Abstract:

Are post-election intimidation and violence attributable to intense electoral competition? This paper presents answers to that question based on empirical findings from an analysis of the events immediately following balloting in the 2008 general election in Zimbabwe, a time period marked by thousands of incidents involving threats and physical attacks. The scholarly warrant for this research is that post-election intimidation and violence merit research as political phenomena that are important for reasons that involve both normative and practical policy-making interests and that have not been much studied. Indeed, while the published research about intimidation and violence before and during balloting comprises a small literature, the published research about post-election intimidation and violence hardly comprises a literature at all.