Violence Against Civilians During Armed Conflict: Moving Beyond the Macro- and Micro-Level Divide

Abstract

Early research on wartime violence against civilians highlighted a distinction between macro- and micro-level approaches. Macro-level approaches, grounded in the international relations subfield, focus on variation across countries or conflicts, while micro-level approaches, more influenced by the comparative politics subfield, focus on variation within countries or conflicts. However, some of the recent research on civilian targeting does not fit neatly into this dichotomy—such as research comparing subnational units or armed groups across conflicts or research relying on geo-referenced event data for multiple conflicts. We review the literature and advocate moving beyond the language of the micro- and macro-level divide, instead focusing on the determinants of violence against civilians at five different levels of analysis: international, domestic, subnational, organizational, and individual. While acknowledging significant advances in the field, we argue for continued research aimed at developing a more integrated theoretical understanding of the multiple actors and interactive social processes driving violence against civilians. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 24 is May 11, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Disasters and civilian victimization: Exploring the dynamic effect in Africa, 1997–2017

“…Indeed, civilian casualties occur in all intrastate armed conflicts. However, patterns of violence against civilians vary across time and location within a single conflict (Balcells & Stanton, 2021).…”

“…The question of why armed groups intentionally harm and kill unarmed civilians during armed conflict has received vast scholarly attention over the past decades (see Balcells & Stanton, 2021 for a recent overview). Most studies argue that this type of violence is driven by a strategic interplay between rebel groups and the government, which is largely dependent upon the rebel group’s capabilities (Wood, 2010).…”

“… 4 Other scholars challenge the idea that violence against civilians is a weapon of the weak, arguing that large-scale bombing of civilian areas or ethnic cleansing campaigns require significant resources and logistical capacity (e.g. Balcells & Stanton, 2021). …”

Violencia sexual derivada del conflicto

“…La introducción de la violencia sexual como un fenómeno que merece ser objeto de un serio estudio teórico y empírico desde las ciencias políticas ha contribuido a superar la desatención histórica a los temas de género en los estudios sobre conflictos (McDermott, 2020). La violencia sexual es un componente central de la floreciente literatura sobre la victimización de civiles en el conflicto (Balcells & Stanton, 2021) y de estudios, tanto positivistas como interpretivistas/ pospositivistas, de género y relaciones internacionales (p. ej., Reiter, 2015;Sjoberg et al, 2018).…”

Measurement validity in historical conflict data: Comparing datasets from Spain

“…Obtaining reliable data on patterns of political violence is difficult. This limitation is particularly common to almost all studies that focus on violence against civilians (Balcells and Stanton, 2021), because these events usually take place in low-information environments where actors have incentives to cover up victims, leading to multiple bias in the count of fatalities (Kr üger et al, 2013). Even in relatively modern conflicts, where victims or relatives are still alive, there are important data limitations (Armstrong et al, 2020).…”