Emergence of Armed Resistance against Insurgent Violence during Civil War

• In Event: 467 - Regular Session. New Directions in the Study of the Dynamics of Racial and Ethnic Conflict

Abstract

Recent studies show that insurgents often use indiscriminate violence against civilians during civil war. In some cases, civilians organize armed resistance in response to such violence. Focusing on the second civil war in southern Sudan (1983-2005), this paper explores why civilians in some tribal areas engaged in armed resistance, while civilians in other tribal areas did not, even when confronted with similar levels and types of insurgent violence. Based on interviews with chiefs and elders across 23 tribal, the paper shows that armed resistance emerged in a tribal area when tribal leaders interpreted insurgent violence in local terms, i.e., they perceived insurgent violence as violence originating from, and attributable to, members of the neighboring tribe. When insurgent violence was not interpreted in local terms, armed resistance did not emerge. The paper outlines and provides evidence for two sets of social processes underlying the correlation between attribution and resistance. In doing so, the paper helps to explain how civil war violence, understood as violence between insurgents and incumbents, can assume the character of inter-ethnic or communal violence.

Author

• Daniel Blocq, University of Wisconsin-Madison