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Rivalry or Repression? Rethinking the Logic of Violence against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Rivalry or Repression? Rethinking the Logic of Violence against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/D7QQHD
 
Creator David Hyun-Saeng Jae
Peter Swartz
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description What explains the perpetration of violence against civilians in the context of conventional civil wars? In contrast to the argument made by Balcells (2010), in this paper we argue that patterns of violence towards civilians are not determined by prewar levels of political competition or rivalry but are rather largely driven by a logic of repression. Civilians are more likely to be executed in localities with widespread support for the enemy. However, because identifying, rounding up, and killing targeted individuals requires organization and information, this repression is only observed when supporters of the side in control of the territory possess a minimum level of political organization. Reanalyzing Balcells' (2010) data on executions in 1,062 Catalonian municipalities during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), we demonstrate that a logic of repression, not rivalry, best explains the patterns of leftist violence towards civilians.
 
Subject Civil war, violence, conventional civil war, Spain, Catalonia, civilians, Spanish Civil War,
 
Date 2012-04
 
Type Civilian deaths and covariates by municipality