theories

Ayoub and Stoeckl, 2023

Institutional relationships exist between rival TANs

precipitating a recripocal relationship

of strategic exchange that faciliates the

transfer of methods, tactics and instruments

from one TAN to another.

X = TAN finds success using certain methods.

Y = Rival TAN adopting such methods to counter that success

Bray, 2017

Causal mechanism is cosmopolitan publicity, generated by protest movements

that are able to produce egalitarians and open publics for the sharing of issues

across cultural and physical borders.

The creation of this public space is facilitated by transnational media,

the sharing of information, images and symbols. The development of

transnational civil society is a key requirement for generating

and sustaining cosmopolitan publicity.

These civil society actors expand publicity by introducing

new information, perspectives and claims from around

the globe into the national context, making participants more reflexive and aware.

Cosmopolitan publicity is critical to effective critique and contestation of

the representative authority of the state.

‘Critical Events’ – mass protests, liberations campaigns,

rapid shocks to social conditions, play a crucial role in democratisation

because they provide triggers for collective action.

In situations where the representative

system is unable to identify and address the problems of certain groups

within society, crises of representation can occur where

unrepresented citizens withdraw their loyalty and seek alternative

political spaces that better accord with their identities and value-orientations.

Tarrow and Della Porta, 2004

Complex Internationalism has emerged as a result of increased interdependence

between states producing the need for interstate and transgovernmental practices.

Amongst this increase of international coalition building and political bargaining,

non-state actors have been able to operate outside their own states.

'the expansion of international institutions,

international regimes, and the transfer of the resources of local and

national actors to the international stage, producing threats,

opportunities and resources for international NGOs, transnational social

movements and, indirectly, grassroots social movements.'

International Supranational organisations provide new arenas for

the contestation of claims and protests.

Rooted Cosmpolitan is a concept used to define people and groups who are rooted

in specific national contexts, but who regularly engage in activities that

require a transnational network of contacts and conflicts. This can include immigrants

who are involved in their home countries politics; labour activists

who forge ties with unions across borders, TAN members that link domestic actors

with international institutions.

Suggestion of a two-way interplay between domestic and transnational activism: domestic actors use their expertise to engage with international activities,

they return with increased expertise to domestic activities after.

Keck and Sikkink, 1998

Boomerang theory - where domestic actors in state A are met with a government immune to local pressure, those domestic actors can project beyond their state's boundaries and seek support from TAN actors from state B with a more receptive

government. Actors from state B leverage their government into pressuring

the government of State A, who in turn, meet the demands of its domestic actors.

Network activists have to identity particular social issues as problematic, attributing blame, proposing a solution, and providing a rationale for action.

Variations in the efficacy of contestations depend on the ability of actors to leverage

their target through moral or material leverage. Moral vulnerability may stem from

normative commitments to past affirmations or to certain international pacts and treaties.

Material may stem from a state's dependency on external aid flows, themselves

dependent on human rights performance.

Political junctures can increase a state's vulnerability to leverage; example of Mexico pre-NAFTA incentivised to improve human rights record.

Fearon and Laitin, 2003

H1: Ethno-religious diversity should be associated with higher risk of Civil War (perennialist argument)

H2: Ethnic diversity and higher levels of per capita income should correlate with an increase in

civil war propensity. (Modernist - modernisation leads to ethnic nationalism - leads to conflcit).

H3: States with a large ethnic majority and significant ethnic minority will see

higher civil war propensity.

H4: Political democracies with civil liberties should have a lower propensity for civil wars.

H5: Presence of discriminative policies relating to religion or language will raise civil war propensity.

H6: Greater income inequality will raise civil war propensity.

H8: The presence of rough terrain with poor infrastructure in an area beyond centres of state power will favour insurgency and civil war. Foreign, cross-border sanctuaries and a local population that can be co-opted also increase the risk. Presence of a rural base.

H9: Higher GDP per capita (a proxy for economic strength of government) will reduce the propensity of insurgency and thus civil war.

H10: Insurgency will be favoured against newly independent states (loss of coercive backing from colonial power);

politically unstable states; a regime that mixes democratic and authoritarian features

(reflecting an incomplete monopoly on coercion)

Large populations are harder for states to monitor and offer more potential recruits for insurgencies;

Presence of a geographically distant territorial base;

Support from diaspora or Foreign power;

Land that supports the production of high value, low weight goods which are important sources of financing.

H11: Given the right environmental conditions, insurgencies can thrive on the basis of

small numbers of rebels without strong, widespread popular support rooted in grievances.

Suggests the most important factor is the organisational and financial strength of a government!

This is important for policy: we should focus on empowering governments to have better legal accountability, better policing, and incentivise governments by providing aid conditional on counterinsurgency practices that do not perpetuate conflicts.

Collier and Hoeffler, 2004

The availability of finances to rebel groups can greatly increase the likelihood of civil war outbreak, primary resource exports substantially increase conflict risks - commodities offer opportunities for extortion, making rebellion feasible and attractive.

Diasporas substantially increase the risk of conflict renewal.

Cost of rebellion important to opportunity explanation: Male Secondary school enrolment, per capita income, and growth rate of a state's economy are substantively significant in reducing conflict.

This is seen as a proxy for forgone earnings: where forgone earnings are low, rebellion is more likely.

Secondary school enrolment and high per capita means forgone earnings are likely to be higher.

Finds weakly supportive evidence that the presence of mountainous terrain increases conflict likelihood. Low population density can increase the risk of conflict.

Only one grievance proxy - ethnic dominance by one group - has a significant effect on increasing the likelihood of conflict outbreak.

Cederman, 2013

Critique of Grievance Skeptics

Conventional country-level indicators often miss analyse the effect of grievances and have been used commonly by skeptics who dismiss grievances (Ethnolinguistic fractionalisation model). Overly reliant on individualist logic that fails to analyse collectives - Posner points out weakness of these proxies.

Approach

Cederman opts to view ethnicity through the weberian lens of a subjectively experienced sense of commonality based on the belief in common ancestry and shared culture. Ethnic groups are cultural communities, and while not historically static, they remain stable enough to analyse over shorter time scales offered by conflicts.

Horizontal Inequality

"Inequalities in economic, social, or political dimensions or cultural status between culturally defined groups"

(Stewart, 2008) - pays little attention to internal diversity of each group.

Political inequalities relate to access to central decision-making authority; economic taps into the distribution of income between groups; social relates to access to education and societal status.

Stems from nationalism, global processes such as technological innovation and globalisation.

Inequalities are politicised through group identification (Top down: Censuses, laws)

comparison (based on economic and poltical inequalities), evaluation of injustice (normatively tied to specifc notions of justice that can fluctuate in salience) and subsequent framing of injustice and blaming (representatives of the state must be seen as complicit for

conflict to occur)

Grievance to Violence

Mobilisation based purely on rational-choice calculations undermines the existence of emotional responses, passions and group consciousness, fear, anger, resentment all contribute to mobilisation. Moral commitments to others and emotional engagements to the cause result in action.

Rebel Claims and State Repression

Routes to violence typically begin when representatives of the state are committed to upholding the policies/status quo that the movement deems to be grievous. States that regulate or abolish such policies are less likely to become targets of contentious politics and violence. Similarly, if the state blocks access to politics for the group

then violence may be reached as a recourse. Indiscriminate coercion also prompts action.

Kalyvas, 2006

Alliance

Alliance is a transaction between local and national actors, the latter providing the former with external coercive resource to win a local advantage, in exchange the national actor is able to recruit from the local level. Violence in this sense produces collective action.

Individual motivations cannot be assumed from group identity.

Local actors have to be viewed as independent entities from their national counterparts; these actors often harbour longstanding parochial struggles against each other that continue as each actor shifts between factions and alliances at the national level. A and B may be aligned with different factions, but the feud between A and B is likely to stem from non-faction related animosities.

Political objectives of local actors rarely have anything in common to the contest

for state power.

Local grievances can be important frames for national-level master cleavages. Numerous cases that

display the highly localised nature of civil wars, anecdotal evidence from spanish civil war and yugoslavian war that the process of violence is often carried out between neighbours.

Shersterinina, 2007

Social Process

Dynamics that originate during the conflict can have long-lasting effects in the post-war period; similarly, dynamics that stem from the pre-war period can have similarly long-lasting effects that shape the conditions of the conflict and post conflict period.

Pre-war networks such as TANs or social movements can shape the nature of rebel organisations once conflict begins; Pre-war non-violent contestation can play an important role on the formation of 'collective conflict identities'

Pleasure of Agency (Wood, 2003)

By supporting an insurgency, actors experience positive emotions of association and action that helps reinforce

rebel culture which in turn enables further collective action as actors want to be involved; this once again reinforce rebel political norms, cultures and values.

Pre-War conditions

Interactions between actors pre-war begin with recruitment and mobilisation for non-state actors, and repression for state actors; state repression can radicalise groups and militarise tactics, and polarise society - some groups develop cohesion while others fragment as a result of internal divisions.

Mobilisation and Organisation

Participation is risky, therefore the rebel group needs to offer sufficient incentives to break collective action issues; economic incentives, social norms that induce actors to accept high risks, emotional reward of participation (wood).

Groups that form in weak states where governments seek information from civilians about such groups establish civilian secrecy and support through the spreading of rumours that generate grievances.

Symbolic attacks on small-targets that are 'easy wins' also generate support and help to convince actors that the rebels have a credible chance of winning.

Pre-exisiting non-violent groups such as opposition political parties, religious associations, and student activist groups can provide a social base that ameliorates the challenges of transitioning to conflict.

Repression creates mobilisation - Arab Spring - when states repress violently, actors have no choice but to arm themselves.

Kalyvas (2006): Actors might mobilise in support of a certain group in order to carry out acts of revenge, local score settling etc.

Braithwaite and Cunningham, 2024

Concessions:

Most rebel groups fight in order to gain concession from the state, whether in the form of policy changes, territorial acquisition etc, such concessions typically come as part of a peace treaty, or ceasefire agreement, however concessions can also be piecemeal offerings in the midst of battle for a variety of strategic payoffs.

Mixed empirical evidence over whether terrorism is more effective at achieving concessions. A combination of mass-based non-violent campaigns with violent flanks are seen to be the most effective at winning concessions.

"Power to hurt" (Military origins) and "Power to resist" (community origins)

These concepts are both effected by the organisational origin of rebel groups; the former refers to government considerations of a group's strength, i.e. their access to arms and numbers, yet can also look at the discipline and tactical know-how of the group, these factors are determined by organisational affiliation. Power to resist will be stronger when a group is social embedded due to the level of local intelligence and human resource they are able to mobilise.

Parent = Party = PTR

Parent = Civil Society Organisation = PTR

Parent = Armed group = PTH

Parent = Military = PTH

Parent = Foreign = PTH.

Lacher, 2022

MECHANISMS TAKE PLACE DURING WAR ONSET

Escalation follows mechanism that cannot be reduced to the effect of structural or strategic conditions; escalation is largely undeliberate, chains of interaction that filter structural conditions and produce effects.

Pearlman (2018) notes how arbitrary and excessive violence can trigger moral outrage that causes unrest to escalate. Actions have consequences that can make dialling back the violence incredibly difficult.

Revenge is strong, Actors feel forced to arm themselves to protect themselves, which in turn results in escalation.

Repeated clashes between protesters and security forces over a long period of time can foster gradual radicalisation.

Violent escalation also drives the emergence of new identities; threats of violence against members of a community can provoke feelings of solidarity and reinforce a group identity; such threats can also lead to the fragmentation

of certain groups.

Awareness that one’s own group is perceived by others as adverse or even

threatening then raises the need for this group’s protection against potential attacks. This is particularly true of genocidal cases; that being seen as the enemy precipitates a need to defend ones own group.

In this context, leadership that champions group defence against external threats takes hold, deepening inter-group cleavages.

Ascriptive identities that seemed irrelevant can come to decide life or death over night as violence between communities escalates, this can have incredibly dynamic and powerful effects on the reinforcement/fragmentation of group identities.

When rapid escalation of violence combines with significant political transformation we can expect the escalation of violence to produce a revolutionary situation. Typically originates from a sudden unforeseen event; such as a blow to state authority, a natural disaster etc. EXAMPLE: Managua earthquake Sandinista.

Uncertainty caused by a dramatic shift in political situation produces fears on both sides and reduces the constraints on violence.

Weinstein, 2007

Challenges to Rebel Government

Rebel governments must create trust; this can be done through the reiterative

process of showing responsible behaviour which assumes that interactions between civilian and group reinforce the rulers commitment to a set of rules.

Political institutions can foster trust by establishing a body for the governance of a set of rules with costs implied for violations. These institutions must be self-enforcing: both parties must have incentives to abide.

Institutions must establish a structure of joint governance in rule making and resource management; must provide continued incentives for the rebel groups to show restraint in resource extraction i.e. civilians must make necessary contributions to rebel groups like taxes. Rebel government must be inclusive to ensure commitment from civilians.

Cooperation can also be enforced through informal mechanisms such as shared identity and repeated interaction, abit like Tajfel's social trust theory that suggests repeated positive interactions foster legitimacy.

if violations of rules occur on the side of the rebel group, civilians will expect punishment to be served, in order to maintain a precedent of responsible behaviour, the punishment must be consistent and civilians must have knowledge of its application.

Governance presents certain logistical costs on an organisation that some groups are unwilling to bare. Participatory government can but unfeasible pressure on commanders to not only look out for the safety of their units but of local civilians which may impact strategic decision making capacity.

Some rebel groups can prosper without civilians due to their economic endowments from other sources; members may also be unwilling to make long-term commitments and are motivated by short-term gains that governance doesn’t provide - more predatory.

Groups situated around resource extraction tend to build structures that are participatory in order to incentivise civilian labour. Rebel groups with external funders do not require civilian labour and therefore may be less committed to an inclusive/power sharing agreement.

Revkin, 2021

Competitive Governance

Mobile individuals with a choice between two or more political communities are likely to prefer the one who quality of governance they perceive as better - or less bad - than the other. This is observed in two ways:

Effectiveness and Fairness;

Alternative explanations focus on the impact of other variables mentioned in the key arguments section:

economic status, social networks and family structures, information, misinformation, lack of information, ideology, and threat perceptions.

Loyle et al, 2021

Problematises the assumption of absolute authority in terms of rebel governance, in so far as the literature has focussed only on shining examples of state-like governance by rebel groups. In fact, this article suggests that governance is multi-layered, with competition occurring between state, rebel actors, private entities, NGOs, and other sources of authority that can also cooperate to provide security, goods and services.

Rebel groups can use referenda projects strategically to leverage sanctioned democratic behaviour to pressure the state; often the case for autonomy and independence seeking movements; can reveal power behind the movement,

but can also reveal weakness if the outcomes are not in alignment with their preferences.

Not all rebel groups are legitimacy seeking, those that do not rely heavily on civilian support or those focused more on international backing may forgo efforts to compel compliance. Decisions to seek legitimacy are shaped by the need for civilian resources. Civilians can also lobby for the creation of governance institutions

and service provisions under certain contexts of rebel governance.

Rebel groups are increasingly active on social media and broadcast to create and maintain a wide following in an online imagined community; can be utilised for propaganda, self-promotion, and public outreach.

Rebels can have robust online sanctuaries that enable them to receive financial transfers, recruit individuals, and plan clandestine operations much in the same way that insurgency literature suggests the need for a local territorial base.

Rebels can create rival infrastructure online, such as banks, tv stations etc that do not require a territorial base.

Weinberg et al, 2004

Definitions:

Alex Schmid: emphasises the anxiety-inspiring element of terrorism, the desire to create public fear - noting that the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The violence serves as message generation that communicates to the main target (the public) the true element of coercion and intimidation.

Collective conceptualisation using over 100 different definitions; identified elements.

notes the importance of scrutinising where and who does a definition come from; how does this alter what aspects will be made salient; we have to acknowledge that definitions coming from America and western Europe are likely to be organisation focussed and distinctly colonial; whereas those coming from other areas may be more likely to stress the nature of states.

Timing of definitions matter; Schmid's respondents were largely influenced by third wave terror organisations; i.e. left-wing revolutionary groups operating in Europe and beyond; characterised by targeted assassinations rather than indiscriminate use of violence. Fourth wave terror more indiscriminate and violent; rely on horizontal networks rather than hierarchical structure.

"Terrorism is a politically motivated tactic involving the threat

or use of force or violence in which the pursuit of publicity plays a significant role."

Problematise the psychological element - lack of empirical date behind the 'terrorist mindset'.

Horowitz, 2015

Prior theories suggested that the decision to partake in suicide bombing was an irrational one; yet newer theories have analysed a number of social, organisational, economic, and religious reasons.

Intergenerational wealth transfer; money gets paid to family or offspring off the bomber.

Muddy evidence for the depression argument.

Ideological matching can be a determinant for who takes part in suicide bombings; groups specially employ certain individuals for certain attacks that may have other factors that motivate them specifically for an attack on a specific target.

Strategic factors such as tactical surprise have been used to explain the increase in women suicide bombers; groups recruit women as their societal stereotypes make them more effective actors and less likely to be suspected.

Foreign occupation was suggested as a cause of suicide bombing; however empirically it seems more likely that foreign occupation is the cause of violent resistance in general.

Piazza finds that occupation does make suicide bombing more likely; as opposed to other types.

Group competition breeds outbidding between different terrorist organisations who adopt suicide bombing as a means of showing their commitment to the cause to civilians; market explanation.

Public opinion as a constraint: groups that are more entwined with a civilian population will likely be constrained by the public opinions costs imposed on them should they carry out a suicide bombing.

Groups disconnected from public circles will be likely to use such tactics.

The mechanisms linking religious membership to Salafist ideology must be further fleshed out; 'Club' model offered by sociology literature argues that groups deploy the threat of having to partake in suicide bombing to weed out soft-supporters from their ranks.

Kydd and Walter, 2006

Theory of terrorism underpinned by bargaining failure

Wars begin when states disagree about their relative power; if individuals mistrust each other, they have incentive to attack rather than risk being attacked. Talk is seen as cheap, where geopolitics entails the need of actions to back up a state/organisation/individuals' claims.

Costly signals act as honest communication between actors - terrorists can use costly signals to communicate to their target audiences; the state who's policy they wish to influence, and individuals on the side of the terrorists.

Attrition

Designed to accomplish the task of persuading the enemy that the group is strong enough to viably impose costs.

State must be fundamentally interested in the issue under dispute for there to be an initial lack of capitulation; State retaliation capacity determines how costly a policy of attrition will be for an organisation.

Democracies will be more constrained; norms based governments will be more constrained. Governments that can absorb heavier costs will be less inviting targets; democracies may have more public pressure on ending conflict.

Recommended response: Concessions; targeted retaliation (assassination of leaders); Security infrastructure (wall in Israel).

Intimidation

Akin to deterrence, convincing the defenders of the government that such action will lead to consequences; targeting individuals aligned with government; direct attacks to deter population from a certain policy choice; massacres in villages retaken from rival group.

Weak states and rough terrain favour intimidation when deployed for regime change; weak justice system.

Provocation

The aim is to convince moderates that the government is so evil that the radical goals of terrorists are justified in response - nothing radicalises people faster than the unleashing of indiscriminate repression and violence. Provocation can only work when the government is capable of wielding levels of brutality; governments committed to human rights will make bad targets.

Spoiling

Used when relations between two enemies are improving and a peace agreement threatens the terrorist groups

far-reaching goals. Peace agreements alarm terrorists because they represent another channel for

moderate civilians to direct their support.