Introducing the Deadly Electoral Conflict Dataset (DECO)

DOI10.1177/00220027211021620
AuthorHanne Fjelde,Kristine Höglund
Published date01 January 2022
Date01 January 2022
Subject MatterData Set Features
2022, Vol. 66(1) 162 –185
Introducing the Deadly
Electoral Conflict
Dataset (DECO)
Hanne Fjelde
1
, and Kristine Ho
¨glund
1
Abstract
This article introduces the Deadly Electoral Conflict dataset (DECO): a global,
georeferenced event dataset on electoral violence with lethal outcomes from 1989
to 2017. DECO allows for empirical evaluation of theories relating to the timing,
location, and dynamics of deadly electoral violence. By clearly distinguishing electoral
violence from related (and sometimes concurrent) instances of organized violence,
DECO is particularly suitable for investigating how election-related violence is
connected to other forms of violent political contention. In the article, we present
the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the data collection and discuss
empirical patterns that emerge in DECO. We also demonstrate one potential use of
DECO by examining the association between United Nations peacekeeping forces
and the prevalence of deadly electoral violence in conflict-affected countries.
Keywords
electoral violence, civil war, event data, elections
Introduction
Almost all countries in the world hold elections to fill the highest office of the state.
Ideally, elections are vital opportunities to peacefully adjudicate between society’s
diverse political preferences throug h the ballot box and decide the right to rul e
1
Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden
Corresponding Author:
Hanne Fjelde, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Gamla torget 3, Uppsala,
75120, Sweden.
Email: hanne.fjelde@pcr.uu.se
Journal of Conflict Resolution
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00220027211021620
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Data Set Feature
Fjelde and Höglund 163
(Schumpeter 1952; Dahl 1989). However, many elections are tainted by widespread
violence, which undermines democratic practices, denies people their right to cast
their vote under free and fair circumstances, and unduly affects electoral results.
Electoral violence is sometimes an isolated phenomenon in otherwise peaceful
societies. Zambia and Malawi are two cases in point that feature limited instances
of electoral violence, but both countries have escaped large-scale communal vio-
lence or civil war. However, a significant share of electoral violence is committed in
societies where different forms of violence co-exist, including civil war, communal
conflict, criminal violence, or government repression (Harish and Toha 2017; Stani-
land 2014). For example, in Nigeria and India, electoral violence occurs in parallel to
major and long-standing armed conflicts and is often part of the trajectory of large-
scale communal violence.
To date, existing cross-national data sources on electoral violence have not been
able to clearly separate electoral violence from other forms of organized violence.
This data gap has restricted our understanding of how electoral violence intersects
with and is shaped by other forms of violence and their trajectories. This is a
significant limitation that raises questions about both the broader correspondence
between theoretical definitions of violence and the more specific empirical scope of
existing studies of electoral violence.
To remedy this data gap, this article introduces the Deadly Electoral Conflict
dataset (DECO), which provides global data on election-related violent events from
1989 to 2017. In short, DECO records lethal incidences of violence that are sub-
stantially linked to an electoral process or its outcome. It is coded as a derivative of
the more comprehensive compilation of events of organized political violence pro-
vided by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP
GED; Sundberg and Melander 2013). For all events that are deemed to have a
substantive link to an ongoing electoral process, DECO codes a range of variables
that characterize the event’ s relationship to the election and th e features of the
violence. For example, DECO incudes the type of targets, whether perpetrators are
associated with the incumbent side, and whether the event is tied to pre- or post-
electoral contention.
DECO’s comprehensive coverage of lethal events of electoral violence over the
past three decades has the potential to move the research agenda on electoral
violence forward in significant ways. First, by clearly distinguishing electoral
violence from related (and sometimes concurrent) instances of orga nized violence,
DECO accommodates research on how election-related violence is connected to
other forms of violent political contention. Second, actor identification following
UCDP templates allows DECO to be combined with a number of other datasets on
the characteristics and behavior, including non-violent behavior, of armed actors.
Third, through its high spatial and temporal resolution, DECO enables researchers
to capture escalatory and de-escalatory dynamics within and across locations,
during and outside of election cycles. For example, the data collection is not bound
to a predetermined temporal window around each electoral event. DECO instead
2Journal of Conflict Resolution XX(X)

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