Study finds justified violence boosts approval among Indian BJP voters
A study published in The Journal of Politics examined how justifications for political violence affected voter approval during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh state legislative elections.
Legitimizing violence changes public views
Researchers found that portraying violence as a justified response to threat increases public approval of both the acts and the parties involved. This effect challenges the conventional wisdom that citizens in democracies universally oppose political violence regardless of context.
BJP supporters reject peaceful responses
Among supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party, accepting a justified narrative made them less approving of a peaceful response offered by their own party. The survey included approximately 4,750 registered voters in India's most populous state.
Survey covered major election cycle
The experiment took place during the 2022 state legislative elections in Uttar Pradesh, a region with more than 200 million inhabitants. Ursula Daxecker and Neeraj Prasad conducted the representative in-person survey to test these hypotheses.
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