Organized Violence Research Articles

Strategic Cruelty: Legitimizing Violence in the European Union's Border Regime

AbstractViolent border practices against irregular migration are not new, although increasing xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments have drawn greater attention to such practices in recent years. Such measures—both in and at the borders—constitute organized violence on migrant bodies, making them permanently insecure. This is particularly striking in the context of European liberal democracies with its established discourse of human rights, which have since the 1990s consolidated a formidable architecture of deterrence and which have intensified such efforts with the 2015 “migrant crisis” with increasing sea interceptions, restrictive anti-immigrant measures, and the criminalization of solidarity efforts. This article asks: How does the European Union (EU) legitimize violence in its border regime and reconcile this regime with its core identity as a defender of human rights and a “normative superpower”? By drawing on critical discourse analysis and reviewing policy statements, speeches, and press releases, it identifies the discourse topics, discursive strategies, and linguistic means through which EU migration discourse seeks to legitimize its sprawling architecture of strategic cruelty against irregular migration. This article argues that the purpose of the resulting discourse is to “absolve and resolve”—absolving the union as a whole of guilt and resolving the cognitive dissonance between the professed identity of the EU as supremely humanitarian and the observable inhumane acts of itself and its member states. This explains how the EU can employ strategic cruelty to mitigate the arrival of migrants while simultaneously maintaining moral standing to chastise individual members for “violating” the hegemonic collective identity of the union.

The United States Army and the Making of America: From Confederation to Empire, 1775–1903 by Robert Wooster

<i>The United States Army and the Making of America: From Confederation to Empire, 1775–1903</i> by Robert Wooster

TUPINAMBÁ PRACTICES OF VIOLENCE, WARFARE, AND CANNIBALISM IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY BRAZIL THROUGH ETHNOHISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY

The Tupinambá were sedentary agriculturalists inhabiting the Eastern Coast of Brazil. Sixteenth-century European explorer accounts offer rich details of Tupinambá life and warfare practices, suggesting the presence of a highly organized violence and warfare system embedded in their daily practices, animistic and cosmological beliefs, celebrations, cannibalism, and in their ideals of honor, prestige, and revenge. Building on ethnohistoric information, this article discusses the potential to further understanding of Tupinambá warfare practices through study of material culture signatures. Because archaeological studies on Tupinambá warfare are sparse, we attempt to correlate the ethnohistoric information with the types of objects and features archaeologists could reasonably expect to recover, should the accounts be accurate and the materials preserved. We argue that by using such analogies as a starting point, future researchers will be able to better test their hypotheses against the archaeological record in efforts to augment knowledge about Tupinambá lifeways.

The Invention of the Coin, Mentoring Literature and Philosophy: the Economism of Axial Time and the Social Problems of Antiquity

The subject of the study is the relationship between the parallel development of the processes of the invention of the antique coin, mentoring literature and the formation of the worldview of Axial time. The object of the research are review works devoted to various aspects of the social problems of the ancient era: the relationship of coin making and military affairs, the relationship of world religions and mentoring literature, the economism of urbanisation of the polis type and the genesis of classical philosophy. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that the realities that appeared in the era of interest to us: world religions, coin money and mentoring literature – still exist. The secret of the duration of their existence is an urgent problem for social philosophy and historical sociology. The purpose of the study is to consider the possible reasons for the social dynamics recorded in the history of Eurasia, which Karl Jaspers called "Axial Time", but in conjunction with the development of monetary systems and mentoring preaching. In the study of the research problem, general scientific methods were used: analysis, synthesis, comparison. As a research method, the classical (qualitative) analysis of the document was taken as a basis. The comparative analysis revealed a certain connection between the above–mentioned phenomena and the growth of social problems of the ancient civilization - a polis-type civilization against the background of the aggravation of the contradictions of urbanization. The result of the study was the hypothesis of the creation of coin money as a tool to reduce the level of violence within ancient societies. Money in the form of coins became a kind of form of social protection of ancient communities, although it was originally intended to finance organized violence. The practical significance of the study is to form the basis for practical recommendations on adapting the conclusions of the article for the purposes of social policy of modern states.

Modelling Organizational Violence in the Covid-19 Era

In the context of organizations and their relationship with the increasingly competitive environment, leaders have been pressured to establish control systems in which the differences between employees are exacerbated since, in the absence of labor competencies, these are They are intended to substitute for acts of loyalty to the company that lead to violence towards those who are the culprits of poor performance or are not seen as part of a working group. This is how organizational violence is justified within collaborative teams, as would be the case of Higher Education Institutions where the phenomenon is exacerbated with the emergence of electronic technologies, devices, and networks. The objective of this study was to establish the reliability and validity of an instrument that measures organizational violence. A non-experimental, cross-sectional, and confirmatory study was carried out with a non- probabilistic selection of 100 students from a public university in central Mexico. The results in general show that organizational violence would be made up of eight factors such as: prejudice, depersonalization, benevolence, harassment, subjugation, objectification, stigma, and harassment, which show the limits of the study and guidelines of research concerning equity.

Brazilian Amazonian politics and policy (2019-22) and the need for transformative change

Despite its potential to transition toward a green economy, the country became an environmental villain in recent years. The anti-environmentalist and anti-indigenist administration of President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–22) partly dismantled environmental governance. The Amazon and its more-than-human populations were severely hit by Bolsonaro’s predatory agenda, which supported and legitimized the interests of the anti- -conservationist forces within economic sectors such as agribusiness and mining, and fueled organized crime and violence in the region. This paper provides an overview and analysis of Amazonian politics and policy during this period, and discusses the importance of, and possibilities for, a transformative approach to the governance of the region.

Saltation Diffusion Penetration (SDP)

The purpose of this study is to summarize current terminology related to unconventional warfare. Based on extensive research, and on the experience gained over the past decades, the paper proposes a synthesized definition that is consistent with the philosophy of reinterpreting contemporary military conflicts. War, as part of human nature (N. Machiavelli) and as a social phenomenon has been marked by the constant development of strategies and technologies. If we trace the evolution of warfare in human history beginning with the bow and arrow, gunpowder and the cannon, through to the nuclear, laser and psychotronic weapons, we shall see that the only difference to counteracting lies in using the means and technologies for waging a war, which by no means changes its nature. It is purposeful organized violence utilizing the advances in science, engineering and technologies in order to counter other violence. And its ultimate goal has always been the achievement of external and internal political aims and distribution or allocation of resources. The main results obtained in this study can be summarized as follows—in the changing security environment, a result of globalization and the rapid development of communication technologies, facilitating the implementation of new forms and methods of destabilizing the target political regimes, understanding this security environment is a matter of political and social responsibility. The research method used in this paper is based on the so-called “Architectural Approach”, which is common for such cases and meets potential expectations.

Restos de la Primera Guerra Mundial: guerra contra guerra por Ernst Friedrich y dos enfoques para leer archivos.

In this paper, I analyze two methods of reading archives: ‘against the grain’ and ‘along the grain’. First one focuses mainly on revealing what is marginalized and omitted in archive’s dominant narration. The other carefully studies the logic of an archive itself. As such, reading against the grain allows to reveal victims’ forgotten stories, while reading along the grain helps to understand perpetrators’ perspective that may further lead to better recognition of the mechanisms of organized violence. I apply both approaches to the album War against War (1924) by Ernst Friedrich, which contains archival photographs from World War I. Keywords: War against War; World War I; archival photographs; reading against the grain; reading along the grain

Religion, community resilience and countering violent extremism in Dir Valley, Pakistan

The post 9/11 terrorism and subsequent wave of violent extremism has generated a significant interest in the role of religion in both peace and conflict. Religion is a significant part of the lives of a significant majority the global population. This realization has led policy makers to seek ways in which religious leaders can and had impacted the community resilience towards violent extremism. Swat and Dir valleys have seen the brunt of violent extremism in the recent past. This extremism was generated and exploited by a few religiously motivated violent organizations. However, we believe there were religious leaders who opposed this surge of violent extremism in those specific communities. This research aims at finding out whether religious leaders mobilized the communities for countering violent extremism. In order to do that, a quantitative survey was designed whereby a community perception was measured. The data was collected from 180 respondents from both the districts of Dir valley, i.e., lower Dir and upper Dir. Our data shows that religious leaders played some role in building community resilience. In terms of bonding, they played a significant role. In terms of bridging, they also played a significant role. However, in terms of linking, the religious leaders played a little role.

Access to primary healthcare Services in Conflict-Affected Fragile States: a subnational descriptive analysis of educational and wealth disparities in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, and Nigeria

BackgroundMeasuring and improving equitable access to care is a necessity to achieve universal health coverage. Pre-pandemic estimates showed that most conflict-affected and fragile situations were off-track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals on health and equity by 2030. Yet, there is a paucity of studies examining health inequalities in these settings. This study addresses the literature gap by applying a conflict intensity lens to the analysis of disparities in access to essential Primary Health Care (PHC) services in four conflict-affected fragile states: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Nigeria.MethodsFor each studied country, disparities in geographic and financial access to care were compared across education and wealth strata in areas with differing levels of conflict intensity. The Demographic Health Survey (DHS) and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program were the main sources of information on access to PHC and conflict events, respectively. To define conflict intensity, household clusters were linked to conflict events within a 50-km distance. A cut-off of more than two conflict-related deaths per 100,000 population was used to differentiate medium or high intensity conflict from no or low intensity conflict. We utilized three measures to assess inequalities: an absolute difference, a concentration index, and a multivariate logistic regression coefficient. Each disparity measure was compared based on the intensity of conflict the year the DHS data was collected.ResultsWe found that PHC access varied across subnational regions in the four countries studied; with more prevalent financial than geographic barriers to care. The magnitude of both educational and wealth disparities in access to care was higher with geographic proximity to medium or high intensity conflict. A higher magnitude of wealth rather than educational disparities was also likely to be observed in the four studied contexts. Meanwhile, only Nigeria showed statistically significant interaction between conflict intensity and educational disparities in access to care.ConclusionBoth educational and wealth disparities in access to PHC services can be exacerbated by geographic proximity to organized violence. This paper provides additional evidence that, despite limitations, household surveys can contribute to healthcare assessment in conflict-affected and fragile settings.

The Conquest of the Desert: Argentina's Indigenous Peoples and the Battle for History

The Conquest of the Desert: Argentina's Indigenous Peoples and the Battle for History

How rebel groups form in genocide: The Warsaw Ghetto fighters

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is emblematic of armed Jewish resistance to the Holocaust; it should also be emblematic of rebel organization formation and capacity building in the most extreme power asymmetry. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising happened because civilians who were directly experiencing a genocide formed rebel organizations that gained the capacity to hold territory. Drawing from video testimonies and memoirs of survivors, diaries of witnesses, and the work of historians, this study analyzes the formation and evolution of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ŻOB) to create and begin to validate a generalizable theory on how rebel organizations form in genocide, and how they create the capacity to hold territory from the genocidal opponent. The ŻOB evolved from a violent resistance organization to a rebel organization with a military infrastructure that could hold territory against the Nazis; further, it was this capacity to hold territory that allowed the ŻOB to win the survival of many Jews. These findings offer important insights on the possibility of rebel group mobilization against genocidal persecution, and can be used to understand contemporary genocide resisters.

Crouching shahid, hidden jihad: mapping the online propaganda campaign of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-affiliated Ebaa News Agency

ABSTRACT The primary objective of this paper is to map the online presence of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) media branch – Ebaa News Agency (ENA) – on the surface web. It also measures three years of propaganda output of the group and its viewership, as well as outlines the thematic landscape of its productions based on the content analysis of a sample. It argues that Ebaa’s messaging pattern constitutes a peculiar mixture of opposing priorities. It paid a great deal of attention to portraying itself as an independent news agency that has nothing to do with violent terrorist organizations (VEOs). In effect, its productions are easily available on the surface web. A closer look, however, proves that since 2017 ENA has been dedicated to supporting HTS’s radical Islamist agenda. This paper provides evidence of this. Moreover, Ebaa adopted a two-vector distribution strategy of its productions, composed of standalone websites and Telegram channels. In this context, the output of this media cell appears to be quite impressive. Between 2017 and 2020, it was capable of releasing more than 13,000 pieces of propaganda on its websites. At the same time, however, their viewership was lower than initially expected.

A price for peace: troop contributing countries’ responses to peacekeeper fatalities

ABSTRACT How do states respond to fatalities of their troops in UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs)? Recent research highlights that participation in peacekeeping is costly for most states. Personnel fatalities should create further costs for contributors and often result in a reduction of their commitments. Studies that evaluate this expectation yield mixed findings. One finds no evidence that OECD countries provide fewer personnel to UN PKOs following fatalities. In contrast, another finds that fatalities generally correspond with reductions in states’ personnel commitments to UN operations in Africa but also reveals that wealthier contributors tend to withdraw at larger magnitudes than their poorer counterparts. This study builds on this work by further hypothesizing that the incentives that motivate states to participate in PKOs condition their willingness to maintain their contributions after experiencing fatalities. An analysis of states’ troop fatalities and commitments to 41 UN operations from 1990 to 2015 supports this expectation. States that are contiguous to an operation, which face greater concerns about the externalities of nearby conflicts, and states that receive side payments for their troop commitments, via foreign aid, are more willing to maintain their commitments in response to fatalities of their troops than other contributors. Additional findings suggest that non-contiguous contributors that do not receive side payments are also inclined to withdraw troops in response to upticks in organized violence surrounding a mission as well as fatalities of other contributors’ troops. These results illustrate that the motives that states face to participate in PKOs also affect their willingness to maintain their troop commitments as their costs for participation increase.

The Lebanese Civil War 1975–90

This article argues that the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90) was in essence a terror of state directed by mercantile economic and political elites (the comprador class) controlling the Lebanese state and society against the middle and poorer classes (the working class). The aim of this terror or organized violence was to subdue the subordinate classes, which in the late 1960s and early 1970s rebelled against the confessional system that operated for the benefit of the comprador class. The rebellion was expressed by members of the working-class joining cross-confessional nationalist and leftist parties. Hence, violence was aimed at reestablishing the confessional order as a means to restore a hegemonic system that served the interests of the comprador class at a time when this class was rehabilitating its economic role by resurrecting the financial system, which had received a severe blow in the late 1960s. It effected this rehabilitation through the Taif Agreement signed between Lebanese parliamentarians in 1989, under the auspices of Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, to favor the new mercantile elite led by Rafiq Hariri.

BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY AND HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN NIGERIA: CASE OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS (2009-2018)

The article examines the activities of Boko Haram insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria and the proliferation of Internally Displaced Persons (1DPs) between 2009 and 2018. The outbreak of Boko Haram insurgency heralded a new phase in Nigeria’s insecurity challenges. Boko Haram which started as a religious sect metamorphosed into a high-intensity violent organisation in terms of operations, attacks, and sophistication and proved to be a potent force affecting the social, economic, and political developments of the state. The study adopts exploratory research techniques that rely on secondary sources of information to understand the linkage and intricacies between human security and conflict. This article speaks to broader debates of IDPs and the utility of Nigeria’s current approach and frameworks for addressing protracted displacement and humanitarian crises. The article argues that the dimension and deep suffering of IDPs, government attitudes to its responsibilities on IDPs, and gross violation of IDPs human rights are particularly products of government’s failure to give legislative backing to some of its regulatory frameworks and policies on IDPs. The article concludes that government’s failure to accord necessary statutory and legal support to some of these policy frameworks is one of the essential factors responsible for the fragile protection of IDPs. Given this, governments at all levels must embark on the urgent task of securing a comprehensive framework for IDPs.

Smoke, Dust, and Blood

Smoke, Dust, and Blood

The road to the Second Karabakh War: the role of ethno-centric narratives in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

ABSTRACT On September 27, 2020, the three-decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into war. During 44 days of organized violence that claimed thousands of lives, the political leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan along with public intellectuals, journalists, artists and ordinary citizens, continually and publicly expressed pro-war sentiments and confidence in their victory. This article examines the strategies of Azerbaijani and Armenian political and intellectual elites and the formation of myths and conflict narratives that steadily led the two societies towards the Second Karabakh War. It further examines the post-war discursive developments that are working to set Armenia and Azerbaijan on the path to a new round of destructive confrontation.

Group organization, elections and urban political mobilization in the developing world

ABSTRACT Elections generate incentives for contention and violence. However, collective action problems mute responses to strategic incentives by unorganized individuals, relative to organized groups. Variation in the severity of collective action problems and the degree of strategic behaviour results in distinct patterns of mobilization across these two types of groups that have been overlooked in previous literature. We explore variation in organized and unorganized political mobilization and violence at elections using new event data for over one hundred cities in the developing world from 1960 to 2014. We find that organized groups are more likely to mobilize before elections to influence their outcome, and under permissive opportunity structures at moderate levels of democracy. Mobilization by unorganized individuals occurs at and directly after elections but does not vary by regime type. Distinct mobilization patterns across group type are a major addition to our understanding of the link between elections, democracy, contention and violence.

Organized violence 1989–2020, with a special emphasis on Syria

This article reports on trends in organized violence, building on new data by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The falling trend in fatalities stemming from organized violence in the world, observed for five consecutive years, broke upwards in 2020 and deaths in organized violence seem to have settled on a high plateau. UCDP registered more than 80,100 deaths in organized violence in 2020, compared to 76,300 in 2019. The decrease in violence in Afghanistan and Syria was countered by escalating conflicts in, for example, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), Azerbaijan and Tigray, Ethiopia. Moreover, the call for a global ceasefire following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic failed to produce any results. In fact, the number of active state-based and non-state conflicts, as well as the number of actors carrying out one-sided violence against civilians, increased when compared to 2019. UCDP noted a record-high number of 56 state-based conflicts in 2020, including eight wars. Most of the conflicts occurred in Africa, as the region registered 30 state-based conflicts, including nine new or restarted ones.