How do human rights violations affect post-election protest? Until recently, post-election protests have been explained primarily by election-related factors such as the level of manipulation and the quality of electoral institutions. We argue that there are three dimensions along which human rights violations influence post-election protest: (1) the physical cost to protesters, (2) the ability to connect the violation to an election outcome, and (3) the ability to connect the repressive action to the government. Using this framework, we identify political imprisonment as the physical integrity right violation most likely to increase the probability of post-election protest. We test our hypotheses empirically with data on all national-level elections in the world between 1982 and 2012. We find that political imprisonment, a violation easily connected to government action and election outcomes, and less costly physically than other physical integrity rights violations, increases the probability of post-election protest.
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