Soviet Partisan Violence against Soviet Civilians: Targeting Their Own

Applying the ‘victory at all costs’ principle adopted during World War II, partisans—the long arm of the Soviet regime in the occupied territories—pressured civilians to resist the enemy. The thinking behind most of their coercive policies seemed rational within the framework of this concept; however, the passions produced by merciless fighting, communist dogma, Stalinist culture with its habitual witch-hunts, and the belief in collective guilt frequently escalated coercion far beyond rational limits. Partisans increased the polarisation of civilian society between supporters and enemies of the Soviet state, killing thousands of bystanders in the process.     

Persuasion and Predation: The Effects of U.S. Military Aid and International Development Aid on Civilian Killings

ABSTRACT

Powerful states frequently employ foreign aid to pursue international security objectives. Yet aid's effectiveness will be undermined if it exacerbates the effects of conflict on civilians within recipient states. This article investigates how international development aid and U.S. military aid influence recipient governments' incentives and ability to target civilians. U.S. military aid has a persuasion effect on state actors, which decreases a recipient state's incentives and necessity to target civilians. Development aid flows, however, trigger a predation effect in some environments, exacerbating civilian targeting. An analysis of aid flows in 135 countries on civilian killings between 1989–2011 provides support for both the persuasion and predation effects associated with aid.     

Girls as “Weapons of Terror” in Northern Uganda and Sierra Leonean Rebel Fighting Forces

Girls—both willingly and unwillingly—participate in terrorist acts within the context of contemporary wars. These acts range from targeting civilians for torture and killing to destroying community infrastructures so that people's physical and psychological health and survival are affected. Girls witness or participate in acts such as mutilation, human sacrifice, forced cannibalism, drug use, and physical and psychological deprivation. This article focuses upon girls in two fighting forces: the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone and their roles as combatants whose primary strategy is perpetrating terrorist acts against civilians. In analyses of gender and terrorism, girls are typically subsumed under the larger category of female, which marginalizes their experiences and fails to recognize that they possess agency and power.     

What Terrorist Leaders Want: A Content Analysis of Terrorist Propaganda Videos

In recent years, a growing body of empirical research suggests that indiscriminate violence against civilian targets tends to carry substantial political risks compared to more selective violence against military targets. To better understand why terrorist groups sometimes attack politically suboptimal targets, scholars are increasingly adopting a principal-agent framework where the leaders of terrorist groups are understood as principals and lower level members as agents. According to this framework, terrorist leaders are thought to behave as essentially rational political actors, whereas lower level members are believed to harbor stronger non-political incentives for harming civilians, often in defiance of leadership preferences. We test this proposition with an original content analysis of terrorist propaganda videos. Consistent with the principal–agent framework, our analysis demonstrates statistically that terrorist leaders tend to favor significantly less indiscriminate violence than their operatives actually commit, providing unprecedented insight into the incentive structure of terrorist leaders relative to the rank-and-file.     

“Purity of Arms,” “Preemptive War,” and “Selective Targeting” in the Context of Terrorism: General,Conceptual, and Legal Analyses

Selective targeting (or targeted killing) of terrorist leaders is a legitimate mode of operation and part of a state's counterterrorism, anticipatory, self-defense activities that are designed to prevent the continuation of terrorism. Paradoxically, this counterterrorism measure is the best way of preserving the military ethical conventions of “purity of arms.” The concept refers to moral rules advocating the exercise of restraint and compassion in the course of a confrontation with the enemy. The “purity of arms” concept is debated extensively in democracies. Selective targeting of terrorist activists is a measure designed to hurt the real enemy while minimizing civilian casualties. Terrorist leaders and planners are targeted and an attempt is made, trying to avoid so far as possible, “collateral damage” that often accompanies any general military offensive. Customary international law permits targeting the enemy, provided that the criteria of necessity and proportionality of the attack are maintained. The relationship between the threat of terrorist attacks and the actual attacks carried out is shown in this study. The results contribute to reinforcing the legality of selective targeting as a preemptive mode of operation because they show that one should relate to a threat of an attack as to an imminent danger.     

Crafting democratic control of the military in South Korea and the Philippines: the problem of military factions

This article explores how a military's organizational character (cohesion or lack thereof) shapes military officers' attitudes toward new civilian leadership in democratizing South Korea and the Philippines. It suggests that a factionalized military makes civilian control much more difficult and the route to democratic consolidation highly unstable and incomplete for three reasons. First, in the factionalized army, individual officers' allegiance is directed toward their factional leaders, not toward the military as a unified body and the civilian leadership. Second, factionalized military will create ‘monitoring’ and ‘sanctioning’ problems for civilians. Finally, competition among various factions in the military promotes officers' appetite for political domination. The structured-focused analysis of democratization in South Korea and the Philippines clearly sustains the theoretical arguments. The study implies that the institutionalization of civilian control of the military in democratizing nations depends on new leaders' ability/willingness to remove military factions and rebuild the armed forces into a cohesive organ.     

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend … The Dynamics of Self-Defense Forces in Irregular War: The Case of the Sons of Iraq

This article assesses the effect that leveraging civilian defense force militias has on the dynamics of violence in civil war. We argue that the delegation of security and combat roles to local civilians shifts the primary targets of insurgent violence toward civilians, in an attempt to deter future defections, and re-establish control over the local population. This argument is assessed through an analysis of the Sunni Awakening and ancillary Sons of Iraq paramilitary program. The results suggest that at least in the Al-Anbar province of Iraq, the utilization of the civilian population in counterinsurgent roles had significant implications for the targets of insurgent violence.     

Ethnicity and conflict severity: accounting for the effect of co-ethnic and non-ethnic militias on battlefield lethality

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.     

The Lawfulness of U.S. Targeted Killing Operations Outside Afghanistan

Targeted killing operations conducted outside Afghanistan have prompted debate regarding their lawfulness. For opponents of targeted killing operations, the debate tends to center on the number of civilians killed. Proponents respond by questioning the credibility and validity of the methods employed to determine the number of civilian casualties. This debate is important, but it also obscures the fact that the lawfulness of targeting killings is not determined by whether civilians were killed alone, while also lending legitimacy to unsubstantiated claims that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda and “associated forces.” This article classifies the hostilities in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. It then applies the applicable body of law to targeted killing operations in each of these respective states based on how the hostilities were classified.     

Situating soldiers’ demands: mutinies and protests in Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso in 2011 military mutinies followed widespread civilian protests, indicating a crisis of confidence in President Compaoré. Through an in-depth examination of the events, this article encourages an understanding of military revolts that extends beyond the military. Although the mutineers never united with the demonstrators, their grievances mirrored those of the civilians. The article puts the revolts into a historic context and shows a pattern of interconnectedness between military revolts and civilian demonstrations in Burkina Faso. The work draws on interviews conducted with military personnel and civilians involved in the widespread protests.     

Civilian Defense Forces,State Capacity,and Government Victory in Counterinsurgency Wars

Given the onset of a violent rebellion by an armed non-state group, how do states re-establish intra-state peace and hence fulfill their basic function as providers of internal security? In this article I argue that one way governments perform this core function is by recruiting non-combatants into local self-defense units called civilian defense forces (CDFs). By providing for local security, leveraging their superior local knowledge, and provoking insurgent reprisals against civilians, CDF units facilitate the influx of tactical intelligence as well as isolate insurgents from non-combatant populations physically as well as politically. Consistent with the argument, statistical analyses of two different cross-national data sets of insurgencies from 1944 to 2006 reveal that a state is 53 percent more likely to vanquish a guerrilla threat if the incumbent deploys CDFs. The analyses also cast doubt on a recent claim in the literature that incumbent force mechanization adversely affects the states’ ability to counter insurgent threats. Given that CDF deployment is a more easily manipulable variable than most other elements of state power, CDFs appear to be an effective instrument of counterinsurgency deserving of further academic and policy attention.     

After the War was over: The civilian return to Leningrad

This article focuses on the civilian return to Leningrad after the end of the Blockade and in the immediate post-war period. It examines how the authorities tried to control movement back to the city but proved to be overwhelmed by vast numbers of civilians returning with or without permission. It describes post-war living conditions, explores the official historical narrative of resilience and recovery, and provides a critique of the alternative historical narrative that claimed there was no post-war ‘return to normalcy’ and that Leningrad became a different city after the war.     

Voice and choice in health care in England: understanding citizen responses to dissatisfaction

Using data from a five-year online survey the paper examines the effects of relative satisfaction with health services on individuals' voice-and-choice activity in the English public health care system. Voice is considered in three parts – individual voice (complaints), collective voice voting and participation (collective action). Exercising choice is seen in terms of complete exit (not using health care), internal exit (choosing another public service provider) and private exit (using private health care). The interaction of satisfaction and forms of voice and choice are analysed over time. Both voice and choice are correlated with dissatisfaction with those who are unhappy with the NHS more likely to privately voice and to plan to take up private health care. Those unable to choose private provision are likely to use private voice. These factors are not affected by items associated with social capital – indeed, being more trusting leads to lower voice activity.     

The Fear Factor is a Main Thing: How Radio Influences Anxiety and Political Attitudes

We investigate how being exposed to media influences levels of anxiety and political attitudes in conflict-affected areas. Exploiting exogenous variation in signal strength of a radio station in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State, we compare original qualitative and quantitative data from areas with differing radio coverage. Civilians living in areas with more exposure to radio are more afraid of attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). This anxiety means civilians rely more on a civilian militia, the arrow boys, and less on the state army. Hence media, through fear, can contribute to changing social and political structures.     

Explaining Young People’s Involvement in Online Piracy: An Empirical Assessment Using the Offending Crime and Justice Survey in England and Wales

Abstract

The Internet has been widely acknowledged as facilitating many forms of youth offending. Existing research has identified important drivers of young people’s involvement in online crime, yet this has overwhelmingly relied on school or college samples. As such, it tells us little about those young people that have left the formal education system—a group who are more likely perpetrators of juvenile crime more generally. Focusing on young people’s involvement in online piracy offenses, our analysis draws on data from a nationally representative survey of England and Wales to better understand the dynamics of involvement in online crime across the population. We assess the potential overlaps between online and offline offending, the role of differential association and deviancy neutralization techniques in shaping offending behavior, as well as the protective effect of strong family support networks in reducing involvement in piracy. We find that illegal downloaders tend to be young, male, and have a higher number of delinquent friends. We also find that many of these offenders do not confine their offending to online spaces, with involvement in offline property offenses also high among this group.     

The Rebels' Resource Curse: A Theory of Insurgent–Civilian Dynamics

The relationship between armed rebels and local civilians is among the least understood aspects of insurgency. This article posits a novel theory, the rebels' resource curse, to argue that the interaction between rebel groups and local communities can be traced to the availability of revenue-generating resources. The theory is developed using a case study comparison approach to critically analyze how access to revenue-generating resources among the Naxalites in India and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in Colombia affect these insurgent-civilian interactions. The theory proposes that insurgents face a resource curse similar to that faced by states. Rather than resource wealth contributing to greater social engagement and fruitful insurgent–civilian interactions, it appears to precipitate isolationist, and even exploitative and violent relations between insurgents and local civilian populations. Conversely, resource scarcity predicts a greater degree of social integration and cohesion between civilians and insurgents. The framework of the rebels' resource curse can also be applied productively to other insurgent groups, enhancing our understanding of the social realities of insurgency.     

Economics vs. values in political trust in Korea

This paper investigates the relationships between economic and/or value determinants and political trust using the 1985 Public Opinion Study for National Development in Korea conducted by the Korea Institute of Social Studies (KISS). Also examined are the relative effects of perceived personal financial situations and macro/collective economic conditions on levels of political trust to distinguish which one is more important in determining political trust in Korea. Results indicate that the trust in the political institutions and government performance depends on both personal financial security and national economic conditions. Equally important is the perception of how people think they have been treated. If Koreans perceive that they are being treated unfairly, they are likely to form, negative attitudes towards politics. We also found that, regardless of which party Koreans favor, if the government does not stabilize the economy, they do not hesitate to withdraw their support from it.     

From Medusa Past Kantolo: Testing the Effectiveness of Canada's Enemy-Centric and Population-Centric Counterinsurgency Operational Strategies

Canada's counterinsurgency in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, involved two distinct operational strategies: an initial enemy-centric strategy and, after 2009, a population-centric strategy. Using insurgent-initiated attacks against civilians as a measure for the level of control and security provided by the counterinsurgency, this article tests the effectiveness of these two strategies using a quasi-experimental research design. This article finds that a population-centric counterinsurgency strategy that aimed to provide security to the population rather than destroy the insurgency resulted in the most controlled and secure environment for the civilian population. To the extent that a secure civilian population is important for successful counterinsurgency, the post-2009 population-centric operational strategy of the Canadian Forces, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and the United States increased the chances of a successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.     

A ‘synchronised attack’ on life: the Saudi-led coalition’s ‘hidden and holistic’ genocide in Yemen and the shared responsibility of the US and UK

Abstract

Since the Saudi-led coalition (Coalition) began its military campaign in Yemen in March 2015, upwards of 13,000 Yemen civilians have been killed, including nearly 2000 women and 3000 children. Additionally, Coalition aerial attacks have intentionally targeted Yemen’s civilian infrastructure, economic infrastructure, medical facilities and cultural heritage. Combined with the ongoing air and naval blockade, which has impeded the ability of Yemenis to access clean water, food, fuel and health services, the violence visited upon Yemen has created near-famine conditions. Furthermore, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) predicts another imminent outbreak of cholera, with the potential to be as deadly as last year’s which infected more than one million children and killed a child every 10?minutes. Through engagement with genocide studies literature, this article applies a holistic conception of genocide to the Coalition military campaign. It finds that the Coalition is conducting an ongoing campaign of genocide by a ‘synchronised attack’ on all aspects of life in Yemen, one that is only possible with the complicity of the United States and United Kingdom.     

It Comes with the Territory: Why States Negotiate with Ethno-Political Organizations

Given that minority ethno-political organizations are generally weaker than states yet seek to change their policies or remove the ruling regime from power, why would negotiation occur? States prefer to ignore or repress such organizations, which typically have little to offer in return amidst negotiations that can legitimize them while delegitimizing the state. When a challenging organization establishes governing structures and controls movement in part of a state's territory, however, it can easily inflict significant economic and political costs on the state while also possessing a valuable asset to exchange for concessions. An organization with territorial control cannot be ignored, while the state will have a strong incentive to negotiate before the state loses more face, the group gains more legitimacy, neighboring states are more likely to invade, and the international community is more likely to formally recognize any facts on the ground as a new status quo. Our analysis of 118 organizations in the Middle East and North Africa from 1980–2004 reveals that territorial control is the most important determinant of intrastate negotiation. In regards to existing scholarship, this suggests that a certain type of successful violence works—not all violence and not only nonviolence—while certain types of strong organizations—those that control territory—are more likely to reach negotiations with the state than weak ones.