Why the “Sacred” Is a Better Resource Than “Religion” for Understanding Terrorism

The popular media and many in academia often overstate the role that religion, and its supposedly unique qualities, has played in recent acts of terror. In this article, I argue that the notion of religious violence is unhelpful and that there is a more useful concept that we can utilize to draw out the values and ideas that play a role in the move to violence in both religious and secular groups. From a series of case studies on religious and non-religious groups, I have drawn out an alternative framework for investigating and learning from the role that beliefs play in motivations and justifications for terrorism. This framework uses the concept of non-negotiable (or “sacred”) beliefs. It is as applicable to secular as it is to religious groups, and can show us much more about how such beliefs can contribute to violence.     

The More Fragmented the Better?—The Impact of Armed Forces Structure on Defection during Nonviolent Popular Uprisings

Authoritarian regimes frequently employ fragmentation to safeguard themselves against coups and reduce the power of the military apparatus. This article investigates the impact of structural coup-proofing in the setting of a nonviolent popular uprising that threatens the regime and its survival. It is argued that in such settings fragmentation can have unintentional consequences with respect to the question whether the army fulfills orders of repression or defects. If the security apparatus is highly divided, some armed organizations will seize the opportunity to defect and side with the protesters because the efficiency of counterbalancing decreases if more effective armed organizations are involved. This can be mainly explained through collective action problems that the security apparatus faces in such a setting. This article compiles data of nonviolent uprisings from 1975 to 2006 and data on armed forces structure for conducting a multivariate probit regression on the probability of defection. The findings indeed show a U-shaped relationship between armed forces fragmentation and the likelihood of defection during nonviolent mass uprisings. While security apparatuses with around two effective armed organizations display only a low probability of defection, minimally and highly fragmented forces indicate higher chances of defection from the ruling regime.     

The Responsibility to Protect at Ten: Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

Abstract

Far from having faded away, ten years after its formal adoption, the responsibility to protect (R2P), is arguably more relevant than ever. In the current overall context of protection crises, heightened in severity by the emergence of violent extremists, R2P has changed the way in which the international community characterises situations that involve protection failures, and has raised expectations about what should occur when atrocity crimes have been committed or are imminent. UN member states now agree that prevention is at the core of R2P, that international action should employ the full range of diplomatic, political and humanitarian measures, and that military force should only be considered as a measure of last resort. While there is continued contestation about particular aspects of R2P – as there is over much older normative advancements, such as human rights – R2P has helped to forge political consensus and build new institutional capacity to prevent and respond to atrocity crimes.