The Journal of Peace Research just published an article by Ward Berenschot: ‘Patterned pogroms: Patronage networks as infrastructure for electoral violence in India and Indonesia’.

In this article he compares episodes of communal violence in India (Gujarat) and Indonesia (Maluku). The article discusses why such violence does not spread uniformly across a region: there were violent as well as peaceful pockets during the riots and pogroms that killed up to 2000 (in Gujarat) and 3500 (in north Malukku) people. This spread of violence, he argues in this article, is due to the importance of informal political networks in fomenting violence.

Read the article here.