75) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 502
• War-hardened nationalist parties can infiltrate state armed forces #exemplifies (0.74) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 165
• Election-centered grassroots mobilization structurally demobilizes activists after winning #complicates (0.72) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 617