How to Scale Factional Divisions in Conflict Situations

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonius C.G.M. Robben
Keyword(s):  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Methodological Problem ◽  
State Violence ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Research Population ◽  
Formal Power ◽  
Gain Access

In conducting fieldwork among perpetrators of state violence, it is a major methodological problem to gain access to competing factions within the research population. Ethnographers often succeed in finding access to at least one faction but this successful rapport might then immediately close off other factions that mistrust the ethnographer’s politics, intentions, or alleged sympathies. The ethnographic challenge is to find intermediaries or switchboard operators, as they are called in this article, who have established informal channels of communication between hostile factions. Switchboard operators have the following characteristics: discretion, neutrality, lack of formal power, disinterestedness, trustworthiness, and they act as a conduit of communication. This article describes how switchboard operators were located in Argentina, and how they played a crucial role in my fieldwork among a broad spectrum of military perpetrators who had terrorized the Argentine people between 1976 and 1983 with enforced disappearances and state repression.

Legitimation, State Repression, and the Sioux Massacre at Wounded Knee

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Roscigno ◽  
Julia Cantzler ◽  
Salvatore Restifo ◽  
Joshua Guetzkow
Keyword(s):  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Dance Movement ◽  
Ghost Dance ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wounded Knee ◽  
Institutional Actors

The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 and the Ghost Dance movement that preceded it offer a compelling sociological case for understanding legitimation, elite framing, and repression. Building on the social movements literature and theoretical insights on power, institutions, and inequality, we engage in multimethod, in-depth analyses of a rich body of archived correspondence from key institutional actors at the time. Doing so contributes to the literature by drawing attention to (1) the cultural foundations of inequality and repression; (2) super-ordinate framing by political elites and the state; and (3) key institutional conflicts and their consequences. We find that, within an ambiguous colonial context, officials of the Office of Indian Affairs and federal politicians shelved benign military observations and, instead, amplified ethnocentric and threat frames. Force was consequently portrayed as justifiable, which increased the likelihood of the massacre. We conclude by discussing the utility of our results for conceptions of culture, power, inequality, the state, and state violence.

Afro-Paradise

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christen A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Protest ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Black Faces

Tourists exult in Bahia, Brazil, as a tropical paradise infused with the black population's one-of-a-kind vitality. But the alluring images of smiling black faces and dancing black bodies masks an ugly reality of anti-black authoritarian violence. This book argues that the dialectic of glorified representations of black bodies and subsequent state repression reinforces Brazil's racially hierarchal society. Interpreting the violence as both institutional and performative, the book follows a grassroots movement and social protest theater troupe in their campaigns against racial violence. As the book reveals, economies of black pain and suffering form the backdrop for the staged, scripted, and choreographed afro-paradise that dazzles visitors. The work of grassroots organizers exposes this relationship, exploding illusions and asking unwelcome questions about the impact of state violence performed against the still-marginalized mass of Afro-Brazilians.

scholarly journals EAST TIMOR: WHEN STATE REPRESSION MAKES SECESSION EASIER (1975-2002)

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 18-36
Author(s):  
Jacob FORTIER
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
State Violence ◽  
East Timor ◽  
External Support ◽  
State Repression ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Secessionist Movement

Why does state violence sometimes fail to crush a secessionist movement and instead facilitate international support for the separatist cause? Based on the literature on the international recognition of secessionist entities and on the impact of state repression against social movements, this paper develops an argument according to which the timing of certain repressive events make them more likely to generate an international backlash and thus facilitate external support for secessionists. To backfire internationally, state violence must occur at the right time—that is, when the secessionists have gained sufficient media attention, put in place an appropriate organizational structure, and have abandoned violent tactics for a nonviolent campaign. Using the secession process of East Timor as a case study, this paper shows how the international moral outrage that followed the Dili massacre (1991),combined with a changing geopolitical context, have boosted the foreign support of the secessionist movement in East Timor and allowed it to obtain important concessions from Jakarta. Keywords: State repression, Secession, East Timor, Political violence, International Relations

Decolonizing Memory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Assia Djebar ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
Legal Violence

The magnitude of the legal violence exercised by the French to colonize and occupy Algeria (1830–1962) is such that only aesthetic works have been able to register its enduring effects. In Decolonizing Memory Jill Jarvis examines the power of literature to provide what demographic data, historical facts, and legal trials have not in terms of attesting to and accounting for this destruction. Taking up the unfinished work of decolonization since 1962, Algerian writers have played a crucial role in forging historical memory and nurturing political resistance—their work helps to make possible what state violence has rendered almost unthinkable. Drawing together readings of multilingual texts by Yamina Mechakra, Waciny Laredj, Zahia Rahmani, Fadhma Aïth Mansour Amrouche, Assia Djebar, and Samira Negrouche alongside theoretical, juridical, visual, and activist texts from both Algeria’s national liberation war (1954–1962) and war on civilians (1988–1999), this book challenges temporal and geographical frameworks that have implicitly organized studies of cultural memory around Euro-American reference points. Jarvis shows how this literature rewrites history, disputes state authority to arbitrate justice, and cultivates a multilingual archive for imagining decolonized futures.

Repression Reconsidered: Bystander Effects and Legitimation in Authoritarian Regimes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Lachapelle
Keyword(s):  
Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Autocratic Regime ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
Destructive Potential

Research on repression has primarily focused on its destructive potential, namely how violence serves to eliminate threats. This article proposes an alternative role for repression: to build popular support. I argue that repression builds support for an autocratic regime when it targets groups perceived as dangerous. I refer to this phenomenon as a legitimation strategy of repression, which aims to gain the support of civilian bystanders beyond eliminating threats. To test the argument, I present a case study of state repression in Egypt after the 2013 coup. I explain how repression against the Muslim Brotherhood helped build popular support for the new regime. My findings contribute to scholarship on authoritarianism and repression by demonstrating the oft-overlooked role of civilian bystanders in shaping state violence.

Social Movements and State Repression in India

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1080-1102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raju J Das
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Property Relations ◽  
Military Threat ◽  
Maoist Movement

State repression is particularly likely when social movements target property relations that cause ordinary citizens to suffer. Whether these movements are violent, and whether the state is a liberal democracy is a contingent matter. This is illustrated by India’s ‘Maoist movement’ (which is also known as the Naxalite movement because it originated in an area called Naxalbari, located in India’s West Bengal State). Where necessary, sections of this movement use violent methods to fight for justice for aboriginal peoples and peasants. This strategy, which the author, incidentally, does not endorse, has been seen by the state as the greatest internal military threat to it. Such a perception invites state violence. What is often under-emphasized or ignored is that the movement is an economic, political and ideological threat, and not just a military threat, and it is so through its localized alternative developmental activities, and this is also a reason for the state’s violent response to it.

scholarly journals Challenges to Create a Global Cohesive Society in Post-Conflict Situations and Its Impact in Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-65
Author(s):  
Bishnu Hari Nepal
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Cold War ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Conflict Situations

After Cold War, "Clashes of Civilizations" could be paramount in the coming centuries. Naturally, they will be supported by the detrimental effects of technology like the Artificial Intelligence (AI) further advanced in the 21st century in the process of the evolution of a global cohesive society. Even the space will be a playground of the mundane strategic order. Countries like Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal can play a crucial role reviving her glory of the dawn of civilization on earth as a soft-power resulted from the geo-political and strategic values utilizing modalities recommended by the author.

scholarly journals Relations Between Children and Parents as a Factor of Child’s Development

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-192
Author(s):  
Lyubov Nikolayeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Marital Relationship ◽  
Human Personality ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
The People ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Attachment To Mother

Attachment to mother plays a crucial role in child’s relationship with its close people at all stages of its growth, in particular, in future marital relationship, because human personality is largely formed by his or her interactions with the people with whom he or she identifies himself (parents, peers, etc). Family relations in which a child grows influence on its interaction with close people, as well as on the formation of relations in future family. The type of attachment to his or her mother has an impact on the relationship between spouses. Couples who have a safe type of attachment to his or her mother feel confident in conflict situations; they practically are not afraid of making a mistake. However, spouses with anxiety-ambivalent type of attachment are dependent very much on praise and fear of being rejected. Spouses with avoidance type of attachment, avoid social interactions and are harder to deal with.

Cronyism in State Violence: Evidence from Labor Repression During Argentina's Last Dictatorship

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esteban F Klor ◽  
Sebastian Saiegh ◽  
Shanker Satyanath
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Information Transmission ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Military Junta ◽  
Financial Gain ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Privately Owned

Abstract We study whether crony governance can extend beyond economic policy to the targeting of state violence against citizens. Specifically, we examine the logic driving the choice of firm-level union representatives who were subjected to state repression by the 1976–1983 Argentine military junta. Using an original dataset, we find a positive, nonspurious, and robust correlation between labor repression and cronyism, measured by political, business, and social connections to the regime. Our results indicate that the number of firm-level union representatives victimized by the regime is three times higher for connected firms relative to nonconnected ones. The effect is pronounced in privately owned (as opposed to state-owned) firms, suggesting that the correlation is driven by cronyism for financial gain rather than ideology or information transmission. We show that connected firms benefited from violence against union representatives by subsequently having less strikes and a higher market valuation. Our findings highlight the pervasiveness of governmental cronyism, even in cases where one of the regime's main stated goals was to curb such behavior.

Reapprasing the Approach of International Law to Civil Wars: Aid to Legitimate Governments or Insurgents and Conflict Minimization

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 144-219
Author(s):  
ANTONIO BULTRINI
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
State Level ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Second World War ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Foreign Intervention ◽  
Second World ◽  
Inter State

AbstractSince the Second World War, there has been a constant decrease of inter-state conflicts. In sharp contrast, the level of intra-state violence has not declined and has even reached unprecedented peaks. This points to a striking discrepancy between the rejection of violence at the inter-state level and the wide leeway that is still afforded to the use of violence at the intra-state level and to external interferences fueling it. This article takes stock of the main features (and serious flaws) of the existing legal framework on aid to governments or insurgents in internal conflict situations. On the basis of a combined legal and conflict-management analysis, the author proposes a radically different approach and formulates a number of legal and policy recommendations on how to tackle the complex phenomenon of foreign intervention in civil wars, where enormous human, economic, and social implications are at stake.

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