War Violence Research Articles

Does civil war violence stimulate women's participation in politics? Examining election candidacies in post war Nepal

ABSTRACT How does wartime violence shape women's representation in post-civil war politics? Some scholars argue that civil war violence alters the gender roles in society, empowering women in post-war politics. Others suggest that experience with civil war violence may deter women's participation in politics as women are often victimized during wars and are perceived as less capable of preventing violence than men in countries vulnerable to political violence. We test the generalizability of the findings with micro-level data from Nepal. We find that civil war violence does not stimulate the proportion of women candidates in districts where civil war violence was high in Nepal. However, civil war violence appears to increase the proportion of women winning elections. Nonetheless, the stimulative effect of violence on women's success in electoral politics appears to diminish over time.

Classification of domestic violence Persian textual content in social media based on topic modeling and ensemble learning

ObjectiveDue to the importance of monitoring social networks to categorize domestic violence content and extract practical knowledge for conducting preventive interventions, as well as analyzing the extensive Persian textual content related to domestic violence generated in social networks following the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily, this research aims to create the best domestic violence Persian textual content classification model using topic modeling content at first and then combining algorithms using ensemble learning to achieve the best model performance. MethodBy collecting Persian textual data using hashtags related to domestic violence equally and randomly from Telegram, Twitter, and Instagram networks between April 2020 and April 2023, the content were considered for topic modeling using the LDA algorithm. By extracting the probabilities of each topic for each document in our dataset, we considered the topic that had the highest probability to be a label for that document. Following feature extraction from labeled datasets, the Stacking and Voting ensemble learning methods were applied. ResultThe analysis of 337,287 textual data revealed five topics: family crime news, war violence, women's rights, and violent reactions. Also, compared to the voting method, the stacking method performed better with 96.4577 precision, 96.4499 accuracy, 96.4499 recall, and 96.4475 F-score. ConclusionAccording to the study findings, practical knowledge of the extracted topics can assist mental health centers in making preventive decisions. Moreover, the built model has the most efficient performance among the built models for the multi-class classification of DV texts in the Persian language for social media monitoring.

Wound: creativity, the military and a sculpture inspired by faces, minds, and landscapes scarred by the weapons of war

ABSTRACT In reference to Alice Cree’s observation that the words ‘creativity’ and ‘military’ do not seem to ‘fit together comfortably’, the first section of this autoethnographic article critically explores my personal experiences and motivations as an artist working in close proximity to military culture. This creative practice-military relationship is examined in a variety of contexts, including designing war memorials, exhibiting in military museums, and actively participating in military, commemorative rituals. The potential risks – being co-opted by military agendas – and benefits – having a platform to use my creative voice to express the consequences of martial violence – are discussed. Focusing on one of my artworks, Wound (2022), the second section demonstrates the capability of creative practice to interrogate consequences of military (and by implication, state) violence. Wound is a bronze sculpture cast from an original First World War British Brodie helmet and a German Mauser rifle cartridge. By means of moulding, casting, and modelling processes, I reconfigured the original sources of armour and ammunition as a narrative site to metaphorically explore the ‘wounding’ and ‘healing’ of landscapes and human faces and minds. Through the allegorical interpretation of this artwork and by recounting personal experiences related to its research and creation, I discuss my creative practice as a memory artist and explain my motivations for making artworks that explore human violence and warfare. The article surveys other examples of visual art and human violence in war from classical antiquity to the present, with particular emphasis on the First World War.

Do Experiences with Civil War Affect the Acceptance of the Use of Violence After War Ends? The Case of Post-War Nepal

ABSTRACT What are the effects of civil war violence on individual attitudes regarding the acceptability of the use of violence in politics after civil wars end? Using data from Nepal, we test several hypotheses about the relationship between the exposure to civil war violence and the acceptability of the use of violence for a variety of political goals after civil wars end (namely noble political causes, equal rights, and electoral advantage). Overall, we find that individuals more exposed to civil war violence are less likely to embrace the use of violence than the individuals who were less exposed to civil war violence.

EMDR therapy and treatment of child victims of violence in peace and war

The paper deals with the analysis of experiences in the application of EMDR therapy in working with children who were victims of trauma and violence in war and peace. The effectiveness of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) lies in the effect of bilateral stimulation on brain neurophysiological mechanisms of traumatized children. EMDR treatments, as well as CBT therapy, have shown success in working with children with PTSD based on several criteria. However, analyzes show that positive effects are achieved with the application of EMDR in a shorter time, and the results are more permanent and stable. Based on the results published in numerous clinical trials and meta-analyses, in 2013 the WHO (World Health Organization) recommended EMDR therapy for the treatment of PTSD in children, adolescents and adults. Exposure to war stress in all wars, in all areas, leaves severe consequences, especially for children. The increase in traumatic events in recent years creates a great need for preventive action and the application of EMDR to eliminate the consequences of children's exposure to trauma in war and peacetime conditions. The national EMDR associations of Russia and Serbia (https://www.emdrse-europe.org/) are increasingly focusing their activities on working with children who are victims of violence in war and peace. The mentioned advantages and facts were one of the reasons for the organized inclusion of EMDR therapy in work with trauma victims of mass murders that happened in May 2023 in Serbia. The treatment is very responsible and complex, but it shows significant effects. The evaluation is ongoing and will provide valuable experience in this area.

Humanitarianism as a tool of statecraft: contested authority, sovereign violence, and humanity in the Syrian civil war.

This research explores the dynamics of interaction between the sovereign state and international humanitarian organisations in alleviating human suffering in the Syrian civil war. Considering civil wars as a rupture in sovereignty, its focus is on the practices of the sovereign state within its social context and the resulting implications for aid organisations. I argue that the Syrian regime has employed state violence, in tandem with administrative and bureaucratic impediments, to reassert its sovereign authority in humanitarian decision-making processes. This exercise of sovereign power is intertwined with the actions of aid organisations, thereby reshaping power dynamics among the state, aid organisations, and vulnerable populations. Through a qualitative method, I show that the deployment of state violence concomitantly pushes aid organisations, specifically the United Nations, towards enforcing the state sovereignty defined by the regime. As an effect of assertive sovereignty, interpretations of humanitarian principles and practices are continuously negotiated and constructed differently by aid organisations, even though they share a common overarching goal.

Processing violence: the continuum between fear, doubt, and joy among German soldiers in Afghanistan

Violence in war and the emotions and meanings connected to it can only be understood through a broad social science research approach to tackle the complexity of human reactions to extraordinary experiences in theatres of war. This article looks at the significance of the continuum of emotions from fear, to doubt, to joy for German military personnel in Afghanistan when processing experiences of war-related violence. For a long time, this question of the significance of emotions connected to war and violence was of little interest to military research. The emotional dimension of the human element of war thus remained understudied. Acts of violence, both suffered and committed, however, can be processed socially and culturally in very different ways. They can trigger a plurality of emotions along the continuum between fear, doubt, and joy and between acts of desperation and acts of enjoyment and fun. I want to contribute to a new and more nuanced understanding of the multidimensionality of war and soldiering through a study of the role and implications of violent experiences for soldiers. To gain a more nuanced understanding of these experiences of violence, this article discusses various and shifting emotions among German soldiers who have been deployed to Afghanistan, ranging from fear and joy to relief, doubt, and moral conflict.

Correction: Gender-Based Violence and Women Reproductive Health in War Affected Area.

Correction: Gender-Based Violence and Women Reproductive Health in War Affected Area.

Virginia Woolf, David Jones, and the Parenthetical Space of War

Abstract Home and war seem to be spaces set apart, one defined by the rules and order of society and the other by the absolute, order-undoing destruction of battle. Yet for those families who endure war even from afar, and for those who return from war, its violence continues to fester unseen. Through a reading of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and David Jones’s World War I epic In Parenthesis, this essay interrogates that duality through the way in which the parenthetical, repressed violence of World War I steals into the home, threatening to undermine its foundations. These works, each with its emphasis on either home or front, present a complex view of that war as well as its dark, lingering influence. Ranging from the home to the trenches, Woolf and Jones unfurl a scene of violence, composed of countless parentheticals, that presents the Great War not as a space apart but as an invasive event.

“It Wasn’t Because of Human Rights:” Exploring the Limited Use of Landmines by Colombian Paramilitary Groups

What explains the choice of means and methods of warfare by armed groups? Conversely, why would some groups choose not to use certain weapons? Beyond the legitimacy- and reputation-based explanations common in existing literature, this article highlights the role of tactical utility, inherent costs, and normative biases of specific means and methods in shaping these decisions. Through a combination of congruence analysis and comparative methods, the article examines why the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), while employing a wide range of brutal forms of violence, generally avoided using landmines, contrasting this restraint with the behavior of other Colombian armed groups. Although the lack of tactical utility seems to be the primary driver of the non-use of landmines, the costs and stigma associated with using mines influence how the AUC perceived their utility. The findings underscore the importance of context-specific factors in the decision-making processes of non-state armed groups and contribute to broader discussions on the disaggregation of violence in civil wars.

Shapes of hatred and violence in Shakespeare

I use five Shakespearean plays to discuss how the meaning of the shapes of hatred and violence depend on individual character traits. In this sense, hatred and violence can either make comic characters meet some sort of reconciliation or self-destruction in the case of tragic characters. In The Comedy of Errors, the Dromio brothers, who are subject to violence from their master’s part, are the ones who can find redemption nonetheless. In The Merchant of Venice, the structural hatred between Shylock and Antonio seems to configure a form of meaning to them. In King Henry V, the enablement of violence during war time seems to suggest that the capacity for violence is inherent to every human being. This suggestion is carried over through Titus Andronicus, in which Shakespeare explores the traumatic effects of violence within a mythical realm. Finally, in Macbeth, we see how the protagonist, who is accustomed to the violence of war, can have his own nature changed when he is forced to unwillingly commit a murder outside the context of war.

Towards an eco-practical theology: An eschatological horizon of true hope

The ecological crisis in the world necessitates the reconfiguration of the hegemony of modern science, theology, politics, economics and technology – the root cause of a pending ecological catastrophe. The aim is to redress a growing culture of apathy in the context of devastating weather conditions, social and political discord, and unrelenting violent wars. Public theology serves as a conceptual framework with transversal rationality as an interlocutor between the different theological (systematic, ethics, pastoral care and eco-theology), religious and philosophical perspectives. The theological ontology of care is presented followed by the role of communities of critical prophetic discourse. The notion of earth as a community leads to the prospect of a new eco-theology. Finally, the pending ecological catastrophe is reconceptualised in and through Christian eschatology. This is an inter- and intra-disciplinary discussion on the disastrous consequences of modernity and anthropocentric behaviour in terms of the current environmental crisis. Various scholars offer valuable insights into what the problem is, who responsible is for the environmental crisis, and how Christian communities should forge an accountability of care for the earth and vulnerable human beings. The eschatological reality of God’s preferred future remains a constant of hopeful and sustainable life in the Anthropocene age. It is recommended that we change the way we exist by transforming modernity as developed and sustained through theology, socio-political, economic and technological ‘advances’.Contribution: This article focussed on the ecological crisis because of anthropocentrism and distorted theological, political and socio-economic paradigms to serve human interests despite the consequences for the earth. We need to reconfigure interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary scientific approaches to embrace earth as a key scientific interlocutor. The ecological crisis should be conceptualised within the reality of Christian eschatology – Jesus Christ is ultimately, the eschaton.

Between Kairos and Chronos: A War Diary

This article presents an image of wartime through the lens of subjective perception and from the perspective of an analytical psychologist. It utilizes diary entries written during the conflict as a means of creatively processing the unspeakable horrors, fear, and despair of war while providing a symbolic representation of pain and trauma. The diary intertwines personal and collective affects associated with the experience of war, using visual images to highlight themes such as the division between “before” and “after,” relationship rifts, fear of loss, and the generosity of the human soul. The author’s experience of the Russian war against Ukraine, while arguably not the most tragic, nevertheless reflects the horrors and sorrows experienced by many Ukrainian analytic clients. The essay aims to amplify the collective voices of those facing war violence through an analyst’s war diary, with the intention of halting the madness of war.

Clandestine fashion amidst war and migration: Murat, trans Afghan women and politics of (un)belonging

Discourses around Afghan women’s fashion and beauty during the so-called War on Terror have been used to justify interventions and war. From the Beauty Academy of Kabul to Vogue’s Burqa series, Afghan women have lurked within the possibilities and impossibilities of the traditionally oppressed and modernly liberated. Trans Afghan women have remained invisible. Building on the feminist critique of the discourse of beauty in Afghanistan, this article brings into conversation the everyday performances of fashion and beauty in the lives of murat, trans Afghan women. Through a de/colonial ethnography of three murat/trans Afghan women in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Dublin, Ireland, I argue that clandestine fashion for some murat/trans Afghan women becomes means of belonging and sites of negotiations with home and exile. Some use fashion to escape the everyday violence of war and refugeeism, while others use it to disrupt the heterosexist gaze on the streets of metropolitan cities such as Kabul and Dublin and give visibility to trans women and their embodiment of fashion as political acts of resistance. ‘Clandestine fashion’ and beauty embodiment and performances of these trans Afghan women shed light on everyday security, friendship/kinship, joy and the complexities of trans refugee life during times of war and exile.

Military-Aggressive Crime as A Subject of War Criminology

The article is devoted to the study of military-aggressive crime as a subject of war criminology. It is established that military-aggressive crime is an extensive system of criminal practices based on crimes of aggression. Armed aggression against Ukraine as a foreign policy manifestation and consequence of the functioning of the Russian fascist political regime has as its consequence and accompanying manifestations a number of violent war crimes, crimes against humanity, as well as genocidal practices. They determine a backlash in the form of a system of violent war-related crimes. On this basis, two epistemological blocks are distinguished in the structure of military-aggressive crime: crimes of action and reaction. They are interconnected. The first determines the second. A number of war criminals among Ukrainian combatants, as well as civilians, who commit aggressive and violent hate crimes are caused by previous crimes against them, representatives of their community. It is stated that there is a paradoxical international legal situation when ongoing aggression as an internationally wrongful act of the State is recorded in various formats and at various levels, including the highest level of the UN, but at the same time, the international community does not respond to the crime of aggression in the forms inherent in criminal justice.

Making home alive again after war: AcoliKaka’s Indigenous land sovereignties in Northern Uganda

AbstractAfter the war between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army (1986‐2006), 90 per cent of the displaced rural population in Northern Uganda returned to small‐scale farming on their ancestral lands and their systems of communal land stewardship. At the time, there was much debate about transitional justice interventions to address war's violence, but in that same period over 85 per cent of Acoli chiefdoms saw affiliated clans, or kin‐based political communities (kaka), negotiate to write down their Indigenous governance constitutions for the first time. AcoliKaka’s return to their ancestral lands and small‐scale farming, and subsequent engagements withtekwaro –Indigenous knowledge –through constitution writing, served to strengthen Indigenous governance and law after their weakening in contexts of war and displacement. It is argued here that these engagements and negotiations rooted in the land, regardless of their outcomes, served to orient relationshipsawayfrom the fragmenting, unprecedented, forced Acoli‐on‐Acoli violence experienced during the war. A resurgence of AcoliKaka’s Indigenous law and governance rooted in communal land stewardship is linked to relational repair and supports calls for transitional justice processes to nurture and respect Indigenous land rights. These ethnographic arguments also lend support tokaka’s ongoing efforts towards clan unity (ribbe kaka) and to secure communal land sovereignties.

“I Knew Then Who I Was. I Was a Negro”: Black Armed Defense in Walter White’s A Man Called White

Abstract This essay investigates literary and autobiographical representations of the defense of Black-owned property in the face of anti-Black mob violence during the first decades of the twentieth century. In his autobiography, A Man Called White (1948), NAACP leader Walter White represents guns as desperate tools of an always tenuous security marked by the violence of the world wars, lynchings, and racially motivated massacres. The backdrop for these struggles is woven from White’s youth amid terrifying events that will later come to be known as the Atlanta “race riot” of 1906. Repeating those events in his autobiography, White unmasks the juridical and sociopolitical order of its civilizing appurtenances and invokes the gun as a symbol of Black armed self-defense. In White’s autobiography, even as guns are used to enforce anti-Blackness they may yet be turned against the white mob to secure Black lives at the local level and turned into legal arguments by a Black collective at the national level via an organization such as the NAACP.

The Weaponization of Feminism in a Time of Genocide: A Response to Masha Gessen

In this essay, the author considers how the focus on mass rapes allegedly committed by Hamas on October 7 achieves coherency through race, leaving feminist politics mired in racial politics. The feminist truism that women are always raped in war is relied upon to confirm that mass rapes took place on October 7—a weaponization of feminism designed to shut down questions about evidence and the deliberate circulation of false narratives about rape, and, importantly, to legitimize Israeli state violence and genocide in Gaza. Masha Gessen’s July 2024 essay in the New Yorker on the weaponization of sexual violence in war provides an illustration of how an apparently feminist story about sexual violence in war travels along racist rails and gives birth to a storyline about civilized Europeans—in this case Jews—forced to use genocidal force to defend their homeland from marauding, brutal, and misogynist Arabs.

Foreign Sponsorship of Armed Groups and Civil War

Abstracts Under what conditions do armed groups escalate their campaigns to civil war? Existing research suggests foreign states’ material support is critical to explaining armed groups' conduct during civil war and, thereby, war intensification, duration, and outcomes. Thus far, little attention has been paid to understanding whether and how foreign support influences whether armed groups fight civil wars in the first place, largely due to data limitations. Armed group-level datasets have included only those already engaged in significant civil war violence, which introduces selection bias that precludes investigating factors that influence which groups fight civil wars. Leveraging the new Armed Groups Dataset (AGD), which measures characteristics of armed groups engaged in lower-level violence, we conduct a preliminary empirical investigation into the explanatory role of foreign sponsorship in group-level variation in civil war. While foreign sponsorship and civil war are correlated, there is little evidence that sponsorship has substantial independent explanatory value in predicting civil war. Rather, the evidence is consistent with claims that armed groups’ organizational characteristics account for both access to foreign sponsorship and, independently, their likelihood of escalating civil war.

Levels of Analysis and Variation in Civil War Violence and Restraint: Ideology and Contestation in Nicaragua

Levels of Analysis and Variation in Civil War Violence and Restraint: Ideology and Contestation in Nicaragua