State violence, party formation, and electoral accountability: The political legacy of the Marikana massacre

Abstract

Democratic states often wield coercive force against ordinary people, yet little is known about the electoral consequences thereof. We analyze how incumbent electoral support in South Africa was affected by the Marikana massacre, one of the most high-profile examples of state violence in contemporary democratic Africa, using panel data constructed from polling station returns. In communities proximate to the violence the incumbent party was punished at the polls. We investigate the sources of this change using survey data, and find that these effects are almost exclusively driven by voters switching to a new opposition party that formed in the wake of the massacre, rather than (de-)mobilization. These findings suggest two lessons about the promises and limits of electoral accountability in the context of state violence.