Territorial Control, Levels of Violence, and the Electoral Performance of Former Rebel Political Parties After Civil Wars

This paper explores debates about electoral patterns in post-civil war societies. In particular, we examine whether the ability of rebels to capture and control territory and the level of violence at the local level explains the electoral performance of former rebel political parties, focusing on the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikstan (IRPT) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN (M)). Using data from the 2000 legislative election in Tajikistan and the 2008 Nepalese Constituent Assembly election, this paper finds that rebel control over districts did explain rebel party's electoral performance in Nepal. However, rebel control of districts in Tajikistan during the civil war did not predict the electoral performance in the first post-conflict election in that country. This is largely due to the disconnect between the IRPT and the constituencies that had supported it during the civil war, and because the level of control that the party exerted was far less than that of the CPN (M).