Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Nov 23, 2006 - History - 293 pages
Why do ethnic riots break out when and where they do? Why do some governments try to prevent ethnic riots while others do nothing or even participate in the violence? In this book, Steven I. Wilkinson uses collected data on Hindu-Muslim riots, socio-economic factors and competitive politics in India to test his theory that riots are fomented in order to win elections and that governments decide whether to stop them or not based on the likely electoral cost of doing so. He finds that electoral factors account for most of the state-level variation in Hindu-Muslim riots: explaining for example why riots took place in Gujarat in 2002 but not in many other states where militants tried to foment violence. The general electoral theory he develops for India is extended to Ireland, Malaysia and Romania as Wilkinson shows that similar political factors motivate ethnic violence in many different countries.
 

Contents

THE ELECTORAL INCENTIVES FOR ETHNIC VIOLENCE
1
EXPLAINING TOWNLEVEL VARIATION IN HINDUMUSLIM VIOLENCE
19
STATE CAPACITY EXPLANATIONS FOR HINDUMUSLIM VIOLENCE
63
THE CONSOCIATIONAL EXPLANATION FOR HINDUMUSLIM VIOLENCE
97
THE ELECTORAL INCENTIVES FOR HINDUMUSLIM VIOLENCE
137
PARTY COMPETITION AND HINDUMUSLIM VIOLENCE
172
THE ELECTORAL INCENTIVES FOR ETHNIC VIOLENCE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
204
DEMOCRACY AND ETHNIC VIOLENCE
236
Data Sources for HinduMuslim Riots
243
DataEntering Protocol for Riot Database
255
Additional Results from Statistical Tables
263
References
267
Index
283
Copyright

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About the author (2006)

Steven I. Wilkinson is Nilekani Professor of India and South Asia and Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Yale University. Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India was co-winner of the American Political Science Association's 2005 Woodrow Wilson Foundation prize. He is currently researching the links between colonial inheritances and post-independence levels of democracy, governance and conflict.