The Violence of Political Empowerment: Electoral Success and the Facilitation of Terrorism in the Republic of India

ABSTRACT

Ideological violence, according to previous research, tends to spike following what may be perceived as an electoral success of an ideologically-affiliated political camp. Despite a growing number of examples across the globe, the extent to which ideological success in electoral processes impacts terrorism within constituencies remains under-researched. This exploratory analysis seeks to examine how majority-minority outcomes in the electoral process influence terrorism in democratic states. This study employs a longitudinal case study approach for the Republic of India, using publicly available data from the Census of India and open-sourced data on terrorist activity. We find that economic stress most strongly impacts the likelihood that supporters of the political majority will engage in terrorist activity, followed by social cohesion, measured through religious homogeneity.

KEYWORDS:

• Terrorism
• India
• elections
• political violence
• quantitative

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jared R. Dmello

Jared R. Dmello is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Texas A&M International University. His research focuses on collective violence and issues of ethnicity and race in the context of terrorism and gang violence.

Arie Perliger

Arie Perliger is a Professor and the Director of the graduate program in security studies at the School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell. His research focuses on issues related to terrorism and political violence, security policy and politics, politics and extremism of the far right in Israel, Europe, and the U.S., Middle Eastern Politics and the applicability of social network analysis to the study of political violence.

Matthew Sweeney

Matthew Sweeney received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Matthew's research interests include political violence, the American far right, and social movements.