|
Selma Belaala:
Techniques of violence in the case of the Algerian civil war
How does one turn civilians against the enemy in the case of a civil war? Through a cross analysis of the armed actions of the GIA and those of the Algerian secret service, we will explore this question, which poses even more clearly the question of the rationality of this violence in the case of the Algerian civil war between 1991-2003. [...]
Michael Biggs:
Hunger Strikes by Irish Republicans, 1916-1923
The hunger strike was introduced into the modern repertoire by the British women’s suffrage movement in 1909. It was soon adopted by Irish Republicans waging war against Westminster government. Altogether there were about seventy hunger strikes by prisoners in the dozen years to 1920 (the date of the Government of Ireland Act). This provides a unique opportunity to compare how the same tactic was deployed by nonviolent protesters and by violent insurgents. [...]
Jon Elster:
Kidnappings in Civil Wars (Updated)
Lisa Hultman:
Civilians as Pawns in the Game of Civil War?
Is violence against civilians in armed conflicts used for strategic purposes? In this paper the relationship between military conflict and violence against civilians during civil war is examined. More precisely, I assess how the strategic interaction between two warring parties may explain to what extent they choose to target civilians. Due to the political costs attached to violating the civilian population, one would not expect such behaviour from warring parties. Nonetheless, in many conflicts civilians are deliberately targeted. I argue that extreme parties experiencing a military setback choose to change their tactics in order to stay in the game. Targeting civilians, in such contexts, becomes a way of displaying one’s resolve to either improve one’s future bargaining range or to raise the price for continued fighting. [...]
Macartan Humpreys, Jeremy M. Weinstein:
Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War: Determinants of the Strategies of Warring Factions
Stephanie McWhorter:
Killing the Citizenry: Data on State Violence and Civilian Deaths
Darius Rejali:
Torture, Democracy, and War (Not available: Please contact the author directly.)
This paper draws on my forthcoming book, Torture and Democracy (Princeton 2005) that explores the disturbing implication of the truth that we are less likely to complain about violence committed by stealth. Indeed, we are less likely even to have the opportunity to complain. I use we to refer to modern democrats. Dictators generally have no interest in violence that leaves no marks; intimidation may require that bloody traces be left in every public square. [...]
Jorge Restrepo, Michael Spagat:
Violence against civilians in the Colombian conflict
We have developed a unique dataset on the Colombian civil war that contains virtually all conflict events (more than 20,000 of them) from 1988 to the present. The dataset has an elaborate typology of events that first divides between clashes (fights between two or more groups) and attacks (unopposed actions). Attacks are further classified into 28 categories, the most common ones including bombings, road blockages, ambushes, incursions, and car burnings. We have annual time series on each event type for each of the three main armed groups: left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and the government. [...]
Luca Ricolfi, Paolo Campana:
Suicide missions in the Palestinian area: a new database
At present data on suicide missions in the “Palestinian area” (Israel, West Bank, Gaza Strip and Lebanon) are scattered amongst a high number of databases, chronologies and articles (both on paper and on the Internet). In order to reconstruct the SM series from 1968 to date we have integrated 3 databases, 3 chronologies and 6 other various types of sources into a new single superdatabase called LUPA. [...]
Mauricio Rubio:
Kidnapping and Armed Conflict in Colombia
The main purpose of this paper is to challenge the notion that kidnapping in Colombia "is just another business". It is argued that, on the contrary, kidnapping has been inextricably linked to armed conflict. The paper is divided in four sections, beginning with a brief history of this activity in Colombia. In the second section the evolution of aggregate rates is analyzed, and two kidnapping booms are highlighted. In the third section three arguments are given to back the idea of a close relation between kidnapping and armed conflict. Emphasis is given to the precarious evidence about bands of common criminals as relevant perpetrators. Concluding remarks address the recent sharp drop in kidnapping rates, and the main issues that require further research. [...]
Jago Salmon:
Massacre and Mutilation: Understanding the Lebanese Forces through their use of Violence
The holding of ethnic, political or religious groups collectively responsible is a prime cause of extreme/symbolic violence, i.e. massacre, mutilation or reprisal killings, in civil wars. Most analysis of such acts focuses either upon anecdotal descriptions, or explanations based on the inherent characteristics of agents. Recently however, increasing numbers of scholars are rightly attempting to link individual motivations in civil war to broader structural change . Any complete causal explanation must, however, also connect the mechanisms motivating individual behaviour to the opportunities which define the forms behaviour takes. Using new institutional theory’s focus upon opportunity as the intersection between agents’ preferences and their actions this paper proposes to explain the mechanisms that trigger or constrain different forms of violent collective reprisal in civil wars. [...]
Susan Shepler:
The Social and Cultural Context of Child Soldiering in Sierra Leone
The international rights-based discourse on child soldiers sees their use in armed conflict as among “the worst abuses of children.” Given that starting point, it is hard to understand how child soldiering might make sense in different contexts. As various scholars have pointed out, we need anthropological methods to analyze the historical and cultural underpinnings of the reasons fighting forces use or abstain from using child soldiers. [...]
Erin M. Simpson
Explaining Variation in Colombian Counterinsurgency Strategy, 1982-2002
This paper investigates the counter-insurgency strategies of the Colombian government against FARC and the Peruvian government against Sendero Luminoso during the 1980s and 1990s. While FARC and Sendero are different in a number of respects, the conflicts are similar enough (similar terrain, indigenous people’s movements, drug trade) that the strikingly different conflict outcomes warrant further investigation. This paper posits that the key to explaining the varying outcomes (namely, defeat of Sendero by capturing Guzman versus an ongoing military conflict in Colombia) is the divergent counter-insurgency strategies employed by the two governments. [...]
Elisabeth Jean Wood:
Sexual Violence during War: Explaining Variation |