Hi and welcome to USIP’s micro-course on Preventing Electoral Violence! I’m Debra Liang-Fenton and, along with Jonas Claes , will be one of your course instructors.
This course is about understanding what election violence is, and exploring tools that can be used to help prevent violence from erupting. When we conceived of this course, we first asked ourselves: What do elections have to do with peacebuilding?
In answering this question, I reflected back to my first job working with inspiring civil society actors and academics from around the world. These people were on the front lines of creating space for democratic institutions--among them, election processes--to take root. It was clear that while elections do not in and of themselves constitute a democratic system of governance, they are a key mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power, and enable the articulation of policies important to the citizenry through the party system.
Years later, I witnessed firsthand the importance of understanding the relationship between elections and peacebuilding when I was in Nigeria working with civil society actors to develop a strategy for peaceful elections in what was considered to be a volatile part of the country for two weeks before their general election. Over time and in subsequent sessions, civil society invited the police to take part in these discussions. These civil society representatives came together to develop a coordinated strategy on preventing election violence because they recognized that a violent election process would serve to destroy trust in the idea of a peaceful transfer of power and also possibly in democratic institutions themselves. When institutions erode, citizen trust in those institutions erodes, and the social contract becomes frayed, fostering an environment in which the potential for the use of violence to express grievances or clamp down on expressions of grievances emerges.
Working with actors at the forefront of ensuring peaceful elections has informed how we approach our course. Indeed, this course was developed with these people in mind--civil society, citizens, practitioners, and policymakers who want to ensure that election processes are peaceful, free, and fair.
We hope you find the course to be informative and useful to your work!
If you enjoy this course, we welcome you to explore the dozens of others our Global Campus has built.
If you have questions or need assistance at any point, please do reach out to our Global Campus directly at globalcampus@usip.org .
