Political parties in many ethnically polarized contexts around the world engage in electoral violence. Why do some parties engage in violence directly while others do so through intermediaries? Existing literature has produced contradictory results about when democracy turns violent and paid insufficient attention to the form that party violence takes. Using qualitative and survey data of both party elites and voters, this paper focuses on two parties in the violent megacity of Karachi, Pakistan: the Muttahida Qaumi Movement—whose cadres directly orchestrated violence—and the Pakistan People’s Party—which outsourced violence to distinct specialists. It argues that where state capacity is contested by multiple competing sovereigns, the economic and coercive benefits to be gained from violence are high. However, even where parties share similar incentives for violence within a particular electoral arena, whether a party engages in violence directly or not depends on its organizational structure and strength.
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