The Colombian Private Sector in Colombia’s Transition to Peace

During the Colombian civil war, businesses undertook both civil and uncivil actions, but the civil action of a “pro-peace coalition” was among the many factors moving the conflict toward its (uneasy) settlement in 2016. This chapter documents the civil action efforts of a pro-peace coalition, explores how support for these efforts changed over time—particularly in the last two attempts to negotiate peace, in Caguán (1998–2002) and in Havana, Cuba (2012–2016), and focuses on the motivations behind them. Contrary to simplistic analyses, it demonstrates that the profit motive alone cannot explain business strategies in contexts of conflict and peacebuilding. Contextual factors, the type of organization, and access to politics are important in understanding how business factions respond to armed conflict, including those participating in civil action within the “pro-peace coalition” and those aligning themselves with armed actors. The explanation of Colombian business strategies to address armed conflict holds lessons for understanding business-led civil action in other countries.

Civil Action against ETA Terrorism in Basque Country

This study presented in this chapter explores how local and regional authorities, peace organizations, civic groups, and victims’ associations challenged and ultimately delegitimized political violence in Basque country since the 1980s. The chapter demonstrates that civil action, though it was not the only factor in the demise of the armed separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), was an engine for political transformation and helped to precipitate an end to the violence by undermining the support for ETA in Basque society. The Basque case holds a number of relevant insights that could be applied to other contexts, including the importance of discursive and normative changes in public attitudes and collective action against terrorism in democratic societies.

Nonviolent Communal Strategies in Insurgencies Case Study on Afghanistan

In insurgencies, rural communities are the most vulnerable segment of society. Rural communities in Afghanistan are traditionally highly self-organized and capable of collective action. It is therefore reasonable to assume that communities will make collective efforts to minimize the risks of getting harmed. Using qualitative and survey data, this chapter investigates this proposition and shows that three strategies are often used and believed by respondents to be effective: negotiating with armed groups, neutrality, and self-defense. It describes these strategies and highlights the conditions under which they may be more or less effective. It then discusses how external actors can inadvertently reduce the space for such civil actions and make communities less safe, and what can be done to avoid this.

Doing Business amid Criminal Violence

Criminal violence has risen dramatically across Mexico in the last decade, and it has had devastating economic, social, and political consequences. How have Mexicans reacted to these violent trends? This chapter explores the civil actions of the Mexican business sector and their potential effects. It focuses on Monterrey, Mexico, where companies actively helped to create a new, more accountable police force, launched an innovative crime-reporting mechanism to better monitor and prosecute crimes, and engaged with local governments to enhance political accountability and citizen oversight. The chapter briefly compares the experience of the business sector in Monterrey with that of Ciudad Juárez and Acapulco, where the role of businesses respectively resulted in an array of broader civil and “uncivil” actions amid criminal violence,. Overall, the chapter shows that in the face of organized crime, the private sector and governments can potentially collaborate with each other, both as allies and as a system of societal checks and accountability.

Staging Peace

This chapter examines the ways in which civil action by nonstate actors influenced the trajectory of armed conflict in Peru during the 1980s and 1990s. Religious organizations, labor unions, and NGOs are just a few examples of groups that affected conflict outcomes. The chapter provides a brief overview of how a variety of groups affected violence in Peru, focusing on the role of artists and theater groups in particular, and argues that art serves as a mobilizing force that can move collective actors both toward and away from violent action. Based on an examination of the theater group Vichama Teatro, the chapter argues that Vichama’s members worked inside activist networks in a civil way to resist revolutionary violence and to make demands on an increasingly abusive state. Vichama members used theatrical performances to articulate the importance of nonviolent strategies and to communicate the political objectives of activist allies.

Civil Action and the Microdynamics of Violence during the Bosnian War

The war Bosnia and Herzegovina, between 1992 and 1995, was characterized by vastly different levels of violence across the country. The chapter examines the way in which civil action shaped the course, severity, and effects of the violence in three Bosnian cities: Tuzla, Sarajevo, and Prijedor. These cities roughly experienced low, moderate, and high levels of violence respectively, proportionate to their population size. It argues that civilians, local political elites, and religious institutions played critical roles in carving out civil spaces in the midst of violence, dampening local levels of violence and, in some cases, contributing to the resolution of the broader conflict. The varied levels of violence across the three cases help to illustrate the conditions under which such civil action is possible, underscoring both the potential and the limitations of civil action to counter armed conflict.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the concept of civil action. Beginning with an explanation of its roots in the literature on civility, it moves on to demonstrate how civil action fits logically with analyses of microdynamics and contentious politics. Civil action can be undertaken by a wide variety of social actors, and the chapter charts those actors and the authority claims and capabilities that affect their potential for taking civil action. It then explores three ways in which civil action might matter for conflict dynamics: through its effects on relationships, on levels of local violence, and on the overall conflict. Next, it elaborates on how civil action matters—through process and relationships—and when it should be most likely to work. Finally, the chapter outlines the structure of the book and the case studies it includes.

Conclusion

This chapter synthesizes what we have learned from our case studies about civil action and how it intersects with various ongoing concerns in the field. It begins by offering a series of propositions and questions to prompt further research on civil action, its causes, and its effects. It then turns to examine how the book’s analysis intersects with ongoing debates. The final section ponders the relevance of civil action in less violent situations, how the growing importance of connections through social media might shape its likelihood and effect, and whether civil action can be a tool for advancing exclusionary goals.

The Impact of Civil Action on Levels of Violence

This study explores the impact of civil action in two communities with different levels of violence during the 1971–1976 period in Northern Ireland’s Troubles. This chapter argues that although members of the police, military, Irish Republican Army (IRA), and loyalist paramilitaries perpetrated violence, the degree of civil action in interactions between these groups and civil rights protesters, counterprotesters, politicians, and community members impacted the trajectory and level of violence within communities. In the Dungannon district, uncivil action in the form of the police colluding with loyalist counterprotesters exacerbated local polarization and subsequent republican and loyalist radicalization. A retaliatory cycle of IRA and loyalist violence began that institutionalized a sectarian, community-wide conflict as paramilitaries targeted civilians based on identity and many residents, particularly Catholics, refused to support police and military security efforts given their fear of state collusion, inadvertently benefiting the paramilitaries. Conversely, the Omagh district experienced more civil action on the part of police, protesters, and counterprotesters, which limited polarization and led to more outwardly oriented republican radicalization and minimal loyalist radicalization, containing violence. Overall, these cases suggest that examining on-the-ground interactions during the process of violence is necessary to explain civil action’s impact on the trajectory and intensity of violence within a community and within the larger intrastate conflict.

Northern Kenya

Chapter 4 presents a critical microlevel case study of civil action in an underanalyzed conflict in Northern Kenya—the Samburu-Turkana Range War. Evidence from the case indicates that civil and uncivil actions co-evolve and coexist. Community-based organizations (CBOs) and traditional authorities effectively use civic action to interrupt violence escalation. At the same time, civic action does not fully eliminate violence, but rather changes the qualities of it. Civil action provides platforms for the coordination of inter- and intragroup relationships, which helps to dampen the frequency of violence and the speed of escalation but also raises the cost of violence. It allows local armed groups to become better armed, better organized, and more capable of accessing detailed, covert information through local relational networks. Violence occurs less often and escalates less rapidly, but when it does occur, it is deadlier. Under conditions of state fragility, civil action plays an unintentional role in increasing militia mobilization and prolonging protracted conflict.