Chapter 5 asks why contentious land narratives emerge between two ethnically distinct communities in one area, but not another nearby area. To examine this question, the chapter draws on an in-depth case comparison between two sets of farming communities in Nakuru County, in Kenya’s Rift Valley region. It argues that where two neighboring ethnic communities gain access to land through distinct processes, group members from both sides are likely to challenge the legitimacy of the other groups’ land claims. Yet where both communities acquire land through a similar process, group members are less likely to challenge the claims of the other, and contentious narratives are far less salient. The chapter demonstrates that contentious land narratives between ethnic groups are not the inevitable outcomes of ethnic rivalry but are instead endogenous to the local institutional context governing the provision of land rights.

Chapter 4 asks why contentious land narratives form between some communities, but not others. The chapter presents a large qualitative dataset collected through case comparisons of settlement schemes and land-buying companies in the Rift Valley and Coast regions. The chapter provides brief summaries of each of these eight case studies to demonstrate how inequality in land rights – or lack thereof – manifests in different contexts. Leveraging comparisons between neighboring communities, the chapter argues that the degree of land rights inequality plays an important role in the formation of contentious land narratives.

Chapter 6 analyzes the escalation and production of electoral violence, with a focus on Kenya’s 2007–2008 postelection. The main question asks how land narratives shape the escalation and occurrence of violence. Using a process-tracing approach based on qualitative evidence from three communities in Nakuru County, the chapter demonstrates how land narratives contribute to the production of election violence. I take the reader through four stages in the escalation of electoral violence. These stages include: (1) the mobilization of land narratives, (2) the trigger event, (3) local escalation, and (4) scale-shift. As part of this analysis, the chapter explains how different logics of violence, from preemption, opportunities to alter the status quo, revenge, and desire for material gain play out at these different stages. Broadly, the chapter shows how local land narratives can provide a key discursive tool through which both elites and ordinary civilians establish motives for organizing and engaging in violence.

Chapter 1, the introduction, begins by motivating the puzzle of election violence, asking why election violence escalates in one local context, but not another seemingly similar context. In contrast to existing accounts that emphasize institutional features of the state or the strategic incentives of political elites, the chapter introduces the book’s main argument: that the occurrence of violence is a joint production between political elites and ordinary citizens. In outlining this argument, the chapter introduces the book’s theory of land narratives and their role in the production and process of electoral violence, arguing that land narratives can serve as a key device around which elites and citizens coordinate the use of violence. The chapter then summarizes the book’s methodology, reviews existing explanations of electoral violence, and provides an outline of the book.

Chapter 7 examines why contentious land narratives are not sufficient predictors of electoral violence. In contrast to the previous chapter, which demonstrates how elites use narratives to organize violence, this chapter draws on evidence from counties in the Coast region where there are salient contentious land narratives yet electoral violence is rare. The chapter argues that land narratives work differently along the Coast because residents do not link their land rights with electoral outcomes. Hence, residents have few motives to participate in electoral violence and politicians have far less power to use land narratives to organize violence. To account for this regional difference, the chapter brings the reader back to the theory of “landlord” and “land patron,” which it discusses in terms of patronage strength. It also explains the importance of group size: the proportion of ethnic insiders relative to outsiders at the local level.

Chapter 2 presents the book’s main theory, which links contests over land with the local-level dynamics and escalation of electoral violence. It argues that the escalation of electoral violence is part of an historically-rooted process that includes inequality in land rights between two identity-based groups, the formation of contentious land narratives between these groups, and the mobilization of these land narrative to organize and produce electoral violence. The chapter explains each of these “stages” in the process of violence. It begins by theorizing how inequality in land rights between groups can shape a distinct set of contentious narratives around land. It then explains how these land narratives can shape political action, enabling or restraining the production of violence. The chapter also explains the research design and methodology that provides the evidentiary basis for this theory of electoral violence.

This chapter shifts from the more inductive approach that guides preceding chapters to a deductive one, using survey data to test existing theories about the causes and consequences of electoral violence. In doing so, the chapter shifts the unit of analysis from the region and group-level to the individual. The chapter has two main parts. The first examines the predictors of electoral violence, focusing specifically on the role of divisive land appeals in increasing an individual’s likelihood of experiencing violence. The second part focuses on the effects of violence, asking how the experience of election violence shapes openness toward ethnic outgroups, trust in political leadership, and engagement across ethnic lines. Broadly, the chapter shows that the experience of election violence has an enduring effect on how an individual perceives and engages with her political and social world. The chapter also emphasizes that studying the effects of electoral violence helps unpack the potential endogeneity of violence, enabling scholars to better specify the mechanisms through which election violence increases or diminishes the prospects for democratic consolidation and durable peace.