Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund — Electoral violence and the legacy of authoritarian rule in Kenya and Zambia

39 published claims from this book.

• A regime controlling the security forces can still cede power peacefully in transition
• African ruling coalitions nearly always include some ethno-regional intermediaries, but inclusion depth varies
• Authoritarian coalition-building approaches shape post-transition political incentives.
• Authoritarian regime stability ultimately rests on informal patronage networks brokered by ethnic elites
• Authoritarian regimes vary in how inclusively they build ethnic ruling coalitions.
• Authoritarian regimes’ breadth of ethnic inclusion shapes post-transition electoral violence risk.
• Authoritarian-era coalition-building logics explain later divergence in electoral violence between Kenya and Zambia.
• Authoritarian-era institutional choices can shape political behavior after democratic openings.
• Authoritarian-era rhetoric norms constrain whether elites can later mobilize voters through ethnic hostility.
• Authoritarian-rule legacies plausibly drive electoral violence beyond Africa
• Divided opposition let Moi’s KANU win with minority support in 1992.
• Electoral irregularities can stem from incompetence rather than manipulation
• Electoral violence in ethnically divided societies erupts when elections become ethnic head counts.
• Ethnic balancing under authoritarian rule built cooperative Zambian elites
• Exclusionary authoritarian coalitions seed later electoral violence while inclusive ones do not.
• Exclusionary authoritarian regimes cultivate zero-sum perceptions that outlast them and drive electoral violence
• Exclusionary ethnic coalition-building emerged only after Kenya’s broad early post-independence ruling alliance.
• Exclusionary versus cooperative elite coalition legacies shape post-transition electoral violence risk.
• Inclusive authoritarian legacies reduce zero-sum ethnic politics during democratic transitions
• Inclusive clientelist patronage across ethnic elites can dampen inter-ethnic rivalry
• Inclusive versus exclusive authoritarian ruling coalitions shape electoral violence risk.
• Incumbent-led militia violence can strategically exploit land conflicts to deter opposition support.
• Kenneth Kaunda’s Zambia confined ethnic competition by banning rival parties early on
• Kenya and Zambia share parallel histories of single-party rule and ethnic geography
• Kenya’s regime only legalized multiparty politics under combined domestic protest and donor aid suspension.
• Kenya’s ruling coalition demoted and penalized the Luo as second-class citizens
• Kenya’s single-party rule used shifting ethnic coalition-building to concentrate state access in few groups.
• Lifting authoritarian repression explains only some post-transition ethnic violence.
• Moi’s patronage politics deliberately heightened ethnic salience for regime survival
• Multi-party democratization can proceed peacefully when ruling elites accept defeat and step aside
• Narrow authoritarian coalitions raise mobilization stakes and zero-sum perceptions among excluded groups.
• Patronage-based ethnic mobilization fosters zero-sum perceptions and fragmented opposition.
• Perceived regional imbalance in Zambia’s ruling party fed recurring accusations of ethnic bias
• Preventing ethnic dominance reduces electoral violence during democratic transitions
• Regime capacity to mobilize violence depends on patron-client networks and assets
• Zambia’s 1990 transition united leaders across ethnic lines
• Zambia’s independence movement escalated from passive to active resistance before independence
• Zambia’s one-party state suppressed ethnic mobilization through balancing and unifying rhetoric
• Zambia’s single-party state avoided ethnically skewed resource distribution