Political Violence and Presidential Approval in Peru

Using monthly presidential approval data for the period between 1985 and 1997 for two presidencies, I analyze the impact of political violence on presidential approval in Peru. While controlling for variables commonly used in the economic voting literature, the results suggest that higher levels of political violence hurt left-leaning governments, but not necessarily right-leaning governments. It is likely that voters expect right-leaning governments to deal better with political violence in general and thus are more supportive of their efforts.