One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Côte d'Ivoire's 2015 Presidential Polls

Piccolino, Giulia

doi:10.1177/000203971605100106

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

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“…And as the 2015 presidential polls drew closer, the opposition renewed its anti-immigration rhetoric and fuelled longstanding doubts about whether Ouattara is Ivorian by birth and eligible to contest elections. This disinformation campaign led to violent demonstrations against the Constitutional Council’s decision to validate Ouattara’s candidature (Piccolino, 2016). Interviews carried out by Piccolino (2018: 12) in 2015 show that Ivorians see ‘elections are a cause of fear and insecurity’ and that ‘politicians are accused of instrumentalizing ethnic sentiments’.…”

Section: Elections and Peacekeeping In Côte D’ivoirementioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating election violence locally: UN peacekeepers’ election-education campaigns in Côte d’Ivoire

Smidt

2020

Journal of Peace Research

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False information, rumours and hate speech can incite violent protest and rioting during electoral periods. To counter such disinformation, United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKOs) routinely organize election-education events. While researchers tend to study how PKOs affect armed group and state behaviour, this study shifts the focus to civilians. It argues that PKOs’ election education reduces violent protest and rioting involving civilians during electoral periods via three pathways. First, learning about PKOs’ electoral security assistance during election-education events may convince people that political opponents cannot violently disturb elections, thereby mitigating fears of election violence. Second, election-education events provide politically relevant information that can strengthen political efficacy and people’s ability to make use of peaceful political channels. Finally, peace messages during election-education events can change people’s calculus about the utility and appropriateness of violent behaviour. Together, these activities mitigate fears, reduce political alienation and counter civilians’ willingness to get involved in violence. To test these expectations, I combine survey data on people’ perceptions and attitudes, events data on violent protest and rioting, and a novel dataset on local-level election-education events carried out by the PKO in Côte d’Ivoire before four elections held between 2010 and 2016. The results show that when the PKO is perceived to be an impartial arbiter, its election-education events have violence-mitigating effects at the individual and subnational levels.

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Section: Elections and Peacekeeping In Côte D’ivoirementioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating election violence locally: UN peacekeepers’ election-education campaigns in Côte d’Ivoire

Smidt

2020

Journal of Peace Research

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Violence Abatement Success in Ivory Coast

Akbulut-Gok¹

2022

Security and Interorganizational Networks in Peace Operations

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Local Peacebuilding in a Victor’s Peace. Why Local Peace Fails Without National Reconciliation

Piccolino

2019

International Peacekeeping

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The literature on peacebuilding has increasingly emphasized the importance of the local level -a trend that has been called the local turn. For some researchers, the local turn can improve international peacebuilding interventions, while for others it is an agenda to promote an emancipatory and legitimate peace. There is however mixed evidence backing the argument that addressing local level issues in peacebuilding can make a substantial difference. The local turn reposes on assumptions that appear particularly problematic in an environment characterised by the lack of an elite-level pact, such as a conflict terminated in a military victory. Looking at the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire, which terminated in 2011 with the defeat of former president Laurent Gbagbo, this paper highlights how the lack of elite level reconciliation compromises the effectiveness of actions aiming to promote local 'social cohesion'. It also shows how the discourse and practices of the local turn can be appropriated by semi-authoritarian post-conflict governments in order to depoliticize the peacebuilding process. It concludes that the popularity of the 'local turn' among peacebuilders might be due more to the 2 opportunity that it offers to eschew delicate national-level political issues, than to its supposed emancipatory potential.

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One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Côte d'Ivoire's 2015 Presidential Polls

Cited by 5 publications

References 6 publications

Mitigating election violence locally: UN peacekeepers’ election-education campaigns in Côte d’Ivoire

Mitigating election violence locally: UN peacekeepers’ election-education campaigns in Côte d’Ivoire

Violence Abatement Success in Ivory Coast

Local Peacebuilding in a Victor’s Peace. Why Local Peace Fails Without National Reconciliation

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