A Particular Difference: European Identity and Civilian Targeting

Abstract

Recent scholarship has found identity variables to be insignificant predictors of civilian targeting in war. Drawing on the European origins of the law of war, this article argues that previous scholarship has neglected the one specification of 'identity' that is most theoretically justified for understanding civilian targeting: whether a European state is fighting a non-European state. This article replicates and extends three recent statistical analyses -Downes; Valentino, Huth and Croco; and Morrow -of civilian targeting by including a variable capturing whether a European state fought a non-European state. The study finds that civilian targeting, and non compliance with the law of war more generally, is significantly more likely in European v. non-European dyads than in other types of dyads.The US War of Independence was a war of many sides. The colonialists fought the British, France fought alongside the rebels, and both sides fought (and allied with) Native Americans. Among the many striking features of this war was its internal variation in how the enemy's combatants and civilians were treated. At a time when the law of war governing the ways in which belligerents ought to comport themselves during combat was being developed in treatises such as Grotius' The Laws of War and Peace and Vattel's The Law of Nations, both the British and the colonists evinced dramatically different treatment of their European versus Native American foes. A shared culture and history led to gentle treatment between the British and colonialists -prisoners were treated kindly, and civilians spared many indignities. This civility in warfare contrasted greatly with both sides' treatment of Native Americans, who were routinely massacred without warning and even, at times, despite promises of safety. According to Iroquois commenting on the differential treatment of Iroquois and British soldiers taken captive, 'the Rebels don't put them to death; but we have no mercy to expect, if taken, as they will put us to death immediately, and will not even spare our Women and Children '. 1 This disparity in how belligerents of European descent treated each other compared to how they treated Native Americans is consistent with many arguments about the role of culture in shaping violence. Joseph Conrad's ivory trader Kurtz famously called on European readers to 'Exterminate all the Brutes!' 2 And studies of cases such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide have found that racial categories are frequently highly salient in identifying 'legitimate' targets. 3 Yet this -often qualitative and historical -evidence of the role of culture in law of war compliance stands in stark contrast to much of the recent political science work on this topic, which has taken two disparate directions. One strand of research finds strategic ). For valuable comments and suggestions, we thank Michael Doyle, Alex Downes, Matt Evangelista,

Civilized Barbarism: What We Miss When We Ignore Colonial Violence

“…During the 1880 Transvaal Rebellion, British generals denigrated Boers as "the most ignorant … of white men," 125 yet British forces did 118. Fazal and Greene 2014. 119.…”

“…6.Downes 2006, 2008; Fazal 2018; Fazal and Greene 2014; Morrow 2007, 2014; Valentino 2004, 2014; Valentino, Huth, and Croco 2006.…”

Decentralisation and European identity

“…Despite the broad field of research on European identity, especially recently (e.g. Caporaso and Kim, 2009;Ceka and Sojka, 2016;Fazal and Greene, 2015;Recchi, 2014;Sassatelli, 2010;Scalise, 2015;Schilde, 2014;Tsaliki, 2007;Verhaegen and Hooghe, 2015;Verhaegen, et al, 2014), to the best of our knowledge no study so far has examined the influence of decentralisation on European identity. This is a significant omission in the literature and the analysis performed here is an attempt to fill this significant gap.…”

Prewar Domestic Conditions and Civilians in War

“…Some existing studies already link certain types of identity differences to civilian victimization in wars(Fazal 2015).8 On this point, also seeKalyvas (2007).…”