Political Cleavages and the Propensity for Victimization: Voices of Survivors

Abstract

Do victims have particular demographic characteristics that differentiate them from non-victimized persons? Does ethnicity delineate between the victims and the non-victims of violence during armed conflicts, as the media often claims? Have the political cleavages dividing the communities increased the severity of violence? This study addresses these issues by analyzing data from “the People on War project” (the PoW project) through latent class analysis (LCA). Data were collected by the International Committee of the Red Cross (the ICRC) at the 50th anniversary of the signature of the Geneva Conventions in 1999 throughout twelve armed conflict zones in the world. [Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Terrorism and Political Violence for the following free supplemetal resources: Table 2: Exposed Risk of Violence During Armed Conflict and Demographic Factors (With Regional Values), and Table 3: Risk of Violence During Armed Conflict and Demographic Factors (% Having Taken Sides)].