What explains ethnic organizational violence? Evidence from Eastern Europe and Russia

Abstract

Why do some ethnopolitical organizations use violence? Research on substate violence often uses the state level of analysis, or only analyzes groups that are already violent. Using a resource mobilization framework drawn from a broad literature, we test hypotheses with new data on hundreds of violent and nonviolent ethnopolitical organizations in Eastern Europe and Russia. Our study finds interorganizational competition, state repression and strong group leadership associated with organizational violence. Lack of popularity and holding territory are also associated with violence. We do not find social service provision positively related to violence, which contrasts with research on the Middle East.

Religion as a Peacemaker? Peace Duration after Ethnic Civil Wars

“…Asal and Phillips (2015) find that government repression is an important predictor of the likelihood of a group using violence. Gurses and Rost (2013) point to post-war ethnic discrimination against the ethnic group that was involved in the war on the opposition side as a key determinant of whether the peace will fail.…”

Domestic diversion: Selective targeting of minority out-groups

“…In general, political violence is less likely and less severe when minority groups struggle to mobilize (Brown and Boswell, 1997). As any minority group consolidates its position in society and presents credible claims to altering the distribution of benefits through mobilization strategies, it also creates conflict with the in-group and the state (Asal and Phillips, 2015). Greater organization increases the threat perception, and greater threat perception increases support for government repression (Asal and Phillips, 2015).…”

“…While economic turmoil and decline make use of force comparatively cheaper than other policy options, the cost-benefit calculus is complicated by the mobilization and organization capability of societal out-groups. The severity of political violence varies in accordance with minority groups' size and power distribution within the state (Rørbaek and Knudsen, 2015) and distribution of societal support (Asal and Phillips, 2015), but there is another important determinant-an out-group's mobilization and organization capabilities.…”

Terrorism and Social Movements; Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 2nd Edition

“…Consistent with the centrality of violence to our understanding of terrorism, a growing body of research has sought to understand what factors influence both the intensity of violence used by terrorists and the targets they choose (Asal and Phillips 2015;Asal and Rethemeyer 2008;Berman 2009;Cronin 2009;Kydd and Walter 2006;Olzak 2016;Sandler 2014;Valentino 2014). While research examining definitions of terrorism and the dynamics of radicalization have necessarily relied more on small-N and qualitative research (see Young and Findley 2011), research on lethality and target choice is dominated by large-N statistical analyses that rely on the growing corpus of terrorism data.…”