Disparities of Electoral Violence in Ghana: Its Geographical Characterization and Socio-demographic and Political Implications

Abstract

Abstract Electoral violence is a critical challenge in democratic governance, particularly in Africa. Crucial knowledge for its mitigation, including spatial dissimilarity, disparities, and identification of specific socio-demographic and political characteristics as potential predictors of electoral violence, is limited in Africa. Accordingly, this study investigates the geographical disparities of electoral violence and its linkages to socio-demographic and political characteristics in Ghana using the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections. We used correlation, spatial autocorrelation and spatial inequality to examine the spatial distribution of electoral violence at the regional and constituency levels. We found high disparities in electoral violence associated with its geographical concentration in specific regions and constituencies. Electoral violence was found to be beneficial to the two dominant political parties, with neither benefiting more than the other. While recognizing the benefit of electoral violence to winning political power, a key intervention mechanism is ensuring all parties uniformly adhere to nonviolence. Electoral violence is driven less by political competition alone and more by entrenched structural and sociopolitical forces, including party mobilization strategies, persistent historical grievances, institutional weaknesses, and ethnic fragmentation. Of 19 indicators, only one relating to a misunderstanding between political parties is consistently associated with socio-demographic and political characteristics, indicating its strong influence. These findings illustrate an improved understanding of the extent of electoral violence in Ghana, its underlying drivers and location-specific contexts for effective intervention and resource allocation toward minimizing violence in the electoral process.