How rebel groups form in genocide: The Warsaw Ghetto fighters

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is emblematic of armed Jewish resistance to the Holocaust; it should also be emblematic of rebel organization formation and capacity building in the most extreme power asymmetry. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising happened because civilians who were directly experiencing a genocide formed rebel organizations that gained the capacity to hold territory. Drawing from video testimonies and memoirs of survivors, diaries of witnesses, and the work of historians, this study analyzes the formation and evolution of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ŻOB) to create and begin to validate a generalizable theory on how rebel organizations form in genocide, and how they create the capacity to hold territory from the genocidal opponent. The ŻOB evolved from a violent resistance organization to a rebel organization with a military infrastructure that could hold territory against the Nazis; further, it was this capacity to hold territory that allowed the ŻOB to win the survival of many Jews. These findings offer important insights on the possibility of rebel group mobilization against genocidal persecution, and can be used to understand contemporary genocide resisters.

Macabre ceremonies: How Los Zetas produces extreme violence to promote organizational cohesion

Why do some organized crime groups (OCGs) carry out face-to-face killings where perpetrators debase their victims and defile their bodies? Leading criminologists contend that OCGs carry out extreme killings deliberately to attain specific performance objectives. Conversely, psycho-sociological scholars argue that extreme killings only occur in situations that affect perpetrators’ reasoning and emotions. In their view, these situations are largely beyond OCGs’ control. I argue that analyzing extreme killings as organizational rituals can contribute to reconciling these seemingly conflicting views. More specifically, I contend that the OCG known as Los Zetas ritualizes executions to generate the conditions that make extreme violence possible. Through ritualization, Los Zetas influences executioners’ perceptions of extreme behavior from something abhorrent into something valued, desirable, and enjoyable. Once the conditions conducive to extreme violence emerge, Los Zetas exploits it to attain utilitarian objectives.

Varieties of post-civil war violence

Quantitative research on the “durability” of peace following civil wars typically captures the breakdown or survival of “peace” in a binary manner, equating it with the presence or absence of civil war recurrence. In the datasets that underpin such studies, years that do not experience full-scale civil war are implicitly coded as “peaceful.” Yet, post-civil war environments may remain free from war recurrence, while nevertheless experiencing endemic violent crime, state repression, low-intensity political violence, and systematic violence against marginalized groups, all of which are incongruent with the concept of peace. Approaches to assessing post-civil war outcomes which focus exclusively on civil war recurrence risk overestimating the “durability” of peace, implicitly designating as “peaceful” a range of environments which may be anything but. In this article, we discuss the heterogeneity of violent post-civil war outcomes and develop a typology of “varieties of post-civil war violence.” Our typology contributes to the study of post-civil war peace durability, by serving as the basis for an alternative, categorical conceptualization of “peace years” in conflict datasets.

Will Failed Insurrection Lead to Terrorism in the United States?

The following discussion outlines the attractions of a strategy of terrorism and its implications for political order. It also argues that a body of knowledge has been built up over time that provides a foundation for explaining current events. Research has shown that terrorism can be an effective substitute for the mobilization of large numbers when that mobilization is thwarted. Terrorism can sustain an illusion of power, provoke official over-reaction and community counter-mobilization, and deepen political polarization. Studies also suggest that if a broader movement dissolves, the followers who remain strengthen their commitment and become more inclined to violence. The future threat environment is most likely to be multidimensional, with multiple groups cooperating and competing along with individual actors who perceive themselves to be part of an ideological collectivity.

Almost disarmed: Politics and violence in the final years of the Argentine organization Montoneros (1979–1983)

In this article, I analyze the debates, declarations, and silences surrounding the issue of violence during the final years of the Argentine insurgent group Montoneros (1979–1983). I examine the official documents and bulletins written while the group was in exile, as well as the statements and publications of dissident groups (the Peronismo Montonero Auténtico of 1979 and the Montoneros 17 de Octubre of 1980) and other critical groups (the Agrupación Eva Perón of 1980). From a political theory perspective, I will focus on the specificity of this space of belonging, its symbols, its representations, and its actions. In this study, I intend to (a) shed light on the final stage of the Montoneros organization, which, with few exceptions, has not been subjected to historiographical or sociological analysis, or studied by political science and (b) contribute to a deeper understanding of the dissolution processes undergone by armed insurgent groups in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.

Representing, commemorating, and memorizing terrorist attacks: Discussing the US and French experiences

How do societies and states represent the historical, moral, and political weight of the terrorist attacks they have had to face? Having suffered in recent years from numerous terrorist attacks on their soil originating from jihadist movements, and often led by actors who were also their own citizens, France and the United States have set up—or seek to do so—places of memory whose functions, conditions of creation, modes of operation, and nature of the messages sent may vary. Three of the main protagonists and initiators of two museum-memorial projects linked to terrorist attacks have agreed to deliver their visions of the role and of the political, social, and historical context in which these projects have emerged. Allowing to observe similarities and differences between the American and French approach, this interview sheds light on the place of memory and feeling in societies struck by tragic events and seeking to cure their ills through memory and commemoration.

From carceral punitivism to systematic killing: The necropolitics of policing in post-Chávez Venezuela

Since 2017, state security forces in Venezuela have been responsible for over 20% of violent deaths in the country. This represents an unprecedented period of state repression in the country’s history that demands examination. In this article, we argue that in order to understand the recent increase in violent deaths in Venezuela during the post-Chávez period, we must place at the center of our analysis the discourses and practices of an extremely privileged actor, the state, in the context of the collapse of oil prices. We propose that this upsurge of lethal violence can be understood within the historical process of militarization of citizen security. In the first phase, starting in 2009, we see an increase in carceral punitivism—the hyperreaction of the penal state. In the second, a new stage in militarized raids is launched which, over the years, gave way to a practice of systematic extralegal killings that became the fundamental strategy of social control. These raids represent a necropolitical approach to governance in a context of extreme economic and political crisis.

Decline, radicalization and the attack on the US Capitol

The attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 was the result of a perception of relative decline on the part of American conservatives and their simultaneous radicalization. Relative decline and radicalization are both potent causes of violence. When a formerly dominant group is in decline, it may fear that in the future it will lack the bargaining power to maintain the status quo, and so resort to violence to prevent decline, or lock in present advantages. Radicalization increases the perceived stakes of power transitions; if the opponent is dangerous, all means are justified in preventing their accession to power. Conservative radicalization was driven by partisan polarization, media polarization, the emergence of social media and associated conspiracy theories, and the formation of armed right-wing groups. The structural conditions generating the attack are unlikely to ameliorate, so the potential for political violence will remain.

Art, memory, and disappearance in contemporary Mexico: A conversation with Alfredo López Casanova

In his work, the Mexican sculptor Alfredo López Casanova pushes the boundaries of both art and politics. For Violence: An international journal, he takes a look back at his personal and collective trajectory, from his early and “natural” political and social commitment in his neighborhood to the tragic reality of contemporary Mexico. He reflects on several of his previous individual works, such as the bronze sculpture Fray Antonio Alcalde, and collective projects he is a part of, such as “Huellas de la Memoria” (Footprints of Memory). For the latter initiative, the intimate recollections of the families of disappeared persons are engraved on the soles of shoes, powerfully illustrating how the construction of memory goes hand in hand with calls for justice and truth.

“The priests do their best to inflame the people.” Religious actors in Ireland, 1800–1845: Instigators of violence or peacemakers?

After the 1801 Act of Union uniting Ireland and Great Britain, and the broken promises made to Catholics, Daniel O’Connell founded the Catholic Association which combined religious and political demands. Despite the pacifying dimension of the movement, the decades preceding the Great Hunger (1845–1851) saw several episodes of violence, before reaching a climax during the revolutionary movement of 1848. Relying on Philippe Braud’s definition of political violence and the study of British and Catholic authorities’ correspondence among other sources, this article intends to shed light on the different dynamics at work in the rise in violence. It also examines the various attempts to readjust to and withdraw from acts of violence, to move beyond ambiguities and better assess the role played by religious agents.