Contentious cities? Urban growth and electoral violence in Africa

How does rapid urban growth affect the risk of electoral violence in African cities? Across the continent, societies have been undergoing simultaneous processes that may affect the risk of violent upheaval: democratic change and urbanization. However, although electoral violence often disproportionally affects cities, we do not know if and how the process of urban growth in itself impacts such violence. Existing research highlights that urbanization holds a strong potential for progress and democracy-enhancement, but also for destructive and violence-inducing dynamics. Drawing on collective action theory, I develop a theoretical argument about the relationship between urban growth and the mobilization of electoral violence. I hypothesize that rapid city growth conditions elites’ strategic incentives to employ electoral violence, and may increase the risk of such violence through two mechanisms: by increasing uncertainty about local election outcomes, and by making it easier for politicians to mobilize violence based on grievances among urban groups. I assess these expectations by using georeferenced data on electoral violence, covering democratic elections in Africa (1990–2012), and matching it with data on the urban growth pace of all cities with at least 50,000 inhabitants. This approach avoids the pitfalls of focusing only on major cities, and enables an analysis of both cross- and within state dynamics. Using this approach, I identify a robust correlation between the pace of urban population growth and the risk of electoral violence in the city. Extended analysis indicates that urban growth is associated with a higher risk of election violence in larger, more established cities (including both major and secondary cities), but not in smaller, emerging cities.