POLI 360 Midterm #2 Study PDF

Tuesday, October 15, 2024 (POST MIDTERM #1) Intrastate wars → Much more “bottom-up fighting” Key concept: Micro- vs. Macro- Dynamics of Violence Civil wars have been common across history, though did not begin to get recorded extensively until the 1990s. Much of what we think we know abo...

Tuesday, October 15, 2024 (POST MIDTERM #1) Intrastate wars → Much more “bottom-up fighting” Key concept: Micro- vs. Macro- Dynamics of Violence Civil wars have been common across history, though did not begin to get recorded extensively until the 1990s. Much of what we think we know about civil wars is wrong. Intrastate war is an internal struggle that can tear a society apart. Salvador Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), 1936 Post-conflict rebuilding and the dynamics that exist between citizens post-intrastate war is much different than the dynamics that can be nationally observed post-interstate wars. Intrastate vs. Interstate war Interstate war: Violence between two or more states recognized in the international system. Intrastate war: Violence between two or more groups within a state (caveat: 50% see foreign involvement; more on this in the third part of the course with Lee’s book). - Possible violent groups: government, ethnic groups, warlords, religious groups, foreign states (internationalized civil war). Problem of identification pertains to enemies AND allies: (Often no uniforms) - Who is fighting whom? And with whom? - How do you know who to trust in a violent environment? - How do you know when you’ve won? How does war end? - Generates a level of ambiguity within several aspects of intrastate wars. 3 Types of Intrastate War 1. Civil/ethnic war: Bosnia, Iraq - War between government and national/ethnic/religious groups for change in status (e.g. Secession) 2. Revolutionary war: Algeria, Angola, Libya (2011). - War between government and armed groups for control of state. - Can also be an anti-colonial war/independence war. 3. Ethnic cleansing/genocide: Cambodia, Rwanda. - Sometimes called “one-sided violence” - One side is unarmed and unable to inflict costs on the other side - One-sided violence to eliminate one group. Many intrastate conflicts involve more than one of these. E.g. Rwanda involved ethnic war + genocide. Recent Trend (details in the Fearon article) Intrastate wars start at a greater rate than they end. - 2.2 start a year/1.8 end in a year (Fearon et al. 2003). - Gradual accumulation of conflicts. So these wars accumulate over time BUT The number of wars started declining in 1990s Last few years have seen an uptick, and lethality is increasing. - Less ethnic war. - War religious-based, jihadi violence (e.g. Boko Haram, ISIS) More civil wars have been happening in the Middle East/North Africa More Info from the Fearon Article Lots of foreign involvement around civil wars (26-29). - PKO’s (Peacekeeping operations) last a long time (2 years in 1990’s; 11 years now). - Aid dependence. → In the absence of this foreign aid, the government in question would not be able to operate. Duration of Intrastate Wars, Compared to Interstate Wars (Fearon 2004) Interstate wars can be long, but those are rare. Intrastate wars: Variation between regions BUT - Median: 7 years - Mean: 11 years (i.e. Some wars are super-long) Comparing Wars Between 1945-1999 (Source: Fearon and Laitin 2003) Interstate wars: 25 total. - Battle deaths (total): 3.33 million - States involved: 25 (1 in every 7 states in system) - Median lengths: 3 months. Intrastate wars: 127 total (25 ongoing in 1999). - Battle deaths (total): 16.2 million. - States involved: 73 (2 in every 5 states in system). - Median length: 6 years (i.e. 24 times as long as median interstate war). The aggregate amount of deaths is similar (battle deaths are proportionate to the amount of wars), although the amount of battle deaths per day is much less in intrastate wars. Why? The militaries that fight in intrastate wars are less powerful → they don’t have as advanced of military technology. Intrastate wars are much more slow going and last much longer. More Detailed - Battlefield Level - Info on Intrastate Wars 147 conflicts between 1944 and 2004 Mean duration (142 total): 80 months (6.6 years) Mean battle deaths (98 total): 70, 328 Bottom line: LOTS OF VARIATION. Long Terms Effects of Intrastate War Headline numbers are bad enough: - In Syria, war lasted 11(?) years (still ongoing) with 400,000+ dead. BUT: Destruction of infrastructure. - Electricity supply broken. Think about the effects… Death of medical professionals: around 800 dead. This increases long-term problems like disease. - 50% of Syria’s doctors left Syria. Large-scale displacement: approx. 13 million no longer in their home (IDPs and refugees). This affects their life expectancy even if they survive war. Why? Refugee camps are meant to be temporary, but they often last for decades. The duration of intrastate conflicts is itself a HUGE problem (due to the effects highlighted above). Even if you survive the civil war, your life expectancy is still diminished. Effects of Civil Wars on Mortality in a State: Spread of infectious diseases (malaria/TB). Breakdown in infrastructure, increasing deaths from transportation accidents. Bottom-line: Long-term impact felt by women and children, even though they are not combatants. Thursday, October 17, 2024 April 2023 - Civil war began between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Some militias formed alliances with the SAF. Summing up trends: A reminder Intrastate conflict is, by some distance, the dominant form of conflict in the contemporary world. - More intrastate wars start (2.2/year) than end (1.8/year), so conflicts accumulate.  - Incidence declined in the 1990s, up since 2010. Intrastate wars are quite bloody. - Targeting of civilians (who suffer long-term impacts). - Sometimes entire population is targeted (e.g. Rwanda). Interstate wars often last for a long time. - I.e. Median 6 or 7 years so, even if intrastate war is fought at lower intensity from interstate war, longer duration of intrastate war leads to high casualties. Non-state aspect introduces complications How do we classify intrastate vs. interstate wars? - E.g. Bosnia as both interstate - Bosnia vs. Serbia - and intrastate - Bosnian Serbs rebel with Serbian support. Two solutions: 1. No distinction between types of war. 2. Something specific to each type that needs to be explained. Peculiar to intrastate war: Intimate violence Interstate war involves killing foreign enemies. In intrastate war, violence is often inflicted on neighbors, even family. Violence often conducted in everyday places. - Battlefield is everywhere (ex: French revolution) Macro- vs. micro-dynamics In interstate wars, all units must operate in service of a broader strategy: ‘war is politics by other means.’ - Soldiers can’t do their own thing. - Centralized operational command. Think bargaining model! In intrastate wars, fighters at micro-level may be doing something different from / at odds with overall movement. - Fighters may have different motivations from the group. - Lack of command-and-control. - Patterns of local (or intimate) violence may depart from overall patterns (Kalyvas 2001, 107). Why it matters that macro- and micro-dynamics may be different The difference may explain war outcomes. - E.g. Fighting goes on during ceasefire because groups don't control individual fighters/units. The difference may account for much of the casualties and/or tactics in the war. - E.g. Use of rape in Congo.  These differences impact how we deal with a particular intrastate war. - E.g. Who to negotiate with during war? - E.g. Who to prosecute after war? Historical context: New vs. Old Wars (Kalyvas 2001) In the 1990’s, people freaked out about the civil wars going on. Differences between “old” and “new” civil wars Old Civil Wars New Civil Wars Motivation Collective grievances Private looting Support Broad popular support Lack of popular support Violence Controlled (discriminate) Gratuitous (indiscriminate) Questions to orient us Elements of intrastate war to account for: - Mix of political and private motivations (p. 113). - Popular support. ➔ Rebel groups draw on popular support. ➔ How much funding will be provided? ➔ Are there enough recruits? ➔ What is the local perspective/knowledge of the conflict/situation? Some level of gratuitous/indiscriminate violence. - This affects the level of popular support. - The more indiscriminate the violence is, the less popular support there will be. E.g. Looting vs. Ideology Looting: The taking of private property with the threat of violence. Why do rebels loot? - Individual gain - Looting is why they fight (104-105.) ➔ Motivation for rebellion. → At an individual level. - They need to loot to keep their movement going. ➔ Maintenance of rebellion. → Keeping the group going for a longer period of time. Does it matter which one it is? Why? - Ideology brings people together → unity.  - Groups have a greater level of command and control, they are more disciplined. - How does this relate to bargaining? → Bargaining is more simple if looting is being conducted from a group level, there is only one party to bargain with and reach an agreement with. → The prospects for bargaining are greater. - If looting is being done for individual gain → looters are going to continue as long as this looting continues to benefit them. - Understanding the motivations of people is important. Tuesday, October 22, 2024 Motivation: Why do individuals fight? Mobilization: How to get more individuals to join. Maintenance: How to keep insurgency going. Distinction between “new” (e.g. Sierra Leone in 1990’s) and “old” (e.g. Algeria in 1960’s) wars were bogus. Looting present in all civil wars. - Why do rebels loot? ➔ Individual gain/enrichment ➔ The group itself might be acquiring/extracting resources in this way → form of taxation. Popular support present in new wars as in old wars, but variably so. - Why do rebels need popular support? ➔ Popular support gives you information. ➔ More popular support means more combatants. ➔ More popular support means more funding. Gratuitous/indiscriminate violence not unique to new wars. - Why does indiscriminate violence matter? ➔ Discriminate violence measures the rebels ability to provide security/protection in exchange for support. ➔ Indiscriminate violence means that the civilian is still at risk of getting hurt regardless of if they support a rebel group. ➔ A rebel group that is looking to lose is going to allow its individual combatants to loot without supervision, very little value of popular support, and engage in indiscriminate violence. From last time: Evidence biased in which way? Kalyvas article: If you are in a government controlled area, you are unlikely to say things that go against the government. “Renamo is responsible for more than 90% of atrocities”. Why is this biased?  - Number is too high. - Even if the government was also committing atrocities, reporters won’t reveal this information if they are in a government controlled area. Evidence biased in which way? Possible source of bias? - Researcher - Respondents What if researcher is biased? Can evidence still be biased? What do we learn from… - Yes, because access is rarely equally or randomly distributed. → Researchers only have access to certain places at certain times when they would be safe. Lets extend from where to when fighting is observed. (Lewis 2017) When is the journalist talking to the refugees? - When the violence is bad enough to pay attention to. → Once the war is already ongoing. Extend from where to when to who. Who is likely to be talked to/written about? - We are primarily concerned (at first) with the master cleavage. → Rebel leaders and the other side of the government. - As a result, we are going to miss some level of initial mobilization. → There could be some behavior by the government or localized violence that may have provoked the fighting. - We are not likely to see other smaller rebel groups who played a role at the outset of the war. → These small groups often dissolve as the war progresses. Why does this matter? - It may be that the survivor does not represent all of the initial fighters. - We may look at the primary rebel group and think that all those who are against the government are in that group. Major datasets have a threshold level of violence. Only 1 Uganda group (LRA) in datasets. This makes it appear that all of the fighting was done by ethnically homogenous groups. This was not the case. Observations we can make based on the Ethnic demographic data from Uganda’s 1991 census in the Lewis article: By observing the other small rebel groups which existed at the outset of the war → we can see that it is not necessarily true that all ethnically homogenous groups will become viable (survive). We can also observe that ethnically heterogeneous groups also existed at the outset of the war. → Most rebel groups fail, regardless of if they are ethnically homogeneous or  heterogeneous. → Ethnicity does not straightforwardly predict fighting. People may fight regardless of whether they identify with an ethnically homogeneous or heterogeneous group. Rebel groups that are more ethnically homogenous are more likely to succeed. → There is something about ethnic groups that leads them to be more successful than non-ethnic groups. Do you throw out all reports from civil wars? How do we learn from them? - HINT: When are we likely to get these reports, and from where? Given this, what do you not expect to see? - You are not likely to see a full accounting of the violence that occurred during the war. → There can be incentives to report biased information. - You are not likely to see all of the reasons people are fighting (due to initial focus by researchers on the master cleavage). → Small rebel groups that existed at the outset of the war are often overlooked. Why does it matter if we don’t see these things? We overlook certain themes: - Rebel groups actually grow and shrink with alarming frequency. - Most people are not motivated by the politics of the war. - Local actors (individual combatants) are not always replicas of central actors (their leaders). - Civil wars (and their violence) are assumed to be directly caused by religious, ethnic, or class cleavages. → This is NOT true. What do we need to look at? If our information is biased/incomplete, how can we study intrastate war? 3 things we know we need to look at: 1. Motivation: Individuals fight for private reasons. What are these reasons? 2. Mobilization: Individuals can’t fight alone/in small groups. How do they get help? 3. Maintenance: Individuals/rebels may fight a long time. How do they support themselves? Macro vs. Micro (civil war vs. civil war violence) Kalyvas (2003, 475): Civil wars are not binary conflicts but complex and ambiguous processes that foster an apparently massive, though variable, mix of identities and actions — to such a degree as to be defined by that mix…The widely observed ambiguity is fundamental rather than incidental to civil wars, a matter of structure rather than noise. - This complexity is what allows civilians to survive. Thursday, October 24, 2024 From micro to macro (from last time): An example: Two doctors in northern Spain in the 1930’s (Kalyvas 2003, 478). How did personal beef become a political conflict? Lessons. - Priority of local beefs/violence - Local violence becomes aggregated. How? Rebel groups emerge as a result of war. Majority of fighters are not even concerned with the primary ideology of the rebel groups. They may have joined for various other reasons. Agency is located in both the center and periphery of a rebel group. Macro → Operating outside of the village Micro → Operating within the village concerned What do we know about why individuals join insurgencies? Let's talk about these findings: - Evidence from Sierra Leone. ➔ People might engage in fighting for more than one reason. ➔ Lots of people join out of fear or coercion. → Most free-riders or people who attempt to remain neutral get threatened to join a side. - Evidence from Al Qaeda (Iraq) - Evidence from the Greek civil war Tuesday, October 29, 2024 Today: Motivation to mobilization: - Free-riding (prisoner’s dilemma) and coordination (stag-hunt): How do rebels solve these problems? How (variation in) motivation affects mobilization. See prisoner dilemma notes on Ipad. With rebel influence and coercion, joining always dominates not joining. Most people don't want to fight. Why? Remember: Fighting is costly and risky! Disincentive 1: If others are fighting, why don't I stay home and reap the benefits? - Free riders, prisoner’s dilemma, collective action problem Disincentive 2: Fighting requires everyone to show up, so unless I’m sure that everyone else will show up, I won't. (Join the winning side or stay home.)  - This is a coordination problem. → See prisoner’s dilemma notes (stag hunt section) on Ipad. Groups of citizens contain various motivations and preferences (rebel group strategies must vary as well in order to mobilize more rebels): Most rebel groups are engaged in ruffing up free-riders and convincing those who are already motivated to join that they are not alone in joining (give them comfort with numbers). Two things rebels can do: Punish free-riders - Change payoffs to make joining > not joining. - But punishing is costly and can piss citizens off! → Rebel groups can’t be purely reliant on this strategy to mobilize more rebels. Make citizens believe that they will be joined by others. - How do rebels do this? - Can some (types of) rebels do this better than others? How ethnicity solves coordination. Ethnic homogeneity predicts the viability of a rebel group. Ethnicity is not something you can change. Why might one’s ethnicity affect one’s beliefs? - It is harder for people to defect from an ethnic group. ➔ Harder to defect than, say, political affiliation. - Ethnic groups are generally linguistic. - It is more difficult to leave. → The members essentially have to stick together, regardless of if they get along. → It’s hard to pretend that you are not part of a particular ethnic group. → The coordination problem is solved in ethnically homogenous groups. Ethnicity allows coordination. → It allows those who are fighting at the village level to have allies and others whom they can rely on. Thursday, October 31, 2024 Bane and ABB as ideal-types: Bane (Post jail speech) ABB Who → Criminals Who → True-believers (people who are How $$$ → Looting ideologically motivated). Discipline is low. How $$$ → Low salary.  Aggregation is low. (Revenge is personal) Discipline is higher. Effectiveness in battle is low. Aggregation is higher. Effectiveness in battle is higher. How think about what this difference in fighters means for governing: Policing? Taxation? Services? E.g. education? - Some rebel groups provide the services for citizens which the state should be providing. Measurement? E.g. census? (Why?) Do you expect to see differences in how Bane would do these things in Gotham from how ISIS would do these things in Iraq and Syria? Tuesday, November 5, 2024 (Last Lecture Before Midterm #2) Focus of Midterm #2?: Maintenance: Rebels and order (Arjona) A simple model linking resources to rebel behavior (e.g. Bane/ABB) A constraint: Resources available to rebel leader. This affects: Who joins. → How much you pay your fighters dictates who joins and their motivations to join. Who joins affects a lot of other things. Resources → recruits → discipline → pattern of violence. We can draw a lot of inferences on behavior based on how much a group is paying their recruits, their source of remedy, etc. Two aspects of maintenance 1. Resources: Pay fighters, provide order. - You saw this with Bane vs. Baghdadi. 2. Order: Rebels must govern. But they don’t always do so! E.g. In the Glawion article about rebels in Ndele, CAR: These rebels provided very little concerning public services. So we need some type of model for rebel governance. Rebels provide varying levels of governance. What is this variation, and why does it happen? When do rebels provide order and when do they not? Arjona: - What do these rebels need in general?  - Given these needs, 2 things: ➔ Rebels’ own time horizon. - Rebels who are just out for looting have shorter time horizons than rebels who might be interested in creating their own state. ➔ Level of local organization. - If locals are well organized, it will be harder for rebels to take over that area violently. General point about intrastate war: Different areas have different amounts of government presence. More government near the capital. Less government further from the capital, and in rough terrain (mountains, forests). What is the variation? (Which is Bane and which is ABB?) 3 possible outcomes in civil war (Arjona, 26): - Disorder: No social contract between rebels and population. ➔ Either somewhat organized violence between rebels and local groups OR disaggregated predation. ➔ Disorder = High level of violence. - Aliocracy: Rebels allow local autonomy (lower levels of violence than disorder). ➔ In this type of order, armed groups limit their intervention to maintaining public order and monopolizing violence. Other matters, such as politics, economics, and social relations, are left to other actors, such as the state, traditional authorities, or civic leaders. - Rebelocracy (ISIS end of the spectrum): Rebels provide services like dispute resolution, etc. (lower levels of violence than disorder*) * You might see very intense, targeted discriminate violence ➔ In this type of order, armed groups act as an interventionist government, regulating many aspects of local life. This includes politics, economics, social relations, and public goods and services. Arjona explains that rebels prefer order over disorder and rebelocracy over aliocracy because governance helps them achieve their goals of controlling territory and accessing resources and recruits. Rebelocracy: Conditions 2 parameters - Rebel’s time horizons (long or short): Meaning what? - Quality of local institutions (high or low): Meaning what?