Internal Violence Research Articles

International law, the inherent instability of the international system, and international violence

The paradox which characterizes the modem states system is that the dual structure of sovereignty and justice through which the system was originally conceived is no more, yet the system is still with us. Justice was redefined in the 19th century as a mere derivation of state sovereignty, a process reducing the focus of the system to sovereignty alone and thus dispossessing the system of a principle to mediate between the sovereign will and the international community. It is argued in this essay that the lack of a mediating principle may signify violence as inherent in the system, subsequently making intervention and terrorismfacets of the established order rather than anomalies. Relying greatly on recent critical international legal studies, the article asks if the strategies suggested by lawyers such as Anthony D'Amato and Rosalyn Higgins to cope with the paradox, coupled with the con temporary universal human rights arguments, signal a move towards restoring the historical focus of the system.

Power Parity, Democracy, and the Severity of Internal Violence

This study applies insights from the power parity and the democratic peace perspectives to the issue of internal political violence. These two international relations perspectives translate well to the domain of domestic politics. Relative parity of resources between the government and the opposition are shown to lead to higher levels of violence. Democratic countries with highly competitive and participatory institutions are able to mitigate violent conflict within their borders. Efficient governments preserve domestic peace regardless of institutional format. Results of the study suggest that violence is generated by similar changes in both domestic and world politics.

Commentary to: The Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information

Commentary to: The Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information 1 Sandra Coliver (bio) I. Introduction National security and freedom of expression and information are often viewed as pulling in opposite directions. On the one hand, governments, particularly those that feel threatened by external or internal violence, maintain that disclosure of “secret” information or airing of critical opinions can undermine the very institutions that protect the security and well-being of law-abiding citizens. On the other hand, human rights defenders point to government suppression of speech on national security and related grounds [End Page 12] as having paved the way for some of the worst human rights violations, subversions of democracy, and threats to peace experienced in the last half of this century. Yet, national security is not fundamentally at odds with freedom of expression and information. To the contrary, a clear-eyed review of recent history suggests that legitimate national security interests are, in practice, better protected when the press and public are able to scrutinize government decisions than when governments operate in secret. 2 Freedom of expression and access to information, by enabling public scrutiny of government action, serve as safeguards against government abuse and thereby form a crucial component of genuine national security. Equally, national security is a pre-condition for the full enjoyment of all human rights, including freedom of expression. Undeniably, there are circumstances in which national security and freedom of expression clash head on. For instance, protection of a genuine national security interest requires the suppression of sensitive defense information or speech likely to promote violence against the state. The conflict is exacerbated by the fact that national security and related concepts (such as “state security,” “internal security,” “public security,” and “public safety”) are so imprecise that they may be, and frequently have been, 3 invoked by governments to suppress precisely the kinds of speech [End Page 13] that provide protection against government abuse, such as information or expression exposing circumvention of the democratic process, attacks on opposition parties, damage to the environment, corruption, wasting of public assets, and other forms of wrongdoing by government officials and their associates. Moreover, courts in countries around the world demonstrate the least independence and greatest deference to the claims of government when national security is invoked. This deference is reinforced by provisions in the security laws of many countries that trigger exceptions to ordinary rules of evidence and due process upon a minimal showing by the government of a national security risk. A government’s claim of a security threat can deal a knockout blow to the main institutional safeguards against government abuse: independence of the courts, due process of law, freedom of the press, and open government. The tension between expression and national security is particularly vexing because there is little margin for error and much at stake. Quick action often is necessary to thwart a genuine threat to national security but restraints on political speech can trigger an inexorable slide into tyranny. The more fragile the democracy, the less likely it is to be able to tolerate [End Page 14] either a threat to its genuine security or the suppression of legitimate political debate. It is this profound tension that led Article 19, the International Centre Against Censorship, to convene a group of independent experts to draft a set of principles that would adequately safeguard both the right to freedom of expression and information as well as the prerogative of governments to limit the right when necessary to protect a legitimate national security interest. The result was the Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information. 4 The Principles are based on international and regional law and standards relating to the protection of human rights, evolving state practice (including judgments of national courts), and general principles of law. While some of the Principles undoubtedly are more protective of freedom of expression than widely accepted international norms, they reflect the drafters’ view of the direction in which international law is, or should be, developing. Thirty-seven experts, hosted by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies of the University of the Witswatersrand, participated in the drafting, representing...

Whatever Happened to the Janissaries? Mobilization for the 1768-1774 Russo-Ottoman War

While most Ottoman historians would acknowledge warfare as an implicit or explicit part of the Ottoman modus operandi, no studies of a majority of the Ottoman military campaigns exist, exceptions being those of Rhoads Murphey and Caroline Finkel for the post-Suleymanic period. What follows is a preliminary exploration of the mobilization practices of the 1768–74 Russo-Ottoman War, part of a larger study in progress on the nature and impact of that war on Ottoman society of the period. For the Ottomans, like their European counterparts, found the costs of war in the eighteenth century outstripping revenue, and the results of such warfare devastating, disappointing and inconclusive. Ottoman historians have long asked what became of the janissaries after 1700. The question might be better framed as who or what replaced them, how they were recruited and how the central government viewed them. One of the more interesting views on state formation in the early modern European world interprets it as a response to endemic internal violence, an increasingly costly spiral of control of the military and the technology required to make it efficient. Some western historians see state formation as the struggle over ancient territorial rights, viewing the rise of local leaders and aristocracies as directly related to the management of military manpower for and/or against the state. Others construct models to account for the rise of bureaucracies and tax systems as a direct result of the need to finance violence, considering success or failure in harnessing and financing the military as the sole imperative of state for-

The Determinants of Deadly Force: A Structural Analysis of Police Violence

Political or threat explanations for the state's use of internal violence suggest that killings committed by the police should be greatest in stratified jurisdictions with more minorities. Additional political effects such as race of the city's mayor or reform political arrangements are examined. The level of interpersonal violence the police encounter and other problems in departmental environments should account for these killing rates as well. Tobit analyses of 170 cities show that racial inequality explains police killings. Interpersonal violence measured by the murder rate also accounts for this use of lethal force. Separate analyses of police killings of blacks show that cities with more blacks and a recent growth in the black population have higher police killing rates of blacks, but the presence of a black mayor reduces these killings. Such findings support latent and direct political explanations for the internal use of lethal force to preserve order.

‘Negative’ International Peace and Domestic Conflicts, West Africa, 1957–96

Since the decolonisation process in the continent began after World War II, West Africa stands out as the only zone of ‘negative’ peace. This terminology merely implies that the formal absence of international wars has been precariously maintained on an unstable basis by threats, deterrence, and/or a lack of will or capability to enter into interstate hostilities. Leaving aside the liberation struggle waged by Guinea-Bissau against Portugal 1965–74, and with the exception of a very brief armed conflict between Mali and Burkina Faso, there have been no wars among the 16 member-states of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which is quite remarkable given the region's multi-ethnic and multinational character, and the persistence of numerous territorial disputes. This starkly contrasts with widespread internal violence, military coups, and virulent civil wars, notably in Nigeria 1967–70, Liberia 1990–6, and Sierra Leone 1993–6. As the title of this article implies, the convoluted reality of West Africa can be characterised by relative international peace, in contrast to domestic conflicts.

Explaining the Democratic Peace: The Evidence from Ancient Greece Reviewed

This article challenges the findings of Russett & Antholis (1993) in two areas: First, the general picture they draw needs to be revised because the conflicting behaviour among the democracies of the Athenian Alliance is not representative of a zone of (democratic) peace. The relative absence of war between the democracies of the Delian League seems more to be the result of hegemonic Athens than an effect of shared democratic norms. The introduction of democratic polities in allied cities can be conceived as an effective means among others of dominating them, because without the support of Athens democratic elites were unable to retain power through the internal disturbances which were typical of the democracies outside Athens. Second, the clashes between Athens and Syracuse in 415-413 BC cannot be regarded as having been a war between stable democracies. Disrupted by internal violence, Syracuse could not have been perceived as a stable democracy by Athens. Since Athens is clearly identified as the aggressor in this conflict and information was sufficient between the two opponents, a social-constructivist approach appears to be superior to normative and structural approaches in this instance.

Reflections on a dissemination operation in Burundi: Declaration for standards of humanitarian conduct: Appeal for a minimum of humanity in a situation of internal violence

The idea of the dissemination project described in the present article first came up at the end of 1993, when what is known as interethnic violence broke out in Burundi following the attempted coup of October 1993 and the assassination of President Ndadaye together with a number of other leading figures. Given the scale of destruction and the heavy loss of life (it is now generally acknowledged that tens of thousands of people were killed during the first few weeks), and in view of the cruelty of the acts committed, ICRC delegates were at first hesitant to embark on any specific operation to promote humanitarian principles. Initially, they confined themselves to a practical demonstration of humanitarian conduct and to the use of radio broadcasts to supply information designed to facilitate operational work.

Intermittent republics and democratic peace puzzles

The fact that democracies seldom fight other democracies has been explained monadically — there is something about democratic institutions that constrains decision-makers — and dyadically — there are normative sentiments shared by democracies that make their conflicts less probable in the first place and less likely to escalate when they do occur. The problem is that empirical analyses rarely support the contention that less authoritarian states are discernibly less likely to initiate wars. Moreover, the presence or absence of normative ties between democracies has proven difficult to measure directly. Even more problematic is the tendency to pursue regime type explanations as if regime type arguments, in either their monadic or dyadic manifestations, are likely to be necessary and sufficient. While no one explicitly argues that they are necessary and sufficient, the systematic assessment of competing explanations (regime type versus alternatives) is still very much in its infancy. Not only is it fair to say that we do not know for sure what it is about regime type that restrains conflict within some dyads; we also do not know how much relative explanatory credit to give to regime type.Arguments and evidence on the democracy-war generalization may be found in Quincy Wright, A Study of War (Chicago 1942/65); Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace (Indianapolis, 1957; Dean Babst, ‘Elective Governments — A Force for Peace?’, The Wisconsin Sociologist, 3 (1964), pp. 9-14; Peter Wallensteen, Structure and War: On International Relations, 1920-1968 (Stockholm, 1973); R. J. Rummel, ‘Libertarianism and International Violence’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 27 (1983), pp. 27-71; Steven Chan, ‘Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...Are the Freer Countries More Pacific?’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 28 (1984), pp. 617-48; Erich Weede, ‘Democracy and War Involvement’, ibid., pp. 649-64; Michael W. Doyle, ‘Liberalism and World Politics’, American Political Science Review, 80 (1986), pp. 1151-69; Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton, 1993); Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky, The Real World Order: Zones of Peace/Zones of Turmoil (Chatham, NJ, 1993); and James Lee Ray, Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition (Columbia, MO, 1995). Alternative approaches to developing greater specification, examining rival hypotheses, and presenting still more arguments can be found in Melvin Small and J. David Singer, ‘The War-Proneness of Democratic Regimes, 1816-1965’, Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, 1 (1976), pp. 50-69; William K. Domke, War and the Changing Global System (New Haven, CT, 1988); Zeev Maoz and Nasrin Abodali, ‘Regime Type and International Conflict’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 33 (1989), pp. 3-35; Richard L. Merritt and Dina A. Zinnes, ‘Democracies and War’, in Alex Inkeles (ed.), On Measuring Democracy: Its Consequences and Concomitants (New Brunswick, NJ, 1989); George Modelski and Gardener Perry III, ‘Democratization from a Longterm Perspective’, in N. Nakicenovic and A. Grubler (eds.), Diffusion of Technologies and Social Behavior (New York, 1991); Stuart A. Bremer, ‘Dangerous Dyads: Conditions Affecting the Likelihood of Interstate War, 1816-1965’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 36 (1992), pp. 309-41; Zeev Maoz and Bruce Russett, ‘Alliance Contiguity, Wealth, and Political Stability: Is the Lack of Conflict Among Democracies a Statistical Artifact?’, International Interactions, 17 (1992), pp. 245-68; David Lake, ‘Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War’, American Political Science Review, 86 (1992), pp. 24-37; Randall Schweller, ‘Domestic Structure and Preventative War: Are Democracies More Pacific?’, World Politics, 44 (1992), pp. 235-69; Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and David Lalman, War and Reason (New Haven, CT, 1992); T. Clifton Morgan and Valerie Schwebach, ‘Take Two Democracies and Call Me in the Morning: A Prescription for Peace?’, International Interactions, 17 (1992), pp. 305-20; Alex Mintz and Nehemia Geva, ‘ Why Don't Democracies Fight Each Other? An Experimental Assessment of the “Political Incentive” Explanation’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 37 (1993), pp. 484-503; William J. Dixon, ‘Democracy and the Peaceful Settlement of International Conflict’, American Political Science Review, 88 (1994), pp. 14-32; James D. Fearon, ‘Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes’, American Political Science Review, 88 (1994), pp. 577-92; Christopher Layne, ‘Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace’, International Security, 19 (1994), pp. 5-49; David E. Spiro, ‘The Insignificance of the Liberal Peace’, ibid., pp. 50-86; John M. Owen, ‘How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace’, ibid., pp. 87-125; and William R. Thompson, ‘Democracy and Peace: Putting the Cart Before the Horse?’ International Organization, 50 (1996), pp. 141-74. In particular, Bremer, ‘Dangerous Dyads’, and Maoz and Russett, ‘Alliance Contiguity’, have made some headway in examining the relative contribution of dyadic regime factors versus other sources of influence. However, Maoz and Russett's examination is limited to a restricted set of variables and the post-1945 era. Bremer's analysis has a longer time-span but his study is characterized by important operationalization problems and also fails to check the temporal stability of the outcome. More work along these lines is definitely warranted.

Conflict Resolution among Peaceful Societies: The Culture of Peacefulness

The literature about 24 peaceful peoples was examined to determine if their ways of conflict resolution differ from the approaches to conflict found in other, more violent, societies. While the strategies for managing conflicts employed by these peoples are comparable to those used in many other small-scale societies, their worldviews of peacefulness and the structures they use to reinforce those world-views do distinguish them from other societies. Several common notions about conflict and conflict resolution that are asserted by Western scholars can be questioned in light of the success of these societies in peacefully resolving conflicts: namely, that violent conflict is inevitable in all societies; that punishment and armed force prevent internal and external violence; that political structures are necessary to prevent conflicts; and that conflict should be viewed as positive and necessary. The contrary evidence is that over half of the peaceful societies have no recorded violence; they rarely punish other adults (except for the threat of ostracism); they handle conflicts with outside societies in the same peaceful ways that they approach internal conflicts; they do not look to outside governments when they have internal disputes; and they have a highly negative view of conflict.

The Terrorist Trap: America's Experience with Terrorism.

The World Trade Center bombing was only one more chapter in a long history of terrorist acts against the United States. The story told here, reaching back to the founding days of the Republic, is both instructive and alarming. Simon uncovers the dynamics of a deadly conflict that affects all of us. His in-depth interviews with terrorists and their victims, with reporters, government officials, and others bring to life a tale of presidents and terrorists, media and society, all entangled in the dramas of international violence. The Terrorist Trap traces the government response to terrorism from the days of Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary pirates to the confrontation of George Bush and Saddam Hussein. It explores the terrorist trap: the psychological, political, and social elements that make terrorism unlike any other conflict. With the end of the Cold War and the return of American hostages from Lebanon, many believed that terrorism was over. But Simon shows how terrorism grows out of political, economic, and social grievances that can never be fully resolved. Living with terrorism will be an inescapable part of life in the post-Cold War environment. Simon calls on officials to move away from the useless rhetoric of defeating terrorism and to focus instead on achievable goals in combatting this global problem.

State Disintegration and Ethnic Conflict: A Framework for Analysis

With the end of the Cold War, the growing challenges of regional conflict and instability are receiving significant international attention. Broadly, these regional clashes are taking place both between and within states. The former are concerned with regional competition and power distributions, while the latter are the result of animosities rooted in ethnic, religious, communal, secessionist, and irredentist contestations. This article proposes a framework for understanding and analyzing the dynamics and complexities of these post-Cold War internal conflicts taking place within an increasing number of states in various regions of the globe. To accomplish this, a review is undertaken of the causes and dimensions of this internal violence and the state disintegration it engenders, with particular attention to the impact of ethnicity, ethnonationalism, religion, and communalism. The framework developed for analyzing and understanding the complex developments that characterize these ethnic and religiously motivated internal conflicts and wars is employed to assess the strife in Somalia.

Self-Images of Hawks and Doves: A Control Systems Model of Militarism

According to prevailing cognitive models, hawk and dove policy preferences originate in divergent information about the causes of war, not in divergent motivations. However, data from a June 1990 survey of the Council on Foreign Relations and two attentive publics indicate divergent motivations. Hawk and dove policy preferences are associated, for males, with macho and idealistic self systems respectively. Female hawks and doves are also found to maintain distinctive self-images. While the present data support the contribution of personality to behavior, the contribution of cognition also has some empirical support. A new control systems model of political behavior is presented, subsuming the partial truths of cognition-driven and personality-driven explanations. Origins and dynamics of the hawk personality are briefly explained in terms of social learning and psychoanalytic theories. The article concludes with practical recommendations for reducing militarism at its psychological sources. This article presents survey data on self-image and militarism that challenge purely cognitive explanations of political behavior. Control theory-or the theory of self-regulating, negative-feedback systems-is used to bridge the conceptual rift that currently separates personality-driven from cognition-driven explanatory models. The article concludes with some practical implications of the present data and theory for the reduction and eventual elimination of international violence.

Internal Violence in Pakistan

Internal Violence in Pakistan

Linking political violence and refugee situations in the Horn of Africa: an empirical approach.

The author attempts to quantitatively investigate and explain possible relationships between patterns of political violence and refugee formations, identifying political violence variables which contribute most to refugee movements in the Horn of Africa. Particular attention is given to the extent to which refugee movements were influenced by domestic and international political violence patterns; which of the violence variables was more important in explaining refugee movements; and whether there were common patterns in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan with respect to refugee movements. Findings from the analysis of political violence variables indicate that the intervention of extra-regional powers in domestic or inter-state conflicts had a significant effect in generating refugees. The involvement of external forces either increased the actual level and intensity of violence or created a perception of uncontrolled turmoil and further bloodshed in the future. In both situations, large numbers of refugees sought shelter across international boundaries.

The State and the Monopolization of International Violence

The State and the Monopolization of International Violence

Democracy, Power, Genocide, and Mass Murder

From 1900 to 1987, state, quasi-state, and stateless groups have killed in democide (genocide, massacres, extrajudicial executions, and the like) nearly 170,000,000 people. Case studies and quantitative analysis show that ethnic, racial, and religious diversity, economic development, levels of education, and cultural differences do not account for this killing. Rather, democide is best explained by the degree to which a regime is empowered along a democratic to totalitarian dimension and, second, the extent to which it is characteristically involved in war or rebellion. Combining these results with those that show that democracies do not make war on each other, the more democratic two nations are the less foreign violence between them, and that the more democratic a regime the less internal violence, strongly suggests that democracy is a general method of nonviolence.

Swords into Market Shares: China's Conversion of Military Industry to Civilian Production

The Cold War is over, but international violence, and preparations for it, are not. Despite the end of the bipolar world and “balance of terror” associated with the United States-Soviet confrontation, peace has not broken out. The militarization of world politics continues, as shown by the Gulf War, ethnic and religious conflicts in central Europe and Asia and nuclear proliferation. Global military spending has somewhat diminished, but at somewhere between $900 billion and $1 trillion annually, it still is a major factor in the budgets and ambitions of most countries. Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War provides opportunities for governments to re-examine their priorities and shift military resources to promote economic and social development, the so-called “peace dividend.” Although in recent years China has dramaticallyincreasedits official military expenditures (nearly 100 per cent between 1988 and 1993), beginning in 1979 the Chinese leadership inaugurated a major reorientation of its military-industrial complex.

Action taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross in situations of internal violence

For some decades now, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has periodically undertaken the difficult task of reassessing its policy in respect of situations of internal violence. Since 1872, when it made its first offer of services to the parties to a non-international armed conflict, and 1918, when it carried out its first visit to security detainees, the ICRC has accumulated a wealth of experience. During that time it has gradually extended its mandate to cover situations in which human suffering called for action on its part which it would not have contemplated a few years previously.

Metanoia

SUMMARY The author draws on her experience working with individual men who are violent to their partners to think about the problem of international violence. A parallel is drawn between a man's feeling of “entitlement” to forcefully keep his partner “in line” and feelings of national entitlement to engage in violence to force one group's agenda on another. The differences between morals and taboos are discussed underscoring the community value of that which becomes socially and ethically “unthinkable.”