scholarly journals Insurgent Rule as Sovereign Mimicry and Mutation: Governance, Kingship, and Violence in Civil Wars

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Klem ◽  
Sidharthan Maunaguru
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Conceptual Argument ◽  
Rebel Governance ◽  
Divine Kingship ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual argument about sovereignty. Despite its aura of natural order, sovereignty is ultimately self-referential and thus somewhat arbitrary and potentially unstable. At the heart of this unsteadiness, we posit, lies the paradox between the systematic tenets of rational governance and the capricious potential of sublime violence. Both are highly relevant to the LTTE case: the movement created de facto state institutions to mimic governance, but simultaneously deployed an elaborate transcendental register of sacrifice, meaning, and intractable power wielded by a mythical leader. To capture this paradox, we connect the literature on rebel governance with anthropological debates about divine kingship. We conceptualize sovereignty as a citational practice that involves the adaptation, imitation, and mutation of different idioms of authority: political and religious, modern and traditional, rational and mythical. Understanding sovereignty in this way debunks the idea that insurgent movements are merely lagging behind established states. As sites of mimicry, bricolage, and innovation, they transform the way sovereignty is practiced and understood, thus affecting the frame that sovereignty is.

Concealing Conflict Markets: How Rebels and Firms Use State Institutions to Launder Wartime Trade

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Rachel Sweet
Keyword(s):  
State Agencies ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
State Recognition ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Rebel Governance ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Border Trade ◽  
Trading Partners ◽  
Trade Deals

Abstract Although rebel groups are players on the international stage, little is known about their financial strategies at this scale. Existing research suggests that rebels succeed in cross-border trade by using informal networks that evade state authority. Yet rebels face a critical challenge: they operate in a normative environment that values state recognition and penalizes their illegitimate status. New evidence reveals that rebels can overcome this barrier and better connect to global economies not by evading the state but by infiltrating its institutions. Drawing on unprecedented data—the internal records of armed groups and their trading partners—I examine how rebels use state agencies in conflict zones to manufacture a legal cover for wartime trade. By using state agencies to provide false certification, rebels can place the stamp of state on their trade deals. This strategy of legal appropriation is a fundamentally different model of how conflict markets skirt sanctions and connect to global buyers. I develop a framework for how this strategy works that traces how international sovereignty norms and sanctions regimes create incentives for rebels, firms, and bureaucrats to coordinate around this legal veneer across the supply chain. The framework and evidence contribute theoretical and policy understandings for rebel governance, state building and fragmentation, and illicit global markets.

A new kind of surgery for a new kind of war: gunshot wounds and their treatment in the British Civil Wars

2018 ◽  
pp. 57-77
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Rutherford
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Effective Treatment ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Gunshot Wounds ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Treatment Methods ◽  
Surgical Practice ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the medical challenges posed by the increased number of gunshot wounds during the civil wars, and sets out the changes in the way these wounds were treated. The treatment of battlefield wounds expounded in surgeons’ manuals, is placed in context with what we now understand about the biology, pathology and effective treatment methods for wounds. The techniques used by the civil-war surgeon are compared with those of later periods. Despite a lack of understanding of microbiology, physiology and, in many cases, anatomy, many methods employed by civil-war military surgeons reflect good contemporary surgical practice. Despite the lack of antibiotics, anaesthetics, hygienic environments and high-quality surgical implements, survival rates from injuries on the field arrear to have been considerable, if treated. In developing treatments for the problems posed by gunshot wounds, some civil-war surgeons used an evidence-based approach, and laid the foundations for much modern surgical practice.

The Scholastic and Conciliar Roots of Samuel Rutherford’s Political Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 208-226
Author(s):  
Simon J. G. Burton
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Way

Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex remains a source of perennial fascination for historians of political thought. Written in 1644 in the heat of the Civil Wars it constitutes an intellectual and theological justification of the entire Covenanting movement and a landmark in the development of Protestant political theory. Rutherford’s argument in the Lex Rex was deeply indebted to scholastic and Conciliarist sources, and this chapter examines the way he deployed these, especially the political philosophy of John Mair and Jacques Almain, in order to construct a covenantal model of kingship undergirded by an interwoven framework of individual and communal rights. In doing so it shows the ongoing influence of the Conciliarist tradition on Scottish political discourse and also highlights unexpected connections between Rutherford’s Covenanting and his Augustinian and Scotistic theology of grace and freedom.

Fake Martyrs and True Heroes. Competitive Narratives and Hierarchized Masculinities in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia

2019 ◽  
pp. 1097184X1987409
Author(s):  
Perrine Lachenal
Keyword(s):  
State Institutions ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Moral Category ◽  
Governmental Power ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Official Recognition ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Revolution

Treating the category “martyr” as socially constructed and contested along gendered and political lines, this paper examines how heroes and martyrs have been produced and deployed in post-revolutionary Tunisia. It begins by examining governmental attempts, launched soon after the revolution, to monopolize and institutionally define who could benefit from official recognition as a martyr. The differences in the definition of “martyrdom” between official institutions and families of the deceased are unpacked, arguing that “martyr” is a moral category, the boundaries of which are often drawn in terms of differing masculinities. The paper goes on to demonstrate how the category of “martyrs of the nation” has progressively overshadowed the category of “martyrs of the revolution” in official memorial practices, as the commemoration of the revolution has progressively focused on its uniformed victims, leaving out the civilian ones. One of the interesting features of this shift is that it demonstrates the malleability of the way the category “violence” is understood and deployed. The paper thus shows how neither state officials nor the families of deceased officers, activists, or bystanders accepted that it was sufficient simply to have died during the upheaval in order to be recognized as a martyr. All applied additional moral and political criteria in order to determine who deserved to be labelled as a martyr. At stake in these debates were contrasting representations of masculinity, in particular between triumphant, militaristic masculinities and fragile and damaged masculinities. As the figure of the uniformed “hero” has become increasingly consolidated and hegemonic in post-revolutionary Tunisia, the term “martyr” itself has been increasingly appropriated by state institutions and official memorial practices that serve to reaffirm order and governmental power.

II.—List of Palæozoic Fishes

1874 ◽  
Vol 1 (12) ◽  
pp. 542-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Barkas
Keyword(s):  
Natural Order ◽  
Fossil Remains ◽  
Close Study ◽  
Fish Remains ◽  
Private Collections ◽  
Distinct Branch ◽  
The Way

Palæontology, like most other sciences, has attracted a large number of students since the first pioneers cleared the way for inquiry and brought the fossil remains into something like connected order. This increase in the number of inquirers has borne fruit in the immense variety of fossil remains that are scattered about in museums and private collections, the variety being now so great that it has become almost impossible for one person to study the whole of them, in consequence of which the majority of students confine themselves to the fossils of one formation or to the remains of a natural order, as Invertebrata or Vertebrata. Here, again, the application of a number of investigators to one distinct branch is bringing a further increase to our knowledge in that branch. Take the case of fossil fishes. It was quite possible twenty or thirty years ago for the great palæontologist Agassiz to describe and figure what, as the result of seventeen years of close study, was then known of the fossil fishes of all formations; but the stimulus that resulted from the publication of his work has piled up the list in a wonderful manner, so that it would be well-nigh impossible for any ordinary palæontologist to describe them all now in anything like a satisfactory way. This great amplification necessitates inquirers to confine themselves to the fish remains of a single formation, or to a particular part of the fish, as for example, the teeth.

scholarly journals Interstate rivals’ intervention in third-party civil wars: The comparative case of Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen (2004-2018)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Júlia Palik
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Third Party ◽  
External Support ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Rebel Governance ◽  
Conflict Duration ◽  
The Government

How does interstate rivals’ intervention in a third-party civil war impact conflict duration and outcome in that country? More specifically, (1) how do interstate rivals engage in third party civil conflicts and (2) how do conflict parties attract, utilize, and sustain the external support they receive from their supporters? I answer these questions by comparing Saudi Arabia and Iran’s intervention in two distinct conflicts in Yemen. This dissertation applies a qualitative case study method and selects two within-case methods: structured-focused comparison and process tracing. In the structured-focused comparison, I compare the support Saudi Arabia and Iran has provided to the Government of Yemen (GoY) and the Houthis respectively, differentiating between military and non-military types of support. I compare these during the Saada wars (2004-2010) and in the current internationalized civil war (2014-2018). To ensure the validity of my causal inferences I triangulate data from three sources: the development of a novel mediation and ceasefire dataset1 (1), semi-structured in-depth elite-interviews2 (2), and document reviews (3). This dissertation develops a mechanism-focused analytical framework that integrates both rivalry and civil war dynamics to explain civil war duration and outcome. I build on five distinct literatures (strategic rivalry, civil war studies, third-party intervention in civil wars, mediation, and rebel governance) and complement them with the literature on Middle East Area Studies. In the analytical framework first, I look at the inter-state dimension and propose that rivals’ initial decision to intervene and their subsequent decisions to remain engaged in third-party civil wars are two distinct processes. Rivals seek to inflict costs on their counterparts, but at the same time they seek to avoid direct confrontation. Their cognitive rigidities lock them in their own conflicts and give rise to the mechanism of conflict integration in third-party conflicts. Besides interveners, I also take into account domestic dynamics and examine civil war conflict parties’ capacity to impact rivals by keeping them engaged in their conflict through the mechanism of rivalry instrumentalization. The external and internal perspectives are reinforcing each other and create networked interdependencies. With this two-dimensional logic, I move beyond the conventional framework of proxy wars.

Civil Society

2019 ◽  
pp. 369-378
Author(s):  
John Keane ◽  
Wolfgang Merkel
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Way

The theoretical meanings, history, and different forms of civil society during regime transformation are the central focus of this chapter. It notes a paradox: during the past several decades, the growing consensus about the theoretical and practical importance of civil society has been overshadowed by growing disagreement about the exact meaning of the term, and the proper normative relationship between state institutions and civil society. The chapter thus aims to define civil society more precisely by examining its philosophical and temporal roots. It examines how in practice civil society can be related to state institutions in different ways. It probes the reasons why a civil society has great significance for the way we think about democracy, and why, in practice, different manifestations of civil society during the different stages of regime transformation are vital preconditions for building a strong democracy backed by a robust civil society.

Civil–Military Relations and Civil War Recurrence: Security Forces in Postwar Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1307-1334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis-Alexandre Berg
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
National Data ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Commitment Problems ◽  
Cross National

Does restructuring security forces reduce the risk of civil war recurrence? Prior research has examined effects of military integration in alleviating commitment problems, but the evidence has been inconclusive. Other aspects of civil–military relations have received less attention. This article examines the effects of civil–military relations in the context of postwar struggles to consolidate authority. It outlines three pathways through which security forces contribute to renewed civil war: by excluding rival factions and facilitating insurgent mobilization, by exploiting control over resources to challenge the regime, or by escalating incipient insurgency through repression. Analysis of original, cross-national data on postwar civil–military relations shows that reducing the potential for exclusion and exploitation through diverse officer appointments and robust civilian oversight lowers the risk of civil war. These findings emphasize the distributive effects of restructuring security forces and highlight the value of examining political contests around state institutions to understand why civil wars restart.

Representations of the Buryat in Political and Popular Newspaper Discourse: The Sanctification of Buryat Culture

Inner Asia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-81
Author(s):  
Eleanor Peers
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
The State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article explores the influence of political communication on the development of Buryat identity in the contemporary Republic of Buryatia. It compares the discourse produced by Buryatia's leading government-sponsored newspaper with that of a popular commercial newspaper, to investigate both the understanding of Buryat identity these newspapers reproduce, and the way their ideas interact. As these newspapers suggest, political attempts to detach notions of Buryat identity from the state could in fact be hindering the Buryat population's affiliation with Russia's state institutions.

Environmental peacebuilding from below: customary approaches in Timor-Leste

2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-117
Author(s):  
Tobias Ide ◽  
Lisa R Palmer ◽  
Jon Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource Management ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Conflict Prevention ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Environmental Relations ◽  
Liberal Peacebuilding ◽  
The Way

Abstract Environmental peacebuilding is the integration of natural resource management into conflict prevention, resolution and recovery so as to support peace and environmental sustainability. Most studies have been of cases where there is significant involvement of external (usually international) actors. They thus provide implicit support for liberal peacebuilding practice, which is itself the subject of much critique. Conversely, documented examples of environmental peacebuilding from below are rare. We analyse an endogenously emerging environmental peacebuilding institution, the customary tara bandu process in Timor-Leste. We explain the way tara bandu is used bottom-up to promote the sustainable use of natural resources and more peaceful relations. Tara bandu proves to be a successful, locally diverse environmental peacebuilding institution. We further show how recent attempts by international peacebuilders and state institutions to employ tara bandu have somewhat ignored the way it is deeply interwoven with local social and spiritual relations, and in so doing have jeopardized its legitimacy and efficacy. This suggests that attempts from outside actors to facilitate environmental peacebuilding may be constrained by a mismatch between theorized norms of social and environmental relations (such as ‘shared interests’) and local cultural particularities.

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