Violent Victors

Why Bloodstained Parties Win Postwar Elections

Sarah Zukerman Daly

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780691231334
  9780691231327
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691231341
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Why populations brutalized in war elect their tormentors

One of the great puzzles of electoral politics is how parties that commit mass atrocities in war often win the support of victimized populations to establish the postwar political order. Violent Victors traces how parties derived from violent, wartime belligerents successfully campaign as the best providers of future societal peace, attracting votes not just from their core supporters but oftentimes also from the very people they targeted in war.

Drawing on more than two years of groundbreaking fieldwork, Sarah Daly combines case studies of victim voters in Latin America with experimental survey evidence and new data on postwar elections around the world. She argues that, contrary to oft-cited fears, postconflict elections do not necessarily give rise to renewed instability or political violence. Daly demonstrates how war-scarred citizens reward belligerent parties for promising peace and security instead of blaming them for war. Yet, in so casting their ballots, voters sacrifice justice, liberal democracy, and social welfare.

Proposing actionable interventions that can help to moderate these trade-offs, Violent Victors links war outcomes with democratic outcomes to shed essential new light on political life after war and offers global perspectives on important questions about electoral behavior in the wake of mass violence.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Political Stage, Actors, and Audience
• 3. Violent-Victors Theory of Political Behavior after War
• 4. Postwar Voters and Survey Experiments
• 5. Military Draw in El Salvador
• 6. Government Victory in Guatemala
• 7. Rebel Victory in Nicaragua
• 8. Political Life after War Globally, 1970–2015
• 9. Implications for Postwar Peace, Justice, Democracy, and Governance
• 10. Conclusion
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index