Rivalry and Revenge: Violence against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars1

Balcells, Laia

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2478.2010.00588.x

Cited by 238 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…, where P is the parity index and P i and P j are the proportions of groups i and j in the ward (Balcells, 2010). This index takes value 0 when one of the groups represents 100% of a given ward's population, and value 1 when both groups have the same relative size.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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The determinants of low-intensity intergroup violence

Balcells

Daniels

Escribà‐Folch

2015

Journal of Peace Research

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What accounts for low-intensity intergroup violence? This article explores the determinants of low-intensity sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, which has marked the post-1998 peace agreement period. Low-intensity violence comprises a variety of events from riots to attacks against other civilians as well as against homes and symbolic buildings such as churches. We argue that this violence is more likely and prevalent in interface areas where similarly sized rival communities are geographically in contact with each other. Parity and contact spur intergroup competition and threat perception, and they increase the viability of violence. We use original cross-sectional time-series violence data for the 2005-12 period at a disaggregated subnational level, the ward, and a wide variety of social and economic indicators to test our hypotheses. In particular, we assess the impact of within-ward ethnic composition, on the one hand, and the ethnic composition of neighboring wards, on the other. We find that the number of intergroup violent events peaks in wards where there is parity between groups, and in predominantly Catholic (Protestant) wards that border predominantly Protestant (Catholic) wards. The article makes two main contributions: it shows that microlevel dynamics of violence can expand beyond local territorial units, and it suggests that ethnic segregation is unlikely to prevent intergroup violence.

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Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…21 An alternative index is polarization, which captures the extent to which group distribution approaches bipolarity (Reynal-Querol, 2002). We use parity because it better captures competition between groups (Balcells, 2010). Figure A3 (online appendix) shows the correlation between both indexes.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

The determinants of low-intensity intergroup violence

Balcells

Daniels

Escribà‐Folch

2015

Journal of Peace Research

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“…A closely-related topic in the security and conflict literature addresses how the presence of multiple VNSAs competing for power can have a negative impact on the local security environment (see e.g. Kalyvas 2006;Humphreys & Weinstein 2006;Balcells 2010;Hoover Green 2011). However, recent field research has found that non-state actors are not necessarily in competition against each other.…”

Section: Research On Political Authority Among Non-state Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral Patterns among (Violent) Non-State Actors: A Study of Complementary Governance

Idler¹,

Forest

2015

Stability: International Journal of Security &Amp; Development

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stabilityThis article is part of a multi-year study of governance structures in the midst of insecurity and organized crime in fragile sub-state regions where, in the absence of a strong state, non-state actors (like insurgents, traffickers and tribal warlords) engage in political and socioeconomic governance. Building on our prior work on West Africa and the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal belt, this paper focuses on the Andean borderlands, drawing on recent fieldwork in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. We explore patterns of behavior in which competition among violent non-state actors is not the norm. Instead, several instances were found in which violent non-state actors work collaboratively or have tacit non-interference agreements to provide public goods through arrangements we characterize as 'complementary governance. ' We therefore argue that, to understand how illicit authority emerges, it is not sufficient to consider one armed non-state actor in isolation or in a dichotomy to the state. As we contend, we have to take into account the complex connections and interactions among different (violent) non-state structures. Moving beyond state versus non-state governance to governance that is constitutive of various non-state groups, the perspective put forward in this article aims to enrich the current debate on governance and security.

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“…The extraction of these resources is essential to the military effort and, ultimately, to the establishment of a viable sovereign state (Elton, 1975;Tilly, 1985). Crucially, civilian cooperation is necessary for the identification of one's rivals and the production of direct, or selective, violence against them (Kalyvas, 2006;Balcells, 2010Balcells, , 2011.…”

Section: The Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%

An Epidemic Model of Violence and Public Support in Civil War

Zhukov

2013

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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How do civilians respond to violence in civil war, and how do these responses shape combatants’ coercive strategies? Conventional wisdom expects civilian victimization to backfire, as a security-minded public “balances” against the side posing the greatest threat to its livelihood and survival. Yet combatants often expect a terrorized population to do the opposite, “bandwagoning” with those most willing and capable to inflict harm. Using an epidemic model of popular support dynamics, I explore the logic of balancing and bandwagoning in irregular civil war. I argue that when civilian strategy is clearly communicated to combatants, civilians are always better off balancing, and combatants are better off avoiding punishment. When civilian choice is not observed, the balancing equilibrium breaks down and patterns of violence depend on the local balance of power. The model’s results challenge the view that selective violence is most common in areas of incomplete control. Due to uncertainty over civilian behavior, violence in both divided and perfectly controlled areas can occur in equilibrium, inflicting great costs on civilians. I compare these predictions against the historical record of Soviet counterinsurgency in Western Ukraine, using new micro-level data from the declassified archives of the Soviet secret police.

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Rivalry and Revenge: Violence against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars1

Cited by 238 publications

References 39 publications

The determinants of low-intensity intergroup violence

The determinants of low-intensity intergroup violence

Behavioral Patterns among (Violent) Non-State Actors: A Study of Complementary Governance

An Epidemic Model of Violence and Public Support in Civil War

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