Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist Insurgencies

2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
LARS-ERIK CEDERMAN ◽  
LUC GIRARDIN
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Ethnolinguistic Fractionalization

This paper theorizes the link between ethnicity and conflict. Conventional research relies on the ethnolinguistic fractionalization index (ELF) to explore a possible causal connection between these two phenomena. However, such approaches implicitly postulate unrealistic, individualist interaction topologies. Moreover, ELF-based studies fail to articulate explicit causal mechanisms of collective action. To overcome these difficulties, we introduce the new index N* of ethnonationalist exclusiveness that maps ethnic configurations onto political violence. This formalization is confirmed statistically in regression analysis based on data from Eurasia and North Africa.

scholarly journals Conflict antiquities’ rescue or ransom: The cost of buying back stolen cultural property in contexts of political violence

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Samuel Andrew Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
Revenue Streams ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Safe Zones

Abstract Rescue has long been a defense for the removal of cultural property. Since the explosion of iconoclasm in West Asia, North Africa, and West Africa, there has been a growing demand for cultural property in danger zones to be “rescued” by being purchased and given “asylum” in “safe zones” (typically, in the market countries of Western Europe and North America). This article reviews evidence from natural experiments with the “rescue” of looted antiquities and stolen artifacts from across Asia and Europe. Unsurprisingly, the evidence reaffirms that “rescue” incentivizes looting, smuggling, and corruption, as well as forgery, and the accompanying destruction of knowledge. More significantly, “rescue” facilitates the laundering of “ordinary” illicit assets and may contribute to revenue streams of criminal organizations and violent political organizations; it may even weaken international support for insecure democracies. Ultimately, “rescue” by purchase appears incoherent, counter-productive, and dangerous for the victimized communities that it purports to support.

Brothers or others in arms? Civilian constituencies and rebel fragmentation in civil war

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric S Mosinger
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Diffusion Model ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Cross National

Why do united rebel fronts emerge in some insurgencies, while in other insurgencies multiple rebel groups mobilize independently to challenge the state, and often, each other? I develop a diffusion model of rebel fragmentation in which participation in rebellion spreads, completely or incompletely, through networks of civilians and dissidents. Using this theoretical framework I hypothesize that two factors jointly determine whether a rebel movement remains unified or fragments: the rebels’ investment in civilian mobilization, and the overall level of civilian grievances. The theory predicts that widely shared grievances motivate the formation of many small dissident groups willing to challenge the regime. Given the difficulty of collective action between disparate opposition actors, an emerging rebel movement will tend towards fragmentation when popular grievances are high. Yet extremely high civilian grievances can also help rebels activate broad, overlapping civilian social networks that serve to bridge together dissident groups. Mass-mobilizing rebel groups, benefiting from the participation of broad civilian networks, are most likely to forge and maintain a unified rebel front. I test this theory alongside several alternatives drawn from cross-national studies of conflict using regression analysis. The quantitative evidence lends considerable credence to the role of rebel constituencies in preventing or fomenting rebel fragmentation.

scholarly journals Masyarakat Sipil dan Gerakan Politik: Studi Kasus Reformasi Bahrain

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-99
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
Social Law ◽  
Charles Tilly ◽  
The People ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Step Down ◽  
Great Mass

In early 2011, countries in the Middle East and North Africa experienced a great mass movement that demanded their country leader to step down. Bahrain was one of the countries that experienced a mass movement, where the people of Bahrain demanded a government reformation that was considered authoritarian, repressive, and discriminative. The reformation that was wanted a change within the fields of politics, social, law and economy. This research aims to determine what factors causes the eruption of the mass movement in Bahrain on 2011. The writer used the concepts that the writer used to examine the problem using the concept mass movement by Eric Hoffer and the collective action by Charles Tilly and William Gamson. Based on the data there are and the theory the writer used, the factors that caused mass movement demanding reformation in Bahrain on 2011 are the disappointment from the people of Bahrain, the existence of organization and figure tha’s capable of mobilize the citizen, and also a special condition which is the mass movement that occurred in Egypt.

scholarly journals El lazo azul en el País Vasco: una aproximación desde la historia oral veinte años despuésThe Lazo Azul (blue ribbon) in the Basque Country: an approach from oral history twenty years after

2017 ◽  
pp. 381
Author(s):  
Irene Moreno Bibiloni
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Basque Country ◽  
Collective Behaviour ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
La Paz ◽  
Blue Ribbon ◽  
Primary Element ◽  
Pais Vasco

El siguiente trabajo tiene como objetivo fundamental realizar un acercamiento a las campañas del lazo azul que se dieron en los años noventa en el País Vasco propiciadas por la Coordinadora Gesto por la Paz de Euskal Herria, en tanto que iniciativa social novedosa ante la violencia terrorista en el País Vasco. Partimos de la hipótesis de la importancia de los movimientos sociales, en este caso el pacifista, para comprender la historia reciente del País Vasco y la evolución de la actitud frente a ETA. La clave para este acercamiento ha sido el estudio de los sentimientos y las emociones como elemento a tener en cuenta en el comportamiento colectivo, más allá de los aspectos racionales que han venido destacando las teorías clásicas de la movilización social. Propongo para este análisis una metodología basada en la historia oral, para tratar de centrar la atención en lo que la emoción genera en relación a la acción colectiva y la movilización ciudadana. Así pues, a las fuenteshemerográficas y documentales se han sumado las orales, a través del análisis de entrevistas semiestructuradas a integrantes de Gesto por la Paz, para reconstruir y comprender qué suponía significarse públicamente contra la violencia política.PALABRAS CLAVE: País Vasco, movilizaciones pacifistas, Gesto por la Paz, historia oral, lazo azul.ABSTRACTThe following study seeks to carry out an examination of the so-called lazo azul (blue ribbon) campaigns during the 1990s in the Basque Country, promoted by the Coordinadora Gesto por la Paz de Euskal Herria. The key to this approach is the study of the feelings and emotions as the primary element to consider in collective behaviour, going beyond the rational aspects which have been highlighted by the classical theories concerning social mobilizations. In order to develop the analysisI use a methodology based on oral history to try to focus on what emotion generates in relation to collective action and citizen mobilizations. Apart from documentary and newspapers sources, oral ones have been added through the analysis of semi-structured interviews of members of Gesto por la Paz, so that what it meant to declare oneself in public against political violence and what was felt when participating in these mobilizations can be rebuilt and understood.KEY WORDS: Basque Country, peace demonstrations, Gesto por la Paz, oral history, blue ribbon.

A Protest-Cycle Resolution of the Repression/Popular-Protest Paradox

1993 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles D. Brockett
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Central American ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
State Terrorism

Many people [in Guatemala] did begin to join the guerrillas, while many more were sympathetic or quietly supportive. The guerrillas are the only remaining source of defense left to a community or family. I know of villages that experienced actual massacres against innocent campesinos, who were not even members of coops. The survivors of these massacres would often turn to the guerrillas. With all their anger about the murders of their kin and neighbors, there was nowhere else to turn.—quoted in S. Davis and J. Hodson, Witnesses to Political Violence in GuatemalaCentral american events of recent decades show human behavior at both its most courageous and its most barbaric. The opposing phenomena of popular mobilization and state terrorism pose some of the most profound questions that can be asked by social science. How can we explain the willingness of political elites and their agents to slay thousands—tens of thousands—of their fellow human beings, even when their victims are unarmed? Conversely, how do we account for ordinary people undertaking collective action under circumstances so dangerous that even their lives are at risk?

LESS DIVIDED AFTER ETA? THE EVOLUTION OF IDEOLOGICAL CLEAVAGES IN THE BASQUE ENVIRONMENTAL FIELD, 2007–2017

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-236
Author(s):  
Alejandro Ciordia
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Basque Country ◽  
Political Community ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Civic Organizations

The Basque Country has traditionally been considered a strongly polarized political community. The influence of the center-periphery cleavage and the shadow of political violence have conditioned many aspects of social life, including relations among civic organizations. Previous literature suggests that differences in organizations’ national identities and/or position towards ETA’s (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, or Basque Country and Freedom in the Basque language) violence have often acted as cleavages fragmenting collective action fields. This research examines whether this picture changed substantially after ETA’s abandonment of violence in 2011 by taking the environmental field as a case study and looking at the evolution of patterns of interorganizational collaboration between 2007 and 2017. The results of statistical network analyses show that both Basque nationalism and ideological positions towards ETA’s use of violence had a strong influence on organizations’ decisions to collaborate with one another up to 2011, whereas during the more recent postconflict period, collaboration seems to occur in a more pluralistic and less ideologically driven fashion.

Contemporary Democracies Revisited

1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW KRAIN
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The State ◽  
Count Models ◽  
Important Study ◽  
The Relationship

Few have questioned how democracies as a group differ within and among themselves. The most important study in this area of inquiry is Powell's (1982) Contemporary Democracies. Unfortunately, some of his results may be both inefficient and biased due to the use of what we now understand to be an inappropriate method. This study applies more appropriate event count models to Powell's data in hopes of gaining new insights into the relationship between political violence and elements of democracy. Evidence to support Collective Action explanations of political violence was found. Strong support for the argument that presidencies can be detrimental to the state and that representational electoral systems and constitutions, especially consociational constitutions, outperform majoritarian systems was also supported. Environmental factors are important, but constitutional variables, discounted to some degree by Powell, were also found to have extremely important and significant effects on the degrees of violence in democracies.

Martyrdom in North Africa Following the Arab Spring and the Process of Transitional Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas DeGeorges
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
State Security ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Arab Spring

In Chapter 7, Thomas DeGeorges argues that martyrdom has played an important role in the transitional justice processes both before and after the Arab Spring of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. While martyrdom and transitional justice are not traditionally associated with one another, he makes the case that martyrs involve people who are victims of what may be framed as political violence, whether committed by state security forces or unknown perpetrators. In this context, martyrs may be understood in the frame of victims addressed by transitional justice, but also as icons for social or political transformation. Broadly speaking, claims regarding martyrdom were important in these countries insofar as martyrs were held up as symbols for whom reform must be pursued.

Making Waves: the Political Impact of Human Rights Groups in North Africa

1991 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Waltz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
North Africa ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Dramatic Decline ◽  
Political Impact

Concern for democratisation, central in the study of comparative poiltics over recent years, has tended to shift attention away from the African continent. North Africa, in particular, has been neglected in this literature, though it has witnessed important liberalising political changes – most notably with the removal from office of Tunisia's President-for-Life Habib Bourguiba, and the dramatic decline of the Frot de libération nationale (F.L.N.) in Algeria following political violence in October 1988.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document