Institutionalizing Peace: Election Violence and Post-Conflict Constitutions

The overarching theme of this three-article dissertation is its focus on institutions and their conditional effects on post-conflict peace. The first article begins with a broad methodological effort to construct a way to use election violence data. Existing election violence data are usually organized around events or deaths. However, using either event counts or deaths to aggregate data to the election level typically means leaving out one dimension. The first article, thus, uses event descriptions to come up with a weighting procedure to incorporate both forms of information.

The first paper lays the foundation for the second by figuring out how ‘typical’ election violence is, so that the second paper can proceed to explain how such violence can be limited. To do so, this paper looks at the relationship between post-conflict constitutions and nonviolent elections through understanding how the former works with five other mechanisms: vote buying, western monitors, election management bodies, legislative checks, and election reforms. The paper finds that post-conflict constitutions are an important explanatory condition in a unique path. However, a brief look at Chad’s 1996 election suggests that the relationship between post-conflict constitutions and nonviolent elections is not so much linked to the constraining effect of law but, rather, the removal of a reason for violence due to the consolidation of the incumbent’s power through the constitution.

Noting the potential use of constitutions as a means to consolidate power, the final paper analyzes if the liberalism of post-conflict constitutions may matter in enhancing election peace and civil liberties more specifically. This paper finds that countries with post-conflict constitutions do experience more peace if the constitutions were more liberal. Liberalism, by itself, enhances liberties, too.

This dissertation is, thus, designed to work towards an understanding of how institutions can promote post-conflict peace, which is taken to mean the respect for human life and dignity. The findings, on the whole, suggest that institutions can beget good outcomes. However, their effects may be contingent on their substance, which is the case for post-conflict constitutions, or the availability of other institutions to jointly achieve the desired outcomes, that is, peace.