from Part II - Determinants of Election Violence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2020
Chapter 6 analyzes the escalation and production of electoral violence, with a focus on Kenya’s 2007–2008 postelection. The main question asks how land narratives shape the escalation and occurrence of violence. Using a process-tracing approach based on qualitative evidence from three communities in Nakuru County, the chapter demonstrates how land narratives contribute to the production of election violence. I take the reader through four stages in the escalation of electoral violence. These stages include: (1) the mobilization of land narratives, (2) the trigger event, (3) local escalation, and (4) scale-shift. As part of this analysis, the chapter explains how different logics of violence, from preemption, opportunities to alter the status quo, revenge, and desire for material gain play out at these different stages. Broadly, the chapter shows how local land narratives can provide a key discursive tool through which both elites and ordinary civilians establish motives for organizing and engaging in violence.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.