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Although conflict issues – the stated goals of actors engaged in conflict – hold a privileged position in many theoretical explanations of the occurrence, dynamics, and resolution of civil war, global issue data are scarce beyond datasets that focus on specific thematic areas. This article aims to bring issues into the forefront of civil war scholarship by presenting the UCDP Conflict Issues Dataset (CID). This global yearly dataset contains 14,832 conflict issues – divided, at the most disaggregated level, into 120 sub-categories – raised by armed non-state groups involved in intrastate armed conflict in 1989-2017. By bringing issues back in, the UCDP CID provides opportunities to reevaluate several central questions about the onset, duration, intensity, and resolution of civil war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radical Islamic insurgency and violent extremism have claimed over 5,250 lives and forcibly displaced at least 734,000 people in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique over the past six and a half years. Counter-insurgency efforts of the government to date have mainly focused on a military- and security-based response, paying less attention to the structural drivers of extremist violence, such as socio-economic inequalities, poor gov-ernance, historic ideological, ethnic and religious oppositions, and an incomplete peace-building and reconciliation process from the post-civil war period. The paper examines how Mozambique can learn from its past peace-building and Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) experience, build on the achievements while also correct the shortcomings, which have equally contributed to the rise of violence. It also analyses ways to implement a tailored, inclusive, and effective strategy of Countering and Pre-venting Violent Extremism (C/PVE), building on the past but linking it to present needs and future challenges. Addressing long-standing root causes, focusing on youth and their communities, and furthering reconciliation are just a few areas, among others, to focus on to ensure that a heavy military response does not undermine the prospects of long-term peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States and their security forces often assume future insurgency will be versions of Mao Zedong’s “people’s war,” and counterinsurgency remains backward looking without a theoretical foundation to situate it within broader global security environment and armed-conflict trends. Next-gen insurgency will be networked, swarming, global, and focused on narrative-centric conflict and integrated cost imposition, and social media and the virtual world will be its central battlespaces. No nation has fully grasped that the “people’s war” reflected the military, economic, political, informational, technological, and social conditions of its time. Through an examination of insurgency’s nature, character, patterns, and trends and a thought experiment about next-gen insurgency, states and their security and intelligence services can think about what insurgency will be (rather than what it has been) and prepare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Syrian War, the US and other Western countries trained, equipped and paid Syrian rebels to fight the government and, later, root out the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). When states use armed groups to attain foreign policy objectives, control is a key concern. The US sought to enforce such control over providers and recipients of lethal military assistance in the period from 2013–18. We investigate the parallel CIA and Department of Defence assistance programmes. We challenge theoretical assumptions related to the application of the principal-agent model to explain the dynamics of foreign assistance to rebels. We argue that, in the US strategy to control rebels, co-ordinating the providers and dividing the recipients of security assistance were essential conditions. Meanwhile, the delays in recruitment, the limitations on the number of soldiers trained, the short supply of weapons and the strict regulation of the actions carried out by the rebels all reduced the efficacy of the assistance. This way of instrumentalising security assistance helped the US and its Western allies to crush ISIL while avoiding a collapse in Damascus. However, this happened at the expense of rebel cohesion, autonomy, and legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the development of Russia's use of repression and cooptation during the Soviet-Afghan War and Russo-Chechen Wars by tracing the origins of these practices to Tsarist Russia's imperial expansion. It further explores the role of information operations targeting domestic and foreign publics during these wars and in Ukraine since 2014, arguing that these narratives endeavor to frame Russia as a great power and regional hegemon. In this way, Russia sees Ukraine's shift Westward as an insurrection against Moscow's hegemony instigated by the collective West, and thus Russia's military intervention in Ukraine can be seen as constituting a sort of self-wrought pseudo-counterinsurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The escalation of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) into interstate wars has been studied extensively with opportunity and willingness frameworks. In this article, we conceptualize and operationalize proto-insurgencies as a civil war equivalent to MIDs. Just as most MIDs do not escalate into interstate war, most proto-insurgencies never make the key tactical transitions needed to produce the onset of civil war. We separately examine proto-insurgency formation and proto-insurgency escalation to onset. We find that proto-insurgency formation is associated with political persecution, such as denial of access to justice, regime corruption, and mid-range levels of repression. Our theoretical focus is on how state repressive violence creates diffusion effects that push proto-insurgencies toward the tactical transitions that enable the escalation to civil war. Proto-insurgency escalation to civil war onset is driven by high levels of state repressive violence directed against proto-insurgency and its area of origin. This leads to the dispersal of proto-insurgents and the displacement of surrounding populations, inducing the spread of state repression to a larger number of administrative units. This creates the foundation for guerrilla warfare and establishes the conditions for rebels to offer sanctuary to displaced persons in return for active support, marking the onset of civil war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines various rebellions against the nationalist government in Anatolia during the Turkish War of Independence (TWI) (1919–1922), which began as an insurrection against the Ottoman government and the occupation forces of the Entente. As the nationalists began to extend their authority, they met with resistance from different groups in different parts of the country. While some groups sought independent ethno-states, some consisted of war-weary Turks who simply refused to share the burden of a new conflict; others were supported by the Ottoman government in Istanbul and sought to restore the authority of the Sultan and weaken the nationalists. Most rebellions, especially those supported by the Ottoman government, involved former or current soldiers and government officials. Both sides fought in the name of what they considered to be legitimate governments and had access to heavy weapons. The rebellions often met with violent repression and the use of irregular forces, resulting in significant loss of life and damage to property and leaving a lasting impact on the collective memory of Turkish society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom fought its last colonial war in South Arabia (1963 t0 1967) during a pivotal era of waning economic strength, rising Arab nationalism, and growing anticolonialism. Determined to retain Britain’s international status, the Macmillan government considered military facilities in Aden essential to projecting power east of Suez. This article argues that policy decisions taken from 1937 onwards increased the likelihood of a nationalist insurgency and made countering it at an acceptable cost extraordinarily difficult. The British never devised a comprehensive strategy, responding to threats on an ad hoc basis. Contrary to what some scholars insist, South Arabia neither confirmed the failure of the British approach nor heralded a new era of counterinsurgency. The conflict was a political failure, not a military defeat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While maintaining minimal deterrence capabilities, South America's has not experienced inter-state warfare in almost three decades. Internal security challenges exist, while militaries are involved in various other missions, including humanitarian assistance, search-and-rescue, combating wildfires, and combating environmental crimes like illegal fishing and illegal mining. This analysis will discuss the evolving role of South American insurgencies vis-à-vis small wars, insurgencies, and other combat and non-combat missions by focusing on regional air fleets. The types of rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft Air Forces, Armies, and Navies are purchasing (or domestically manufacturing) explain what kinds of missions and threats armed services are focused on today and tomorrow's priorities. Small case studies of helicopter and combat warplane fleets across South American militaries will help us understand what regional services spend their often-limited funds on. Moreover, we will address how regional air fleets may be composed a decade from now, by 2034, considering regional geopolitics, missions, and priorities (including environmental protection). Confidence-building mechanisms and the influence, or lack thereof, of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on recent acquisition programs and strategies will provide a more complete analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its emergence, the insurgency group, Boko Haram has continued to wreak havoc on local communities in Northeast Nigeria and across the Lake Chad Basin region together with its offshoot, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP). This has led to the death of several people and the displacement of many others. While affected states in the troubled region have mostly responded through kinetic operations, the activities of both groups have continued unabated. These activities have mostly been achieved via attempts to exert influence in communities with little or minimal state authority. Previous studies have focused on the origins, causes, attacks, and consequences of the activities of the violent extremist group, yet its influence operations particularly in contested territories remain under-examined. This qualitative study foregrounds the need to close this gap using descriptive analysis. Countering Boko Haram and ISWAP's influence operations in the Lake Chad Basin region remains the key to winning the "soft" war which is necessary to ultimately degrade, dismantle, and defeat these insurgency groups in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream urban theory fails to encompass urbanization in Africa. Among its many drivers, armed conflicts displace rural populations to cities, accelerating urban processes and impacting sustainability and governance — the phenomenon of conflict-induced urbanization. In the province of Cabo Delgado, a violent insurgency has been displacing thousands of civilians since 2017; many of whom have fled to the provincial capital Pemba, doubling its population in just 5 years. This article presents the theoretical framework and methodological design for an inquiry located within a contemporary critique of mainstream urban studies; the goal is to analyse conflict-induced urbanization in Pemba with a comparative case study, using participatory visual methods, for which a pilot study took place in September 2022. With this, the author aims to contribute to engaged urban studies in Mozambique and Portugal and to transform the trauma of war into opportunities for sustainable development and prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of University of Cumhuriyet, Faculty of Sciences & Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

How is conflict duration affected by female combatants in rebel group? In this study, we advance three possible pathways through which female combatants enhance the resilience of the rebel group, thereby lengthening the conflict. We explore this association using quantitative cross-sectional data on female combatant and conflict duration. The positive relationship between female combatants and civil war duration from quantitative analysis is substantiated by the qualitative evidence collected via in-depth interviews with former male and female combatants in the Maoist insurgency in Nepal. This work has important implications for the study of armed conflict duration, rebel organizations, and post-conflict peacebuilding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why and how do African states become peacekeepers? Through a single-case study, this article accounts for a transformation in peace and security: how Ethiopia became the world's prime source of blue helmets in the early twenty-first century, having largely shunned peacekeeping in preceding decades. We propose that peacekeeping came to serve as an unexpectedly useful technology to pursue state-building agendas. Historically, regional proxy wars undermined state-building efforts in Ethiopia and mismanagement of ethno-linguistic diversity rendered it vulnerable to externally supported rebellions. In the 2000s, an evolving approach to peacekeeping dovetailed with the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front's (EPRDF) vision for recalibrating political order domestically and in the Horn of Africa. EPRDF became convinced that changing Ethiopia required changing its surrounding region. Regional intervention as peacekeeping was supported by global powers and helped bind neighbouring states to Ethiopia in new ways. This entailed the crafting of deep political ties in Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan that mitigated historical fears of Ethiopian hegemony and shielded EPRDF state-building from outside destabilization. Moreover, as Ethiopia's increasingly prominent role in United Nations and African Union missions improved the external environment for the EPRDF developmental state, it also expanded Ethiopian National Defence Force's role in the political economy, buttressing the party-state's hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Murray Rothbard's perspective on war and foreign policy, emphasizing their crucial role in shaping a free society and preserving individual autonomy and peaceful cooperation. Rothbard recognized the dilemma of granting governments power to protect property, acknowledging the inherent risk of state overreach and aggression domestically and internationally.

Why do some insurgent groups escalate violence to higher-intensity insurgencies or civil war? We explore this question among 140 insurgent groups worldwide across various thresholds of armed conflict. We argue that the main drivers of escalation are insurgent networks and domestic resource mobilization. Findings show that territorial control and engagement in criminal activities to finance operations are key factors associated with insurgent-inflicted battle deaths. The number of insurgent alliances, however, is the strongest determinant of higher-intensity armed conflicts. State counterinsurgency strategies also play an important role. Many of these insights support an exploratory look at rising insurgent violence in West Africa's Sahel region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-evaluates the debates over a proposed Scottish militia that took place in the British public sphere at the height of the Seven Years War and French invasion and Jacobite rebellion scares, and locates within them the origins of the discourse of Highlandism. Accordingly, the real and imagined ethnic traditions and characteristics of Scottish Highlanders to some extent came to represent the entire Scottish nation, while concurrently rehabilitating and replacing former stereotypes of Highlanders as bellicose 'savages' and Jacobite 'rebels.' Further, the debates were not merely informed by domestic politics and intellectual agendas, as typically assumed in the historiography; they were also tied to the larger geopolitical and cultural entanglements of imperial warfare and continued threats from Franco-Jacobite fifth columns, as circulated in an anxious, mercantilist, wartime print culture. These discourses reveal that mid-century whiggish Britons continued to worry about French-instigated rebellion despite historiographical assumptions to the contrary, and experienced considerable uncertainty and concern for the intertwined problems of foreign enemies, overseas war and domestic politics. This context, the widespread doubts surrounding Scotland's trustworthiness and relative status within the Union, and the defensive reactions among certain pro-militia 'Scots', show how commentators mobilised Highland soldiers in support of Scotland's deservedness of political, institutional and cultural equality with England. This, however, was not an era of growing confidence, cumulative antigallican military service and a 'long-eighteenth-century' process of political and cultural consolidation, but rather a deeply uncertain time of burgeoning global conflict and entangled Scotto-Franco-British identity dynamics which must be more fully considered on their own problematic terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long history of extractive industries and activities have shaped the societies of northern Mozambique, and the Cabo Delgado province in particular. For centuries, the growing international demand on local resources had a great impact on the northern micro-societies. The demand for cheap labour and natural resources, ranging from ivory and cotton, to timber, rubies, land, gas and more, involved thousands of local actors in its extraction, reproducing systems of local power. The persistence of poverty, inequality and conflicts, as well as simmering and sometimes grand-scale violence, fits into a long-term trend of extractivism. Through a historical approach and field observations, we focus on the political economy of extracting natural resources. We point out the persisting basic patterns of extractivism that accompanied Mozambique's integration into global markets, and continued or even deepened, in the post-independence period. These activities are oriented towards foreign markets. They are instigated by foreign investment, but invariably carried out in collaboration with a chain of national gatekeepers. In a clientelist system, local elites resort to their proximity to the state to reproduce their power, often at the expense of state expropriation. Weak state institutions have the functional effect of reproducing the elites, also serving the interests of extractivist capital. It is, however, a system with many and profound contradictions, producing conflict and violence, which also recurrently put those interests at risk.

What determines the outcomes of civil wars? Existing literature highlights numerous factors at the systemic, state, and organizational levels of analysis. Yet there is little research on the attributes of rebel leaders in shaping war outcomes despite ample theories of their importance in steering their organizations. This article focuses on rebel leaders' age as one key driver of their behavior. Applying insights from developmental psychology to the context of armed rebellion, we argue that young rebel leaders are the most likely to suffer military defeats, middle-aged leaders to win military victories, and elderly ones to reach negotiated settlements. We use a mixed-methods strategy to substantiate our claims, combining case studies of George Washington and Yasser Arafat with new data from the Rebel Organization Leaders (ROLE) database. Our findings help advance the study of non-state violent leaders in world politics while illuminating neglected sources of risk and opportunity for peace practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the evolution of concepts and doctrine on irregular warfare in Türkiye from 1919 to 1952, focusing on two primary research inquiries. It explores the conceptual approach towards irregular warfare and delves into the treatment of the subject and the development of doctrine. Using a qualitative research methodology, discourse and content analysis have been employed, drawing from various primary and secondary sources. The analysis reveals that concepts such as small war (harb-i sagir), banditry (eşkıyalık), committee (komita) and gang (çete) were acknowledged during the late Ottoman Empire, with early written examples contributing to doctrine development in the 1930s. It also accentuates inherent terminological differences to imply the actors of insurgents and government forces, although irregular warfare can be employed by both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ever-expanding body of literature suggests the possible link between diasporas and the exacerbation of civil wars in their home countries. One of the most notable findings on the link between diaspora and armed conflict is derived from a set of arguments known as the Greed and Grievances Thesis. According to the said framework, a higher diasporic support to a homeland conflict is positively correlated with a higher incidence of civil war intractability. Applying this framework to the data on external support to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) insurgency from 1990-2008, the study notes that there is a lack of support from the Moro diaspora which forced the MILF to secure peace with the Philippine government. On the contrary, the increase in conflict activities during the insurgency can be qualitatively attributed to the economic and political support from hostile states and international terrorist networks that support the Moro insurgents against the Philippine government. The study concludes that there is an absence of substantial evidence on the role of the Moro diaspora in funding the insurgents due to other factors such as internal financing for the rebellion and the role of international actors in prolonging the Moro conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rwandan military behavior in Mozambique operationalizes Kigali's rhetorical commitment to aggressively defend endangered civilians. The counterinsurgency doctrine applied in Cabo Delgado balances insurgent pursuit and civilian protection through a combination of contact patrolling and tactical restraint. This formula demonstrates learning from the country's past experience with domestic rebellion and international peacekeeping but contrasts sharply with Rwandan army conduct in eastern Congo. The disparity suggests Rwandan battlefield demeanor is conditioned by institutional culture and role conception. The campaign underscores the influence of ideology on Rwandan soldiers' self-understanding and complicates the equivalence of nondemocratic regime type with repressive strategies of counterinsurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politique Africaine is the property of Karthala Editions Diffusion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The literature on the electoral legacies of civil war violence offers a puzzle. While one strand of research argues that indiscriminate rebel violence will have no effect on the electoral success of rebel-aligned parties, another argues that such violence will harden anti-rebel political attitudes in the long term. This article reconciles these conflicting predictions by examining post-conflict political attitudes over the short and medium term. We hypothesize that the organizational weaknesses that both underpin and result from indiscriminate rebel violence during civil war will constrain the vote mobilization strategies of rebel-aligned parties in post-civil war elections, eventually leading to a reversal of fortune in the medium term. We assess our hypothesis in the empirical context of the state of West Bengal in India, whose southwestern districts, collectively known as Junglemahal, experienced a spell of Maoist insurgency from 2005–2014. Taking a mixed methods approach, combining surveys across West Bengal and within Junglemahal with ethnographic research, we show that voter assessments of pre-election violence had changed sharply between the 2016 legislative assembly and 2019 parliamentary elections with violence triggering a backlash against the rebel-aligned incumbent party in 2019, but not in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a special issue of the journal Small Wars & Insurgencies that focuses on the relationship between climate change and patterns of insurgency and terrorism. It discusses the lack of academic interest in this topic in the past, but highlights the growing recognition of climate change as a major political and institutional challenge. The article explores the complexity of studying climate change and its impact on conflict, and suggests three key questions for scholars to consider. It emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary dialogue and research in this area. Another text in the article discusses the negative impact of war on the environment, including soil degradation, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. It also discusses the need for a shift away from fossil fuel dependency in the military. The article further explores the potential impact of climate change on future conflicts, highlighting the complexity of analyzing this issue. It suggests that further research is needed to understand the relationship between climate change and various forms of conflict. [Extracted from the article]

"Unfriendly to Liberty: Loyalist Networks and the Coming of the American Revolution in New York City" by Christopher F. Minty is a well-researched study of the political dynamics in New York City leading up to the American Revolution. Minty argues that the formation of organized political groups centered around the DeLancey faction played a significant role in determining whether individuals supported the rebellion or remained loyal to the Crown. He examines the factions that emerged in the 1760s, analyzes the impact of local politics and economic interests, and provides evidence of how these factors influenced loyalties during the war. The book offers valuable insights into the human dynamics that shaped the Revolutionary War and is recommended for scholars and historians studying this period. [Extracted from the article]

Broad political participation is widely accepted as a crucial element of transitions from armed conflict to peace. As such, reforms to increase access to participatory democracy are often written into peace accords. Yet despite this connection between peace and participation in policy, we know relatively little about how the two interact in practice. Who uses participatory institutions? Does civilians' experience during armed conflict affect how they participate after war ends? This article examines an unlikely case of post-conflict participation in Colombia to answer these questions: the activation and organization of local referenda from below – that is, by conflict-affected communities themselves – to contest the national government's mining and oil policy. Using an original dataset of 95 municipality-level attempts to organize these referenda (consultas populares), I find that both conflict intensity and insurgent group presence have significant and positive effects on consulta activation. The impact of insurgent group presence, however, is mediated by the timing of armed groups' consolidation of territorial control. I further explore this relationship through a qualitative case study. The results highlight the importance of considering the lingering impact that armed conflict may have on democratic participation beyond electoral politics. Even when communities explicitly avoid references to conflict or victim status in their discourse, experiences during armed conflict can still shape local dynamics of political participation during post-conflict transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory article, and the additional 11 contributions that comprise this special issue of Citizenship Studies, uses political science, international law and anthropology literature to unmoor the primacy of the nation-state as the sole entity able to confer legal identity on individuals. It does this by examining legal identity documents, and their ramifications, in entities that exist physically but do not exist (entirely) legally or politically, what we term aspirant states. We find that doing so highlights that these aspirant states are not a set of problems to be redressed by integrating these anomalous spaces into the international order with better governance or juridical disambiguation. Rather, legal identity documents issued by aspirant states raise more fundamental questions about contemporary citizenship regimes in general and about the way law and state authority are constructed and reproduced. Such arguments force us to contest and reconsider the violent and circular logic of the current nation-state system and how legal identity, and citizenship, is conferred and maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Western defeat in Afghanistan was due to an inadequate process of strategic reflection informed, first, by an overestimation of the attractiveness of the Western political agenda to Afghans and, second, by overconfidence in the effectiveness of its military approach. As a corollary, popular support for the Taliban was underestimated. The insurgents possessed a degree of what we term strategic cohesion—a sociopolitical and military embeddedness within society—that produced a far stronger strategic effectiveness than we could replicate in our Afghan allies. Furthermore, a military-professional mindset underestimated the degree to which political considerations permeated the battlefield. The political effect of military actions was insufficiently integrated into strategic practice. Specifically, the linchpin officer in staff planning and field operations in Western armies struggled to act as what we term strategic colonels. In both respects, the war continues to offer important lessons for Western involvement in future conflict, including with Russia and China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Larq Journal for Philosophy, Linguistics & Social Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Russia's disastrous 2022 invasion of Ukraine offers an important - if unoriginal - lesson for all major powers: war is hard and unpredictable. Moscow sees NATO states' involvement in the Ukraine war as a form of proxy warfare meant to overthrow the Putin regime, and in Putin's hyperbolic words, to "destroy Russia." Great power competition itself makes proxy war more likely Great power competition itself makes proxy war more likely. Proxy wars are usually bloodier and harder to resolve than other wars but they are often effective From the past record, we can learn a lot about how proxies might be used in the future by major powers, but the dynamics of contemporary major power conflict will add its own complexities: Chinese-backed proxies must be handled differently than Iranian-backed ones. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Revista CS is the property of Rafael Silva Vega and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we argue that the current insurgency and counterinsurgency discourse is dominated by concepts that are too narrow and too isolated from the wider civil war literature within which insurgency and counterinsurgency occur. Rather than accounting for the complex political processes and wide range of forces and actors that shape conflict dynamics, the dominant insurgency and counterinsurgency debate tends to reduce highly messy contexts to a competition between the often false dichotomy of insurgents and counterinsurgents, usually understood as the state versus one or more non-state violent actors. In order to understand civil war contexts like South-Central Somalia, we argue that orthodox reductionist concepts and assumptions underpinning the dominant insurgency and counterinsurgency discourse provide limited value. Building on recent critical literature, the paper proposes a refined conceptualization. Instead of understanding insurgency and counterinsurgency as peculiar forms of war, strategies, or sets of guerilla tactics, we follow Jaqueline Hazelton's line of thought, suggesting that insurgency and counterinsurgency are mere elements of a broader process of violent order-making. Thus, insurgency and counterinsurgency are, in our view, comprehensive processes of organized challenge to and consolidation of established political order within the context of civil war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article points out the most important circumstances, events and processes associated with the uprising of the Montenegrin people against the Italian occupation in 1941. After the capitulation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the territory of Montenegro was occupied by Italian military troops, who established military and civilian occupation authorities. This article explains how the uprising was organised, how the rebels liberated most of the territory of Montenegro, and how the Italian occupation authorities regained control and established a military administration in Montenegro. As the largest and most organised resistance against the occupiers in Europe during 1941, the July 13 Uprising is a unique military-political phenomenon of World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article "Catastrophes, confrontations, and constraints: how disasters shape the dynamics of armed conflicts," Tobias Ide explores the relationship between climate-induced disasters and armed conflict dynamics. The book examines 36 case studies to uncover whether disasters affect the intensity of armed conflict, whether they lead to escalation or de-escalation, and what factors explain conflict (de-)escalation after a disaster. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding these interlinkages, as both disasters and armed conflicts have long-lasting impacts on human development. The book provides a framework for practitioners and policymakers to understand the relationship between disasters and armed conflicts and how it affects post-disaster policy measures. The empirical case studies demonstrate various outcomes, including conflict escalation, de-escalation, and no impact on conflict dynamics. The book also explores the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on armed conflict dynamics. Overall, the book highlights the need for further research to understand how compounding events, such as repeated extreme weather events, will affect armed conflict and human security. [Extracted from the article]

The article offers a nuanced account of how identities are negotiated and contested in South Sudan, by focusing on how Murle and ŋalam identities were deployed in different ways in different places in overlapping periods during a time of armed conflict. As such, it explores the interplay between political violence and the instrumental deployment of ethnicity. Focusing on the 2012–2014 period of war between South Sudan’s government and a largely Murle rebellion, it unpacks the longstanding Murle stereotyping as ‘fierce and hostile’ – an image fostered by the interlocution of more powerful neighbours in the colonial encounters and sustained by their dominance in subsequent governance structures. The article specifically discusses how Murle agricultural communities from Boma found protection strategies by activating temporary subethnic identities and navigating the violence of being Murle. This challenges the “naturalised” linkages between modes of subsistence or ecology, and identity, and demonstrates how spatial movements affect the instrumental narrativisation of ethnic identities. The article argues for the continual interplay of ethnicity in relation to the state and its strategies and opportunities. Identity-making and identitypolitics are dialctical processes – deployed by the state as much as by those on the receiving end as a source of protection from violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The War for Independence was both an intercontinental war and a civil war between Patriot rebels and Loyalists. Some colonists, "disaffected" with the war, sought to remain neutral. Especially in the middle colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, the tripartite division of the population meant Patriot rebels were often an embattled minority. About two-thirds of New Jersey's population did not support the rebellion. This raises a preservation paradox. Today, almost all preserved sites are Patriot rebel sites, which promotes a popular, simplistic narrative. The dominant story of the American Revolution overlooks both the fact that Patriot rebels were often in the minority and that most Loyalists were people of integrity, no less than their opponents. The complexity of the revolutionary experience is swept from memory. The story of America's first civil war can best be told where Loyalists are interpreted as protagonists and as actual people not misguided cyphers. Yet today in all of New Jersey, only two homes, Marlpit Hall in Monmouth County and the Vought House in Hunterdon, are interpreted as Loyalist sites. Tracing the experiences of the Vought family broadens our perspective and complicates our understanding of this crucial time and place. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we are challenged to present a fuller, more nuanced account of those who were disaffected, remained loyal, or took up arms, often alongside British and Hessians troops as uniformed New Jersey Volunteers. A more balanced account may also increase appreciation of the hardships faced by Patriot rebels and New Jersey's distinctive place at the crossroads of continental war and the epicenter of civil conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyze the political conduct of the Peruvian Chinese in the Pacific War. We will probe into the process of incorporating a Chinese unit as a Chilean army auxiliary and its oath on the eve of the battles for the Peruvian capital in January 1881. The sources are the eyewitnesses to the ceremony, all of whom were Westerners: Chilean officers, journalists, and some European military observers. Early accounts of the Pacific War from Chilean and Peruvian authors, respectively Vicuña Mackenna and Paz Soldán, will also be used. Finally, we will analyze 19th-century Chinese newspapers with letters from the coolies about their situation in Peru and the war with Chile. The research findings are: 1. The rite was 100% Chinese. It was not related to Chilean or Peruvian patriotic identity but instead to the imminence of a battle. 2. The warrior culture of the coolies was based on the clan war taking place in Canton between the locals called Punti and the guests called Hakka. 3. The Pacific War was an opportunity for a large-scale coolie rebellion, which led to severe inter-ethnic clashes in Peru. 4. In letters sent to Chinese newspapers at the time, the coolies have left testimonies recounting their great suffering in Peru, relating the probable Peruvian defeat to the lack of public morality. While defining their status as neutrals, the coolies wondered about the Peruvians' motives for looting their businesses. 5. The Peruvian historiography recognizes that the Chinese were in self-defense. Except for a small group, they did not ally themselves with Chile. In contrast, the vast majority acted the same way as the other neutrals involved in this international conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses official and Indigenous views of the Khanty and Forest Nenets uprising against the Soviets, known as the Kazym War (1931-1934). The rebellion is well documented in archival sources and covered by scholarly research, popular essays, and novels. Almost a century after the uprising, Indigenous narratives about the uprising are still circulating in local communities. Specifically, this paper addresses selected episodes of the Kazym War reflected both in official and Indigenous narratives. I focus on the analysis of diverse modes of narrating hybrid knowledge produced in a contact zone, and the mythic imagination of shamans shaping narratives about the uprising. Here, I argue that perceptions of Indigenous history sometimes adopt and reproduce the dominant discourse about the uprising, but link to the official story predominantly by rejecting it and establishing autonomous discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mao and the Central Committee therefore were clearly committed to gradually winning over the Dalai Lama and Tibetans and continued to pursue that strategy even after the Khampa insurgents ( I Chushigandru i ) set up a revolt headquarters in Lhoka, southern Tibet, in mid-1958. Nine months later, in instructions of September 4, 1956, the Central Committee was still not thinking of using the army to implement reforms in Tibet; just the opposite: "We have received your initial ideas of July 1 regarding the work plan for the five years from 1956 to 1960 in Tibet. [Extracted from the article]

Over the past two decades the historical record of Britain's wars against a series of insurgencies has experienced a fundamental academic re-assessment, challenging established beliefs about how the British state and its institutions – in particular the British Army – have waged counterinsurgency, and questioning traditional presumptions that Britain fought its insurgent enemies according to a doctrine guided by 'hearts and minds' and 'minimum force'. This article shows that hints about the murky reality behind the 'British way in counterinsurgency' can be seen in novels published during the post-war era, some of which used recent conflicts as their subject matter, others of which referred tangentially to previous wars. Not only were these best-selling books with an international audience, but these authors had experience with Britain's armed forces and intelligence services, and were either directly involved in counterinsurgency conflicts, or their works indicated insight and knowledge about them. Their books provided fictional illustrations of many of the themes – coercive tactics against civilians, special operations against insurgents, inter-departmental disputes, the lack of cultural understanding, the maltreatment of detainees and the excessive use of force against suspected insurgents and civilians – that have been identified and examined by military historians and other academic specialists covering Britain and counterinsurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Th e aim is to highlight the sixty-year period of continuous development of judicial and disciplinary practice of Ukrainian nationalist organizations. Methodological basis was the principles of scientific objectivity and historicism. General historical methods are also used: historical comparative, retrospective, problematic, structural. Th e scientific novelty is based on the analysis of the sixty-year development of the judicial and disciplinary practice of Ukrainian nationalist organizations. For the first time, the specified issue was comprehensively discussed and objectively covered in Ukrainian and foreign historiography. Probable prospects for the introduction of underground justice under modern conditions of war have been determined. Th e main results. Since the 1920-s, the judicial and disciplinary practice of Ukrainian nationalist organizations had been relying on the “challenges of the revolutionary struggle” and was regulated by numerous internal documents. Punitive actions usually fell into two categories. The first consisted of members and sympathizers of the underground, and the second-collaborators and agents of the enemy, mostly from the local population. Th e first consisted of members and sympathizers of the underground, and the second were the collaborators and agents of the enemy, mostly from the local population. During the 1940-s, a clear vertical of disciplinary bodies was introduced. It provided for the right to defense, appeal, and took into account the merits of the defendant, his position, the degree of guilt and the consequences for the underground. Most “revolutionary courts” or “tribunals” operated on the principle of extraordinary extrajudicial bodies (“dviiky”, “triiky”, “chetvirky”, etc.). Th eir obligatory components were: the chairman and the jurors. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, and victims were also often involved. Sentences were usually severe. Especially if the defendant was prosecuted not for the first time. Th e death penalty was used against exposed enemy agents or individuals who caused significant damage for the underground. Minor offences were dealt with by “Cossack courts”, which were convened by the UPA commanders of insurgent units in the case of: drunkenness, failure to comply with an order (without serious consequences), petty theft s. Th e sentences passed by them were rather lenient -warnings, demotion, temporary suspension of membership, hard labor, increased drill with poor nutrition, fines, public beatings, etc. Th e judicial and disciplinary practice of the ZCh OUN, especially since the end of the 1950s, operated within the limits of the legislation of Western countries. In general, it focused on maintaining internal organizational discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jokes serve as a prism that highlights the dynamic social, cultural, political, and religious aspects of a society, including its responses to unpleasant experiences and challenges such as natural and man-made disasters However distasteful the catastrophe is, there is the interest to comment about it. Unpleasant experiences and challenges of a society including natural and man-made disasters, hard to bear as they are, still find reactions in form of jokes. The Boko Haram (Western Education is prohibited) insurgency in Nigeria, which spread to other countries in West Africa, has claimed innocent lives and damaged property to a proportion only second to the Biafran war in Nigeria. In spite of the horrifying experiences generated by the insurgency, there are joke performances on the verbal domain and on the social media networks and internet testifying to the shock absorber mechanism of survival and discourse of those who formulate and or tell it and those who participate or listen to it. Such jokes may ease tensional moments, serve as defence mechanisms, mitigate terror tensions and or serve to enunciate natural fears. This study examines the cycle of jokes that have emerged in the context of Boko Haram terrorist attacks in Nigeria and elsewhere, and uses incongruity theory to provide insights into verbal creativity and the creativity of joke sites. It also examines how these jokes serve as a thermometer for measuring the strengths and challenges facing the Nigerian nation-state as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Cold War, the belief that the international community has a responsibility to support negotiated solutions to civil wars has exercised an enduring influence on research and policy making. However, this belief has relatively recent roots. This article looks at how changing international norms have influenced the way academic researchers view civil wars and expect them to end. The lack of interest in solving internal conflicts during the Cold War was matched among academics by a focus on other security issues and a belief that most civil wars could not be negotiated, although a minority of scholars disagreed. After the Cold War, a new international regime for solving civil wars has emerged, with the active support of a large share of the academic community. However, scholars have also criticised the way Western priorities have shaped liberal peace-making attempts and reflected on the assumptions underlying international conflict resolution. Paradoxically, while the academic community has become increasingly optimistic, the post-Cold War approach has fallen into crisis, due to geopolitical transformations and a change in the nature of contemporary insurgencies. At the end of this article, I suggest new avenues for research in the changing international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-state armed groups confront myriad challenges, but perhaps primary among them is the issue of how to transform civilians into rebels. The study of socialisation in non-state armed groups has traced the various strategies that rebels have adopted to teach rebels what they are fighting for, their position within the organisation and what behaviour is expected of them. The effects of rebel socialisation do not only affect the dynamics of how war is fought but may also extend well-past the end of the war, influencing possessive and social networks. While early studies in this field emphasise top-down (or vertical) processes and the use of violence as a socialisation mechanism, recent studies address quotidian and horizontal socialisation. This article will discuss how our understanding of rebel socialisation processes has developed over time. I introduce a two-by-two framework to understand how the process of socialisation (horizontal or vertical) and tactics used (violent or non-violent) produce unique forms of rebel socialisation. In so doing, this paper highlights future areas of study, particularly on the relatively under-researched area of non-violent, horizontal socialisation and on vertically-ordained forms of horizontal socialisation. In this article, I reiterate the call for greater attention to 'love and care' in security studies and offer marriage as an important, but under-appreciated, venue for rebel socialisation as a proof of concept of how taking care as a form of socialisation seriously can improve our understanding of the dynamics of rebellion and rebel experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]