Explaining Physical Violence in Parliaments

• Author: Moritz Schmoll,Wang Leung Ting
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221115352
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution

2023, Vol. 67(2-3) 375–401

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027221115352

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Explaining Physical Violence in

Parliaments

Moritz Schmoll

1

and Wang Leung Ting

2

Abstract

Why do lawmakers resort to physical violence in some parliaments but not in others?

Brawls not only constitute a stark break with democratic norms and ideals, they also

affect voter perceptions and have been seen as a bellwether for conf‌lict and democratic

backsliding. Yet, the phenomenon remains poorly understood. This paper introduces a

new, original datasetrecording reported incidentsof physical f‌ights in parliaments across

the globe between1980 and 2018 that includes almost fourtimes more cases of violence

than existing data.Theoretically, we argue that levels of democracy and the composition

of parliament should drive violence. The analysis shows thatf‌ighting is most common in

countries that are neither very autocratic nor very democratic, in fragmented parlia-

ments, and in chamberswith slim majorities. The f‌indings have implications for the study

of (de-)democratization, political instability, and the design of democratic institutions.

Keywords

democratic institutions, democratization, political violence, conf‌lict management

Introduction

Why do lawmakers resort to physical violence in some legislatures but not in others?

Although thankfully not the norm, outbursts of violent discord among parliamentarians

1

Faculty of Governance, Economics and Social Sciences, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Rabat,

Morocco

2

Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

Corresponding Author:

Moritz Schmoll, Faculty of Governance, Economics and Social Sciences, Mohammed VI Polytechnic

University, Technopolis, Rabat, Rabat-Sale-Kenitra, Morocco.

Email: moritz.schmoll@um6p.ma

have occurred throughout history and across the globe. In 1856, f‌ive years before the

start of the American Civil War, Representative Charles Sumner, an abolitionist from

Massachusetts, was famously attacked with a walking cane by Preston Brooks, a pro-

slavery congressman from South Carolina, nearly killing Sumner.

1

In 1920, in the midst

of the Irish War of Independence, the Irish nationalist member of the United Kingdom

House of Commons Joseph Devlin was assaulted by Conservative MP John Elsdale

Molson over the issue of violence committed by British troops in Ireland, echoing an

earlier altercation over the Irish question in 1893.

2

The attack took place despite

Westminster MPs being sat “two sword lengths apart”,

3

an architectural feature

symbolically intended to highlight the imperative to settle conf‌licts peacefully

(Gandrud 2016). More recently, in Ukraine, brawls between parliamentarians became

increasingly common in the run-up to the civil war that broke out in 2014 (Shukan

2010,2013). And in Turkey, f‌istf‌ights occurred regularly throughout the 2010s as

Recep Tayyip Erdo˘

gan and the ruling Justice and Development Party remodeled the

political system of the country and increasingly curbed political and civil liberties. This

long history, as well as recent scholarship (Freeman 2018),

4

therefore seem to suggest

that violence in legislatures could in fact act as a bellwether of more consequential

political phenomena.

To be sure, the use of physical force by the representatives of the people is also

problematic in its own right. It constitutes a strong symbolic challenge to what de-

mocracy is widely regarded to stand for. Peaceful deliberation has indeed always been

considered to be at the very core of the democratic ideal. John Dewey, for example,

wrote that “[…] the essence of the democratic principle is appeal to voluntary dis-

position instead of to force, to persuasion instead of coercion”(Dewey and Tufts 1932,

358). Furthermore, in functioning democracies, lawmakers should ideally accept and

abide by the outcome of majority decisions in parliament. But when MPs set off tear gas

to prevent the ratif‌ication of a treaty, as happened in Kosovo, or when MPs of the ruling

AKP in Turkey assault a colleague of the opposition simply because of a speech critical

of the president, “the rules of the game”are clearly no longer broadly accepted

(Anderson et al. 2005;Boix 1999;Massicotte, Blais, and Yoshinaka 2004).

The consequences of breaking with these norms are not just abstract and theoretical:

Nathan F. Batto and Emily Beaulieu showed, for example, that in the case of Taiwan,

brawls in the legislature can shift voter perceptions in various ways (Batto and Beaulieu

2020), adding to a longer tradition of research arguing that the public responds

negatively to conf‌lict in parliament (Durr, Gilmour, and Wolbrecht 1997;Ramirez

2009). There are, therefore, real risks that legislative violence contributes to a disil-

lusionment with politicians, or worse, a delegitimization of democracies (Batto and

Beaulieu 2020;Gandrud 2016).

So, far from being random events of largely anecdotal signif‌icance –or worse –mere

subjects of entertainment news coverage, the study of legislative violence may hold a

key to a better understanding of the broader dynamics of polarization, democratic

backsliding, democratization, and civil conf‌lict.

376 Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution 67(2-3)