Title: Micro-Level Studies of Violence in Civil War: Refining and Extending the Control-Collaboration Model
Abstract: Abstract The article reviews recent advances in the study of violence in civil wars. It provides a brief description of the baseline "control-collaboration" model, discusses alternatives to it, and reviews recent empirical studies that supply additions, corrections, extensions, and refinements to the baseline model. It highlights some of the assumptions that can be relaxed based on this new research, including the following ones: that in civil war context information is produced exclusively or even primarily by civilian denunciations at the local level; that violence is only used to deter civilian defection; that conflict is always locally dyadic; and that rival factions are organizationally indistinct from each other and resort to similar repertoires of violence. These refinements and extensions have the potential to produce a novel set of predictions that can be tested against both existing and new data. The essay notes the dynamism of this research program and recommends two steps for future research. First, it recommends moving to a higher-level, empirical and theoretical synthesis, by relying on the growing corpus of empirical studies and exploring scope conditions in a much more systematic way than was possible previously. Second, it recommends scaling up the findings of micro-level, subnational studies to the meso and macro-levels, by deriving novel empirical implications and testing them. Keywords: civil warmicrolevel studiessubnational research designsviolence Notes Stathis N. Kalyvas, "Promises and Pitfalls of an Emerging Research Program: The Microdynamics of Civil War," in Stathis N. Kalyvas, Ian Shapiro, and Tarek Masoud, eds., Order, Conflict, and Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 397–421. This diversity is explored in Stathis N. Kalyvas, Ian Shapiro, and Tarek Masoud, eds., Order, Conflict, and Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Ana Arjona and Stathis N. Kalyvas, "Recruitment into Armed Groups in Colombia: A Survey of Demobilized Fighters," in Yvan Guichaoua, ed., Understanding Collective Political Violence: Conflict, Inequality and Ethnicity (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011), 143–171; Christopher Blattman, "From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda," American Political Science Review 103, no. 2 (2009): 231–247; Eli Berman, Michael Callen, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, "Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines," Journal of Conflict Resolution 55, no. 4 (2011): 496–528; Kristine Eck, Raising Rebels: Participation and Recruitment in Civil War (PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, Uppsala University, 2010); Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy Weinstein, "Who Fights? The Determinants of Participation in Civil War," American Journal of Political Science 52, no. 2 (2008): 436–455; Jocelyn S. Viterna, "Pulled, Pushed, and Persuaded: Explaining Women's Mobilization into the Salvadoran Guerrilla Army," American Journal of Sociology 112, no. 1 (2006): 1–45. Ana Arjona, Social Order in Civil War (PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, Yale University, 2010). Paul Staniland, Explaining Cohesion, Fragmentation, and Control in Insurgent Groups (PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010). Abbey Steele, "Seeking Safety: Avoiding Displacement and Choosing Destinations in Civil Wars," Journal of Peace Research 46, no. 3 (2009): 419–429. Scott Straus, The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006); Philip Verwimp, "Machetes and Firearms: The Organization of Massacres in Rwanda," Journal of Peace Research 43, no. 1 (2006): 5–22. Jason Lyall, "Are Co-Ethnics More Effective Counter-Insurgents? Evidence from the Second Chechen War," American Political Science Review 104, no. 1 (2010): 1–20. Matthew Adam Kocher, Tom Pepinsky, and Stathis N. Kalyvas, "Aerial Bombing and Counterinsurgency in the Vietnam War," American Journal of Political Science 55, no. 2 (2011): 1–18; Jason Lyall, "Does Indiscriminate Violence Incite Insurgent Attacks? Evidence from Chechnya," Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 3 (2009): 331–362; Stathis N. Kalyvas and Matthew Adam Kocher, "How Free is "Free-Riding" in Civil Wars? Violence, Insurgency, and the Collective Action Problem," World Politics 59, no. 2 (2007): 177–216. For instance, I do not discuss the mass displacement of civilian populations, a common feature of civil wars, or sexual violence, a much more variable one. See Abbey Steele, "Seeking Safety: Avoiding displacement and choosing destinations in civil wars," Journal of Peace Research 46, no. 3 (2009): 419–429; and Morten Bergsmo, Alf B. Skre, and Elisabeth Jean Wood. eds., Understanding and Proving International Sex Crimes (Oslo: Torkel Opsahl Academic Epublisher, 2012). Donald Greer, The Incidence of the Terror during the French Revolution: A Statistical Interpretation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935). Charles Tilly, The Vendée (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964). Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, eds., The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Praeger, 1969). Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); Steven I. Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Ibid. Stathis N. Kalyvas and Matthew Adam Kocher, "The Dynamics of Violence in Vietnam: An Analysis of the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES)," Journal of Peace Research 46, no. 3 (2009): 335–355. Gonzalo Vargas, "Urban Irregular Warfare and Violence Against Civilians: Evidence From a Colombian City," Terrorism and Political Violence 21, no. 1 (2009): 110–132. Although the profit-related dimension of violence has been mentioned often in the literature, it has rarely been investigated in a systematic way. See David Keen, "The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars," Adelphi Paper, no. 320, 1998. This dearth of systematic research may be related to the multiplicity of motivations contained in a single act of violence. Ravi Bhavnani, Dan Miodownik, and Hyun Jin Choi, "Violence and Control in Civil Conflict: Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza," Comparative Politics 44, no. 1 (2011): 61–80; Ravi Bhavnani, Dan Miodownik, and Hyun Jin Choi, "Three Two Tango: Territorial Control and Selective Violence in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza," Journal of Conflict Resolution 55, no. 1 (2012): 133–158. Factionalism and non-dyadic interactions have received a lot of attention recently, although not in relation with violence. See Kristin M. Bakke, Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, and Lee J. M. Seymour, "A Plague of Initials: Fragmentation, Cohesion, and Infighting in Civil Wars," Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 2 (2012): 265–283. Non-dyadic interactions may be overblown, however, when it comes to the study of the dynamics of violence because non-dyadic conflict may be compatible with locally dyadic conflict. Rex W. Douglas, "Hearts, Minds, or Bodies: the Strategy of Selective Violence in Civil War," Unpublished Paper, Princeton University, 2012. Claire Metelits, Inside Insurgency: Violence, Civilians, and Revolutionary Group Behavior (New York: New York Press, 2010). Jennifer J. Ziemke, From Battles to Massacres (PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, 2008). Stathis N. Kalyvas, "Wanton and Senseless? The Logic of Massacres in Algeria," Rationality and Society 11, no. 3 (1999): 243–285. Kristine Eck and Lisa Hultman, "One-Sided Violence Against Civilians in War: Insights from New Fatality Data," Journal of Peace Research 44, no. 2 (2007): 233–246; Lisa Hultman, Targeting the Unarmed: Strategic Rebel Violence in Civil War (PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, Uppsala University, 2008). Hugo Slim, Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). Jean-Paul Azam and Anke Hoeffler, "Violence Against Civilians in Civil Wars: Looting or Terror?," Journal of Peace Research 39, no. 4 (2002): 461–485. Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). This approach is Hobbesian insofar as it rests on the assumption of a human propensity for violence which will express itself unless curbed by organizations. Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein, "Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War," American Political Science Review 100, no. 3 (2006): 429–447. Amelia Hoover, Repertoires of Violence Against Noncombatants: The Role of Armed Group Institutions and Ideologies (PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, Yale University, 2011). Laia Balcells, "Rivalry and Revenge: Violence against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars," International Studies Quarterly 54, no. 2 (2010): 291–313; Laia Balcells, Behind the Frontlines: Identity, Competition, and Violence in Civil Wars (PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, Yale University, 2010). Nils B. Weidmann, "Violence 'From Above' or From 'Below?' The Role of Ethnicity in Bosnia's Civil War," Journal of Politics 73, no. 4 (2011): 1178–1190. Mike McGovern, "Popular Development Economics: An Anthropologist Among the Mandarins," Perspectives on Politics 9, no. 2 (2011): 345–355. Stathis N. Kalyvas and Laia Balcells, "International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict," American Political Science Review 104, no. 3 (2010): 415–429; Laia Balcells and Stathis N. Kalyvas, "The Marxist Paradox: Marxist Rebels and Civil Wars," Unpublished Paper, Yale University, 2010. Additional informationNotes on contributorsStathis N. Kalyvas Stathis N. Kalyvas is the Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and director of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at Yale University. He is the author of The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Cornell University Press, 1996), and is the co-editor of Order, Conflict & Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 113
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