{"id":2778,"date":"2010-07-05T09:00:55","date_gmt":"2010-07-05T13:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/site\/?p=2778"},"modified":"2011-08-04T08:18:53","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T12:18:53","slug":"online_51_ndulo_lulo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2010\/07\/online_51_ndulo_lulo\/","title":{"rendered":"Free and Fair Elections, Violence and Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><strong>Introduction*<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Elections are a defining characteristic of democracy, and thus form an integral\u00a0part of the democratization process. \u00a0Over the past decade, electoral systems and\u00a0processes have become a centerpiece of UN peacekeeping missions and post-conflict\u00a0democratization projects undertaken by intergovernmental organizations and donor\u00a0agencies such as World Bank and USAID. The emphasis on elections as an element\u00a0of UN peacekeeping missions is linked to a shift in focus to state rebuilding (or state\u00a0creation, as was the case in East Timor). \u00a0Elections thus provide a means for \u201cjump-starting a new, post-conflict political order; for stimulating the development of\u00a0democratic politics; for choosing representatives; for forming governments; and for\u00a0conferring legitimacy upon the new political order.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Recent election-related violence in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Kenya,\u00a0and Zimbabwe have led some to question whether elections reduce the risk of\u00a0conflict and in fact lead to stability, democracy, peace and development. For example,\u00a0Havard Hegre and Hanne Fjelde have recently argued that there is no evidence that\u00a0post-war elections reduce conflict in the short term, but rather that electoral processes\u00a0are associated with heightened risk of civil war. \u00a0Such violence is often attributed to a\u00a0lack of \u201csecurity\u201d before elections take place. \u00a0There is thus an arguably growing view\u00a0that security should be the dispositive pre-requisite for the organization of postconflict elections.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>* This excerpt does not include citations. To read the entire article, including supporting notes, please download the PDF.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction* Elections are a defining characteristic of democracy, and thus form an integral\u00a0part of the democratization process. \u00a0Over the past [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-2778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-series","tag-peacekeeping"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZu3S-IO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}