As any professor who teaches about political violence can attest, it is often challenging for students to flip the script regarding their preconceived notions of the causes and nature of civil conflict. Because fighting produces appalling outcomes perpetrated by nefarious actors, many people are reasonably reluctant to embrace explanatory models with political economy foundations. Yet accepting that violence results from rational actors seeking to maximum their expected utility, even though this creates harm for society, generates many an “aha!” moment in the classroom.
In Voter Backlash and Elite Misperception: The Logic of Violence in Electoral Competition, Steven Rosenzweig seeks to flip the script once more. In a rare but revealing preface, he admits to his own conceptual blinders that took for granted the supposed benefits of election violence, as he set out to conduct field research in Kenya: “As the data came in, it became increasingly clear that my initial thinking was not at all in line with reality” (xv). He discovered that violence rarely helped candidates win and even produced voter backlash. Why, then, do candidates routinely use violence?....
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/articl…