Ideology and armed conflict

Abstract

A growing wave of scholarship suggests that ideology has demonstrable effects on various forms of armed conflict. But ideology remains a relative theoretical newcomer in conflict research, and scholars lack developed microfoundations for analyzing ideologies and their effects. Typically, existing research has primarily presented ideology as either an instrumental tool for conflict actors or a source of sincere political and normative commitments. But neither approach captures the diverse ways in which contemporary social science theorizes the causal connection between ideas and action, and both struggle to reconcile the apparently strong effects of ideology on conflict at the collective level with the relative rarity of ‘true believers’ at the individual level. This article addresses such problems by providing key microfoundations for conceptualizing ideologies, analyzing ideological change, and explaining ideologies’ influence over conflict behavior. I emphasize that ideology overlaps with other drivers of conflict such as strategic interests and group identities, show how ideologies can affect conflict behavior through four distinct mechanisms – commitment, adoption, conformity, and instrumentalization – and clarify the role of both conflict pressures and pre-existing ideological conditions in ideological change. These microfoundational claims integrate existing empirical findings and offer a foundation for building deeper explanations and middle-range theories of ideology’s role in armed conflict.

On-Side fighting in civil war: The logic of mortal alignment in Syria

“… 53. See Thaler (2012), Gutiérrez Sanín and Wood (2014), Schubiger and Zelina (2017), Hoover Green (2018), and Leader Maynard (2019) on armed group ideology in civil wars. …”

Competition from Within: Ethnicity, Power, and Militant Group Rivalry

“…For our explanation of rivalry, we start by considering the overall motivations or goals of groups, such as whether they are Marxist or seek to represent a particular ethnic group. This emphasis on motivations is consistent with a growing line of research on ideology in conflict studies (Gutiérrez and Wood 2014;Leader Maynard 2019;Schubiger and Zelina 2017). Our emphasis is not precisely on ideology, per se, as we do not incorporate all aspects of groups' varied strategic positions and objectives (Gutiérrez and Wood 2014).…”

Leftist Insurgency in Democracies

“…Transnational ideological currents were grafted onto local political contexts in highly contingent ways, with enormous consequences. The study of conflict needs to more systematically theorize and measure the origins, diffusion, and evolution of ideology to better understand how these understandings of political life became fused to both revolutionary violence and parliamentary incorporation (Costalli & Ruggeri, 2015; Gutierrez- Sanín & Wood, 2014; Hoover Green, 2018; Leader Maynard, 2019; Staniland, 2015; Stewart, 2020; Straus, 2015). The leaders and foot soldiers of revolution, counter-revolution, and center-left incorporation all pursued their visions at high personal and political cost, often in the face of tremendously long odds; their ideas deserve to be taken seriously.…”