What Should We Mean by “Pattern of Political Violence”? Repertoire, Targeting, Frequency, and Technique

Sanín, Francisco Gutiérrez; Wood, Elisabeth Jean

doi:10.1017/s1537592716004114

Cited by 172 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Civil war research has established that civilian agency is causal for explaining variation in violence against civilians (Kalyvas, 2006), that lethal and non-lethal forms of violence against civilians may diverge (Gutiérrez-Sanín & Wood, 2017), and that rape and other forms of sexual violence can vary dramatically (Wood, 2006(Wood, , 2018Cohen, 2016). Although elites do order the use of sexual violence in some armed conflicts, in many others bottom-up dynamics among combatants rather than top-down orders likely explain widespread sexual violence (Cohen, 2016;Wood, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restrained or constrained? Elections, communal conflicts, and variation in sexual violence

Krause

2020

Journal of Peace Research

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Anecdotal evidence suggests that sexual violence varies significantly across cases of election violence and communal conflicts but systematic research is scarce. Post-election violence is particularly likely if electoral mobilization further polarizes longstanding communal conflicts and political elites do not instruct security forces to intervene decisively. I comparatively analyse two prominent cases of post-election violence in Kenya (2007/8) and Nigeria (2008) that exhibit stark variation in sexual violence. Patrimonial networks and norms of violent masculinity that increase the probability of (gang) rape were present in both cases and do not explain variation. Civil war research has identified three explanations for the variation in sexual violence: situational constraints; ordered sexual violence or restraint; and bottom-up dynamics of sexual violence or restraint. I examine these for the context of post-election violence. I argue that the type of communal conflict triggered by electoral mobilization explains variation in sexual violence. In Kenya, pogroms of a majority group against a minority allowed for the time and space to perpetrate widespread sexual violence while in Nigeria, dyadic clashes between similarly strong groups offered less opportunity but produced a significantly higher death toll. These findings have important implications for preventing election violence. They demonstrate that civilian vulnerability is gendered and that high levels of sexual violence do not necessarily correspond to high levels of lethal violence. Ignoring sexual violence means underestimating the real intensity of conflict and its impact on the political process.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restrained or constrained? Elections, communal conflicts, and variation in sexual violence

Krause

2020

Journal of Peace Research

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“…45 Molden and Maner 2013;schroeder and Graziano 2015b;DeWall 2013;shih 2004. 46 Gutiérrez-sanín and Wood 2017. often stigmatized and, as asserted with regard to the decay mechanism, socially excluded.…”

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confidence: 99%

Decay or Resilience?

Koos¹

2018

World Pol.

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IntroductIonH isTory has been witness to plenty of civil wars in which largescale rape of civilians by soldiers, rebels, and militias occurred either as part of a strategy for opportunistic reasons or because rape became an established practice. 1 yet little is known about the social consequences of wartime sexual violence. 2 This article examines the long-term consequences of widespread conflict-related sexual violence (crsv) in sierra leone. Does crsv destroy the social fabric of communities as is often claimed, or are victims, families, and communities able to overcome such traumatic events and demonstrate resilience? What do crsv victims and their families do to remain part of their communities? These questions are significant, particularly in postconflict societies where the state is often absent and people must rely on and cooperate with each other.The feminist literature provides the most established and developed ideas on these questions and suggests that crsv, most often rape by armed groups, is associated with stigma and results in social exclusion. 3 This notion is the dominant view of feminist scholarship and within the development community, and in this article i refer to it as the decay mechanism. nity organizations and more likely to contribute to social events, such as weddings and funerals, and they donate more often. in addition, the analysis shows that crsv-affected households are as likely as unaffected households to receive the community's help in times of need, which speaks against the idea of social exclusion. These effects of crsv are independent of other forms of violence, including killings, mutilation, and displacement, and are robust to an instrumental variable estimation, which uses the exogenous distance to mining areas as an instrument for crsv exposure perpetrated by the ruf.Ultimately, i find unbiased evidence for the resilience argument. To illuminate the underlying mechanisms, i provide qualitative accounts that community acceptance of crsv survivors and their families in sierra leone has been facilitated through immense peacebuilding efforts, women's rights campaigns, and in particular, local-level reconciliation and cleansing rituals. in terms of policy relevance, the article provides new insights into communities' adaptive capabilities when dealing with traumatic events like widespread crsv and adds to the growing discourse on resilience by providing evidence that individuals, households, and communities in postconflict settings are able to absorb certain shocks and distress. Using these local abilities will benefit the efficacy of humanitarian and development programs tremendously. concepts, MechanIsMs, and hypothesesHow does crsv affect victims' and their families' behavior and acceptance in their community? Before turning to the proposed mechanisms, i define the two key concepts used in this article: prosocial behavior and crsv.prosocIal BehavIor: defInItIons and Its usefulness In postconflIct socIetIes The notions of prosocial behavior, altruism, and cooperative norms hav...

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“…These accounts in the literature and in my research help illustrate how patterns of violence varied between ethnically segregated and mixed neighborhoods. Drawing from established understandings of “patterns” of violence (Tilly 2003; Kalyvas 2006, 2012; Gutiérrez-Sanín & Wood 2014, 2017), I adopt an interpretation that distinguishes between two types of “patterns”: pogroms in the form of asymmetric attacks by the majority on a defenseless minority; and clashes in the form of symmetric combat between groups. Patterns of violence can be categorized into far more forms, but these categories here suffice.…”

Section: Patterns Of Violence In the Stronghold And The Frontiermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Emergence and Development of Ethnic Strongholds and Frontiers of Collective Violence in Jos, Nigeria

Madueke¹

2019

Afr. stud. rev.

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Abstract:Contestations over indigene rights and political representation resulted in Christian-Muslim riots in the Nigerian city of Jos where, between 2001 and 2010, over 5,000 people were killed. This study complements existing literature on the spatial dimension of violence by focusing on how Jos’s neighborhoods were transformed from everyday residential areas to spaces of ethnic differentiation and violence. It employs an ethnographic study to map the emergence and development of ethnic strongholds and frontiers, two kinds of socio-spatial settings conceptualized to help explain the spread and patterns of violence across Jos’s neighborhoods.

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What Should We Mean by “Pattern of Political Violence”? Repertoire, Targeting, Frequency, and Technique

Cited by 172 publications

References 40 publications

Restrained or constrained? Elections, communal conflicts, and variation in sexual violence

Restrained or constrained? Elections, communal conflicts, and variation in sexual violence

Decay or Resilience?

The Emergence and Development of Ethnic Strongholds and Frontiers of Collective Violence in Jos, Nigeria

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