Who Is the Insurgent?

• In Event: TLC at APSA: Active Learning through Simulations and Games

Abstract

One thing that students often do not fully understand when discussing political violence within a state is the huge impact that the demonization of certain people can have a horrible impact on how people will see each other and how suspicion can stem from evidence that literally does not exist. In this exercise the professor tells the students that they are in a country involved in a civil war. Each student is taken out talked to for a moment with the professor (or the professor tells the students that he has emailed previously certain students in the class) and then are told that between one and three students in the class are insurgents and they have to figure out who by asking questions and discussing. Most of the students usually coalesce around accusing two or three students – based on literally no evidence. The students are then told when the exercise is done that there actually was no insurgent in the room. This creates a very strong platform for discussing how political violence in a society can generate demonization and the nonexistent or biased reasons that motivate demonization of people.

Authors

• Victor Asal, University at Albany, SUNY

• Joseph W. Roberts, Roger Williams University