Escalation Of Violence Research Articles

The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time? Territorial Autonomy and Conflict During Regime Transitions.

This article evaluates how territorial autonomy affects ethnic mobilization and conflict during regime transitions. Previous research has highlighted its conflict-inducing role during prominent transition contexts. Alternatively, it has shown its pacifying role in the "average" case, without distinguishing transition periods from stable contexts. Addressing these gaps, we argue that the de-escalatory consequences of autonomy depend on critical stabilizing factors which are themselves "muted" during transitions. We test our expectations in a cross-national analysis, covering all regime transitions between 1946 and 2017. We also revisit the 1989 transition from Communism, focusing on the role of "inherited" autonomy in the post-communist successor states. This enables us to address concerns whereby autonomy is offered to ward off transitions or whereby transitions are themselves induced by mobilization. Our findings indicate that during transitions, territorial autonomy increases the likelihood of ethnic mobilization, government concessions in response, and violent escalation where these are not forthcoming.

Explaining the pattern of “war on drugs” violence in the Philippines under Duterte

AbstractA national “war on drugs” under former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte killed an estimated 12,000 to 30,000 victims. Duterte used state terror tactics, generating an unprecedented level of violence within a broader process of democratic backsliding. The violence peaked early, within the first few months of his term of office, then declined and remained low for years afterwards. How do campaigns of large‐scale state violence decline? This article explores the context‐specific drivers of the drug war's implementation in the Philippines. It presents findings from a model predicting violence escalation and de‐escalation using a Poisson regression to estimate the weekly number of killings from 2016 to 2021. The study's main finding is that the violence declined, and remained low throughout the rest of Duterte's term, due to the mobilization of accountability mechanisms—particularly over corruption controversies. This study offers insights into how resistance can impede autocratization, even in weak democracies.

PARENTS’ DIGITAL COPING RESOURCES WITH ONGOING POLITICAL CONFLICTS

Mobile technologies such as the instant messaging application WhatsApp have become significant resources for information and social support in times of crisis, as well as for crisis communication. In times of crisis, these applications afford the exchange of real-time information and can influence users' coping behaviors. Conversely, they have also been reported to constitute a potential source of misinformation and increased exposure to emotional distress. To date, the role WhatsApp groups play for individuals, families, and communities living in regions affected by ongoing conflicts has yet to be investigated. This research draws upon the salutogenic and ecological theories to examine parents' digital coping processes with political violence in southern Israel. To this end, the study examines the types of coping resources provided in local online parent groups (OPGs) during violence escalation and relative calm periods. The study involves a mixed-methods approach comprising qualitative in-depth interviews with 15 couples who are parents of children under the age of 17 residing in communities near the Israel-Gaza border and an online ethnography of four local OPGs. Study findings reveal three levels of parents' coping resources on OPGs: personal, family, and communal digital coping resources. In addition, four WhatsApp affordances immediacy, reachability, mobility, and multimediality—contributed to WhatsApp's role as a shared and ubiquitous coping resource. This study expands the original models and core concepts of the salutogenic and ecological paradigms traditionally studied solely in offline environments and examines the effectiveness of digital contexts in helping parents cope with an ongoing collective stressor.

The Wounded Body of Christ, the Church and Perennial Escalation of Gender-Based Violence and Its Implications for Pastoral Care

It is a known fact that gender-based violence is an infringement on human rights. Gender-based violence takes place all over the world in almost every place. It is experienced in homes, workplaces, communities, and in the Church as well. Today, church members, as well as pastors are wounded, fragmented, and hurting as they suffer serious abuses in silence. Christian children have fallen victim to sexual abuse that is perpetrated by their parents. Parents too, have become victims of violence; sometimes maimed by children who have become violent enough to kill their Christian parents in their homes. Furthermore, many Christian couples have continued to experience intra gender violence in their families that is often attributed to marital infidelity. Beyond that, there is also a common secretive kind of abuse in the form of marital sexual violence which is a serious form of violence against women. This is a hidden type of abuse that has been perpetrated behind closed doors for too long by members of the body of Christ. Due to its prevalence sometimes the victims themselves, often pretend that the problem in not present by keeping a deafening silence. This article, therefore, makes an in-depth investigation into the causes of the pervasive forms of gender-based violence that occur in some Zambian Christian homes, with particular emphasis on the ways in which this multifaceted phenomenon is very much hidden. This article expounds on how Christian couples have continued to suffer silently as their voices are suppressed due to fear and shame. In the conclusion of the article, it is suggested that, unless the church, in its pastoral care role, awakens from its slumber and begins to address issues of gender-based violence in the church with sincerity, honesty, and openness by admitting that indeed, the body of Christ is yearning to be healed, gender-based violence shall remain a perennial occurrence.

Can governments prevent ethnic violence through public goods spending? A cross‐country investigation

AbstractThis study investigates how governments' spending on public goods affects the onset of ethnic violence. Do governments make particularistic or public goods spending? And, how do governments' spending behaviour affect the escalation of ethnic violence? This study links the literatures on ethnic competition, rent‐seeking and government impartiality and examines the effect of level of impartiality in the provision of public goods on ethnic violence. It is expected that particularistic policymaking and spending can increase the risk of ethnic violence because it can contribute to horizontal group grievances and rent‐seeking over state resources. Analyses of 152 countries from 1946 to 2010 show that a one‐standard deviation increase in impartial governance of public goods lowers the risk of ethnic violence a substantial 25% to 28% even with consideration of a battery of control variables. To facilitate peace in ethnically divided countries, international policymakers and states should promote impartial policies targeted at the provision of public goods for all communities and groups.

Haiti

Haiti has been hit hard by the global food price shock. In September 2022, food inflation reached 44 percent, with rice inflation nearly 70 percent. With more than half the population already below the poverty line, Haiti faces a dire humanitarian crisis, with an expected financing gap in FY2023 of at least US$105 million (0.5 percent of GDP), assuming import compression and pending additional external financing from development partners. This shock compounds the hardships of an already highly fragile country—also suffering a public health emergency (cholera) and serious security risks. In line with global trends and also due to an escalation of violence, the macroeconomic situation has been more challenging relative to the outlook in June 2022, at the time of the approval of the Staff Monitored Program (SMP). That said, recent data suggest that the authorities are making meaningful efforts to overcome the multiple challenges facing the country and the First Review of the SMP was approved by IMF Management on December 21, 2022.

Heritage of humanity and modern processes of evolution and involution

This article is devoted to the issue of correlation between evolutionary and involutionary processes in the modern world. The severity of genocidal and culture-cidal tendencies, surpassing those in past centuries, is noted. The article discusses the question of whether the return of concentration camps, which became one of the semantic milestones in the development of humankind in the twentieth century, is possible. This experience left indelible traces in the history of the Earth, its cultural genesis and ethnogenesis. They can become both the basis for revising the strategy of human relations, and the basis for a new escalation of mutual violence and people’s self-destruction. Therefore, modern humanity is going through a difficult phase of its development. This phase shows that human formation is far from complete. Moreover, degradation and involutionary processes are taking place in modern human communities much more actively and widely than evolutionary ones, especially in countries and regions of the south and west. The regions of the northeast are the least affected, however, they have their own problems, including those associated with the “frozen history”: some communities of the north and east, including in Russia, practically do not develop in the absence of stimulating moments as the main resources are spent on resisting the difficulties of everyday life, survival, and attempts to preserve the national culture, which is clearly seen in the exampleof the indigenous peoples of Altai, while other communities are subjected to systemic discrimination, as, for example, the Pomors, which prompts them, on the one hand, to blur among other peoples of Russia, and on the other hand, to close themselves from the general process in order to preserve themselves and the culture of human relations at least for a while.

Physical violence against women in Brazil: Findings from the 3rd Brazilian household survey on substance use

ABSTRACT Brazil has a historical gap regarding information on violence against women. Herein we aimed to evaluate the association of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics with physical violence against women in Brazil, as well as the possible escalation of violence to severe patterns of violence. We analysed data from the 3rd Brazilian Household Survey on Substance Use, in 2015. The main outcomes were reporting any physical violence and being stabbed/shot in the last 12-months. Logistic regressions were fitted to assess the association between socioeconomic and demographic variables with the outcomes. We estimated 3.8 million women reported any physical violence (5.52%): 3.79% reported threats to beat/ push/kick, 1.87% threats with knife/gun, 2.49% were beaten/pushed/kicked, 0.63% were spanked/ choked, and 0.21% were stabbed/shot. The higher the severity of violence, the higher the number of types of violence experienced. The likelihood of reporting any violence was higher among women 18–24 years, without a stable partner, who were at an informal job or unemployed, and who live in urban areas. The sociodemographic characteristics associated with reporting any violence reinforce the importance of addressing gender inequalities. Evidence of escalation violence reinforces the need to protect and care for women who report any type of violence.

Myanmar 2022: Fragmented sovereignties and the escalation of violence in multiple warscapes

Myanmar 2022: Fragmented sovereignties and the escalation of violence in multiple warscapes

Restorative Justice Pathways in Palestine/Israel: Undoing the Settler Colonial Captivity of Jewishness

Abstract: Jewish critique of Zionism is not an abstract exercise, but one that is also, and necessarily, about Palestinians and sociopolitical realities in Palestine/Israel, where Zionist sovereignty defines the space in its entirety. This article traces sites of Jewish Israeli decolonial restorative justice potential and argues that some interventions that appear restorative, in effect, obscure and normalize historical injustices. Accordingly, a spectrum of Jewish critics posit Zionism as a form of Jewish "moral exile" or "moral transgression," and they seek Jewish authenticity to return "home" ethically. I argue that, to the degree that restorative justice practices are missing from ethical Jewish reflections on Zionism and Israelism, the sources of such Jewish critiques of Zionism remain diasporic. Focusing on the potentials of Jewish Israeli restorative justice, including those articulated by the feminist organization Zochrot and the petition of Jewish Israelis against Israeli apartheid propelled by the escalation of violence in May 2021, offers a pathway for unsettling and troubling the diasporic as the primary Jewish source of an ethical critique of Israelism as the idolatry of the Jewish State and as Zionism's imbrication in a settler colonial paradigm.

СУЧАСНЕ ГЛОБАЛЬНЕ СЕРЕДОВИЩЕ: ВИКЛИКИ, ЗАГРОЗИ, ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ БЕЗПЕКОВОГО РОЗВИТКУ

The study explores the manifestations of increasing geopolitical tension and geoeconomic risks, which are confirmed by the exacerbation of contradictions and the escalation of conflicts that have become dominant features of the complex security landscape of the modern global economy. It is determined that the slowdown in economic growth rates, regional asymmetries, and social polarization against the backdrop of weakening governmental institutions only exacerbate instability and increase the uncertainty of the global environment. Social and economic inequality deepens further stratification and tension in society, creating grounds for the unfolding of future conflicts. It is noted that after 2022, the influence of new processes and trends that shape the contemporary global security environment has intensified, characterized by an escalation of violence and conflicts, as well as an increase in military expenditures. The global rise in military expenditures is intensified by their increase at the regional level (except in Africa). Technological development combined with increasing military expenditures by countries raises the risk of a new arms race on a planetary scale. The leading positions in the world, both in terms of technological development and military expenditures, are occupied by the USA and China, between which deepening contradictions of not only a geoeconomic but also a geopolitical nature are observed. The deepening of interstate technological rivalry against the backdrop of rapid development of artificial intelligence and any escalation of conflicts increases new risks and has negative consequences for economic activity and commodity market dynamics. Ensuring sustainable development and long-term economic stability particularly depends on investments in technology, infrastructure, and human capital. Social polarization and inequality have become powerful risk factors for global development. The instability and weakness of states intensify social unrest and anti-government protests. Expanding public access to services and improving interaction with state institutions will impact social cohesion. Alienation and distrust towards authorities, combined with other factors shaping the security environment, underscore the need to improve the quality and efficiency of security expenditures and counter-terrorism financing. Keywords: conflicts, global security environment, military expenditures, security, geoeconomic and geopolitical risks, technological development, asymmetry, war.

Playful Activism: Memetic Performances of Palestinian Resistance in TikTok #Challenges

Palestinians have long been using social media as a tool for activism. Each platform provides unique socio-technological affordances that shape users’ communicative practices as networked publics. Focusing on the video-sharing platform TikTok, which has taken a “serious turn” in recent years, this article examines how Palestinian users performed playful acts of resistance during the escalation of violence between Palestinians and Israelis in May 2021. Applying a multimodal analysis to 500 TikTok videos posted during the conflict under #gazaunderattack, we identify three memetic templates (#challenge)—(1) lip-syncing, (2) duets, and (3) point-of-view—that unfold the ways TikTok’s design and its play-based affordances ignite affective streams of audiovisual content that render playful activism in times of conflict. Driven by TikTok’s culture of imitation and competition, playful activism enables the participation of ordinary users in political emerging events with the help of looping meme videos composed of collaborative, dialogic, and communal socio-technical functions. Playful activism transforms users’ ritualized performances into powerful political instruments on TikTok and makes democratic participation more relatable, tangible, and accessible to various audiences.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Health Response to Family Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Qualitative Study.

COVID-19 pandemic planning and response has resulted in unprecedented upheaval within health systems internationally. With a concern for increasing frequency and escalation of family violence, the so called "shadow pandemic," we wondered how health system violence intervention programs were operating during this time. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Ministry of Health Violence Intervention Program (VIP), using a systems approach, seeks to reduce and prevent the health impacts of family violence and abuse through early identification, assessment, and referral of victims presenting to designated health services. In this qualitative descriptive study, we explored how the VIP program was impacted during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty-one VIP coordinators and managers representing 15 of the 20 New Zealand District Health Boards and the National VIP Team participated. Across 12 focus groups (8 face to face and 4 via Zoom) and 7 individual interviews (all via Zoom) participants shared their experience navigating systems to support frontline health providers' responsiveness to people impacted by family violence during the pandemic. In our reflexive thematic analysis, we generated 3 themes: Responding to the moment, valuing relationships, and reflecting on the status quo. Our findings demonstrate the dynamic environment in which participants found creative ways to adapt to the uncertainty and engage with communities to re-shape interventions and ensure continued implementation of the program. At the same time, challenges within the system prior to the pandemic were brought into view and highlighted the need for action. These included, for example, the need for improved engagement with Māori (Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand) to address long-standing health inequities. Having quality essential services for those impacted by family violence that engages with local knowledge and networks and routinely copes with uncertainty will strengthen our systems to minimize risk of harm during emergencies.

Poezja i przekład przeciwko przemocy (Auden – Wittlin – Barańczak)

Poetry and Translation Against Violence (W.H. Auden – Józef Wittlin – Stanisław Barańczak) The article examines W.H. Auden’s poem “Refugee Blues” and its two Polish translations, by Józef Wittlin (“To miasto…”, dated ?, published 1958) and Stanisław Barańczak (“Blues uchodźców”, 1992). The poem has taken on a new relevance in the face of contemporary refugee crises, and the Polish translations – in view of the influx of refugees from war-ravaged Ukraine. Confronted with the two renditions, a group of young recipients agreed that Barańczak’s variant had a greater emotional impact, and therefore a greater capacity for persuading those whose empathy needs to be stimulated. This prompts the author of the article to try to identify the elements and qualities that give the more recent translation an advantage over Wittlin’s translation, which was held not only excellent, but also probably more poignant than the original by translator and insightful critic Zygmunt Kubiak. It is demonstrated how Barańczak enhances the drama of the text while at the same time inscribing in it a full awareness of the escalation of violence that followed Auden’s poem. Wittlin, on the other hand, although he generally takes the motifs of the original more literally and does not impose elements dictated retrospectively by historical knowledge, creates certain spaces of ambiguity which offer a potentially no less moving reading experience than that of Barańczak, who uses a more direct diction. Biblical echoes that appear in Wittlin’s rendition serve, it is argued, to point to hidden verbal violence underpinning the physical violence. Finally, a scarcity of reception facts connected to either Polish rendition is noted.

War and Peace: Orthodox Icons and Putin's Politics of the Sacred

This study examines twenty years of data about Vladimir Putin's ritualized encounters with icons as a form of symbolic political discourse on the “sacred” that ultimately devolved into Russia's violent escalation of the Russo-Ukraine War in February 2022. Theories of semiotics, the sacred, and studies on iconography reveal patterns of carefully curated engagement with the sacred images that draw on historical relationships among religiosity, power, and violence in Russia. The analysis shows how semiotic signalling through iconographical forms allow Putin to sacralize and strengthen his leadership within the sphere of domestic politics. It demonstrates how Putin's interaction with icons during annual visits to regional Christmas services re-sacralized Russian territory and reinforced national security priorities to a domestic audience. Turning to the international stage, this essay shows how Putin's “icon diplomacy” establishes “sacred” space beyond Russia's national borders. The metaphor of the iconographical image is realized in Ukraine, as both sides struggle to control the narrative of the sacred. The study demonstrates the relationship between violence and the sacred as it pertains to Putin's political lexicon and the importance of understanding this relationship in order to fathom his language of icons.

Domestic violence against women during COVID-19 pandemic. Support options

Domestic violence is a common phenomenon all over the world and in every environment, regardless of the level of education, material conditions, place of residence, race, or even religion. Historically viewed as a private issue, domestic violence is now recognized as a gender-based crime and is a significant public health problem affecting the well-being of victims, their families and communities. Numerous evidence shows that domestic and sexual violence escalate in times of disasters and pandemics. One of the main reasons for the escalation of domestic violence during the period of anomie is social isolation, economic instability, loss of income and related stress, as well as chaos and change of legislation, including the introduction of introduction of restrictions. Such periods of forced intimacy between partners extend the time they spend together and make it more difficult for victims of domestic violence to “escape” from home. The aim of the article is to present both the scale of the phenomenon of violence in a global perspective and the actions taken in selected countries, including Poland and Ukraine, for the victims of domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research focuses on the following questions: What is the scale of the phenomenon of violence during a pandemic? What measures have countries taken to support victims of violence? The article is based on the monographic method, an analysis of available scientific sources (published in English, Polish and Ukrainian) describing the diagnosed phenomenon. The article may contribute to further research and reflection on this issue, especially in the current political situation in the world (war in Ukraine), which is conducive to aggressive behaviour.

Stefan Eklöf Amirell. Pirates of Empire: Colonisation and Maritime Violence in Southeast Asia.

Stefan Eklöf Amirell’s Pirates of Empire: Colonisation and Maritime Violence in Southeast Asia is a significant contribution to the understanding of piracy and predation in Southeast Asia in the age of empire. The age of empire is a protracted one, ranging from the seventeenth century to the first quarter of the twentieth century, and encompassing the activities of early modern colonial empires—initially, the Dutch, English, and Spanish, and later of increasing American imperial naval presence. Intraimperial competition articulated through firepower as well as through quasi-legal notions of maritime sovereignty made for a complex and ambiguous discourse on non-European piracy, the constitutive elements of which are excellently summed up in the introduction. The spatial unit of inquiry at work comprises three areas in Southeast Asia—namely, the Sulu Sea in the Philippines; the Straits of Malacca, the shipping lanes around Singapore and the Riau Linga Archipelago; and finally, the northwest part of the South China Sea and the rivers of Indochina. These three regions shared important geographical features, peopled by skilled seafarers and small sultanates, who used maritime raiding as a political resource. The arrival of European colonists from the seventeenth century onward strained the precarious political and moral economy of the region, resulting in an escalation of maritime violence that Europeans designated as piracy.

Patriarchy's Link to Intimate Partner Violence: Applications to Survivors' Asylum Claims.

Eligibility for asylum for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) has recently been contested. We summarize social science evidence to show how such survivors generally meet asylum criteria. Studies consistently show a relationship between patriarchal factors and IPV, thereby establishing a key asylum criterion that women are being persecuted because of their status as women. Empirical support is also provided for other asylum criteria, specifically: patriarchal norms contribute to state actors' unwillingness to protect survivors, and survivors' political opinions are linked to an escalation of perpetrators' violence. The findings have implications for policy reform and supporting individual asylum-seekers.

Protest injuries: A situational analysis of injurious protests in Gauteng

In this article, we investigate contextual and situational circumstances of protest events that record injurious outcomes for civilians and examine how these differ from protests which do not record such outcomes. Using the IRIS database, we examine how contextual factors, including protest period, protest location, type of protest, reason for protest, and situational factors, such as damage to property, arrests and police response contribute to civilian injury. Using multiple logistic regression analysis, it was found that: 1) protest-related injuries were more frequent during the late-2000s than the 2010-15 period; 2) protest location was not a significant predictor of protest injury; 3) protests which recorded arrests and damage to property were more likely to report injurious outcomes; and 4) the addition of an aggressive police response was significant in determining protestor injury outcomes. Our findings have implications for public policing strategies, highlighting the role of different modalities of police response in the mitigation or escalation of violence at protest events.

“A Revolution in Labor”: African Americans and Hybrid Labor Activism in Illinois during the Early Jim Crow Era

“A Revolution in Labor”: African Americans and Hybrid Labor Activism in Illinois during the Early Jim Crow Era