• Elite manipulation: fomenting violence
  • motive
  • opportunity
• What is the evidence? Does this work?

Why do elites encourage violence?

• increase chances of winning elections
• why? Anticipate that violence will unify ethnic community behind ethnic party

Key empirical implications:

• ethnic parties stand to gain from violence, should encourage it
• non-ethnic parties stand to lose, should stop violence
• violence is more likely near elections, and when elections are competitive (close)
• violence should actually affect voting

What enables elites to foment/stop violence? In India…

• Brass (2004): “institutionalized riot networks”
  • patronage networks connecting low-level party officials, Hindu nationalist organizations, criminals, police officials
  • can be used even when not holding office
• Nellis et al (2016): MLAs have patronage netorks, power over police, to defuse/stop ethnic violence

Berenschot (2011):

• “institutionalized riot networks” are really just everyday political networks
  • Patronage and access to state services/resources
  • Political influence over capacities for violence (police/crime)
  • Delhi Riots
• political parties with different interests mobilize these networks differently.

Ethnic parties have motive to foment violence when elections are competitive and opportunity to foment violence

Non-ethnic parties have motive to reduce violence and opportunity to reduce violence when they hold office

Berenschot (2011):

In Ahmedabad (Gujarat) during 2002 riots:

• Mixed Dalit-Muslim neighborhood with BJP (Hindu party) patronage network saw mobilization for violence
• Mixed Dalit-Muslim neighborhood with Congress (multi-ethnic party) patronage network saw mobilization to defuse violence

Key empirical implications:

• ethnic parties stand to gain from violence, should encourage it (anectdotally)
• non-ethnic parties stand to lose, should stop violence
• violence is more likely near elections, and when elections are competitive (close)
• violence should actually affect voting

Wilkinson (2004) looks at riots in towns in Uttar Pradesh

• towns are more likely to experience riots when elections are less than 6 months away
• towns in which the last MLA election was won by \(<5\%\) more likely to experience riots

In small groups:

• Is this evidence that parties use violence strategically (when elections are competitive)?
• Are there other possible interpretations? (correlation \(\neq\) causation)

Heightened ethnic tensions for another reason (e.g., nationalist propaganda, prior violence, etc.)

• may cause elections to be competitive
• may make additional riots more likely

Hard to know that competition causes riots to be more likely.

Key empirical implications:

• ethnic parties stand to gain from violence, should encourage it (anectdotally)
• non-ethnic parties stand to lose, should stop violence
• violence is more likely near elections, and when elections are competitive (close) (maybe)
• violence should actually affect voting

How would we know whether riots benefit ethnic / hurt non-ethnic parties at the polls?

• comparing places with riots to places without?
• comparing election results in a place before/after riots?
• comparing changes in election results in places with riots against places without

Nellis et al (2016) find that riot in the year prior to an election…

• decreases votes for Congress Party (multi-ethnic) at the next election, compared to places without riot
• increases votes for BJP (Hindu ethnic party) at the next election, compared to places without riot

Iyer and Shrivastava (2018) exploit “as-if random” riots to find the effect of riots on BJP (ethnic party) voteshare:

• look at riots occurring when Hindu festivals fall on Friday (Muslim holy day)
• these occur due to arbitrary overlap in religious calendars, inducing precipitating events
• find that riots increase BJP voteshare

Key empirical implications:

• ethnic parties stand to gain from violence, should encourage it (anectdotally)
• non-ethnic parties stand to lose, should stop violence
• violence is more likely near elections, and when elections are competitive (close) (maybe)
• violence should actually affect voting (yes)

Nellis et al(2016) find that:

1. riots hurt Congress party electorally
2. Congress party historically depends on Muslim voters

Does electing a Congress MLA cause a constituency to have fewer riots?

• when the non-ethnic party has both motive and opportunity, does it work to inhibit ethnic violence?

How would we know whether Congress MLAs stop riots?

• compare places with/without Congress MLAs?
• could there be bias in this comparison?

Nellis et al (2016) focus on places with random exposure to Congress MLA:

• Compare constituencies where Congress barely won (by \(<1\%\)) to where Congress barely lost (by \(<1\%\))
• like an experiment, with treatment (Congress MLA) and control (Non-Congress MLA)
• No significant differences between constituencies where Congress won vs lost close elections.

Key empirical implications:

• ethnic parties stand to gain from violence, should encourage it (anectdotally)
• non-ethnic parties stand to lose, should stop violence (yes)
• violence is more likely near elections, and when elections are competitive (close) (maybe)
• violence should actually affect voting (yes)

• Ethnic parties have motive and opportunity to foment violence
• Substantial evidence that they actually do foment violence, that it is “works”

Questions remain:

• Why does violence win support for ethnic parties?