Political Participation and Political Violence in Advanced Democracies

Abstract

I take a cross-national analysis of advanced democracies to examine the cause of political violence in advance democracies in order to understand representation. I mainly look at the effect of political participation on political violence. I test a preliminary and the main hypothesis. The preliminary hypothesis confirms an institutional argument that inclusive institutions—that facilitate impartial political participation for the public provide proper avenues for political participation, therefore, mitigating political violence. I expect to see a negative relationship between political violence and regulation of participation. In the second part of the paper, I develop an argument consistent with the existing literature contesting that high voter turnout shows satisfaction with institutions, nonetheless by employing the median voter theorem I take the argument further and demonstrate that higher voter turnout will have a positive relationship with political violence—dissatisfied extremist groups in the margins rejecting the ballot box and opting for political violence. That is, as the majority gives legitimacy to the institutions through voting, extremists, who identify as the political minority, will try to make themselves relevant through political violence. They believe they are being squeezed out of the political space and react by resorting to political violence. I present two cases studies of Germany and Nigeria to develop my main argument. I confirm that inclusive institutions have a negative relationship with political violence and voter turnout do really increase political violence.