Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables, and Maps
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Inside Rebellion
- INTRODUCTION: VARIETIES OF REBELLION
- Part I The Structure of Rebel Organizations
- Part II The Strategies of Rebel Groups
- 5 GOVERNANCE
- 6 VIOLENCE
- 7 RESILIENCE
- Part III Beyond Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru
- Appendix A The Ethnography of Rebel Organizations
- Appendix B Database on Civil War Violence
- Appendix C The National Resistance Army Code of Conduct (Abridged)
- Appendix D Norms of Behavior for a Sendero Luminoso Commander
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
6 - VIOLENCE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables, and Maps
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Inside Rebellion
- INTRODUCTION: VARIETIES OF REBELLION
- Part I The Structure of Rebel Organizations
- Part II The Strategies of Rebel Groups
- 5 GOVERNANCE
- 6 VIOLENCE
- 7 RESILIENCE
- Part III Beyond Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru
- Appendix A The Ethnography of Rebel Organizations
- Appendix B Database on Civil War Violence
- Appendix C The National Resistance Army Code of Conduct (Abridged)
- Appendix D Norms of Behavior for a Sendero Luminoso Commander
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
Summary
The killing of civilians is a common consequence of armed conflict. Some of this violence is the unintended result of large-scale fighting between warring parties. Some follows directly from conflict-induced famine, malnutrition, and disease. But much of the violence directed at noncombatant populations in the course of war is intended. Armed groups target civilians as they organize their militaries, solicit resources to sustain the fighting, build bases of popular support, and weaken the support networks of opposing groups. This chapter explores patterns of rebel violence in civil war, investigating whether variation in the level and character of violence can be explained by examining differences in the origins and structure of rebel movements. I argue that high levels of indiscriminate violence are committed by insurgent groups that are unable to police defection within their ranks; early missteps in the use of force generate civilian resistance and ever greater levels of coercion over time. Activist rebellions tend to have the institutions needed to choose targets carefully; as a consequence, such movements employ largely selective violence at much lower levels of intensity.
The chapter is divided into five sections. In the first, I introduce a definition of violence that captures a broad range of rebel-civilian interactions that include but are not limited to killing. In the second, I show how differences in the membership and organizational structure of rebel groups can account for variation in observed patterns of violence in civil war.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Inside RebellionThe Politics of Insurgent Violence, pp. 198 - 259Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006