Civilian Collaboration Research Articles

Letter: Answering Our Nation's Call: A Solution for Military Neurosurgery Wartime Readiness Through Civilian Collaboration.

Letter: Answering Our Nation's Call: A Solution for Military Neurosurgery Wartime Readiness Through Civilian Collaboration.

In Reply: Answering Our Nation's Call: A Solution for Military Neurosurgery Wartime Readiness Through Civilian Collaboration.

In Reply: Answering Our Nation's Call: A Solution for Military Neurosurgery Wartime Readiness Through Civilian Collaboration.

Can Insurgents Capture Aid through Credit Claiming? Evidence from Afghanistan

Abstract The provision of development aid has become a favored counterinsurgency strategy, with governments reasoning that the delivery of needed services will improve civilians’ perceptions of the government, and consequently decrease civilian collaboration with insurgents. However, this reasoning relies on the critical assumption that civilians attribute projects to the government, and not to the very insurgents that the government seeks to defeat. In information poor environments like civil wars, it may be relatively easy for armed groups to capture the reputational benefits of aid by engaging in credit claiming. Drawing upon on a survey experiment in Afghanistan, I find that civilians who are told that the Taliban allowed a project in their village to occur are more likely to identify the Taliban as a facilitator of development projects, in spite of their own, real-life, experiences. While the effect size is modest, the finding points to the ability of armed groups to capture the reputational benefits of aid through purely rhetorical strategies, with implications for the viability of development aid as a counterinsurgency strategy.

Answering Our Nation's Call: A Solution for Military Neurosurgery Wartime Readiness Through Civilian Collaboration.

Military-civilian partnerships have built the foundation for US neurosurgery as we see it today. Each conflict throughout history has led to expansion within the field of neurosurgery, benefiting civilian patients and those in uniform. Despite the field's growth during wartime, military neurosurgical case volume declines during peacetime, and as a result, important knowledge gained is at risk of being lost. The current landscape of military neurosurgery reflects the relative peacetime for the US-World relationship. Because of this peacetime, the surgical case volume and experience of the military neurosurgeon are declining rapidly. In addition to providing a history of military-civilian partnerships in neurosurgery, we have analyzed the declining case volume trends at a single military treatment facility with neurosurgical capabilities. We compared the case volume of a military neurosurgeon at a civilian partnered location with their previous volume at a military treatment facility and analyzed current trends in wartime readiness by Neurosurgery Knowledge, Skills and Abilities metrics. We believe that military civilian partnerships hold the key to scaffolding the experience to maintain the wartime readiness in the military neurosurgical community.

A theory of jihadist beheadings

Why do some jihadist organizations engage in beheadings while others do not? Although beheadings have become a signature tactic of the contemporary global jihadist movement, I show that most jihadist groups perpetrate few or no beheadings and only a minority have adopted beheading as a consistent part of their repertoire of violence. Such variation exists even among ideologically similar ‘Salafi-jihadist’ groups, suggesting that ideology alone cannot explain why such violence occurs. Instead, I argue that the use of beheadings is shaped by a combination of local strategic context and transnational ties. Beheadings are strategically useful to jihadist groups engaged in insurgency as a means of deterring civilian collaboration with the enemy, demoralizing enemy combatants and attracting foreign recruits. But the use of beheading is also costly for such groups, notably because of its tendency to alienate potential civilian supporters. Whether or not particular jihadist groups use beheadings depends largely on whether they can afford to ignore these costs. Jihadist insurgents who control significant territory are less sensitive to civilian attitudes because of their ability to obtain support through coercion and are therefore more likely to perpetrate beheadings. The use of beheadings is also shaped by transnational ties: organizations that seek formal affiliation with transnational jihadist networks are more likely to calculate that the benefits of using extreme violence to attract transnational support outweigh its costs. I test this theory using an original dataset of over 1,500 beheading events perpetrated by jihadist organizations between 1998 and 2019.

Political Competition and Authoritarian Repression

abstractAuthoritarian regimes repress to prevent mass resistance to their rule. In doing so, regimes’ security forces require information about the dissidents who mobilize such resistance. Political competition, which fuels partisan rivalries, offers one solution to this problem by motivating civilians to provide needed information to security forces. Yet civilians share information about any political opponents, not just dissidents, which creates a challenge for regimes that want to target dissidents. Drawing on novel archival data from the immediate aftermath of the 1973 coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile, a period that included civilian collaboration with repression, this article presents evidence that close pre-coup political competition is associated with more frequent repression and more targeting of non-dissidents. The author uses pre-coup democratic elections to measure political competition and addresses the challenge of estimating political preferences unaffected by repression. Qualitative evidence and further quantitative tests probe implications of the partisan rivalry mechanism and account for alternative explanations.

Retribution or Reconciliation? Post‐Conflict Attitudes toward Enemy Collaborators

AbstractArmed groups seeking to govern territory require the cooperation of many civilians, who are widely perceived as enemy collaborators after conflict ends. The empirical literature on attitudes toward transitional justice focuses heavily on fighters, overlooking more nuanced understandings of proportional justice for civilian collaborators. Through a survey experiment conducted in an Iraqi city that was controlled by the Islamic State, we find that variations in the type of collaboration an actor engages in strongly determine preferences for punishment and forgiveness. While exposure to violence is associated with a greater desire for revenge, perceived volition behind an act—a relatively unstudied factor—is much more important. This research provides unique empirical data on the microfoundations of enemy collaborator culpability. By widening our analytical lens to consider a more realistically broad spectrum of enemy collaboration, we avoid affirming a false dichotomy between victims and perpetrators that is commonly adopted in postwar settings.

Criminalized Liaisons: Soviet Women and Allied Sailors in Wartime Arkhangel’sk

From 1941 to 1945 thousands of British and American sailors came to the northern Soviet ports of Arkhangel’sk and Molotovsk with Lend-Lease convoys. On the shore they made many casual contacts with local residents, in particular with Soviet women. These contacts came under close scrutiny of the Soviet authorities who tried to limit the alleged subversive influence of foreign nationals on Soviet citizens. Local women who dated Allied personnel faced harassment and repression that ranged from administrative exile to imprisonment in the Gulag. Resentments against women who had intimate relationships with foreigners during the war were widespread throughout the European theater, and not limited to the USSR. Still the Soviet authorities’ treatment of Arkhangel’sk women who dated nationals of ‘friendly’ countries was particularly harsh. They faced not just moral condemnation, but legal prosecution and long prison terms. The severity of their repression is comparable to how the Soviet side treated civilian Nazi collaborators. Ultimately, Soviet reactions to such wartime contacts with Allied nationals shed light on the broader social history of the Soviet home front, inter-Allied relationships on a grassroots level, and Soviet wartime and postwar justice that was arbitrary in nature and largely defined by local initiatives.

Pulled Together or Torn Asunder? Community Cohesion After Symmetric and Asymmetric Civil War

Evidence on the consequences of war for community cohesion is mixed, pointing to both positive and negative effects of conflict. This study examines symmetry of force between warring actors as an explanation of heterogeneous conflict effects. Using survey data from 224 Colombian villages, I compare cohesion in communities exposed to asymmetric and symmetric conflicts, a guerrilla war between rebels and the state and a more conventional war between rebels and paramilitary groups, respectively. I find that symmetric war increases participation in community organizations, while asymmetric war decreases trust. Evidence suggests three mechanisms that explain these findings. Symmetric war increases cohesion (i) by spurring individuals to band together to cope with significant disruption of services and (ii) by strengthening group identities that map onto fairly clear wartime cleavages. Asymmetric war reduces cohesion (iii) by instilling fear and suspicion linked to wartime experiences of civilian collaboration and denunciations.

Retribution or Reconciliation? Attitudes Toward Rebel Collaborators in Iraq

Rebel groups require the cooperation of many civilians who are commonly perceived as “collaborators” after conflict ends. The limited empirical work in this area focuses on fighters, ignoring the need for more nuanced understandings of proportional justice for civilian collaborators. Through a survey experiment in an Iraqi city that experienced governance by the Islamic State, we find that social identity—expected to trigger in- group favoritism—is a weak determinant of preferences for punishment and forgiveness compared to the type of collaboration itself. Our results also fail to provide support for the hypothesis that exposure to violence drives a desire for revenge. Instead, the perceived volition behind an act is important, although its effect varies depending on the type of collaboration. Our research offers uniquely fine-grained data and insights into the factors that shape perceptions of individual rebel culpability, with important policy implications for balancing accountability with the need for reconciliation.

Civilians, Control, and Collaboration during Civil Conflict

AbstractWhat affects civilian collaboration with armed actors during civil war? While theory and evidence confirm that harm by armed actors influences when and with whom civilians collaborate, we argue that collaboration is also a function of civilians’ perceptions of armed actors’ efforts to minimize collateral casualties. We test this argument using a series of nationwide surveys of Afghan civilians conducted quarterly between 2013 and 2015. Our data record civilian willingness to report roadside bombs to government authorities and perceptions of government and Taliban efforts to minimize civilian harm. Civilians are less (more) willing to collaborate with the government when they perceive the government (Taliban) carelessly using force, even after accounting for political sentiment, local security conditions, and a range of additional confounding factors. Moreover, our evidence suggests that perceived carelessness in the rival’s area of control influences collaboration. We discuss how these empirical results inform broader literatures on collaboration, conquest, occupation, and control.

Implementation and Evaluation of a Military-Civilian Partnership to Train Mental Health Specialists.

Mental health specialists (MHS, or 68X) play a central role in meeting the growing demand for combat stress care among Service Members. Partnering with civilian institutions may enhance the MHS training experience beyond Advanced Individual Training (AIT). We describe a novel military-civilian collaboration to train U.S. Army Reserve MHS's in the psychiatric emergency service (PES) of a public, safety-net hospital. Details of implementation are described. The training rotation was evaluated after 1 year through a comprehensive chart abstraction of patients seen as well as surveys of MHS's and civilian partners. The roles of MHS and physician officers in this rotation are described. Over 9 days in the PES, the MHS team evaluated 26 patients. MHS's described a high-quality training environment (83% rated very good or excellent) in which they frequently saw high-risk patients relevant to military practice. Experience with a certain patient presentation was correlated with comfort assessing and managing that presentation (p < 0.01). Many civilian staff (40%) felt the PES operated better with the presence of the Army team and 50% of civilians agreed their impression of the U.S. Army Reserve improved as a result of the partnership. Hundred percent of specialists and 80% of civilians reported very good to excellent rapport between military and civilian staff. Two civilian respondents (11%) expressed concern that the military team's presence impeded patient care. This is the first military-civilian training collaboration for behavioral health specialists, who have already completed AIT. This program provided well-received and mission-relevant training for MHS's without notable adverse effects on patient care or team functioning in a civilian environment. Our findings are based on a small sample size, and no other such programs exist against which to compare these results. We propose that such educational partnerships, which have long been effective for other clinical specialists, may benefit the military, civilian communities, and the country.

Civilians, Control, and Collaboration During Civil Conflict

What affects civilian collaboration with armed actors during civil war? While theory and evidence confirm that harm by armed actors influences when and with whom civilians collaborate, we argue that collaboration is also a function of civilians’ perceptions of armed actors’ efforts to minimize collateral casualties. We test this argument using a series of nationwide surveys of Afghan civilians conducted quarterly between 2013-2015. Our data record civilian willingness to report roadside bombs to government authorities and perceptions of government and Taliban efforts to minimize civilian harm. Civilians are less (more) willing to collaborate with the government when they perceive the government (Taliban) carelessly using force, even after accounting for political sentiment, local security conditions, and a range of additional confounding factors. Moreover, our evidence suggests that perceived carelessness in the rival’s area of control influences collaboration. We discuss how these empirical results inform broader literatures on collaboration, conquest, occupation, and control.

Mass casualty events: what to do as the dust settles?

Care during mass casualty events (MCE) has improved during the last 15 years. Military and civilian collaboration has led to partnerships which augment the response to MCE. Much has been...

The value of political capital: Dictatorship collaborators as business elites

What is the value of political capital for individuals? Towards the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, military and civilian collaborators entered the business elite, controlling the largest and most important firms in the country. Using a novel panel dataset of board members in these firms, we document an appointment premium for those who had previously collaborated with Pinochet. After democratization, however, collaborators were removed from boards and their compensation premium disappeared. These results suggest that dictatorship collaborators earn a premium in the business world in dictatorship, but not in democracy.

The Value of Political Capital: Dictatorship Collaborators as Business Elites

What is the value of political capital for individuals? Towards the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, military and civilian collaborators entered the business elite, controlling the largest and most important firms in the country. Using a novel panel dataset of board members in these firms, we document an appointment premium for those who had previously collaborated with Pinochet. After democratization, however, collaborators were removed from boards and their compensation premium disappeared. These results suggest that dictatorship collaborators earn a premium in the business world in dictatorship, but not in democracy.

The European space-industrial complex: New myths, old realities

This article is an economic analysis of the main factors affecting the evolution of the European space industry. The critical role of the government is analyzed with regard to both military alliances and civilian intergovernmental collaboration. The analysis explores how moving from a pure public goods paradigm in collaborative projects toward a commercially-oriented, competitiveness-enhancing paradigm leads to duplication of effort and rivalries within the space agencies and other organizations. Drawing on the example of defense alliances such as NATO, the article illustrates cooperation challenges faced both at European and transatlantic levels as competition and rivalry result from inter-alliance specialization and the difficulties involved in the allocation of benefits.

Military and Civilian Collaboration within Medical First Responders - the Israeli Experience

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Military and Civilian Collaboration: The Power of Numbers.

The purpose of this study was to compare the number and types of extremity injuries treated at civilian trauma centers (CIV CENs) versus military treatment facilities (MTFs) participating in the Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium (METRC) and to investigate the potential benefits of a clinical research network that includes both civilian trauma centers and MTFs. Two analyses were performed. First, registry data collected on all surgically treated fractures at four core MTFs and 21 CIV CENs over one year were compared. Second, actual numbers and distribution of patients by type of injury enrolled in three METRC studies were compared. While MTFs demonstrated higher percentages of severe injuries including open fractures, traumatic amputations, vascular injuries, contamination, and injuries with bone, muscle, and skin loss when compared to CIV CENS, the CIV CENs treated a substantially higher number and, more importantly, enrolled patients in almost all categories. Comparison of service members to civilians was challenged by several differences between the two patient populations including mechanism of injury, the medical care environment, and confounding factors such as age, social setting and co-morbidities. Despite these limitations, in times without active military conflict, clinical trials will likely rely on civilian trauma centers for patient enrollment; only when numbers are pooled across a large number of centers can requisite sample sizes be met. These data demonstrate the benefits of maintaining a military-civilian partnership to address the major gaps in research defined by the Military.

Civilianizing Civil Conflict: Civilian Defense Militias and the Logic of Violence in Intrastate Conflict

This article examines how civilian defense militias shape violence during civil war. We define civilian defense forces as a sedentary and defensive form of pro-government militia that incumbents often use to harness the participation of civilians during a counterinsurgency campaign. We argue that civilian defense forces reduce the problem of insurgent identification. This leads to a reduction in state violence against civilians. However, we also claim that these actors undermine civilian support for insurgents, which leads to an increase in rebel violence against civilians and overall intensification of conflict. A statistical analysis of government and rebel violence against civilians from 1981 to 2005 and a qualitative assessment of a civilian defense force operating in Iraq from 2005 to 2009 offer strong support for our theoretical claims. These findings provide further insight into pro-government militias and their effects on violence. They also have wider ethical implications for the use of civilian collaborators during civil war.