Research on Kenya’s 2013 elections has suggested that a “peace narrative” was deliberately promoted by an establishment elite to delegitimize protest and justify the use of excessive force. It has also tended to see the Kenyan case as exceptional and to assume that such a narrative was only possible because of the 2007/2008 post-election violence. We agree that peace campaigns are often particularly intense in the wake of violence and that they can be manipulated to generate a “peaceocracy”, a system in which an emphasis on peace is used to prioritize stability and order to the detriment of democracy. However, by comparing Kenya to Ghana and Uganda, two countries that have had very different experiences of elections and election-related violence, we demonstrate that peace messaging is neither unique to countries that have experienced recent electoral conflict, nor a recent phenomenon. Instead, we highlight the pervasiveness of peace narratives across the sub-continent, which we show is due to a number of factors. These include but are not limited to the way that elections are used to assert and perform state autonomy and an associated ideal of elections as orderly processes; the capacity of multiple actors to instrumentalize the ideal of orderly elections; a popular fear of electoral violence even in countries where it is rare; a growing tendency to individualize responsibility for peace; and the availability of international funding. Taken together, these factors help to explain the rise of peace messaging. At the same time, we argue that the risk that this messaging will foster a “peaceocracy” varies markedly and that the likelihood of incumbent manipulation is greatest in countries with a recent history of civil conflict and where the quality of democracy is already low.

中文翻译：

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从和平运动到和平政治：非洲的选举、秩序和权威

对肯尼亚 2013 年选举的研究表明，当权派精英故意宣扬“和平叙事”，使抗议合法化，并为过度使用武力辩护。它还倾向于将肯尼亚的案例视为例外，并假设这种叙述是唯一可能的，因为 2007/2008 年选举后的暴力事件。我们同意，和平运动在暴力发生后往往特别激烈，并且可以被操纵以产生“和平政体”，在这种制度中，强调和平被用来优先考虑稳定和秩序，而损害民主。然而，将肯尼亚与加纳和乌干达进行比较，这两个国家在选举和与选举有关的暴力方面有着截然不同的经历，我们表明，和平信息既不是最近经历过选举冲突的国家所独有，也不是最近出现的现象。相反，我们强调了整个次大陆的和平叙述的普遍性，我们表明这是由于多种因素造成的。这些包括但不限于选举用于维护和执行国家自治的方式以及作为有序过程的相关选举理想；多个行为者实现有序选举理想的能力；即使在罕见的国家，人们也普遍担心选举暴力；将和平责任个人化的趋势越来越大；以及国际资金的可用性。综合起来，这些因素有助于解释和平信息的兴起。同时，