UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the U.S. midterm elections approach, conversations about the refusal to concede elections and upset the peaceful transition of power are re-emerging across the media. James Piazza, Liberal Arts Professor of Political Science at Penn State, recently examined how disruptions to the peaceful transition of power can lead to political violence and domestic terrorism across more than 100 democracies.
Piazza joined the Democracy Works podcast, a collaboration between the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and WPSU, to discuss the findings in the show’s first episode of the spring 2022 season.
In the United States, for example, the peaceful transition of power, Piazza said, is not outlined in the U.S. Constitution. Rather, it is a norm that’s developed over time, or something that elected politicians have informally agreed upon. There are no legal consequences for breaking the norm. However, breaking the norm has the potential to destabilize faith in democracy and turn groups of citizens against one another — both of which can lead to political violence, according to Piazza. Piazza's research found that similar factors have led to destabilization in other democracies, such as in Spain in the 1980s, when increased terrorist activity followed an election in which one of the parties refused to concede.
“I wanted to look at what happens when political parties don't agree to abide by not only the formal, but the informal, rules of democracy,” Piazza said.
To do that, Piazza examined domestic terrorist attack data from the Global Terrorism Database hosted by the University of Maryland for more than 100 democracies worldwide, including the U.S., from 1970 to 2018. He also examined public opinion polling on whether people view the use of terrorism — defined as the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal through fear, coercion or intimidation — as justifiable.
He found that countries where one of the main political parties lost the election but refused to accept the results experienced an average of five domestic terrorist attacks per year, compared to one attack every two years in countries where political parties accepted election results. The “sore loser” effect is also associated with the attitude that terrorism is more acceptable, with one-third of people in countries that reject election results saying terrorism is justified to regain or attempt to hold control, compared to 9% of people in countries where election results are accepted.
“You need to have parties agree when they have lost free and fair elections; if they won't agree to lose elections, then they are destroying the norms that govern democracy,” Piazza said. “And they’re really also sending a message to their supporters in the wider society, that election results can't be trusted, that the system can't be trusted, that they should be aggrieved.” Based on his research, Piazza said, “It polarizes a divided society in important ways.”
For more information on this research, listen to the podcast episode or read Piazza’s article in The Conversation.