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Random or Retributive?
Abstract
Does a state's use of indiscriminate violence incite insurgent attacks? The conventional wisdom suggests that it does—Stathis Kalyvas cites dozens of studies and historical cases where collective targeting of the noncombatant population provoked greater insurgent violence. But others have pushed back against this claim. These scholars have made significant advances that allow us to understand and explain when, why, and how the world's militaries have used indiscriminate violence against noncombatants with shocking regularity. This study builds on these contributions. We use interviews we conducted with ex-combatants and eyewitnesses of the Chechen wars to provide a critical reexamination of the current theoretical debate concerning indiscriminate violence. In doing so, we argue that treating the concept of indiscriminate violence as an essentially random counter-insurgency tactic obscures the important distinction between random and retributive indiscriminate violence deployed against civilians. The distinction raises crucial questions of location and timing that have hindered efforts to evaluate the efficacy of indiscriminate violence in irregular war.
... Some studies find that the use of repression contributes to authoritarian survival (Albertus & Menaldo, 2012;Dragu & Przeworski, 2019;Escribà-Folch, 2013). Other studies question the effectiveness of such measures, showing that in many instances repression is ineffective or even counterproductive in restoring political stability (Kalyvas, 2006;Souleimanov & Siroky, 2016). Especially when used against unarmed civilians, state violence can cause outrage and fuel rather than subdue opposition and resistance (Francisco, 2006;Kalyvas & Kocher, 2007;Lichbach, 1987;Sutton et al., 2014;Wood, 2003). ...
How does witnessing regime atrocities influence the political attitudes of bystanders? We argue that observing regime violence against innocent civilians triggers psychological dissonance between beliefs about the regime and the witnessed moral transgression. As a result, regime support should decrease among bystanders of state atrocities. We analyze original, highly disaggregated archival data from the Nazi death marches at the end of World War II, which confronted ordinary German citizens with the regime’s crimes. We find that locations with higher victim numbers had lower vote shares for right-wing nationalist parties after the war. Supporting our proposed mechanism, we show that (1) this effect was strongest when Nazi crimes were at the center of public discourse and (2) that witnessing Nazi atrocities was associated with individuals’ rejection of Hitler 20 years later. The findings have implications for understanding democratization prospects and people’s nostalgia for fallen autocrats.
... Intra-state violent conflicts, especially those unfolding over long periods of time, often have clearly identifiable logic, dynamics, and actors. This allows scholars to uncover important characteristics and outcomes of conflicts, such as civilian targeting (Kalyvas, 2006), repertoires of contentious actions (Tilly, 2010), and cycles of escalation, retaliation, and revenge (Haushofer et al., 2010;Souleimanov and Siroky, 2016). ...
What is the impact of uncommon but notable violent acts on conflict dynamics? We analyze the impact of the murder of a Palestinian child on the broader dynamics of Israeli-Palestinian violence in Jerusalem. By using novel micro-level event data and utilizing Discrete Furrier Transform and Bayesian Poisson Change Point Analysis, we compare the impact of the murder to that of two other lethal but more typical Israeli-Palestinian events. We demonstrate that the murder had a large and durable effect that altered the broader conflict dynamics, whereas the other events caused smaller, short-term effects. We demonstrate that scholars should devote more attention to the analysis of atypical violent acts and present a set of tools for conducting such analysis.
... Throughout the Russian-Chechen armed conflicts, the Russian government tried several strategies to resolve the issue of Chechen separatism. Ethnic defection, facilitated by a combination of the brutal counterinsurgency campaign, incentives for the defectors, and a sharp rise of subsidies eventually became the most successful of them (Lyall, 2009;Ratelle & Souleimanov, 2016;Souleimanov & Siroky, 2016). ...
Why do elites and ordinary individuals support targeting peripheral minorities? This study argues that high income inequality in the society and economic communitarianism among its population form the social basis for diversionary domestic conflict. When income inequality in society is high, the elites have an incentive to divert popular discontent toward peripheral minorities. High income inequality also raises the expectations for state assistance among the economically communitarian population strata, who tend to regard the minorities as a target for resource extraction. I test these conjectures using the case of Russia and Chechnya and find support for the proposed theory.
Wartime violence and authoritarian repression against civilians take various forms. Past research has explored the causes and consequences of violence, but no previous work simultaneously assessed the long-term effects of different types of violence on political identities. This paper contends that indiscriminate attacks can reinforce ingroup identity, whereas the role of civilian agency in selective violence may have a detrimental impact. Equipped with original data capturing municipality-level exposure to both selective and indiscriminate violence during the Spanish civil war (1936–1939) in Biscay (Basque Country), this study examines its legacy on voting behavior (1983–2015). Results indicate that fascist airstrikes increased Basque nationalism while selective violence diminished the popularity of Basque parties. Individual and community-level evidence suggests that airstrikes fostered the intergenerational transmission of political attitudes. Violence can boost national identities, but it can also erode them: it depends on the type.
Secret police are generally viewed as key institutions in autocrats’ repression apparatus. However, we lack clear empirical evidence on the link between secret police and repression. Instead, recent studies indicate that the surveillance provided by secret police reduces physical human rights abuses. This paper re-examines the relationship between secret police and physical state repression. We identify four mechanisms linking these variables, deterrence, targeting, organizational practices, and institutional self-preservation. These mechanisms provide contrasting expectations for the overall relationship but also contextual expectations on when secret police may (not) increase repression. To test these expectations, we collect data on the global existence of secret police. Results indicate that secret police are associated with increased physical repression, particularly when they must develop a reputation to deter dissidents or when multiple rival security organizations exist. In contrast, older, more established secret police or ones without institutional rivals are not associated with physical repression.
For refugees who have fled civil conflict, do experiences of victimization by one armed group push them to support the opposing armed groups? Or, does victimization cause refugees to revoke their support for all armed groups, whatever side they are on, and call instead for peace? This paper studies the effect of civilian victimization on threat perceptions, loyalties, and attitudes toward peace in the context of Syrian refugees in Turkey, many of whom faced regime-caused violence prior to their departure. Our research strategy leverages variation in home destruction caused by barrel bombs to examine the effect of violence on refugees’ views. We find that refugees who lose their home to barrel bombs withdraw support from armed actors and are more supportive of ending the war and finding peace. Suggestive evidence shows that while victims do not disengage from issues in Syria, they do show less optimism about an opposition victory.
State-Building as Lawfare explores the use of state and non-state legal systems by both politicians and ordinary people in postwar Chechnya. The book addresses two interrelated puzzles: why do local rulers tolerate and even promote non-state legal systems at the expense of state law, and why do some members of repressed ethnic minorities choose to resolve their everyday disputes using state legal systems instead of non-state alternatives? The book documents how the rulers of Chechnya promote and reinvent customary law and Sharia in order to borrow legitimacy from tradition and religion, increase autonomy from the metropole, and accommodate communal authorities and former rebels. At the same time, the book shows how prolonged armed conflict disrupted the traditional social hierarchies and pushed some Chechen women to use state law, spurring state formation from below.
How does targeting in armed conflict affect public opinion in conflict zones? Armed actors choose between targeting militaries and civilians, further choosing whether to target civilians discriminately or indiscriminately. Existing work suggests these choices have important implications for conflict dynamics, in part by influencing public opinion, yet the causal effects of these choices on individual attitudes have not been clearly established. We conduct a survey experiment in the Donbas region of Ukraine, an area that has witnessed years of protracted fighting. We find that reports of civilian targeting robustly reduce approval of both the government and separatist forces. However, we find that the effects of discriminate civilian targeting are not statistically distinguishable from those of indiscriminate civilian targeting. Finally, we find that our respondents generally preferred a restrained, rather than reciprocal, response from actors in this armed conflict. We explain the implications of our findings for theories of wartime violence.
Do citizens care about due process rights when holding insurgent groups accountable for violence? We examine public perceptions of justice and fairness in judicial proceedings brought against suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants and their supporters in Mosul, Iraq. We conducted a survey of Mosul residents and people in ISIS-affiliated displacement camps outside Mosul to evaluate public support for detainee due process rights. Using a trial and punishment survey experiment, we find that Mosul residents, while favoring capital punishment for ISIS involvement, are also sensitive to procedural due process rights of the accused. People with self-reported ISIS affiliations, in contrast, are more concerned with substantive due process, and do not see capital punishment outcomes as fair, regardless of procedural considerations. Although rebel group sympathizers and opponents have clashing perspectives on what constitutes equitable punishment for participation in insurgency, both recognize the importance of due process rights to long-term peace and security.
Why do governments severely punish some dissidents while showing mercy to others? This study argues that when constrained by limited information on dissent, states have incentives to cast the net of repression wider by executing not just key dissent actors but also members closely connected to them to ensure demobilization. States also crave information, and granting clemency to defectors who bring in information improves state intelligence. Given that tips have different values, regimes will grant clemency to defectors who are closely connected to key dissent actors and possess high-value tips, allowing the state to pursue top fugitives and dissolve resistance more efficiently. Using newly declassified data on political victims during Taiwan’s White Terror authoritarian period, I find that the regime tends to execute both key actors (i.e., leaders and recruiters) and their closely connected members. Defectors who share information tend to receive mercy, but defectors closely connected to key actors are much less likely to face execution than less connected defectors. These findings shed new insight into the toolkit dictators use to gather intelligence on dissent and how strategic clemency induces defection and betrayal among dissidents, helping destroy dissent networks from within.
How can researchers obtain reliable responses on sensitive issues in dangerous settings? This Element elucidates ways for researchers to use unobtrusive experimental methods to elicit answers to risky, taboo, and threatening questions in dangerous social environments. The methods discussed in this Element help social scientists to encourage respondents to express their true preferences and to reduce bias, while protecting them, local survey organizations, and researchers. The Element is grounded in an original study of civilian support for the jihadi insurgency in the Russian North Caucasus in Dagestan that assesses theories about wartime attitudes toward militant groups. We argue that sticky identities, security threats, and economic dependence curb the ability of civilians to switch loyalties.
Islamic law denotes as haram any forbidden behavior, object, beverage, or food. Despite subscribing to a similar Salafi ideology, very few jihadi groups use violence against haram targets (e.g., brothels, casinos, statues, liquor stores, mixed sex schools, and gay clubs). This study argues that haram-centered violence unites ethnically-mixed jihadi groups by fostering a superordinate Islamic identity that enables them to overcome their collective action problems. As a result, ethnically-mixed Salafi jihadi groups deploy haram targeting much more than homogenous ones. Using new disaggregated group-level data, our analyses demonstrate that the ethnic structure of Salafi jihadi groups shapes haram targeting, both in Dagestan and on a global scale. The article discusses these findings and directions for future research on religious violence.
I study a dynamic model of center-periphery relations that endogenizes the periphery’s grievance via the legacy of repression. The center’s key trade-off is that repression prevents the periphery from mobilizing today but increases grievances and thus the group’s ability to mobilize tomorrow, whereas tolerating mobilization diminishes grievances. The model’s predictions are path dependent, and a tipping point emerges among grievances. Below, the center tolerates mobilization, dissipating grievances. Above, the center preempts mobilization with perpetual repression or by granting independence, either intensifying grievances or breaking up the country, respectively. Only moderately aggrieved minorities have the opportunity and desire for mobilization. The model reconciles competing accounts of decentralization and secessionist mobilization, as the two have a nonmonotonic relationship; moderate decentralization levels are particularly susceptible to mobilization. Even decentralization optimally chosen by the center can be followed by outbursts of rebellion. The evolution of Basque secessionism helps to illustrate the model’s dynamics.
What causes civilian victimization in conventional civil wars and in conventional wars that experience insurgencies? The authors argue that a key driver of civilian victimization is the vulnerability of the incumbent forces, specifically when the conflict’s front line is shifting. Vulnerability is a function of informational and logistical challenges: when the front line is moving, incumbents face increased informational uncertainty and unstable supply chains that augment their vulnerability. Thus, incumbents will increase the use of civilian victimization in response to a scarcity of high-quality information on the location and identity of insurgents, to limit possible information leaks, and to contain supply disruption and logistics support to adversaries. The authors support their argument using matched difference-in-differences analyses of original subnational data on Nazi-Fascist violence in World War II Italy (1943–1945) and qualitative evidence.
Research on the effects of terrorism mostly focuses on the coercive effects of violence on the macrolevel, while other effects like provocation, particularly on the microlevel, do not receive the same attention. In this article, we seek to address previous omissions. We argue that terrorism can provoke ordinary people into a violent reaction. By reducing perceived security and creating a desire for revenge terrorism may lead civilians to attack uninvolved members of the terrorists’ constituency. Using geo-referenced data on terrorism (Global Terrorism Database) and violent riots (Social Conflict Analysis Database), we assess with a matched wake analysis if the treatment of terrorist violence against civilians causes an increase in violent behavior. The results of our analyses show that terrorism significantly increases violent riots. We thus conclude that terrorism can not only provoke governments but also civilians into an overreaction.
How do legacies of conflict affect choices between state and nonstate legal institutions? This article studies this question in Chechnya, where state law coexists with Sharia and customary law. The author focuses on the effect of conflict-induced disruption of gender hierarchies because the dominant interpretations of religious and customary norms are discriminatory against women. The author finds that women in Chechnya are more likely than men to rely on state law and that this gender gap in legal preferences and behavior is especially large in more-victimized communities. The author infers from this finding that the conflict created the conditions for women in Chechnya to pursue their interests through state law—albeit not without resistance. Women’s legal mobilization has generated a backlash from the Chechen government, which has attempted to reinstate a patriarchal order. The author concludes that conflict may induce legal mobilization among the weak and that gender may become a central cleavage during state-building processes in postconflict environments.
Under what conditions do rebel organizations control territory during civil war? How do civilians influence the distribution of territorial control? This article introduces a civilian agency theory, emphasizing community collective action capacity (CAC) defined by underlying social network structure, to complement existing explanations of territorial control. I argue communities with greater CAC mobilize information and resources more efficiently, increasing belligerents’ incentives to control territory. However, CAC also increases community bargaining power to demand costly investments in governance, partially offsetting these gains. CAC increases rebel control in areas of state neglect. But, as state service provision increases, communities leverage CAC to demand prohibitively costly rebel governance, deterring rebel control. This article tests the theory in the context of the communist insurgency in the Philippines, using military intelligence reports from 2011 to 2014 to measure village-level communist insurgent territorial control and a household-level census (2008–2010) to measure village CAC. Interviews with village elders in Eastern Mindanao illustrate causal mechanisms and explore alternative explanations.
How does the presence of armed pro-regime groups affect conflict lethality? This study examines the relationship between ethnicity, militia violence and conflict lethality in civil wars. We emphasise that differences in whether pro-regime militias were recruited in accordance with their ethnicity or not are critical in their influence upon conflict lethality, which we estimate in battlefield deaths. To that end, we categorise militias into groups recruited on their ethnic basis (co-ethnic militias) and those recruited regardless of their ethnicity (non-ethnic militias). We hypothesise that conflicts are more lethal when non-ethnic militias are involved. We link higher number of battle-deaths in conflicts with non-ethnic militias with the militia use of one-sided violence against civilians. Co-ethnic militias – that is militias recruited from the same ethnicity as rebels – are deployed amongst their co-ethnics and therefore tend to target civilians less than non-ethnic militias. This militia–civilian relationship has direct impact on conflict severity. To test our hypotheses we conduct global statistical analysis of 84 intrastate conflicts from 1989 to 2014.
Syria, Productive Antinomy, and the Study of Civil War - Volume 16 Issue 4 - Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl
Many scholars have suggested that organized violence in Chechnya has ended, and that Russia’s Chechenization policy and Ramzan Kadyrov’s presidency deserve the credit. We suggest that Putin has created a Frankenstein-like ruler over whom he risks losing control. As a result, the conflict only appears resolved, and we draw attention to both vertical and horizontal cracks in the foundation of Kadyrov’s rule that could lead to renewed violence. Vertically, the Chechen strongman and his growing clout in regional and federal politics have antagonized Russian siloviki. Horizontally, thousands of Chechens appear to be in a state of postponed blood feud toward Kadyrov, his clan, and the kadyrovtsy, his personal army. Backed by President Putin’s personal support, Kadyrov has put in motion a brutal machine of persecution over which some signs indicate he has lost control. Fear of extermination at the hands of the Kadyrov and his personal army has kept most prospective avengers at a bay. Once President Putin’s support wanes, locals will retaliate against Kadyrov and against Russian troops stationed in the republic, and Russian law enforcement circles will openly challenge Kadyrov’s rule. Putin’s support is only likely to wither if the costs of continued support (which grow with Kadyrov’s increasing independence) exceed the benefits (derived from an enforced peace). Either a renewed insurgency or ever more recalcitrant behavior would demonstrate a level of interest misalignment that could induce Putin to withdraw his support. Such a turn of events would render these horizontal and vertical cracks in the foundation of Kadyrov’s rule more noticeable and would likely to cause the frozen conflict in Chechnya to thaw, leading to a new civil war.
Dominant theories of mass violence hold that strategic concerns in civil war drive the deliberate targeting of civilians. However, the causal mechanisms that link strategic objectives to large-scale violence against civilians remain underspecified, and as such the causal logics that underpin each remain blurred. In this article, we identify and explicate four plausible mechanisms that explain why armed groups would target, for strategic purposes, civilians in war. We then turn to the peak period of violence during the Guatemalan armed conflict to assess which mechanisms were most prevalent. Specifically, we leverage unique archival data: 359 pages of military files from Operation Sofía, a month-long counterinsurgent campaign waged in the northwestern Ixil region. Through process tracing of real-time internal communications, we find that state actors most commonly described the civilian population as loyal to rebel forces; violence against civilians was a means to weaken the insurgency. Troops on the ground also depicted the Ixil population as ‘winnable’, which suggests that security forces used violence in this period to shape civilian behavior. These findings are most consistent with the idea that mass violence in this case and period was a coercive instrument to defeat insurgents by punishing civilians for collaboration. The evidence from this period is less consistent with a logic of genocide, in which the purpose of violence would be to destroy ‘unwinnable’ civilian groups. Our analysis illustrates how a mechanism-centered approach based on process tracing of conflict archives can help uncover logics underlying civilian killing.
Drawing on unique interviews with former jihadists from Russia's autonomous republic of Dagestan, this article is the first to examine the impact of ethnicity on jihadist groups' methods of organization and operations, primarily in terms of their target selection, local support, and recruitment and leadership policies. It distinguishes between largely monoethnic rural jamaats—or jihadist groups—and multiethnic urban jamaats, pointing to the contested nature of ethnicity, particularly in the latter group. It examines the steps taken by the leadership of urban jamaats to overcome ethnic cleavages and avoid interethnic tension both within the jihadists' ranks and with regard to the local population. The article illustrates that, as a divisive phenomenon in multiethnic urban jamaats, ethnic identity has been deliberately downplayed by the leadership of these groups at the expense of strengthening supra-ethnic Salafi-jihadist identity. The article also highlights the significance of ethnic identity in jihadist groups, in spite of it being contradictory to Salafi-jihadist doctrine.
This paper introduces the key concepts used in this special issue – center, periphery, and vertical bargaining – and inquires why some national groups within democratic states demand outright independence, while others mobilize for regional autonomy and still others settle for even less. It then specifies a theoretical framework that tries to explain cross-sectional differences and temporal changes in both peripheral demands and central responses. The building blocks of that framework include cultural distinctiveness, credibility of the exit threat and central dependence on the periphery. As an empirical illustration, the paper discusses the case of the Bernese Jura in Switzerland, and then briefly introduces the contributions to this special issue.
In multinational states, developing a strong sense of civic nationalism among minorities is critical to creating social order. Countries that fail to cultivate civic nationalism among minorities can face persistent problems of separatism on the periphery. This article investigates the role of three factors that may explain the variable loyalty of individuals from minority groups to the state—inter-ethnic networks, in-group solidarity and religiosity. Drawing on an original survey of Lezghin and Talysh minorities in Azerbaijan, the analysis suggests that individuals with a stronger Islamic identity and more interethnic networks were more likely to identify with state-promoted civic nationalism, due to their ability to cut across ethnic identities. Against our expectations, group solidarity did not influence an individual’s degree of attachment to civic identity.
The most commonly used statistical models of civil war onset fail to correctly predict most occurrences of this rare event
in out-of-sample data. Statistical methods for the analysis of binary data, such as logistic regression, even in their rare
event and regularized forms, perform poorly at prediction. We compare the performance of Random Forests with three versions
of logistic regression (classic logistic regression, Firth rare events logistic regression, and L1-regularized logistic regression), and find that the algorithmic approach provides significantly more accurate predictions
of civil war onset in out-of-sample data than any of the logistic regression models. The article discusses these results and
the ways in which algorithmic statistical methods like Random Forests can be useful to more accurately predict rare events
in conflict data.
The most outstanding trend in contemporary conflicts has been the fusion of the threats from terrorism and insurgency. Insurgent threats in many places on the globe today are mistaken as terrorist threats, and counterterrorism (CT) is deployed as the local insurgents come increasingly to resemble their transnational terrorist partners. Such an emphasis on the role of terrorism in insurgencies and the undue focus on CT risks strengthening, rather than severing, the connection between local insurgents and transnational terrorists. Russia's counterterrorist strategy inadvertently transformed the conflict from a contained, nationalist rebellion to a sprawling jihadi insurgency and perversely encouraged the group to resort even more to terrorist tactics. The Russian counterinsurgency has been unsuccessful, as the insurgents are neither demolished as a force nor are they isolated by society. Losing the hearts and minds among the Chechen people is a key reason behind why the Russian operation in Chechnya suffered failures. Too little attention was paid to winning over the “hearts and minds” of the people.
A political scientist reviews the vicissitudes of the Caucasus jihadi insurgency and Russia's counterinsurgency efforts since 2005, drawing on the press, jihadist websites, and scholarship on insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. The development of jihadi-oriented fighting units, the rise and decline of Maskhadov's supremacy, the rise of Islamist elements, the Chechen separatist movement and the expansion of the jihad, Moscow's counter-jihadi successes, the jihadi network after the death of Basayev, and the rise and career of Ramzan Kadyrov are examined. These events are analyzed in terms of the dynamics of insurgency and counterinsurgency conflict.
A central theoretical question in the literature on state-sanctioned terror is whether, and under what conditions, repressive violence deters or stimulates a shift in popular support away from the regime and toward the opposition. By combining a rational choice model of the nonelite response to escalating levels of death squad violence with a structural analysis of the global and domestic conditions under which the escalation of state-sanctioned terror can be expected, we demonstrate theoretically that carefully targeted repressive violence may in fact reduce the level of active popular support for the opposition, at least temporarily. However, as the level of repressive violence escalates and its application becomes more indiscriminate, it may in fact produce increases in active support for the opposition because nonelites can no longer assure themselves of immunity from repression by simply remaining politically inert. Thus, they turn to the rebels in search of protection from indiscriminate violence by the state. Why, then, would a regime, itself composed of supposedly rational individuals, pursue a policy of escalating repression if such measures are ultimately counterproductive? We argue that the conditions of structural dependence characterizing these regimes leave them without the institutional machinery, economic resources, or political will to address opposition challenges through more accommodative programs of reform. Thus, escalating repression is perpetrated not because it has a high probability of success but because the weakness of the state precludes its resort to less violent alternatives. The utility of this approach is illustrated with a case study of reform, repression, and revolution in El Salvador.
Nationalism is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world – but why some ethno-national groups mobilize for conflict, while others remain quiescent, remains subject to significant disagreement. This paper argues that domestic politics create the incentives for secession, and international forces make conflict feasible against a sometimes stronger military adversary – the state. The proposed theory unpacks this interaction of domestic and international factors, and posits that when regional elites possess local control in an area that is contiguous with a potential sponsor, external support is more feasible and more apt to lead to mobilization and conflict. When regional elites lack local control, external sponsors will be wary of supporting a potentially lost cause and regional elites will exhibit more restraint, reducing the chances of conflict – external support therefore often flows from strong states to strong regions in weaker states. It is instrumental and variable, rather than affective and constant, and thus kin states will not always support their secessionist brethren in neighbouring states. Using a sub-national research design from post-Soviet Georgia, the results lend support to these conjectures.
Indirect rule is one of the means that central authorities have long employed in hopes of defusing communal conflict and civil war in multicultural societies. Yet very little is known about the appeal of indirect rule among the ruled themselves. Why do people in some places demand more indirect rule and local autonomy, whereas others seem content to be governed directly by rulers of an alien culture? This is a crucial question with important implications for determining the form of governance that is most likely to provide social order in culturally heterogeneous societies. Although much attention has been given to consider the relative costs and benefits of direct versus indirect rule for the central authorities, the other side of the coin-namely, the variable demand for indirect rule among the members of distinctive cultural groups-has hardly been examined with systematic empirical data. This paper presents a theory of the differential demand for indirect rule and offers an initial test of its principal empirical implications using original micro-level data from the North Caucasus region of Russia. The theory's core claim is that the middle class should express the greatest demand for indirect rule, while both the upper and lower classes should prefer more direct rule. The theory therefore predicts that there will be an inverse parabolic relationship between the demand for indirect rule and economic class. The findings are largely consistent with these theoretical expectations.
Despite a considerable amount of ethnographic research into the phenomena of blood revenge and blood feud, little is known about the role of blood revenge in political violence, armed conflict, and irregular war. Yet blood revenge�widespread among many conflict-affected societies of the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond�is not confined to the realm of communal in- fighting, as previous research has presumed. An empirical analysis of Russia�s two counterinsurgency campaigns in Chechnya suggests that the practice of blood revenge has functioned as an important mechanism in encouraging violent mobilization in the local population against the Russian troops and their Chechen proxies. The need to exact blood revenge has taken precedence over an individual�s political views, or lack thereof. Triggered by the loss of a relative or humiliation, many apolitical Chechens who initially sought to avoid involvement in the hostilities or who had been skeptical of the insurgency mobilized to exact blood revenge to restore their individual and clan honor. Blood revenge functions as an effective, yet heavily underexplored, grievancebased mechanism encouraging violent mobilization in irregular wars.
Objective
The literature on indiscriminate violence has emphasized how information shapes state capacity and determines whether and where the government employs collective targeting. This article investigates the conditions that influence the government's ability to obtain intelligence in counterinsurgencies. Specifically, it suggests that the government is more likely to use indiscriminate violence in areas characterized by indigenous ethnic homogeneity and forested terrain. These features increase the cost of acquiring information about the insurgents, and reduce state capacity, thereby increasing the likelihood of indiscriminate violence.Method
We examine district-level data on the Russian government's use of indiscriminate violence and disaggregated data on ethnicity and terrain across the North Caucasus from 2000 to 2011.ResultsThe results indicate that ethnically homogeneous and forested areas are significantly more likely targets of indiscriminate violence, and that the effect of ethnicity is markedly stronger when the district is densely forested.Conclusion
This finding expands on previous studies by testing the observable implications of theories linking information to indiscriminate violence, and by providing new micro-level evidence for important human and physical constraints on counterinsurgencies.
Exploring the case study of the Moscow-led counterinsurgency in Chechnya, this article shows the crucial importance of cultural knowledge understood in an ethnographic sense in terms of patterns of social organization, persisting value systems, and other related phenomena – in the relative success of the eradication of the Chechnya-based insurgency. Using a range of first-hand sources – including interviews by leading Russian and Chechen experts and investigative journalists, and the testimonies of eyewitnesses and key actors from within local and Russian politics – the article explains the actual mechanisms of Moscow's policy of Chechenization that have sought to break the backbone of the local resistance using local human resources. To this end, the study focuses on the crucial period of 2000–2004, when Moscow's key proxy in Chechnya, the kadyrovtsy paramilitaries, were established and became operational under the leadership of Akhmad Kadyrov, which helped create a sharp division within Chechen society, reducing the level of populace-based support for the insurgents, thereby increasing support for the pro-Moscow forces.
This article fills the gap in existing scholarship on asymmetric conflict, indigenous forces, and how socio-cultural codes shape the dynamics and outcomes of conflict transformation. Specifically, it identifies three key socio-cultural values commonplace in honorific societies: retaliation, hospitality, and silence. As sources of effective pro-insurgent violent mobilisation and support from among the local population, these values provide insurgents with an asymmetric advantage over much stronger incumbents. Using the case studies of the two Russian counterinsurgencies in Chechnya, the article shows the mechanisms on the ground through which Moscow’s deployment of indigenous forces against insurgents helped to stem the tide of conflict, reversing the insurgents’ initial advantage in terms of asymmetry of values.
This article provides an in-depth literature review of the different trends and debates in the English academic literature on the violent conflicts in the North Caucasus during the post-Soviet period. This literature review is separated into three major debates and focused on four major themes that consistently appear in the study of violent conflicts in the North Caucasus: nationalism and identity (grievance), criminality and opportunism (greed), repression (revenge and trauma), and religion (radicalization). The first debate concentrates on the structural factors explaining mass mobilization in the North Caucasus following the end of the Soviet Union. The second debate underscores the role of religious radicalization in mobilization patterns in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, as well as its potential links with other conflicts (Afghanistan and Syria) and the importance of suicide bombings. Finally, the third debate focuses on the study of counter-insurgency and counterterrorism, the development of the Caucasus Emirate, and the diffusion of insurgent violence across the region. The article concludes by underlining the need to engage on a larger theorization of violent mobilization in the North Caucasus seeking to integrate structural, organizational and individual variables linking the global dynamics and local specificities of the region.
Drawing upon a range of ethnographic sources, this paper proposes an alternative micro-level explanation of the Jihadization process of the Chechen insurgency in that it explores individual motivations for recruitment into Jihadist units in interwar Chechnya (1996–99). First, it shows that enrolment into Jihadist units was sought by Chechen males who attempted to challenge the established forms of social organization. Second, it illustrates that membership in Jihadist units served as a means of providing security, particularly so for the members of weakened clans who found themselves increasingly discriminated against by their ethnic kin, and incapable of ensuring protection for themselves within the established clan-based networks. In both cases, the Jihadist ideology per se seems to have been of little or no real concern as regards prospective recruits to the Jihadist units.
This article offers the first disaggregated, quantitative comparison of Islamist and nationalist violence, using new data from Russia's North Caucasus. We find that violence by Islamist groups is less sensitive to government coercion than violence by nationalist groups. Selective counterinsurgency tactics outperform indiscriminate force in suppressing attacks by nationalists, but not Islamists. We attribute this finding to rebels’ support structure. Because Islamist insurgents rely less on local support than nationalists, they are able to maintain operations even where it is relatively costly for the local population to support them. These findings have potentially significant implications for other contemporary conflicts in which governments face both types of challenges to their authority and existing political order.
Information about insurgent groups is a central resource in civil wars: counterinsurgents seek it, insurgents safeguard it, and civilians often trade it. Yet despite its essential role in civil war dynamics, the act of informing is still poorly understood, due mostly to the classified nature of informant “tips.” As an alternative research strategy, we use an original 2,700 respondent survey experiment in 100 villages to examine attitudes toward the Guardians of Peace program, a widespread campaign by the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to recruit local informants. We find that coethnic bias—the systematic tendency to favor cooperation with coethnics—shapes attitudes about informing and beliefs about retaliation, especially among Tajik respondents. This bias persists even after adjusting for additional explanations and potential confounding variables, suggesting that identity considerations such as coethnicity may influence attitudes toward high-risk behavior in wartime settings.
A growing literature on the subnational diffusion of armed conflict rests on the proposition that political violence triggers more violence, in the same locality and elsewhere. Yet state efforts to contain such uprisings remain largely unexplored, theoretically and empirically. Drawing on a mathematical model of epidemics, we formalize the logic of conflict diffusion and derive conditions under which state coercion might limit the spread of insurgent violence. Using a new dataset of insurgent and government violence in Russia’s North Caucasus from 2000 to 2008, we evaluate the relative effectiveness of four coercive strategies: (1) denial, which manipulates the costs of expanding insurgent activity to new locations, (2) punishment, which manipulates the costs of sustained fighting in contested areas, (3) denial and punishment, which does both, and (4) no action, which does neither. We find denial to be most effective at containing insurgent violence. Punishment is least effective, and even counterproductive. Not only does such a strategy fail to prevent the spillover of violence to new locations, but it may amplify the risk of continued fighting in contested areas. In the Caucasus, denial is found to be the least inflammatory counter-insurgency option for Russia. For it to succeed, Russia should physically isolate centers of insurgent activity from regions of nonviolence and avoid the temptation of punitive reprisals.
While some groups work hard to foster collaborative ties with civilians, others engage in egregious abuses and war crimes. We argue that foreign state funding for rebel organizations greatly reduces the incentives of militant groups to the ‘win the hearts and minds’ of civilians because it diminishes the need to collect resources from the population. However, unlike other lucrative resources, foreign funding of rebel groups must be understood in principal-agent terms. Some external principals — namely, democracies and states with strong human rights lobbies — are more concerned with atrocities in the conflict zone than others. Multiple state principals also lead to abuse as no single state can effectively restrain the organization. We test these conjectures with new data on foreign support for rebel groups and data on one-sided violence against civilians. Our results provide support for these hypotheses. Most notably, we find strong evidence that principal characteristics help influence agent actions.
This essay shows how the various Islamic communities or jamaats that emerged in the Muslim republics of the Russian North Caucasus during the early 1990s have evolved since then. Originally conceived as peaceful religious organisations embracing strict Islamic Salafi principles, many of these communities have transformed themselves into fighting units sharing many of the traits of jihadist Islamic movements worldwide. By analysing the radical Islamic discourse and the strategies of leading jihadist fighters in the Russian North Caucasus, this essay also illustrates how their views, ideas and tactics have become similar, if not identical, to the beliefs that are being held and thepractices that are being conducted by fighters of global and regional jihadist movements worldwide.
Sociological explanations of group conflict usually presuppose that the various factors that breed hostility between collectivities also generate internal solidarity. Outside of the protest literature, studies of conflict therefore pay little attention to the collective-action problem facing groups in contention, and therefore overestimate the likelihood of group conflict: Intergroup struggle is implicitly regarded as a sufficient condition for group participation in violent conflict. Examination of nineteenth-century court documents from Corsica, a society known for its tradition of collectivist feuding, shows that violent incidents typically did not involve groups. The group character of violence-in the form of collaborative use of lethal force and inclusion of disputants' kin-was conditional on collective contention having occurred before violence began. This and other empirical patterns support the view that collective violence occurs when group action fails to convince an adversary to back down. The failure to prevent escalation calls the group's solidarity into question, compelling members to demonstrate that they are able to overcome their collective-action problem.
David M. Anderson and David Killingray (eds), Policing and Decolonisation: Nationalism, Politics and the Police, 1917–65 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992). Pp.227. £35.00. ISBN 0–7190–3033–1.Michael J. Cohen and Martin Kolinsky (eds), Britain and the Middle East in the 1930s: Security Problems, 1935–39 (London: Macmillan, 1992). Pp.231. £40.00. ISBN 0–333–53514–6.Peter Heehs, The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism in India 1900–1910 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994). Pp.324, £17.50. ISBN 0–19–563350–4.Peter Hopkirk, On Secret Service East of Constantinople (London: John Murray, 1994). Pp.431. £19.99. ISBN 9780719–55017–1.Thomas R. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency 1919–60 (London: Macmillan, 1990). Pp.210. £40.00. ISBN 0–333–51131‐X.
Does a state's use of indiscriminate violence incite insurgent attacks? To date, most existing theories and empirical studies have concluded that such violence is highly counterproductive because it creates new grievances while forcing victims to seek security, if not safety, in rebel arms. This proposition is tested using Russian artillery fire in Chechnya (2000 to 2005) to estimate indiscriminate violence's effect on subsequent patterns of insurgent attacks across matched pairs of similar shelled and nonshelled villages. The findings are counterintuitive. Shelled villages experience a 24 percent reduction in posttreatment mean insurgent attacks relative to control villages. In addition, commonly cited “triggers” for insurgent retaliation, including the lethality and destructiveness of indiscriminate violence, are either negatively correlated with insurgent attacks or statistically insignificant.
This article analyzes how Russian Federal policies evolved between 1999 and 2005 to justify the policy of “Chechenization” and the legitimization of an autocratic-style regime in Chechnya. It argues that this strategy was progressively elaborated during the conflict as a result of institutional competition between three main Federal agencies (the Presidential Administration, the secret services (FSB)), and the military over the framing of the conflict. This process paved the way for the formation of the “totalizing frame” under the leadership of the Kremlin, which incorporated various discursive constructions into one coherent and exclusive interpretation of the conflict.
The use of force in asymmetrical warfare, and in counterinsurgency operations in particular, has been written off as strategically dangerous and politically irrational. The goal of the article is to examine the role of force in a modern military context and determine if victory through its application is theoretically feasible. This hypothesis will be tested against the backdrop of the conflict in Chechnya. The work will examine the Russian military and public policy as a subordinate subject to the overall inquiry of the article in an attempt to show that force was one of the major factors behind Russian military success in 2001.
It is commonly believed in the literature on insurgency and counterinsurgency that to be effective in undermining civilian support for guerrillas, violence against noncombatants must be selective or risk alienating the population. Yet cases exist where governments have defeated insurgencies by wielding indiscriminate violence against noncombatants. This paper explores the conditions under which such violence can be effective through a case study of British counterinsurgency strategy in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). I find that the smaller the size of the underlying population supporting the insurgents, and the smaller and more constricted the geographic area, the more effective indiscriminate civilian victimization is likely to be. Moreover, when civilian loyalties are not very flexible, selective violence is unlikely to deter people from supporting the rebels and indiscriminate force is sometimes required to make it impossible for people to provide support.
That rebels face a collective action problem is one of the most widely shared assumptions in the literature on civil wars. The authors argue that the collective action paradigm can be both descriptively inaccurate and analytically misleading when it comes to civil wars. They question both pillars of the paradigm as applied to the study of civil wars, namely, the free-riding incentive generated by the public goods dimension of insurgency and the risks of individual participation in insurgent collective action. The authors argue, instead, that although insurgent collective action may entail the expectation of future collective benefits, public (rather than just private) costs tend to predominate in the short term. Moreover, the costs of nonparticipation and free riding may equal or even exceed those of participation. The authors support these claims by triangulating three types of evidence: historical evidence from counterinsurgency operations in several civil wars; data from the Vietnam War's Phoenix Program; and regional evidence from the Greek Civil War. They conclude by drawing implications for the study of civil wars.
Does ethnicity matter for explaining violence during civil wars? I exploit variation in the identity of soldiers who conducted so-called “sweep” operations (zachistki) in Chechnya (2000–5) as an empirical strategy for testing the link between ethnicity and violence. Evidence suggests that the intensity and timing of insurgent attacks are conditional on who “swept” a particular village. For example, attacks decreased by about 40% after pro-Russian Chechen sweeps relative to similar Russian-only operations. These changes are difficult to reconcile with notions of Chechen solidarity or different tactical choices. Instead, evidence, albeit tentative, points toward the existence of a wartime “coethnicity advantage.” Chechen soldiers, enmeshed in dense intraethnic networks, are better positioned to identify insurgents within the population and to issue credible threats against civilians for noncooperation. A second mechanism - prior experience as an insurgent - may also be at work. These findings suggest new avenues of research investigating the conditional effects of violence in civil wars.
Retributive emotions and behavior are thought to be adaptive for their role in improving social coordination. However, since
retaliation is generally not in the short-term interests of the individual, rational self-interest erodes the motivational
link between retributive emotions and the accompanying adaptive behavior. I argue that two different sets of norms have emerged
to reinforce this link: (1) norms about honor and (2) norms about moral responsibility and desert. I observe that the primary
difference between these types of retribution motivators lies in where the normative focus is placed after an offense. In
the first form of retribution, the normative focus is on the offended party. In the second, it is on the offender. Next, I
show how each class of norms is well tailored to the particular features of the environment in which these forms of retributive
behavior emerge. Finally, I consider some philosophical implications of these observations. I suggest that my account, if
correct, would pose tough challenges for contemporary philosophical theories of moral responsibility and punishment.
A great deal of violence in civil wars is informed by the logic of terrorism: violence tends to be used by political actors
against civilians in order to shape their political behavior. I focus on indiscriminate violence in the context of civil war: this is a type of violence that selects its victims on the basis of their membership in some
group and irrespective of their individual actions. Extensive empirical evidence suggests that indiscriminate violence in
civil war is informed by the logic of terrorism. I argue that under certain conditions, that tend to be quite common, such
violence is counter productive. I specify these conditions and address the following paradox: why do we sometimes observe
instances of indiscriminate violence evenunder conditions that make this strategy counterproductive? I review four possible reasons: truncated data, ignorance, cost,
and institutional constraints. I argue that indiscriminate violence emerges because it is much cheaper than its main alternative
– selective violence. It is more likely under a steep imbalance of power between the competing actors, and where and when
resources and information are low; however, most political actors eventually switch to selective violence. Thus, given a balance
of power between competing actors, indiscriminate violence is more likely at early rather than late stages of the conflict.
Overall, the paper suggests that even extreme forms of violence are used strategically.
require good intelligence. Absent intelligence, not only might the insurgents escape unharmed and continue their violent actions, but collateral damage caused to the general population from poor targeting may generate adverse response against the government and create popular support for the insurgents, which may result in higher recruitment to the insurgency. We model the dynamic relations among intelligence, collateral casualties in the population, attrition, recruitment to the insurgency, and reinforcement to the government force. Even under best case assumptions we show that the government cannot totally eradicate the insurgency by force. The best it can do is contain it at a certain xed level.