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    Stathis Kalyvas: The Logic of Violence in Civil War: Reviews

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    tordet13
    The book provides a pioneering analysis of the mechanisms and logic of violence during civil wars. It distinguishes between violence as an outcome and violence as a process. The author differentiates between indiscriminate violence executed without regard for individuals, and selective violence targeted at individuals based on their actions. Contrary to previous literature, the book argues that violence is a rational outcome of actions by political actors and civilians seeking to fulfill their interests. Control over geographic areas determines the type of violence used, as it affects the availability of information needed for selective violence. The book provides a rigorous test of this theory using data from the Greek civil war, though it does not fully develop the temporal aspects or impact of institutions.

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    Stathis Kalyvas: The Logic of Violence in Civil War: Reviews

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    The book provides a pioneering analysis of the mechanisms and logic of violence during civil wars. It distinguishes between violence as an outcome and violence as a process. The author differentiates between indiscriminate violence executed without regard for individuals, and selective violence targeted at individuals based on their actions. Contrary to previous literature, the book argues that violence is a rational outcome of actions by political actors and civilians seeking to fulfill their interests. Control over geographic areas determines the type of violence used, as it affects the availability of information needed for selective violence. The book provides a rigorous test of this theory using data from the Greek civil war, though it does not fully develop the temporal aspects or impact of institutions.

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    Perspectives

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    The book provides a pioneering analysis of the mechanisms and logic of violence during civil wars. It distinguishes between violence as an outcome and violence as a process. The author differentiates between indiscriminate violence executed without regard for individuals, and selective violence targeted at individuals based on their actions. Contrary to previous literature, the book argues that violence is a rational outcome of actions by political actors and civilians seeking to fulfill their interests. Control over geographic areas determines the type of violence used, as it affects the availability of information needed for selective violence. The book provides a rigorous test of this theory using data from the Greek civil war, though it does not fully develop the temporal aspects or impact of institutions.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    44 views3 pages

    Stathis Kalyvas: The Logic of Violence in Civil War: Reviews

    Uploaded by

    tordet13
    The book provides a pioneering analysis of the mechanisms and logic of violence during civil wars. It distinguishes between violence as an outcome and violence as a process. The author differentiates between indiscriminate violence executed without regard for individuals, and selective violence targeted at individuals based on their actions. Contrary to previous literature, the book argues that violence is a rational outcome of actions by political actors and civilians seeking to fulfill their interests. Control over geographic areas determines the type of violence used, as it affects the availability of information needed for selective violence. The book provides a rigorous test of this theory using data from the Greek civil war, though it does not fully develop the temporal aspects or impact of institutions.

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    of 3

    REVIEWS

    Stathis Kalyvas: The Logic of Violence in Civil War

    New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, xviii + 485 pages, ISBN: 0-521-85409-1.

    The Logic of Violence in Civil War by Stathis Kalyvas is a serious and pioneering at-
    tempt to demonstrate the mechanisms that explain violence in the context of civil
    war. Kalyvas examines the dynamics of internal wars by focusing on the micro lev-
    el and by differentiating between the broad concept of civil war and the phe-
    nomenon of civil war violence. He shows that violence in a civil war can neither be
    reduced to irrational factors, such as strong emotions or illogical behavior, nor to
    pre-existing ideological cleavages. On the contrary, violence against civilians has
    its own rationale and logic.
    Kalyvas’ study breaks new ground for political science and the study of violence
    in two senses. First, his analysis separates the violence-and-civil-war pairing by dis-
    tinguishing ‘between violence as an outcome and violence as a process’ (p. 21, em-
    phasis in original). While previous studies focused on violence as a direct outcome
    of civil wars, Kalyvas understands civil war as an exogenous shock and deals with
    violence as a dependent variable. His nuanced theory breaks civil war violence
    down into two basic categories. Indiscriminate violence is executed en masse with-
    out regard for the actions or preferences of individuals. In contrast, selective vio-
    lence describes aggression directed towards individuals who are targeted based on
    specific information about their actions.
    This distinction between indiscriminate and selective violence leads Kalyvas to a
    second novel contribution. Contrary to conventional literature on violence and civ-
    il wars, Kalyvas understands the use of violence as rational. For him, violence is the
    end product of many individual rational actions by political actors and civilians,
    who work to fulfill their interests within a given territorial space. More specifically,
    Kalyvas claims that despite the frequency and planning that go into indiscriminate
    violence, it often proves to be counterproductive. Faced with death regardless of
    their actions, ‘many people prefer to join the rival actor rather than die a defense-
    less death’ (p. 160). Since armed groups in civil wars eventually realize that the in-
    centives fostered by indiscriminate violence are against their interests, they replace
    it with selective violence. Though more costly, as it requires armed groups to col-
    lect specific information about individuals, selective violence gives individuals in-
    centives to cooperate. Since selective violence requires information about specific
    people, which is most easily collected from individual non-combatants, Kalyvas ar-
    gues that selective violence is ‘a joint process, created by the actions of both po-
    litical actors and civilians’ (p. 209, emphasis in original). Instead of seeing the civil-
    ian as a mere pawn caught between the rebels and the state, he shows that non-
    combatants are agents in their own right.

    114 Perspectives Vol. 16, No. 2 2008


    REVIEWS

    The key variable in determining the availability of information and thus the abili-
    ty of political actors to practice selective violence effectively is control. Kalyvas ex-
    plains variance in the level of violence by the degree of control that the warring fac-
    tions have over a particular geographic region. Differing levels of control give rise
    to different calculations, leading civilians to defection or denunciation. According
    to Kalyvas, the logic of violence unfolds as follows: the irregular warfare of civil war
    enables contenders to meddle and hide among the civilians. Hiding produces un-
    certainty and causes identification and communication problems. To overcome
    these obstacles, the competitors use violence to encourage active participation
    and denunciations from oppressed civilians. The stronger the actor’s control of the
    area, the higher the rate of collaboration and denunciations. Also, the higher the
    control, the less likely it is that the actor would resort to violence. Perhaps most
    controversially, Kalyvas predicts that the parity of control between the actors ‘is
    likely to produce no selective violence by any actors’ (p. 204). This statement holds
    for two reasons. Firstly, in areas where control is evenly divided, political actors will
    be unable to collect enough information to practice selective violence. Secondly,
    they will be loath to engage in indiscriminate violence, for fear of encouraging
    mass defections to the other side. While areas of parity may experience large
    amounts of direct violence between political actors, as their armed forces come in-
    to direct contact with each other, this aspect is exogenous to the scope of Kalyvas’
    theory.
    The dependent variable of Kalyvas’ hypothesis varies across spatial lines, while
    the temporal lines are regrettably not fully developed. Kalyvas tests his theory rig-
    orously on the case of the Greek civil war, focusing primarily on the micro level of
    the Argolid region in 1943–1944. Lacking in his argument is the intensity of selec-
    tive violence, which can also be explained over a period of time. For instance, pre-
    war or wartime grievances and feuds that fuel violence on ideological and intimate
    levels could decrease over time. Moreover, while Kalyvas explains the role of ac-
    tors, he does not give the reader sufficient insight about the long-term impact of
    institutions. For example, within certain governmental structures, incumbents
    could well determine the logic of violence. Also, different types of political and ju-
    dicial institutions, developed in areas controlled by the insurgents, might affect the
    use of violence against civilians.
    While Kalyvas’ thorough theoretical and methodological approach deserves
    much praise, it raises a few additional questions. Though his theory focuses on civ-
    il wars, his testing is based on the foreign occupied Greece during World War II.
    Since the majority of the combatants fell under Greek sovereignty before the out-
    set of hostilities, Kalyvas contends that this case falls within his fairly broad defini-
    tion of ‘civil war’, i.e. an ‘armed combat within the boundaries of a recognized
    sovereign entity between parties subject to a common authority at the outset of

    Perspectives Vol. 16, No. 2 2008 115


    REVIEWS

    hostilities’ (pp. 5 and 17). However, this is pushing an already broad definition of
    civil war to the extreme. Though Kalyvas argues that the war had ‘features parallel
    to many civil wars’ (p. 249) despite the Nazi occupation, it would be important to
    see his theory tested on a civil war without external occupation.
    Furthermore, though the theory focuses on explaining the incidence of selective
    violence, this accounts for only half of the homicides in Kalyvas’ dataset (see Table
    9.2 on p. 267). This suggests that indiscriminate violence deserves greater atten-
    tion, even if it is harder to gain leverage on both theoretically and empirically. How-
    ever, despite these concerns, rooted primarily in Kalyvas’ omissions, which may be
    addressed in future research, this book is exemplary both as an overview of the civ-
    il wars literature in general and as a new approach to the study of violence within
    civil wars.
    Peter Rožič, Peter J. Verovšek

    116 Perspectives Vol. 16, No. 2 2008

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