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An electoral process is an alternative to violence as it is a means of achieving governance through the participation of all qualified actors in society. Motivations for using violence against stakeholders or processes in an election vary greatly; but all undermine this essential purpose of elections. An electoral process that is perceived as unfair, unresponsive, or corrupt, has had its political legitimacy compromised – this can motivate stakeholders to go outside the established norms to achieve their objectives. Stakeholders may also resort to violence in election processes that are fair, responsive, and honest because they may want to ensure victory at any cost. In either scenario, stakeholders use conflict, violence, and threat as means to determine, delay, or otherwise influence the results of the election.
There are examples of elections that have exacerbated long-term conflict (Angola 1992) or have solidified conflict-related alliances (Bosnia and Herzegovina 1996). From these experiences, it is generally recognized that post-conflict elections can be held too early and produce results that may extend the conflict rather than resolve it. However, in most cases, such elections mitigate the effects of larger conflict issues and reduce them into localized, manageable incidents.
Past thinking at stemming electoral conflict and violence has been deficient because of the lack of a common framework for research and practice. A marriage of research and application has not occurred because the object of the research – analysis of electoral or political violence – is different from the concern of the practitioners – election security. For the purposes of the EVER project, electoral conflict is studied from each perspective.