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From peace campaigns to peaceocracy : elections, order and authority in Africa

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Lynch, Gabrielle, Cheeseman, Nicholas and Willis, Justin (2019) From peace campaigns to peaceocracy : elections, order and authority in Africa. African Affairs, 118 (473). pp. 603-627. doi:10.1093/afraf/adz019

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adz019

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Abstract

Research on Kenya’s 2013 elections has suggested that a “peace narrative” was deliberately promoted by an establishment elite to delegitimize protest and justify the use of excessive force. It has also tended to see the Kenyan case as exceptional and to assume that such a narrative was only possible because of the 2007/2008 post-election violence. We agree that peace campaigns are often particularly intense in the wake of violence and that they can be manipulated to generate a “peaceocracy”, a system in which an emphasis on peace is used to prioritize stability and order to the detriment of democracy. However, by comparing Kenya to Ghana and Uganda, two countries that have had very different experiences of elections and election-related violence, we demonstrate that peace messaging is neither unique to countries that have experienced recent electoral conflict, nor a recent phenomenon. Instead, we highlight the pervasiveness of peace narratives across the sub-continent, which we show is due to a number of factors. These include but are not limited to the way that elections are used to assert and perform state autonomy and an associated ideal of elections as orderly processes; the capacity of multiple actors to instrumentalize the ideal of orderly elections; a popular fear of electoral violence even in countries where it is rare; a growing tendency to individualize responsibility for peace; and the availability of international funding. Taken together, these factors help to explain the rise of peace messaging. At the same time, we argue that the risk that this messaging will foster a “peaceocracy” varies markedly and that the likelihood of incumbent manipulation is greatest in countries with a recent history of civil conflict and where the quality of democracy is already low.

Item Type: Journal Article
Divisions: Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies
Journal or Publication Title: African Affairs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISSN: 0001-9909
Official Date: October 2019
Dates:
DateEvent
October 2019Published
22 July 2019Available
21 November 2018Accepted
Volume: 118
Number: 473
Page Range: pp. 603-627
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adz019
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Publisher Statement: This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in African Affairs following peer review. The version of record Gabrielle Lynch, Nic Cheeseman, Justin Willis, From peace campaigns to peaceocracy: Elections, order and authority in Africa, African Affairs, , adz019 is available online at:https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adz019
Access rights to Published version: Restricted or Subscription Access
Funder: UK Economic and Social Research Council
Grant number: ES/L002345/1
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