A Theory of Violence Against Civilians

Abstract

“Violence is rarely a solo performance.” Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution “We all know that death is the ultimate vengeance.” Susan Jacoby, Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge CONCEPTUAL CONSIDERATIONS In this chapter, I develop a theory of violence against civilians in civil wars. Prior to presenting a theoretical model and hypotheses, I address and resolve a number of conceptual issues. First, I justify the focus in this book on lethal violence vis-a-vis other forms of violence. Second, I present a new typology of wartime violence against civilians, which distinguishes between direct and indirect violence. This typology is distinct from that of selective and indiscriminate violence, which is common in the literature. I argue that the taxonomy here is more intuitive and empirically portable. Although the main focus of the book is direct violence against civilians, I also explore indirect violence in Chapter 5. Third, I justify the focus on a particular type of civil war (i.e., conventional), and elaborate on the idea that making distinctions among types of civil wars according to the technology of warfare has significant implications for understanding patterns of civilian victimization. That is because the nature of warfare, which shapes the nature of frontlines and armed groups’ control of territory, has key implications for the structure of incentives that lead to violence against noncombatants. Although in this book I bind the theory to a set of conditions that predominate in the context of conventional civil wars, I argue that the same conditions and set of incentives can also be present in other contexts. Dependent Variable: Lethal Violence Against Civilians This book focuses on intentional lethal violence against civilians. Intentional killing is distinct from acts of endangerment that carry no goal of killing in the first place, such as torture (Su 2011). It also differs from collateral damage, which is non-intentional. The study of battlefield violence, which predominantly involves the killing of combatants, is also beyond the scope of this book. In contrast with some other scholars (e.g., Hultman 2007; Wood 2010), I treat the assassination of combatants and civilians as two separate phenomena.