Electoral violence under different contexts. Evidence from the Western Balkans

Abstract

The paper addresses the question of what settings are empirically relevant for the occurrence of electoral violence in the region of Western Balkans and what theoretical paths may cover their logic. Electoral violence has been part of the electoral arenas in the region for decades and although it has evolved and in some cases disappeared, a number of countries still experience it. The paper analyses original data on electoral violence collected from the OSCE monitoring reports covering fifty-six parliamentary elections organized between 1990 and 2015. Applying fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), the paper identifies four sub-models under which electoral violence is observed. The conjunctural logic that defines each and every of the discussed paths within the sub-models shows that the scenarios of electoral violence in the Western Balkans are always complex and potentially relevant conditions are never sufficient for the outcome on their own.