Armed Group Structure and Violence in Civil Wars: The Organizational Dynamics of Civilian Killing

239 Pages·2015·1.34 MB·English

by  Roos Haer

Armed Group Structure and Violence
in Civil Wars
This book examines whether differences in the organizational structure of armed
groups shape patterns of human rights violations in civil wars.
Since the end of World War II, civil wars have been characterized by
extremely high numbers of civilian casualties. However, the exact extent of
civilian suffering varies across time, conflict, and geographic region. Recently, a
new strand of research has emerged, primarily focused on studying the dynamics
underlying the variation in civilian abuse by examining the characteristics of the
armed groups and how these characteristics influence the armed groups’ behav-
ior towards the civilian population.
With reference to principal–agent theory, and data on the organizational
structure of more than 70 armed groups, and information gathered from personal
interviews with combatants, the author’s analysis functions both on the level of
the armed group and the individual combatant.
Offering a unique insight into how factors such as recruitment methods, hier-
archy, and organizational commitment may affect the likelihood of civilian
abuse by combatants, this book will be of much interest to students of political
violence, civil wars, war and conflict studies, security studies, and IR in general.
Roos Haer is a Senior Research Fellow at Konstanz University, Germany, and
has a PhD in International Relations.
Routledge Studies on Civil War and Intrastate Conflict
Series editors:
Edward Newman
School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds
and
Patrick Regan
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame.
This series publishes theoretically rigorous and empirically original scholarship
on all aspects of armed intrastate conflict, including its causes, nature, impacts,
patterns of violence, and resolution. It welcomes work on specific armed con-
flicts and the micro- dynamics of violence, on broad patterns and cross- national
analyses of civil wars, and on historical perspectives as well as contemporary
challenges. It also seeks to explore the policy implications of conflict analysis,
especially as it relates to international security, intervention and peacebuilding.
Understanding Civil Wars
Continuity and change in intrastate conflict
Edward Newman
Territorial Separatism in Global Politics
Causes, outcomes and resolution
Edited by Damien Kingsbury and Costas Laoutides
Armed Group Structure and Violence in Civil Wars
The organizational dynamics of civilian killing
Roos Haer
Armed Group Structure and
Violence in Civil Wars
The organizational dynamics of civilian
killing
Roos Haer
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Roos Haer
The right of Roos Haer to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-82936-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-73714-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
To my family who hardly ever asked why this is still going on
but never gave up believing it will be done.
To all the Congolese who allowed me to take their thoughts,
their experiences, their suffering and sorrow, their knowledge
and hopes with me.
To all my friends who brought life and fun to me.
To those staying with me in difficult times.
And those who kept me happy.
(cid:84)(cid:104)(cid:105)(cid:115)(cid:32)(cid:112)(cid:97)(cid:103)(cid:101)(cid:32)(cid:105)(cid:110)(cid:116)(cid:101)(cid:110)(cid:116)(cid:105)(cid:111)(cid:110)(cid:97)(cid:108)(cid:108)(cid:121)(cid:32)(cid:108)(cid:101)(cid:102)(cid:116)(cid:32)(cid:98)(cid:97)(cid:110)(cid:107)
Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables x
List of abbreviations xi
Acknowledgments xvi
Introduction 1
PART I
Theory – the internal organization of armed groups 9
1 Principal–agent theory and armed groups 11
2 The problem of adverse selection 20
3 The problem of moral hazard 44
PART II
The armed groups 67
4 Web survey design 69
5 Armed group analyses and results 92
PART III
The combatants 119
6 Quantitative interviews with combatants 121
7 Combatant analyses and results 146
8 Conclusion and discussion 173
viii Contents
Appendix 1: Organizational Commitment Questionnaires
(OCQ) 179
Appendix 2: Measurement of hierarchical structure 181
Appendix 3: Web survey 183
Appendix 4: Case selection 191
Appendix 5: Combatant survey 195
Appendix 6: Consent form interview 213
Index 215
Figures
2.1 Davies’ J- curve 24
3.1 Traditional hierarchical structured organization 49
3.2 Network structured organizations 50
3.3 Visual presentation of the hypotheses 60
4.1 Amount of one- sided violence by state actor 72
4.2 Amount of one-sided violence by non-state actors per country 72
4.3 Amount of one- sided violence by actor across years 73
5.1 Number of armed groups per greed value 95
5.2 Histogram of the number of armed groups per level of
hierarchy 98
5.3 Semi- survival graph the organizational age of armed groups 101
5.4 The Bayesian approach 106
5.5 Example of a trace and a density plot 108
5.6 Example of an autocorrelation plot 109
7.1 Aggregated number of respondents per armed group 146
7.2 Percentage of respondents hearing different orders 148
7.3 Distribution of civilian abuse across armed groups 149
7.4 Dotchart of level of civilian abuse per armed group 150
7.5 Percentage of combatants disagreeing on taking up arms 151
7.6 Percentage of respondents knowing or not knowing people 153
7.7 Descriptive statistics of the level of commitment per armed
group 156
7.8 Mosaic plot of the recruitment strategy per armed group 158
7.9 Distribution of training per armed group 159
7.10 Percentage of respondents indicating importance of promotion
factors. 160